Александр Левкин - Адаптированный текст повести А. К. Дойла «Знак четырех» на английском языке с транскрипцией и видеопрезентацией. Учебное пособие

01_007

Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken with my lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme deliberation of his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no longer.

«Which is it to-day?» I asked, – «morphine or cocaine?»

01_008

He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had opened. «It is cocaine,» he said, – «a seven-per-cent. solution. Would you care to try it?»

01_009

«No, indeed,» I answered, brusquely. «My constitution has not got over the Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it.»

01_010

He smiled at my vehemence. «Perhaps you are right, Watson,» he said. «I suppose that its influence is physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendently stimulating and clarifying to the mind that its secondary action is a matter of small moment.»

01_011

«But consider!» I said, earnestly. «Count the cost! Your brain may, as you say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process, which involves increased tissue-change and may at last leave a permanent weakness. You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you.

01_012

Surely the game is hardly worth the candle. Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed?

01_013

Remember that I speak not only as one comrade to another, but as a medical man to one for whose constitution he is to some extent answerable.»

01_014

He did not seem offended. On the contrary, he put his finger-tips together and leaned his elbows on the arms of his chair, like one who has a relish for conversation.

01_015

«My mind,» he said, «rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram or the most intricate analysis, and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental exaltation.

01_016

That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, – or rather created it, for I am the only one in the world.»

«The only unofficial detective?» I said, raising my eyebrows.

01_017

«The only unofficial consulting detective,» he answered. «I am the last and highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson or Lestrade or Athelney Jones are out of their depths – which, by the way, is their normal state – the matter is laid before me.

01_018

I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce a specialist’s opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar powers, is my highest reward.

01_019

But you have yourself had some experience of my methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case.»

01_020

«Yes, indeed,» said I, cordially. «I was never so struck by anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small brochure with the somewhat fantastic title of „A Study in Scarlet.“»

01_021

He shook his head sadly. «I glanced over it,» said he. «Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it. Detection is, or ought to be, an exact science, and should be treated in the same cold and unemotional manner.

01_022

You have attempted to tinge it with romanticism, which produces much the same effect as if you worked a love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid.»

«But the romance was there,» I remonstrated. «I could not tamper with the facts.»

01_023

«Some facts should be suppressed, or at least a just sense of proportion should be observed in treating them. The only point in the case which deserved mention was the curious analytical reasoning from effects to causes by which I succeeded in unraveling it.»

01_024

I was annoyed at this criticism of a work which had been specially designed to please him. I confess, too, that I was irritated by the egotism which seemed to demand that every line of my pamphlet should be devoted to his own special doings.

01_025

More than once during the years that I had lived with him in Baker Street I had observed that a small vanity underlay my companion’s quiet and didactic manner. I made no remark, however, but sat nursing my wounded leg.