Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov Page B

Scalpel.'
        Bormenthal took a short, broad-bladed knife from the glittering pile on the small table and handed it to the great man. He too then donned a pair of black gloves.
        'Is he asleep?' asked Philip Philipovich.
        'He's sleeping nicely.'
        Philip Philipovich clenched his teeth, his eyes took on a sharp, piercing glint and with a flourish of his scalpel he made a long, neat incision down the length of Sharik's belly. The skin parted instantly, spurting blood in several directions. Bormenthal swooped like a vulture, began dabbing Sharik's wound with swabs of gauze, then gripped its edges with a row of little clamps like sugartongs, and the bleeding stopped. Droplets of sweat oozed from Bormenthal's forehead. Philip Philipovich made a second incision and again Sharik's body was pulled apart by hooks, scissors and little clamps. Pink and yellow tissues emerged, oozing with blood. Philip Philipovich turned the scalpel in the wound, then barked: 'Scissors!'
        Like a conjuring trick the instrument materialised in Bormenthal's hand. Philip Philipovich delved deep and with a few twists he removed the testicles and some dangling attachments from Sharik's body. Dripping with exertion and excitement Bormenthal leapt to a glass jar and removed from it two more wet, dangling testicles, their short, moist, stringy vesicles dangling like elastic in the hands of the professor and his assistant. The bent needles clicked faintly 54

        against the clamps as the new testicles were sewn in place of Sharik's. The priest drew back from the incision, swabbed it and gave the order:
        'Suture, doctor. At once.' He turned around and looked at the white clock on the wall.
        'Fourteen minutes,' grunted Bormenthal through clenched teeth as he pierced the flabby skin with his crooked needle. Both grew as tense as two murderers working against the clock.
        'Scalpel!' cried Philip Philipovich.
        The scalpel seemed to leap into his hand as though of its own accord, at which point Philip
    Philipovich's expression grew quite fearsome. Grinding his gold and porcelain bridge-work, in a single stroke he incised a red fillet around Sharik's head. The scalp, with its shaven hairs, was removed, the skull bone laid bare. Philip Philipovich shouted: 'Trepan!'
        Bormenthal handed him a shining auger. Biting his lips Philip Philipovich began to insert the auger and drill a complete circle of little holes, a centimetre apart, around the top of Sharik's skull. Each hole took no more than five seconds to drill. Then with a saw of the most curious design he put its point into the first hole and began sawing through the skull as though he were making a lady's fretwork sewing-basket. The skull shook and squeaked faintly. After three minutes the roof of the dog's skull was removed.
        The dome of Sharik's brain was now laid bare - grey, threaded with bluish veins and spots of red. Philip Philipovich plunged his scissors between the membranes and eased them apart. Once a thin stream of blood spurted up, almost hitting the professor in the eye and spattering his white cap. Like a tiger Bormenthal pounced in with a tourniquet and squeezed. Sweat streamed down his face, which was growing puffy and mottled. His eyes flicked to and fro from the professor's hand to the instrument-table. Philip Philipovich was positively awe-inspiring. A hoarse snoring noise came from his nose, his teeth were bared to the gums. He peeled aside layers of cerebral membrane and penetrated deep between the hemispheres of the brain. It was then that Bor-menthal went pale, and seizing Sharik's breast with one hand he said hoarsely: 'Pulse falling sharply . . .'
        Philip Philipovich flashed him a savage look, grunted something and delved further still. Bormenthal snapped open a glass ampoule, filled a syringe with the liquid and treacherously injected the dog near his heart.
        'I'm coming to the turkish