Catherine Owens Peare. Robert Louis Stevenson. М.: Просвещение, 1985, иллюстрации: Margaret Ayer, 121 страница, формат: 84 х 108 /32 (125 х 200 мм):
Оригинальное название: Robert Louis Stevenson: His Life (1955)
CONTENTS
Предисловие
Chapter I Cummy
Chapter II Smout and Coolin
Chapter III Wild and Like a Boy
Chapter IV The Lighthouse Stevensons
Chapter V In the Pentland Hills
Chapter VI A Madcap
Chapter VII Ordered South
Chapter VIII Wig and Gown
Chapter IX The Inland Voyage
Chapter X To Far-off America
Chapter XI Across the Plains
Chapter XII Home to Scotland
Chapter XIII Treasure Island
Chapter XIV Skerryvore
Chapter XV Saranac
Chapter XVI Tusitala
Topics for Discussion
Перевод эпиграфов
Vocabulary
List of Proper Names
List of Geographical Names
Предисловие
Роберт Льюис Стивенсон (1850-1894) был сыном инженера, специалиста по маякам. Шотландец по происхождению, он родился и получил образование в Эдинбурге. Хотя отец предполагал, что Роберт будет продолжать его профессию, будущий писатель предпочел изучать юриспруденцию. Однако с юных лет его интересовала литература.
Слабое состояние здоровья, предрасположение к туберкулезу вызывали необходимость перемены климата, и Стивенсон подолгу жил то во Франции, то в Калифорнии.
Последние годы жизни Стивенсон провел на островах Тихого океана. Он принимал большое участие в судьбе туземного населения островов Тихого океана.
Первые произведения Стивенсона принадлежали к жанру очерка. Уже в этих произведениях Стивенсон показал себя мастером изящного литературного стиля. Он писал также романы, уже первый из которых «Остров сокровищ» (1883) завоевал ему широкую известность. Следующие его романы «Похищенный» (1886), «Катриона» (1893), «Владелец Балантрэ», «Странная история доктора Джекила и мистера Хайда» и другие были также очень популярны у читателей. Главное внимание Стивенсон обращает на изобретение фабулы и интересных ситуаций.
В людях он ценил мужество, энергию, честность и верность.
В основу предлагаемой вниманию читателей книги положен адаптированный вариант повести английской писательницы Кэтрин Оуэнз Пиар (Catherine Owens Peare), в которой подробно и увлекательно рассказывается о жизненном и творческом пути замечательного английского писателя Роберта Льюиса Стивенсона.
В книге также даны отрывки из романов «Остров сокровищ», «Черная стрела», «Похищенный» и стихотворения из сборника «Детский цветник стихов».
После каждой главы предлагаются вопросы и разнообразные задания для контроля понимания прочитанного, а в конце книги имеются темы для обсуждения помещенного в ней материала, англо-русский словарь и списки имен собственных и географических названий.
Chapter I
CUMMY
In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candle-light,
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.
(Bed in Summer)
A prim young lady in a bonnet and shawl and a long flowing skirt rode along Howard Place in an open carriage. She leaned out to watch the numbers on the houses. Every house in the row was the same except for its number. Every house was made of grey stone, with a door and two windows downstairs, three windows upstairs, and a grey slate roof.
“Stop here,” she told the driver when they reached Number Eight. He reined up his horse. His passenger stepped out of the carriage with her bag in her hand, opened the gate in the iron fence and walked up to the front door.
“Is this the Stevenson residence?” she asked when the door opened.
“Aye,” Mrs Stevenson answered. “Are you Miss Alison Cunningham?”
“Aye.”
“We’re so glad you’re here. Do come in. My husband will see to your trunk.”1
Before Mrs Stevenson had time to give her a cup of tea, Miss Cunningham said she wanted to see the baby she had come to take care of. So Mrs Stevenson led her upstairs to the nursery.
Miss Cunningham clasped her hands and sighed when she saw Robert Louis Stevenson. He had fair hair like his mother, and blue eyes.
“How old is he?” she asked.
“Eighteen months,” said his mother. “He was born in this very house on November 13, 1850.”
The baby laughed and reached out to the visitor. Miss Cunningham took him up in her arms.
“Oh, I am going to love this position,” she whispered to the baby. “I am going to love being your nurse.”
From then on Alison Cunningham was much more than his nurse. She was like a member of the family almost for the rest of her life.
“Cummy!” Louis called her as soon as he could talk, and from then on she was Cummy to everyone.
Mrs Stevenson wasn’t very strong, Cummy soon learned. That was why she needed someone else to look after the baby. Mr Stevenson turned out to be the robust member of the family. He was a lighthouse engineer. His work kept him out in the fresh air a great deal, and that gave him a healthy look.
But the climate of Scotland is often damp and cold and windy. Everybody felt it from time to time. Even in the city of Edinburgh, where the Stevensons lived, there were days and days of grey skies and chill during the summer, and snow and wind in the winter. Louis felt it most of all, because he grew frailer as he grew older.
When he was two the Stevensons moved to a bigger house at One Inverleith Terrace—just a few doors away from Eight Howard Place. Because it was bigger, it was colder and full of drafts. There he had his first serious sickness: the croup. Thomas and Margaret Stevenson and Cummy watched over him while he coughed and gasped. He was their only child. They didn’t want to lose him. They sighed with relief when he recovered. But it wasn’t for long. From then on every winter saw Louis in bed with something—colds, coughs, even pneumonia.
Cummy had to keep him indoors for days at a time to clear up a cold.2 He sat in bed wrapped up in a big shawl while Cummy read to him. If it was Sunday, she read to him from the Bible. When he was well enough to get out of bed, he lay on his stomach on the nursery floor, painting water-colour pictures or drawing. One day his mother came into the nursery and he asked:
“Mama, I have drawn a man. Shall I draw his soul now?”
When Louis was sick, it wasn’t always the fault of the cold house or the Scottish climate. One day he and a playmate came down with a strange illness. The doctor took one look and asked:
“What have you been eating?”
“Buttercups,” Louis admitted.
“Oh!” gasped Mrs Stevenson.
“Why did you do that?”
“We were sailors, and we were shipwrecked, and that was all we had to eat,” he answered.
Summers were happier and healthier. And the best part of summer was going to Grandfather Balfour’s house, the Manse, in Colinton. There Aunt Jane Balfour kept the house. She was Mrs Stevenson’s sister. She took care of Grandfather and the Manse. In the summertime she took care of a houseful of nieces and nephews including Louis. Louis’ most favorite cousin was Bob Stevenson, three years older than himself.
Colinton was only a short carriage ride south of Edinburgh. But it was another world. The Manse stood behind the church where Grandfather was the priest. The church had a graveyard where Louis and his cousins imagined they saw “spunkies” dancing among the tombstones after dark. Between the church and the Manse ran a stone wall. The path along the wall was their “witches walk”.3 In front of the Manse stood a great yew tree. Its branches spread out and touched the ground. Louis and his cousins could climb the branches of the yew tree and find a cool hiding place as big as a room. They built houses in the branches of the tree.
Best of all, behind the Manse was a winding river called the Water of Leith. It was not much wider than a brook except when it rained a lot. Its banks were steep and full of trees. Sometimes it curved along under a dark tunnel of leaves.
And there were surprises at the Manse. Whenever Aunt Jane drove into town to shop she brought home a gift for someone. And one day she made Louis’ life happy by handing him a box of toy soldiers. What fun he had with Grandfather marching the soldiers up and down the dining-room table, acting out famous battles.
The days at Colinton always ended too soon. While it was still bright daylight, Aunt Jane came hunting along the “witches walk” or under the yew tree, calling, “Bedtime, children! Seven o’clock!”
Summer bedtime in Scotland was hard to understand. Scotland is so far north that the days are very long in summer and very short in winter. In the summertime it is light until ten o’clock at night, long after bedtime.
Summer or winter, if Louis wasn’t sleepy, he would lie in bed and invent stories, and sing and make up songs. He often found it hard to go to sleep at night.
Sometimes, at One Inverleith Terrace, his father came in at bedtime and told him stories - stories of the sea, stories of his Grandfather Robert Stevenson who had built the famous Bell Rock Lighthouse4 to protect the Scottish seamen. When Cummy taught him his alphabet there were more stories to go with every letter, and he loved to tell them himself.
“My Lou is a chatterbox,” said Mrs Stevenson.
He imagined and chattered all day. When he was very young he liked to play priest, standing on a chair, preaching a sermon like his grandfather.
At that Mrs Stevenson and Cummy both said, “I hope he will be a priest.”
“I should like him to be an engineer, like his father and his grandfather,” said Mr Stevenson.
The boy’s imagination worked while he slept, and he often had dreams.
“Cummy! Cummy!” he called out one night.
Cummy came running to the boy sitting up in bed.
“I dreamed I heard the noise of pens writing!” he told her.
“Stay with me, Cummy!” he begged, and Cummy sat beside him.
The Stevensons lived at Inverleith Terrace for four years. There were plenty of days when everyone felt well and happy. Mrs Stevenson was young and pretty and full of fun. She liked to laugh and run and play with her son.
While they still lived at Inverleith Terrace, Louis became old enough for his first school. He went just a few doors away to an infant class. There his first real troubles waited for him. He was weak and thin and the other children made fun of him. At home he was his mother’s darling, his father’s darling, and Cummy’s darling. At school all he could do was to take his seat and not look around.
Each morning his mother or Cummy left him there, and the small sensitive boy had to wait for the endless day to end—until he could be brought home again, to love, to comfort, to adoring family and relations.
For Louis was adored by more than his own family. There were his uncles and aunts, too, on both sides. They were always coming and going and visiting, always planning some game or other that children would like.
“We’re having a contest,” said Uncle David Stevenson to all the young Balfour and Stevenson cousins one autumn day. “A prize to the child who can write the best story of Moses.”
Six-year-old Louis was still too young to write, so he dictated his story of Moses to his mother. In a month it was finished. And at Christmastime the prize was his, a Bible picture book.
“My son has decided on his career,”5 said his mother proudly. “He wants to be an author.”
Chapter II