Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (1997) -
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to it. The good people fell on him like dogs on a bear. There were German!
fastened on his neck, his arms, his legs. The infantry maniple was
encircled, and if one flank hadn't been cut by a cavalry turm, of which I
was the commander -- you, philosopher, would not have had the chance to
speak with the Ratslayer. That was at the battle of
Idistaviso,[20] in the Valley of the Virgins.'
'If I could speak with him,' the prisoner suddenly said musingly, 'I'm
sure he'd change sharply.'
'I don't suppose,' Pilate responded, 'that you'd bring much joy to the
legate of the legion if you decided to talk with any of his officers or
soldiers. Anyhow, it's also not going to happen, fortunately for everyone,
and I will be the first to see to it.'
At that moment a swallow swiftly flitted into the colonnade, described
a circle under the golden ceiling, swooped down, almost brushed the face of
a bronze statue in a niche with its pointed wing, and disappeared behind the
capital of a column. It may be that it thought of nesting there.
During its flight, a formula took shape in the now light and lucid head
of the procurator. It went like this: the hegemon has looked into the case
of the vagrant philosopher Yeshua, alias Ha-Nozri, and found in it no
grounds for indictment. In particular, he has found not the slightest
connection between the acts of Yeshua and the disorders that have lately
taken place in Yershalaim. The vagrant philosopher has proved to be mentally
ill. Consequently, the procurator has not confirmed the death sentence on
Ha-Nozri passed by the Lesser Sanhedrin. But seeing that Ha-Nozri's mad
Utopian talk might cause disturbances in Yershalaim, the procurator is
removing Yeshua from Yershalaim and putting him under confinement in
Stratonian Caesarea on the Mediterranean - that is, precisely where the