Titan / Титан. Книга для чтения на английском языке

But in spite of this savage exultation her thoughts kept coming back to herself, to her own predicament, to torture and destroy her. Cowperwood, the liar! Cowperwood, the pretender! Cowperwood, the sneak! At one moment she conceived a kind of horror of the man because of all his protestations to her; at the next a rage – bitter, swelling; at the next a pathetic realization of her own altered position. Say what one will, to take the love of a man like Cowperwood away from a woman like Aileen was to leave her high and dry on land[79], as a fish out of its native element, to take all the wind out of her sails – almost to kill her. Whatever position she had once thought to hold through him, was now jeopardized. Whatever joy or glory she had had in being Mrs. Frank Algernon Cowperwood, it was now tarnished. She sat in her room, this same day after the detectives had given their report, a tired look in her eyes, the first set lines her pretty mouth had ever known showing about it, her past and her future whirling painfully and nebulously in her brain. Suddenly she got up, and, seeing Cowperwood’s picture on her dresser, his still impressive eyes contemplating her, she seized it and threw it on the floor, stamping on his handsome face with her pretty foot, and raging at him in her heart. The dog! The brute! Her brain was full of the thought of Rita’s white arms about him, of his lips to hers. The spectacle of Rita’s fluffy gowns, her enticing costumes, was in her eyes. Rita should not have him; she should not have anything connected with him, nor, for that matter, Antoinette Nowak, either – the wretched upstart, the hireling. To think he should stoop to an office stenographer! Once on that thought, she decided that he should not be allowed to have a woman as an assistant any more. He owed it to her to love her after all she had done for him, the coward, and to let other women alone. Her brain whirled with strange thoughts. She was really not sane in her present state. She was so wrought up by her prospective loss that she could only think of rash, impossible, destructive things to do. She dressed swiftly, feverishly, and, calling a closed carriage from the coach-house, ordered herself to be driven to the New Arts Building. She would show this rosy cat of a woman, this smiling piece of impertinence, this she-devil, whether she would lure Cowperwood away. She meditated as she rode. She would not sit back and be robbed as Mrs. Cowperwood had been by her. Never! He could not treat her that way. She would die first! She would kill Rita Sohlberg and Antoinette Nowak and Cowperwood and herself first. She would prefer to die that way rather than lose his love. Oh yes, a thousand times! Fortunately, Rita Sohlberg was not at the New Arts Building, or Sohlberg, either. They had gone to a reception. Nor was she at the apartment on the North Side, where, under the name of Jacobs, as Aileen had been informed by the detectives, she and Cowperwood kept occasional tryst. Aileen hesitated for a moment, feeling it useless to wait, then she ordered the coachman to drive to her husband’s office. It was now nearly five o’clock. Antoinette and Cowperwood had both gone, but she did not know it. She changed her mind, however, before she reached the office – for it was Rita Sohlberg she wished to reach first – and ordered her coachman to drive back to the Sohlberg studio. But still they had not returned. In a kind of aimless rage she went home, wondering how she should reach Rita Sohlberg first and alone. Then, to her savage delight, the game walked into her bag. The Sohlbergs, returning home at six o’clock from some reception farther out Michigan Avenue, had stopped, at the wish of Harold, merely to pass the time of day with Mrs. Cowperwood. Rita was exquisite in a pale-blue and lavender concoction, with silver braid worked in here and there. Her gloves and shoes were pungent bits of romance, her hat a dream of graceful lines. At the sight of her, Aileen, who was still in the hall and had opened the door herself, fairly burned to seize her by the throat and strike her; but she restrained herself sufficiently to say, “Come in.” She still had sense enough and self-possession enough to conceal her wrath and to close the door. Beside his wife Harold was standing, offensively smug and inefficient in the fashionable frock-coat and silk hat of the time, a restraining influence as yet. He was bowing and smiling:

“Oh.” This sound was neither an “oh” nor an “ah,” but a kind of Danish inflected “awe,” which was usually not unpleasing to hear. “How are you, once more, Meeses Cowperwood? It eez sudge a pleasure to see you again – awe.”

“Won’t you two just go in the reception-room a moment,” said Aileen, almost hoarsely. “I’ll be right in. I want to get something.” Then, as an afterthought, she called very sweetly: “Oh, Mrs. Sohlberg, won’t you come up to my room for a moment? I have something I want to show you.”

Rita responded promptly. She always felt it incumbent upon her to be very nice to Aileen.

“We have only a moment to stay,” she replied, archly and sweetly, and coming out in the hall, “but I’ll come up.”

Aileen stayed to see her go first, then followed upstairs swiftly, surely, entered after Rita, and closed the door. With a courage and rage born of a purely animal despair, she turned and locked it; then she wheeled swiftly, her eyes lit with a savage fire, her cheeks pale, but later aflame, her hands, her fingers working in a strange, unconscious way.

“So,” she said, looking at Rita, and coming toward her quickly and angrily, “you’ll steal my husband, will you? You’ll live in a secret apartment, will you? You’ll come here smiling and lying to me, will you? You beast! You cat! You prostitute! I’ll show you now! You tow-headed beast! I know you now for what you are! I’ll teach you once for all! Take that, and that, and that!”

Suiting action to word, Aileen had descended upon her whirlwind, animal fashion, striking, scratching, choking, tearing her visitor’s hat from her head, ripping the laces from her neck, beating her in the face, and clutching violently at her hair and throat to choke and mar her beauty if she could. For the moment she was really crazy with rage.

By the suddenness of this onslaught Rita Sohlberg was taken back completely. It all came so swiftly, so terribly, she scarcely realized what was happening before the storm was upon her. There was no time for arguments, pleas, anything. Terrified, shamed, nonplussed, she went down quite limply under this almost lightning attack. When Aileen began to strike her she attempted in vain to defend herself, uttering at the same time piercing screams which could be heard throughout the house. She screamed shrilly, strangely, like a wild dying animal. On the instant all her fine, civilized poise had deserted her. From the sweetness and delicacy of the reception atmosphere – the polite cooings, posturings, and mouthings so charming to contemplate, so alluring in her – she had dropped on the instant to that native animal condition that shows itself in fear. Her eyes had a look of hunted horror, her lips and cheeks were pale and drawn. She retreated in a staggering, ungraceful way; she writhed and squirmed, screaming in the strong clutch of the irate and vigorous Aileen.

Cowperwood entered the hall below just before the screams began. He had followed the Sohlbergs almost immediately from his office, and, chancing to glance in the reception-room, he had observed Sohlberg smiling, radiant, an intangible air of self-ingratiating, social, and artistic sycophancy about him, his long black frock-coat buttoned smoothly around his body, his silk hat still in his hands.

“Awe, how do you do, Meezter Cowperwood,” he was beginning to say, his curly head shaking in a friendly manner, “I’m soa glad to see you again” when – but who can imitate a scream of terror? We have no words, no symbols even, for those essential sounds of fright and agony. They filled the hall, the library, the reception-room, the distant kitchen even, and basement with a kind of vibrant terror.

Cowperwood, always the man of action as opposed to nervous cogitation, braced up on the instant like taut wire. What, for heaven’s sake, could that be? What a terrible cry! Sohlberg the artist, responding like a chameleon to the various emotional complexions of life, began to breathe stertorously, to blanch, to lose control of himself.

“My God!” he exclaimed, throwing up his hands, “that’s Rita! She’s up-stairs in your wife’s room! Something must have happened. Oh – ” On the instant he was quite beside himself, terrified, shaking, almost useless. Cowperwood, on the contrary, without a moment’s hesitation had thrown his coat to the floor, dashed up the stairs, followed by Sohlberg. What could it be? Where was Aileen? As he bounded upward a clear sense of something untoward came over him; it was sickening, terrifying. Scream! Scream! Scream! came the sounds. “Oh, my God! don’t kill me! Help! Help!” SCREAM – this last a long, terrified, ear-piercing wail.

Sohlberg was about to drop from heart failure, he was so frightened. His face was an ashen gray. Cowperwood seized the door-knob vigorously and, finding the door locked, shook, rattled, and banged at it.

“Aileen!” he called, sharply. “Aileen! What’s the matter in there? Open this door, Aileen!”

“Oh, my God! Oh, help! help! Oh, mercy – o-o-o-o-oh!” It was the moaning voice of Rita.

“I’ll show you, you she-devil!” he heard Aileen calling. “I’ll teach you, you beast! You cat, you prostitute! There! there! there!”

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Примечания

1

things will come right with a bang – (разг.) все наладится, все будет хорошо

2

Then she walked away with rich, sinuous, healthy strides – the type that men turn to look after. – Она шла широким, уверенным шагом, слегка покачивая бедрами, – походкой, на которую заглядываются мужчины.

3

Gee! – (разг.) Вот это да! (возглас, выражающий удивление или восхищение)

4

Ishmael – (библ.) сын Авраама и его египетской любовницы Агари, она вместе с сыном была изгнана в пустыню, (зд., перен.) отверженный, изгнанник

5

Pullman – (пульмановский) спальный вагон

6

Here was a seething city in the making. – Строящийся город бурлил и кипел.

7

the Rockies – the Rocky Mountains – Скалистые горы

8

Hun – Hungarian – венгр

9

par excellence – (фр.) в высшей степени

10

he was taken with Cowperwood – (разг.) он был очарован Каупервудом

11

recherch緜e – (фр.) изысканный, тонкий

12

’change = Exchange – биржа

13

Cowperwood had decided that he did not care to sail under any false colors so far as Addison was concerned. – (разг.) Каупервуд решил, что не стоит ничего скрывать от Эддисона.

14

I haven’t lived in this world fifty years and more without having my eye-teeth cut. – (разг.) Я недаром живу на свете уже пять десятков лет – жизнь меня кое-чему научила. (to have one’s eye-teeth cut – приобрести жизненный опыт, мудрость)

15

We’ll cut our cloth as circumstances dictate in the future. – (разг.) Мы будем действовать в соответствии с тем, как сложатся обстоятельства в будущем. (Перефразированная пословица cut the coat according to the cloth – по одежке протягивай ножки)

16

spick-and-spanness – сущ. от spick-and-span – очень аккуратный, опрятный; чистый, без единого пятнышка

17

Board of Trade – Торговая палата

18

having an Andrew Jacksonish countenance and a Henry Clay – Davy Crockett – “Long John” Wentworth build of body. – лицом похожий на Эндрю Джексона, а телосложением – на Генри Клея, Дэвида Крокета или «Длинного Джона» Вентворта (Эндрю Джексон, 7-й президент США (1829–1837); Генри Клей (1777–1852), американский государственный деятель; Дэвид Крокет (1786–1836), американский политик; «Длинный Джон» Вентворт (1815–1888), журналист, конгрессмен, мэр Чикаго – все они были высокими людьми крепкого телосложения)

19

“corners” – (зд., сленг) скупка всех имеющихся на рынке акций определенного вида одним лицом (группой лиц) для последующей продажи по завышенной цене

20

git = get, sheers = share, kin = can; ye = you (здесь и далее – написание, передающее искаженное произношение слов)

21

‘a’ = have; ’em = them; Tain’t = It ain’t = It is not; fer = for

22

a Punch-and-Judy chin – острый подбородок (как у героев английского народного кукольного театра Панча и Джуди)

23

Trust Cowperwood to do the thing as it should be done. – Разумеется, Каупервуд сделал все как нужно.

24

the welter of discarded garments – беспорядочно разбросанные детали туалета

25

the floor – (зд.) операционный зал фондовой биржи

26

Hamilcar Barca in the heart of Spain or a Hannibal at the gates of Rome – Гамилькар Барка (около 279—229 гг. до н. э.), карфагенский генерал и государственный деятель, отец Ганнибала, после окончания Первой Пунической войны инициировал начало завоевания Карфагеном Испании; Ганнибал (247— 183 до н. э.), один из величайших полководцев и государственных мужей древности, участник Второй Пунической войны, в ходе которой его армия дошла практически до самого Рима

27

by some hocus-pocus – (разг.) в результате каких-то махинаций

28

I thought once he’d make a go of it, but they ketched him where his hair was short, and he had to let go. – Было время, я думал, что он добьется успеха, но они прижали его (нашли его слабое место), и ему пришлось выпустить лакомый кусочек.

29

to get in on it – (сленг) поучаствовать в этом, поработать в этой сфере

30

by George! – (разг.) ей-богу!, честное слово!

31

bell-wether – (перен.) вожак, лидер (прямое значение баран-вожак, на которого вешают бубенчик, чтобы он вел стадо)

32

had got his real start in life by filing false titles to property in southern Illinois, and then bringing suits to substantiate his fraudulent claims before friendly associates – он приобрел славу тем, что составлял фиктивные документы на право владения землей в южном Иллинойсе, а затем, чтобы узаконить мошенничество, подавал в суд, в котором заседали его приятели и сообщники, и выигрывал дело

33

requiring heavy retainers – требующий солидный гонорар

34

In cast of countenance he was not wholly unlike General Grant – Лицом он даже немного напоминал генерала Гранта (Улисс Симпсон Грант (1822—1885), американский политический и военный деятель, полководец северян в годы Гражданской войны в США, генерал армии. C 1869 по 1877 – 18-й президент США)

35

a doubting Thomas – (библ.) Фома неверующий

36

were hand in glove – (разг.) нашли общий язык, спелись

37

a Chesterfield – (зд,) аристократ (Филип Дормер Стенхоп, 4-й граф Честерфилд (1694—1773), английский государственный деятель, дипломат и писатель)

38

Rousseau, Greuze, Wouverman, Lawrence – Руссо, Теодор (1812—1867), французский художник-пейзажист; Грёз, Жан-Батист (1725—1805), французский художник; Воуверман, Филипс (1619—1668), датский художник; Лоуренс, Томас (1769—1830), английский художник-портретист

39

Goodwood – Гудвуд, местечко в Сассексе, место проведения ежегодных скачек

40

Raeburn – Ребурн, Генри (1756—1823), шотландский портретист; Millet – Милле, Жан-Фрасуа (1814—1875) французский художник, автор жанровых картин и пейзажей; Jan Steen – Ян Стен (1626—1679) датский художник, автор жанровых картин; Meissonier – Мейссонье, Жан-Луис-Эрнест (1815— 1891), французский художник-баталист; Isabey – Изабэ, Луи-Габриель-Эжен (1804—1886), французский художник, автор жанровых картин и маринист

41

on the qui vive – (фр.) настороже, наготове

42

Vassar – Вассар, женский колледж в Пукипси, штат Нью-Йорк, основан в 1861 г.

43

bon mot – (фр.) остроумное выражение, острота

44

those old chestnuts … which must have had their origin in Egypt and Chaldea – избитые истории, которые рассказывали, наверное, еще в Древнем Египте и Халдее

45

and that was enough of a handle whereby to swing them – (разг.) вполне подходящий повод упомянуть эти имена

46

It wasn’t a square deal – (разг.) Со мной поступили нечестно, меня подставили

47

pricked up his ears – (разг.) навострил уши

48

in a Chinese fairyland of lights – освещенный гирляндами китайских фонариков

49

Gérôme – Жером, Жан-Леон (1824–1904), французский художник и скульптор

50

then in the heyday of his exotic popularity – тогда были в моде его экзотические картины

51

high in key – (зд.) яркий

52

run errands – (разг.) выполняла различные поручения

53

“mon dieus” and “parbleus” – (фр.) восклицания, употребленные как существительные во множественном числе; mon dieu – Боже мой!, parbleu – проклятье! черт возьми!

54

Monticelliesque-mood of color – напоминающий картины Монтичелли (Монтичелли, Адольф Жозеф Томас (1824— 1886), французский художник)

55

The new dining-room, rich with a Pompeian scheme of color – Столовая, выдержанная в красновато-коричневых тонах, излюбленных в древней Помпее

56

How do you think she’s taking? – (разг.) Как вы думаете, она произвела впечатление?

57

to poach on their exclusive preserves – (разг.) покушаться на их права и привилегии (букв. охотиться на их территории)

58

he who takes the sword may well perish by the sword – (библ.) взявший меч от меча и погибнет

59

a blanket franchise – (фин.) концессия на весь город, действующая во всех районах

60

robbery, ballot-box stuffing, the sale of votes, the appointive power of leaders, graft, nepotism, vice exploitation – грабеж, подтасовка избирательных бюллетеней, продажа голосов, власть политических лидеров, назначающих своих людей на различные должности, взяточничество, семейственность, использование человеческих слабостей

61

There was no beating around the bush here – (разг.) Он не ходил вокруг да около

62

The Die Is Cast – Жребий брошен

63

largely because the Schryhart faction, not being in a position where they needed to ask the city council for anything at present, were so obtuse as to forget to make overtures of any kind to the buccaneering forces at the City Hall – в основном потому что группа Шрайхарта, не нуждаясь пока что в услугах городского совета, проявила недальновидность и не сообразила подмазать на всякий случай шайку бандитов, засевшую в ратуше

64

Oxford ties – ботинки с шнурками или пуговицами

65

rate war – тарифная война (снижение тарифов как средство в конкурентной борьбе)

66

for one – (эмоц.-усилит.) например

67

Perugino – Перуджино (1446—1524, настоящее имя Пьетро ди Кристофоро Ваннуччи), итальянский художник, представитель умбрийской школы; Luini – Луини, Бернардино (1480/90—1532), итальянский художник; Previtali – Превитали, Андреа (около 1480—1528), итальянский художник; Pinturrichio – Пинтуриккьо (1454—1513, настоящее имя Бернардино ди Бетти), итальянский художник, представитель умбрийской школы

68

the fly in the ointment – (разг.) ложка дегтя в бочке меда 4

69

Jacqueminot roses – сорт роз темно-красного цвета

70

My, my! – восклицание, выражающее удивление или восхищение

71

swing the censer – (разг.) курить фимиам

72

heightened her beauty – (разг.) подчеркнул ее красоту

73

to lead him astray – (разг.) сбить его с пути, зд. увлечь его 8

74

was looming in the offing – (разг.) маячила на горизонте

75

Her ox, God wot, was the one that was being gored. – Бог знает, может, это она проиграет в этой битве. (досл. ее бык будет пронзен)

76

lapsed into the blues – (разг.) загрустила, пала духом

77

There was safety in numbers – (зд.) Как-то спокойнее, если у него не одна подружка, а несколько

78

“lettahs” = letters (передается произношение Риты)