Практическое занятии № 15 9 страница

Лекция 45

WILLIAM SOMERSET MAUGHAM

(1874-1965)

W. S. Maugham was educated at King’s School, Canterbury, and St. Thomas Hospital, London, where he qualified as a doctor. He did not practice, however, but became a written and proved very successful as a playwright, a novelist, and a short story writer. His travels in the Far East and in the South Seas provided him with much of the material for his stories. His best – known novel is a thinly – disguised autobiography “Of Human Bondage” (1915) which describes Philip Carey’s lonely boyhood and his subsequent adventures.

***

Philip took up his hat and went to see the patient. It was hard upon eight o'clock when he came back. Doctor South was standing in the dining-room with his back to the fireplace.

"You've been a long time," he said.

"I'm sorry. Why didn't you start dinner?"

"Because I chose to wait. Have you been all this while at Mrs. Fletcher's?"

"No, I'm afraid I haven't. I stopped to look at the sunset on my way back, and I didn't think of the time."

Doctor South did not reply, and the servant brought in some grilled sprats. Philip ate them with an excellent appetite. Suddenly Doctor South shot a question at him. "Why did you look at the sunset?"

Philip answered with his mouth full:

"Because I was happy."

Doctor South gave him an odd look, and the shadow of a smile flickered across his old, tired face. They ate the rest of the dinner in silence; but when the maid had given them the port and left the room, the old man leaned back and fixed his sharp eyes on Philip.

"It stung you' up a bit when I spoke of your game - leg, young fellow?" he said.

"People always do, directly or indirectly, when they get angry with me."

"I suppose they know it's your weak point."

Philip faced him and looked at him steadily.

"Are you very glad to have discovered it?"

The doctor did not answer, but he gave a chuckle of bitter mirth. They sat for a while staring at one another. The Doctor South surprised Philip extremely. “ Why don’t you stay here and I’ll get rid of that

"It 's very of kind you, but I hope to get an appointment at the hospital It'll help me so much in getting other work later..

"I'm offering a partnership," said Doctor South grumpily.

“Why?” asked Philip with surprise.” They think that was a fact which n your approval," Philip said drily.

"D'y; i suppose that after forty yecii twopenny damn whether people prefer my assistant. me" Io, my.friend. There's no sentiment between n y patients and me. I Jon't expect gratitude from them, I expect them to pay my fees. Well, what d’you say to it? Philip made no reply, not because he wёas thinking the &ut because he was astonished. It was evide; every musual for someone to offer a part rship to a nev'iy qualified man; and he realised with wonder that, although Othin would induce him t'say so, Doctor South h-id taken a xanu to hun. He ihought how amusad the secretary at St..T-.uka's would be when he told him. "The practice brings in about seven hundrfca a -ear. can reckon out, how much your share would c-")', ana you pay me off by degrees. And when I die n succaec me. I think that's better than.noc¹ about Hospi­tals for two or three years, and then taking sis Unt Ehip;. until y can afford to set irp ipr your.-elf.".

Ph;i. J-Jiev. it was a.chanca that mos;. pr his profcju;Ti'p' dl; the prcfesaiar' -w, be men he. kueiv woulid be thar 'dsat d comfcci.enf\ -.

I'-i;.rvfully so^ry, bu!: T ca'i: F'iic*. Hi. irii-dup evervthing I've aimed at r 93 Tp oae wd» anothsr I've had a rcughish time. but J. iay? had that h.Jpe before ni.?, to gci qualifie-J $& tha⁴). migh'¹ Ui, -now, when T wake in the morRing, rry bones ^I;vnp'^!y a'';h.get u don't rnind wher' "a; Ueularly, but never been goal sfa;ed vc n He WiJulc"? appointment at St. Lukes b, ih midaje ing year, and then he would go to Spain; he could afford to-spend several months there, rambling up and down the land which stood to him for romance; after that he would get a ship and go to the East. Life was before him and time of no account. ⁸⁴ He could wander, for years if he chose, in unfrequented places, amid strange peoples, where life was led in strange ways. He did not know what he sought or what his journeys would bring him; but he had a feeling that he would learn something new about life and gain some clue to the mystery that he had solved only. to find more mysterious. And even if he found nothing he would allay the unrest which gnawed at his heart. But Doctor South was showing him a great kindness, and it seemed-ungrateful to refuse his offer for no adequate reason; so in his shy way, trying to appear as matter of fact as possible, he made some attempt to explain why it was so important to him to carry out the plans he had cherished so passionately.

Doctor South listened quietly, and a gentle look came into his shrewd old eyes. It seemed to Philip an added kindness that he did not press him to accept his offer. Benevolence is often very peremptory. He appeared to look upon Philip's reasons as sound. Dropping the subject, he began to talk of his own youth; he had been in the Royal Navy, and it was his long connection with the sea that, when he retired, had made him settle at Farnley. He told Philip of old days in the Pacific and of wild adventures in China. He had taken part in an expedition against the head-hunters of Borneo and had known Samoa when it was still an independent state. He had touched at coral islands. Philip listened to him entranced. Little by little he told Philip about himself. Doctor South was a widower, his wife had died thirty years before, and his daughter had married a farmer in Rhodesia; he had quarrelled with him, and she had not come to England for ten years. It was just as if he had never had wife or child. He was very lonely. His gruffness was little more than a protection which he wore to hide a complete disillusion­ment; and to Philip it seemed tragic to see him just wait­ing for death, not impatiently, but rather with loathing for it, hating old age and unable to resign himself to its limi­tations, and yet with the feeling that death was the only solution of the bitterness of his life. Philip crossed his path,.and the natural affection which long separation from his daughter had killed — she had taken her husband's part in the quarrel and her children he had never seen — settled itself upon Philip. At first it made him angry, he told himself it was a sign of dotage; but there was something in Philip; that attracted him, and he found himself smiling at him he knew not why. Philip did not bore him. Once or twice he put his hand on his shoulder: it was as near a caress as he had got since his daughter left England so many years before. When the time came for Philip to go Doctor South accompanied him to the station: he found himself unac­countably depressed.

"I've had a ripping time here," said Philip. "You've been awfully kind to me."

"I suppose you're very glad to go?"

"I've enjoyed myself here."

"But you want to get out into the world? Ah, you have youth." He hesitated a moment. "I want you to remember that if you change your mind my offer still stands."

"That's awfully kind of you."

Philip shook hands with him out of the carriage window, and the train steamed out of the station. Philip thought of the fortnight he was going to spend in the hop-field: he was happy at the idea of seeing his friends again, and he rejoiced because the day was fine. But Doctor South walked slowly back to his empty house. He felt very old and very lonely.

Лекция 46

RICHARD ALDINGLON

(1892-1962)

R. Aldington was educated at University College London. He began his literary career as a poet; in later years he devoted himself more to prose and produced several successful novels. His first novel “Death of a Hero” (1920) was based on his own war experiences. It relates the life and death of George Winterbourne, killed in action in 1918. The book is dedicated to so called lost generation and contains a passionate protest both against war and against the rotten order of things in his own country. It displays a vast canvas of English intellectual and social life before and during World War I. the form and method of the book are extremely variegated: naturalistic scenes alternate with pages of expressive word painting.

Death of a Hero

They had crossed the road outside Bushey Park ' and entered the palace gates. Between the wall which backs the Long Border, the Tudor side of the palace, and another long high wall, is the Wil­derness, or old English garden, composed on the grandiose scale advocated by Bacon. It is both a garden and a "wilderness", in the sense that il is planted with innumerable bulbs (which are thinned and renewed from time to time), but otherwise allowed to run wild. George and Elizabeth stopped with that sudden ecstasy of delight felt by the sensitive young — a few of them — at the sight of lovelines. Great secular trees, better protected than those in the outer Park, held up vast fans of glittering green-and-gold foliage which trembled in the light wind and formed moving patterns on the tender blue sky. The lilacs had just unfolded their pale hearts, showing the slim stalk of closed buds which would break open later in a foam of white and blue blossoms. Underfoot was the stouter green of wild plants, spread out like an evening sky of verdure for the thick-clustered constellations of flowers. There shone the soft, slim yellow trumpet of the wild daffodil; the daffodil which has a pointed ruff of white petals to display its gold head; and the more opulent double daffodil which, compared with the other two, is like an ostentatious merchant between Florizel and Perdita. There were the many-headed jonquils, creamy and thick-scented; the starry narcissus, so alert on its long, slender, stiff stem, so sharp-eyed, so unlike a languid youth gazing into a pool; the hyacinth-blue frail squilla almost lost in the lush herbs; and the hyacinth, blue and white and red, with its firm, thick-set stem and innumerable bell curling back their open points. Among them stood tulips— the red, like thin blown bubbles of dark wine; the yellow, more cup-like, more sensually open to the soft furry entry of the eager bees; the large parti-coloured gold and red, noble and; sombre like the royal banner of Spain.

English spring flowers! What an answer to our ridiculous "cosmic woe", how salutary, what a soft reproach to bitterness and ava­rice and despair, what balm to hurt minds! The lovely bulb-flowers, loveliest of the year, so unpretentious, so cordial, so unconscious, so free from the striving after originality of the garden’s tamed pets! The spring flowers of the English woods, so surprising under those bleak skies, and the flowers the English love so much and. tend so skilfully in the cleanly wantonness of their gardens, as sur­prisingly beautiful as the poets of that bleak race! When the inevi­table "fuit Ilium" resounds mournfully over London among the appalling crash of huge bombs and the foul reek of deadly gases while the planes roar overhead, will the conqueror think regretfully and tenderly of the flowers and the poets?

Three more nights passed rather more tranquilly. There was comparatively little gas, but the German heavies were persistent. They, too, quieted down on the third night and Winterbourne got to bed fairly early and fell into a deep sleep.

Suddenly he was wide awake and sitting up. What on earth or hell was happening? From outside came a terrific rumble and roaring, as if three volcanoes and ten thunderstorms were in action simultaneously. The whole earth was shaking as if beaten by a multitude of flying hoofs, and the cellar walls vibrated. He seized his helmet, dashed past the other runners, who were starting up and exclaiming, rushed through the gas-curtain; and recoiled. It was still night, but the whole sky was brilliant with hundreds of flashing lights. Two thousand British guns were in action, and heaven and earth were filled with the roar and flame. From about half a mile to the north, southwards as far as he could see, the whole front was a dazzling flicker of gun-flashes. It was as if giant hands covered with huge rings set with searchlights were being shaken in the darkness, as if innumerable brilliant diamonds were flashing great rays of light. There was not a fraction of a second without its flash roar. Only the great boom of a twelve- or fourteen-inch naval gun just behind them.punctured the general pandemonium at regu­lar intervals.

Winterbourne ran stumbling forwards to get a view clear of the ruins. He crouched by a piece of broken house and looked towards the German lines. They were a long, irregular wall of smoke, torn everywhere with the dull red flashes of bursting shells. Behind their lines their artillery was flickering brighter and brighter as battery after battery came into action, making a crescendo of noise and flame when the limits of both seemed to have been reached. Winterbourne saw.but could not hear the first of their shells as it exploded short of the village. The great clouds of smoke over the. German trenches were darkly visible in the first very pallid light-of dawn. It was the preliminary bombardment of the long-expected battle. Winterbourne felt his heart shake with the shaking earth and vibrating air.

The whole thing was indescribable — a terrific spectacle, a stupendous symphony of sound. The devil-artist who had staged it was a master, in comparison with whom all other artists of the sublime and terrible were babies. The roar of the guns was beyond clamour — it was an immense rhythmic harmony, a super-jazz of tremendous drums, a ride of the Walkyrie played by three thou­sand cannon. The intense rattle of the machine guns played a minor motif of terror. It was too dark to see the attacking troops, but Winterbourne thought with agony how every one of those dreadful vibrations of sound meant death or mutilation. He thought of the ragged lines of British troops stumbling forward in smoke and flame and chaos of sound, crumbling away before the German protective barrage and the Reserve line machine-guns. He thought of the Ger­man front lines, already obliterated under that ruthless tempest of explosions and flying metal. Nothing could live within the area of that storm except by a miraculous hazard. Already in this first half- hour of bombardment hundreds upon hundreds of men would have been violently slain, smashed, torn, gouged, crushed, mutilated. The colossal harmony seemed to roar louder as the drum-fire lifted from the Front line to the Reserve. The battle was begun. They would be mopping-up soon — throwing bombs and explosives down the dug-out entrances on the men cowering inside.

The German heavies were pounding M — — with their shells, hurling masses of metal at their own ruined village. Winterbourne saw the half-ruined factory chimney totter and crash to the ground. Two shells pitched on either side of him, and flung earth, stones, and broken bricks all round him. He turned and ran back to his cellar, stumbling over shell-holes. He saw an isolated house disap­pear in the united explosion of two huge shells.

He clutched his hands together as he ran, with tears in his eyes.

Лекция 47

JOHN BOYNTON PRIESTLEY

(1894-1984)

John Priestley was born in Bradford, the son of a schoolmaster, and worked as junior clerk in a wool office before serving in the infantry in the First World War. He then took a degree in Trinity Hall, Cambridge, and in 1922 settled in London, where he quickly made a name as journalist and critic. He was one of the most versatile writers. He was well-known as novelist and essayist, as playwright and critic. His greatest popularity was won in the sphere of drama. His plays are both ingenious in composition and stage devices and valuable as contributions to the social history of our times. His best plays are inspired by his sympathy with “every man”, with common people. Among these plays “An Inspector Calls” undoubtedly holds a place of its own. A mysterious stranger, calling himself Inspector Goole asks the model family a number of severe questions which reveal the fact that they all are to blame for a death of a working-class girl called Eva Smith.

An Inspector Calls

GERALD… How do we know she was really Eva Smith or Daisy Renton?

BIRLING. Gerald's dead right. He could have used a different photograph each time and we'd be none the wiser. We may all have been recognizing different girls.

GERALD. Exactly. Did he ask you to identify a photograph, Eric?

ERIC. No. He didn't need a photograph by the time he d got round to me. But obviously it must have been the girl I knew who went round to see mother.

GERALD. Why must it?

ERIC. She said she had to have help because she wouldn't more stolen money. And the girl I knew had told me that already.

GERALD. Even then, that may have been all nonsense.

ERIC. I don't see much nonsense about it when a girl goes and kills herself. You lot may be letting yourselves out nicely, but I can't. Nor can mother. We did her in all right.

BIRLING (eagerly). Wait a minute, wait a minute. Don't be in such a hurry to put your self into court. That interview with your mother could have been just as much a put up job, like all This police inspector business. The whole damned thing can have been a piece of bluff.

ERIC (angrily). How can it? The girl's dead, isn't she?

GERALD. What girl? There were probably four or five different girls.

ERIC. That doesn't matter to me. The one I know is dead.

BIRLING. Is she? How do we know she is?

GERALD. That's right. You've, got it. How, do we know any girl killed herself to-day?

BIRLING (looking at them all, triumphantly). Now answer that one. Let's look at it from this fellow's point of view. We're having a little celebration here and feeling rather pleased with our­selves. Now he has to work a trick on us. Well, the first thing he has to do is to give us such a shock that after that he can bluff us all the time. So he starts right off. A girl has just died in the Infir­mary. She drank some strong disinfectant. Died in agony —

ERIC. All right, don't pile it on.

BIRLING (triumphantly}. There you are, you see. Just repeating it shakes you a bit. And that's what he had to do. Shake us at once—and then start questioning us—until we didn't know where we were. Oh—let's admit that. He had the laugh of us all right.

ERIC. He could laugh his head off — if I knew it really was all a hoax. BIRLINC I'm convinced it is. No police enquiry. No one girl that all this happened to. No scandal — —

SHEILA. And no suicide?

GERALD (decisively). We can settle that at once.

SHEILA. How?

GERALD. By ringing ']up; the Infirmary. Either there's a dead girl there or there isn't.

BIRLING (uneasily). It will look a bit queer, won't it—ringing up at this time of night—

GERALD. I don't mind doing it.

MRS. BIRLING (emphatically). And if there isn't— —

GERALD. Anyway we'll see. (He goes to telephone and looks - up number. The others watch tensely.) Brumley eight nine eight -six... Is that the -Infirmary? This is Mr. Gerald Croft—of Crofts -Limited... Yes… We're rather worried about one of our employees. Have you' had a girl brought in this afternoon who committed suicide drinking disinfectant—or any like suicide? Yes, I'll wait.

As he waits, the others show their nervous tension. Birling wipes his brow Sheila shivers, Eric clasps and unclasps his hands, etc.

Yes?... You're certain of that.... I see. Well, thank you very much... Good night. (He puts down telephone and looks at them.) No girl has died in there to-day. Nobody's been brought in after drinking disinfectant. They haven't had a suicide for months.

BIRLING (triumphantly). There you are! Proof positive. The whole story's just a lot of moonshine. Nothing but an elaborate sell! (He produces a huge sigh of relief.) Nobody likes to be sold as badly as that — but — for all that — — (He smiles at them all.) Gerald, have a drink.

GERALD (smiling}. Thanks, I think I could just do with one now.

BTRLING (going to sideboard). So could I.

MRS. BIRLING (smiling). And I must say. Gerald,.you've argued this very cleverly, and I'm most grateful.

GERALD (going for his drink). Well, you see, while I was out of the house I'd time to cool off and think things out a little.

BIRLING (giving him a drink). Yes, he didn't keep you on the run as he did the rest of us. I'll admit now he gave me a bit of a scare at the time. But I'd a special reason for not wanting any public scandal just now. (Has his drink now, and raises his glass). Well, here's to us. Come on, Sheila, don't look like that. All over now.

SHEILA. The worst part is. But you're forgetting one thing I still can't forget. Everything we said had happened really had happened. If it didn't end tragically, then that's lucky for us. But it might have done.

BIRLING (jovially). But the whole thing's different now. Come, come, you can see that, can't you? (Imitating Inspector in his final speech.) You all helped to kill her. (Pointing at Sheila and Eric, and laughing.) And I wish you could have seen the look on your faces when he said that.

Sheila moves towards door.

Going to bed, young woman?

SHEILA (tensely). I want to get out of this. It frightens me the way you talk.

BIRLING (heartily). Nonsense! You'll have a good laugh over it yet. Look, you'd better ask Gerald for that ring? you gave hack to him, hadn't you? Then you'll feel better.

SHEILA (passionately). You're pretending everything's just as it was before.

ERIC. I'm not!

SHEILA. No, but these others are.

BIRLING. Well, isn't it? We've been had, that's all.

SHEILA. So nothing really happened. So there's nothing to be sorry for, nothing to learn. We can all go on behaving just as we did.

MRS. BIRLTNG. Well, why shouldn't we?

SHEILA. I tell you — whoever that Inspector was, it was any­thing but a joke. You knew it then. You began to learn something. And now you've stopped. You're ready to go on in the same old way.

BIRLING (amused). And you're not, eh?

SHEILA. No, because I remember what he said, how he looked, and what he made me feel. Fire and blood and anguish. And it frightens me the way you talk, and I can't listen to any more of it.

ERIC. And I agree with Sheila. It frightens me too.

BIRLING. Well, go to bed then, and don't stand there being hysterical.

MRS. BIRLING. They're over-tired. In the morning they'll be as amused as we are.

GERALD. Everything's all right now, Sheila. (Holds up the ring.} What about this ring?

SHEILA. No, not yet. It's too soon. I must think.

BIRLING {pointing to Eric and Sheila}. Now look at the pair of them—the famous younger generation who know it all. And they can't even take a joke

The telephone rings sharply. There is a moment's com­plete silence. Birling goes to answer it.

Yes?... Mr. Birling speaking.... What? — Here — —

But obviously the other person has rung off. He puts the telephone down slowly and looks in a panic-stricken fashion at the others.

BIRLING. That was the police. A girl has just died — on her way to the Infirmary — after swallowing some disinfectant. And a police inspector is on his way here — to ask some — questions — —

As they stare guiltily and dumbfounded, the Curtain falls.

Лекция 48

GRAHAM GREEN

(1904-1991)

Graham Green was educated at Oxford. He joined the Roman Catholic Church in 1926. From 1926 to 1930 he was on the staff of. “The Times”, which he left in order to make a living as a writer. In his earlier novels he was rather hopeless of humanity. His obsessive theme was crime, treason and unfaithfulness under one form or another “The Quiet American” marks a new stage in Green’s development. The novel is set in Viet Nam and may be claimed to be an extraordinary effective revelation of the horrors of colonialism.

Green’s range as a writer is wide, both geographically and in variations of tone, but his preoccupations with moral dilemma (personal, religious or political), his attempts to distinguish “good-or-evil” from “right-or-wrong” give his work a highly distinctive and recognizable quality, while his skilful variations of popular forms (the thriller, the detective story) have brought him a rare combination of critical and popular admiration.

The quiet American

The mortar shells tore over us and burst out of sight. We had picked up more men behind the church and were now about thirty strong. The lieutenant explained to me in a low voice, stabbing a finger at his map, Three hundred have been reported in this village here. Perhaps massing for tonight. We don't know. No one has found them yet. How far? "Three hundred yards."

Words came over the wireless and we went on in silence, to the right the straight canal, to the left low scrub and fields and scrub: again. "All clear," the lieutenant whispered with a reassuring wave as we started. Forty yards on, another canal, with what was left of a bridge, a single plank without rails, ran across our front. The lieutenant motioned to us to deploy and we squatted down facing the unknown territory ahead, thirty feet off, across the plank. The men looked at the water and then, as though by a word of command, all together, they looked away. For a moment I didn't see what they had seen, but when I saw, my mind went back, I don't know why, to the Chalet and the female impersonators and the young soldiers whistling and Pyle saying, "This isn't a bit suitable."

The canal was full of bodies: I am reminded now of an Irish stew containing too much meat. The bodies overlapped: one head, seal- grey, and anonymous as a convict with a shaven scalp, stuck up out of the water like a buoy. There was no blood: I suppose it had flowed away a long time ago. I have no idea how many there were: they must have been caught in a cross-fire, trying to get back, and I suppose every man of us along the bank was thinking. Two can play at that game.¹¹ I too took my eyes away; we didn't want to be reminded of how little we counted, how quickly, simply and anonymously death came. Even though my reason wanted the state of death, I was afraid like a virgin of the act. I would have liked death to come with due warning, so that I could prepare myself. For what? I didn't know, nor how, except by taking a look around at the little. I would be leaving.

The lieutenant sat beside the man with the walkie-talkie and stared at the ground between his feet. The instrument began to crackle instructions and with a sigh as though he had been roused from sleep he got up. There was an odd comradeliness about all their movements, as though they were equals engaged on a task they had performed together times out of mind. Nobody waited to be told what to do. Two men made for the plank and tried to cross it, but they were unbalanced by the weight of their arms and had to sit astride and work their way across a few inches at a time. Another man had found a punt hidden in some bushes down the canal and he worked it to where the lieu­tenant stood. Six of us got in and he began to pole it towards the other bank, but we ran on a shoal of bodies and stuck. He pushed away with his pole, sinking it into this human clay, and one body was released and floated up all its length beside the boat like a bather lying in the sun. Then we were free again, and once on the other side we scrambled out, with no backward look. No shots had been fired: we were alive: death had with drawn perhaps as far as the next canal. I heard somebody just behind me say with great seriousness, “Got sei dank,"* Except for the lieutenant they were most of them Germans.

Beyond was a group of farm-buildings: the lieutenant went in first, hugging the wall, and we followed at six-fort intervals in single file. Then the men, again without an order, scattered through the farm. Life had deserted it—not so much as a hen had been left behind, though hanging on the walls of what had been the living- room were two hideous oleographs of the Sacred Heart and the Mother and Child which gave the whole ramshackle group of buildings a European air. One knew what these people believed even if one didn't share their belief; they were human beings, not just grey drained cadavers.

So much of war is sitting around and doing nothing, waiting for somebody else. With no guarantee of the amount of time you have left it doesn't seem worth starting even a train of thought. Doing what they had done so often before, the sentries moved out. Anything that stirred ahead of us now was enemy. The lieutenant marked his map and reported our position over the radio. A noonday hush fell: even the mortars were quiet and the air was empty of planes. One man doodled* with a twig in the dirt of the farmyard. After a while it was as if we had been forgotten by war. I hoped that Phuong had sent my suits to the cleaners. A cold wind ruffled the straw of the yard, and' a man went; modestly behind a barn to relieve himself. I tried to remember whether I had paid the British Consul in Hanoi for the bottle of whisky he had allowed me.