10 short stories O. Henry. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Неадаптированный текст

White fingers and nimble |проворно| tore at the string and paper. And then an ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to hysterical tears and wails, necessitating |требующие| the immediate employment |здесь это не трудоустройство, а вмешательство| of all the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs |гребни для волос| – the set of combs, side and back |задние и боковые|, that Della had worshipped |обожала| for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise-shell |из панциря черепахи|, with jewelled rims —just the shade to wear |под цвет ее волос| in the beautiful vanished hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply craved and yearned|изнывало и томилось| over them without the least hope of possession. And now, they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted adornments were gone |локонов… больше не было|.

But she hugged them to her bosom |к груди|, and at length she was able to look up with dim eyes |глазами с поволокой| and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”

And then Della leaped up |прыгнула| like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”

Jim had not yet seen |еще пока не видел| his beautiful present. She held it out to him eagerly |воодушевленно| upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit |пылкой души|.

“Isn’t it a dandy |превосходна|, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to see how it looks on it.”

Instead of obeying |Вместо того, чтобы подчиниться|, Jim tumbled down |рухнул| on the couch and put his hands under the back of his head and smiled.

“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ‘em |them. Разговорное сокращение| a while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on |пора накладывать ребрышки|.”

The magi, as you know, were wise men – wonderfully wise men – who brought gifts to the Babe in the manger |ясли|. They invented the art of giving Christmas presents. Being wise |Будучи мудрыми|, their gifts were no doubt wise ones, possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication |их можно было даже обменять, в случае повторения|. And here I have lamely |нескладно| related to you the uneventful |не насыщенную событиями| chronicle of two foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise |ко всем мудрым| of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest. Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

Two Thanksgiving Day Gentlemen

There is one day that is ours. There is one day when all we Americans who are not self-made go back to the old home to eat saleratus biscuits |saleratus – сода| and marvel how much nearer to the porch the old pump looks than it used to |удивляться, что старый колодец ближе к крыльцу, чем казался. Оборот used to значит, что раньше что-то происходило, но больше нет. I used to smoke – я раньше курил, но больше не курю|. Bless the day. President Roosevelt gives it to us. We hear some talk of the Puritans |о пуританах. Пуритане – это английские протестанты, часть из которых иммигрировала в Америку, они же и заложили основы праздника Дня Благодарения|, but don’t just remember who they were. Bet we can lick ‘em |Готов поспорить, мы бы намяли им бока. Первое значение слова to lick – облизать|, anyhow, if they try to land again. Plymouth Rocks |это место куда пуритане впервые высадились в Америке|? Well, that sounds more familiar. Lots of us have had to come down to hens since the Turkey Trust got its work in |Многим из нас пришлось перейти на курятину, когда в деловмешалсяИндюшачийТрест. To come down – спуститься, снизойти, снизить запросы. Since – или “скакого-товремени”, или “разуж…”|. But somebody in Washington is leaking |сливает| out advance information to ‘em about these Thanksgiving proclamations.

The big city |речь о Нью-Йорке| east of the cranberry bogs |клюквенных болот| has made Thanksgiving Day an institution |не институтом. Традицией|. The last Thursday in November is the only day in the year on which it recognizes the part of America lying across the ferries |единственный день…когда он признает ту часть Америки, которая лежит по ту сторону паромных переправ. Нью-Йорк лежит на островах и на момент написания рассказа (???? год), мостов, которые бы соединяли город с континентом было мало, а паромов было много. Только потом, с распространением автомобилей, а именно фордовской Model T, паромы вышли в тираж|. It is the one day that is purely American. Yes, a day of celebration, exclusively American.

And now for the story which is to prove to you |эта история докажет вам| that we have traditions on this side of the ocean that are becoming older at a much rapider |которые становятся старее, гораздо быстрее, чем…| rate than those of England are – thanks to our git-up and enterprise |настойчивости и предприимчивости|.

Stuffy Pete |Слово stuffy имеет много значений – душный, скучный, занудный, забитый, чопорный. Стаффи Пит – это явно кличка, но какое именно значение слова stuffy имел в виду О. Генри понять сложно, поэтому в русском переводе слово не было переведено. Стаффи Пит так и остался Стаффи Питом|, took his seat on the third bench to the right as you enter Union Square from the east at the walk opposite the fountain. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had taken his seat there promptly at 1 o’clock. For every time he had done so things had happened to him – Charles Dickensy things |события в духе Чарльза Диккенса случалисьсним| that swelled |раздувало| his waistcoat above his heart, and equally |вравнойстепени| on the other side.

But to-day Stuffy Pete’s appearance at the annual trysting place |обычном месте| seemed to have been rather |казалось, что было скорее…| the result of habit than of the yearly hunger which, as the philanthropists seem to think, afflicts the poor at such extended intervals |буквально – мучают бедняков в такие большие интервалы. Лучше – по мнению филантропов, голод настигает бедных раз в году на День Благодарения (Тут О.Генри имеет в виду, что в Америке есть традиция подкармливать бедных в этот день)|.

Certainly Pete was not hungry. He had just come from a feast that had left him of his powers barely those of respiration and locomotion |он едва мог двигаться и дышать|. His eyes were like two pale gooseberries |ягоды крыжовника| firmly imbedded in a swollen and gravy-smeared mask of putty |опухший, намазанный соусом пластилин|. His breath came in short wheezes; a senatorial roll of adipose tissue denied a fashionable set to his upturned coat collar |складки депутатского жира на шее портили линию поднятого воротника пальто|. Buttons that had been sewed |были пришиты| upon his clothes by kind Salvation fingers |добрымипальцамислужителяАрмииСпасения. АрмияСпасения – однаизстарейшиххристианскихорганизаций, цельюкоторойявляетсяпомощьбедным, бездомнымит.д.| a week before flew like popcorn, strewing the earth around him |отлетали… усеивая|. Ragged |истрепанный, влохмотьях| he was, with a split shirt front open to the wishbone |разорвананагруди|; but the November breeze, carrying fine snowflakes, brought him only a grateful coolness. For Stuffy Pete was overcharged with the caloric |перенасыщенкалориями| produced by a super-bountiful dinner, beginning with oysters and ending with plum pudding, and including (it seemed to him) all the roast turkey and baked potatoes and chicken salad and squash pie and ice cream in the world. Wherefore |Вотпочему| he sat, gorged, and gazed upon the world with after-dinner contempt |спослеобеденнымпрезрением|.

The meal had been an unexpected one |Еда получилась неожиданной|. He was passing a red brick mansion near the beginning of Fifth avenue, in which lived two old ladies of ancient family and a reverence |с глубоким уважением| for traditions. They even denied the existence of New York, and believed that Thanksgiving Day was declared solely for Washington Square |квартал Нью-Йорка, где две старые леди и жили|. One of their traditional habits was to station |поставить| a servant at the postern gate |у задних ворот| with orders to admit |впустить| the first hungry wayfarer |путника| that came along after the hour of noon had struck, and banquet him to a finish |и накормить его до потери пульса|. Stuffy Pete happened |так случилось, что| to pass by on his way to the park, and the seneschals |сенешаль, он жешвейцар| gathered him in and upheld the custom of the castle.

After Stuffy Pete had gazed straight before him for ten minutes he was conscious of a desire for a more varied field of vision |к нему пришло желание расширить кругозор|. With a tremendous effort he moved his head slowly to the left. And then his eyes bulged out fearfully |его глаза выкатились от страха|, and his breath ceased, and the rough-shod ends of his short legs wriggled and rustled on the gravel |и его ступни, обутые в грубую обувь, задергались по гравию|.

For the Old Gentleman |For здесь никак не переводится| was coming across Fourth avenue toward his bench.

Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years the Old Gentleman had come there and found Stuffy Pete on his bench. That was a thing that the Old Gentleman was trying to make a tradition of. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had found Stuffy there, and had led him |отводил его| to a restaurant and watched him eat a big dinner. They do those things in England unconsciously. But this is a young country, and nine years is not so bad. The Old Gentleman was a staunch |преданный| American patriot, and considered himself a pioneer |«пионер» в смысле первооткрыватель| in American tradition. In order to become picturesque we must keep on doing one thing for a long time without ever letting it get away from us. Something like collecting the weekly dimes in industrial insurance |сбора еженедельных десятицентовых взносов в промышленном страховании|. Or cleaning the streets.

The Old Gentleman moved |двигался или приближался|, straight and stately, toward the Institution that he was rearing |он пестовал|. Truly, the annual feeding of Stuffy Pete was nothing national in its character, such as the Magna Charta |Великая Хартия| or jam for breakfast was in England. But it was a step. It was almost feudal |феодальное|. It showed, at least |по крайней мере|, that a Custom was not impossible to New Y —ahem! – America |в Нью-Й.., хм, в Америке|.

The Old Gentleman was thin and tall and sixty. He was dressed all in black, and wore the old-fashioned kind of glasses that won’t stay on your nose. His hair was whiter and thinner than it had been last year, and he seemed to make more use of his big, knobby cane |сучковатая трость| with the crooked handle.

As his established benefactor came up |приблизился| Stuffy wheezed and shuddered like some woman’s over-fat pug when a street dog bristles up at him |начал дрожать и скулить как перекормленная болонка некой женщины при приближении уличного пса|. He would have flown |конструкция would have и третья форма глагола значит, что онбычто-тосделал, нонесмог: онбыспассябегством…|, but all the skill of Santos-Dumont could not have separated him |дажесвятаясиланеоторвалабыего| from his bench. Well had the myrmidons |приспешники| of the two old ladies done their work.

“Good morning,” said the Old Gentleman. “I am glad to perceive |буквально – воспринять. Лучше – узнать| that the vicissitudes of another year have spared |превратности… пощадили| you to move in health about the beautiful world |и вы в здравии бродите по…|.For that blessing alone |так благослови…| this day of thanksgiving is well proclaimed to each of us. If you will |по правилам will здесь стоять не должно, но плевали персонажи О. Генри на правила| come with me, my man, I will provide you with a dinner that should make your physical being accord |физическое состояниевсоответствиес| with the mental.”

That is what the old Gentleman said every time. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years. The words themselves almost formed an Institution |Традицию|. Nothing could be compared with them except the Declaration of Independence. Always before |Всегда ранее| they had been music in Stuffy’s ears. But now he looked up at the Old Gentleman’s face with tearful agony in his own. The fine snow almost sizzled |вскипал| when it fell upon his perspiring brow |буквально – взмокшую бровь. Лучше – разгоряченный лоб|. But the Old Gentleman shivered |поеживался| a little and turned his back to the wind.

Stuffy had always wondered why the Old Gentleman spoke his speech rather sadly. He did not know that it was because he was wishing every time that he had a son to succeed him |хотел бы, чтобы у него был сын, чтобы продолжить Традицию|. A son who would come there after he was gone – a son who would stand proud and strong before some subsequent Stuffy |какому-нибудь следующему Стаффи|, and say: “In memory of my father.” Then it would be an Institution.

But the Old Gentleman had no relatives. He lived in rented rooms in one of the decayed |ветхих| old family brownstone mansions in one of the quiet streets east of the park. In the winter he raised fuchsias |фуксии| in a little conservatory |теплице| the size of a steamer trunk |размером с дорожный сундук. A steamer – пароход|. In the spring he walked in the Easter parade |в пасхальном шествии|. In the summer he lived at a farmhouse in the New Jersey hills, and sat in a wicker |плетеном| armchair, speaking of a butterfly, the ornithoptera amphrisius, that he hoped to find some day. In the autumn he fed Stuffy a dinner. These were the Old Gentleman’s occupations.

Stuffy Pete looked up at him for a half minute, stewing |утомленный| and helpless in his own self-pity |в жалости к самому себе|. The Old Gentleman’s eyes were bright with the giving-pleasure |в порыве жертвенности|. His face was getting more lined |появлялось больше морщин| each year, but his little black necktie was in as jaunty a bow as ever |так же элегантен|, and the linen |буквально – белье, здесь же имеется в виду сорочка| was beautiful and white, and his gray mustache was curled carefully at the ends. And then Stuffy made a noise that sounded like peas bubbling in a pot. Speech was intended; and as the Old Gentleman had heard the sounds nine times before, he rightly construed |истолковал| them into Stuffy’s old formula of acceptance.

“Thankee, sir. I’ll go with ye, and much obliged. I’m very hungry, sir.”

The coma of repletion had not prevented from entering Stuffy’s mind the conviction that he was the basis of an Institution |Прострация от переедания, не помешала… он является участником создания традиции|. His Thanksgiving appetite was not his own |ему не принадлежал|; it belonged by all the sacred rights of established custom, if not, by the actual Statute of Limitations |по официальному своду законов|, to this |его аппетит принадлежал…| kind old gentleman who bad preempted it |который первый заявил права нанего|. True, America is free; but in order to establish tradition some one must be a repetend —a repeating decimal |повторяющейсяцифройвпериодическойдроби|. The heroes are not all heroes of steel and gold. See one here that wielded |владеют| only weapons of iron, badly silvered, and tin |изплохопосеребренногожелезаиолова|.

The Old Gentleman led |вёл| his annual protege southward to the restaurant, and to the table where the feast had always occurred. They were recognized |Их узнали|.

“Here comes de |манера произносить артикль the| old guy,” said a waiter, “dat |that| blows dat same bum |бродягу| to a meal every Thanksgiving.”

The Old Gentleman sat across the table glowing like a smoked pearl at his corner-stone of future ancient Tradition |в сторону краеугольного камня – Стаффи – будущей древней традиции|. The waiters heaped |завалили| the table with holiday food – and Stuffy, with a sigh that was mistaken |со вздохом, который был ошибочно принят за…| for hunger’s expression, raised knife and fork and carved for himself a crown of imperishable bay |идиома. Русский аналог – ринулся в бой стяжать себе бессмертные лавры|.

No more valiant hero ever fought his way through the ranks |сквозь ряды| of an enemy. Turkey, chops, soups, vegetables, pies, disappeared before him as fast as they could be served. Gorged nearly to the uttermost |сытый по горло| when he entered the restaurant, the smell of food had almost caused him to lose his honor as a gentleman, but he rallied |поборол слабость| like a true knight. He saw the look of beneficent happiness on the Old Gentleman’s face – a happier look than even the fuchsias and the ornithoptera amphrisius had ever brought to it – and he had not the heart |не осмелился| to see it wane |ослабнуть|.

In an hour Stuffy leaned back |откинулся| with a battle won. “Thankee kindly, sir,” he puffed like a leaky steam pipe |пропыхтел он как дырявая паровая труба|; “thankee kindly for a hearty meal.” Then he arose heavily with glazed eyes and started toward the kitchen. A waiter turned him about like a top |крутанул его как волчок|, and pointed him toward the door. The Old Gentleman carefully counted out $1.30 in silver change, leaving three nickels |a nickel – это 5 центов| for the waiter.

They parted |расстались| as they did each year at the door, the Old Gentleman going south, Stuffy north.

Around the first corner Stuffy turned, and stood for one minute. Then he seemed to puff out his rags as an owl puffs out his feathers |казалось, что он распушил свои лохмотья, как сова пушит свои перья|, and fell to the sidewalk like a sunstricken horse.

When the ambulance came the young surgeon |хирург| and the driver cursed softly at his weight |тихо выругались по поводу веса Стаффи|. There was no smell of whiskey to justify a transfer to the patrol wagon |в полицейский участок|, so Stuffy and his two dinners went to the hospital. There they stretched him on a bed and began to test him for strange diseases, with the hope of getting a chance at some problem with the bare steel |которую можно вылечить стальным скальпелем|.

And lo! |архаичное восклицание, вроде русского “и глянь!”| an hour later another ambulance brought the Old Gentleman. And they laid him on another bed and spoke of appendicitis, for he looked good for the bill |его внешность внушала надежду на оплату счета за лечение|.

But pretty soon one of the young doctors met one of the young nurses whose eyes he liked, and stopped to chat with her about the cases.

“That nice old gentleman over there, now,” he said, “you wouldn’t think that was a case of almost starvation |истощение от голода|. Proud old family, I guess. He told me he hadn’t eaten a thing |не ел ни крошки| for three days.”

The Last Leaf

In a little district west of Washington Square the streets have run crazy |улицы сошли с ума| and broken themselves into small strips called “places.” These “places” make strange angles and curves. One Street crosses itself a time or two |Одна улица можем пересекать себя раз или два|. An artist once discovered a valuable possibility in this street. Suppose a collector with a bill for paints |сборщик счетов за краски|, paper and canvas should, in traversing this route |по прохождении этого пути|, suddenly meet himself |встречает себя же| coming back, without a cent having been paid on account |безцента, оплаченногопосчету|!

So, to quaint |странный| old Greenwich Village the art people soon came prowling |блуждая|, hunting for north windows and eighteenth-century gables |мезонины| and Dutch attics and low rents. Then they imported some pewter mugs and a chafing dish |оловянные кружки и жаровню| or two from Sixth Avenue, and became a “colony.”

At the top of a squatty, three-story brick |трехэтажного кирпичного дома| Sue and Johnsy had their studio. “Johnsy” was familiar for |уменьшительное от| Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at the table d’h?te |ресторанчика| of an Eighth Street “Delmonico’s,” and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so congenial |схожими| that the joint studio resulted.

That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about |ходил вокруг да около| the colony, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Over on the east side this ravager strode boldly |этот душегуб шагал смело|, smiting |поражая| his victims by scores |кучами|, but his feet trod slowly |его ноги медленно плелись| through the maze of the narrow and moss-grown |в лабиринте узких и поросших мхом…| “places.”

Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric |галантным| old gentleman. A mite |миниатюрная| of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs |зефиры – южные ветры| was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer |едва ли была достойным соперником для дюжего старого тупицы с красными кулаками и одышкой|. But Johnsy he smote |свалил|; and she lay, scarcely |едва| moving, on her painted iron bedstead |крашеной железной кровати|, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house.

One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, grey eyebrow |движением седых косматых бровей|.

«She has one chance in – let us say, ten,” he said, as he shook down the mercury |ртуть| in his clinical thermometer. “ And that chance is for her to want to live |она должна хотеть жить|. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly |Вся наша фармакопея теряет смысл, когда люди начинают действовать в интересах гробовщика. У слова “undertaker” два значения: предприниматель и гробовщик |. Your little lady has made up her mind |to make up one’s mind – принять решение| that she’s not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind |на уме|?”

«She – she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples |Неаполитанский залив| some day.” said Sue.