Mikhail Bulgakov. The Master and Margarita -
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clutched the buckle which the secretary had picked up from the sand and
announced solemnly : ' It is time! '
At this all present set off down the broad marble staircase between the
lines of rose bushes, exuding their stupefying aroma, down towards the
palace wall, to a gate leading to the smoothly paved square at whose end
could be seen the columns and statues of the Jerusalem hippodrome.
As soon as the group entered the square and began climbing up to the
broad temporary wooden platform raised high above the square, Pilate
assessed the situation through narrowed eyelids.
The cleared passage that he had just crossed between the palace walls
and the scaffolding platform was empty, but in front of Pilate the square
could no longer be seen--it had been devoured by the crowd. The mob would
have poured on to the platform and the passage too if there had not been two
triple rows of soldiers, one from the Sebastian cohort on Pilate's left and
on his right another from the Ituraean auxiliary cohort, to keep it clear.
Pilate climbed the platform, mechanically clenching and unclenching his
fist on the useless buckle and frowning hard. The Procurator was not
frowning because the sun was blinding him but to somehow avoid seeing the
group of prisoners which, as he well knew, would shortly be led out on the
platform behind him.
The moment the white cloak with the blood-red lining appeared atop the
stone block at the edge of that human sea a wave of sound--' Aaahh '--struck
the unseeing Pilate's ears. It began softly, far away at the hippodrome end
of the square, then grew to thunderous volume and after a few seconds, began
to diminish again. ' They have seen me,' thought the Procurator. The wave of
sound did not recede altogether and began unexpectedly to grow again and
waveringly rose to a higher pitch than the first and on top of the second