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

his arms to cool off, Ivan dived swallow-fashion into the water.
It took his breath away, so cold the water was, and the thought even
flashed in him that he might not manage to come up to the surface. However,
he did manage to come up, and, puffing and snorting, his eyes rounded in
terror, Ivan Nikolaevich began swimming through the black, oil-smelling
water among the broken zigzags of street lights on the bank.
When the wet Ivan came dancing back up the steps to the place where the
bearded fellow was guarding his clothes, it became clear that not only the
latter, but also the former - that is, the bearded fellow himself - had been
stolen. In the exact spot where the pile of clothes had been, a pair of
striped drawers, the torn Tolstoy blouse, the candle, the icon and a box of
matches had been left. After threatening someone in the distance with his
fist in powerless anger, Ivan put on what was left for him.
Here two considerations began to trouble him: first, that his Massolit
identification card, which he never parted with, was gone, and, second,
whether he could manage to get through Moscow unhindered looking the way he
did now? In striped drawers, after all ... True, it was nobody's business,
but still there might be some hitch or delay.
Ivan tore off the buttons where the drawers fastened at the ankle,
figuring that this way they might pass for summer trousers, gathered up the
icon, the candle and the matches, and started off, saying to himself:
'To Griboedov's! Beyond all doubt, he's there.'
The city was already living its evening life. Trucks flew through the
dust, chains clanking, and on their platforms men lay sprawled belly up on
sacks. All windows were open. In each of these windows a light burned under
an orange lampshade, and from every window, every door, every gateway, roof,
and attic, basement and courtyard blared the hoarse roar of the polonaise
from the opera Evgeny Onegin.[4]
Ivan Nikolaevich's apprehensions proved fully justified: passers-by did
pay attention to him and turned their heads. As a result, he took the
decision to leave the main streets and make his way through back lanes,
where people are not so importunate, where there were fewer chances of them
picking on a barefoot man, pestering him with questions about his drawers,
which stubbornly refused to look like trousers.
This Ivan did, and, penetrating the mysterious network of lanes around
the Arbat, he began making his way along the walls, casting fearful sidelong
glances, turning around every moment, hiding in gateways frori time to time,
avoiding intersections with traffic lights and the grand entrances of
embassy mansions.
And all along his difficult way, he was for some reason inexpressibly
tormented by the ubiquitous orchestra that accompanied the heavy basso
singing about his love for Tatiana.

CHAPTER 5. There were Doings at Griboedov's
The old, two-storeyed, cream-coloured house stood on the ring
boulevard, in the depths of a seedy garden, separated from the sidewalk by a
fancy cast-iron fence. The small terrace in front of the house was paved
with asphalt, and in wintertime was dominated by a snow pile with a shovel
stuck in it, but in summertime turned into the most magnificent section of
the summer restaurant under a canvas tent.