4. Extracts for stylistic analysis

Task 1 Read the passage.

Task 2 Identify the theme and the range of ideas of the fragment. Set the priority of the ideas. Point out the SD that suggested the ideas.

W. Somerset Maugham

Cakes and Ale or the Skeleton in the Cupboard

Roy was very modest about his first novel. It was short, neatly written, and, as is everything he has pro­duced since, in perfect taste. He sent it with a pleasant letter to all the leading writers of the day, and in this he told each one how greatly he admired his works, how much he had learned from his study of them, and how ardently he aspired to follow, albeit at a humble dis­tance, the trail his correspondent had blazed. He laid his book at the feet of a great artist as the tribute of a young man entering upon the profession of letters to one whom he would always look up to as his master. Deprecatingly, fully conscious of his audacity in asking so busy a man to waste his time on a neophyte's puny effort, he begged for criticism and guidance. Few of the replies were perfunctory. The authors he wrote to, flattered by his praise, answered at length. They commended his book; many of them asked him to luncheon. They could not fail to be charmed by his frankness and warmed by his enthusiasm. He asked for their advice with a humil­ity that was touching and promised to act upon it with a sincerity that was impressive. Here, they felt, was some­one worth taking a little trouble over.

His novel had a considerable success. It made him many friends in literary circles and in a very short while you could not go to a tea party in Bloomsbury, Campden Hill, or Westminster without finding him handing round bread and butter or disembarrassing an elderly lady of an empty cup. He was so young, so bluff, so gay, he laughed so merrily at other people's jokes that no one could help liking him. He joined dining clubs where in the basement of a hotel in Victoria Street or Holborn men of letters, young barristers, and ladies in Liberty silks and strings of beads ate a three-and-sixpenny dinner and discussed art and literature. It was soon discov­ered that he had a pretty gift for after-dinner speaking. He was so pleasant that his fellow writers, his rivals and contemporaries, forgave him even the fact that he was a gentleman. He was generous in his praise of their fledge­ling works, and when they sent him manuscripts to crit­icize could never find a thing amiss. They thought him not only a good sort, but a sound judge.

He wrote a second novel. He took great pains with it and he profited by the advice his elders in the craft had given him. It was only just that more than one should at his request write a review for a paper with whose editor Roy had got into touch and only natural that the review should be flattering. His second novel was successful, but not so successful as to arouse the umbrageous sus­ceptibilities of his competitors. In fact it confirmed them in their suspicions that he would never set the Thames on fire. He was a jolly good fellow; no side, or anything like that: they were quite content to give a leg up to a man who would never climb so high as to be an obstacle to themselves. I know some who smile bitterly now when they reflect on the mistake they made.

But when they say that he is swollen-headed they err. Roy has never lost the modesty which in his youth was his most engaging trait.

"I know I'm not a great novelist," he will tell you. "When I compare myself with the giants I simply don't exist. I used to think that one day I should write a really great novel, but I've long ceased even to hope for that. All I want people to say is that I do my best. I do work I never let anything slipshod get past me. I think I can tell a good story and I can create characters that ring true. And after all the proof of the pudding is in the eating: The Eye of the Needle sold thirty-five thousand in England and eighty thousand in America, and for the serial rights of my next book I've got the biggest terms I've ever had yet."

And what, after all, can it be other than modesty that makes him even now write to the reviewers of his books, thanking them for their praise, and ask them to lunch­eon? Nay, more: when someone has written a stinging criticism and Roy, especially since his reputation be­came so great, has had to put up with some very virulent abuse, he does not, like most of us, shrug his shoulders, fling a mental insult at the ruffian who does not like our work, and then forget about it; he writes a long letter to his critic, telling him that he is very sorry he thought his book bad, but his review was so interesting in itself, and if he might venture to say so, showed so much critical sense and so much feeling for words, that he felt bound to write to him. No one is more anxious to improve him­self than he and he hopes he is still capable of learning. He does not want to be a bore, but if the critic has nothing to do on Wednesday or Friday will he come and lunch at the Savoy and tell him why exactly he thought his book so bad? No one can order a lunch better than Roy, and generally by the time the critic has eaten half a dozen oysters and a cut from a saddle of baby-lamb, he has eaten his words too. It is only poetic justice that when Roy's next novel comes out the critic should see in the new work a very great advance.

Task 3 Read the comments

Task 4 Make an outline of the comments.

Task 5 Make a list of expressions that may come in useful in the analysis

William Somerset Maugham

Cakes and Ale

Comments

The extract is taken from the very beginning of the book and gives a mock-serious portrait of a prosperous and fash­ionable literary mediocrity. The story is told by another writer, and the main point that interests him is the secret of Kear's success. The reader is made fully aware of the fact that this success has nothing to do with artistic merit, but is chiefly due to Kear's skill in marketing his work and in using every kind of publicity to assist the spread of his books. He makes himself a public figure, cringes before reviewers and leading writers, finds his way into clubs and drawing-rooms and spares no effort in pleasing the public. Maugham's style is clear-cut and elegant. The composition of Kear's portrait deserves special attention. After a description of the character's background, education and outward appearance (omitted in the present selection), the novelist produces a sketch of his literary career in a series of paragraphs, in which the author's narrative is subtly blended with the reported speech of the hero and different people who come into contact with him. We get to know about the methods used by Rear in securing the support of celebrities, critics, the public and his fellow writers. A play upon contrasts and contradictions and affirming the very opposite of the obvious truth lies at the basis of Maugham's sarcastic method in portraying his characters. The keywords of the last paragraph are "sincerity" and "hypocrisy", occurring several times. The novelist mockingly assures his reader that there is no hypocrisy about his hero because hypocrisy is a difficult vice. The main point in proving that he is no time-server and no hypocrite is that "Roy has always sincerely believed what everyone else believed at the moment". At the end of the paragraph Maugham manages to reveal in a few tiny but significant touches what sort of cant Roy's novels were made of. Each paragraph forms a complete unit. The shaft of Maugham's ridicule seems to be directed not only against the pushing go-getter but also against the people who fall an easy prey to his flattery, and whose opinion (phrased in familiar collo­quial style and in semi-direct speech) closes each paragraph: "Here, they felt, was someone worth taking a little trouble over"; "They thought him not only a good sort, but a sound judge". His fellow writers tolerated him on account of his mediocrity: "...he would never set the Thames on fire. He was a jolly good fellow; no side, or anything like that: they were quite content to give a leg up to a man who would never climb so high as to be an obstacle to themselves." He did climb very high, however, so that the same people "smile bitterly now when they reflect on the mistake they made". The bitterness of Maugham's irony is all the more to be felt as he pretends to justify Rear's hypocrisy and in his preface to the book writes that this practice of advertizing one's own books is very common, and that one cannot help feeling sympathy, for "it would be brutal to look with anything but kindness at an author who takes so much trouble to per­suade the world at large to read books that he honestly considers so well worth reading". The reader has to decide for himself whether he is to believe the preface or the novel. In the extract under consideration, as well as in the rest of the novel, the attitude of the novelist to his character seems mostly to be cynically sarcastic. Credit must be given to Maugham for being extremely resourceful in moulding the portrait. Twice in the extract we come across a specific kind of speech characterization: it is Kear's letters written after the publication of his first novel to every leading writer of the day and later on to his critics, and especially to those whose reviews were unfavorable. The letters are rendered in a kind of represented speech. Their audacious flattery is reflected in the choice of trite eulogistic stock phrases making a parody of second-rate literary criticism: "to admire greatly"; "to aspire ardently"; "a great artist"; "to look up to as one's master"; "so much critical sense"; "so much feeling for words". There are also such hackneyed metaphors as: "to blaze the trail"; "to follow a trail"; "to lay one's book at the feet of a great artist" and so on. The servility of Kear's manner is manifest in the choice of epithets; "at a humble distance"; "a neophyte's puny effort". Maugham's irony is rather prominent in the solemn ring of emphatic parallel constructions into which all these flowery expressions are ar­ranged: "how greatly he admired..."; "how much he had learned..."; "how ardently he aspired..." A reiteration of the emphatic so before homogeneous attributes extolling Rear's charm ("He was so young, so bluff, so gay, he laughed so merrily at other people's jokes...") also sounds mocking enough. Thus Kear is ably drawn in many various ways: by rendering his letters, by repeating the general opinion held of him and by describing the particulars of his manner to­wards people. As an illustration of Maugham's skill in using every nuance of the language to serve some special stylis­tic purpose, we might mention his use of pronouns. Revealing, for instance, Kear's attitude to his own art, Maugham pointedly stresses his egotism and self-complacency by making him use the first person singular almost to the exclusion of any other form (the word "I" occurs 16 times in one paragraph). In this way the speech intended as a proof of Kear's modesty rings brazenly boastful. On the other hand, Maugham hints that the reader should not flatter himself by think­ing he is any better than the people he is reading about. So the writer manages to involve us into the events of the book by using the second person in his narration. The above mentioned paragraph begins as follows: "I know I'm not a great novelist," he will tell you." The same trend of mocking at everybody including himself is marked when it is the first person plural that is employed to unite the author with the other writers: "...he does not, like most of us, shrug his shoulders, fling a mental insult at the ruffian who does not like our work, and then forget about it". This specific, cyni­cal quality of Maugham's irony is manifest in his manner of building sentences that contain contradicting components.

This device allows Maugham to reveal the incongruity of the world around him and is an effective means of carrying his irony, as, for instance, in the question opening the description of Kear's method of dealing with criticism: "And what, after all, can it be other than modesty that makes him even now write to the reviewers of his books, thanking them for their praise, and ask them to luncheon?" The question is keenly ironical and the reader is well prepared to see through this pretence even before the last phrase, referring to luncheon. Maugham never spares Kear in laying bare his egotisti­cal motives, but at the same time he treats him with a sort of contemptuous sympathy. This tolerance has for its basis Maugham's outlook: he considers life a struggle for existence in which only the strong survive. According to him it is a senseless chaos, and as to evil and good, they simply do not exist.

Task 6 Read the passage.

Task 7 Identify the theme and the range of ideas of the fragment. Set the priority of the ideas. Point out the SD that suggested the ideas.

Oscar Wild

The Picture of Dorian Gray

He sighed, and, having poured himself out some tea, opened Lord Henry's note. It was simply to say that he sent him round the evening paper, and a book that might interest him, and that he would be at the club at eight-fifteen. He opened The St. James's languidly, and looked through it. A red pencil-mark on the fifth page caught his eye. It drew attention to the following paragraph:

'inquest on AN actress.—An inquest was held this morning at the Bell Tavern, Hoxton Road, by Mr. Danby, the District Coroner, on the body of Sibyl Vane, a young actress recently engaged at the Royal Theatre, Holborn. A verdict of death by misadventure was returned. Consider­able sympathy was expressed for the mother of the deceased, who was greatly affected during the giving of her own evidence, and that of Dr. Birrell, who had made the post­mortem examination of the deceased.'

He frowned, and, tearing the paper in two, went across the room and flung the pieces away. How ugly it all was! And how horribly real ugliness made things! He felt a little annoyed with Lord Henry for having sent him the report. And it was certainly stupid of him to have marked it with red pencil. Victor might have read it. The man knew more than enough English for that.

Perhaps he had read it, and had begun to suspect something. And, yet, what did it matter? What had Dorian Gray to do with Sibyl Vane's death ? There was nothing to fear. Dorian Gray had not killed her.

His eye fell on the yellow book that Lord Henry had sent him. What was it, he wondered. He went towards the little pearl-coloured octagonal stand, that had always looked to him like the work of some strange Egyptian bees that wrought in silver, and taking up the volume, flung himself into an arm-chair, and began to turn over the leaves. After a few minutes he became absorbed. It was the strangest book that he had ever read. It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb show before him. Things that he had dimly dreamed of were suddenly made real to him. Things of which he had never dreamed were gradually revealed.

It was a novel without a plot, and with only one character, being, indeed, simply a psychological study of a certain young Parisian, who spent his life trying to realize in the nineteenth century all the passions and modes of thought that belonged to every century except his own, and to sum up, as it were, in himself the various moods through which the world-spirit had ever passed, loving for their mere artificiality those renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue, as much as those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin. The style in which it was written was that curious jeweled style, vivid and obscure at once, full of argot and of archaisms, of technical expressions and of elaborate paraphrases, that characterizes the work of some of the finest artists of the French school of Symbolistes. There were in it metaphors as monstrous as orchids, and as subtle in colour. The life of the senses was described in the terms of mystical philosophy. One hardly knew at times whether one was reading the spiritual ecstasies of some mediaeval saint or the morbid confessions of a modern sinner.

It was a poisonous book. The heavy odour of incense, seemed to cling about its pages and to trouble the brain. The mere cadence of the sentences, the subtle monotony of their music, so full as it was of complex refrains and movements elaborately repeated, produced in the mind of the lad, as he passed from chapter to chapter, a form of reverie, a malady of dreaming, that made him unconscious of the falling day and creeping shadows.

Cloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green sky gleamed through the windows. He read on by its wan light till he could read no more. Then, after his valet had reminded him several times of the lateness of the hour, he got up, and, going into the next room, placed the book on the little Florentine table that always stood at his bedside, and began to dress for dinner.

It was almost nine o'clock before he reached the club, where he found Lord Henry sitting alone, in the morning-room, looking very much bored.

'I am so sorry, Harry,' he cried, 'but really it is entirely your fault. That book you sent me so fascinated me that I forgot how the time was going.'

'Yes; I thought you would like it,' replied his host, rising from his chair.

'I didn't say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference/

'Ah, you have discovered that?' murmured Lord Henry. And they passed into the dining-room.

Task 8 Read the comments

Task 9 Make an outline of the comments.

Task 10 Make a list of expressions that may come in useful in the analysis

The Picture of Dorian Gray

Oscar Wilde

Comments

The interest of the present selection is manifold. In the first place it affords an example of the most characteristic features in Wilde's method and style. On the other hand, the main interest of its second part lies in showing the writer's tastes and his attitude to his literary environment. The events in the excerpt, although they are concerned only with a very small part of the whole plot, are nevertheless significant in that respect. The decadent writers of the nineties are known to have as­serted the superiority of beauty and pleasure over all other considerations. The reader, however, is at once prompted to ask himself: how can pleasure be the highest good, if it brings death and crime in its wake? The novel as a whole is a psy­chological study bringing to light the gradual debasement of Dorian's nature. Finally he has on his conscience every vice and crime, including deliberate murder. The meaning of what is happening to Dorian (even when we have only the above passage to guide us) very clearly refutes the decadent theories set forth in the "yellow book" that enthralls the hero. The first ominous signs of the degradation are manifest in the callousness with which Dorian responds to the newspaper in­formation concerning the inquest. He is annoyed, he frowns, tears the paper in two. His utter lack of feeling is clear from the exclamations proving he is not concerned with the tragedy of Sybil Vane, but with the ugliness of the inquest. There is a distinct undercurrent of fear very subtly suggested and exposing to the full the hero's monstrous egotism. He persuades himself he has nothing to do with Sybil Vane's death, but is nevertheless afraid of his valet Victor who might suspect something.

The short newspaper information quoted in full makes in its crude journalese a sharp contrast to the refined language of the French novel as described by Wilde. The last act of Sybil Vane's tragedy is narrated in a few law terms (inquest, coro­ner, verdict, death by misadventure, post-mortem examination, the deceased). The standard and hackneyed phraseology jars on the ear ("considerable sympathy was expressed", "the mother... who was greatly affected"). The contrast between the newspaper and the novel, between reality and fiction, life and art, is sustained by the hero's reaction: he is "annoyed" by the newspaper, seeing nothing but ugliness in its terrible reality, and "absorbed" and "fascinated" by the novel. The book of the French symbolist is called "the strangest book he [Dorian] had ever read", which is with Wilde decidedly a compliment. "Strange", "curious", "mysterious", "mystical" things are always attractive according to the decadent stan­dard. Wilde himself in some of his works strives for a "curious jewelled style, vivid and obscure at once". He delights in queer and vaguely morbid imagery ("dimly dreamed", "as monstrous as orchids", "spiritual ecstasies", "morbid confes­sions", "poisonous book", "odour of incense", "trouble the brain", "a malady of dreaming"). An apostle of the cult of beauty, Wilde is always a "connoisseur", a well-informed judge in art, who relishes every opportunity of describing ob­jects of ornamental arts: furniture, jewellery, tapestries, ivory etc., and presses upon the reader his hero's refined taste.' Notice, for instance, the description of the stand from which the book is taken: "the little pearl-coloured octagonal stand, that had always looked to him like the work of some strange Egyptian bees that wrought in silver". In these three lines the novelist twice resorts to jewellery as a source for his images. There is, perhaps, no other English writer so fond of gems and jewels as Wilde is. Another piece of furniture mentioned in the scene is a "little Florentine table". One is immediately aware of Renaissance associations, so this other table must also be a rarity. Wilde's fascination with everything that is ar­tificial and rare is revealed in the manner the "yellow book" is described: "It seemed to him that in exquisite raiment, and to the delicate sound of flutes, the sins of the world were passing in dumb show before him." All pins, even the "seven deadly ones", would be attractive to Wilde, so long as they were dressed in "exquisite raiment".

The general character of the imagery representing the contents of the "yellow book" as a theatrical pantomime, and not as something in nature, is typical. Of this the allusion to flutes affords a good example. Flutes, harps and lutes were much favoured attributes of refined "beauty" in the decadent conception. These were the musical instruments of verse, they were painted in pictures, reproduced in stucco on the fronts of houses etc. The word raiment, a bookish and archaic syno­nym for 'dress', conveys to the extended metaphor an elaborately ancient hue. Wilde's favourite epithets exquisite and delicate speak volumes of the author's esthetic views, with their exaggerated fastidiousness, and scorn for everything rough or "vulgar". The standards of refinement, however, are sometimes trivial: making mild fun of the English upper classes, Wilde nevertheless is rather fond of rendering the routine of aristocratic "high life": dressing for dinner, dining at the club about nine o'clock, etc. The passage is also significant as it sets forth the ethical conception of the decadents, ex­pressed with the usual affected pose so characteristic of this trend: "renunciations that men have unwisely called virtue... those natural rebellions that wise men still call sin". The word sin is a favourite with Wilde. In the above excerpt it is used twice, the third instance being its derivative sinner. In reading the novel we come across it an infinite number of times. In every case it receives a very specific emotional colouring evoking something irresistibly attractive, if forbidden. "Epater le bourgeois" (to amaze and shock the bourgeois) — is undoubtedly the slogan behind this. Wilde defies the hypocritical puritanism of the middle-class and tickles the sophisticated nerves of the aristocracy. In the matter of vocabulary Wilde is fastidious and yet somewhat monotonous: the same words that were in vogue with the decadents appear over and over again, almost on every page, the above pages being no exception. Alongside with sin, strange, exquisite and delicate that have already been mentioned, these are: passion, dream, subtle, elaborate, dim. This last word might be, perhaps, spe­cially noted, for it is very typical of Wilde that he ex-cells in describing coming darkness ("falling day and creeping shad­ows"; "cloudless, and pierced by one solitary star, a copper-green sky gleamed through the windows"; "wan light"). The delicate epithet fascinating becomes the core of something like a paradox in a short dialogue between Dorian and Lord Henry: "I didn't say I liked it, Harry. I said it fascinated me. There is a great difference." As it is more natural and usual to be charmed by what one likes, the statement is self-contradictory. At the same time, although apparently absurd, this paradox becomes clearer, if we take into consideration that the original meaning of the word fascinated was 'dominated”.

TESTS

Test 1 Identify the stylistic devices and expressive means employed by the author, account for the stylistic effect:

1. As well as the shrieks there was a dull continuous roar; an elemental sound, like a forest fire or a river in spate. As his reluctant legs bore him upwards he arrived at the inevitable deduction: the party was being a success.

2. If he was useful to Marta as a cavalier when she needed one, she was even more useful to him as a window on the world. The more windows on the world a policeman has the better he is likely to be at his job, and Marta was his “leper’s squint” on the theatre.

3. Marta, bless her black-and-white chic and her disgruntled look, was the nearest thing to real distinction in the room.

4. And there was something in the implied comment of his remark about the megaphone, in the detachment with which he was watching the scene, that divorced him from his surroundings.

5. He has just a pieds-a-terre in town.

6. Walter saved from Marguerite Merriam and settling down to marry Liz; all family together in the old homestead and too cozy for words.

7. That boy was making as impression on me in thirty seconds flat and a range of twenty yards, and I’m considered practically incombustible.

8. - What did you think of her?

- Oh, she was mad, of course.

- How mad?

- Ten tenths.

- In what way?

- You mean how did it take her? Oh, a complete indifference to everything but the thing she wanted at the moment.

9. Well, there’s a dreadful fascination about it, you know. One thinks: that’s the absolute sky-limit of awfulness, nothing could be worse. And so next week you listen to see if it really can be worse. It’s a snare. It’s so awful you can’t even switch off. You wait fascinated for the next piece of awfulness, and the next.

10. – What did Marguerite find so wonderful about him?

– I can tell you that. His devotion. Marguerite liked picking the wings off flies. Walter would let her take him to pieces and then come back for more.

11. It Marguerite Merriam was too bad even for Walter Whitmore, then Liz is too good for him. Much too good for him.

Test 2 Identify the stylistic devices and expressive means employed by the author, account for the stylistic effect:

1. The car was a two-seater Rolls; a little old-fashioned in shape as rolls cars, which last for ever, are apt to be.

2. - But aren’t you going to pack for me?

- Pack for you?

- But your aunt said you were to.

- That was a mere figure of speech.

- Not the way I figure it. Anyhow, come up and watch while I pack. Lend me your advice and countenance. It’s a nice countenance.

3. “This is when I think lights look best,” Liz said. While it is still daylight. They are daffodil yellow and magic. Presently when it grows dark they well go white and ordinary.

4. The last raw scar of new development had faded behind them, and they were now in an altogether country world.

5. She was a little sorry to see that her mother did not like Searle. No one would ever suspect it, of course, but Liz knew her mother very well and could gauge with micrometer accuracy her secret reactions to any given situation. She was aware now of the distrust that seethed and bubbled behind that bland front, as lava seethes and bubbles behind the smiling slopes of Vesuvius.

6. - We have often had people we didn’t know anything about down here at a moment’s notice –

- Indeed we have.

7. For the introspective Liz, on the other hand, life had become all of a sudden a sort of fun-fair. A kaleidoscope. A place where no surface ever stayed still or horizontal for more than a few seconds together. Where one was plunged into swift mock danger and whirled about in coloured lights.

8. But a light went out of the room with him, and sprang up again when he came back. She was aware of every movement of his, from the small mallet of his forefinger as it flicked the radio switch to the lift of his foot as it kicked a log in the fireplace.

9. So that poor Emma, walking up the spotless brick path to hand in a basket of eggs on her way to Evensong, was walking all unaware into her Waterloo.

10. And then, quite suddenly, Walter was gone.

He went without noise and without a goodnight. Only the bang of the door called their attention to his exit. It was as eloquent slam, furious and final; a very pointed exit.

Test 3 Identify the stylistic devices and expressive means employed by the author, account for the stylistic effect:

1.«I am sorry to be a nuisance, but I am busy this morning getting rid of the undergrowth in this case».

«Undergrowth? »

«I want to get rid of all people who сan’t possibly enter into the case at all.»

«I see. You are collecting alibis. »

2. «They were like two dogs walking round each other, » Reeve said. «No row, but a sort of atmosphere. The row might burst out any moment, if you see what I mean. » 3. «Mr. Ratoff, can you suggest how Leslie Searle came to be in the river? »

«Came to be? He fell in, I suppose. Such a pity. Pollution. The river is so beautiful it should be kept for beautiful things. Ophelia. Shalott. Do you think Sharlott would make a ballet? »

4. Silas has a “thing” about fertility. He holds that the highest function of a woman is the manufacture of progeny. So disheartening for a woman, don’t you feel, to be weighed against a rabbit, and to know that she will inevitably be found wanting. Life by Fertility out of Ugliness. That is how Silas sees it.

5. At the mention of Searle Weekley began a diatribe against moneyed dilettantes which – in view of Weekley’s income and the sum total of his morning’s work – Grant thought inappropriate. He cut him short.

6. The morning smelt very fresh and sweet. The sour smell of vomited milk and rough-dried dish-cloths that had hung about the house was nothing to the smell of soured humanity that filled the place where Silas Weekley worked.

7.When Grant walked into the Mill House at a quarter to seven he felt that he had riddled Salcott St. Mary through a small-meshed sieve, and what he had left in the sieve was exactly nothing. He had a very fine cross-section of life in England, and he was by that much the richer.

8. «I am so glad that it is not Walter who has disappeared,» she said, wafting him to a chair with one of her favorite gestures and beginning to pour sherry.

«Glad?» Grant said, remembering Martha’s expressed opinion of Walter.

«If it was Walter who had disappeared, I should be a suspect, instead of a sleeping partner. » Grant thought that Marta as sleeping partner must have much in common with sleeping dogs.

9.She was a woman who not only appreciated good food and good drink but was possessed of that innate good sense that is half-way to kindness.

10. «You are very accommodating for a policeman, » she remarked.

«Criminals don’t find us that way, » he said.

«I thought providing accommodation for criminals was the end and object of Scotland Yard.»

Test 4 Translate the following sentences into Russian, paying special attention to the stylistic devices and expressive means employed by the author:

1. Do you know that Hollywood stars go down on their knees to get Leslie Searle to photograph them? It is something they can’t buy. A privilege. An honour.

2. This was the spark that ignited Serge.

3. But there was never any successful argument against Arthur’s methods. Arthur just put a friendly arm round one and leaned. The arm was like a limb of a beech tree, and the pressure was that of a landslide.

4. But Cormac Ross has sufficient West Highland blood in him to find it difficult to say no. He liked to be liked. So he engaged Cromarty as his smoke-screen. When and author could be received with open arms, the open arms were Cormac Ross’s. Then an author had regretfully to be turned down it was on account of Cromarty’s intransigence.

5. So, full of good burgundy and the prospects of cheques to come, Walter went on the the studio and his mind one more began to play tricks on him and run away back to Salcott instead of staying delightedly in the studio as was its habit.

Test 5 Translate the following sentences into Russian, paying special attention to the stylistic devices and expressive means employed by the author:

1. What made him sick, of course, was not the box of candy. He was sick of an emotion that was old before candy was invented.

2. Lavinia was the sandy little woman by the middle window. She had bought herself a fashionable hat for the occasion, but had done nothing to accommodate it; so that the hat perched on her bird’s-nest of ginger hair as if it had dropped there from an upper window as she walked along the street. She was wearing her normal expression of pleased bewilderment and no make-up.

3. The trouble welled up and overflowed into words, almost against her will, some seven days later. She was dictating as usual to Liz, but was making heavy weather of it.

4. «I know it isn’t his fault – it isn’t anything he does – but there’s no denying that he is an upsetting person. There’s Serge and Toby Tullis not on speaking terms…»

«That is nothing new!»

«But they had become friends again, and Serge was behaving quite well and working, and now …»

5. Lavinia Fitch – dear, kind, abstracted Lavinia – manufacturer of fiction for the permanently adolescent, had after all a writer’s intuition.

Test 6 Translate the following sentences into Russian, paying special attention to the stylistic devices and expressive means employed by the author:

1. «Why are you telling me this?» Liz said , half angry. Lavinia stopped doodling and said disarmingly: «Liz darling. I don’t quite know, except perhaps that I was hoping you would find some way of reassuring Walter. In your own clever way. Which is to say, without dotting any I’s or crossing any T’s.

2. And yet Lavinia had been so right. Walter’s first easy taking-for-granted attitude to the visitor had changed to a host and guest relationship.

3. …she would think up some small exclusive thing to do with Walter; something that would be tete-a-tete. It had been too often a triangle lately. Or too often, perhaps, the wrong tete-a-tete.

4. So that he listened with only and ear-and-a-half to what his superior was saying to him until a familiar name caught his whole attention.

5.Oxfordshire say they want to put it in our laps not because they think the problem is insoluble but because it’s a kid-glove affair.

Test 7 Translate the following sentences into Russian, paying special attention to the stylistic devices and expressive means employed by the author:

1. It was exactly like touching a snail, he thought. The instant closing-up and withdrawal. One moment she was frank and unselfconscious. The next moment she was startled and defensive.

2. Never, she said, had she had to do for a nicer young man. She had met dozens of young men, gentlemen and others, who considered a girl’s ankles, but Mr. Searl was the only one she had ever men who considered a girl’s feet.

«Feet?»

He would say: « You сan do this and that, and that will save you coming up again, won’t it. » And she could only conclude that this was an American characteristic, because no Englishman she had ever come across had ever cared two hoots whether you had to come up again or not.

3. As he went out to get his car he said: «Have you any Press staying in the house?»

«Three,» Reeve said. «The Clarion, the Morning News, and the Post. They are out now, sucking the village dry»

« Also ran: Scotland Yard», Grant said wryly, and drove away.

4. Every third cottage in the place has an alien in it. All degrees of wealth, from Toby Tullis – the playwright, you know – who has a lovely house in the middle of the village street, to Serge Ratoff the dancer who lives in a converted stable. All degrees of living in sin, from Deenie Paddington who never has the same weekend guest twice, to poor old Atlanta Hope and Bart Hobart who have been living in sin, bless them, for the best part of thirty years. All degrees of talent from Silas Weekley, who writes those dark novels of country life - all steaming manure and slashing rain, to Miss Easton-Dixon who writes a fairy-tale book once a year for the Christmas trade.

5.Liz had been falling in and out of love more or less regularly since the age of seven, but she had never wanted to marry anyone but Walter, who was Walter, and different. Even with Tino Tresca, of the yearning eyes and the tenor that dissolved one’s heart like a melting ice, even with Tresca, craziest of all her devotions it was possible to forget for minutes together that she was in the same room with him. (With Walter, of course, there was nothing remarkable in the fact that they should be sharing the same air: he was just there and it was nice).