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

“Are you atheists?”

“Yes, we’re atheists,” replied Berlioz, smiling, while Bezdomny thought angrily: “This foreign goose is being a real nuisance!”

“Oh, how charming!” the amazing foreigner cried, and he began twisting his head, looking first at one man of letters, then at the other.

“In our country atheism surprises no one,” said Berlioz with diplomatic politeness. “The majority of our population ceased consciously and long ago to believe in fairy tales about God.”

At this point the foreigner wheeled out the following trick: he stood up and shook the astonished editor’s hand, at the same time pronouncing these words:

“Permit me to thank you from the bottom of my heart!”

“And what is it you’re thanking him for?” enquired Bezdomny, blinking.

“For a very important piece of information, which is extremely interesting to me as a traveller,” the eccentric foreigner elucidated, raising a finger most meaningfully.

Evidently the important piece of information really had made a powerful impression on the traveller, because he looked round in alarm at the buildings, as though afraid of seeing an atheist at every window.

“No, he’s not English…" thought Berlioz, while Bezdomny thought: “Wherever did he get so good at speaking Russian, that’s what I wonder!” and frowned again.

“But permit me to ask you,” began the foreign guest after an anxious hesitation, “what’s to be done about the proofs of God’s existence, of which there are, as is well known, exactly five?”

“Alas!” replied Berlioz with regret. “Not one of those proofs is worth a thing, and mankind gave them up as a bad job long ago. You must agree, after all, that in the sphere of reason there can be no proof of the existence of God.”

“Bravo!” exclaimed the foreigner. “Bravo! You’ve repeated in its entirety that restless old man Immanuel’s idea on that score. [34] Immanuel’s idea – ссылка на философа Иммануила Канта, его анализ традиционной аргументации существования Бога и им же приведенное новое доказательство But here’s a curious thing: he completely demolished all five proofs, and then, as though in mockery of himself, constructed his own sixth proof!”

"Kant’s proof,” objected the educated editor with a thin smile, "is also unconvincing. [35] Immanuel's idea. also unconvincing: a reference to the philosopher Immanuel Kant (1724–1804), his analyses of the traditional arguments for the existence of God and his own attempt at a new one. (Комментарий И. Беспалова) And not for nothing did Schiller [36] Schiller: The German poet and dramatist Friedrich von Schiller (1759–1805). (Комментарий И. Беспалова) [37] Schiller – Фридрих фон Шиллер, немецкий поэт и драматург say that the Kantian arguments on the question could satisfy only slaves, while Strauss [38] Strauss: The German theologian David Strauss (180874). In his major work, The Life ofJesus, he made the pioneering step of taking a historical approach to Christ’s existence. (Комментарий И. Беспалова) [39] Strauss – Давид Штраус, немецкий теолог simply laughed at that proof.”

Berlioz spoke, yet at the same time he was thinking: "But all the same, who on earth is he? And why is it he speaks Russian so well?”

"This Kant should be taken and sent to Solovki [40] Solovki: The popular name for the prison camp established at the Solovetsky Monastery on an island in the White Sea. (Комментарий И. Беспалова) for two or three years for such proofs!” Ivan Nikolayevich blurted out [41] to blur out – сболтнуть, «ляпнуть» quite unexpectedly.

"Ivan!” whispered Berlioz, embarrassed.

But not only did the proposal to send Kant to Solovki not shock the foreigner, it even sent him into raptures [42] to send somebody into raptures – приводить к.-л. в восторг .

"Precisely, precisely,” he cried, and a twinkle appeared in his green left eye, which was turned towards Berlioz, "that’s the very place for him! I said to him then over breakfast, you know: ‘As you please, Professor, but you’ve come up with something incoherent! It may indeed be clever, but it’s dreadfully unintelligible. They’re going to make fun of [43] to make fun of – высмеивать you.’”

Berlioz opened his eyes wide. "Over breakfast… to Kant?… What nonsense is this he’s talking?” he thought.

"But,” the foreigner continued, with no embarrassment at Berlioz’s astonishment and turning to the poet, "sending him to Solovki is impossible for the reason that he’s already been in parts considerably more distant than Solovki for over a hundred years, and there’s no possible way of extracting him from there, I can assure you!”

“That’s a pity!” responded the quarrelsome poet.

“I think it’s a pity too,” confirmed the stranger, with a twinkle in his eye [44] with a twinkle in one’s eye – сверкнув глазом , and continued: “But this is the question that’s troubling me: if there’s no God, then who, one wonders, is directing human life and all order on earth in general?”

“Man himself is directing it,” Bezdomny hastened to reply angrily to this, to be honest, not very clear question.

“I’m sorry,” responded the stranger mildly. “In order to be directing things, it is necessary, for all that, to have a definite plan for a certain, at least reasonably respectable, period of time. Permit me to ask you then, how can man be directing things, if he not only lacks the capacity to draw up any sort of plan for even a laughably short period of time – well, let’s say, for a thousand years or so – but cannot even vouch for his own tomorrow? And indeed,” here the stranger turned to Berlioz, “imagine that you, for example, start directing things, managing both other people and yourself – generally, so to speak, getting a taste for it – and suddenly you have… heh… heh… a lung sarcoma." The foreigner smiled sweetly, as if the idea of a lung sarcoma gave him pleasure – “yes, a sarcoma,” narrowing his eyes like a cat, he repeated the sonorous word, “and there’s an end to your directing! No one’s fate, apart from your own, interests you any more. Your family begin lying to you. Sensing something wrong, you rush to learned doctors, then to charlatans, and sometimes to fortune-tellers too. Like the first and the second, so the third too is completely pointless: you realize it yourself. And it all ends tragically: the man who just recently supposed he was directing something turns out suddenly to be lying motionless in a wooden box, and those around him, realizing there’s no more use whatsoever in the man lying there, burn him up in a stove. But it could be even worse: a man will have just decided to take a trip to Kislovodsk,” here the foreigner screwed his eyes up at Berlioz, “a trifling matter [45] a trifling matter – пустяковое дело , it would have seemed, but he can’t accomplish even that, since for some unknown reason he’ll suddenly go and slip and fall under a tram! Surely you won’t say it was he that directed himself that way? Isn’t it more correct to think that someone else completely dealt with him directly?” Here the stranger laughed a strange little laugh.

Berlioz had listened with great attention to the unpleasant story of the sarcoma and the tram, and some alarming ideas had started to torment him. “He isn’t a foreigner… he isn’t a foreigner…” he thought, “he’s an extremely strange type. but permit me, who on earth is he?…”