and ‘Soar forth!’… but you take a look inside him – what’s he thinking there. it’ll make you gasp!” And Ivan Nikolayevich broke into sinister laughter.
Ryukhin was breathing heavily, was red, and was thinking of only one thing – that he had warmed a snake at his breast, that he had shown concern for someone who had turned out to be, when tested, a spiteful enemy. And the main thing was, nothing could be done about it either: you couldn’t trade insults with a madman, could you?!
“And why precisely have you been delivered to us?” asked the doctor, after attentively hearing out Bezdomny’s denunciations.
“The devil take them, the stupid oafs! Seized me, tied me up with rags of some sort and dragged me out here in a truck!”
“Permit me to ask you why you arrived at the restaurant in just your underwear?”
“There’s nothing surprising in that,” replied Ivan. “I went to the Moscow River to bathe, and well, I had my clobber nicked, and this trash was left! I couldn’t go around Moscow naked, could I? I put on what there was, because I was hurrying to Griboyedov’s restaurant.”
The doctor looked enquiringly at Ryukhin, and the latter mumbled sullenly:
“That’s what the restaurant’s called.”
“Aha,” said the doctor, “and why were you hurrying so? Some business meeting or other?”
“I’m trying to catch a consultant,” Ivan Nikolayevich replied, and looked around anxiously.
“What consultant?”
“Do you know Berlioz?” asked Ivan meaningfully.
“That’s… the composer?”[178]
Ivan became upset.
“What composer? Ah yes. Of course not! The composer just shares Misha Berlioz’s name.”
Ryukhin did not want to say anything, but he had to explain:
“Berlioz, the secretary of MASSOLIT, was run over by a tram this evening at Patriarch’s.”
“Don’t make things up[179] – you don’t know anything!” Ivan grew angry with Ryukhin. “It was me, not you, that was there when it happened! He deliberately set him up to go under the tram!”
“Pushed him?”
“What’s ‘pushed’ got to do with it?” exclaimed Ivan, getting angry at the general slow-wittedness. “Someone like that doesn’t even need to push! He can get up to such tricks, just you watch out! He knew in advance that Berlioz was going to go under the tram!”
“And did anyone other than you see this consultant?” “That’s precisely the trouble: it was only Berlioz and me.” “Right. And what measures did you take to catch this murderer?” Here the doctor turned and threw a glance at a woman in a white coat sitting to one side at a desk. She pulled out a sheet of paper and began filling in the empty spaces in its columns.
“Here’s what measures. I picked up a candle in the kitchen…”
“This one here?” asked the doctor, indicating the broken candle lying beside an icon on the desk in front of the woman.
“That very one, and.”
“And why the icon?”
“Well, yes, the icon.” Ivan blushed, “it was the icon that frightened them more than anything” – and he again jabbed his finger in Ryukhin’s direction – “but the thing is that he, the consultant, he. let’s talk plainly. he’s in cahoots with[180] unclean spirits. and it won’t be so simple to catch him.”
The orderlies stood to attention for some reason and did not take their eyes off Ivan.
“Yes,” continued Ivan, “he’s in cahoots! That’s an incontrovertible fact[181]. He’s spoken personally with Pontius Pilate. And there’s no reason to look at me like that! I’m telling the truth! He saw everything – the balcony, the palms. In short, he was with Pontius Pilate, I can vouch for it[182].”
“Well then, well then.”
“Well, and so I pinned the icon on my chest and ran off…”
Suddenly at this point a clock struck twice.
“Oho-ho!” exclaimed Ivan, and rose from the couch. “Two o’clock, and I’m wasting time with you! I’m sorry, where’s the telephone?”
“Let him get to the telephone,” the doctor commanded the orderlies.
Ivan grasped the receiver, and at the same time the woman quietly asked Ryukhin:
“Is he married?”
“Single,” replied Ryukhin fearfully.
“A union member?”
“Yes.”
“Is that the police?” Ivan shouted into the receiver. “Is that the police? Comrade duty officer, make arrangements immediately for five motorcycles with machine guns to be sent out to capture a foreign consultant. What? Come and pick me up, I’ll go with you myself… It’s the poet Bezdomny speaking from the madhouse… What’s your address?” Bezdomny asked the doctor in a whisper, covering the receiver with his palm, and then he again shouted into the receiver: “Are you listening? Hello!. Disgraceful!” Ivan suddenly wailed, and he flung the receiver against the wall. Then he turned to the doctor, reached out his hand to him, said drily “Goodbye” and prepared to leave.
“Pardon me, and where is it you mean to go?” began the doctor, peering into Ivan’s eyes. “In the middle of the night, in your underwear. You don’t feel well, stay here with us!”
“Now let me pass,” said Ivan to the orderlies, who had closed ranks by the doors. “Will you let me go or not?” cried the poet in a terrible voice.
Ryukhin started trembling, but the woman pressed a button in the desk, and a shiny little box and a sealed ampoule sprang out onto its glass surface.
“So that’s the way it is?!” pronounced Ivan, looking around with a wild, trapped air. “Well, all right then! Farewell!” and he flung himself head first into the curtain over the window.
There was quite a heavy crash, but the glass behind the curtain did not so much as crack, and a moment later Ivan Nikolayevich began struggling in the arms of the orderlies. He wheezed, tried to bite them, shouted:
“So that’s the sort of glass you’ve got yourselves!.. Let me go!.. Let me go!”
A syringe gleamed in the doctor’s hands; with a single yank the woman ripped the tattered sleeve of the tolstovka apart and seized hold of the arm with unfeminine strength. There was a sudden smell of ether – Ivan weakened in the arms of four people, and the dextrous doctor made use of that moment to sink the needle into Ivan’s arm. They held on to Ivan for a few more seconds and then lowered him onto the couch.
to make things up – врать; перевирать факты
to be in cahoots with – водиться, знаться с к.-л.
an incontrovertible fact – неоспоримый факт
to vouch for something – ручаться
