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Файл:Жизнь Роберта Льюиса Стивенсона. Учебное пособие – книга для чтения на английском языке
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R
OBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
. HIS L
IFE
He was a priest who devoted his life to caring for
lepers, someone explained.
The ancient and terrible disease for which there
was no cure? Stevenson became excited, the way he
always did when he discovered a new story. He
wanted to know more. He wanted to visit the island
where the lepers were kept. So he boarded the
steamer bound for the colony and spent a whole week
walking around the hospital grounds with a guide.
He saw the suffering patients, even talked to many
of them. The clean cottages, the gardens, the good
water supply, were all the work of Father Damien.
He had come out to Hawaii as a young man and he
had nursed and cared for the lepers until he caught
the disease himself. He had died just a few weeks
before Stevensons visit.
He came back to Honolulu in a very solemn mood.
He did not sit down at once and write the story, the
way he usually wrote of his adventures. He was too
deeply moved by what he had seen.
1
Some time later he found that another priest had
published some severe criticisms of Father Damien. It
was more than Stevenson could bear. He picked up
his pen and wrote a red-hot letter defending Father
Damien and his work. Anything that Stevenson wrote
was published far and wide.
2
His letter about Father
Damiens work even came out as a pamphlet.
Stevensons interest in the South Seas grew deeper
and deeper. His whole family could see that he had no
idea of going home. The tropics agreed with him. He
no longer had to behave like an invalid. He could ride
about the island on horseback. He could go swimming.
1
He was too deeply moved by what be had seen. Îí áûë
слишком глубоко тронут тем, что он увидел.
2
far and wide повсюду
121
C. O. Peare
He could visit his friends. He could work for hours on
his writing. He was really enjoying life.
His mother was feeling homesick for Scotland and
declared she had had enough travelling. So Fanny and
Louis arranged for her passage back to Edinburgh. Then
they began to plan their own passage to Samoa.
Off they sailed, southwesterly, down below the equator
once more. The weather was usually fine and they could
sit out on deck and enjoy the sun and breeze. The nights
were bright moonlight. Robert Louis and Lloyd passed
their time inventing stories. They left Hawaii at the end
of June and didnt reach Samoa until December.
Stevensons eyes sparkled when he saw Apia, the
capital city of Samoa. It had really only one street.
There were giant palms along the beach. In back of
Apia were green hills and high mountains.
I like this place best of all, said Stevenson softly.
Stevenson had already spent a year and a half in
the Pacific. He had been famous when he started, and
his fame was growing more and more all the time.
Everyone in Apia was waiting to welcome this famous
teller of adventure tales. They crowded down along
the beach. The water was quickly full of canoes. A few
came aboard the ship to give him a welcome. There
were German, English, and American folk living in
Apia, they were all down with the Samoans to welcome
Robert Louis Stevenson.
Stevenson soon decided to make Samoa his home
forever. He liked everything about it, climate, scenery,
people. The Samoans lived in little villages situated
all over. Their houses were round and made of grass
and palm leaves and were high on stilts so that they
would be dry when rain came pouring down.
The Stevensons found a piece of land about two
miles in back of Apia, up in the hills. There they built
a house. The house was two stories high, with a wide
122
R
OBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
. HIS L
IFE
porch all across the front, downstairs and upstairs. Near
the house there was a mountain stream made by the
joining of four small rivers. The stream made a waterfall over the side of a cliff. The pretty sight gave
Stevenson inspiration.
I shall call our house
Vailima
, he said. Thats
the Samoan word for five waters.
He began studying the Samoan language and
learning all he could about the people and their ways.
Before very long the Samoans gave him a new name,
a pet name in their own language. They called him
Tusitala;
Tusi to write,
tala a story. He was their
writer of stories, their friend, who had come from the
other side of the world to choose Samoa for his home.
So Tusitala lived at
Vailima, and there he studied
and worked. He wrote to his mother in Scotland and
promised her that he had stopped travelling. She came
out to Samoa to live with him and soon Fannys
daughter came from Honolulu.
Tusitala turned out his stories one after another.
The story that the Samoans loved best was
2
Imp
, he wrote it especially for them. It was translated
The Bottle
into Samoan and published in a magazine right there.
Samoa was having political troubles. Germany,
Great Britain, and the United States were all interested
in the Samoan Islands. Different chieftains took
different sides. That made trouble among the Samoans.
Tusitala rode about on his horse among the Samoans
trying to understand their problems. Whatever
happened, he was their friend. He wrote letters to the
London newspapers to explain Samoan politics. When
two chieftains decided to go to war on each other, he
1
1
about the people and their ways o людях и их образе
жизни
2
The Bottle Imp
«Сатанинская бутылка»
123
C. O. Peare
rode back and forth between the two camps trying to
make peace.
Tusitala, the writer of tales, went on with his
writing. He finished
The Beach of Fales
1
á,
the story
of a trader in the South Seas. On his table there was
part of a book,
St Ives.
2
I cant seem to finish the story3 of St Ives, he
told Fanny.
Why dont you just lay it aside for a while, she
suggested.
Soon Fanny and Louis, Louis mother, and Fannys
son and daughter were all having long conversations
about a new book,
Weir of Hermiston
4
.
They could
tell by his excitement that it was going well.
Day after day he sat at his writing table and worked
on Weir of Hermiston
, or he dictated it to Fannys
daughter.
On the third of December, 1894, Fanny was sitting
out on the veranda when he finished his days work
and came out to talk to her. The red sun was setting
and gave the tropical forest around their house a
mysterious look. Fanny smiled happily at him. She and
Louis had been married for more than fourteen years.
He was still only forty-four. Who could tell what
wonderful books he would some day write!
Suddenly he put his hand to his forehead.
Do I look strange? he asked her.
Before she could answer he had fallen to the floor.
The Samoans who took care of the house rushed to
him and helped Fanny carry him inside to a chair.
1
The Beach of Fales
2
St Ives
3
I cant seem to finish the story Мне кажется, что я не
закончу рассказ
4
Weir of Hermiston
[sqnt' aIvz] «Ñåíò-Èâ»
á
['fxlqzq] «Берег Фалеза»
['wE:r qv 'hIqmIstn]
124
«Уир Гермистон»
R
OBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
. HIS L
IFE
Lloyd mounted a horse and galloped down to Apia for
a doctor.
It was a stroke, said the doctor as soon as he saw
the patient.
Robert Louis Stevenson never regained consciousness.
His family put him to bed, and he just lay there with his
eyes closed. The Samoans came in to watch mournfully.
Late at night their Tusitala breathed no more.
Word went out to the chieftains of Samoa, and
they came to
Vailima at once. They watched and prayed
and stayed with Stevenson all night. The next morning
workmen made a path through the jungle up the side
of the mountain, for not long ago Tusitala had said:
I want to be buried on top of that mountain.
In the afternoon the chieftains lifted Robert Louis
Stevensons coffin upon their shoulders and carried
him up the mountain path to his last resting place. A
procession of family and friends followed them. A large
tombstone was brought to mark the place, and on it
were carved the words of Tusitalas poem,
Requiem:
Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.
Assignments
I. Answer the following questions:
1. What islands did the
1
Перевод см. на с. 154.
Casco stop at?
125
1
C. O. Peare
2. How long did the Stevensons stay in the
Marquesas?
3. What island did they sail afterward to?
4. What city did they land at?
5. Why did Mrs Stevenson think that it was the
end of their journey?
6. Who cured Robert Louis?
7. Where did the Stevensons travel soon?
8. What did Robert Louis Stevenson write in
Hawaii?
9. Whom did he write about when he visited the
colony where the lepers were kept?
10. Where did the Stevensons go when they had left
Hawaii?
11. Who welcomed Robert Louis Stevenson in
Apia?
12. Why did Robert Louis decide to make Samoa his
home forever?
13. How did the Samoans call him?
14. What story did Robert Louis Stevenson write
for the Samoans?
15. How did Stevenson try to help the Samoans in
their political troubles?
16. What happened once when he worked on
Weir
of Hermiston?
17. When did he die?
18. Where was he buried?
II. Retell the chapter according to the given plan.
1. The Stevensons travel on board the
Casco to the
group of islands called the Marquesas.
2. The Stevensons walk around the Marquesas for
more than a month.
3. The Stevensons move to the island of Tahiti.
4. Stevenson falls ill at the city of Papeote.
126
R
OBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
. HIS L
IFE
5. Stevenson moves into the house of one of the
island chiefs, Ori, and soon they become close
friends.
6. The Stevensons leave Tahiti and drop anchor at
Honolulu, Hawaii.
7. Stevenson explores the Hawaiin Islands and finds
out about Father Damien and the leper colony.
8. Stevenson visits the island and spends a whole
week walking around the hospital grounds with
a guide.
9. The Stevensons travel to Samoa and settle in
Apia, the capital city of Samoa.
10. Stevenson chooses Samoa for his home.
11. The Stevensons build a house and he calls it
Vailima.
12. The Samoans give Stevenson a new name Tusitala.
III. Reproduce the extract in detail in which it is
said about the Stevensons travelling to the islands
called the Marquesas.
IV. Speak about Father Famien who devoted his
life to caring for lepers.
V. Describe the place in Apia where the Stevensons
built a house.
VI. Recall the situations in which these expressions
are used in the chapter:
to grow restless, to catch cold,
to drop anchor, to become excited, to catch a disease,
to be in a bad mood, to feel homesick, to ride back and
forth, to regain consciousness, to watch mournfully.
C. O. Peare
TOPICS
I. What is your opinion of the book? Share your
impression with your classmates. Make use of the
following conversational formulas:
my opinion, if you ask me; I dont quite follow you;
Do you mean to say..?; As a matter of fact; In other
words; Frankly speaking I dont think that...; Somehow
it seems to me that...; I have a feeling that...; To come
back to.
What kind of book is it? Use the following
adjectives to characterize the book: thrilling, exciting,
informative, realistic, interesting, dull, useful. Give
your reasons and illustrate your answer by examples
from the book.
2. Name the main characters of the book.
3. Give a complete portrait of Robert Louis Stevenson.
Be sure to dwell on:
learn from the book; his appearance; his interests; his
relations with his wife and his stepson; his human
qualities; describe him in the light of such characteristics
as intelligence, kindness, modesty, generosity,
industriousness, persistence, strong will and other
features that are generally valued in people.
what you say by facts of the book. To sum up it all,
what kind of person was he?
4. Say all you can about Thomas Stevenson, Margaret
Stevenson and Miss Cunningham.
5. What kind of woman was Fanny Stevenson?
What features are especially stressed by the author in
her character?
6. Make up a list of epithets connected with the
two characters of the book: Robert Louis Stevenson
and Fanny Stevenson.
7. Speak about Stevensons stepson Lloyd Osbourne.
FOR
D
ISCUSSION
To begin with; In
1) the principal facts of his life we
Illustrate
128
R
OBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
. HIS L
IFE
8. Which episode of the book do you consider to be
especially impressive? Give your reasons and illustrate
your answer by examples from the book.
9. What book by Robert Louis Stevenson was
devoted to his nurse Miss Cunningham?
10. Say what novels by Robert Louis Stevenson were
very popular with the readers.
11. What novel by Robert Louis Steveuson do you
like best of all? Explain your point of view. Say what
episode to your mind is the most interesting in the
novel.
12. Mention the chapters of the book that impressed
you greatly.
13. Say what this book added to your knowledge of
the life and literary activities of Robert Louis
Stevenson.
14. Tell all you know about the life-story of Robert
Louis Stevenson, one of the most famous English writers
of the 19th century.
C. O. Peare
IMPORTANT
AND
R
OBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
OF
1850 (November 13) Robert Louis Stevenson is
born in Edinburgh
1857 Robert Louis Stevenson goes to school
1862 The first trip to England with his parents
1863 Robert Louis Stevenson and his mother set
out to the town of Mentone and then go sightseeing
through Italy. His first stories appear in home and
school magazines.
1867 Robert Louis Stevenson enters Edinburgh
University to learn engineering.
1871 Robert Louis Stevenson moves to the law
faculty of the University
1873 Robert Louis Stevenson makes acquaintance
of Sidney Colvin. Stevensons article is published in
Portfolio magazine. He goes abroad alone for the first
time.
1874 Robert Louis Stevenson lives in Edinburgh
and works on some articles about writers.
1875 The beginning of a friendship between Robert
Louis Stevenson and William Ernest Henley. Stevenson
passes his final examination at the University and
becomes a lawyer.
1876 Robert Louis Stevenson and Walter Simpson
go on a long boating trip through the rivers and canals
of Belgium and France. He writes the book
Voyage about it. Robert Louis Stevenson gets acquainted
with his future wife Fanny Osbourne in Grez.
1878
works on his new book
Ernest Henley and Robert Louis Stevenson work on
the play Deacon Brodie
An Inland Voyage
D
ATES
OF
THE
L
ITERARY ACTIVITIES
is published. Stevenson
Travels with a Donkey
.
L
IFE
An Inland
. William
130
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