Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (1997) -
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dish, sterlet slices interiaid with crayfish tails and fresh caviar? And
eggs en cocotte with mushroom puree in little dishes? And how did you like
the fillets of thrush? With truffles? Quail a la genoise? Nine-fifty! And
the jazz, and the courteous service! And in July, when the whole family is
in the country, and you are kept in the city by urgent literary business -
on the veranda, in the shade of the creeping vines, in a golden spot on the
cleanest of tablecloths, a bowl of soup printanier? Remember, Amvrosy? But
why ask! I can see by your lips that you do. What is your whitefish, your
perch! But the snipe, the great snipe, the jack snipe, the woodcock in their
season, the quail, the curlew? Cool seltzer fizzing in your throat?! But
enough, you are getting distracted, reader! Follow me!. . .
At half past ten on the evening when Berlioz died at the Patriarch's
Ponds, only one room was lit upstairs at Griboedov's, and in it languished
twelve writers who had gathered for a meeting and were waiting for Mikhail
Alexandrovich.
Sitting on chairs, and on tables, and even on the two window-sills in
the office of the Massolit executive board, they suffered seriously from the
heat. Not a single breath of fresh air came through the open windows. Moscow
was releasing the heat accumulated in the asphalt all day, and it was clear
that night would bring no relief. The smell of onions came from the basement
of the aunt's house, where the restaurant kitchen was at work, they were all
thirsty, they were all nervous and angry.
The belletrist Beskudnikov - a quiet, decently dressed man with
attentive and at the same rime elusive eyes - took out his watch. The hand
was crawling towards eleven. Beskudnikov tapped his finger on the face and
showed it to the poet Dvubratsky, who was sitting next to him on the table
and in boredom dangling his feet shod in yellow shoes with rubber treads.