Английский для смелых. Истории о духах и привидениях / Great Ghost Stories

 Recruited by lunch and a brief period of slumber, Mrs Anstruther settled herself comfortably upon her sketching chair in the path leading through the shrubbery to the side-gate of the churchyard. Trees and buildings were among her favourite subjects, and here she had good studies of both. She worked hard, and the drawing was becoming a really pleasant thing to look upon by the time that the wooded hills to the west had shut off the sun. Still she would have persevered, but the light changed rapidly, and it became obvious that the last touches must be added on the morrow. She rose and turned towards the house, pausing for a time to take delight in the limpid green western sky. Then she passed on between the dark box-bushes, and, at a point just before the path debouched on the lawn, she stopped once again and considered the quiet evening landscape, and made a mental note that that must be the tower of one of the Roothing churches that one caught on the sky-line. Then a bird (perhaps) rustled in the box-bush on her left, and she turned and started at seeing what at first she took to be a Fifth of November mask peeping out among the branches. She looked closer.

It was not a mask (это была не маска). It was a face – large, smooth, and pink (это было лицо – большое, гладкое и розовое). She remembers the minute drops of perspiration which were starting from its forehead (ей в память врезались: «она запомнила» мелкие капельки пота, которыми был усеян его лоб: «которые начинались с его лба» = которые начинали образовываться у него на лбу; perspiration – потение; испарина, пот); she remembers how the jaws were clean-shaven and the eyes shut (ей в память врезалось, что его скулы были гладко выбриты, а глаза закрыты; jaw – челюсть). She remembers also (в память ей также врезалось), and with an accuracy which makes the thought intolerable to her (с отчетливостью, сделавшей это воспоминание непереносимым; accuracy – правильность, соответствие, точность; thought – мысль), how the mouth was open and a single tooth appeared below the upper lip (что рот /лица/ был открыт и из-под верхней губы виднелся единственный зуб; to appear – показываться; появляться; below – ниже, под). As she looked the face receded into the darkness of the bush (пока она смотрела на него, лицо скрылось во мраке кустарника; to recede – отступать, пятиться; удаляться). The shelter of the house was gained and the door shut before she collapsed (едва добежав до дома и захлопнув за собой дверь, она потеряла сознание: «укрытие дома было достигнуто и дверь заперта, прежде чем она свалилась без сил»; to collapse – сильно ослабеть, свалиться от потери сил).