Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (1997) -
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heads, shouting hoarsely and with hatred: 'Excuse me, citizen!' Somewhere
through a megaphone a voice commanded: 'One Karsky shashlik! Two Zubrovkas!
Home-style tripe!' The high voice no longer sang, but howled 'Hallelujah!'
The clashing of golden cymbals in the band sometimes even drowned out the
clashing of dishes which the dishwashers sent down a sloping chute to the
kitchen. In short - hell.
And at midnight there came an apparition in hell. A handsome dark-eyed
man with a dagger-like beard, in a tailcoat, stepped on to the veranda and
cast a regal glance over his domain. They used to say, the mystics used to
say, that there was a time when the handsome man wore not a tailcoat but a
wide leather belt with pistol butts sticking from it, and his raven hair was
tied with scarlet silk, and under his command a brig sailed the Caribbean
under a black death flag with a skull and crossbones.
But no, no! The seductive mystics are lying, there are no Caribbean
Seas in the world, no desperate freebooters sail them, no corvette chases
after them, no cannon smoke drifts across the waves. There is nothing, and
there was nothing! There is that sickly linden over there, there is the
cast-iron fence, and the boulevard beyond it ... And the ice is melting in
the bowl, and at the next table you see someone's bloodshot, bovine eyes,
and you're afraid, afraid . . . Oh, gods, my gods, poison, bring me poison!
.. .
And suddenly a word fluttered up from some table: 'Berlioz!!' The jazz
broke up and fell silent, as if someone had hit it with a fist. 'What, what,
what, what?!!' 'Berlioz!!!' And they began jumping up, exclaiming...
Yes, a wave of grief billowed up at the terrible news about Mikhail
Alexandrovich. Someone fussed about, crying that it was necessary at once,
straight away, without leaving the spot, to compose some collective telegram