10 short stories O. Henry. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Неадаптированный текст - стр. 12
|. But Johnsy he smote |свалил|; and she lay, scarcely |едва| moving, on her painted iron bedstead |крашеной железной кровати|, looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house.
One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, grey eyebrow |движением седых косматых бровей|.
«She has one chance in – let us say, ten,” he said, as he shook down the mercury |ртуть| in his clinical thermometer. “ And that chance is for her to want to live |она должна хотеть жить|. This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly |Вся наша фармакопея теряет смысл, когда люди начинают действовать в интересах гробовщика. У слова “undertaker” два значения: предприниматель и гробовщик |. Your little lady has made up her mind |to make up one’s mind – принять решение| that she’s not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind |на уме|?”
«She – she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples |Неаполитанский залив| some day.” said Sue.
«Paint? – bosh! |восклицание вроде “что за чушь?!”| Has she anything on her mind worth |стоящее| thinking twice – a man for instance?”
«A man?» said Sue, with a jew’s-harp twang in her voice |с резкостью в голосе, как у губной гармошки|. “Is a man worth |да, стоит ли мужчина…| – but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind.”
«Well, it is the weakness, then» said the doctor. «I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish |все, что в моих силах и в силах науки|. But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession |начинает считать кареты в своей похоронной процессии| I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines. If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves |если вы добьетесь от нее, чтобы онаспросилакакогофасонарукавабудутноситьэтойзимой| I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten.”
After the doctor had gone Sue went into the workroom and cried a Japanese napkin to a pulp |пока та не размокла|. Then she swaggered |храбро вошла| into Johnsy’s room with her drawing board, whistling ragtime |Рэгтайм – жанр музыки, популярный в США в начале 20 века. Считается предшественником джаза|.
Johnsy lay, scarcely