Загадочная история Бенджамина Баттона / The Curious Case of Benjamin Button - стр. 7

“Good-morning,” said the registrar politely. “You’ve come to inquire about your son.”

“Why, as a matter of fact, my name’s Button-” began Benjamin, but Mr. Hart cut him off.

“I’m very glad to meet you, Mr. Button. I’m expecting your son here any minute.”

“That’s me!” burst out Benjamin. “I’m a freshman.”

“What!”

“I’m a freshman.”

“Surely you’re joking.”

“Not at all.”

The registrar frowned and glanced at a card before him.

“Why, I have Mr. Benjamin Button’s age down here as eighteen.”

“That’s my age,” asserted Benjamin, flushing slightly.

The registrar eyed him wearily.

“Now surely, Mr. Button, you don’t expect me to believe that.”

Benjamin smiled wearily.

“I am eighteen,” he repeated.

The registrar pointed sternly to the door.

“Get out,” he said. “Get out of college and get out of town. You are a dangerous lunatic.”

“I am eighteen.”

Mr. Hart opened the door.

“The idea!” he shouted. “A man of your age trying to enter here as a freshman. Eighteen years old, are you? Well, I’ll give you eighteen minutes to get out of town.”

Benjamin Button walked with dignity from the room, and half a dozen undergraduates, who were waiting in the hall, followed him curiously with their eyes. When he had gone a little way he turned around, faced the infuriated registrar, who was still standing in the doorway, and repeated in a firm voice:

“I am eighteen years old.”

To a chorus of titters which went up from the group of undergraduates, Benjamin walked away.

But he was not fated to escape so easily. On his melancholy walk to the railroad station he found that he was being followed by a group, then by a swarm, and finally by a dense mass of undergraduates. The word had gone around that a lunatic had passed the entrance examinations for Yale and attempted to palm himself off as a youth of eighteen. A fever of excitement permeated the college. Men ran hatless out of classes, the football team abandoned its practice and joined the mob, professors’ wives with bonnets awry and bustles out of position, ran shouting after the procession, from which proceeded a continual succession of remarks aimed at the tender sensibilities of Benjamin Button.

“He must be the wandering Jew!”

“He ought to go to prep school at his age!”

“Look at the infant prodigy!”

“He thought this was the old men’s home.”

“Go up to Harvard!”

Benjamin increased his gait, and soon he was running. He would show them! He would go to Harvard, and then they would regret these ill-considered taunts!

Safely on board the train for Baltimore, he put his head from the window.

“You’ll regret this!” he shouted.

“Ha-ha!” the undergraduates laughed. “Ha-ha-ha!” It was the biggest mistake that Yale College had ever made…

In 1880 Benjamin Button was twenty years old, and he signalised his birthday by going to work for his father in Roger Button amp; Co., Wholesale Hardware. It was in that same year that he began “going out socially”-that is, his father insisted on taking him to several fashionable dances. Roger Button was now fifty, and he and his son were more and more companionable – in fact, since Benjamin had ceased to dye his hair (which was still grayish) they appeared about the same age, and could have passed for brothers.

One night in August they got into the phaeton attired in their full-dress suits and drove out to a dance at the Shevlins’ country house, situated just outside of Baltimore. It was a gorgeous evening. A full moon drenched the road to the lustreless colour of platinum, and late-blooming harvest flowers breathed into the motionless air aromas that were like low, half-heard laughter. The open country, carpeted for rods around with bright wheat, was translucent as in the day. It was almost impossible not to be affected by the sheer beauty of the sky – almost.