The Master and Margarita / Мастер и Маргарита. Книга для чтения на английском языке

At this point two thoughts penetrated the poet’s brain. The first: “He’s far from mad! That’s all nonsense!” And the second: “Did he perhaps arrange it all himself?!”

But permit me to ask how?!

“Oh no! That we shall find out!”

Making a great effort with himself, Ivan Nikolayevich rose from the bench and rushed back to where he had been talking with the Professor. And it turned out that, fortunately, the latter had not yet left.

On Bronnaya the street lamps had already lit up, and above Patriarch’s the golden moon was shining, and in the always deceptive moonlight it seemed to Ivan Nikolayevich that the man was standing there holding not a cane under his arm, but a rapier.

The retired precentor-cum-trickster was sitting in the very spot where Ivan Nikolayevich had himself just recently been sitting. Now the precentor fastened onto his nose an obviously unnecessary pince-nez, which had one lens missing completely and the other cracked. This made the citizen in checks even more repulsive than he had been when showing Berlioz the way to the rails.

With his heart turning cold, Ivan approached the Professor and, looking into his face, satisfied himself that there were not, and had not been, any signs of madness in that face at all.

“Confess, who are you?” asked Ivan in a muffled voice[134 - in a muffled voice – глухим голосом].

The foreigner knitted his brows, gave a look as if he were seeing the poet for the first time and replied with hostility:

“No understand… no speak Russian…”

“The gentleman doesn’t understand!” the precentor chimed in from the bench, though nobody had actually asked him to explain the foreigner’s words.

“Stop pretending!” Ivan said sternly, and felt a chill in the pit of his stomach. “You were speaking excellent Russian just now. You’re not a German or a professor! You’re a murderer and a spy! Your papers!” Ivan cried fiercely.

The enigmatic Professor twisted in disgust a mouth that was twisted enough already and shrugged his shoulders.

“Citizen!” the loathsome precentor butted in[135 - to butt in – встревать в разговор] again. “What are you doing, disturbing a foreign tourist? You’ll be called to account most severely for this!” And the suspicious Professor pulled a haughty face, turned and started to walk away from Ivan.

Ivan sensed he was losing his self-control.