Вино из одуванчиков книга для чтения на английском языке
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The Happiness Machine • 41
“All right, Saul,” she said. “Run call the fire depart ment.”
Everybody came to the fire. There was Grandpa
Spaulding and Douglas and Tom and most of the boarders and some of the old men from across the ravine and all the children from six blocks around. And
Leo Auffmann’s children stood in front, proud of how fine the flames looked jumping from the garage roof.
Grandfather Spaulding studied the smoke ball in the sky and said, quietly, “Lee, was that it? Your Happiness Machine?”
“One day,” said Leo Auffmann “I’ll figure it out1 and tell you.”
Lena Auffmann, standing in the dark now, watched as the firemen ran in and out of the yard; the garage, roaring, fell down.
“Leo,” she said, “it won’t take long to figure. Look around. Think. Keep quiet a little bit. Then come tell me. I’ll be in the house, putting books back on shelves, and clothes back in closets, cooking supper, supper’s late, look how dark. Come, children, help Mama.”
When the firemen and the neighbors were gone Leo
Auffmann was left with grandfather Spaulding and Douglas and Tom, staying near the ruin. He touched the wet ashes with his foot and slowly said what he had to say.
“The first thing you learn in life is you’re a fool.
The last thing you learn in life is you’re the same fool. In one hour, I’ve done a lot of thinking. I thought,
1 to figure out — понимать, постигать
42 • Ray Bradbury
Leo Auffmann is blind!.. You want to see the real Happiness Machine? The one they patented a couple thousand years ago, it still runs, not good all the time, no! but it runs. It’s been here all along.”
“But the fire —” said Douglas.
“Sure, the fire, the garage! But like Lena said, it doesn’t take long to figure; what burned in the garage doesn’t count!” They followed him up the front-porch steps.
“Here,” whispered Leo Auffmann, “the front window. Quiet, and you’ll see it.”
Hesitantly, Grandfather, Douglas, and Tom looked through the large window.
And there, in lamplight, you could see what Leo Auffmann meant. There sat Saul and Marshall, playing chess at the coffee table. In the dining room Rebecca was laying out1 the silver. Naomi was cutting paperdoll dresses. Ruth was painting water colors2. Joseph was running his electric train. Through the kitchen door, Lena Auffmann was taking a pot roast3 from the oven. Every hand, every head, every mouth made a big or little motion. You could hear their faraway voices under glass. You could hear someone singing in a high sweet voice. You could smell bread baking, too, and you knew it was real bread that would soon be covered with real butter. Everything was there and it was working.
Grandfather, Douglas, and Tom turned to look at Leo Auffmann, who looked quietly through the window, the pink light on his cheeks.
1to lay out — выкладывать, выставлять
2water colors — акварельные краски
3pot roast — тушеное мясо
The Happiness Machine • 43
“Sure,” he murmured. “There it is. The Happiness Machine.”
A moment later he was gone.
Inside, Grandfather, Douglas, and Tom saw him busy among all those warm, wonderful, delicate, forever mysterious, and ever-moving parts of the mechanism.
Then smiling, they went down the steps into the fresh summer night.
Exercises
1. Practice the pronunciation of the following words.
garage [gA`ra:Z] |
hammer [`hBmA] |
wonder [`wEndA] |
wander [`wOndA] |
joyful [`dZDIf(A)l] |
machine [mA`Si:n] |
muscle [mEsl] |
charcoal [`tSa:kAUl] |
throat [FrAUt] |
trapeze [trA`pi:z] |
pause [pD:z] |
triumphant [traI`EmfAnt] |
steady [`stedI] |
mechanism [`mekAnIzm] |
giant [dZaIAnt] |
temperature [`temprAtSA] |
porch [pD:tS] |
seize [si:z] |
pyramid [`pIrAmId] |
sphinx [sfINks] |
2. Answer the following questions.
1.Did Leo Auffmann have an idea of how to build the machine? Why do you think so?
2.Why do you think Lena didn’t want to help her husband?
3.Was Leo’s family glad when the machine was ready? Why
(not)?
4.Who tried the machine first? What was his / her reaction?
Why?
5.Did Lena want to try the machine? What did she feel being inside?
44• Ray Bradbury
6.Why did she call it Sadness Machine? Do you agree with her? Why (not)?
7.Did Leo Auffmann try the machine himself? What happened? Why didn’t Lena let Saul call the fire depart ment at once?
8.What did Leo mean by the real Happiness Machine?
9.What do you think makes people happy? What about you?
10.WouldyouliketohaveyourownHappinessMachine?What would you insert in it (music, paintings, etc.)?
3.Match the words with definitions.
1. steady |
a) to shout or say something very loudly, |
|
especially because you are frightened, |
|
angry, or excited |
2. choke |
b) a strong, solid table on which you can work |
|
with tools, wood, small machines, etc. |
3. uneasy |
c) useless or unwanted things |
4. muffled |
d) continuing or developing gradually or |
|
without stopping |
5. blink |
e) to walk slowly across or around an area, |
|
usually without a clear direction or pur |
|
pose |
6. lumber |
f) to become red in the face, usually because |
|
you are embarrassed |
7. yell |
g) to shut and open your eyes quickly |
8. blush |
h) (of a sound) not loud and clear, because, |
|
for example, it comes from behind a door |
|
or wall |
9. wander |
i) to be unable to breathe properly because |
|
something is in your throat or there is not |
|
enough air |
10. workbench |
j) not comfortable, peaceful or relaxed |
4.Retell the story for the persons of Leo, Lena, Saul, and Grandfather Spaulding.
SEASON OF DISBELIEF
How it began with the children, old Mrs. Bentley never knew. She often saw them at the grocery store and she smiled at them and they smiled back. Mrs. Bentley watched them playing outside but felt no fear of them. As for herself, her house was in extreme good order, everything in its own place, the floors swept, the foods neatly tinned1, and the drawers of her bedroom bureaus filled with various
old things.
Mrs. Bentley was a saver. She saved tickets, old theater programs, bits of lace, scarves, and other things reminding her different periods of her life.
“I’ve a stack of records,” she often said. “Here’s Caru so2. That was in 1916, in New York; I was sixty and John was still alive. Here’s Tune Moon song, 1924,
I think, right after John died.”
That was the huge regret of her life. The one thing she had most enjoyed touching and listening to and looking at she hadn’t saved. John was far out in the meadow country, dated and boxed and hidden under grasses, and nothing remained of him except his hat, his cane and his good suit in the closet.
1the foods neatly tinned — съестные припасы акку ратно законсервированы
2Caruso — Энрико Карузо (1873–1921) — итальянский оперный певец
46 • Ray Bradbury
But what she could keep she had kept. Her pink- flowered dresses in vast black trunks, and glass dishes from her childhood — she had brought them all when she moved to this town five years ago. Her husband had owned real estate1 in a number of towns, and she had moved and sold one after another, until now she was here in a strange town, left with only dark and ugly trunks and furniture.
The thing about the children happened in the middle of summer. Mrs. Bentley, coming out to water the ivy upon her front porch, saw two girls and a small boy lying on her lawn, enjoying the prickling of the grass.
At the very moment2 Mrs. Bentley was smiling down upon them with her yellow mask face, an ice cream wagon came around a corner. It jingled out icy melodies. The children sat up, turning their heads, like sunflowers after the sun.
Mrs. Bentley called, “Would you like some? Here!” The wagon stopped and she bought them ice cream. The children thanked her with snow in their mouths, looking her over3.
“Don’t you want a bite?” said the boy.
“No, child. I’m old enough and cold enough; the hot test day won’t warm me up,” laughed Mrs. Bentley.
The children sat, three in a row, on the shady porch glider4.
“I’m Alice, she’s Jane, and that’s Tom Spaulding.”
1real estate — недвижимость
2At the very moment — В тот самый момент, когда
3to look over — оглядывать, разглядывать
4porch glider — подвесные качели на крыльце
Season of Disbelief • 47
“How nice. And I’m Mrs. Bentley. They1 called me Helen.”
They stared at her.
“Don’t you believe they called me Helen?” said the old lady.
“I didn’t know old ladies had first names,” said Tom, blinking.
Mrs. Bentley laughed dryly.
“You never hear that people use them, he means,” said Jane.
“My dear, when you are as old as I, they won’t call you Jane, either. Old age is dreadfully formal. It’s always ‘Mrs.’ Young people don’t like to call you ‘He len.’ It seems too impolite.”
“How old are you?” asked Alice.
“I remember the pterodactyl.” Mrs. Bentley smiled. “No, but how old?”
“Seventy-two.”
They gave their cold sweets an extra long suck, thinking.
“That’s old,” said Tom.
“I don’t feel any different now than when I was your age,” said the old lady.
“Our age?”
“Yes. Once I was a pretty little girl just like you, Jane, and you, Alice.”
They did not speak. “What’s the matter?” “Nothing.” Jane got up.
1 They — (зд.) под местоимением they подразумеваются люди в общем. Как известно, предложение в английском языке не может обойтись без подлежащего, поэтому ис пользуются такие формальные подлежащие, как they и it.
48 • Ray Bradbury
“Oh, you don’t have to go so soon, I hope. You haven’t finished eating… Is something wrong?”
“My mother says it isn’t nice to lie,” said Jane.
“Of course it isn’t. It’s very bad,” agreed Mrs. Bent ley.
“And not to listen to lies.” “Who was lying to you, Jane?”
Jane looked at her and then glanced nervously away. “You were.”
“I?” Mrs. Bentley laughed and put her withered hand to her small bosom. “About what?”
“About your age. About being a little girl.”
Mrs. Bentley stiffened. “But I was, many years ago, a little girl just like you.”
“Come on, Alice, Tom.”
“Just a moment,” said Mrs. Bentley. “Don’t you belie ve me?”
“I don’t know,” said Jane. “No.”
“But how ridiculous! It’s perfectly obvious. Everyone was young once!”
“Not you,” whispered Jane, eyes down, almost to herself. Her empty ice stick had fallen in a vanilla puddle on the porch floor.
“But of course I was eight, nine, ten years old, like all of you.”
The two girls gave a short laugh.
Mrs. Bentley’s eyes glittered. “Well, I can’t waste a morning arguing with ten-year-olds. Needless to say, I was ten myself once and just as silly.”
The two girls laughed. Tom looked uneasy.
“You’re joking with us,” giggled Jane. “You weren’t really ten ever, were you, Mrs. Bentley?”
Season of Disbelief • 49
“You run home!” the woman cried suddenly, for she could not stand1 their eyes. “And stop laughing.”
“And your name’s not really Helen?” “Of course it’s Helen!”
“Good-bye,” said the two girls, giggling away across the lawn, Tom followed them slowly.
“Thanks for the ice cream!”
“Once I played hopscotch2!” Mrs. Bentley cried after them, but they were gone.
Mrs. Bentley spent the rest of the day preparing a meager lunch, and from time to time going to the front door, hoping to catch those insolent children on their laughing excursions through the late day. But if they had appeared, what could she say to them, why should she worry about them?
“The idea!” said Mrs. Bentley to her dainty teacup. “No one ever doubted I was a girl before. What a silly, horrible thing to do. I don’t mind being old — not really — but I am against being taken my childhood away from me.”
After supper she gathered certain items in a perfumed kerchief, went to her front porch and stood there stiffly for half an hour.
As suddenly as night birds the children flew by, and
Mrs. Bentley’s voice made them stop. “Yes, Mrs. Bentley?”
“Come up on this porch!” she commanded them, and the girls climbed the steps, Tom going after.
либо1 can’t stand smb / smth — не выносить кого-либо / что- 2 hopscotch — классики (детская игра)
50 • Ray Bradbury
“Yes, Mrs. Bentley?” They said the “Mrs.” extra heavily, as if that were her first name.
“I’ve some treasures to show you.” She opened the perfumed kerchief and looked into it as if she herself might be surprised. She showed a hair comb, very small and delicate.
“I wore this when I was nine,” she said.
Jane turned it in her hand and said, “How nice.” “Let’s see!” cried Alice.
“And here is a tiny ring I wore when I was eight,” said Mrs. Bentley. “It doesn’t fit my finger now.”
The children passed it back and forth1 between them until Tome passed it to Jane. “Why2, it’s just my size!” she exclaimed.
“And the comb fits my head!” gasped Alice.
Mrs. Bentley produced some jackstones3. “Here,” she said. “I once played with these.”
She threw them. They made a constellation on the porch.
“And here!” In triumph she showed her trump card4, a picture of herself when she was seven years old, in a dress like a yellow butterfly, with her golden curls and blue eyes and angelic plump lips.
“Who’s this little girl?” asked Jane. “It’s me!”
1back and forth — туда-сюда, взад-вперед
2why — (зд.) междометие, выражающие удивление. Ух ты! Ничего себе!
3jackstones — камешки (игра). Для игры используют ся пять небольших камешков или пять других подходя щих предметов. Игроки их подбрасывают и ловят различ ными способами.
4trump card — (прям. и перен.) козырь