Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita (1997) -
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somewhere to the side, and an omnium gatherum came spilling to meet the
truck: fences with sentry boxes and stacks of wood, tall posts and some sort
of poles, with spools strung on the poles, heaps of rubble, the earth scored
by canals -- in short, you sensed that she was there, Moscow, right there,
around the turn, and about to heave herself upon you and engulf you.
Riukhin was jolted and tossed about; the sort of stump he had placed
himself on kept trying to slide out from under him. The restaurant napkins,
thrown in by the policeman and Pantelei, who had left earlier by bus, moved
all around the flatbed. Riukhin tried to collect them, but then, for some
reason hissing spitefully: 'Devil take them! What am I doing fussing like a
fool? ...', he spumed them aside with his foot and stopped looking at them.
The rider's state of mind was terrible. It was becoming clear that his
visit to the house of sorrow had left the deepest mark on him. Riukhin tried
to understand what was tormenting him. The corridor with blue lights, which
had stuck itself to his memory? The thought that there is no greater
misfortune in the world than the loss of reason? Yes, yes, of course, that,
too. But that - that's only a general thought. There's something else. What
is it? An insult, that's what. Yes, yes, insulting words hurled right in his
face by Homeless. And the trouble is not that they were insulting, but that
there was truth in them.
The poet no longer looked around, but, staring into the dirty, shaking
floor, began muttering something, whining, gnawing at himself.
Yes, poetry ... He was thirty-two years old! And, indeed, what then? So
then he would go on writing his several poems a year. Into old age? Yes,
into old age. What would these poems bring him? Glory? 'What nonsense! Don't
deceive yourself, at least. Glory will never come to someone who writes bad