Эволюция человека, как существа отчасти космического,
отчасти земного, - наш общий труд. Лучшие душевные качества, -
безоглядная доблесть, верная любовь, доброта без раздумий, - пока встречаются в
природе только как предельные, трудно достижимые состояния, проявляющиеся
пунктирно и находящиеся в противоречии с инстинктом самосохранения. Для многих
игнорировать этот инстинкт - означает лишь, переоценивая себя, красиво лгать во
имя копирования чужих судеб. С другой стороны, сосредоточение только на
предельном физическом здоровье и долголетии (если не бессмертии)
всегда означает превращение в обезьяну. Один из случаев такого
превращения описывает Олдос Хаксли в романе “Через много лет”.
(...)
Jeremy Pordage walked to the
balustrade and looked over. The ground fell almost sheer for about a hundred
feet, then sloped steeply to the inner circle of walls and, below them, to the
outer fortifications. Beyond lay the moat and, on the further side of the moat,
stretched the orange orchards. “In dunkeln Laub die Gold-Orangen glühn” [Клистве, горя, тампомеранцыльнут. - “Миньона”, переводС.Шервинского], he murmured to himself; and
then: “He hangs in shades the orange bright, Like golden lamps in a green night.
[Межветвейблестятони. Какфонарикивтени]” Marvell’s
rendering, he decided, was better than Goethe’s. And, meanwhile, the oranges seemed to have become brighter and more
significant. For Jeremy, direct, unmediated experience was always hard to take
in, always more or less disquieting. Life became safe, things assumed meaning,
only when they had been translated into words and confined between the covers
of a book. The oranges were beautifully pigeon-holed; but what about castle? He
turned round and, leaning back against the parapet, looked up. The Object
impended, insolently enormous. Nobody had dealt poetically with that.
Not Childe Roland, not the King of Thule, not Marmion, not the Lady of Shalott,
not Sir Leoline. Sir Leoline, he repeated to himself with a connoisseur’s
appreciation of romantic absurdity, Sir Leoline, the baron rich, had - what? A
toothless mastiff bitch. But Mr. Stoyte had baboons and a sacred grotto, Mr.
Stoyte had a chromium portcullis and the Hauberk Papers, Mr. Stoyte had a cemetery
like an amusement park and a donjon like…
There was a sudden rumbling
sound; the great nail-studded doors of the Early English entrance porch rolled
back and from between them, as though propelled by a hurricane, a small,
thick-set man, with a red face and a mass of snow white hair, darted out on to
the terrace and bore down upon Jeremy. His expression, as he advanced, did not
change. The face wore that shut, unsmiling mask which American workmen tend to
put on in their dealings with strangers - in order to prove, by not making the
ingratiation grimaces of courtesy, that there is a free country and you’re not
going to come it over them.
Not having been brought up in
a free country, Jeremy had automatically begun to smile as this person, whom he
guessed to be his host and employer, came hurrying towards him. Confronted by
the unwavering grimness of the other’s face, he suddenly became conscious of
this smile - conscious that it was out of place, that it must be making him
look a fool. Profoundly embarrassed, he tried to readjust his face.
“Mr. Pordage?” said the
stranger in a harsh, barking voice. “Pleased to meet youu. My name’s Stoyte.”
As they shook hands, he peered, still unsmiling, into Jeremy’s face. “You’re
older than I thought,” he added.
For the second time that
morning, Jeremy made his mannequin’s gesture of apologetic self-exhibition.
“The sere and withered leaf,”
he said. “One’s sinking into senility. One’s…”
Mr. Stoyte cut him short.
“What’s your age?” he asked in a loud peremptory tone, like that of a police
sergeant interrogating a captured thief.
“Fifty-four.”
Only fifty-four?” Mr.Stoyte
shook his head. “Ought to be full of pep art fifty-four. How’s your sex life?”
he added disconcertingly.
Jeremy tried to laugh off his
embarrassment. He twinkled; he patted his bald head. “Mon beau printemps et mon été ont fait le saut par la fenêtre,” he quoted.
[Моя весна, а с ней и лето исчезли, выпрыгнув в
окно]*
“What’s that?” said Mr. Stoyte
frowning. “No use talking foreign languages to me. I never had any education.”
He broke into a sudden braying of laughter. “I’m head of an oil company here,”
he said. “Got two thousand filling stations in California alone. And not one
man in any of those filling stations that isn’t a college graduate!” He brayed
again, triumphantly. “Go and talk foreign languages to them.” He was
silent for a moment; then, pursuing an inexplicit association of ideas, “My
agent in London,” he went on, “ the man who picks up thing for me there - he
gave me your name. Told me you were the right man for those - what do you call
them? You know, those papers I bought this summer. Rorbuck? Hobuck?”
“Hauberk,” said Jeremy, and
with a gloomy satisfaction noted that he had been quite right. The man had
never one’s books, never even heard of one’s existence. Still, one had to
remember that he had been called Jelly-Belly when he was young.
“Hauberk,” Mr. Stoyte repeated
with a contemptuous impatience. “Anyhow, he said you were the man.” Then,
without pause or translation, “What was it you were saying, about sex life,
when you started that foreign stuff on me?”
(...)
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to bring sb up - to look after a child until he/she is adult and to
teach him/her how to behave: After her parents were killed the child was brought
up by her uncle. * a well-brought up child
