To his surprise, a successful surgeon, Filipp Filippovich Preobrazhensky, arrives and offers the dog a piece of sausage.

a b c Cornwell, Neil; Nicole Christian (1998). Reference Guide to Russian Literature. Taylor & Francis. p.103. ISBN 1-884964-10-9. Nell Frizzell is the author of Holding the Baby: Milk, Sweat and Tears from the Frontline of Motherhood Milne, Lesley (1990). Mikhail Bulgakov: A Critical Biography. Cambridge University Press. pp.65–66. ISBN 9780521227285 . Retrieved 5 April 2016.That of a stray dog is one of the hardest lives of all. Always suffering from hunger and being forced to live under open sky come rain or winds. And they are always afraid of people around them - a fear probably born of some violent experience. The squalor and poverty of life in the misery of a Moscow Winter, the class heavy discrepancies of society and the futility of the “rise” of the proletariat are displayed in all of their glory. Excuse me,' Shvonder interrupted him, 'but it was just because of your dining-room and your consulting-room that we came to see you. The general meeting requests you, as a matter of labor discipline, to give up your dining-room voluntarily. No one in Moscow has a dining-room.'” -------- Four members from the apartment committee barge into the professor’s living quarters and attempt to lay down the law on how the new society will be structured. Each time committee members make their appearance throughout the novel is an opportunity for the author to poke a long satiric needle into the side of the Soviets. Ouch! Ultimately, the gruesome experiment does not work, and Preobrazhensky's reflection on it all again takes on the most direct political connotations.

After an hiatus of two years, I was delighted to read that Daunt Books would be publishing another collection of essays this year, having enjoyed their past collections, particularly In The Kitchen: Essays on Food and Life. For this collection, the central topic of our pooch pals could not have been more apt for me given that I have recently been initiated into the cult of canine companionship for the very first time!People who think you can use terror are quite wrong. No, no, terror is useless, whatever its colour—white, red or even brown! Terror completely paralyses the nervous system.” The wind, that raging witch’ is a decent solution to the personification problem. But to my ear, this has several other problems. ‘Sometimes’ should surely read ‘sometime’; ‘up’ should be placed after ‘her skirt’, not before; and ‘a crook with a brass jowl’ is just dreadful. Yes, a policeman! Nothing else will do. Doesn't matter whether he wears a number or a red cap. A policeman should be posted alongside every person in the country with the job of moderating the vocal outbursts of our honest citizenry.” ---------- Professor Philip Philipovich’s wry comment. Mikhail Bulgakov anticipates the omnipresent eye of the totalitarian state sending men and women off to forced labor camps for the slightest vocal outburst.