20 лучших повестей на английском / 20 Best Short Novels

Restored to the society of my fair friend, I spread the supper table. A pâté [53] , a sausage, and a few bottles of generous Moselle wine, composed our simple meal. When persons adore each other, the intoxicating illusion of Love transforms the simplest meal into a banquet. With immeasurable capacities for enjoyment, we sat down to table. At the very moment when I placed my fascinating companion in a chair, the infamous Englishman in the next room took that occasion, of all others, to become restless and noisy once more. He struck with his stick on the floor; he cried out, in a delirious access of terror, ‘Rigobert! Rigobert!’

The sound of that lamentable voice, suddenly assailing our ears, terrified my fair friend. She lost all her charming color in an instant. ‘Good heavens!’ she exclaimed. ‘Who is that in the next room?’

‘A mad Englishman.’

‘An Englishman?’

‘Compose yourself, my angel. I will quiet him.’

The lamentable voice called out on me again, ‘Rigobert! Rigobert!’

My fair friend caught me by the arm. ‘Who is he?’ she cried. ‘What is his name?’

Something in her face struck me as she put that question. A spasm of jealousy shook me to the soul. ‘You know him?’ I said.

‘His name!’ she vehemently repeated; ‘his name!’

‘Francis,’ I answered.

‘Francis – what?’

I shrugged my shoulders. I could neither remember nor pronounce the barbarous English surname. I could only tell her it began with an ‘R.’

She dropped back into the chair. Was she going to faint? No: she recovered, and more than recovered, her lost color. Her eyes flashed superbly. What did it mean? Profoundly as I understand women in general, I was puzzled by this woman!

‘You know him?’ I repeated.

She laughed at me. ‘What nonsense! How should I know him? Go and quiet the wretch.’

My looking-glass was near. One glance at it satisfied me that no woman in her senses could prefer the Englishman to Me. I recovered my self-respect. I hastened to the Englishman’s bedside.

The moment I appeared he pointed eagerly toward my room. He overwhelmed me with a torrent of words in his own language. I made out, from his gestures and his looks, that he had, in some incomprehensible manner, discovered the presence of my guest; and, stranger still, that he was scared by the idea of a person in my room. I endeavored to compose him on the system which I have already mentioned – that is to say, I swore at him in my language. The result not proving satisfactory, I own I shook my fist in his face, and left the bedchamber.

Returning to my fair friend, I found her walking backward and forward in a state of excitement wonderful to behold. She had not waited for me to fill her glass – she had begun the generous Moselle in my absence. I prevailed on her with difficulty to place herself at the table. Nothing would induce her to eat. ‘My appetite is gone,’ she said. ‘Give me wine.’

The generous Moselle deserves its name – delicate on the palate, with prodigious ‘body.’ The strength of this fine wine produced no stupefying effect on my remarkable guest. It appeared to strengthen and exhilarate her – nothing more. She always spoke in the same low tone, and always, turn the conversation as I might, brought it back with the same dexterity to the subject of the Englishman in the next room. In any other woman this persistency would have offended me. My lovely guest was irresistible; I answered her questions with the docility of a child. She possessed all the amusing eccentricity of her nation. When I told her of the accident which confined the Englishman to his bed, she sprang to her feet. An extraordinary smile irradiated her countenance. She said, ‘Show me the horse who broke the Englishman’s leg! I must see that horse!’ I took her to the stables. She kissed the horse – on my word of honor, she kissed the horse! That struck me. I said. ‘You do know the man; and he has wronged you in some way.’ No! she would not admit it, even then. ‘I kiss all beautiful animals,’ she said. ‘Haven’t I kissed you?’ With that charming explanation of her conduct, she ran back up the stairs. I only remained behind to lock the stable door again. When I rejoined her, I made a startling discovery. I caught her coming out of the Englishman’s room.

‘I was just going downstairs again to call you,’ she said. ‘The man in there is getting noisy once more.’

The mad Englishman’s voice assailed our ears once again. ‘Rigobert! Rigobert!’

He was a frightful object to look at when I saw him this time. His eyes were staring wildly; the perspiration was pouring over his face. In a panic of terror he clasped his hands; he pointed up to heaven. By every sign and gesture that a man can make, he entreated me not to leave him again. I really could not help smiling. The idea of my staying with him, and leaving my fair friend by herself in the next room!

I turned to the door. When the mad wretch saw me leaving him he burst out into a screech of despair – so shrill that I feared it might awaken the sleeping servants.