Chapter summary
In Patriarch's Ponds it is already night when the foreigner finishes narrating the scene of Pontius Pilate with the same sentence that closed chapter 2: it was about ten in the morning. Berlioz observes that the story does not match the Gospel at all, and the professor answers with the words Berlioz himself had said to Ivan on the way to the park, that nothing in the Gospel actually happened. Berlioz objects that no one can prove the account, and the professor whispers that he witnessed everything personally: he was on the veranda with Pilate, in the garden during the conversation with Caiaphas, and on the platform, incognito. On seeing the left eye green and "demented" and the right "empty, black and dead," Berlioz concludes that the man is a mad German, and the prophecies, the breakfast with Kant and the talk about sunflower oil now seem explained. He winks at Ivan, without the poet understanding, so as not to contradict the sick man, and invents that he will make a phone call, in fact to alert the foreigners' department. The professor asks him to believe at least that the devil exists and says the seventh proof will be presented right there.
On his way to the phone, Berlioz hears the professor shout that he can send a telegram to his uncle in Kiev, something no newspaper ever published, and feels the first doubt, but pushes it aside with the idea that the denunciation will clear everything up. On leaving the park, a man in checked trousers and a jockey cap, who says he is a former choirmaster, points out the turnstile. Berlioz goes through it, almost steps on the tracks, sees the tram arriving suddenly and takes a step back: his foot slips on the paving, he falls backward onto the tracks and sees the pale face of the motorwoman, in a red headscarf, coming toward him. The tram runs over Berlioz, and the severed head is flung onto the paving of the street.
Analysis
Berlioz decides to telephone because the explanation of madness comes to him ready-made: the breakfast with Kant, the talk about Annushka's sunflower oil and Pilate's eyewitness, everything fits. He does not argue; he winks at Ivan so as not to contradict the sick man and invents a pretext. The telegram to his uncle in Kiev, which no newspaper published, opens the first doubt, but he pushes it aside: the denunciation, he thinks, will clear everything up.
Yes, it was about ten in the morning, respected Ivan Nikolayevich
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