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

“You want to smoke, I see?” the stranger unexpectedly addressed Bezdomny. “What kind do you prefer?”

“You have various kinds, do you?” the poet, who was out of cigarettes, asked gloomily.

“Which do you prefer?” the stranger repeated.

“Well, Our Brand” Bezdomny replied bad-temperedly. [46] Our Brand – «Наша Марка» (название сигарет)

The stranger immediately took a cigarette case out of his pocket and offered it to Bezdomny.

“ Our Brand .”

Both the editor and the poet were shocked not so much by the fact that it was specifically Our Brand that were in the cigarette case, as by the cigarette case itself. It was of huge proportions, of pure gold, and, as it was being opened, a diamond triangle on its lid flashed blue and white fire.

At this point the writers had differing thoughts. Berlioz: “No, a foreigner!” and Bezdomny: “Well, the devil take it, eh!..”

The poet and the owner of the cigarette case lit up, while the non-smoking Berlioz refused.

“I shall have to counter him thus,” decided Berlioz. “Yes, man is mortal, and nobody is arguing against that. But the point is that…”

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 [48] to get drawn – вовлекаясь 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.