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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
Assignments
I. Answer the following questions:
1. What pet name for Louis was used most by his
family?
2. Why couldnt he often go out?
3. What game did he have when he was too ill to
go out?
4. What birthday gift did Louis get?
5. What kind of dog was it?
6. What other treat did he have that winter?
7. What crushing news did the family learn one
day in April?
II. Give the main points of the chapter.
III. Explain why the Stevensons moved to another
house at Seventeen Heriot Row. Describe Heriot
Row, one of Edinburghs streets.
IV. Speak about the game Louis had in the evening
when he was too ill to go out.
V. Analyse Louis feelings when he got a birthday
gift from his parents a black puppy.
VI. Make up a dialogue between Louis and his father
about Coolin, Louis Skye terrier.
VII. What is the mood prevalent at the end of the
chapter? Is it excitement, sorrow, happiness, nervousness?
Prove your statement.
21
C. O. Peare
Chapter III
W
ILD
AND
Louis never forgot the Manse and his happy summers
there. But he and Cousin Bob found other ways to
spend their summers. One year they went to Peebles,
near Edinburgh. Peebles has hilly fields and pasture
lands and the Tweed River flowing through them.
Peebles had plenty of space for Bob and Louis to gallop
along on their ponies. They had a girl playmate at
Peebles that is, when they let her come along. She
had a pony named Heaven.
Were riding to Innerleithen, they told her one
day. You can ride with us if you can keep up.
Off they galloped
boys rode straight into the Tweed River and swam
their ponies across. Heaven had to follow them. Up
Heaven came to the other bank. His rider was gasping
and wet and, ready to cry.
Louis is getting very wild and like a boy, sighed
Mrs Stevenson when she heard about it.
L
IKE
A
B
OY
Happy hearts and happy faces,
Happy play in grassy places
That was how, in ancient ages,
Children grew to kings and sages.
(Good and Bad Children)
1
with Heaven after them. The
Summers that the boys spent at North Berwick were
greater fun that at Peebles. North Berwick was a
fishermans village on the Firth of Forth. It was far
1
Îff they galloped = They galloped off
вает значение сказанного)
22
(зд. инверсия усили-
C. O. Peare
out, where the Firth widens into the North Sea. It had
a sandy beach and cliffs and caves along the shore
where pirates once had hidden treasure, and not far
away a ruined castle. Behind the town stretched wide
fields called links. Many people played golf on the
links.
But young Stevenson and his friends preferred
other games boat races on the water or flying giant
kites. The game they loved best was lantern-bearing.
They had to wait until summer was nearly over for it,
because it had to be dark for lantern-bearing. When
the days grew short and darkness fell early, and the
nights on the links were very dark, every boy got out
his bulls-eye lantern. A bulls-eye lantern is the kind
that fastens on a mans belt and shines a light in
front of him. He can button his overcoat over the
lantern so that no one can see his light. Louis and his
friends made a great mystery of their lanterns. As
soon as it was dark, they came out of the cottages
with smelly, oil-burning lanterns hidden under their
coats.
Have you got your lantern? was the password.
And the answer had to be, Yes.
Off they would go to explore a fishing ship tied
up at the pier. Or they would disappear over the
links to a hollow place in the ground, where the
town couldnt see their lights. Only boys who could
show a light came to the secret meeting. They would
sit close together and talk about kinds of topics that
they couldnt discuss when girls and grown-ups were
around.
The lantern-bearing season never lasted long enough.
The days grew shorter and the nights grew colder and
Louis was sent back to Edinburgh once more.
Winters in a city so far north gave Louis Stevenson
another sport that he loved ice-skating. There was
24
R
OBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
. HIS L
IFE
always plenty of ice on ponds and lakes in Edinburgh
for that. One of his favourite skating places was
Duddingston Loch at the foot of a hill called Arthurs
Seat.
Louis was a thin and awkward boy, and, he bent
way over when he skated. The fashions of the times
made him look even odder. His trousers were tight
and his jacket was short. He had a flowing tie under
his chin, and a fur cap pulled down over his ears.
He entered Edinburgh Academy the autumn that
he was eleven. This school was in Henderson Row,
several blocks farther away from home than the one in
India Street. When Louis first went there in October,
he found himself walking across a yard and into a huge
building that had big round columns in front. There
were more than sixty boys in his class, two of them his
cousins. That meant that there were sixty boys to mock
at him instead of just a handful. Louis was so strange
that the same thing happened again. He didnt play
football or cricket. He was too bright in his lessons.
And he was always losing time from school with colds
and coughs.
More than once he came home from Edinburgh
Academy, his clothes torn, angry and crying.
Theyve been ragging me! Theyve been ragging
me!
Smout is so nervous! said his mother.
Hes much too sensitive, said his father.
I wish he wouldnt lose his temper so easily.
1
His parents worried about his happiness but they never
worried about his studies. They knew he could learn fast
and they knew he could read well. Mr Stevenson had
plenty of books in his own library books on nature and
1
I wish he wouldnt lose his temper so easily. Я бы хотел,
чтобы он так легко не раздражался.
25
C. O. Peare
engineering, encyclopedias and novels. Louis was soon
reading the stories of Sir Walter Scott and Alexander
Dumas.
Do the best you can at school, his father said.
During his second term at Edinburgh Academy Louis
missed a big piece of the school term. His father hadnt
been quite well, so the Stevenson family took a trip to
London and southern England.
Travel is just as educational as school is, said
Mr Stevenson.
Twelve-year-old Stevenson saw London for the
first time in his life. London was bigger and more
crowded than Edinburgh. And it was flat, not built
up and down hills the way his own city was built.
The people who hurried through the streets had another
way of talking. They didnt have any Scottish burr in
their talk. They didnt roll their rs or sing their
words. When the Scots talked, everything sounded
like poetry.
The next winter Mrs Stevenson was feeling poorly,
and the three Stevensons went in search of a sunny
climate for her.
I think we can forget Edinburgh Academy
altogether, said Mr Stevenson.
They started out in January, and Louis wasnt back
in Edinburgh until the end of May. It was a grand trip
all through France and Italy. Louis discovered that
he liked to travel.
How do you like France, Smout?
Smout so sensitive! Smout with his imagination.
Smout who was going to be a writer of thrilling stories
and poetry some day. He loved France, especially
southern France where they were staying. He loved it
because of its beautiful colours.
They were in the town of Mentone, right on the
Mediterranean Sea, close to Italy. The sea was smooth
26
R
OBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
. HIS L
IFE
and vivid blue and glistened in the brilliant sun. The
houses in Mentone had red tile roofs. Right behind
the town rose giant peaks of the Alps Mountains. The
mountains were green, then grey-blue, and their tips
were capped with snow.
They stayed at Mentone two months, sun bathing
and sea bathing and walking about. Smout had French
lessons, too.
Before the Stevensons returned to Scotland they
went sightseeing through Italy. There Louis saw more
exciting sights. In Rome he saw the big round
Colosseum where the ancient Romans held their
combats. He saw the ruins of Pompeii, the city that
had been buried by the lava from Mount Vesuvius. In
Venice the streets were watery canals, and Smout and
his parents had to travel in a boat.
By the time Louis found himself back in London,
his mind was full of new sights, new stories, new
pictures.
To add to his excitement
1
his parents let him make
the train journey back to Edinburgh alone. Mrs Stevenson
wanted to stay with Aunt Jane in London for a while.
When at last he was back in the house on Heriot
Row, he could talk and chatter with Cummy and tell
her all he had seen.
Assignments
I. Answer the following questions:
1. How did Louis and Cousin Bob spend their
summers at Peebles?
2. Can you describe a fishermans village on the
Firth of Forth where the boys spent summers?
1
Òî add to his excitement
усилилось, когда
çä. Его радостное возбуждение
27
C. O. Peare
3. What games did young Stevenson and his friends
play?
4. What sport did he love in winter?
5. What school did he enter when he was eleven?
6. How did he study?
7. Why did the Stevenson family take a trip to London?
8. What countries did the Stevensons visit next
winter?
II. Divide the chapter into logically complete parts
and give a brief summary of each. Suggest possible
titles for these parts.
III. Express your agreement or disagreement with
the statements given below. Begin your response with
one of the following formulas:
Thats right; Exactly
so; Thats just it; Precisely so; Oh, no; Far from it;
Not all all; Just the reverse; Just the other way round.
Keep the conversation going.
1. Louis forgot the Manse and his happy summers
there when he went to Peebles in summer one
year.
2. Peebles had plenty of space for Louis and his
cousin Bob to gallop along on their ponies.
3. Summers that the boys spent at North Berwick
were not interesting.
4. Young Stevenson and his friends preferred the
following games: boat races on the water or flying
giant kites.
5. The game they loved worst of all was lanternbearing.
6. Winters in Edinburgh gave Louis another sport
he loved ice-skating.
7. Louis was a skinny and awkward boy, and he
bent way over when he skated.
28
R
OBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
. HIS L
IFE
8. At school the boys never mocked at him.
9. Louis parents worried about his studies, but they
never worried about his happiness.
10. Twelve-year-old Stevenson saw London for the
first time in his life.
IV. Reproduce the extract in detail in which the
game lantern-bearing is described.
V. Compare the two cities the Stevensons lived
Edinburgh and London.
VI. Imagine you are Louis. Speak about your grand
trip all through France and Italy. Share your
impressions with your friends about the towns and
exciting sights you saw.
Chapter IV
THE L
IGHTHOUSE STEVENSONS
Íårå is the sea, here is the sand,
Íårå is simple Shepherds Land,
Here are the fairy hollyhocks,
and there are Ali Babas rocks.
(Historical Associations)
If Smout was excited and chattering one day, he
could be sad and miserable another. In the autumn he
was wandering around Edinburgh, feeling unhappy
and lost, no place to go, nothing to do. The air was
cold and the sky was grey. Summer fun was over. Life
29
C. O. Peare
was dull. Louis sat down on a doorstep and began to
cry.
While he was crying, a cat came up and rubbed
against his leg. She was lost and miserable, too, and
so she could sympathize. Smout loved all animals,
and this one in particular. So he took her home with
him.
Where did you find the cat? his mother and father
and Cummy wanted to know. So he told them the
story of how he had been crying and felt miserable and
the cat had comforted him.
They all sighed and looked at one another over his
head. They had to do something to cheer up their only
child!
Youre old enough to take an interest in engineering,
said Thomas Stevenson. Dress him warmly in the
morning, Cummy. Im going to take him on a tour of the
harbour lights along the Fife coast.
Thomas Stevenson gave his wife a nod and a wink.
Maybe this trip would inspire Smout to be another
Lighthouse Stevenson.
Mr Stevenson was the official engineer of the
Board of Northern Lights.
1
For that he had to travel
around the coast inspecting harbour lights and
lighthouses, making sure that they were in good
working order.
Father and son set out across the Forth River, then
turned east along the northern coast of the Firth of
Forth, out toward the sea. The coast along the Forth
was rocky and cliffy with little fishing villages all along
the way. Louis could see many ships and boats in the
Firth of Forth, because it was a safe harbour. But as
they travelled on out toward the North Sea there were
1
the Board of Northern Lights Управление северными
маяками
30
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