Книга All Flesh is Grass — читать онлайн бесплатно полностью

Мир этот был зол, был жесток с Таппером, потому что Таппер не такой, как все,  — но как часто злоба и жестокость преследуют и тех, кто ничем не выделяется среди других.

To Tupper, I knew, this must seem a fairyland, for real. Here was the beauty and the simplicity to which his simple soul responded. Here he could live the uncomplicated and undisturbed sort of life for which he'd always yearned, perhaps not knowing that he yearned for it.

I set the plates and pot on the river bank and stooped above the water, scooping it up in my two hands, clasped together, drinking it.

Тапперу, конечно, кажется, что он попал в волшебный край, сказочная страна фей стала для него явью. Здесь красиво и просто  — эта безыскусственность и красота созвучны его простой душе. Здесь он может жить бесхитростно, безмятежно, к такой жизни он всегда стремился, по ней тосковал, сам того не понимая.

Я поставил горшок и тарелки на берегу, нагнулся пониже, сложил ладони ковшиком, зачерпнул воды и стал пить.

As I straightened up, I heard the faint sound of crinkling paper and, with a sinking heart, suddenly remembered. I put my hand into my inside jacket pocket and pulled out the long, white envelope. I flipped back the flap and there was the sheaf of money, the fifteen hundred dollars that Sherwood had put on the desk for me.

Выпрямляясь, я услыхал слабый шелест бумаги, и сердце екнуло: я вдруг вспомнил! Сунул руку во внутренний карман куртки и вытащил длинный белый конверт.

I squatted there, with the envelope in my hand and I thought what a damn fool thing to do. I had meant to hide it somewhere in the house, since I intended leaving on the fishing trip with Alf before the bank had opened, and then, in the rush of events, had forgotten it.

With a cold sweat breaking out on me, I ran through my mind all the things that could have happened to that envelope. Except for plain fool luck, I'd have lost it a dozen times or more. And yet, aghast as I might be that I should so utterly forget such a handsome sum of cash, as I sat there and looked at it, it seemed to have lost some of its significance.