Calling all experts on Bulgakov and Cheka fashion

[Muireann Maguire]

Dear SEELANGERs,

A belated thank you to everyone who responded to my enquiry about previous
translations of Bulgakov's 1922 short stories, 'Spiriticheskii seans' and
'Krasnaia korona'. I'm writing now with a fresh query.

Halfway through 'Spiriticheskii seans', a police agent overhears gossip that
leads him to report the unsuspecting Spiritualists for conspiracy. Bulgakov
has a lot of fun describing this police agent. My translation is fairly
literal here, and I'm particularly confused by the agent's clothing, which
almost might have been designed by Aleksandra Ekster for an extra in
'Aelita'. Additionally, I'm not sure whether the agent is meant to be
understood to be wearing a uniform (hence his extraordinary trousers), or
simply rather unusual clothes. If he is in uniform, would anybody be able to
tell me to which branch of the Cheka, or indeed any other police force of
1922, he might belong?

Here's Bulgakov's original (transliterated, as my Cyrillic text always gets
turned to gobbledygook when I post):

"Dver' v kvartire No. 3 khlopnula, i po lestnitse dvinulsia vniz bravyi v
neobyknovennykh stanakh [...] Stany do kolen byli kak shtany, iz khoroshei
diagonali, no ot kolen rasshirialis', rasshirialis' i stanovilis' kak
kolokola. [...] Kvadratnaia bronzovaia grud' raspirala fufaiku, a na bedre
tusklo i mrachno gliadelo iz kozhanoi shtuki vostronosoe dulo"

And my translation (if 'bravyi' should be 'bravo' rather than 'gallant',
please advise):
"The door of Apartment No. 3 banged, and down the stairs came a gallant in
unusual trousers... Up to the knees, the trousers were quite ordinary, cut
at normal angles, but from the knees up, they widened out until they looked
like bells. 
A jersey strained across his square, bronze-coloured chest, and on his hip
the narrow muzzle of a gun peeped dully and gloomily out of a leather holster."

All advice gratefully accepted! Please reply off-list to
muireann.maguire at googlemail.com.

Best wishes,

Muireann Maguire
Wadham College, Oxford
     

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