Heart of a Dog

Chapter 6 is written in the third-person perspective. Bormenthal, Philipovich, and Sharikov are sitting at dinner. Bormenthal insists that Sharikov tuck in his napkin while he is eating, and Sharikov complains about the order, but he complies and begins begging for some vodka. Bormenthal complains that Sharikov has been drinking too much, but Sharikov helps himself to the vodka anyway. He comments that Bormenthal and Philipovich are “stuffed shirts” who “act like it was still tsarism” instead of “behav[ing] naturally” (103). Philipovich comments that Sharikov’s behavior is a “phase.” In German, Philipovich and Bormenthal agree to talk about it later [später]. The two drink red wine. Bormenthal agrees to take Sharikov to the circus later, as long as it does not have cats in it. Sharikov says he prefers the circus to the theater because theater is “just crap…talk, talk. Pure counterrevolution” (105). When Bormenthal says Sharikov should read more, Sharikov replies that he has been reading Engels’s correspondence with Kautsky, which Shvonder had given him. The professor and the doctor are shocked. Sharikov says he does not agree with Engels or Kautsky because they complicate what is straightforward—they should “take everything away from the bosses, then divide it up” (106).