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

The grief and horror of Madame Belomut beggar description. But, alas, both the one and the other were short-lived. That same night, returning with Anfisa from the dacha, to which she had for some reason hurriedly gone away, Anna Franzevna found Citizeness Belomut no longer at the apartment. But that is not all: the doors of both the rooms which had been occupied by the Belomuts proved to have been sealed!

Somehow two days passed. And on the third day, Anna Franzevna, who had been suffering from insomnia all this time, went off to the dacha hurriedly once again… Does it need to be said that she did not come back?!

Anfisa, remaining on her own, cried and cried to her heart’s content and went to bed after one o’clock in the morning. What happened to her afterwards is unknown, but the tenants in other apartments told how some sort of knocking was allegedly to be heard all through the night in No. 50, and the electric light was allegedly burning in the windows till morning. In the morning it became clear that Anfisa was not there either!

For a long time all sorts of legends were told in the building about those who had disappeared and about the apartment with a curse on it, such as, for example, that the dried-up and pious Anfisa had allegedly carried twenty-five large diamonds belonging to Anna Franzevna in a little chamois-leather pouch on her withered breast. And that there allegedly came to light of their own accord, in the firewood shed at that same dacha to which Anna Franzevna had been hurriedly going, some incalculable treasures in the form of those same diamonds, and also gold currency of tsarist coinage. And more of the same sort of thing. Well, what we don’t know, we can’t vouch for.

Whatever the case, the apartment stood empty and sealed for only a week, and then it was moved into by the late Berlioz and his wife and that same Styopa, also with his wife. It is perfectly natural that no sooner did they find themselves in the accursed apartment than the-devil-knows-what [195] the-devil-knows-what – черт-те что began happening to them too. Namely, in the course of a single month both wives disappeared – but these two not without trace. Of Berlioz’s wife it was said she had allegedly been seen in Kharkov with some ballet-master, while Styopa’s wife is supposed to have come to light on Bozhedomka, where, as gossip had it, the Director of the Variety, exploiting his innumerable acquaintances, had contrived to procure a room for her, on the one condition that she should not show her face on Sadovaya Street…

And so Styopa began groaning. He wanted to call the maid, Grunya, and demand some pyramidon of her, but managed to grasp, after all, that this was stupid, that Grunya, of course, did not have any pyramidon. [196] pyramidon: a pain-reliever like aspirin. (Комментарий И. Беспалова) He tried to call Berlioz to his assistance, twice groaned out: “Misha. Misha…” – but, as you can understand for yourselves, received no reply. The most complete silence reigned in the apartment.

Upon moving his toes, Styopa guessed he was lying in his socks, and he passed a shaky hand over his hip to decide whether or not he was wearing trousers, but could not decide. Finally, seeing that he was abandoned and alone, that there was no one to help him, he decided to get up, whatever the inhuman effort it cost.

Styopa unstuck his gummed-up eyelids and saw he was reflected in the cheval glass in the guise of a man with his hair poking out in all directions, with a swollen physiognomy covered in black stubble, with puffy eyes, and wearing a dirty shirt with a collar and a tie, long johns and socks.

That was how he saw himself in the cheval glass, but beside the mirror he saw a stranger, dressed in black and in a black beret.

Styopa sat up on the bed and, as best he could, opened his bloodshot eyes wide at the stranger.

The silence was broken by this stranger pronouncing in a low, heavy voice and with a foreign accent the following words:

“Good day, dearest Stepan Bogdanovich!”

There was a pause, after which, having made the most terrible effort with himself, Styopa said:

“What do you want?” and was himself amazed, not recognizing his own voice. The word “what” he had pronounced in a treble, “do you” in a bass, while “want” had not come out at all.

The stranger grinned amicably [197] to grin amicably – дружелюбно усмехаться , took out a big gold watch with a diamond triangle on the case, let it ring eleven times and said:

“Eleven! And exactly an hour that I’ve been awaiting your awakening, for you gave me an appointment to be at your home at ten. And here I am!”

Styopa fumbled for his trousers on the chair beside the bed and whispered:

“Excuse me…” He put them on and asked hoarsely: “Tell me, please, your name?”

Talking was difficult for him. At every word someone was sticking a needle into his brain, causing hellish pain.

“What? You’ve forgotten my name as well?” here the stranger smiled.

“Forgive me,” wheezed Styopa, feeling that his hangover was favouring him with a new symptom: it seemed to him that the floor beside the bed had gone away somewhere and that this very minute he would fly head first to the Devil in the netherworld.

“Dear Stepan Bogdanovich,” began the visitor, smiling shrewdly, “no pyramidon is going to help you. Follow the wise old rule – take the hair of the dog. The only thing that will return you to life is two shots of vodka with something hot and spicy to eat.”

Styopa was a cunning man and, however ill he may have been, he grasped that, seeing as he had been caught like this, he had to admit everything.

“To be frank [198] to be frank – по правде говоря ,” he began, scarcely in control of his tongue, “yesterday I had a little…”

“Not a word more!” the caller replied, and moved aside on the armchair.

With his eyes popping out, Styopa saw that on a little table a tray had been prepared, on which there were slices of white bread, a dish of pressed caviar, a plate of pickled boletuses, something in a little saucepan and, finally, vodka in the jeweller’s wife’s voluminous carafe [199] voluminous carafe – графин большого объема . Styopa was particularly struck by the fact that the carafe was covered in condensation from the cold. That was understandable, though – it was standing in a slop basin packed with ice. It had all been laid out, in short, neatly and capably.

The stranger did not let Styopa’s astonishment develop to an unhealthy degree, and deftly poured him a half-shot of vodka.

“What about you?” squeaked Styopa.

“With pleasure!”

Styopa brought the glass up to his lips with a jerky hand, while the stranger swallowed the contents of his glass in a single breath. Munching a bit of caviar, Styopa squeezed out of himself the words:

“But what about you. something to eat with it?”

“My thanks, I never have anything to eat with it,” the stranger replied, and poured a second glass each. The saucepan was uncovered – it proved to [200] to prove to do something – оказываться hold sausages in tomato sauce.

And now the damned greenery in front of his eyes melted away, words began to be pronounced properly, and, most importantly, Styopa remembered one or two things. Namely, that yesterday’s doings had been at Skhodnya, at the dacha of Khustov, the sketch-writer, where this Khustov had taken Styopa in a taxicab. Even the way they had hired this taxicab near the Metropole came to mind: there had been some actor or something of the kind there too at the time… with a gramophone in a little suitcase. Yes, yes, yes, it had been at the dacha! And also, he seemed to recall, that gramophone had made the dogs howl. It was just the lady Styopa had wanted to kiss that remained unclarified. the devil knew who she was. she worked in radio, he thought, but maybe not.