101 CHRONICLESnmoney?” I muttered at Yegorych as we ran. “It’sndisgusting. You’re a hospital janitor, yet you go aroundnlike a bum.”n”What kind of money is that?” Yegorych snarlednback at me, “for twenty rubles a month putting myselfnthrough all this torment . . . Oh, damn this thing!”nHe was beating his foot against the ground like a madnhorse. “Money … I don’t even get enough fornfood-drink …”n”Sure, drink especially,” I panted hoarsely, “that’snwhy you slouch around like a tramp …”nA faint, doleful cry came from near the little rottingnbridge, and faded away. We ran up and saw andisheveled woman, writhing in pain. Her kerchief hadnslipped off, her hair had stuck to her sweaty forehead;nshe was rolling her eyes in agony, tearing at hernsheepskin with her nails. Bright fresh blood hadnspattered the first thin, pale-green grass, just brokennthrough the rich, waterlogged soil.n”She didn’t make it, she didn’t make it,” PelageyanIvanovna, bareheaded, looking like a witch, keptnsaying, unwrapping the gauze.nAnd there, to the cheerful roar of water rushingnthrough the blackened timber piers of the bridge,nPelageya Ivanovna and I delivered a baby of the malensex. We delivered him alive and saved the mother.nThen two nurses and Yegorych—his left foot bare, henhad finally freed himself from the detested rottennsole — carried the mother to the hospital on anstretcher.nLater, when she was lying there under thenbedclothes, quiet and pale, when her baby was lyingnbeside her in a cradle, and everything was calm, Inasked her:n”Couldn’t you find a better place to give birth thannthe bridge, mother? Why didn’t you get a horse-cart?”nShe answered:n”My father-in-law wouldn’t give me a horse. It’snonly five versts, he said, you can walk it. You’re anhealthy lass. There’s no point in tiring a horse …”n”Your father-in-law is a fool and a swine,” I replied.nThe striking description of the turbid, swollen stream amid thennaked clumps of willow, the water rushing through thendarkened mouth of the bridge, almost physically describesnchildbirth. Yet, the description is remarkably uncontrived.nBesides, Bulgakov’s pantheistic sense of Nature, his highnpiercing lyricism are never sentimental. Humor, interwovenninto the narration, removes from it the slightest tint ofnsentimentality.n* * *nBut Bulgakov’s humor is not always kind and lighthearted. Anslight twist and it turns into the sharpest satire. This satire isndirected against general human follies and against much morenspecific ones, those that he saw multiplying with such devilishnspeed in the new Soviet Russia.nThus the Utopian concept of remaking the world throughnpurely scientific means was embodied in his novella The FatalnEggs. Its hero, a quiet scientist. Professor Persikov (Peachman),ndiscovers in his laboratory a certain “Ray of Life.” Thenprofessor’s discovery is immediately confiscated and by thennndirective of the energetic government is put to practice. Thenbest chickens’ eggs are brought from the West in order to zapnthem with this Soviet “Ray of Life” so that unprecedented,ngigantic Socialist chickens will hatch out. However, as a resultnof someone’s carelessness, the boxes with the eggs are mixednup, and not chickens’ but snake eggs get under the “Ray ofnLife,” which produces snakes of enormous size. It is impossiblento destroy them, and they crawl all over Moscow. Bulgakov wasnone of the first writers (among those not emigrating after thenRevolution) who also clearly saw what was going to happennwith literature in the new Soviet state. How the soon-to-benestablished Union of Writers would become the main executionern(literally) of its members and the chief responsibility ofnthe Union chairman would be to supply the KGB with thennames of writers to be shot or shipped off to the Gulag.nThe Soviet idea of creating a “New Man” is depicted bynBulgakov in his novella A Dog’s Heart, in which a wealthy,nwell-known and well-groomed doctor in an azure gown, PhillipnPhillipych, conducts a medical experiment on a stray dog —ntransplants into him a human cerebellum and some endocrinenglands—the result of which is that the scruffy, hungry, butngood-natured dog Sharik (a very typical Russian dog’s name) isntransformed into a man — the shortish, bandy-legged, meanspiritednlumpen proletarian Sharikov (a fairly common Russiannsurname). This Sharikov immediately makes skillful use of allnthe Soviet slogans, joins first a society for the annihilation ofnstray cats, then the GPU (former name of the KGB) tries tonthrow his creator (the doctor) out of his own apartment, writesnreports denouncing him to the authorities, and demands thatnhe be arrested. If it were not for the patronage of some partyndignitaries who need Phillip Phillipych — he performs operationsnof sexual rejuvenation on them—the doctor in the azurengown would have been hauled off to the Gulag. PhillipnPhillipych eventually succeeds in luring Sharikov into thenoperating room, where he transplants back into him his dog’sncerebellum and endocrine glands. Besides its apparent metaphysicalnmeaning, A Dog’s Heart hilariously describes thenabsurdities and havoc of Soviet postrevolutionary life whennpeople, in Bulgakov’s words, “start pissing past the toilet bowl.”nIn its merciless satire this novella can be compared tonOrwell’s Animal Farm, with Bulgakov’s piece being, in mynview, more biting. Such works left no doubt about Bulgakov’snattitude toward the new regime. It wasn’t even the Aesopiannlanguage, so widespread in Communist countries—Bulgakovnexpressed his disgust openly.nThe surprising and paradoxical thing about all this was thatnthe writer who dared to do it was not sent to the Gulag. Thenparty hacks, of course, came down on him. He was called “anbourgeois flunkey,” “a literary pest.” After 1927 he practicallyncouldn’t publish his works, but he was never arrested. He diednhis own death in his own bed. Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakovnwas not even exiled from Moscow.nThis happened because of the personal and rather puzzlingnattitude toward Bulgakov of one man—Joseph Stalin.nThe brutal dictator who had a barbaric taste in the visual artsnand a tin ear in music had a peculiar attitude toward matters ofnliterature. He, of course, vigorously implanted dead andnwooden socialist realism into literature, as he did in all othernarts, but that was for the masses. There is strong reason tonbelieve that he could (however paradoxical it sounds) distinguishngreat writing and personally valued it.n