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

At this point the second strange thing occurred, concerning Berlioz alone. He suddenly stopped hiccuping; his heart gave a thump[9 - heart gave a thump – сердце встрепенулось] and disappeared somewhere for a moment, then returned, but with a blunt needle lodged in it. Moreover, Berlioz was seized by terror – groundless, but so powerful that he felt the urge to flee from Patriarch’s Ponds at once without a backward glance.

Berlioz glanced back in anguish, unable to understand what had frightened him.

He turned pale, mopped his brow with his handkerchief and thought: “What is the matter with me? This has never happened before… my heart’s playing up… I’m overtired. Maybe it’s time to let everything go to the devil and be off to Kislovodsk…”

And then the sultry air thickened before him, and out of this air was woven a transparent citizen of very strange appearance. On his little head a jockey’s peaked cap, a little checked jacket – tight, and airy too. a citizen almost seven feet tall, but narrow in the shoulders, unbelievably thin, and a physiognomy, I beg you to note, that was mocking[10 - mocking physiognomy – глумливая физиономия].

Berlioz’s life had been shaped in such a way that he was not used to extraordinary phenomena. Turning still paler, he opened his eyes wide and thought in confusion: “It can’t be!.”

But, alas, it could, and the lanky citizen you could see through swayed to both left and right in front of him without touching the ground.

At this point Berlioz was horror-stricken[11 - horror-stricken – охваченный ужасом] to such a degree that he closed his eyes. And when he opened them, he saw that everything was over, the mirage had dissolved, the one in checks had vanished, and at the same time the blunt needle had dropped out of his heart.

“Well, I’ll be damned!” exclaimed the editor. “You know, Ivan, I almost had a seizure[12 - to have a seizure – получить удар] just now because of the heat! There was even something like a hallucination…” He tried to grin, but alarm was still dancing in his eyes, and his hands were trembling.

However, he gradually calmed down, fanned himself with his handkerchief and, saying quite brightly, “Well, and so.” he renewed the speech that had been interrupted by the drinking of the apricot squash.

This speech, as was learnt subsequently, was about Jesus Christ.