The Master and Margarita / Мастер и Маргарита. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Михаил Булгаков

[148] and unlaced worn-down ankle boots. After waving his arms around to cool down, Ivan did a swallow dive into the water. The water was so cold it took his breath away, and it even flashed through his mind that he would quite likely not succeed in coming to the surface. However, he did succeed in doing so, and, blowing and snorting, with eyes round from horror, Ivan Nikolayevich began to swim about in the black water, smelling of oil, between the broken zigzags of the street lights on the banks.

      When the wet Ivan danced up the steps to the spot where his clothing had remained under the protection of the bearded man, it transpired that not only had the former been carried off, but the latter had too – the bearded man himself, that is. On the precise spot where there had been a heap of clothing, there remained a pair of striped long johns, a torn tolstovka, a candle, an icon and a box of matches. Shaking his fist in impotent fury at someone in the distance, Ivan robed himself in what had been left.

      At this point he began to be troubled by two considerations: the first was that the MASSOLIT identity card with which he never parted had disappeared, and the second was: would he succeed in getting across Moscow unhindered looking like this? Wearing long johns, after all… True, it was nobody’s business, but all the same, he hoped there would be no kind of gripe or hold-up.

      Ivan tore the buttons off the long johns where they fastened at the ankle, reckoning that, looking like that, they would perhaps pass for summer trousers, and, gathering up the icon, candle and matches, he moved off, saying to himself:

      “To Griboyedov! Beyond all doubt, he’s there.”

      The city was already living its evening life. Trucks flew by in clouds of dust with their chains clanking, and on their open platforms, sprawling on sacks with their bellies up, lay men of some sort. All the windows were open. In each of those windows burned a light beneath an orange lampshade, and, bursting out from all the windows, from all the doors, from all the gateways, from the roofs and attics, from the basements and courtyards, was the hoarse roar of the polonaise from the opera Eugene Onegin.[149]

      Ivan Nikolayevich’s misgivings fully justified themselves: passers-by took notice of him and laughed and turned their heads. As a consequence of this, he took the decision to forsake the major streets and steal along little side streets, where people were not so importunate, where there was less chance they would pester a barefooted man, vexing him with questions about his long johns, which stubbornly declined to resemble trousers.

      Ivan did just that, and plunged into the secretive network of the Arbat’s lanes, and began stealing along by the sides of walls, casting fearful sidelong glances, constantly looking around, hiding at times in doorways and avoiding crossroads with traffic lights and the magnificent doors of embassy mansions.

      And during the whole of his difficult journey he was for some reason inexpressibly tormented by the ubiquitous orchestra, to the accompaniment of which a ponderous bass sang of his love for Tatyana.[150]

      5. There Were Goings-on at Griboyedov

      The old cream-coloured two-storey house was situated on the Boulevard Ring in the depths of a sorry-looking garden, separated from the pavement of the ring by fretted cast-iron railings. The small open area in front of the house was asphalted, and there, in the wintertime, a snowdrift with a spade in it towered up[151], while in the summertime it turned into the most magnificent section of a summer restaurant beneath a canvas awning.

      The house was called The Griboyedov House on the grounds that at one time it had ostensibly been owned by the writer’s auntie, Alexandra Sergeyevna Griboyedova.[152] Well, did she or didn’t she own it? – we don’t know for sure. If memory serves, Griboyedov never even seems to have had any such house-owning auntie… However, that is what the house was called. And what is more, one mendacious Muscovite used to tell how, allegedly, there on the first floor, in the circular columned hall, the renowned writer used to read extracts from The Misfortune of Wit[153][154] to that same auntie as she lounged on a sofa. But then the devil knows – perhaps he did, it’s not important!

      But what is important is that this house was owned at the present time by that same MASSOLIT, at the head of which stood the unfortunate Mikhail Alexandrovich Berlioz, until his appearance at Patriarch’s Ponds.

      Following the example of the members of MASSOLIT, nobody called the house “The Griboyedov House”: everyone simply said “Griboyedov”: “I was hanging about for two hours at Griboyedov yesterday.” – “Well, and?” – “I got myself a month in Yalta.” – “Good for you!” Or: “Go and talk to Berlioz, he’s seeing people between four and five today at Griboyedov.” and so on.

      MASSOLIT had settled into Griboyedov so well that nothing better or cosier could be imagined. Anyone going into Griboyedov involuntarily became acquainted first of all with the notices of various sports clubs, and with group and also individual photographs of members of MASSOLIT, hanging (the photographs) all over the walls of the staircase leading to the first floor.

      On the doors of the very first room on that upper floor could be seen the large inscription: “Fishing and Dacha Section”, and there too was a picture of a crucian caught on the end of a rod.

      On the doors of room No. 2 was written something not entirely comprehensible: “One-day writing trip. Apply to M. V. Podlozhnaya”.

      The next door bore the brief but this time completely incomprehensible inscription “Perelygino”.[155] Then Griboyedov’s chance visitor would start to be dazzled by the inscriptions abounding on the auntie’s walnut doors: “Registration for Waiting List for Paper at Poklyovkina’s”, “Cashier’s Office. Sketch-writers’ Personal Accounts”…

      Cutting through the longest queue, which had already started downstairs in the doorman’s room, one could see the inscription on the door people were trying to force their way into at every moment: “Housing Question[156]”.

      Beyond the Housing Question there opened up a splendid poster on which was depicted a crag, and along its crest rode a horseman in a Caucasian cloak with a rifle over his shoulders. A little lower down were palm trees and a balcony, and on the balcony sat a young man with a little tuft of hair, gazing upwards with ever such lively eyes, and holding a fountain pen in his hand. The caption: “Fully inclusive writing holidays from two weeks (short story-novella) to one year (novel, trilogy). Yalta, Suuk-Su, Borovoye, Tsikhidziry, Makhindzhaury, Leningrad (Winter Palace)”. At this door there was also a queue, but not an excessive one: of about a hundred and fifty people.

      Further on there followed, obeying the fanciful twists and ups and downs of the Griboyedov House, “MASSOLIT Board”, "Cashiers’ Offices Nos. 2, 3, 4 and 5”, "Editorial Board”, "MASSOLIT Chairman”, "Billiards Room”, various ancillary organizations and, finally, that very hall with the colonnade where the auntie had enjoyed her brilliant nephew’s comedy.

      Any visitor who got into Griboyedov – if, of course, he wasn’t a complete dimwit – grasped at once how good a life those lucky members of MASSOLIT enjoyed, and sullen envy would immediately begin to torture him. And immediately he would address words of bitter reproach to the Heavens for their having failed to endow him at birth with literary talent, without which, naturally, there was no point even dreaming of securing a MASSOLIT membership card – brown, smelling of expensive leather and with a broad gold border – a card known to the whole of Moscow.

      Who will say anything in defence of envy? It is a rotten category of feeling, but all the same, one must put oneself in the visitor’s shoes too. After all, what he saw on the upper floor was not everything – was still far from everything. The entire lower floor of auntie’s house was occupied by the restaurant, and what a restaurant! It was rightly considered the best in Moscow. And not only because it was accommodated in two large halls

149

Eugene Onegin: Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (1840-93) wrote this opera, first performed in 1879, which was based on the novel in verse Eugene Onegin (1825-32) by Alexander Pushkin (1799–1837). (Комментарий И. Беспалова)

150

Tatyana: Tatyana Larina, the heroine of Eugene Onegin. (Комментарий И. Беспалова)

151

to tower up – возвышаться

152

The house was called… Griboyedova: a reference to the writer Alexander Sergeyevich Griboyedov (1795–1829), a playwright and poet whom Bulgakov was known to admire. (Комментарий И. Беспалова)

153

The Misfortune of Wit – «Горе от ума», комедия в стихах А. С. Грибоедова

154

The Misfortune of Wit: Also translated as Woe from Wit and The Woes of Wit, this verse satire, first published in 1825, was Griboyedov’s masterpiece. (Комментарий И. Беспалова)

155

Perelygino: The area outside Moscow where there was a concentration of dachas for writers in Soviet times is called Peredelkino. (Комментарий И. Беспалова)

156

Housing Question – квартирный вопрос