Exercises

Vocabulary a

1. Translate the following stretches of the text into Russian.

1) She liked it less now that her delicate features had grown muzzy with fat, that her arms and shoulders were so substantial and her hips so massive.

2) Nothing impaired their good humour but the scales, and when one or other of them weighed as much as she had the day before neither Frank’s coarse jokes, nor the bonhomie of Beatrice nor Arrow’s pretty kittenish ways sufficed to dispel the gloom.

3) She was in deep but not obtrusive mourning for the recent death of her husband.

4) During the evening they had been furiously cheerful, and they had chaffed one another with a friendliness that would have taken in the keenest observer. But <…> Beatrice was sullen. Arrow was spiteful and Frank was unmanned.

5) The three fat women persevered. They were chatty and even hilarious (such is the natural gift that women have for deception) but Beatrice grew limp and forlorn, and Arrow’s tender blue eyes acquired a steely glint. Frank’s deep voice grew more raucous.

6) If there was one thing that Frank Hickson prided herself on more than on being a match for any man it was that she was a gentlewoman, and her reply was perfect in its combination of majesty and graciousness.

7) With the slouching gait of the Neanderthal man which was Frank’s characteristic walk she went up to Beatrice. In her black bathing-dress Frank looked like the huge cetacean which the Japanese catch in the Torres Straits and which the vulgar call a sea-cow.

8) She had on a beautiful silk wrap she held tightly round her with one hand in order to look as slim as possible and she bore her head high so that he should not see her double chin.

9) The misunderstandings of the last fortnight dissolved and the sincere affection each had for the other welled up again in their hearts. They could hardly believe that they had ever contemplated the possibility of severing a friendship that had brought them so much solid satisfaction.

2. Paraphrase the underlined parts of the following sentences.

1) They were all in the comfortable forties.

2) The jests her name gave rise to now were made behind her back and she very well knew that they were far from obliging.

3) A grossest indecency wouldn’t have fallen on the ears of the three women with such a shock.

4) Even Beatrice, greedy as she was, drew the line there.

5) Frank, the good hostess, recovered herself first.

6) Beatrice gave a sickly smile and an evasive reply.

7) She helped herself liberally.

8) “You have a very sweet tooth,” said Arrow in a tone which she struggled to keep friendly.

9) “Don’t you ever think of your figure?” Arrow asked with icy deliberation.

10) “I’m not going to … watch that woman make a hog of herself.”

11) “For a fortnight I’ve watched her gorge like a hog. It’s more than flesh and blood can stand. I’m going to have one square meal even if I burst.”

3. Suggest Russian equivalents of the words and expressions below.

а) connected with food

- hard-boiled eggs

- raw tomatoes

- a crisp roll of French bread

- grilled sole/ cutlets

- to spread smth (butter, jam etc) thick over/ on smth

- lamb cutlets

- spinach boiled in water

- stewed pears

- powdered sugar

- macaroni sizzling with cheese and butter

- pate de foie gras

- peas swimming in cream

- (to have) a square meal

- croissants, chocolate éclairs, meringue

b) connected with dieting

- to weigh, weight

- to resort to drastic measures

- to give way to ungovernable appetite/ temptation/ passion etc

- to put on/ take off weight

- to go on/ keep a diet

- to exercise; to get/ take (plenty of) exercise

- to slim (down)/ to reduce

- to reduce smth (one’s consumption of food, risk of smth etc)

- to avoid fattening/ rich/ nourishing food

- to mount scales

- to do smth with unfailing regularity

- (antifat) rusk

- saccharine

c) miscellaneous

- to be resigned/ to resign oneself to smth (middle age)

- to attach (much, little, no) importance to smth

- to have a (good) mind to do smth

- to recover from a nervous breakdown/ strain

- to resist smth (a temptation, pressure, disease etc)/ doing smth

- to draw to a close

- to make (no) pretences

- to have/ be a treat; do smth for/ as a treat

- to be/ feel relieved; to give/ heave a sigh of relief

- to have a gift for smth (deception)

4. Find out English equivalents of the Russian words жирный and толстый and specify their reference. Make up a few possible collocations with each word, e.g. thick book/ cream/ fog etc.