The Towel with a Rooster. Morphine

Mikhail Bulgakov’s stories are based on real cases during the writer’s medical practice. “The Chicken-Towel” (read by Yevgeny Mironov) opens the cycle “Notes of a Young Doctor,” published in 1925–1926 in the magazines “Medical Worker” and “Red Panorama.”

A young inexperienced doctor arrives at his assignment in a village. Here he faces his first serious test.

“Morphine” (read by Gleb Podgorodinsky) was published in 1927. By theme it partly belongs with “Notes of a Young Doctor,” but it differs from the stories of that cycle in form and content. Most researchers do not include it in the cycle.

As is known, Bulgakov suffered from morphinism. The sensations of an addict he conveyed in the diary entry of the main character of “Morphine,” Dr. Polyakov.