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The Night • 21
They both sat listening to the night, pressed down by every window and door and complete silence because the radio needed a new battery, and they had played all the records to exhaustion; so Tom just sat on the hardwood floor and looked out into the dark, pressing his nose against the screen until its tip was covered with small dark squares.
“I wonder where Doug is? It’s almost nine-thirty.” “He’ll be here,” Tom said, knowing very well that
Douglas would be.
He followed Mom out to wash the dishes. Each sound, each rattle of spoon or dish was increased in the baked evening. Silently they went to the living room, removed the couch cushions and, together, transformed it into the double bed it secretly was. Mother made the bed1. Then, as he was unbuttoning his shirt, she said, “Wait awhile, Tom.”
“Why?”
“Because I say so.” “You look odd, Mom.”
Mom sat down a moment, then stood up, went to the door and called. He listened to her calling and calling, “Douglas, Douglas, oh Doug! Douglasssssss!” again and again. Her calling floated out into the summer warm dark and never came back. The echoes paid no attention2.
Douglas. Douglas. Douglas.
Douglas!
And as he sat on the floor, a coldness that was not ice cream and not winter, and not part of summer’s
1to make the bed = to do the bed — расстилать, засти лать (убирать) постель
2to pay attention — обращать внимание
22 • Ray Bradbury
heat, went through Tom. He noticed Mom’s eyes sliding, blinking; the way she stood undecided and was nervous. All of these things.
She opened the screen door. Stepping out into the night, she walked down the steps and down the front sidewalk. He listened to her moving feet.
She called again. Silence.
She called twice more. Tom sat in the room. Any moment now, Douglas would answer from down the long narrow street, “All right, Mom! All right, Mother! Hey!”
But he didn’t answer. And for two minutes Tom sat looking at the made-up bed, the silent radio, the silent phonograph, at the scarlet and purple rug.
The screen door opened and Mother said, “Come on, Tom. We’ll take a walk.”
“Where to?”
“Just down the block. Come on.”
He took her hand. Together they walked down St. James Street. Underfoot the concrete was still warm, and the crickets were sounding louder in the darkening dark. They reached a corner, turned, and walked toward the West Ravine.
Somewhere a car passed by, flashing its lights in the distance. There was a complete lack of life, light, and activity.
“I wish your father was home,” said Mother. Her large hand squeezed around his small one1. “Just wait till I get that boy. The Lonely One is around again.
1 one — (зд.) слово-заместитель, употребляющееся во из бежание повторения ранее упомянутого существительного
The Night • 23
Killing people. No one’s safe anymore. You never know when the Lonely One will turn up1 or where. So help me, when Doug gets home I’ll whip him.”
Now they had walked another block and were standing by the holy black silhouette of the German Baptist Church at the corner of Chapel Street and Glen Rock. In back of the church, a hundred yards2 away, the ravine began. It was a wide ravine that cut and twisted across town — a jungle by day, a place to let alone at night3 as Mother often said.
He was only ten years old. He knew little of death, fear, or dread. Death was the waxen figure in the coffin when he was six and Great-grandfather died, silent in his coffin, no more to tell him how to be a good boy, no more to comment on politics. Death was his little sister one morning when he awoke at the age of seven, looked into her crib, and saw her staring up at him with a blind, blue, fixed and frozen stare until the men came with a small basket to take her away. Death was when he stood by her high chair four weeks later and suddenly realized she’d never be in it again, laughing and crying and making him jealous of her because she was born. That was death. And Death was the Lonely One, unseen, walking and standing behind trees, waiting in the country to come in, once or twice a year, to this town, to these streets, to these many places where there was little light, to kill one, two, three women in the past three years. That was Death…
1to turn up — неожиданно появляться
2yard — ярд (1 ярд ≈ 0,9 метра)
3a jungle by day, a place to let alone at night — днем непроходимые заросли, а уж ночью и говорить нечего
24 • Ray Bradbury
Leaving the sidewalk, they walked along a path while the crickets rose in a loud full drumming chorus. He followed obediently behind brave, fine, tall
Mother — defender of the universe. Together, then, they approached, reached, and paused at the very end of civilization.
The Ravine.
Here and now, down there in that black jungle were suddenly all the things he would never know or understand.
He realized he and his mother were alone. Her hand trembled.
He felt the tremble… Why? But she was bigger, stronger, more intelligent than himself, wasn’t she? Did she, too, feel that intangible danger, creeping out of darkness? Was there, then, no strength in growing up? No comfort in being an adult? No citadel strong enough to withstand the scary attack of midnights? Doubts flushed him.1 Ice cream lived again in his throat, stomach, spine and limbs; he was instantly cold.
He realized that all men were like this; that each person was to himself one alone. One oneness, a unit in a society, but always afraid. Like here, standing. If he should scream, if he should ask for help, would it matter?
Blackness could come swiftly, in one freezing moment all would be concluded. Long before dawn, long before police with flashlights might come through the dark, long before men could come down the path to his help. Even if they were within five hundred
1 Doubts flushed him. — Его переполняли сомнения.
The Night • 25
yards of him now, and help certainly was, in three seconds dark could rise to take all ten years from him and —
Mother was alone, too. She could not look to1 the sanctity of marriage, the protection of her family’s love, she could not look to the United States Constitution or the City Police, she could not look anywhere, in this very instant, only into her heart, and there she would find nothing but uncontrollable fear. In this instant it was an individual problem seeking an individual solution. He must accept being alone.
He swallowed hard, clung to her. Oh Lord2, don’t let her die, please, he thought. Don’t do anything to us. Father will be coming home from lodge meeting in an hour and if the house is empty —
Mother went down the path into the jungle. His voice trembled. “Mom, Doug’s all right. Doug’s all right. He’s all right. Doug’s all right!”
Mother’s voice was tense, high. “He always comes here. I tell him not to, but those darned kids3, they come here anyway. Some night he’ll come here and never come out again —”
Never come out again. That could mean anything. Tramps. Criminals. Darkness. Accident. Most of all death!
Alone in the universe.
There were a million small towns like this all over the world. Each as dark, as lonely, each as removed, as full of trembling and wonder. Life was a horror lived
либо1 to look to smb / smth — полагаться на кого-либо / что- 2 Oh Lord — Господи
3 those darned kids — эти проклятые дети
26 • Ray Bradbury
in them at night, when at all sides sanity, marriage, children, happiness, were threatened by an ogre called Death.
Mother raised her voice into the dark. “Doug! Doug las!”
Suddenly both of them realized something was wrong.
The crickets had stopped chirping. Silence was complete.
Never in his life a silence like this one. One so absolutely complete. Why aren’t the crickets chirping? Why? What reason? They’d never stopped ever before. Not ever.
Unless. Unless —
Something was going to happen.
It was as if the whole ravine was tensing, gathering its black fibers. In ten seconds now, something would happen, something would happen. The crickets kept their silence, the stars were so low he could almost touch them.
Growing, growing, the silence. Growing, growing, the tenseness. Oh, it was so dark, so far away from everything. Oh God!
And then, way off across the ravine1: “Okay, Mom! Coming, Mother!”
And again: “Hi, Mom! Coming, Mom!”
And then a sound of tennis shoes running down through the ravine as three kids came giggling. His brother Douglas, Chuck Woodman, and John Huff. Running, giggling…
The crickets sang!
1 way off across the ravine — недалеко за оврагом
The Night • 27
The darkness pulled back1, scared, shocked, angry. When the dark retreated like a wave on the shore, three children ran out of it, laughing.
“Hi, Mom! Hi, Tom! Hey!”
“Young man, you’re going to get a whipping,” declared Mother. She put away2 her fear instantly. Tom knew she would never tell anyone of it, ever. It would be in her heart, though, for all time, as it was in his heart for all time.
They walked home to bed in the late summer night. He was glad Douglas was alive. Very glad. For a moment there he had thought —
Exercises
1. Practice the pronunciation of the following words.
manipulate [mA`nIpjUleIt] |
fiber [`faIbA] |
chocolate [`tSOk(A)lAt] |
whole [hAUl] |
thoroughly [`FErAlI] |
dessert [dI`zQ:t] |
exhaustion [Ig`zD:stS(A)n] |
soggy [`sOgI] |
silhouette [,sIlU`et] |
cushion [`kuS(A)n] |
courthouse [`kD:thaUs] |
wax [wBks] |
phonograph [`fAUnAgra:f] |
chorus [`kD:rAs] |
stomach [`stEmAk] |
chirp [tSQ:p] |
intangible [In`tBn(d)ZIbl] |
ravine [rA`vi:n] |
pavement [`peIvm(A)nt] |
ogre [`AUgA] |
2. Find in the text English equivalents for:
разбрызгивать воду, шарик шоколадного мороженого, бегать босиком, направляться домой, гладильная до ска, расстегивать рубашку, восковая фигура, один или два раза в год, послушно следовать, полная тишина.
1to pull back — отступать
2to put away — отбрасывать
28• Ray Bradbury
3.Answer the following questions.
1.Do you think Tom had asked for the ice cream or it was Mother’s idea?
2.Why was Mother hot and irritated when Tom came back from the shop?
3.What did she ask him to take a walk for?
4.Who is the Lonely One? Why did Mother recollect him?
5.Did Tom ever face Death? When and how was it? Was he afraid then?
6.Did the boy feel fear near his mother? What did he feel?
7.Where was Doug? How did his mother change when she saw him? Why do you think she did?
4.Retell the story for the persons of Tom, Mother, and Douglas.
THE HAPPINESS MACHINE
On Sunday morning Leo Auffmann moved slowly through his garage, expecting some wood, wire or a hammer to jump out crying, “Start here!” But
nothing jumped, nothing cried for a beginning. Should a Happiness Machine, he wondered, be
something you can carry in your pocket?
Or, he went on1, should it be something that carries you in its pocket?
“One thing I absolutely know,” he said aloud. “It should be bright!”
He set a can of orange paint in the center of the workbench, took a dictionary, and went into the house.
“Lena?” He looked at the dictionary. “Are you ‘pleased, contented, joyful, delighted’? Do you feel ‘lucky, fortunate’? Are things ’successful and suitable’ for you?”
Lena stopped cutting vegetables and closed her eyes. “Read me the list again, please,” she said.
He shut the book.
“You need to stop and think an hour before you can tell me. All I ask is a simple yes or no! You’re not contented, delighted, joyful?”
“Cows are contented, babies and old people in second childhood are delighted, God help them,” she said. “As
1 to go on — продолжать
30 • Ray Bradbury
for ‘joyful,’ Lee? Look how I laugh scrubbing out1 the sink…”
He looked closely at her and his face relaxed. “Lena, it’s true. A man doesn’t appreciate.2 Next month, maybe, we’ll get away3.”
“I’m not complaining!” she cried. “I don’t come to you saying ‘Stick out4 your tongue’. Lee, do you ask what makes your heart beat all night? No! Next you will ask ‘What’s marriage’? Who knows, Lee? Don’t ask. A man who thinks like that, how things work, falls off the trapeze in the circus, chokes wondering how the muscles work in the throat. Eat, sleep, breathe, Lee, and stop staring at me like I’m something new in the house!”
Lena Auffmann froze. She sniffed the air. “Oh, my God, look what you’ve done!”
She opened the oven door. A great cloud of smoke filled the kitchen.
“Happiness!” she cried. “And for the first time in six months we have a fight! Happiness, and for the first time in twenty years it’s not bread, it’s charcoal for supper!”
When the smoke cleared, Leo Auffmann was gone.
The terrible noise, the clash of man and inspiration, the mess of metal, lumber, hammer, nails, T-square,
1to scrub out — скрести, оттирать (обычно моющим средством и щеткой)
2A man doesn’t appreciate. — Мужчины никогда ни чего не ценят.
3to get away — выбираться из затруднительного поло жения
4to stick out — высовывать