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

However, he had not had time to voice these words before the foreigner began:

“Yes, man is mortal, but that would still be just a minor problem. The bad thing is that he’s sometimes suddenly mortal, and that’s the whole point! And he can’t possibly say what he’s going to be doing the same evening.”

“An absurd sort of formulation of the question,” considered Berlioz, and retorted:

“Well, there really is some exaggeration here. This evening is known to me more or less exactly. It goes without saying that, if on Bronnaya a brick should fall on my head.”

“Without rhyme or reason[47 - without rhyme or reason – ни с того ни с сего], a brick,” the stranger interrupted edifyingly, “will never fall on anybody’s head. And in particular, I can assure you, a brick doesn’t threaten you, not under any circumstances. You’re going to die a different death.”

“Perhaps you know what one precisely?” enquired Berlioz with completely natural irony, getting drawn

into a really absurd sort of conversation. “And you’ll tell me?”

“Willingly,” responded the stranger. He sized Berlioz up, as though intending to make him a suit, muttered under his breath something like: “One, two. Mercury’s in the second house. the Moon’s gone. six – misfortune. the evening – seven…” and announced loudly and joyfully: “You’re going to have your head cut off!”

Bezdomny goggled with wild, angry eyes at the free-and-easy[49 - free-and-easy – развязный] stranger, while Berlioz asked with a crooked grin:

“By whom, precisely? Enemies? Interventionists?”

“No,” replied his interlocutor, “by a Russian woman in the Communist League of Youth.”

“Hm…” mumbled Berlioz, irritated by the stranger’s little joke. “Well, excuse me, but that s hardly likely.”

“I beg you to excuse me too,” replied the foreigner, “but it’s so. Yes, I’d like to ask you what you’re going to be doing this evening, if it’s not a secret?”

“There’s no secret. In a moment I’m going to pop into my apartment on Sadovaya, and then at ten o’clock in the evening a meeting will be taking place at MASSOLIT, and I’m going to chair it.”

“No, that can’t possibly be,” objected the foreigner firmly.

“And why’s that?”

“Because,” the foreigner replied, and looked with narrowed eyes into the sky, where, with a presentiment of the cool of the evening, black birds were flying in noiseless lines, “Annushka has already bought the sunflower oil – and not only bought it, but even spilt it too. So the meeting won’t take place.”

At this point, quite understandably, silence fell beneath the lime trees.

“Forgive me,” began Berlioz after a pause, casting glances at the foreigner who was talking such rubbish, “what has sunflower oil got to do with it… and who’s this Annushka?”

“This is what sunflower oil has got to do with it,” began Bezdomny suddenly, evidently having decided to declare war on their uninvited interlocutor. “Have you, Citizen, ever happened to be in a clinic for the mentally ill?”

“Ivan!” exclaimed Mikhail Alexandrovich quietly.

But the foreigner was not in the least offended, and gave an extremely cheerful laugh.

“I have, I have, and more than once!” he exclaimed, laughing, but without taking his unlaughing eye off the poet. “Where haven’t I been! It’s just a pity I didn’t find the time to ask the professor what schizophrenia was. So do find it out from him for yourself, Ivan Nikolayevich!”

“How do you know my name?”

“Come, come, Ivan Nikolayevich, who doesn’t know you?” Here the foreigner pulled the previous day’s issue of The Literary Gazette from his pocket, and Ivan Nikolayevich saw his own image right on the front page, and beneath it his very own verse. But the proof of his fame and popularity, that just the day before had gladdened the poet, on this occasion did not gladden him in the least.

“Excuse me,” he said, and his face darkened, “can you wait for just a moment? I want to have a quick word with my comrade.”

“Oh, with pleasure!” exclaimed the stranger. “It’s so nice here under the lime trees, and, happily, I’m not hurrying off anywhere.”

“You know what, Misha,” began the poet in a whisper, pulling Berlioz aside[50 - to pull aside – оттаскивать в сторону], “he’s no foreign tourist, but a spy. He’s a Russian émigré who’s made his way back over here. Ask for his papers, otherwise he’ll be off…”

“Do you think so?” Berlioz whispered anxiously, while thinking to himself: “He’s right, of course…”

“Believe you me” – the poet’s voice became hoarse in his ear – “he’s pretending to be a bit of an idiot so as to pump us about[51 - to pump about – выспрашивать] something. You hear the way he speaks Russian” – the poet was casting sidelong glances as he talked, looking to see that the stranger did not make a run for it – “come on, we’ll detain him, or else he’ll be off.”

And the poet drew Berlioz back towards the bench by the arm.

The stranger was not sitting, but standing beside it, holding in his hands some sort of booklet with a dark-grey binding, a thick envelope made of good-quality paper and a visiting card.

“Excuse me for forgetting in the heat of our argument to introduce myself to you. Here’s my card, my passport and my invitation to come to Moscow for a consultation,” said the stranger weightily, giving both men of letters a piercing look.

They became embarrassed. “The devil, he heard it all…” thought Berlioz, and indicated with a polite gesture that there was no need for papers to be shown. While the foreigner was thrusting them at the editor, the poet managed to make out on the card, printed in foreign letters, the word “Professor” and the initial letter of the surname – “W”.

“Pleased to meet you,” the editor was meanwhile mumbling in embarrassment, and the foreigner put the papers away into his pocket.

Relations thus restored, all three sat down once more on the bench.

“You’ve been invited here in the capacity of a consultant, Professor?” asked Berlioz.

“Yes, as a consultant.”

“Are you German?” enquired Bezdomny.

“Me?” the Professor queried, and suddenly became pensive. “Yes, if you like, I’m German…” he said.

“Your Russian’s brilliant,” remarked Bezdomny.

“Oh, I’m a polyglot in general and know a very large number of languages,” replied the Professor.

“And what do you specialize in?” enquired Berlioz.

“I’m a specialist in black magic.”

“Well, there you are!” Mikhail Alexandrovich had a sudden thought. “And.” – he faltered – “and you were invited here to use that specialization?” he asked.

“Yes, that’s what I was invited for,” confirmed the Professor, and elucidated: “Here in the State Library they found some original manuscripts of a tenth-century practitioner of black magic, Gerbert of Aurillac.[52 - Gerbert of Aurillac: Otherwise known as Pope Sylvester II (938-1003). (Комментарий И. Беспалова)][53 - Gerbert of Aurillac – папа Сильвестр II] And so I’m required to decipher them. I’m the only specialist in the world.”

“Aha! You’re a historian?” asked Berlioz with respect and great relief.

“I am a historian,” the scholar confirmed, and added without reference to anything in particular: “There’s going to be an interesting bit of history at Patriarch’s Ponds this evening!”

And again both the editor and the poet were extremely surprised, but the Professor beckoned both of them close to him and, when they had leant towards him, he whispered:

“Bear it in mind that Jesus did exist.”