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

bring about indescribable calamities!”

      “What? What? What did he say? Who’s appeared?” came a rush of voices from all sides.

      “A consultant!” replied Ivan. “And this consultant has just killed Misha Berlioz at Patriarch’s.”

      Here the people from the hall indoors poured onto the veranda. The crowd moved closer around Ivan’s light.

      “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, be more precise,” a quiet and polite voice was heard right by Ivan Nikolayevich’s ear. “Say what it is you mean, ‘killed’? Who killed him?”

      “A foreign consultant, a professor and spy,” responded Ivan, looking round.

      “And what is his name?” came the quiet question in his ear.

      “That’s just it, the name!” cried Ivan in anguish. “If only I knew the name! I didn’t see the name on the visiting card properly… I can only remember the first letter, W, the name begins with a W! Whatever is that name beginning with a W?” Ivan asked of himself, clutching his forehead with his hand, and suddenly began muttering: “W, w, w. Wa… Wo. Washner? Wagner? Weiner? Wegner? Winter?” The hair on Ivan’s head started shifting with the effort.

      “Wulf?” some woman shouted out compassionately.

      Ivan got angry.

      “Idiot!” he shouted, his eyes searching for the woman. “What’s Wulf got to do with it? Wulf’s not to blame for anything! Wo, what. No! I won’t remember like this! But I’ll tell you what, Citizens, ring the police straight away so they send out five motorcycles with machine guns to catch the Professor. And don’t forget to say there are two others with him: some lanky one in checks. a cracked pince-nez. and a fat black cat! And in the mean time I’ll search Griboyedov. I sense he’s here!”

      Ivan lapsed into agitation, pushed those surrounding him away, began waving the candle about, spilling the wax over himself, and looking under the tables. At this point the words: “Get a doctor!” were heard, and somebody’s kindly, fleshy face, cleanshaven and well fed, wearing horn-rimmed spectacles, appeared before Ivan.

      “Comrade Bezdomny,” this face began in a gala voice, “calm down! You’re upset by the death of our beloved Mikhail Alexandrovich… no, simply Misha Berlioz. We all understand it perfectly. You need a rest. Some comrades will see you to bed now, and you’ll doze off[170].”

      “Do you understand,” Ivan interrupted, baring his teeth, “that the Professor must be caught? And you come pestering me with your stupid remarks! Cretin!”

      “Comrade Bezdomny, pardon me,” the face replied, flushing, backing away, and already repenting getting mixed up in the matter[171].

      “No, someone else, maybe, but you I won’t pardon,” said Ivan Nikolayevich with quiet hatred.

      A spasm distorted his face; he quickly moved the candle from his right hand to his left, swung his arm out wide and struck the sympathetic face on the ear.

      At this point it occurred to people to throw themselves upon Ivan – and they did. The candle went out, and a pair of spectacles, flying off a face, were instantly trampled upon[172]. Ivan emitted a terrifying war whoop – audible, to the excitement of all, even on the boulevard – and started to defend himself. The crockery falling from the tables began ringing, women began shouting.

      While the waiters were tying the poet up with towels, a conversation was going on in the cloakroom between the commander of the brig and the doorman.

      “Did you see he was in his underpants?” the pirate asked coldly.

      “But after all, Archibald Archibaldovich,” replied the doorman in cowardly fashion, “how on earth can I not let them in if they’re members of MASSOLIT?”

      “Did you see he was in his underpants?” repeated the pirate.

      “For pity’s sake, Archibald Archibaldovich,” said the doorman, turning purple, “what ever can I do? I understand for myself there are ladies sitting on the veranda…”

      “The ladies have nothing to do with it: it’s all one to the ladies,” replied the pirate, literally scorching the doorman with his eyes, “but it’s not all one to the police! A man in his underwear can proceed through the streets of Moscow only in one instance: if he’s going under police escort, and only to one place – the police station! And you, if you’re a doorman, ought to know that when you see such a man, you ought to begin whistling without a moment’s delay. Can you hear? Can you hear what’s happening on the veranda?”

      At this point the doorman, beside himself, caught the sounds of some sort of rumbling, the crashing of crockery and women’s cries coming from the veranda.

      “Well, and what am I to do with you for this?” the filibuster asked.

      The skin on the doorman’s face assumed a typhoid hue, and his eyes were benumbed. He imagined that the black hair, now combed into a parting, had been covered in fiery silk. The dicky and tails[173] had disappeared, and, tucked into a belt, the handle of a pistol had appeared. The doorman pictured himself hanged from the foretop yardarm. With his own eyes he saw his own tongue poking out and his lifeless head fallen onto his shoulder, and he even heard the splashing of the waves over the ship’s side. The doorman’s knees sagged. But here the filibuster took pity on him and extinguished his sharp gaze.

      “Watch out, Nikolai! This is the last time. We don’t need such doormen in the restaurant at any price. Go and get a job as a watchman in a church.” Having said this, the commander gave precise, clear, rapid commands: “Pantelei from the pantry. Policeman. Charge sheet. Vehicle. Psychiatric hospital.” And added: “Whistle!”

      A quarter of an hour later an extremely astonished audience, not only in the restaurant, but on the boulevard itself as well, and in the windows of the houses looking out onto the garden of the restaurant, saw Pantelei, the doorman, a policeman, a waiter and the poet Ryukhin carrying out of Griboyedov’s gates a young man swaddled like a doll[174] who, in floods of tears, was spitting, attempting to hit specifically Ryukhin, and shouting for the entire boulevard to hear:

      “Bastard!.. Bastard!”

      The driver of a goods vehicle with an angry face was starting up his engine. Alongside, a cab driver was geeing up his horse, hitting it across the crupper with his lilac reins and shouting:

      “Come and use the racehorse! I’ve taken people to the mental hospital before!”

      All around the crowd was buzzing, discussing the unprecedented occurrence. In short, there was a vile, foul, seductive, swinish, scandalous scene, which ended only when the truck carried off from the gates of Griboyedov the unfortunate Ivan Nikolayevich, the policeman, Pantelei and Ryukhin.

      6. Schizophrenia, Just as Had Been Said

      When a man with a little pointed beard, robed in a white coat, came out into the waiting room of the renowned psychiatric clinic recently completed on a river bank outside Moscow, it was half-past one in the morning. Three hospital orderlies had their eyes glued to Ivan Nikolayevich, who was sitting on a couch. Here too was the extremely agitated poet Ryukhin. The towels with which Ivan Nikolayevich had been bound lay in a heap on the same couch. Ivan Nikolayevich’s hands and feet were free.

      On seeing the man who had come in, Ryukhin paled, gave a cough and said timidly[175]:

      “Hello, Doctor.”

      The doctor bowed to Ryukhin, yet, while bowing, looked not at him, but at Ivan Nikolayevich. The latter sat completely motionless with an angry face, with knitted brows, and did not even stir at the entrance of the doctor.

      “Here, Doctor,” began Ryukhin, for some reason in a mysterious whisper, glancing round fearfully at Ivan Nikolayevich, “is

170

to doze off – впасть в забытье

171

to get mixed up in the matter – впутываться в дело

172

to trample upon – растаптывать; попирать

173

the dicky and tails – пластрон и полы фрака

174

swaddled like a doll – спеленутый, как кукла

175

to say timidly – робко сказать