10 short stories O. Henry. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Неадаптированный текст - стр. 7
|. It is the one day that is purely American. Yes, a day of celebration, exclusively American.
And now for the story which is to prove to you |эта история докажет вам| that we have traditions on this side of the ocean that are becoming older at a much rapider |которые становятся старее, гораздо быстрее, чем…| rate than those of England are – thanks to our git-up and enterprise |настойчивости и предприимчивости|.
Stuffy Pete |Слово stuffy имеет много значений – душный, скучный, занудный, забитый, чопорный. Стаффи Пит – это явно кличка, но какое именно значение слова stuffy имел в виду О. Генри понять сложно, поэтому в русском переводе слово не было переведено. Стаффи Пит так и остался Стаффи Питом|, took his seat on the third bench to the right as you enter Union Square from the east at the walk opposite the fountain. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had taken his seat there promptly at 1 o’clock. For every time he had done so things had happened to him – Charles Dickensy things |события в духе Чарльза Диккенса случалисьсним| that swelled |раздувало| his waistcoat above his heart, and equally |вравнойстепени| on the other side.
But to-day Stuffy Pete’s appearance at the annual trysting place |обычном месте| seemed to have been rather |казалось, что было скорее…| the result of habit than of the yearly hunger which, as the philanthropists seem to think, afflicts the poor at such extended intervals |буквально – мучают бедняков в такие большие интервалы. Лучше – по мнению филантропов, голод настигает бедных раз в году на День Благодарения (Тут О.Генри имеет в виду, что в Америке есть традиция подкармливать бедных в этот день)|.
Certainly Pete was not hungry. He had just come from a feast that had left him of his powers barely those of respiration and locomotion |он едва мог двигаться и дышать|. His eyes were like two pale gooseberries |ягоды крыжовника| firmly imbedded in a swollen and gravy-smeared mask of putty |опухший, намазанный соусом пластилин|. His breath came in short wheezes; a senatorial roll of adipose tissue denied a fashionable set to his upturned coat collar |складки депутатского жира на шее портили линию поднятого воротника пальто|. Buttons that had been sewed |были пришиты| upon his clothes by kind Salvation fingers |добрымипальцамислужителяАрмииСпасения. АрмияСпасения – однаизстарейшиххристианскихорганизаций, цельюкоторойявляетсяпомощьбедным, бездомнымит.д.| a week before flew like popcorn, strewing the earth around him |отлетали… усеивая|. Ragged |истрепанный, влохмотьях| he was, with a split shirt front open to the wishbone |разорвананагруди|; but the November breeze, carrying fine snowflakes, brought him only a grateful coolness. For Stuffy Pete was overcharged with the caloric |перенасыщенкалориями| produced by a super-bountiful dinner, beginning with oysters and ending with plum pudding, and including (it seemed to him) all the roast turkey and baked potatoes and chicken salad and squash pie and ice cream in the world. Wherefore |Вотпочему| he sat, gorged, and gazed upon the world with after-dinner contempt |спослеобеденнымпрезрением|.
The meal had been an unexpected one |Еда получилась неожиданной|. He was passing a red brick mansion near the beginning of Fifth avenue, in which lived two old ladies of ancient family and a