Практическое занятии № 15 8 страница

Burlap nodded, smiling his agreement. Yes, she’s on the side of the angels, he was thinking; she needs encouraging. The demon winked. There was something in his smile, Mrs. Betterton reflected, that reminded one of a Leonardo or a Sodoma – something mysterious, subtle, inward.

Лекция 42

GEORGE BERNARD SHAW

(1856-1950)

G. B. Shaw was born in Dublin Ireland. In 1876 he moved to London and began his literary career by writing music, art, and book criticism for some magazines. In the nineties Shaw turned to the theatre, he was the creator of a new publicist drama. In 1892-1893 the first cycle of his plays named “Plays Unpleasant” Made its appearance. The next cycle, called “Plays Pleasant” appeared during the period of 1894-1897.

Shaw was an indefatigable worker writing over 50 plays. The plays continued to be performed regularly both during and after his lifetime, several were made into films. His unorthodox views, his humour, and his love of paradox have become an institution. B. Shaw was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1925.

“Plays Pleasant”.

RAINA. (placing her hands on his shoulders as she looks up at him with admiration and worship). My hero! My king!

SERGIUS. My queen! (He kisses her on the forehead.)

RAINA. How I have envied you, Sergius! You have been out in the world, on the field of battle, able to prove yourself there worthy of any woman in the world; whilst I have had to sit at home inac­tive – dreaming – useless – doing nothing that could give me the right to call myself worthy of any man.

SERGIUS. Dearest: all my deeds have been yours. You inspired me. I have gone through the war like a knight in a tournament with his lady looking down at him!

RAINA. And you have never been absent from my thoughts for a moment. (Very solemnly.) Sergius: I think we two have found the higher love. When I think of you, I feel that I could never do a base deed, or think an ignoble thought.

SERGIUS. My lady, and my saint! (He clasps her reverently.)

RAINA. (returning his embrace). My lord and my –

SERGIUS. Sh – sh! Let me be the worshipper, dear. You little know how unworthy even the best man is of a girl's pure passion!

RAINA. I trust you. I love you. You will never disappoint me, Sergius. (Louka is heard singing within the house. They quickly nelease each other.) I cant pretend to talk indifferently before her: my heart is too full. (Louka comes from the house with her tray. She goes to the table, and begins to clear it, with her back turned to them.) I will get my hat; and; then we can go out until lunch time. Wouldnt you like that?

SERGIUS. Be quick. If you are away five minutes, it will seem five hours. (Raina runs to the top of the steps, and turns there to exchange looks with him and wave him a kiss with both hands. He looks after her with emotion for a moment; then turns slowly away, his face radiant with the loftiest exaltation. The movement shifts his field of vision, into the corner of which there now comes the tail of Louka's double apron. His attention is arrested at once. He takes a stealthy look at her, and begins to twirl his moustache mis­chievously, with his left hand akimbo on his hip. Finally, striking the ground with his; heels in something of a cavalry swagger, he strolls over to the other side of the table, opposite her, ana says) Louka: do you know what the higher love is?

LOUKA (astonished). No, sir.

SERGIUS. Very fatiguing thing to keep up for any length of time, Louka. One feels the need of some relief after it.

LOUKA. (innocently). Perhaps you would like some coffee sir (She stretches her hand across the table for the coffee pot.)

SERGIUS. (taking her hand). Thank you, Louka.

LOUKA. (pretending to pull). Oh, sir, you know I didnt meare that. I'm surprised at you!

SERGIUS. (coming clear of the table and drawing her with him). I am surprised at myself, Louka. What would Sergius, the hero of Slivnitza, say if he saw me now? What would Sergius, the apostle of the higher love, say if he saw me now? What would the half dozen Sergiuses who keep popping in and out of this handsome figure of mine say if they caught us here? (Letting go her hand and Slipping his arm dexterously round her waist.) Do you consider my figure handsome, Louka?

LOUKA. Let me go, sir. I shall be disgraced. (She struggles: he holds her inexorably.) Oh, will you let go?

SERGIUS. (looking straight into her eyes). No.

LOUKA. Then stand back where we cant be seen. Have you no common sense?

SERGIUS. Ah! thats reasonable. (He takes her into the stable-yard gateway, where they are hidden from the house.)

LOUKA. (plaintively). I may have been seen from the windows; Miss Raina is sure to be spying about after you.

SERGIUS. (stung – letting her go). Take care, Louka. I may be worthless enough to betray the higher love; but do not you insult it.

LOUKA. (demurely). Not for the world, sir, I'm sure. May I go on with my work, please, now?

SERGIUS. (again putting his arm round her). You are a pro­voking little witch, Lonka. If you were in love with me, would you spy out of windows on me?

LOUKA. Well, you see, sir, since you say you are half a dozen different gentlemen, all at once, I should have a great deal to look after.

SERGIUS. (charmed). Witty as well as pretty. (He tries to kiss: her.)

LOUKA. (avoiding him). No: I dont want your kisses. Gentle­folk are all alike: you making love to me behind Miss Raina's back; and she doing the same behind yours.

SERGIUS. (recoiling a step). Louka!

LOUKA. It shews how little you really care.

SERGIUS. (dropping his familiarity, and speaking with freezing politeness). If our conversation is to continue, Louka, you will please remember that a gentleman does not discuss the conduct of the lady he is engaged to with her maid.

LOUKA. It's so hard to know what a gentleman considers right. I thought from your trying to kiss me that you had given up being, so particular.

“Mrs. Warren’s Profession”.

MRS. WARREN. My own opinions and my own way of life! Listen to her talking! Do you think I was brought up like you – able to pick and choose my own way of life? Do you thank I did what I did because I liked it, or thought it right, or wouldnt rather have gone to college and been a lady if I'd had the chance?

VIVIE. Everybody has some choice, mother. The poorest girl alive (may not be able to choose between being Queen of England or Principal of Newnham; but she lean choose between ragpicking and flowerselling, according to her taste. People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I dont believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they cant find them, make them.

MRS. WARREN. Oh, it's easy to talk, very easy, isnt it? Here! – would you like to know what my circumstances were?

VIVIE. Yes: you had better tell me. Wont you sit down?

MRS. WARREN. Oh, I'll sit down: dont you be afraid. [She plants her chair farther forward with brazen, energy, and sits down. Vivie is impressed in spite of herself] D'you know what your gran'mother was?

VIVIE. No.

MRS. WARREN. No, you dont. I do. She called herself a widow and had a fried-fish shop down by the Mint, and kept herself and four daughters out of it. Two of us were sisters: that was me and Liz; and we were both good-looking and well made. I suppose our father was a well-fed man: mother pre­tended he was a gentleman; but I dont know. The other two were only half sisters – undersized, ugly, starved looking, hard working, honest poor creatures: Liz and I would have half-murdered them if mother hadnt half-murdered' u s to keep our hands off them. They were the respectable ones. Well, what did they get by their respectability? I'll tell you. One of them worked in a whitelead factory twelve hours a day for nine shil­lings a week until she died of lead poisoning. Slhe only expect­ed to get her hands a little paralyzed; but she died. The other was always held up to us as a model because she married a Government laborer in the Deptford victualling yard, and kept his room and the three children neat and tidy on eighteen shillings a week – until he took to drink. That was worth being respectable for, wasn't it?

VIVIE. [now thoughtfully attentive] Did you and your sister think so?

MRS. WARREN. Liz didnt, I can tell you: she had more spirit. We both went to a church school – that was part of the 1adylike airs we gave ourselves to be superior to the children that knew nothing and went nowhere – and we stayed there until Liz went out one night and never came back. I know the schoolmistress thought I'd soon follow her example; for (the clergy­man was always warning me that Lizzie'd end by jumping off Waterloo Bridge. Poor fool: that was all he knew about it! But I was more afraid of the whitelead factory than I was of the river; and so would you have, been in my place. That clergyman got me a situation as scullery maid in a temperance restaurant where they sent out for anything you liked. Then I was waitress; and then I went to the bar at Waterloo station - four­teen hours a day serving drinks and washing glasses for four shillings a week and my board. That was considered a great promotion for me. Well, one cold, wretched night, when I was so tired I could hardly keep myself awake, who should come up for a half of Scotch but Lizzie, in a long fur cloak, elegant and comfortable, with a lot of sovereigns in her purse.

VIVIE [grimly] My aunt Lizzie!

MRS. WARREN. Yes; and a very good aunt to have, too. She's living down at Winchester now, close to the cathedral, one of the most respectable ladies there, chaperones girls at the county ball, if you please. No river for Liz, thank you! You remind me of Liz a little: she was a first-rate business woman – saved money from the beginning – never let herself look too like what she was – never lost her head or throw away a chance. When she saw I'd grown up good looking she said to me across the bar "What are you doing there, you little fool? wearing out your health and your appearance for other people's profit!" Liz was saving money then to take a house for herself in Brussels; and she thought we two could save faster than one. So she lent me some money and gave me a start; and I saved steadily and first paid her back, and then went into business with her as her partner. Why shouldnit I have done it? The house in Brussels was real high class – a much better place for a woman to 'be in than the factory where Arine Jane got poisoned. None of our girls were ever treated as I was treated in the scullery of that temperance place, or at the Waterloo bar, or at home. Would you have had me stay in them and become a worn out old drudge before I was forty?

VIVIE. [intensely interested by this time] No; but why did you choose that business? Saving money and good management will succeed in any business.

MRS. WARREN. Yes, saving money. But where can a woman get the money to save in any other business? Could you save out of four shillings a week and keep yourself dressed as well? Not you. Of course, if youre a plain woman and cant earn anything more; or if you have a turn. for music, or the stage, or newspaper-writing: thats different. But neither Liz nor I had any turn for such things: all we had was our appearance and our turn for pleasine men. Do you think we were such fools as to let other people trade in our good looks by employing us as shopgirls, or barmaids, or waitresses, when we could trade in them ourselves and get all the profits instead of starvation wages? Not likely.

VIVIE [more and more deeply moved] Mother: suppose we were both as poor as you were in those wretched old days, are you quite sure that you woulidnt advise me to try the Waterloo bar, or marry a laborer, or even go into the factory?

MRS. WARREN [indignantly] Of course not. What sort of mother do you take me for! How could you keep your self-respect in such starvation and slavery? And what’s a woman worth without self-respect! Why am I independent and able to give my daughter a first-rate education, when other women that had just as good opportunities are in the gutter? Because I always knew how to respect myself and control myself. Why is, Liz looked up to in a cathedral town? The same reason. Where would we be now if wed minded the clergyman's foolishness? Scrubbing floors for one and sixpence a day and nothing to look forward to but the workhouse infirmary. Dont you be led astray by people who dont know the world, my girl. The only way for a woman to provide for herself decently is for her to be good to some man that can afford to be good to her. If she's in his own station of life, let her make him marry her; but if she's far beneath him she cant expect it – why should she? It wouldnt be for her own happiness. Ask any lady in London society that has daughters; and she'll tell you the same, except that I tell you straight and she'll tell you crooked.That's all the difference.

VIVIE. [fascinated, gazing at her] My dear mother: you are a wonderful woman – you are stronger than all England. And are you really and truly not one wee bit doubtfu1 – or – or – ashamed?

MRS. WARREN. Well, of course, dearie, it's only good manners to be ashamed of it: it's expected from a woman. Women have to pretend to feel a great deal that they don’t feel. Liz used to be angry with me for plumping out the truth about it. She used to say that when every woman could learn enough from what was going on in the world before her eyes, there was no need to talk about it to her. But then Liz was such a perfect lady!

Лекция 43

HERBERT GEORGE WELLS

(1866-1946)

H. G. Wells was born in Bromley, Kent. He was apprenticed to a draper in early life, then became assistant teacher, studying by night and winning a scholarship in 1884 to the Normal School of Science.

His literary output was vast and extremely varied. As a novelist he is best remembered for his scientific romances, among the earliest products of the new genre of science fiction. His novels combine, in varying degrees, political satire, warnings about the dangerous new powers of science, and a desire to foresee a possible future of science.

The novels clothe the writer’s scientific and sociological speculations in the form of entertaining fiction.

The Invisible Man

***

Mr. Hall marched up the steps, marched straight to the door of the parlour and foundit open. "Constable," he said,; "do your duty.".

Jaffers marched 'in, Hall next, Wadgers last. They saw in the dim light, the headless figure facing them, with a gnawed crust of bread in one gloved hand and a chunk of cheese in the other.

"That's him," said Hall.

"What the devil's.. this?" came in a tone of angry ex­postulation from above the collar of the figure.

"You're a darmed rum customer, mister," ''said Mr. Jaffers. "But 'ed or. ho 'ed, the warrant says 'body, and, duty's duty ——".

"Keep off!" said the figure, starting back..

Abruptly he whipped down the bread and 'cheese, and Mr. Hall just grasped the knife on the table in time to save it. Off came the stranger's left glove, and was slapped in Jaffers face. In another moment Jaffers, cutting short some statement concerning a warrant, had gripped him by the handless wrist, "and caught his invisible throat. He got a sounding kick on the shin that made him shout, but he kept his grip. Hall sent the knife sliding along the table to Wadgers, who acted as goal­keeper for the offensive, so to speak, and then stepped forward as Jaffers and the stranger swayed and stagger. Towards him, clutching and hitting in. A chair stood in the way, and went aside with a crash as they came down together.

"Get the feet," said Jaffers between his teeth.

Mr. Hall, endeavouring to act on instructions, re­ceived a sounding kick in the ribs that disposed of him for a moment; and Mr. Wadgers, seeing the decapitated stranger had rolled over and got the upper side of Jaf-fers, retreated towards the door, knife in hand, and so collided with Mr. Huxter and the Sidderbridge carter coming to the rescue of law and order. At the same moment down came three or four bottles from the chiffonier and shot a web of pungency²⁰ into the air of the room.

"I'll surrender," cried the stranger, though he had Jaffers down, and in another moment he. stood up panting, a strange figure, headless and handless—for he had pulled off his right glove now as well as his left. "I no good," he said, as if sobbing for breath.

It was the strangest thing in the world to hear that voice coming as if out of empty space, but the Sussex peasants are perhaps the most matter-of-fact people under the sun. Jaffers got up also, and produced a pair of hand­cuffs. Then he stared. ^:

“I say!" said Jaffers, brought up short²¹ by a dim realisation of the incongruity of the whole business. "Darm it! Can't use 'em as I can see.”

The stranger ran his arm down his waistcoat, and, as if by a miracle, the buttons to which his empty sleeve. pointed became undone. Then he said something about his shin, and stooped down. He seemed to be fumbling with his shoes and socks.

"Why!" said Huxter suddenly, "that's not a man at all. It's just empty clothes. Look! You can see down his collar and the linings of his clothes. I could put my arm——“

He extended his hand; it seemed to meet something 'in mid-air, and he drew it back with a sharp exclamation. "I wish you'd keep your fingers out of my eye," said the serial voice²² in a tone of savage expostulation. "The fact is, 'I'm ail here—head, hands, legs and all the rest of it, all but it happens I'm invisible. It's a confounded nuisance, but 1 am. That's no reason why I should be poked to pieces by every stupid bumpkin in Iping, is it?"

The suit of clothes, now all unbuttoned and hanging loosely upon its unseen supports, stood up, arms akimbo.

Several other of the men-folk had now entered the room, so that it was closely crowded. "Invisible, eh?" said Huxter, ignoring the stranger's abuse. "Who ever heard the likes of that?".

"It's strange, perhaps, but it's not a crime. Why am I assaulted by a policeman in this fashion——".

"Ah! that's a different matter," said Jaffers. "No doubt you are a bit difficult to see in this light, but I got a war­rant and it's all correct. What I'm after ain't no invisi­bility, it's burglary. There's a house been broke into, and money took.."

"Well?"

"And circumstances certainly point——"

"Stuff and nonsense!" said the Invisible Man.

"I hope so, sir. But I've got my instructions——"

"Well," said the stranger, "I'll come. I'll come. But no handcuffs."

"It's the regular thing," said Jaffers.

"No handcuffs," stipulated the stranger.

"Pardon me," said Jaffers.

Abruptly the figure sat down, and before any one could realise what was being done, the slippers, socks, and trousers had been kicked off under the table. Then he sprang up again and flung off his coat.

"Here, stop that," said Jaffers, suddenly realising what was happening. He gripped the waistcoat, it struggled, and the shirt slipped out of it and left it limp and empty in his hand. "Hold him!" said Jaffers loudly. "Once he gets the things off——"

"Hold him!" cried every one, and there was a rush at the fluttering white shirt, which was now all that was visible of the stranger.

The shirt sleeve planted a shrewd blow in Hall's face that stopped his open-armed advance and sent him back­ward into old Toothsome, the sexton, and in another moment the garment was lifted up, and became convulsed and vacantly flapping about the arms, even as a shirt that is being thrust off over a man's head. Jaffers clutched at it, and only helped to pull it off. He was struck in. the mouth out of the air, and incontinently drew his trun­cheon and smote Teddy Henfrey savagely upon the crown of his head.

"Look out!" said everybody, fencing at random and hitting at nothing. "Hold him! Shut the door! Don't let him loose. I got something! Here he is!" A perfect Ba­bel of noises they made. Everybody, it seemed, was being.hit all at once, and Sandy Wadgers, knowing as ever, and his wits sharpened by a frightful blow on the nose, reopened the door and led the rout. The others, follow­ing incontinently, were jammed for a moment in!he cor­ner by the doorway. The hitting continued. Phipps, the Unitarian, had a front tooth broken, and Henfrey was injured in the cartilage of his ear. Jaffers was struck un­der the jaw, and, turning, caught at something that in­tervened between him and Huxter in the melee and prevented their coming together. He felt a muscular chest, and in mother moment the whole mass of struggling, ex­cited men shot out into the crowded hall.

"I got him!" shouted Jailers, clicking and reeling through them all, and wrestling with purple face and swelling veins against his unseen enemy.

Men staggered right and left as the extraordinary conflict swayed swiftly towards the house door and went spin­ning down the half dozen steps of the inn. Jaffers cried in a strangled voice, holding tight nevertheless, and making play with his knee, spun round and fell heavily undermost with his head on the gravel. Only then did his fingers relax.

There were excited cries of "Hold him!" "Invisible!" and so forth, and a young fellow, a stranger.in the place, whose name did not come to light, rushed in at once, caught something, missed his hold, and fell over the con­stable's prostrate body. Half-way across the road a wom­an screamed as something pushed by her, a dog, kicked apparently, yelped and ran howling into Huxter's yard, and with that the transit of the Invisible Man was accom­plished. For a space people stood amazed and gesticulat­ing, and then came panic, and scattered them abroad²³ through the village as a gust scatters dead leaves. But Jaffers lay quite still, face and knees upward bent, at the foot of the steps of the inn.

Лекция 44

JOHN GALSWORTHY

(1867-1933)

John Galsworthy was born in a well-to-do bourgeois family. He studied law at Oxford but gave up his practice a year after his graduation and took to literary work. In his works he exhibited a profound Knowledge of the spirit and the details of his country’s life. Galsworthy’s views on the development of society were conservative. But being a great artist he gave a comprehensive and vivid picture of contemporary England in his books Galsworthy’s works reveal the authors great knowledge of the man’s inner world. The variety of human passions is drawn by him with intensity and psychological depth.

“The Man of Property” was a landmark in the development of Galsworthy’s art.

***

The happy pair.me seated, not opposite each other, but rectan-gularly, at the handsome rosewood table; they dined without a cloth — a distinguishing elegance — and so far had not spoken a word.

Soames liked to talk during dinner about business, or what he had been buying, and so long as he talked Irene's silence did not distress) him. This evening he had found it impossible to talk..The decision to build had been weighing on his mind all the week, and he bad made up his mind to tell her.

His nervousness about this disclosure irritated him profoundly; she had no business to make him feel like that — a wife and a hus-hand:» being one person. She had not looked at him once since they sat down; and he wondered what on earth she had been thinking-about a11 the time. It v/as hard, when a man worked as he did, mak­ing money for her — yes, and with an ache in his heart — that she should sit there, looking—looking as if she saw the walls of the room closing in. It was enough to make a man get up and leave the table.

The light from the rose-shaded lamp fell on her neck and arms — Soames liked her to dine in a low dress, it gave him an inexpressible feeling of superiority to the majority of his acquaintance, whose wives were contented with their best high frocks or with tea-gowns, when they dined at borne. Under that rosy light her amber-coloured hair and fair skin made strange contrast with her dark brown eyes.

Could a man own anything prettier than this dining-table with its deep tints, the starry, soft-petalled roses, the ruby- coloured glass 5 and quaint silver furnishing; could a man own anything prettier than the woman who satat it? Gratitude was no virtue among.

Forsytes, who, competitive, and full of common-sense, had occasion for it; and Soames only experienced a sense of exasperation amounting to pain, that he did not own her as it was his right o own her, that he could not, as by stretching out his hand to that rose, pluck her and sniff the very secrets of her heart.

Out of his property, out of all the things he had collected, his silver, his pictures, his houses, his investments, he got a secret and intimate fooling; out of her he got none.

In this house of his there v»as writing on every wall.² His business-like temperament protested against a mysterious warning that she was not made for him. He had married this woman, conquered her, made her his own, and it seemed to him contrary to the most." fundamental of all laws, the law of possession, that he could do no ' more than own her body — if indeed he could do that, which he was beginning to doubt. If anyone had asked him if he wanted to own " her soul, the question would have seemed to him both ridiculous '' and sentimental. But he did so want, and the writing said he never- would.

She was ever silent, passive, gracefully averse; as though terri- fied lest by word, motion, or sign she might lead him to believe lhai, she was fond of him; and he asked himself: Must I always go on like this?

Like most novel readers of his generation - (and Soames was great novel reader), literature coloured his view of life; and had imbibed the belief that it was only a question of time. In. the en5 the husband always gained the affection of his wife. Even in those cases — a class of book he was not very fond of —which ended in tragedy, the wife always died with poignant regrets on her lips, or if in were the husband who died—unpleasant thought-threw herself on his body in an agony of remorse.

He often took Irene to the theatre, instinctively lively choosing the modern Society plays with the modern Society conjugal problem, so fortunately different, from any conjugal problem in real life. He found that they too always ended in the same way, oven when there was a lover in the case. While lie was watching the play Soames often sympathized with the lover; but before lie reached home again driving with Irene in a hansom, he saw that, 'his would not do, and he was glad the play had ended as it had. There was obo class of husband that had just then come into fashion, the strong, rather cough but extremely sound man, who was peculiarly successful at the end of the play; with this person Soames was really not in sym­pathy, and had it not been for his own position, would have expressed his disgust with the fellow. But he was so conscious of, (how vital to himself was the necessity for being a successful, even a “strong”, husband, that he never spoke of a distaste born perhaps by the perverse processes of Nature out of a secret fund of brutality in himself.

But Irene’s silence.this evening was exceptional. He had never.before seen such an expression on her face. And since it is always the unusual which alarms, Soames was alarmed. He ate his sa­voury, and hurried the- maid as she swept off the crumbs with the Silver sweeper. When she had left the room, he filled his glass with me and said:

"Anybody been here this afternoon?"

"June."

“What did she want?” It was an axiom with the; Forsytes that people did not go anywhere unless they wanted something. "Came to talk about her lover, I suppose?"

Irene made no reply.

"It looks to me," continued Soames, "as if she were sweeter, on if than he is on her. She's always following him about."

Irene's eyes made him feel uncomfortable.

"You've no business to say such a thing!" she exclaimed.

"Why not? Anybody can see it."

"'They cannot. And if they could, it's disgraceful to say so."

Soames composure gave way.

''Yo’re a pretty wife!" he said. But secretly he wondered at the heat of her reply; it was unlike her. "You're cracked ² about June! I can tell you one thing: now that she has the Buccaneer ³ in tow, ⁴ she doesn't care two pence about you and you'll find it out. But you won't see so much of her in future; we're going to live in the country."