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62 • Ray Bradbury
falls, his face all red. Audience on its feet. Something wrong with the gun. ‘Dead,’ someone says. And they’re right. Dead. Horrible, horrible… I’ll always remember… his face a mask of red, the curtain coming down fast and the women weeping… 1910… Boston… Theatre… poor man1…”
Colonel Freeleigh slowly opened his eyes.
“Wow, Colonel,” said Charlie, “that was fine. Now how about Pawnee Bill2?”
“Pawnee Bill…?”
“And the time you was on the prairie way back3 in 1875.”
“Pawnee Bill…” The colonel moved into darkness.
“Eighteen seventy-five… yes, me and Pawnee Bill on a little rise in the middle of the prairie, waiting. ‘Shh!’ says Pawnee Bill. ‘Listen.’ Thunder. Soft. Thunder again. Not so soft. And across that prairie as far as the eye could see this big awful yellow-dark cloud fifty miles4 wide, fifty miles long, a mile high, and no more than an inch off the ground. ‘Lord!’ I cried, ‘Lord!’ — from up on my hill — ‘Lord!’ the earth pounded like a mad heart, boys, a heart in panic. The earth shook: rat-a-tat, rat-a-tat, boom! Oh, how that mighty storm rumbled, and all you could see was the cloud and nothing inside. ‘That’s them!’ cried Pawnee Bill. And the cloud was dust! I shouted again! Why? Because
1На самом деле трагедия произошла 23 марта 1918 го да в Лондоне, пуля попала Робинсону в легкое.
2Pawnee Bill — Поуни Билл (1860–1942) — американ ский шоумен, специализировавшийся на постановке вес тернов
3way back — давно
4mile — миля (1 миля = 1.6 км)
The Last, the Very Last • 63
in all that awful dust now I saw them, I swear! The grand army of the ancient prairie: the bison, the buffalo!”
The colonel paused, then spoke again.
“Heads like giant fists, bodies like locomotives! Twenty, fifty, two hundred thousand iron rockets, their eyes like red coals!
“‘Shoot!’ says Pawnee Bill. ‘Shoot!’ And I aim. ‘Shoot,’ he says. And I stand there feeling like God’s right hand, looking at great strength and violence going by. And then, boys, the dust came down. The cloud hid the million drumming feet. I heard Pawnee Bill curse and hit my arm. But I was glad I hadn’t touched that cloud or the power within it.
“An hour, three hours, six, it took for the storm to pass on away over the horizon toward less kind men than me. Pawnee Bill was gone, I stood alone, absolutely deaf. I walked through a town a hundred miles south and didn’t hear the voices of men and was glad not to hear. For a little while I wanted to remember the thunder. I hear it still, on summer afternoons like this when the rain shapes over the lake; a fearsome, wonderful sound… one I wish you might have heard…”
Then there was complete silence.
“Is he asleep?” asked Douglas at last.
“No,” said Charlie. “Just recharging his batteries.” Colonel Freeleigh breathed swiftly, softly, as if he’d
run a long way. At last he opened his eyes. “Yes, sir,” said Charlie, in admiration.
“Hello Charlie.” The colonel smiled at the boys, he looked puzzled.
“That’s Doug and that’s John,” said Charlie.
64 • Ray Bradbury
“How do you do, boys.” The boys said hello.
“But —” said Douglas. “Where is the —?”
“My gosh, you’re stupid!” Charlie hit Douglas in the arm. He turned to the colonel. “You were saying, sir?”
“Was I?” murmured the old man.
“The Civil War1,” suggested John Huff quietly. “Does he remember that?”
“Do I remember?” said the colonel. “Oh, I do, I do!” His voice trembled as he shut up his eyes again.
“Everything! Except… which side I fought on…”
“The color of your uniform —” Charlie began. “Colors begin to fade on you,” whispered the colonel.
“they become hazy. I see soldiers with me, but a long time ago I stopped seeing color in their coats or caps. I was born in Illinois, grew up2 in Virginia, married in New York, built a house in Tennessee and now, very late, here I am, good Lord, back in Green Town. So you see why the colors fade and blend…”
“But you remember which side of hills you fought on?” Charlie did not raise his voice. “Did the sun rise on your left or right? Did you march toward Canada or Mexico?”
“Seems some mornings the sun rose on my right hand, some mornings over my left shoulder. We marched all directions. It’s almost seventy years since. You forget suns and mornings that long past.”
“You remember winning, don’t you? A battle won, somewhere?”
1The Civil War — (зд.) Гражданская война в США
(1861–1865)
2to grow up — расти (становиться взрослым)
The Last, the Very Last • 65
“No,” said the old man. “I don’t remember anyone winning anywhere any time. War’s never a winning thing, Charlie. You just lose all the time, and the one who loses last asks for terms.1 All I remember is a lot of losing and sadness and nothing good but the end of it. The end of it, Charles, that was a winning all to itself, having nothing to do with guns. But I don’t suppose that’s the kind of victory you boys want me to tell about.”
“Antietam2,” said John Huff. “Ask about Antie tam.”
“I was there.”
The boys’ eyes grew bright. “Bull Run3, ask him Bull Run…”
“I was there.” Softly. “What about Shiloh?”
“There’s never been a year in my life I haven’t thought, what a lovely name that place had and what a shame to see it only on battle records4.”
“Shiloh, then. Fort Sumter?”
“I saw the first puffs of gunpowder smoke.” A dream ing voice. “So many things come back, oh, so many things. I remember songs.”
The old man’s voice faded.
1You just lose all the time, and the one who loses last asks for terms. — Просто ты постоянно проигрываешь,
атот, кто проиграл последним, просит выдвинуть ему ус ловия.
2Antietam — сражение при Энтитеме (17 сентября 1862)
3Bull Run — сражение при реке Булл-Ран (21 июля
1861)
4Shiloh — сражение при Шайло (6–7 апреля 1862). Сло во shiloh в переводе с иврита обозначает «место мира»
66 • Ray Bradbury
The boys sat for a long while without moving. Then Charlie turned and looked at Douglas and said, “Well, is he or isn’t he?”
Douglas breathed twice and said, “He sure is.” The colonel opened his eyes.
“I sure am what?” he asked.
“A Time Machine,” murmured Douglas. “A Time Machine.”
The colonel looked at the boys for a full five seconds.
Now it was his voice that was full of awe. “Is that what you boys call me?”
“Yes, sir, Colonel.” “Yes, sir.”
The colonel sat slowly back in his chair and looked at the boys and looked at his hands and then looked at the empty wall beyond them steadily.
Charlie arose. “Well, I guess we’d better go. So long and thanks, Colonel.”
“What? Oh, so long, boys.”
Douglas and John and Charlie went on tiptoe out the door.
In the street, the boys heard someone shouted from a first-floor window above, “Hey!”
They looked up. “Yes, sir, Colonel?”
The colonel leaned out, waving one arm. “I thought about what you said, boys!” “Yes, sir?”
“And you’re right! Why didn’t I think of it before! A Time Machine, by God1, a Time Machine!”
1 by God — ей-богу
The Last, the Very Last • 67
“Yes, sir.”
“So long, boys. Come any time!”
At the end of the street they turned again and the colonel was still waving. They waved back, feeling warm and good, then went on.
“I can travel twelve years into the past,” said John.
“Yeah,” said Charlie, looking back at that quiet house, “but you can’t go a hundred years.”
“No,” answered John, “I can’t go a hundred years. That’s really traveling. That’s really some machine.”
They walked for a full minute in silence, looking at their feet. They came to a fence.
“Last one over this fence,” said Douglas, “is a girl.” All the way home they called Douglas “Dora.”
Exercises
1.Read the transcription and write the word. Find it in the text to check the spelling.
[`kA:n(A)l] [hedZ] [`wIspA] [nOk] [`fA:nItSA] [`preArI] [mA`dZISn] [`FEndA] [`D:kIstrA] [streNF] [lAukA`mAutIv] [kwaIAt] [`si:lIN] [`kBZuAlI]
2. Find in the text English equivalents for:
идти рядом с кем-либо, нельзя иметь все сразу, качать головой, предмет мебели, походить друг на друга, про верять оружие, выстрелить пулей, огромный кулак, вы глядеть озадаченным, становиться неразборчивым.
68 • Ray Bradbury
3. Explain and expand on the following.
1.“Travels in the past and future?” John Huff asked.
2.The screen door did not slam.
3.Old men always wait for people to ask them to talk.
4.“Examine the gun!” says Ching.
5.Heads like giant fists, bodies like locomotives!
6.I don’t remember anyone winning anywhere any time.
7.Well, is he or isn’t he?
4.Retell the story for the persons of Charlie, Douglas, and Colonel Freeleigh.
STATUES
The facts about John Huff aged twelve are simple. He could leap from the sky like a chimpanzee from a vine, could live underwater two minutes and swim very fast. He hit baseballs in the apple trees, knocking down1 apples. He could jump over six-foot garden walls, climb the trees faster and come down with peaches quicker than anyone else in the gang. He ran laughing. He sat easy. He was not a bully. He was kind. His hair was dark and curly and his teeth were white as cream. He remembered the words to all the cowboy songs and would teach you if you asked. He knew the names of all the wild flowers and when the moon would rise and set. He was, in fact, the only god living in the whole of Green Town, Illinois, during the twentieth century that Douglas
Spaulding knew of.
And right now he and Douglas were walking out beyond town. It was a perfect warm day. Douglas walked thinking it would go on this way forever. The perfection, the sound of a good friend whistling, throwing the baseball; things stayed near, things would remain.
It was such a fine day and then suddenly a cloud crossed the sky, covered the sun, and did not move again.
1 to knock down — сбивать, сносить
70 • Ray Bradbury
John Huff had been speaking quietly for several minutes. Now Douglas stopped on the path and looked at him.
“John, say that again.”
“You heard me the first time, Doug.”
“Did you say you were going away?”
“I have my train ticket here in my pocket. Whoowhoo, clang! Shush-shush-shush-shush. Whooooooooo…” John took the yellow and green train ticket from his
pocket and they both looked at it.
“Tonight!” said Douglas. “My God! Tonight we were going to play Red Light, Green Light and Statues1! How come2, so suddenly? You’ve been here in Green Town all my life. You can’t leave!”
“It’s my Father,” said John. “He’s got a job in Mil waukee. We weren’t sure until today…”
“My God, but it is the big carnival Labor Day3 and Halloween soon — can’t your Dad wait till then?”
John shook his head.
“Oh, Lord!” said Douglas. “Let me sit down!”
They sat under an old tree on the side of the hill looking back at town.
“But we’re friends,” Douglas said helplessly. “We always will be,” said John.
“You’ll come back to visit every week or so, won’t you?”
“Dad says only once or twice a year. It’s eighty miles.”
1Red Light, Green Light and Statues — название дет ской игры (в русском варианте — «Море волнуется раз»)
2How come — Как же так
3Labor Day — День труда (национальный праздник
вСША, отмечается в первый понедельник сентября)