Master and

38 Mikhail Bulgakov
the impression of being a very intelligent man.’
The secretary turned deathly pale and dropped the scroll on the floor.
‘The trouble is,’ the bound man went on, not stopped by anyone, ‘that
you are too closed off and have definitively lost faith in people. You must
agree, one can’t place all one’s affection in a dog. Your life is impoverished,
Hegemon.’ And here the speaker allowed himself to smile.
The secretary now thought of only one thing, whether to believe his
ears or not. He had to believe. Then he tried to imagine precisely what
whimsical form the wrath of the hot-tempered procurator would take at
this unheard-of impudence from the prisoner. And this the secretary was
unable to imagine, though he knew the procurator well.
Then came the cracked, hoarse voice of the procurator, who said in
Latin:
‘Unbind his hands.’
One of the convoy legionaries rapped with his spear, handed it to another,
went over and took the ropes off the prisoner. The secretary picked
up his scroll, having decided to record nothing for now, and to be surprised
at nothing.
‘Admit,’ Pilate asked softly in Greek, ‘that you are a great physician?’
‘No, Procurator, I am not a physician,’ the prisoner replied, delightedly
rubbing a crimped and swollen purple wrist.
Scowling deeply, Pilate bored the prisoner with his eyes, and these eyes
were no longer dull, but flashed with sparks familiar to all.
‘I didn’t ask you,’ Pilate said, ‘maybe you also know Latin?’
‘Yes, I do,’ the prisoner replied.
Colour came to Pilate’s yellowish cheeks, and he asked in Latin:
‘How did you know I wanted to call my dog?’
‘It’s very simple,’ the prisoner replied in Latin. ‘You were moving your
hand in the air’ - and the prisoner repeated Pilate’s gesture - ‘as if you
wanted to stroke something, and your lips...’
‘Yes,’ said Pilate.
There was silence. Then Pilate asked a question in Greek:
‘And so, you are a physician?’
‘No, no,’ the prisoner replied animatedly, ‘believe me, I’m not a physician.’
‘Very well, then, if you want to keep it a secret, do so. It has no direct
bearing on the case. So you maintain that you did not incite anyone to
destroy ... or set fire to, or in any other way demolish the temple?’
‘I repeat, I did not incite anyone to such acts, Hegemon. Do I look like
a halfwit?’