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

oil, and now everything foreboded a bad day, because this smell had been
pursuing the procurator since dawn.
It seemed to the procurator that a rosy smell exuded from the cypresses
and palms in the garden, that the smell of leather trappings and sweat from
the convoy was mingled with the cursed rosy flux.
From the outbuildings at the back of the palace, where the first cohort
of the Twelfth Lightning legion,[4] which had come to
Yershalaim[5 ]with the procurator, was quartered, a whiff of
smoke reached the colonnade across the upper terrace of the palace, and this
slightly acrid smoke, which testified that the centuries' mess cooks had
begun to prepare dinner, was mingled with the same thick rosy scent.
'Oh, gods, gods, why do you punish me? . . . Yes, no doubt, this is it,
this is it again, the invincible, terrible illness . .. hemicrania, when
half of the head aches . . . there's no remedy for it, no escape ... I'll
try not to move my head . . .'
On the mosaic floor by the fountain a chair was already prepared, and
the procurator, without looking at anyone, sat in it and reached his hand
out to one side. His secretary deferentially placed a sheet of parchment in
this hand. Unable to suppress a painful grimace, the procurator ran a
cursory, sidelong glance over the writing, returned the parchment to the
secretary, and said with difficulty:
"The accused is from Galilee?[6] Was the case sent to the
tetrarch?'
'Yes, Procurator,' replied the secretary.
'And what then?'
'He refused to make a decision on the case and sent the
Sanhedrin's[7 ]death sentence to you for confirmation,' the
secretary explained.
The procurator twitched his cheek and said quietly:
'Bring in the accused.'
And at once two legionaries brought a man of about twenty-seven from
the garden terrace to the balcony under the columns and stood him before the
procurator's chair. The man was dressed in an old and torn light-blue
chiton. His head was covered by a white cloth with a leather band around the
forehead, and his hands were bound behind his back. Under the man's left eye
there was a large bruise, in the corner of his mouth a cut caked with blood.
The man gazed at the procurator with anxious curiosity.
The latter paused, then asked quiedy in Aramaic:[8]
'So it was you who incited the people to destroy the temple of
Yershalaim?'[9]
The procurator sat as if made of stone while he spoke, and only his
lips moved slighdy as he pronounced the words. The procurator was as if made
of stone because he was afraid to move his head, aflame with infernal pain.
The man with bound hands leaned forward somewhat and began to speak:
'Good man! Believe me . ..'
But me procurator, motionless as before and not raising his voice in
the least, straight away interrupted him:
'Is it me that you are calling a good man? You are mistaken. It is
whispered about me in Yershalaim that I am a fierce monster, and that is
perfecdv correct.' And he added in the same monotone: 'Bring the centurion