Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (1997) -
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behind its casing. Under the big icon, pinned to it, hung a little one made
of paper.
No one knows what thought took hold of Ivan here, but before running
out the back door, he appropriated one of these candles, as well as the
paper icon. With these objects, he left the unknown apartment, muttering
something, embarrassed at the thought of what he had just experienced in the
bathroom, involuntarily trying to guess who this impudent Kiriushka might be
and whether the disgusting hat with ear-flaps belonged to him.
In the desolate, joyless lane the poet looked around, searching for the
fugitive, but he was nowhere to be seen. Then Ivan said firmly to himself:
'Why, of course, he's at the Moscow River! Onward!'
Someone ought, perhaps, to have asked Ivan Nikolaevich why he supposed
that the professor was precisely at the Moscow River and not in some other
place. But the trouble was that there was no one to ask him. The loathsome
lane was completely empty.
In the very shortest time, Ivan Nikolaevich could be seen on the
granite steps of the Moscow River amphitheatre.[3]
Having taken off his clothes, Ivan entrusted them to a pleasant,
bearded fellow who was smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, sitting beside a
torn white Tolstoy blouse and a pair of unlaced, worn boots. After waving
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