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

charged to do. Pulling the wool over their superiors’ eyes[210]!”

      “He misuses an official car!” the cat snitched on him, chewing a mushroom.

      And at this point there was a fourth and final appearance in the apartment, while Styopa, who had by now slipped down completely onto the floor, was scratching at the doorpost with a weakened hand.

      Straight from the mirror of the cheval glass there emerged a small but unusually broad-shouldered man with a bowler hat on his head and, sticking out of his mouth, a fang, which disfigured a physiognomy that was already of unprecedented loathsomeness. And with fiery red hair besides.

      “I,” this newcomer entered into the conversation, “don’t understand at all how he came to be a director” – the red-headed man’s voice became more and more nasal – “he’s as much a director as I’m an archbishop!”

      “You’re nothing like an archbishop, Azazello,” remarked the cat, putting some sausages on his plate.

      “That’s what I’m saying,” said the red-headed man nasally and, turning to Woland, he added deferentially: “Will you allow us, Messire,[211][212] to damn well chuck him out of Moscow[213]?”

      “Shoo!” the cat suddenly roared, with his fur standing on end.

      And then the bedroom began spinning around Styopa, and he struck his head on the doorpost, and, as he lost consciousness, he thought: “I’m dying…”

      But he did not die. Opening his eyes a little, he saw himself sitting on something made of stone. There was something making a noise all around him. When he opened his eyes up properly, he realized it was the sea making the noise and – even more than that – the waves were rising and falling right at his feet; in short, he was sitting at the very end of a mole; above him was the glittering blue sky and, behind, a white town in the mountains.

      Not knowing how people behave in such situations, Styopa rose on shaky legs and set off down the mole towards the shore.

      On the mole stood some man or other, smoking and spitting into the sea. He looked at Styopa wild-eyed, and stopped spitting.

      Then Styopa came out with the following trick: he knelt down before the unknown smoker and uttered:

      “Tell me, I beg you, what town is this?”

      “Well, really!” said the heartless smoker.

      “I’m not drunk,” replied Styopa hoarsely, “something’s happened to me. I’m ill. Where am I? What town is it?”

      “Well, it’s Yalta.”

      Styopa sighed quietly, toppled onto his side and struck his head on the warm stone of the mole. Consciousness left him.

      8. The Duel between Professor and Poet

      Just at the time when consciousness left Styopa in Yalta – that is, at about eleven thirty in the morning – it returned to Ivan Nikolayevich Bezdomny, who woke after a deep and prolonged sleep. It took him some time to grasp how it was he had ended up in an unknown room with white walls, with an astonishing bedside table made of some sort of bright metal and with a white blind, behind which he could sense the sun.

      Ivan gave his head a shake, satisfied himself it did not ache, and remembered he was in a clinic. This thought pulled along with it the memory of Berlioz’s death, but today it did not elicit any great shock in Ivan. After a good night’s sleep, Ivan Nikolayevich had become a little calmer and begun thinking more clearly. Having lain motionless for some time in the cleanest of soft and comfortable sprung beds, Ivan saw a call button next to him. Out of a habit of touching objects needlessly, he pressed it. He expected some sort of ringing to follow the pressing of the button, or someone to arrive, but what happened was something else entirely.

      At the foot of Ivan’s bed, a matt cylinder on which was written “Drink” lit up. After standing still for some time, the cylinder began to turn until the inscription “Nurse” appeared. It goes without saying that the ingenious cylinder amazed Ivan. The inscription “Nurse” was replaced by the inscription “Call doctor”.

      “Hm,” said Ivan, not knowing what to do next with this cylinder. But at this point by chance he had some luck: Ivan pressed the button a second time on the words “Medical attendant”. The cylinder gave a quiet ring in response, it stopped, the light went out, and into the room came a plump, nice-looking woman in a clean white coat who said to Ivan:

      “Good morning!”

      Ivan did not reply, for he considered this greeting inappropriate in the circumstances. Indeed, they had confined a healthy man in a clinic, and were pretending, what’s more, that that was the way things ought to be!

      But in the mean time, without losing her good-humoured expression, the woman, with the aid of a single touch of a button, had drawn up the blind, and sunlight poured into the room through a light and wide-meshed grille that reached right down to the floor. Beyond the grille was revealed a balcony; beyond that was the bank of a winding river, and on its other bank… a cheerful pine wood.

      “Come and take a bath,” the woman invited him, and under her hands an inner wall opened up, behind which there proved to be a bathing area and a splendidly equipped lavatory.

      Although he had decided not to talk to the woman, Ivan could not restrain himself and, seeing a broad stream of water gushing from a shining tap into a bath, he said with irony:

      “Just look at that! Like in the Metropole!”

      “Oh no,” replied the woman with pride, “much better. Such equipment isn’t to be found anywhere, not even abroad. Scientists and doctors come here specially to see our clinic. We have foreign tourists here every day.”

      At the words “foreign tourists” the consultant of the previous day immediately came to Ivan’s mind. Ivan became gloomy, and looking out from under his brows he said:

      “Foreign tourists. How you all adore foreign tourists! Yet you come across all sorts among them, you know. I met just such a one yesterday, for example, and it was really something to see!”

      And he was on the point of telling[214] her about Pontius Pilate, but he contained himself, realizing these stories were nothing to this woman, and she could not help him anyway.

      The washed Ivan Nikolayevich was straight away given absolutely everything a man requires after a bath: an ironed vest, long johns, socks. But that was not the end of it; opening the door of a little cupboard, the woman pointed inside it and asked:

      “What would you like to put on – a dressing gown or pyjamas?”

      Assigned to his new quarters by force, Ivan all but wrung his hands at the woman’s familiarity, and jabbed a finger in silence at the crimson flannelette pyjamas.

      After this, Ivan Nikolayevich was led along an empty and soundless corridor and brought into a consulting room of the most enormous dimensions. Having decided to treat everything there was in this wonderfully equipped building with irony, there and then Ivan mentally christened the consulting room “the factory kitchen”.

      And with good reason. Here stood cupboards and glass cabinets with shining nickel-plated instruments. There were chairs of extraordinarily complex construction, bulbous lamps with radiant shades, a multitude of phials and gas burners, and electric wires, and appliances that were completely unknown to anyone.

      Three people set to work on Ivan in the consulting room – two women and one man, all wearing white. First and foremost they led Ivan away into a corner behind a table, with the clear aim of finding something out from him.

      Ivan started thinking the situation over. Before him were three paths. The first was extremely tempting: to launch himself at these lamps and intricate bits and pieces and smash up the whole damned lot of them, and thus express his protest at being detained for no reason.

210

to pull the wool over one's eyes – втирать очки

211

Messire: “Sir” (French). (Комментарий И. Беспалова)

212

Messire – (фр.) Сэр, мессир

213

to damn well chuck somebody out of – выкинуть ко всем чертям

214

to be on the point of doing something – начать было что-то делать