The towel with the tap

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Mikhail Bulgakov around 1935

The Towel with the Rooster ( Russian Полотенце с петухом , Polotenze s petuchom ) is a short story by the Soviet writer Mikhail Bulgakov , written in 1925 and published in 1926 in issues 33 and 34 of the Moscow magazine Medizinski rabotnik . The author added the story to his collection of Young Doctor's Notes .

The narrator, a 23-year-old doctor has, after five years of medical school graduated from university and occurs in mid-September 1917 at the hospital Murjewo, forty versts from the district town Gratschowka removed the service to. Before him, a certain surgeon Leopold had operated successfully with routine. A rooster is slaughtered in honor of the newcomer. The doctor has to eat it up.

The newcomer is afraid of the first surgical procedure. He have luck. No patient comes because flax is broken in the surrounding villages .

The first patient - an enchantingly beautiful young peasant girl - is brought in by her father, a widower. It got into the flax break with its legs . The left leg - crushed and shattered - can only be amputated. The doctor wants to believe: I am powerless with someone who is torn to pieces. The midwife Anna Nikolajewna, part of the four-person surgical team, advises against the amputation. In their opinion, the girl can no longer be saved. Because on the ten wererst transport the blood had poured from the legs of the girl. The doctor is operating. He had only seen an amputation once during his studies. The field police officer Demjan Lukitsch - also the doctor's assistant - throws aside what had once been a girl's leg.

The patient survived. Anna Nikolajewna suspects that the doctor has amputation practice and confirms that he worked as well as Leopold.

Almost three months later the girl comes limping on one leg on crutches. The doctor writes down an address for her. They will have a prosthetic leg made for her there. The girl gives the doctor a white towel embroidered with a red rooster.

For years the narrator used the towel in Murjewo and then took it with him. After all, it was close to crumbling - just as reminiscences were fading.

German-language editions

Output used:

  • The towel with the tap. Translated from the Russian by Thomas Reschke . P. 7–22 in Ralf Schröder (Ed.): Bulgakow. The red crown. Autobiographical stories and diaries. Volk & Welt, Berlin 1993, ISBN 3-353-00944-2 (= Vol. 5: Collected Works (13 Vols.))

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Russian Medizinski rabotnik - about employees in the health service
  2. ↑ Edition used, pp. 17, 18. Zvo
  3. ↑ Edition used, p. 19, 6. Zvo
  4. ↑ Edition used, p. 22, 5th Zvu