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When I saw Rollo Martins first I made this note on him for my security police files: "In normal circumstances a cheerful fool. Drinks too much and may cause a little trouble. Whenever a woman passes raises his eyes and makes some comment, but I get the impression that really he'd rather not be bothered. Has never really grown up and perhaps that accounts for the way he worshipped Lime." I wrote there that phrase "in normal circumstances" because I met him first at Harry Lime's funeral. It was February, and the grave-diggers had been forced to use electric drills to open the frozen ground in Vienna's central cemetery. It was as if even nature were doing its best to reject Lime, but we got him in at last and laid the earth back on him like bricks. He was vaulted in, and Rollo Martins walked quickly away as though his long gangly legs wanted to break into a run, and the tears of a boy ran down his thirty-five-year-old cheeks. Rollo Martins believed in friendship, and that was why what happened later was a worse shock to him than it would have been to you or me (you because you would have put it down to an illusion and me because at once a rational explanation—however wrongly—would have come to my mind). If only he had come to tell me then, what a lot of trouble would have been saved.
If you are to understand this strange rather sad story (чтобы вам понять эту странную весьма грустную историю) you must have an impression at least of the background (вы должны иметь = получить впечатление по крайней мере от фона)—the smashed dreary city of Vienna (разрушенный мрачный город Вена) divided up in zones among the four powers (поделенный на зоны между четырьмя властями); the Russian, the British, the American, the French zones (русская, британская, американская, французская зоны), regions marked only by a notice board (районы, отмеченные только табличкой; notice — заметка; уведомление; board —доска), and in the centre of the city (а в центре города), surrounded by the Ring (окруженный Кольцом) with its heavy public buildings (со своими тяжелыми общественными зданиями) and its prancing statuary (и своими величавыми скульптурами), the Inner Stadt (Внутренний Город = центр города /нем./) under the control of all four powers (под контролем всех четырех властей). In this once fashionable Inner Stadt (в этом когда-то фешенебельном Внутреннем Городе) each power in turn (каждая власть по очереди), for a month at a time (на месяц за один раз), takes (берет), as we call it (как мы называем это), "the chair (престол: «стул» = становится председателем)," and becomes responsible for security (и становится ответственной за безопасность); at night (ночью), if you were fool enough (если вы были достаточно глупец) to waste your Austrian schillings on a night club (чтобы потратить ваши австрийские шиллинги на ночной клуб), you would be fairly certain to see the International Patrol at work (вы бы совершенно точно увидели Интернациональный Патруль за работой)—four military police (четыре военных наряда), one from each power (один от каждой власти), communicating with each other (общавшиеся друг с другом: «с каждым другим») if they communicated at all (если они общались вообще) in the common language of their enemy (на общем языке их врага). I never knew Vienna between the wars (я никогда не знал Вену между войнами), and I am too young to remember the old Vienna (и я слишком молод, чтобы помнить ту старую Вену) with its Strauss music (с ее музыкой Штрауса) and its bogus easy charm (и ее притворно непринужденным очарованием); to me it is simply a city (для меня это просто город) of undignified ruins (лишенных благородства руин; to dignify — облагораживать; придавать лоск, достоинство) which turned that February into great glaciers of snow and ice (которые превратились в тот февраль в огромные ледники из снега и льда).
divide [dI'vaId], notice ['nqutIs], building ['bIldIN], statuary ['stxtjuqrI], ['fxS(q)nqbl], Austrian ['OstrIqn], communicate [kq'mju:nIkeIt], enemy ['enImI], bogus ['bqugqs], undignified [An'dIgnIfaId], glacier ['glxsIq]
If you are to understand this strange rather sad story you must have an impression at least of the background—the smashed dreary city of Vienna divided up in zones among the four powers; the Russian, the British, the American, the French zones, regions marked only by a notice board, and in the centre of the city, surrounded by the Ring with its heavy public buildings and its prancing statuary, the Inner Stadt under the control of all four powers. |
