"Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

cuts restored as in the Possev and YMCA-Press editions. It is complete and
unabridged.
The translators wish to express their gratitude to M. 0. Chudakova for
her advice on the text and to Irina Kronrod for her help in preparing the
Further Reading.
R. P., L. V.


The Master and Margarita


'... who are you, then?'
'I am part of that power which eternally wills evil and eternally works
good.'
Goethe, Faust

* BOOK ONE *


CHAPTER 1. Never Talk with Strangers
At the hour of the hot spring sunset two citizens appeared at the
Patriarch's Ponds. One of them, approximately forty years old, dressed in a
grey summer suit, was short, dark-haired, plump, bald, and carried his
respectable fedora hat in his hand. His neady shaven face was adorned with
black horn-rimmed glasses of a supernatural size. The odier, a
broad-shouldered young man with tousled reddish hair, his checkered cap
cocked back on his head, was wearing a cowboy shirt, wrinkled white trousers
and black sneakers.
The first was none other than Mikhail Alexandrovich
Berlioz,[2] editor of a fat literary journal and chairman of the
board of one of the major Moscow literary associations, called
Massolit[3] for short, and his young companion was the poet Ivan
Nikolaevich Ponyrev, who wrote under the pseudonym of
Homeless.[4]
Once in the shade of the barely greening lindens, the writers dashed
first thing to a brighdy painted stand with the sign: 'Beer and Soft
Drinks.'
Ah, yes, note must be made of the first oddity of this dreadful May
evening. There was not a single person to be seen, not only by the stand,
but also along the whole walk parallel to Malaya Bronnaya Street. At that
hour when it seemed no longer possible to breathe, when the sun, having
scorched Moscow, was collapsing in a dry haze somewhere beyond Sadovoye
Ring, no one came under the lindens, no one sat on a bench, the walk was
empty.
'Give us seltzer,' Berlioz asked.
'There is no seltzer,' die woman in the stand said, and for some reason
became offended.
'Is there beer?' Homeless inquired in a rasping voice.
'Beer'll be delivered towards evening,' the woman replied.
'Then what is there?' asked Berlioz.