Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita -
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source . . .' He smiled again and Berlioz was silenced. He had just been
saying exactly the same thing to Bezdomny on their walk from Bronnaya Street
to Patriarch's Ponds.
'I agree,' answered Berlioz, ' but I'm afraid that no one is in a
position to prove the authenticity of your version either.'
'Oh yes! I can easily confirm it! ' rejoined the professor with great
confidence, lapsing into his foreign accent and mysteriously beckoning the
two friends closer. They bent towards him from both sides and he began, this
time without a trace of his accent which seemed to come and go without rhyme
or reason :
'The fact is . . .' here the professor glanced round nervously and
dropped his voice to a whisper, ' I was there myself. On the balcony with
Pontius Pilate, in the garden when he talked to Caiaphas and on the
platform, but secretly, incognito so to speak, so don't breathe a word of it
to anyone and please keep it an absolute secret, sshhh . . .'
There was silence. Berlioz went pale.
'How . . . how long did you say you'd been in Moscow? ' he asked in a
shaky voice.
'I have just this minute arrived in Moscow,' replied the professor,
slightly disconcerted. Only then did it occur to the two friends to look him
properly in the eyes. They saw that his green left eye was completely mad,
his right eye black, expressionless and dead.
'That explains it all,' thought Berlioz perplexedly. ' He's some mad
German who's just arrived or else he's suddenly gone out of his mind here at
Patriarch's. What an extraordinary business! ' This really seemed to account
for everything--the mysterious breakfast with the philosopher Kant, the
idiotic ramblings about sunflower-seed oil and Anna, the prediction about
Berlioz's head being cut off and all the rest: the professor was a lunatic.
Berlioz at once started to think what they ought to do. Leaning back on