‘You’ve already tried, and that will do for you,’ the guest replied ironically. ‘I don’t advise others to try either. And as for being up to something, rest assured, he will be! Ah, ah! But how annoying that it was you who met him and not I. Though it’s all burned up, and the coals have gone to ashes, still, I swear, for that meeting I’d give Praskovya Fyodorovna’s bunch of keys, for I have nothing else to give. I’m destitute.’
‘But what do you need him for?’
The guest paused ruefully for a long time and twitched, but finally spoke:
‘You see, it’s such a strange story, I’m sitting here for the same reason you are - namely, on account of Pontius Pilate.’ Here the guest looked around fearfully and said: ‘The thing is that a year ago I wrote a novel about Pilate.’
‘You’re a writer?’ the poet asked with interest.
The guest’s face darkened and he threatened Ivan with his fist, then said:
‘I am a master.’ He grew stem and took from the pocket of his dressing-gown a completely greasy black cap with the letter ‘M’ embroidered on it in yellow silk. He put this cap on and showed himself to Ivan both in profile and full face, to prove that he was a master. ’She sewed it for me with her own hands,‘ he added mysteriously.
‘And what is your name?’
‘I no longer have a name,’ the strange guest answered with gloomy disdain. ‘I renounced it, as I generally did everything in life. Let’s forget it.’
Then at least tell me about the novel,‘ Ivan asked delicately.
‘If you please, sir. My life, it must be said, has taken a not very ordinary course,’ the guest began.
... A historian by education, he had worked until two years ago at one of the Moscow museums, and, besides that, had also done translations.
‘From what languages?’ Ivan interrupted curiously.
‘I know five languages besides my own,’ replied the guest, ‘English, French, German, Latin and Greek. Well, I can also read Italian a little.’
‘Oh, my!’ Ivan whispered enviously.
... The historian had lived solitarily, had no family anywhere and almost no acquaintances in Moscow. And, just think, one day he won a hundred thousand roubles.
‘Imagine my astonishment,’ the guest in the black cap whispered, ‘when I put my hand in the basket of dirty laundry and, lo and behold, it had the same number as in the newspaper. A state bond,’1 he explained, ‘they gave it to me at the museum.’
... Having won a hundred thousand roubles, Ivan’s mysterious guest acted thus: bought books, gave up his room on Myasnitskaya ...
‘Ohh, that accursed hole! ...’ he growled.
... and rented from a builder, in a lane near the Arbat, two rooms in the basement of a little house in the garden. He left his work at the museum and began writing a novel about Pontius Pilate.
‘Ah, that was a golden age!’ the narrator whispered, his eyes shining. ‘A completely private little apartment, plus a front hall with a sink in it,’ he underscored for some reason with special pride, ‘little windows just level with the paved walk leading from the gate. Opposite, only four steps away, near the fence, lilacs, a linden and a maple. Ah, ah, ah! In winter it was very seldom that I saw someone’s black feet through my window and heard the snow crunching under them. And in my stove a fire was eternally blazing! But suddenly spring came and through the dim glass I saw lilac bushes, naked at first, then dressing themselves up in green. And it was then, last spring, that something happened far more delightful than getting a hundred thousand roubles. And that, you must agree, is a huge sum of money!’
That’s true,‘ acknowledged the attentively listening Ivan.
‘I opened my little windows and sat in the second, quite minuscule room.’ The guest began measuring with his arms: ‘Here’s the sofa, and another sofa opposite, and a little table between them, with a beautiful night lamp on it, and books nearer the window, and here a small writing table, and in the first room - a huge room, one hundred and fifty square feet! — books, books and the stove. Ah, what furnishings I had! The extraordinary smell of the lilacs! And my head was getting light with fatigue, and Pilate was flying to the end ...’
‘White mantle, red lining! I understand!’ Ivan exclaimed.
