Жил-был Козявин

a film by Andrei Khrzhanovsky
screenplay by Lazar Lagin and Gennady Shpalikov
based on a short story by Lazar Lagin
music by German Lukyanov

It’s a (not so) little miracle that this surrealist 1966 animation was released at all, the Thaw notwithstanding. Not only that: Khrzhanovsky’s debut film was his only work to be released without any amendments or alterations (mutilations). Written by Lazar Lagin (the author of The Old Genie Hottabych) and Gennady Shpalikov (Walking the Streets of Moscow) and featuring “noise music” jazz by German Lukyanov, a Pythonesque story and aesthetics predating Monty Python itself — an absolute classic that aged surprisingly well.

Zafari

a film by Mariana Rondón
screenplay by Mariana Rondón and Marité Ugás

I went to see the closing screening of this year’s Ibértigo, expecting to see a bit of comedy. Well Wikipedia says “dystopian black comedy-drama”, surely it must have some comedy in it?

Not really. There was not a single moment that made me laugh. So it doesn’t count.

Even so, Zafari was well worth watching. The film’s setting — the apartment block, its swimming pool and a neighboouring zoo — is a microcosm of an unnamed Latin American country clearly inspired by the director’s motherland, Venezuela. Things ain’t going well and the arrival of Zafari the hippo doesn’t help... Prepare to be disturbed, but — the only spoiler I’ll give you — there is a glimpse of hope, if not exactly an happy end, for the protagonist. Starring Daniela Ramírez, Francisco Denis and Samantha Castillo.

The Unconsoled

by Kazuo Ishiguro

This is the third and so far the most difficult novel of Ishiguro I read. It took me about six weeks to finish it.

If comic episodes and repetitive dialogues of A Pale View of Hills are charming, here they take most of the space — and become tiresome. Was it really necessary to include everything the most mediocre characters say? Ishiguro himself provides great examples of how to deal with that: “For a while he went on uttering such empty phrases” or “continued in this vein for a while longer, but I had stopped listening”. The book ended just as I started to enjoy it. Bother.

The Unconsoled was published 30 years ago and, according to Wikipedia, was not received very well at the time. Now it is considered to be a masterpiece. I hope to re-read it a few years from now, perhaps even at a slower pace.

As I started to read the book during the Women’s Euro 2025, which I followed closely, the story of Number Nine — a favourite toy football player of Boris, the protagonist’s stepson — resonated with me.

‘Number Nine’ belonged to Boris’s very favourite team, and was by far the most gifted of the players. However, for all his immense skill, Number Nine was a highly moody personality. His position in the team was somewhere in midfield, but often, for long stretches of a match, he would sulk in some obscure part of the pitch, apparently oblivious of the fact that his team was losing badly. Sometimes, Number Nine would continue in this lethargic manner for over an hour, so that his team would go four, five, six goals down, and the commentator — for indeed there was a commentator — would say in a mystified voice: ‘Number Nine so far just hasn’t found his form. I don’t quite know what’s wrong.’ Then, perhaps with twenty minutes remaining, Number Nine would finally give a glimpse of his true ability, pulling back a goal for his side with some fine piece of skill. ‘That’s more like it!’ the commentator would exclaim. ‘At last, Number Nine shows what he can do!’ From that moment on, Number Nine’s form would grow steadily stronger, until before long he would be scoring one goal after another, and the opposing team would be concentrating entirely on preventing at virtually any cost Number Nine receiving the ball. But sooner or later he would, and then, no matter how many opponents stood between him and the goalmouth, he would manage to find a way through to score. Soon the inevitability of the outcome once he had received the ball was such that the commentator would say: ‘It’s a goal,’ in tones of resigned admiration, not when the ball actually went into the net, but at the moment Number Nine first gained possession — even if this occurred deep within his own half.

Incidentally, Spain’s own Number Nine, Esther González, with four goals, won the Top Scorer award of the tournament.

The Nurse’s Song / Песня няни президента США

by Roald Dahl
translated by Mark Freidkin

This poem appears in Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, which I read last time some 20 years ago. I completely forgot about the POTUS and his nanny appearing there until I, quite by chance, came across the page of wonderful Roald Dahl translations by Mark Freidkin — yes, the very same translator of «Книга бессмыслиц». Enjoy!

Roald Dahl The Nurse’s Song

Роальд Даль, перевод Марка Фрейдкина Песня няни президента США

This mighty man of whom I sing, The greatest of them all, Was once a teeny little thing, Just eighteen inches tall. I knew him as a tiny tot, I nursed him on my knee. I used to sit him on the pot And wait for him to wee. I always washed between his toes, And cut his little nails. I brushed his hair and wiped his nose And weighed him on the scales. Through happy childhood days he strayed, As all nice children should. I smacked him when he disobeyed, And stopped when he was good. It soon began to dawn on me He wasn’t very bright, Because when he was twenty-three He couldn’t read or write. “What shall we do?” his parents sob. “The boy has got the vapors! He couldn’t even get a job Delivering the papers!” “Ah-ha,” I said, “this little clot Could be a politician.” “Nanny,” he cried, “Oh Nanny, what A super proposition!” “Okay,” I said, “let’s learn and note The art of politics. Let’s teach you how to miss the boat And how to drop some bricks, And how to win the people’s vote And lots of other tricks. Let’s learn to make a speech a day Upon the TV screen, In which you never never say Exactly what you mean. And most important, by the way, Is not to let your teeth decay, And keep your fingers clean.” And now that I am eighty nine, It’s too late to repent. The fault was mine the little swine Became the President.

Великой нации отец, Что всем нам так знаком, Когда-то был совсем малец, Под стол ходил пешком. Он был малявка, просто тля. Его (коль он хотел) Я на горшок сажала для Больших и малых дел. Его купала я не раз, Чтоб мальчик лучше рос, И утирала что ни час Его сопливый нос. И чтобы детство день за днём Безоблачней текло, Ему всыпала я ремнём По первое число. Ведь был он (стоит ли скрывать?) Не вундеркинд — о нет! И сколько будет пятью пять, Узнал лишь в двадцать лет. «Как парень дальше будет жить? — Все недоумевали. — Ведь и газеты разносить Возьмут его едва ли!» Но я сказала: «Не беда, Что мальчик прост немного. Таким в политике всегда Открытая дорога!» Он знает, как попасть впросак Расчётливо и метко, И наломать дрова мастак, Каких увидишь редко, И элегантен, как верстак, И туп, как табуретка. Он может чушь пороть подряд И два, и три часа, Что очень важно, говорят, В борьбе за голоса. Плюс строгий галстук, честный взгляд, Зубов здоровых ровный ряд — Они в день выборов творят Большие чудеса. И в результате тех чудес (А здесь лишь я виною) Через Конгресс пролез балбес Руководить страною.

To put both poems into historical context: Dahl’s novel was published in 1972. The book «Детские бестселлеры» contaning its Russian translation appeared in 2001. Of course, Dahl and Freidkin were thinking of different presidents. Which president do you think of?

The Birdcage

a film by Mike Nichols
screenplay by Elaine May

Like Heaven Can Wait, this comedy is a remake. Which proves the point that a remake also could be fun — especially when (re)made by the great Nichols and May. Unencumbered by comparisons with the French movie, I enjoyed The Birdcage on its own right. Starring Robin Williams, Nathan Lane, Gene Hackman, Dianne Wiest, Christine Baranski and Hank Azaria.

Coonskin

a film by Ralph Bakshi

Ralph Bakshi’s third feature looks like a combination of Fritz the Cat (animals) and Heavy Traffic (humans and live action). Finally, some sort of coherent plot, which makes the film actually watchable without constant thinking of when it’s gonna end. There is marginally less violence than in his two previous efforts and practically no sex — I wish this was the other way round. For me, Coonskin was the least offensive one of the three Bakshi’s films I’ve seen so far. Or maybe I’m developing tolerance to this stuff.

Heavy Traffic

a film by Ralph Bakshi

The same checklist here as in Bakshi’s debut feature, plus some clumsy live action and pinball. Heavy Traffic mostly consists of zoomorphic humanoids, not too different from anthropomorphic beasts of Fritz the Cat but uglier. The only attractive character is Carole (Beverly Hope Atkinson). What did she find in Michael the pinball-not-exacty-wizard (Fritz 2.0? Future Bakshi?) is anyone’s guess. The soundtrack is really good, would be even better without Scarborough Fair.

Fritz the Cat

a film by Ralph Bakshi

Sex, drugs, rock’n’roll, profanity, graphic violence, politically incorrect jokes — in other words, “something to offend just about everyone”. I must say Fritz the Cat didn’t offend me that much. Perhaps it haven’t aged that well then. The thing is, at 78 munutes, the film is way too long for the message, if there was any. I don’t mind sex between anthropomorphic barnyard animals, I’d appreciate (proportionally) more rock’n’roll, and I really could live with less violence. Cut it to 20 minutes, I say, and we’ll talk. Of course, Billie Holiday and Bo Diddley are great. Some of them jokes still work —

We interrupt the Israeli–Arab war for this special announcement. The President, after conferring with Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir, has agreed to send more arms to Israel, based on the return of New York City and Los Angeles to the United States.

— and some of them don’t. “Radical left”, what radical left? By now, there’s no left left in the US.

Even bigger problem for me is that I didn’t find the protagonist lovable, or charismatic, or interesting in any way. The only character I sympathised with was Harriet the horse, maybe because she reminded me of the donkey from The Bremen Town Musicians.

Fritz the Cat opens the cycle Ralph Bakshi: Urban Noir organised by Filmoteca Canaria and Tenerife Noir.

Solo quería bailar

by Greta García

Скучно вам, серые? Щас я накапаю Правду на смирные ваши мозги! Юрий Шевчук, «Террорист»

How come that just after watching Darling I went to the library and randomly picked up the book whose protagonist is, once again, a classical ballet dancer? Really, I am not that interested in ballet. Good news: turns out, the novel is not about ballet at all. It is about a classical ballet dancer turned terrorist — not a very successful one, much to her and my regret.

A little spoiler here.

Slide

a film by Bill Plympton

Ah, if only they’ve made it four times shorter, this film would have been just perfect. Never mind the ridiculous plot or a yawning absence of likeable characters (maybe apart from some moles sticking out of the ground). It’s 80 minutes of country and western music that will destroy your faith in humanity, if you still have one.

Primavera para Madrid

by Magius

Oh, the shining. “Take me!”, it called to me from the library shelf. “Take me with you!” This book just couldn’t be ignored. “Take me and read me!” I had to obey. That’s how, I suppose, it won the 2021 National Comic Award.

Of course, any resemblance to actual persons, companies or events is purely coincidental. It’s Banka, not Bankia. It’s Prince of Cantabria Award, not Prince of Asturias Award. It’s not the Emeritus, just some other guy killing elephants somewhere in Africa. And all these corrupt politicians are the other corrupt politicians, not those you thought. (Madrid is still Madrid though, right?)

In words of its publisher, Autsaider Cómics: “Impreso íntegramente sobre papel oro para reflejar el obsceno derroche de nuestros amados líderes” (“Printed entirely on gold paper to reflect the obscene squandering by our beloved leaders”).

La muerte de Stalin

by Fabien Nury and Thierry Robin
afterword by Jean-Jacques Marie
translated by Unai Velasco

This edition combines both volumes of the original comic. Compared to its film adaptation, the book is more historically accurate. The tragicomic figure of Vasily Stalin is given extra space (and sympathy). Beria’s final internal monologue brings the story to closure — something I felt was missing from the movie.

The Death of Stalin

a film by Armando Iannucci

Timur was talking about this film for a while. Finally, he’s got it from the library, so we watched it last weekend.

There’s no point in looking for historical (in)accuracies in satirical fiction. Compressing Stalin’s death (5 March 1953), the arrest (26 June 1953) and execution (23 December 1953) of Beria in just few days seems to me totally legitimate. So is Svetlana’s (Andrea Riseborough) very English indignation about the state of the herb garden at her father’s dacha. Or Maria Yudina (Olga Kurylenko, the only one who can pronounce Russian names) writing a deadly letter to Stalin. Looking at the bigger picture, portrayal of Gensek and Politburo as a ridiculous bunch of scheming mediocrities, rather than great (albeit evil) statesmen, is spot-on. That must have been especially irritating to wallowers in Soviet nostalgia^*. In the light of creeping rehabilitation of Stalin in Russia, it’s hardly surprising that the movie fell victim of an open letter signed by incensed “cultural figures” (how familiar!) and was promptly banned there.

Sir Simon Russell Beale is spookily convincing as Lavrenti Beria. I liked Steve Buscemi’s acting, I just don’t believe (in Stanislavski sense) that his clown of Khrushchev could ever outmaneuver Beria. Jason Isaacs shines as Ace “What a Guy!” Rimmer-like Marshal Zhukov.

---

*

In the final years of the Soviet Union, it was at least permitted to poke fun at Stalin, Khrushchev and even Lenin. I wonder if films such as To Kill a Dragon (1988), Black Rose is an Emblem of Sorrow, Red Rose is an Emblem of Love (1989), It (1989) or Anecdotes (1990) would see the light of day in contemporary Russia.

Atraco a las tres

a film by José María Forqué

This 60-year-old classic is a proof, if one were needed, that it’s very much possible — indeed necessary — to make great comedy even under dictatorship. Just saying. Oh, and don’t miss that churros scene.

One, Two, Three

a film by Billy Wilder

Starring — or should I say, dominated by? — the great James Cagney, this fast-paced comedy is probably the funniest film I saw this year. At times (most of the time, really) its satire is a bit crude, what with all West Germans being ex-Nazis and Russians total dicks. I loved it.

The choice of music is brilliant too: the Ride of the Valkyries, Khachaturian’s Sabre Dance and, best of all, Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polkadot Bikini used by Stasi agents to torture poor Otto (Horst Buchholz).

Babardeală cu bucluc sau porno balamuc

a film by Radu Jude

How come that in all these years — starting 2014 — I’ve never been to Filmoteca de Cantabria? An oversight that I’ve just corrected. As we are no longer required to wear the face masks in most indoor settings, this was also my first maskless cinema visit since 2020. What a difference! No more fogged-up glasses. Cheers for that!

Ironically, in the movie that I watched, Un polvo desafortunado o porno loco (Bad Luck Banging or Loony Porn), the face masks are de rigueur.

I found its 106 minutes a bit too long for the message, especially the first chapter featuring the protagonist’s never-ending walk through Bucharest, but maybe it was really meant to be like that. The third chapter also could have been shorter. The second chapter, unashamedly Pythonesque, was my favourite.

Not for the easily offended; nor exactly a comedy, although it depends on which of three alternative endings you choose.

Дракон

a play by Evgeny Schwartz

I first saw The Dragon in the mid-1980s, at the Theater Studio in the Southwest (Театр на Юго-Западе), with Viktor Avilov as Lancelot. I was so impressed by it that To Kill a Dragon, a 1988 film by Mark Zakharov, was practically bound to disappoint. So it did. (Zakharov himself set an impossibly high standard with An Ordinary Miracle, also based on a play by Schwartz and featuring the same great Aleksandr Abdulov, Oleg Yankovsky and Evgeny Leonov.)

I have to say that I am quite fond of dragons. They are wise and magnificent creatures and slaying a dragon is a heinous crime. The Dragon of Schwartz, of course, is not a dragon at all; it is an allegory of authoritarianism. Deposing a despot is not enough: we have to kill the dragon in each one of us.

But The Dragon is far from dull moralising. After all — and above all — it’s a comedy. The Burgomaster (post-dragon, the President of the Free City) and his son Heinrich (later, the burgomaster) are suitably creepy. So what? Don’t be afraid of these clowns: let’s laugh at them.

Генрих. Не хочешь ты, папочка, попросту, по душам, поговорить с единственным своим сыном! Бургомистр. Не хочу, сынок. Я еще не сошёл с ума. То есть я, конечно, сошёл с ума, но не до такой степени. Это дракон приказал тебе допросить меня? Генрих. Ну что ты, папа! Бургомистр. Молодец, сынок! Очень хорошо провёл весь разговор. Горжусь тобой. Не потому, что я — отец, клянусь тебе. Я горжусь тобою как знаток, как старый служака. Ты запомнил, что я ответил тебе? Генрих. Разумеется. Бургомистр. А эти слова: чудушко-юдушко, душечка-цыпочка, летун-хлопотун? Генрих. Всё запомнил. Бургомистр. Ну вот так и доложи! Генрих. Хорошо, папа. Бургомистр. Ах ты мой единственный, ах ты мой шпиончик... Карьерочку делает, крошка. Денег не надо? Генрих. Нет, пока не нужно, спасибо, папочка. Бургомистр. Бери, не стесняйся. Я при деньгах. У меня как раз вчера был припадок клептомании. Бери... Генрих. Спасибо, не надо. Ну а теперь скажи мне правду... Бургомистр. Ну что ты, сыночек, как маленький, — правду, правду... Я ведь не обыватель какой-нибудь, а бургомистр. Я сам себе не говорю правды уже столько лет, что и забыл, какая она, правда-то. Меня от неё воротит, отшвыривает. Правда, она знаешь чем пахнет, проклятая? Довольно, сын. Слава дракону! Слава дракону! Слава дракону!	Heinrich. I can see, daddy, that you don’t want to speak to your only son honestly and sincerely. Burgomaster. Oh no, sonny. I am not crazy. I mean, I am crazy, but not to that extent just yet. Did the dragon order you to interrogate me? Heinrich. What are you saying, daddy! Burgomaster. Great job, sonny! You conducted the entire conversation admirably. I am proud of you. And it’s not because I am your father, I swear. No, I am proud of you as an expert, an old hired gun. Did you remember what I told you? Heinrich. Sure thing. Burgomaster. How about all those words — fervent serpent, snarling darling, bustler-robustler? Heinrich. I remember. Burgomaster. Beautiful. Just put them in your report. Heinrich. I will, daddy. Burgomaster. You my little spy, you! My only sonny boy! Concerned with his little career, my sweetie. Need any money? Heinrich. Not at the moment, thank you, daddy. Burgomaster. Here, don’t be shy. I’ve got some. Just had a fit of kleptomania yesterday. Take it. Heinrich. No, thank you, daddy. Can you tell me the truth now? Burgomaster. Come on, sonny, you are not a little boy anymore. He wants truth, wouldn’t you know it. I am not just your average citizen, see. I am the burgomaster. I wouldn’t tell the truth to myself for so many years that I even forgot how it sounds, damn it. I distaste it. I loathe it. Do you know what that pesky truth smells like? Enough about that. Hail dragon! Hail dragon! Hail dragon!
⬖ ⬖ ⬖	⬖ ⬖ ⬖
Бургомистр. Слушайте приказ. Во избежание эпидемии глазных болезней, и только поэтому, на небо смотреть воспрещается. Что происходит на небе, вы узнаете из коммюнике, которое по мере надобности будет выпускать личный секретарь господина дракона. 1-й горожанин. Вот это правильно. 2-й горожанин. Давно пора.	Burgomaster. Listen here. In order to avoid an eye disease epidemic, and strictly because of that, it is hereby forbidden to look at the sky. You will learn of everything that is happening up there from communiqués that sir dragon’s personal secretary is going to be issuing from time to time as needed. 1st Townsman. Right move. 2nd Townsman. About time.
⬗ ⬗ ⬗	⬗ ⬗ ⬗
Генрих. Жених, отвечай мне по чистой совести. Согласен ли ты взять в жёны эту девушку? Бургомистр. Для блага родного города я способен на всё.	Heinrich. Groom, answer me in good conscience. Do you agree take this girl to be your wedded wife? Burgomaster. For the benefit of my town I am willing to do anything.
Евгений Шварц, «Дракон»	Evgeny Schwartz, The Dragon (translated by Yuri Machkasov)

Schwartz wrote The Dragon in 1942—1944. After its première in 1944 at the Leningrad Comedy Theatre under direction of Nikolay Akimov, the play was immediately banned. Revived by Akimov in 1962, it was banned again after little more than one season. Soviet art bureaucrats saw The Dragon’s satire transcending any particular régime. And they were absolutely right: the play is as relevant today as it was 80 years ago.

Михаил Жванецкий (1934—2020)

— Достоевский умер, — сказала гражданка, но как-то не очень уверенно.
— Протестую, — горячо воскликнул Бегемот. — Достоевский бессмертен!

Михаил Булгаков, «Мастер и Маргарита»

I myself am not so sure about Dostoevsky. Perhaps Behemoth was joking, as usual. Mikhail Mikhaylovich Zhvanetsky, who passed away this month, yes, he is immortal. For me, he always was.

— Нового Жванецкого слышали?

In pre-perestroika times, you normally could only hear “new Zhvanetsky” on tape, just like you would only hear “new” (or any) Vysotsky in Brezhnev times. I was lucky enough to see Zhvanetsky live in the 1980s. Him and his equally immortal briefcase. Back then, his performances — Mikhail Mikhaylovich simply standing in front of the audience and reading his monologues — were like rock concerts. Not exactly banned, not approved of either.

In that era, Zhvanetsky was one of very few Russian writers worth reading — or, and especially in his case, worth listening to. I remember somebody asked Yuli Kim on one of his concerts in 1980s who, in Kim’s opinion, is the greatest modern Russian writer. “Fazil Iskander, of course”, Kim said. “Fazil is our banner”... He hesitated for a second. “But what about Zhvanetsky? He is our banner too. Looks like we have two banners then.”

The times have changed, Zhvanetsky has got the official recognition, was decorated with titles, orders and so on and so forth. It did not make him loyal to the regime though. And his old monologues still ring true. So the times did not change.

Unlike Dostoyevsky, Zhvanetsky was a true wordsmith. У нас с собою было, сколько стоит похоронить, тщательне́е, включаешь — не работает, длинная, как... — modern Russian language is unthinkable without Zhvanetsky. Thank you, Mikhail Mikhaylovich.

Процесс — это жизнь, результат — это смерть.

Михаил Жванецкий, «Паровоз для машиниста»

I don’t believe in heaven. I don’t know if Zhvanetsky believed in heaven either. But sometimes I think it would be really cool if there existed a place, let’s call it Odessa′ or Odessa+, where three old friends, Zhvanetsky, Kartsev and Ilchenko could meet again, have a drink and laugh. M.M. would smuggle there his old briefcase, open it, take a sheaf of rumpled papers out and read aloud a bit of “new Zhvanetsky”. That would be heaven.

Мастер и Маргарита

by Mikhail Bulgakov

Among many 50^th anniversaries his year, one has a special importance for me (and, I suppose, for many millions of Russian literature lovers): 50 years since the publication of The Master and Margarita. I was first introduced to it by my mum’s friend, the late Aunty Sonia. (That’s how we called her, she wasn’t really my aunt.) Aunty Sonia taught Russian Language and Literature. She was Jewish, single (or divorced, I never asked) woman in her fifties, with beautiful eyes, unruly African hair and most amazing laughter. She lived at the edge of forest, in a log house which had a proper Russian stove and was full of books. I don’t know why Aunty Sonia took a liking to me and would ask my opinion on this or that. It might be that she couldn’t help testing me, or show off, or both.

Sonia: “Do you remember what David Samoilov (Osip Mandelstam, Boris Pasternak, etc.) said?”
I: “Er... Who is David Samoilov?”
Sonia: “A Jew. Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!”

She used to wear jeans at home (well she was not my teacher, so I can’t say whether she was wearing jeans at work too), walk barefoot on snow, and chop her own firewood. One evening, we came to visit her. The conversation steered towards Jesus Christ Superstar which we both were fond of. Auntie Sonia said that she did not believe in God but believed in Jesus as created by Bulgakov. When she mentioned the scene of Yeshua’s death from The Master and Margarita, I confessed that I had no idea what she was talking about. “What?!!” she cried, “but this is impossible!” She fetched the book, found the page: “Here, young man, read it!” (She would boss me around, as teachers do, but always in a friendly way.) I was impressed. I can’t explain why I didn’t borrow the book back then though.

Fast forward five or six years: I finally got hold of it. This was a samizdat-style, A4-size tome (each page was a photocopy of a two-page book spread). And a few years later, a “proper” book. And then, another one. Annoyingly, all post-Soviet “Made in Russia” editions suffer from embarrassing spelling and punctuation mistakes that almost make me nostalgic for the Brezhnev era.

After all these years, I decided to read it in English, just to see how much is lost in translation. Now I finished the version by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky and have to admit that it isn’t as bad as I feared. It could be that the 80-year-old Soviet realities do not translate as well as two-thousand-year old Judaean realities, but I guess most English readers won’t complain about that.

Margarita is my favourite female character of all Russian literature. Her devotion to the Master is admirable, but it was the transformation into a witch that made her my perfect heroine.

Маргарита ощутила себя свободной, свободной от всего. Кроме того, она поняла со всей ясностью, что именно случилось то, о чем утром говорило предчувствие, и что она покидает особняк и прежнюю свою жизнь навсегда. Но от этой прежней жизни все же откололась одна мысль о том, что нужно исполнить только один последний долг перед началом чего-то нового, необыкновенного, тянущего ее наверх, в воздух. И она, как была нагая, из спальни, то и дело взлетая на воздух, перебежала в кабинет мужа и, осветив его, кинулась к письменному столу. На вырванном из блокнота листе она без помарок быстро и крупно карандашом написала записку: «Прости меня и как можно скорее забудь. Я тебя покидаю навек. Не ищи меня, это бесполезно. Я стала ведьмой от горя и бедствий, поразивших меня. Мне пора. Прощай. Маргарита».

Margarita felt herself free, free of everything. Besides, she understood with perfect clarity that what was happening was precisely what her presentiment had been telling her in the morning, and that she was leaving her house and her former life forever. But, even so, a thought split off from this former life about the need of fulfilling just one last duty before the start of something new, extraordinary, which was pulling her upwards into the air. And, naked as she was, she ran from her bedroom, flying up in the air time and again, to her husband’s study, and, turning on the light, rushed to the desk. On a page torn from a notebook, she pencilled a note quickly and in big letters, without any corrections: Forgive me and forget me as soon as possible. I am leaving you for ever. Do not look for me, it is useless. I have become a witch from the grief and calamities that have struck me. It’s time for me to go. Farewell. Margarita.

Золотой телёнок

by Ильф и Петров

Paul Janse writes that

Ilf and Petrov are underestimated as stylists. In my opinion their style is no worse than Bulgakov’s and certainly better than that of Solzhenitsyn and Pasternak.

I agree with that completely. Unfortunately for a non-Russian reader, there is no definitive translation of their masterpiece Золотой телёнок (the follow-up to Двенадцать стульев, in case you don’t know). I just learned from Russian Wikipedia that the novel was first serialised in the Soviet literary magazine Тридцать дней throughout 1931. Curiosly, it was first published as a book entitled The Little Golden Calf in 1932 by Farrar & Rinehart, New York, in English translation by Charles Malamuth, before it appeared as a single edition in Russian (1933).

Город всегда любил живопись, и четыре художника, издавна здесь обитавшие, основали группу «Диалектический станковист». Они писали портреты ответственных работников и сбывали их в местный музей живописи. С течением времени число незарисованных ответработников сильно уменьшилось, что заметно снизило заработки диалектических станковистов. Но это было еще терпимо. Годы страданий начались с тех пор, когда в город приехал новый художник, Феофан Myхин.
Первая его работа вызвала в городе большой шум. Это был портрет заведующего гостиничным трестом. Феофан Мухин оставил станковистов далеко позади. Заведующий гостиничным трестом был изображен не масляными красками, не акварелью, не углем, не темперой, не пастелью, не гуашью и не свинцовым карандашом. Он был сработан из овса. И когда художник Мухин перевозил на извозчике картину в музей, лошадь беспокойно оглядывалась и ржала.
С течением времени Мухин стал употреблять также и другие злаки.
Имели громовой успех портреты из проса, пшеницы и мака, смелые наброски кукурузой и ядрицей, пейзажи из риса и натюрморты из пшена.
Сейчас он работал над групповым портретом. Большое полотно изображало заседание окрплана. Эту картину Феофан готовил из фасоли и гороха. Но в глубине души он оставался верен овсу, который сделал ему карьеру и сбил с позиций диалектических станковистов.

Ильф и Петров, Золотой телёнок

The city had always loved painting, and four artists who had inhabited the town from time immemorial had formed the group The Dialectical Easel Painters. They painted portraits of managerial staff and fobbed them off on the local art museum. As time passed, the number of managers who hadn’t been drawn yet dropped significantly, which lessened the Dialectical Easel Painters’ earnings noticeably. But they could have lived with that. The real suffering began as soon as the new artist Feofan Marmeladov arrived in town.
His first work caused quite a stir. It was a portrait of the director of the local hotel trust. Marmeladov left the Easel Painters far behind. The director of the hotel trust was portrayed neither in oil paint, nor in watercolor, nor in charcoal, tempera, pastels, gouache, or lead pencil. He was constructed out of oats. And when the artist Marmeladov carted his picture off to the museum in a horse-cab, the horse kept looking around restlessly and snorting.
In the course of time, Marmeladov started using other grains, too. Portraits in wild millet, wheat, and poppyseeds, daring sketches in corn and buckwheat, landscapes in rice and still-lifes in millet all enjoyed thunderous success. Now he was working on a group portrait. The large canvas depicted a meeting of the District Planning Committee. Feofan was concocting this picture with beans and peas. But in his heart of hearts he remained true to the oats that had made his career and knocked the Dialectical Easel Painters off their pedestal.

Ilf and Petrov, The Little Golden Calf (translated by Anne O. Fisher)