The Master and Margarita

CHAPTER 11. Ivan Splits in Two       The woods on the opposite bank of the river, sdll lit up by the May sunan hour earlier, turned dull, smeary, and dissolved.     Water  fell  down  in a  solid sheet  outside  the  window. In the sky,threads flashed every moment, the sky kept bursting open, and the  patient'sroom was flooded with a tremulous, frightening light.     Ivan  quietly  wept,  sitting on his bed  and looking  out at the muddyriver boiling with bubbles. At every clap of thunder, he cried out pitifullyand  buried his face in his  hands.  Pages covered  with Ivan's writing  layabout on the floor. They had been blown down by the wind that flew  into theroom before the storm began.     The  poet's  attempts  to write  a statement  concerning  the  terribleconsultant had gone  nowhere. As soon as  he got  the  pencil stub and paperfrom the fat  attendant, whose name  was Praskovya Fyodorovna, he rubbed hishands  in a business-like way  and  hastily settled  himself  at  the littletable. The beginning came out quite glibly.     To  the  police.  From Massolit  member Ivan  Nikolaevich  Homeless.  Astatement.  Yesterday  evening  I came  to the  Patriarch's  Ponds with  thedeceased M. A. Berlioz . ..'     And  right there  the  poet  got  confused, mainly  owing  to  the word'deceased'.  Some nonsensicality  emerged at once: what's this  -- came withthe deceased? The deceased don't go  anywhere! Really, for all he knew, theymight take him for a madman!     Having reflected  thus,  Ivan Nikolaevich  began to correct what he hadwritten.  What  came  out  this  time  was:  '.  .  . with  M.  A.  Berlioz,subsequently deceased . . .' This did not satisfy the author either. He  hadto have recourse to  a third  redaction, which proved still worse  than  thefirst two: 'Berlioz, who fell  under the tram-car . ..' - and that  namesakecomposer, unknown to anyone,  "was also dangling here, so he had to  put in:'not the composer . . .'     After suffering over these two Berliozes, Ivan  crossed it  all out anddecided to begin right off with  something very strong, in order  to attractthe  reader's  attention  at once, so  he  wrote  that a  cat had  got on  atram-car, and then went back to the episode with the severed head. The  headand  the consultant's  prediction led  him to the thought of Pontius Pilate,and for  greater  conviction  Ivan  decided  to tell  the whole story of theprocurator  in full, from the moment  he walked out in his white cloak  withblood-red lining to the colonnade of Herod's palace.     Ivan  worked assiduously, crossing out what he had written,  putting innew words, and even attempted to draw Pontius Pilate and then a cat standingon its  hind  legs. But the  drawings did not help, and the further it went,the more confusing and incomprehensible the poet's statement became.     By the time the frightening cloud with smoking edges appeared from  faroff and covered the woods, and the wind began to blow, Ivan felt that he wasstrengthless, that he would never be able to manage with the statement,  andhe  would not pick up the scattered pages, and he wept quietly and bitterly.The  good-natured nurse Praskovya Fyodorovna visited  the  poet  during  thestorm, became alarmed on seeing him  weeping, closed the  blinds so that thelightning  would  not frighten the patient,  picked up the  pages  from  thefloor, and ran with them for the doctor.     He came, gave  Ivan an injection in the  arm, and  assured him that  hewould not weep any  more, that everything would  pass  now, everything wouldchange, everything would be forgotten.     The  doctor proved  right.  Soon  the  woods across the river became asbefore. It was outlined to the last tree under the sky, which cleared to itsformer perfect blue, and the  river  grew calm. Anguish  had begun to  leaveIvan right after the injection, and  now the  poet  lay calmly and looked atthe rainbow that stretched across the sky.     So it  went till evening,  and he  did not  even notice how the rainbowmelted away, how the sky saddened and faded, how the woods turned black.     Having drunk  some hot milk, Ivan lay down again and  marvelled himselfat how changed his thinking was. The  accursed, demonic cat somehow softenedin  his  memory,  the  severed head did  not  frighten  him  any more,  and,abandoning all thought of it, Ivan  began to  reflect  that, essentially, itwas not so bad in the clinic, that Stravinsky was a  clever man and a famousone,  and it was quite pleasant to deal with him. Besides,  the  evening airwas sweet and fresh after the storm.     The house of sorrow was  falling asleep. In quiet corridors the frostedwhite lights went out, and in  their place, according to regulations,  faintblue night-lights were lit, and the careful steps  of  attendants were heardmore and more rarely on the rubber matting of the corridor outside the door.     Now Ivan  lay in sweet languor,  glancing at the lamp  under its shade,shedding a softened light from  the ceiling, then at the moon  rising behindthe black woods, and conversed with himself.     'Why,  actually,  did I get so  excited  about  Berlioz falling under atram-car?' the poet reasoned. 'In  the final analysis, let him sink! What amI, in  fact, his chum or in-law? If we air the question  properly,  it turnsout that, in essence, I really did not even know the deceased. What, indeed,did I know about him? Nothing except that he was bald and terribly eloquent.And furthermore, citizens,' Ivan continued his speech, addressing someone orother,  'let's  sort  this  out:  why, tell  me,  did I get furious  at thismysterious consultant, magician and professor with the black and  empty eye?Why  all this  absurd chase after him in underpants and with  a candle in myhand, and then those wild shenanigans in the restaurant?'     'Uh-uh-uh!' the  former  Ivan suddenly  said sternly  somewhere, eitherinside  or over his  ear,  to  the new  Ivan. 'He  did  know beforehand thatBerlioz's head would be cut off, didn't he? How could I not get excited?'     'What are  we talking  about, comrades?' the  new Ivan objected  to theold, former Ivan. That things  are not  quite  proper here, even a child canunderstand.  He's  a one-hundred-per-cent outstanding and mysterious person!But  that's  the most interesting thing!  The man was  personally acquaintedwith Pontius Pilate, what could be more  interesting than that? And, insteadof  raising  a  stupid  rumpus  at  the Ponds, wouldn't  it  have  been moreintelligent  to question him  politely about what  happened further  on withPilate  and his  prisoner Ha-Nozri?  And I started devil knows what! A majoroccurrence, really - a  magazine editor gets run over! And  so, what, is themagazine going to shut down for that? Well, what can  be done  about it? Manis mortal and, as has rightly  been said, unexpectedly mortal. Well,  may herest  in  peace!  Well, so there'll be  another  editor, and maybe even moreeloquent than the previous one!'     After  dozing  for  a  while,  the  new   Ivan  asked   the  old   Ivansarcastically:     'And what does it make me, in that case?'     'A fool!' a bass voice said distinctly somewhere, a voice not belongingto either of the Ivans and extremely like the bass of the consultant.     Ivan, for  some reason not  offended  by  the  word  'fool',  but  evenpleasantly  surprised  at  it,  smiled  and drowsily grew  quiet.  Sleep wasstealing  over  Ivan,  and  he  was  already  picturing a  palm tree on  itselephant's leg, and a cat passing by - not scary, but merry - and, in short,sleep  was  just about to  come  over  Ivan, when the  grille suddenly movednoiselessly aside, and  a  mysterious figure appeared on the balcony, hidingfrom the moonlight, and shook its finger at Ivan.     Not frightened in the least, Ivan sat  up in bed and saw that there wasa  man  on  the balcony.  And  this  man,  pressing  a finger  to  his lips,whispered:     'Shhh!...'