75 лучших рассказов / 75 Best Short Stories

‘So, in a jangle of mule-train bells, we gallops into Oratama, and the town belonged to us as much as Long Island Sound [455] doesn’t belong to Japan when T. R. is at Oyster Bay [456] . I say us; but I mean me. Everybody for four nations, two oceans, one bay and isthmus, and five archipelagoes around had heard of Judson Tate. Gentleman adventurer, they called me. I had been written up in five columns of the yellow journals, 40,000 words (with marginal decorations) in a monthly magazine, and a stickful on the twelfth page of the New York Times . If the beauty of Fergus McMahan gained any part of our reception in Oratama, I’ll eat the price-tag in my Panama. It was me that they hung out paper flowers and palm branches for. I am not a jealous man; I am stating facts. The people were Nebuchadnezzars [457] ; they bit the grass before me; there was no dust in the town for them to bite. They bowed down to Judson Tate. They knew that I was the power behind Sancho Benavides. A word from me was more to them than a whole deckle-edged library from East Aurora in sectional bookcases was from anybody else. And yet there are people who spend hours fixing their faces – rubbing in cold cream and massaging the muscles (always toward the eyes) and taking in the slack with tincture of benzoin and electrolyzing moles – to what end? Looking handsome. Oh, what a mistake! It’s the larynx that the beauty doctors ought to work on. It’s words more than warts, talk more than talcum, palaver more than powder, blarney more than bloom that counts – the phonograph instead of the photograph. But I was going to tell you.

‘The local Astors put me and Fergus up at the Centipede Club, a frame building built on posts sunk in the surf. The tide’s only nine inches. The Little Big High Low Jack-in-the-game of the town came around and kowtowed. Oh, it wasn’t to Herr Mees. They had heard about Judson Tate.

‘One afternoon me and Fergus McMahan was sitting on the seaward gallery of the Centipede, drinking iced rum and talking.

‘“Judson,” says Fergus, “there’s an angel in Oratama.”

‘“So long,” says I, “as it ain’t Gabriel, why talk as if you had heard a trump blow?”

‘“It’s the Señorita Anabela Zamora,” says Fergus. “She’s – she’s – she’s as lovely as – as hell!”

‘“Bravo!” says I, laughing heartily. “You have a true lover’s eloquence to paint the beauties of your inamorata. You remind me,” says I, “of Faust’s wooing of Marguerite – that is, if he wooed her after he went down the trap-door of the stage.”

‘“Judson,” says Fergus, “you know you are as beautiless as a rhinoceros. You can’t have any interest in women. I’m awfully gone in Miss Anabela. And that’s why I’m telling you.”

‘“Oh, seguramente [458] ,” says I. “I know I have a front elevation like an Aztec [459] god that guards a buried treasure that never did exist in Jefferson County, Yucatan [460] . But there are compensations. For instance, I am It in this country as far as the eye can reach, and then a few perches and poles. And again,” says I, “when I engage people in a set-to of oral, vocal, and laryngeal utterances, I do not usually confine my side of the argument to what may be likened to a cheap phonographic reproduction of the ravings of a jellyfish.”

‘“Oh, I know,” says Fergus, amiable, “that I’m not handy at small talk. Or large, either. That’s why I’m telling you. I want you to help me.”

‘“How can I do it?” I asked.

‘“I have subsidized,” says Fergus, “the services of Señorita Anabela’s duenna, whose name is Francesca. You have a reputation in this country, Judson,” says Fergus, “of being a great man and a hero.”

‘“I have,” says I. “And I deserve it.”

‘“And I,” says Fergus, “am the best-looking man between the Arctic circle and Antarctic ice pack.”

‘“With limitations,” says I, “as to physiognomy and geography, I freely concede you to be.”

‘“Between the two of us,” says Fergus, “we ought to land the Señorita Anabela Zamora. The lady, as you know, is of an old Spanish family, and further than looking at her driving in the family carruaje [461] of afternoons around the plaza, or catching a glimpse of her through a barred window of evenings, she is as unapproachable as a star.”

‘“Land her for which one of us?” says I.

‘“For me of course,” says Fergus. “You’ve never seen her. Now, I’ve had Francesca point me out to her as being you on several occasions. When she sees me on the plaza, she thinks she’s looking at Don Judson Tate, the greatest hero, statesman, and romantic figure in the country. With your reputation and my looks combined in one man, how can she resist him? She’s heard all about your thrilling history, of course. And she’s seen me. Can any woman want more?” asks Fergus McMahan.

‘“Can she do with less?” I ask. “How can we separate our mutual attractions, and how shall we apportion the proceeds?”

‘Then Fergus tells me his scheme.