golgo
Мастер Беседы
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«Знаешь, а ведь ты была права: главное — когда есть ты и я, нас двое, мы нужны друг другу. Когда есть стол, бумага и карандаш. И когда ничего не болит…»
«… Сегодня была по телевизору передача обо мне, телефон буквально раскален — звонят, и звонят, и звонят самые неожиданные люди из Москвы и даже из других городов — а мне бы только тебя нужно, и чтобы мы вместе смотрели, и ты была бы рада — тогда и я бы испытал настоящую радость, а так — это мимо меня»
«Ты пишешь — «ничего от тебя не возьму» — что это значит? Этого я не понял. Я ничего не хочу иного, как быть с тобой, я для этого все сделаю, я пошел на всякие не очень простые для меня шаги и поступки и пойду на все, до конца — только бы все, чего хотим мы, осуществилось. Ты имеешь право на все — весь я и все мое — это и твое — чего же ты «не возьмешь»? Мне безумно жаль тебя, и за все твои слезы я постараюсь воздать тебе в полной мере — я буду счастлив, если смогу дать тебе в жизни хоть сколько-нибудь радости…»
«Жду тебя с нетерпением, хотя и то мне грустно, что предстану я пред тобою, при всем моем «помолодении», измученным и усталым, а не таким, каким мог бы и хотел предстать пред твоими родными очами, и все-таки жду с огромным нетерпением — а там уж будь что будет…»
«… Понимаю, что не должен этого делать, что расстрою тебя опять, — а вот не могу иначе, как ни стараюсь, — ведь я как бы разговариваю с тобой таким, увы, странным образом, на бумаге…»
«Тысячу раз прости меня, что пишу тебе об этом, — ты способна понять и еще поймешь многое — хотя почему ты должна отвечать за мои глупости или расплачиваться за них? Это, конечно, несправедливо, но мне нужно, необходимо, чтобы рядом был кто-то. Я знаю, что ты простишь меня, если не сейчас, то потом, однажды, позже, но главное — сейчас, выслушав (прочитав) этот скулеж, — ведь есть в тебе достаточно и разумности, и мудрости, и постарайся как-нибудь, моя любимая и родная. А может быть, наоборот, — ты поймешь, что с таким идиотом лучше уж дела не иметь, — как знаешь, ты в любом случае будешь права»
«Перечитал свое письмо, хотел его порвать и выбросить, да не смог. Если ты сумеешь это все понять и это мне простить — буду любить тебя больше, хотя, клянусь тебе, больше уж, кажется, некуда. Безумно тебя люблю, и жду, и буду ждать — когда-нибудь ты поймешь, чего мне это стоило и как мне это было трудно»
«Прочти, ради Бога, — ну не принимай все слишком близко к доброму своему сердцу! — надеюсь, завтра будет письмо, и мне полегчает немного, и пойду утром заказывать разговор с тобою и снова ждать, ждать, ждать…»
«… Право же, я не какой-нибудь распущенный неврастеник или истерик, давно-давно уж я плакал в последний раз, а вот сейчас подступает. <…> Горько ведь сознавать, как несправедливо это, что разминулись мы с тобой во времени сильно, от этого иногда прихожу в отчаянье, но только что же теперь делать, когда представить свою жизнь без тебя — не могу… Только и живу той самой надеждой, о которой написал тебе тогда, еще ни о чем таком и не думая, ни на что не надеясь, — но ведь удивительно это — почему написал? Что-то же меня толкнуло на это, что-то я почувствовал такое, мне самому еще неясное, неведомое…»
«… Скорей бы уж хоть эта короткая встреча, а там, может быть, придумаем что-то, может быть, моя родная, продержусь я как-нибудь. Знаю, что опять расстроил тебя — ну что же, не писать мне вовсе? или сочинять чепуху всякую, что я уже делать пытался? <…> Еще раз прости…»
Я руку и сердце нарисовал
красками на картоне.
Там сердце мое, как червовый туз,
лежит на моей ладони.
И так как полцарства нет у меня,
а тем более — полумира,
прими от меня этот скромный дар
в качестве сувенира.
А дабы значенье ему придать
дарственной, что ли, вроде,
я выведу крупно карандашом
надпись на обороте —
мол, руку свою и сердце свое,
аки жених во храме,
дарит старый король трефей
юной бубновой даме.
А понеже полцарства нет у него,
а тем паче нет полумира,
сей скромный дар он просит принять
в качестве сувенира.
Ну, а коль не изволит она его
честью почтить такою —
она может вернуть ему сердце его
вместе с его рукою.
Юрий Левитанский
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golgo
Мастер Беседы
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A Day Saved
I had stuck closely to him, as people say like a shadow. But that's absurd. I'm noshadow. You can feel me, touch me, hear me, smell me. I'm Robinson. But I had sat at the next table, followed twenty yards behind down every street, when he went upstairs I waited at the bottom, and when he came down I passed out before him and paused at the first corner. In that way I was really like a shadow, for sometimes I was in front of him and sometimes I was behind him. Who was he? I never knew his name. He was short and ordinary in appearance and he carried an umbrella; his hat was a bowler; and he wore brown gloves. But this was his importance to me: he carried something I dearly, despairingly, wanted. It was beneath his clothes, perhaps in a pouch, a purse, perhaps dangling next his skin. Who knows how cunning the most ordinary man can be? Surgeons can make clever insertions. He may have carried it even closer to his heart than the outer skin.What was it? I never knew. I can only guess, as I might guess at his name,calling him Jones or Douglas, Wales, Canby, Fotheringay. Once in a restaurant I said " Fotheringay" softly to my soup and I thought he looked up and round about him. I don't know. This is the horror I cannot escape: knowing nothing, his name,what it was he carried, why I wanted it so, why I followed him.Presently we came to a railway bridge and underneath it he met a friend. I am using words again very inexactly. Bear with me. I try to be exact. I pray to be exact. All I want in the world is to know. So when I say he met a friend, I do not know that it was a friend, I know only that it was someone he greeted with apparent affection. The friend said to him, "When do you leave?" He said, "At two from Dover." You may be sure I felt my pocket to make sure the ticket was there.Then his friend said, "If you fly you will save a day."He nodded, he agreed, he would sacrifice his ticket, he would save a day. I ask you, what does a day saved matter to him or to you? A day saved from what? for what? Instead of spending the day travelling, you will see your friend aday earlier, but you cannot stay indefinitely, you will travel home twenty-four hours sooner, that is all. But you will fly home and again save a day? Save it from what, for what? You will begin work a day earlier, but you cannot work on indefinitely. It only means that you will cease work a day earlier. And then what? You cannot die a day earlier. So you will realize perhaps how rash it was of youto save a day, when you discover how you cannot escape those twenty-four hours you have so carefully preserved; you may push them forward and push them forward, butsometime they must be spent, and then you may wish you had spent them asinnocently as in the train from Ostend.But this thought never occurred to him. He said, "Yes, that's true. It would save a day. I'll fly." I nearly spoke to him then. The selfishness of the man. For that day which he thought he was saving might be his despair years later, but it was :bip: at the instant. For I had been looking forward to the long train journey in the same compartment. It was winter, and the train would be nearly empty, and with the least luck we should be alone together. I had planned everything. I was going to talk to him. Because I knew nothing about him, I should begin in the usual way by asking whether he minded the window being raised alittle or a little lowered. That would show him that we spoke the same languageand he would probably be only too ready to talk, feeling himself in a foreign country; he would be grateful for any help I might be able to give him, translating this or that word.Of course I never believed that talk would be enough. I should learn a greatdeal about him, but I believed that I should have to kill him before I knew all. Ishould have killed him, I think, at night, between the two stations which are the farthest parted, after the customs had examined our luggage and our passports had been stamped at the frontier, and we had pulled down the blinds and turned out thelight. I had even planned what to do with his body, with the bowler hat and theumbrella and the brown gloves, but only if it became necessary, only if in no other way he would yield what I wanted. I am a gentle creature, not easily roused.But now he had chosen to go by aeroplane and there was nothing that I could do. I followed him, of course, sat in the seat behind, watched his tremulousness at his first flight, how he avoided for a long while the sight of the sea below,how he kept his bowler hat upon his knees, how he gasped a little when the greywing tilted up like the arm of a windmill to the sky and the houses were set on edge. There were times, I believe, when he regretted having saved a day. We got out of the aeroplane together and he had a small trouble with the customs. I translated for him. He looked at me curiously and said, "Thank you"; he was--again I suggest that I know when all I mean is I assume by his manner and his conversation--stupid and good-natured, but I believe for a moment he suspected me,thought he had seen me somewhere, in a tube, in a bus, in a public bath, below the railway bridge, on how many stairways. I asked him the time. He said, "We put our clocks back an hour here," and beamed with an absurd pleasure because he had saved an hour as well as a day.I had a drink with him, several drinks with him. He was absurdly grateful for my help. I had beer with him at one place, gin at another, and at a third he insisted on my sharing a bottle of wine. We became for the time being friends. Ifelt more warmly towards him than towards any other man I have known, for, likelove between a man and a woman, my affection was partly curiosity. I told him that I was Robinson; he meant to give me a card, but while he was looking for one he drank another glass of wine and forgot about it. We were both a little drunk.Presently I began to call him Fotheringay. He never contradicted me and it may have been his name, but I seem to remember also calling him Douglas, Wales and Canby without correction. He was very generous and I found it easy to talk with him; the stupid are often companionable. I told him that I was desperate and heoffered me money. He could not understand what I wanted.I said, "You've saved a day. You can afford to come with me tonight to a place I know."He said, "I have to take a train tonight." He told me the name of the town and he was not surprised when I told him that I was coming too.We drank together all that evening and went to the station together. I was planning, if it became necessary, to kill him. I thought in all friendliness that perhaps after all I might save him from having saved a day. But it was a small local train; it crept from station to station, and at every station people got outof the train and other people got into the train. He insisted on travelling thirdclass and the carriage was never empty. He could not speak a word of the language and he simply curled up in his corner and slept; it was I who remained awake andhad to listen to the weary painful gossip, a servant speaking of :bip: mistress, a peasant woman of the day's market, a soldier of the Church, and a man who, I believe, was a tailor of adultery, wireworms and the harvest of three years ago.It was two o'clock in the morning when we reached the end of our journey. I walked with him to the house where his friends lived. It was quite close to the station and I had no time to plan or carry out any plan. The garden gate was open and he asked me in. I said no, I would go to the hotel. He said his friends would be pleased to put me up for the remainder of the night, but I said no. The lights were on in a downstairs room and the curtains were not drawn. A man was asleep in a chair by a great stove and there were glasses on a tray, a decanter of whisky,two bottles of beer and a long thin bottle of Rhine wine. I stepped back and hewent in and almost immediately the room was full of people. I could see his welcome in their eyes and in their gestures. There was a woman in a dressing-gownand a girl who sat with thin knees drawn up to :bip: chin and three men, two of themold. They did not draw the curtains, though he must surely have guessed that I was watching them. The garden was cold; the winter beds were furred with weeds. I laid my hand on some prickly bush. It was as if they gave a deliberate display of their unity and companionship. My friend-I call him my friend, but he was really no more than an acquaintance and was my friend only for so long as we both were drunk--satin the middle of them all and I could tell from the way his lips were moving thathe was telling them many things which he had never told me. Once I thought I could detect from his lip movements, "I have saved a day." He looked stupid and goodnatured and happy. I could not bear the sight for long. It was an impertinence to display himself like that to me. I have never ceased to pray from that moment that the day he saved may be retarded and retarded until eventually he suffers its eighty-six thousand four hundred seconds when he has the most desperate need, when he is following another as I followed him, closely as people say like a shadow, so that he has to stop, as I have had to stop, to reassure himself: You can smell me,you can touch me, you can hear me, I am not a shadow: I am Fotheringay, Wales,Canby, I am Robinson.
1935
Graham Greene
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