Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (1997) -
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then smiled maliciously.
'Locked me up after all,' he said, yawned again, unexpectedly lay down,
put his head on the pillow, his fist under his head like a child, and
muttered now in a sleepy voice, without malice: 'Very well, then ... you'll
pay for it yourselves ... I've warned you, you can do as you like ... I'm
now interested most of all in Pontius Pilate ... Pilate ...', and he closed
his eyes.
'A bath, a private room, number 117, and a nurse to watch him,' the
doctor ordered as he put his glasses on. Here Riukhin again gave a start:
the white door opened noiselessly, behind it a corridor could be seen, lit
by blue night-lights. Out of the corridor rolled a stretcher on rubber
wheels, to which the quieted Ivan was transferred, and then he rolled off
down the corridor and the door closed behind him.
'Doctor,' the shaken Riukhin asked in a whisper, 'it means he's really
ill?'
'Oh, yes,' replied the doctor.
'But what's wrong with him, then?' Riukhin asked timidly.
The tired doctor glanced at Riukhin and answered listlessly:
'Locomotor and speech excitation . . . delirious interpretations ... A
complex case, it seems. Schizophrenia, I suppose. Plus this alcoholism . .
.'
Riukhin understood nothing from the doctor's words, except that things
were evidently not so great with Ivan Nikolaevich. He sighed and asked:
'But what's all this talk of his about some consultant?'
'He must have seen somebody who struck his disturbed imagination. Or
maybe a hallucination ...'
A few minutes later the truck was carrying Riukhin off to Moscow. Day
was breaking, and the light of the street lights still burning along the
highway was now unnecessary and unpleasant. The driver was vexed at having
wasted the night, drove the truck as fast as he could, and skidded on the
turns.
Now the woods dropped off, stayed somewhere behind, and the river went