Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (1997) -
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little over forty. Mouth somehow twisted. Clean-shaven. Dark-haired. Right
eye black, left -- for some reason -- green. Dark eyebrows, but one higher
than the other. In short, a foreigner.[14]
Having passed by the bench on which the editor and the poet were
placed, the foreigner gave them a sidelong look, stopped, and suddenly sat
down on the next bench, two steps away from the friends.
'A German . . .' thought Berlioz. 'An Englishman . . .' thought
Homeless. 'My, he must be hot in those gloves.'
And the foreigner gazed around at the tall buildings that rectangularly
framed the pond, making it obvious that he was seeing the place for the
first time and that it interested him. He rested his glance on the upper
floors, where the glass dazzlinglv reflected the broken-up sun which was for
ever departing from Mikhail Alexandrovich, then shifted it lower down to
where the windows were beginning to darken before evening, smiled
condescendingly at something, narrowed his eves, put his hands on the knob
and his chin on his hands.
'For instance, Ivan,' Berlioz was saying, 'you portrayed the birth of
Jesus, the son of God, very well and satirically, but the gist of it is that
a whole series of sons of God were born before Jesus, like, say, the
Phoenician Adonis,[15] the Phrygian Atris,[16] the
Persian Mithras.[17] And, to put it briefly, not one of them was
born or ever existed, Jesus included, and what's necessary is that, instead
of portraying his birth or, suppose, the coming of the Magi,'[8]
you portray the absurd rumours of their coming. Otherwise it follows from
your story that he really was born! . . .'
Here Homeless made an attempt to stop his painful hiccuping by holding
his breath, which caused him to hiccup more painfully and loudly, and at