here? He’s normal, normal, only his mug got scratched ...’
‘You are,’ the doctor began calmly, sitting down on a white stool with a shiny foot, ‘not in a madhouse, but in a clinic, where no one will keep you if it’s not necessary.’
Ivan Nikolaevich glanced at him mistrustfully out of the comer of his eye, but still grumbled:
‘Thank the Lord! One normal man has finally turned up among the idiots, of whom the first is that giftless goof Sashka!’
‘Who is this giftless Sashka?’ the doctor inquired.
This one here - Riukhin,‘ Ivan replied, jabbing his dirty finger in Riukhin’s direction.
The latter flushed with indignation. ‘That’s the thanks I get,’ he thought bitterly, ‘for showing concern for him! What trash, really!’
‘Psychologically, a typical little kulak,’2 Ivan Nikolaevich began, evidently from an irresistible urge to denounce Riukhin, ‘and, what’s more, a little kulak carefully disguising himself as a proletarian. Look at his lenten physiognomy, and compare it with those resounding verses he wrote for the First of May3 — heh, heh, heh ... “Soaring up!” and “Soaring down!!” But if you could look inside him and see what he thinks ... you’d gasp!’ And Ivan Nikolaevich burst into sinister laughter.
Riukhin was breathing heavily, turned red, and thought of just one thing, that he had warmed a serpent on his breast, that he had shown concern for a man who turned out to be a vicious enemy. And, above all, there was nothing to be done: there’s no arguing with the mentally ill!
‘And why, actually, were you brought here?’ the doctor asked, after listening attentively to Homeless’s denunciations.
‘Devil take them, the numskulls! They seized me, tied me up with some rags, and dragged me away in a truck!’
‘May I ask why you came to the restaurant in just your underwear?’
‘There’s nothing surprising about that,’ Ivan replied. ‘I went for a swim in the Moscow River, so they filched my clothes and left me this trash! I couldn’t very well walk around Moscow naked! I put it on because I was hurrying to Griboedov’s restaurant.’
The doctor glanced questioningly at Riukhin, who muttered glumly:
‘The name of the restaurant.’
‘Aha,’ said the doctor, ‘and why were you in such a hurry? Some business meeting?’
‘I’m trying to catch the consultant,’ Ivan Nikolaevich said and looked around anxiously.
‘What consultant?’
‘Do you know Berlioz?’ Ivan asked significantly.
‘The ... composer?’
Ivan got upset.
‘What composer? Ah, yes ... Ah, no. The composer has the same name as Misha Berlioz.’
Riukhin had no wish to say anything, but was forced to explain:
‘The secretary of Massolit, Berlioz, was run over by a tram-car tonight at the Patriarch’s Ponds.’
‘Don’t blab about what you don’t know!’ Ivan got angry with Riukhin. ‘I was there, not you! He got him under the tram-car on purpose!’
‘Pushed him?’
‘“Pushed him”, nothing!’ Ivan exclaimed, angered by the general obtuseness. ‘His kind don’t need to push! He can perform such stunts - hold on to your hat! He knew beforehand that Berlioz would get under the tram-car!’
‘And did anyone besides you see this consultant?’
‘That’s the trouble, it was just Berlioz and I.’
‘So. And what measures did you take to catch this murderer?’ Here the doctor turned and sent a glance towards a woman in a white coat, who was sitting at a table to one side. She took out a sheet of paper and began filling in the blank spaces in its columns.
‘Here’s what measures: I took a little candle from the kitchen ...’
‘That one?’ asked the doctor, pointing to the broken candle lying on the table in front of the woman, next to the icon.
That very one, and ...‘
‘And why the icon?’
‘Ah, yes, the icon ...’ Ivan blushed. ‘It was the icon that frightened them most of all.’ He again jabbed his finger in the direction of Riukhin. ‘But the thing is that he, the consultant, he ... let’s speak directly ... is mixed up with the unclean powers ... and you won’t catch him so easily.’
The orderlies for some reason snapped to attention and fastened their eyes on Ivan.
‘Yes, sirs,’ Ivan went on, ‘mixed up with them! An absolute fact. He spoke personally with Pontius Pilate. And there’s no need to stare at me like that. I’m telling the truth! He saw everything - the balcony and the palm trees. In short, he was at Pontius Pilate’s, I can vouch for it.‘
‘Come, come...’
‘Well, so I pinned the icon on my chest and ran...’
