"Herr Lime (герр Лайм /господин Лайм — нем./)?"

"Herr Lime of course (герр Лайм, конечно)."

Martins said to me later (Мартинс сказал мне позднее), "At first it didn't mean a thing (сперва это не значило ничего). It was just a bit of information (это был просто кусочек информации), like those paragraphs in The Times they call News in Brief (как те газетные заметки: «абзацы, параграфы» в Таймс, которые они называют = называются ‘Новости кратко’). I said to him (я сказал ему): When did it happen (когда это случилось)? How (как)?'"

"He was run over by a car (он был сбит машиной; to run — бежать; двигаться, ехать /о транспорте/; over — через; to run over — переехать, задавить /кого-л./)," the man said (сказал мужчина). "Last Thursday (в прошлый четверг: «последний четверг»)." He added sullenly (добавил он угрюмо), as if really this were none of his business (словно показывая, что это совершенно его не касалось: «как если действительно это не было /вовсе/ его делом). "They are burying him this afternoon (они хоронят его сегодня после полудня). You've only just missed them (вы только что пропустили их)."

"Them (их)?"

"Oh, a couple of friends and the coffin (о, пара друзей и гроб)."

"Wasn't he in hospital (он не был в больнице)?"

"There was no sense in taking him to hospital (не было никакого смысла везти его в больницу). He was killed here on his own doorstep (он был убит здесь, на своем собственном пороге)—instantaneously (мгновенно; instant — мгновение, миг, момент). The right-hand mudguard (правое: «праворукое» крыло; mudguard — крыло; щит от грязи; mud — грязь; guard — защита) struck him on his shoulder (ударило его в плечо; to strike) and bowled him over in front like a rabbit (и сбило его /покатив/ вперед как кролика; to bowl — катать /шар, колесо и т. п.; to bowl over — сбить)."

aware [q'weq], silence ['saIlqns], steadily ['stedIlI], [kqn'vIns], absence ['xbs(q)ns], hero ['hIqrqu], worship ['wq:SIp], corridor ['kOrIdO:], entirely [In'taIqlI], sullen ['sAlqn], expression [Ik'spreS(q)n], vexation [vek'seIS(q)n], bury ['berI], instantaneous ["Instqn'teInIqs]

How quickly one becomes aware of silence even in so silent a city as Vienna with the snow steadily settling. Martins hadn't reached the second floor before he was convinced that he would not find Lime there, but the silence was deeper than just absence—it was as if he would not find Harry Lime anywhere in Vienna, and as he reached the third floor and saw the big black bow over the door handle, anywhere in the world at all. Of course it might have been a cook who had died, a housekeeper, anybody but Harry Lime, but he knew—he felt he had known twenty stairs down—that Lime, the Lime he had hero-worshipped now for twenty years, since the first meeting in a grim school corridor with a cracked bell ringing for prayers, was gone. Martins wasn't wrong, not entirely wrong.