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The sound of Summer Running • 11
run much faster than foxes or squirrels. As for the town, it was full of enemies irritable with heat, remembering every winter argument and insult. Find friends, ditch enemies! That was the tennis shoes motto. Does the world run too fast? Want to catch up1? Want to be alert, stay alert? Tennis shoes, then! Tennis shoes!
He held his coin piggy bank2 and heard the faint small tinkling, the airy weight of money there.
Whatever you want, he thought, you got to make your own way3. During the night now, let’s find that path through the forest…
Downtown, the store lights went out4, one by one. A wind blew in the window.
In his dreams he heard a rabbit running in the deep warm grass.
Old Mr. Sanderson moved through his shoe store as the proprietor of a pet shop must move through his shop where animals are collected from everywhere in the world, touching each one briefly along the way. Mr.
Sanderson touched the shoes in the window, and some of them were like cats to him and some were like dogs; he touched each pair with concern, adjusting laces, fixing tongues. Then he stood in the exact center of the carpet and looked around, nodding.
There was a sound of growing thunder.
1to catch up — (разг.) нагонять, наверстывать
2He held his coin piggy bank — Он взял в руки свою копилку для монет
3you got to make your own way — ты должен добиться этого сам
4to go out — гаснуть (об огне, свете)
12 • Ray Bradbury
One moment, the door to Sanderson’s Shoe Empo rium was empty. The next, Douglas Spaulding stood clumsily there, staring down at his leather shoes as if1 these heavy things could not be pulled up out of the cement. The thunder had stopped when his shoes stopped. Now, with painful slowness, daring to look only at the money in his hand, Douglas moved out of the bright sunlight of Saturday noon. He made careful stacks of nickels2, dimes, and quarters3 on the counter, like someone playing chess and worried if the next move carried him out into sun or deep into shadow.
“Don’t say a word!” said Mr. Sanderson. Douglas froze.
“First, I know just what you want to buy,” said Mr. Sanderson. “Second, I see you every afternoon at my window; you think I don’t see? You’re wrong. Third, you want the Tennis Shoes: ‘LIKE MENTHOL ON YOUR FEET!’ Fourth, you want credit.”
“No!” cried Douglas, breathing hard, as if he’d run all night in his dreams. “I got something better than credit to offer!” he gasped. “Before I tell, Mr. Sanderson, you got to do me one small favor4. Can you remember when was the last time you yourself wore a pair of tennis shoes, sir?”
Mr. Sanderson’s face darkened. “Oh, ten, twenty, say, thirty years ago. Why…?”
1as if — как будто, будто
2nickel — (разг.) никель — неофициальное название монеты в пять центов, используемое в Америке и Канаде
3quarter — четвертак — монета США достоинством 25 центов , четверть доллара (от англ. quarter — четверть)
4to do a favor — делать одолжение
The sound of Summer Running • 13
“Mr. Sanderson, don’t you think you owe it to your customers, sir, to at least try the tennis shoes you sell, for just one minute, so you know how they feel? People forget if they don’t keep testing things1. United Cigar Store man smokes cigars, doesn’t he? Candy-store man samples his own stuff, I think. So…”
“You may have noticed,” said the old man, “I’m wearing shoes.”
“But not tennis shoes, sir! How are you going to sell them unless you can praise them and how are you going to praise them unless you know them?”
Mr. Sanderson backed off a little distance from the boy’s fever, one hand to his chin. “Well…”
“Mr. Sanderson,” said Douglas, “you sell me some thing and I’ll sell you something just as valuable.”
“Is it absolutely necessary to the sale that I put on a pair of the tennis shoes, boy?” said the old man.
“I wish you could, sir!”
The old man sighed. A minute later, panting quiet ly, he laced the tennis shoes to his long narrow feet.
They looked detached and alien down there next to the dark cuffs of his business suit. Mr. Sanderson stood up.
“How do they feel?” asked the boy.
“How they feel, he asks; they feel fine.” He started to sit down.
“Please!” Douglas held out2 his hand. “Mr. Sanderson, now could you kind of3 rock back and forth a little, sponge around, bounce kind of, while I tell you the rest? It’s this: I give you my money, you give me the shoes,
1to keep doing smth — продолжать делать что-либо
2to hold out — (зд.) протягивать
3kind of — (разг.) вроде, как будто
14 • Ray Bradbury
I owe you a dollar. But, Mr. Sanderson, but — soon as I get those shoes on, do you know what happens?”
“What?”
“Bang! I deliver your packages, pick up1 packages, bring you coffee, take your trash away, run to the post office, telegraph office, library! You’ll see twelve of me in and out, in and out, every minute. Do you feel those shoes, Mr. Sanderson, feel how fast they’d take me? All those springs inside? Do you feel all the running inside? Feel how they kind of grab hold and can’t let you alone and don’t like you just standing there? Feel how quick I’d be doing the things you’d rather not bother with?2 You stay in the nice cool store while I’m jumping all around town! But it’s not me really, it’s the shoes. They’re going like mad down alleys, cutting corners, and back!”
Mr. Sanderson stood amazed with the rush of words.
When the words started the flow carried him; he began to sink deep in the shoes, to flex his toes, test his ankles. He rocked softly, secretly, back and forth in a small breeze from the open door. The tennis shoes silently hushed themselves deep in the carpet, sank as in a jungle grass. Emotions hurried over his face as if many colored lights had been switched on and off. His mouth hung slightly open. Slowly he gentled and rocked himself to a halt, and the boy’s voice faded and they stood there looking at each other in a tremendous and natural silence.
A few people walked by on the sidewalk outside, in the hot sun.
1to pick up — подбирать, забирать
2Feel how quick I’d be doing the things you’d rather not bother with? — Чувствуете, как быстро я буду делать дела, о которых вам самому заботиться не хотелось бы?
16 • Ray Bradbury
Still the man and boy stood there, the boy glowing, the man with revelation in his face.
“Boy,” said the old man at last, “in five years, would you like to sell shoes in this store?”
“Gosh1, thanks, Mr. Sanderson, but I don’t know what I’m going to be yet.”
“Anything you want to be, son,” said the old man, “you’ll be. No one will ever stop you.”
The old man walked lightly across the store to the wall of ten thousand boxes, came back with some shoes for the boy, and wrote up a list on some paper while the boy was lacing the shoes on his feet and then standing there, waiting.
The old man held out his list. “A dozen things you got to2 do for me this afternoon. Finish them and you’re fired.”
“Thanks, Mr. Sanderson!” Douglas rushed away. “Stop!” cried the old man.
Douglas stopped and turned. Mr. Sanderson leaned forward. “How do they feel?”
The boy looked down at his feet deep in the rivers, in the fields of wheat, in the wind that already was rushing him out of the town. He looked up at the old man, his eyes burning, his mouth moving, but no sound came out.
“Antelopes?” said the old man, looking from the boy’s face to his shoes. “Gazelles?”
The boy thought about it, hesitated, and nodded a quick nod. Almost immediately he vanished. The door stood empty. The sound of the tennis shoes faded in the jungle heat.
1Gosh — Боже!
2to get to — необходимо
The sound of Summer Running • 17
Mr. Sanderson stood in the sun-blazed door, listen ing. From a long time ago, when he dreamed as a boy, he remembered the sound. Beautiful creatures leaping under the sky, gone through brush, under trees, away, and only the soft echo of their running left behind.
“Antelopes,” said Mr. Sanderson. “Gazelles.”
He bent to pick up the boy’s abandoned winter shoes, heavy with forgotten rains and long-melted snows. Moving out of the blazing sun, walking softly, lightly, slowly, he headed back toward civilization…
Exercises
1. Practice the pronunciation of the following words.
movie [`mu:vI] |
murmur [`mQ:mA] |
clover [`klAUvA] |
barefoot [`beAfut] |
leather [`leGA] |
squirrel [`skwIr(A)l] |
weight [weIt] |
motto [`mOtAU] |
during [`djUArIN] |
proprietor [prA`praIAtA] |
tongue [tEN] |
exact [Ig`zBkt] |
praise [preIz] |
valuable [`vBljUAbl] |
sigh [saI] |
absolutely [,Bbs(A)`lu:tlI] |
bounce [baUns] |
emotion [I`mAUS(A)n] |
suit [su:t] |
echo [`ekAU] |
2.Find the words in the text for which the following are synonyms:
stop (v), film, a lot, owner, client, try, disappear, jump, pile (n), cash desk.
Make your own sentences with these words. Check whether you can replace them with their synonyms. Is there any difference in meaning?
18• Ray Bradbury
3.Answer the following questions.
1.Why did Douglas want a new pair of tennis shoes? Why couldn’t he wear the old one?
2.Did Douglas like the idea of saving some money? Why (not)?
3.How did Mr. Sanderson react to Douglas’s visit?
4.What did the boy offer Mr. Sanderson for the pair of tennis shoes?
5.Why do you think Douglas wanted the man to try the tennis shoes on?
6.What did Mr. Sanderson feel when he put the shoes on?
7.Did you ever have a similar experience?
4.Retell the story for the persons of Douglas, Father, Mr.San derson.
THE NIGHT
The courthouse clock struck nine and it was getting late and it was really night on this small street in a small town in a big state on a large continent on a
planet Earth. Tom sat by the screen door1 looking out at the blackness of the night. There was a smell of rain. Mother was ironing and sprinkling water from a ketchup bottle over the dry clothes behind Tom.
One store was still open about a block away — Mrs. Singer’s.
Finally, just before it was time for Mrs. Singer to close her store, Mother softened and told Tom, “Run get a pint2 of ice cream and be sure3 she packs it tight.”
He asked if he could get a scoop of chocolate on top, because he didn’t like vanilla, and Mother agreed. He took the money and ran barefooted over the warm evening cement sidewalk, under the apple and oak trees, toward the store. The town was quiet, and you could hear only the crickets sounding in the spaces beyond the trees that hold back4 the stars.
His bare feet slapped the pavement. He crossed the street and found Mrs. Singer moving heavily about her store, singing melodies.
“Pint ice cream?” she said. “Chocolate on top? Yes!”
1screen door — дверь с проволочной сеткой для защи ты от насекомых
2pint — пинта (1 пинта ≈ 0,5 л)
3to be sure — убеждаться
4to hold back — сдерживать, удерживать
20 • Ray Bradbury
She took the metal top off the ice-cream freezer and manipulated the scoop, packing the cardboard pint full with “chocolate on top, yes!” He gave the money, received the chill, icy pack, and rubbing it across his brow and cheek, laughing, headed barefootedly homeward. Behind him the lights of the lonely little store went out and there was only a street light shimmering on the corner, and the whole city seemed to be going to sleep.
Opening the screen door, he found Mom still ironing. She looked hot and irritated but she smiled just the same1.
“When will Dad be home from lodge meeting2?” he asked.
“About eleven or eleven-thirty,” Mother replied. She took the ice cream to the kitchen, divided it. Giving him his special portion of chocolate, she took some for herself and the rest was put away, “for Douglas and your father when they come.”
They sat enjoying the ice cream. His mother and himself and the night all around their small house on the small street. He licked each spoonful of ice cream thoroughly before digging for another, and Mom put her ironing board away and the hot iron cooling, and she sat in the armchair by the phonograph, eating her dessert and saying, “My land3, it was a hot day today. Earth soaks up4 all the heat and lets it out at night. It’ll be soggy sleeping.”
1just the same — по-прежнему, тем не менее
2When will Dad be home from lodge meeting? — Ко гда папа вернется с собрания членов профсоюза?
3My land — Боже (мой)
4to soak up — впитывать, поглощать