-
That’s How I Became a Dog
- Northwestern University Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
58 ✦ vladimir mayakovsky That’s How I Became a Dog Well, this is completely unbearable! I really am bitten to shreds by spite. I’m angry not in the way you might be: like a dog, I’d take that barebrow moon’s face— I’d up and howl it to pieces. Nerves, I guess . . . I’ll step out, take a walk. But even outside, I didn’t calm down, not a bit. Some woman shouted something about a good evening. I knew I had to answer, because she was an acquaintance. And I wanted to, but I sensed— I couldn’t answer like a human. What was this ridiculous outrage! Was I asleep, or what? I patted myself: I was the same as ever, with the same face I’d grown used to. I touched my lip, and beneath my lip I felt it— a fang. Quickly I covered my face, as if I were blowing my nose. Made a dash for the house, doubling my pace. As I carefully skirted the police booth, suddenly there was a deafening shout: “Police! It’s a tail!” I ran my hand over myself—and was dumbfounded! This, plainer than any fangs, I hadn’t even noticed in my feverish gallop: from beneath my jacket an enormous tail fanned out and coiled behind me, big and canine. What now? Someone roared out, drawing a crowd. To the second person were added a third, a fourth. They crushed an old woman; crossing herself, she yelled something about the devil. And when, bristling their whisker-twigs in my face, the crowd fell on me, enormous, wicked, I got down on all fours and barked out: Woof! Woof! Woof! 1915 the early years ✦ 59 ...