How many winners were losers, successes failures, rich men poor men? |
Сколько победителей потерпело поражение! Сколько счастливых финалов оказалось на самом деле несчастливыми! |
How many wise guys were stupid? How many happy endings were unhappy endings? |
Сколько уважаемых людей продало свои души подлецам за мелкую монету, а у скольких души-то и вовсе не оказалось! |
How many honest men were liars, brave men cowards, loyal men traitors, how many sainted men were corrupt, how many people in positions of trust had sold their souls to blackguards for petty cash, how many had never had souls? How many straight-and-narrow paths were crooked paths? How many best families were worst families and how many good people were bad people? |
Сколько прямых дорог оказалось кривыми, скользкими дорожками! |
When you added them all up and then subtracted, you might be left with only the children, and perhaps with Albert Einstein and an old violinist or sculptor somewhere. |
И если все это сложить и вычесть, то в остатке окажутся только дети и еще, быть может, Альберт Эйнштейн да какой-нибудь скульптор или скрипач". |
Yossarian walked in lonely torture, feeling estranged, and could not wipe from his mind the excruciating image of the barefoot boy with sickly cheeks until he turned the corner into the avenue finally and came upon an Allied soldier having convulsions on the ground, a young lieutenant with a small, pale, boyish face. Six other soldiers from different countries wrestled with different parts of him, striving to help him and hold him still. He yelped and groaned unintelligibly through clenched teeth, his eyes rolled up into his head. 'Don't let him bite his tongue off,' a short sergeant near Yossarian advised shrewdly, and a seventh man threw himself into the fray to wrestle with the ill lieutenant's face. All at once the wrestlers won and turned to each other undecidedly, for now that they held the young lieutenant rigid they did not know what to do with him. A quiver of moronic panic spread from one straining brute face to another. 'Why don't you lift him up and put him on the hood of that car?' a corporal standing in back of Yossarian drawled. That seemed to make sense, so the seven men lifted the young lieutenant up and stretched him out carefully on the hood of a parked car, still pinning each struggling part of him down. Once they had him stretched out on the hood of the parked car, they stared at each other uneasily again, for they had no idea what to do with him next. 'Why don't you lift him up off the hood of that car and lay him down on the ground?' drawled the same corporal behind Yossarian. That seemed like a good idea, too, and they began to move him back to the sidewalk, but before they could finish, a jeep raced up with a flashing red spotlight at the side and two military policemen in the front seat. 'What's going on?' the driver yelled. 'He's having convulsions,' one of the men grappling with one of the young lieutenant's limbs answered. 'We're holding him still.' 'That's good. He's under arrest.' 'What should we do with him?' 'Keep him under arrest!' the M.P. shouted, doubling over with raucous laughter at his jest, and sped away in his jeep. |
Йоссариан шел один на один со своими мучительными мыслями, чувствуя свою отчужденность от мира, и не мог выкинуть из головы терзавший его образ босого мальчика с болезненным цветом лица. |
Yossarian recalled that he had no leave papers and moved prudently past the strange group toward the sound of muffled voices emanating from a distance inside the murky darkness ahead. |
Йоссариан вспомнил, что у него нет увольнительной. Он двинулся на звук приглушенных расстоянием голосов, доносившихся из густой тьмы. |
The broad, rain-blotched boulevard was illuminated every half-block by short, curling lampposts with eerie, shimmering glares surrounded by smoky brown mist. |
Вдоль широкого, мокрого от дождя бульвара через каждые полквартала стояли невысокие изогнутые фонарные столбы, тусклый свет ламп причудливо мерцал сквозь клубящийся коричневатый туман. |
From a window overhead he heard an unhappy female voice pleading, 'Please don't. |
Из окна над головой Йоссариан услышал несчастный женский голос, умолявший: "Пожалуйста, не надо! |
Please don't.' A despondent young woman in a black raincoat with much black hair on her face passed with her eyes lowered. |
Пожалуйста, не надо!" Мимо Йоссариана, опустив глаза, прошла печальная молодая женщина в черном дождевике. Густая прядь черных волос падала на лоб. |
At the Ministry of Public Affairs on the next block, a drunken lady was backed up against one of the fluted Corinthian columns by a drunken young soldier, while three drunken comrades in arms sat watching nearby on the steps with wine bottles standing between their legs. |
Через квартал, у здания министерства общественных работ, пьяный молодой солдат прижимал к рифленой коринфской колонне пьяную даму, а трое его пьяных товарищей по оружию сидели на ступенях и смотрели. У ног их стояли бутылки с вином. |
'Pleeshe don't,' begged the drunken lady. |
"Пожалуйста, не надо, - упрашивала пьяная дама. |
' I want to go home now. |
- Я хочу домой. |
Pleeshe don't.' |
Пожалуйста, не надо". |
One of the sitting men cursed pugnaciously and hurled a wine bottle at Yossarian when he turned to look up. |
Когда Йоссариан подошел поближе, один из сидевших окрысился на Йоссариана, выругался и запустил в него бутылкой. |
The bottle shattered harmlessly far away with a brief and muted noise. |
Бутылка упала далеко от Йоссариана и, глухо звякнув, разбилась вдребезги. |
Yossarian continued walking away at the same listless, unhurried pace, hands buried in his pockets. 'Come on, baby,' he heard the drunken soldier urge determinedly. |
Йоссариан продолжал невозмутимо идти тем же неспешным шагом, засунув руки в карманы. "Ну ладно, крошка, - услышал он сзади решительный голос пьяного солдата. |
'It's my turn now.' 'Pleeshe don't,' begged the drunken lady. |
- Сейчас моя очередь". "Пожалуйста, не надо, -упрашивала пьяная дама. |
'Pleeshe don't.' |
- Пожалуйста, не надо". |
At the very next corner, deep inside the dense, impenetrable shadows of a narrow, winding side street, he heard the mysterious, unmistakable sound of someone shoveling snow. |
На другом углу, из глубины непроницаемо-темной узкой боковой улочки, донесся таинственный звук, который нельзя было ни с чем спутать. |
The measured, labored, evocative scrape of iron shovel against concrete made his flesh crawl with terror as he stepped from the curb to cross the ominous alley and hurried onward until the haunting, incongruous noise had been left behind. |
Кто-то сгребал снег. Размеренный, надсадный, хорошо знакомый скрежет железной лопаты о цемент заставил Йоссариана съежиться от ужаса, когда он сошел с тротуара, чтобы пересечь этот зловещий переулок. |
Now he knew where he was: soon, if he continued without turning, he would come to the dry fountain in the middle of the boulevard, then to the officers' apartment seven blocks beyond. |
Йоссариан прибавлял шагу, покуда неотвязный, столь неуместный в Риме звук не затих позади. Теперь Йоссариан понял, где он находится. Если идти, никуда не сворачивая, то скоро можно дойти до пересохшего фонтана в центре бульвара, откуда только семь кварталов до офицерской квартиры. |
He heard snarling, inhuman voices cutting through the ghostly blackness in front suddenly. |
Вдруг прямо впереди из темноты прорезались рычанье и грубые голоса. |
The bulb on the corner lamp post had died, spilling gloom over half the street, throwing everything visible off balance. |
В это время потухла лампочка на угловом столбе, все предметы будто качнулись, и разлилась тьма. |