What indeed had she been meaning to do with it? Hang it away in an old, stale closet next to her aprons, overall, and one poor Sunday frock, secretly to gloat over when she came home at night? The dress had not been designed and created to languish in the dark of a cupboard. It was meant to be out where there was gaiety, lights, music and admiring eyes.
Quite suddenly she could not bear to look upon it any longer (внезапно она больше не могла смотреть на него: «не могла вынести смотреть»). She was at the end of her resistance to grief (она больше не могла сопротивляться горю: «была в конце сопротивления горю»). She reinterred it in the plastic suitcase (она вновь убрала его в пластмассовый чемодан;
quite [kwaIt], crumpled [krAmpld], tissue ['tISu:]
Quite suddenly she could not bear to look upon it any longer. She was at the end of her resistance to grief. She reinterred it in the plastic suitcase, hurriedly blotting out the sight of it with the crumpled tissue paper and then, flinging herself upon her bed, buried her face in her pillow and commenced to cry.
She wept silently (она плакала тихо), inconsolably and interminably (безутешно и бесконечно), after the fashion of women whose hearts have been broken (как женщины, чье сердце было разбито;
inconsolable ["Inkqn'squlqbl], heart [hQ:t], miserably ['mIzqrqblI]
She wept silently, inconsolably and interminably, after the fashion of women whose hearts have been broken. She wept for her own foolishness, and too for her self-acknowledged guilt of the sin of pride and the swift, sure punishment that had followed upon its heels, but mostly she wept simply and miserably for her lost dress and the destruction of this so dear possession.
She might have wept thus into eternity (она бы проплакала так целую вечность: «в вечность = до вечности»), but for the insistent ringing of her doorbell (если бы не настойчивое дребезжание ее дверного звонка), which at last penetrated grief and into her consciousness (который в конце концов проник сквозь горе в ее сознание). She raised her tear-swollen face momentarily (она подняла свое опухшее от слез лицо на мгновение) and then decided to ignore it (но потом решила не обращать на него внимания: «игнорировать его»). It could be none other than Mrs. Butterfield (это не мог быть никто другой, как миссис Баттерфилд), eager to see and discuss her Paris dress (жаждущая увидеть и обсудить ее парижское платье) and hear of her adventures amongst the heathen (и услышать о ее приключениях среди язычников). What was there to show her now for the long wait (что было показывать ей теперь после долгого ожидания), the hard work (тяжелой работы), the sacrifice and the foolish determination (жертвенности и безрассудного стремления)? A burned-out rag (сгоревшую тряпку). Worse than Mrs. Butterfield's croakings of "I told you so" (хуже, чем ворчание миссис Баттерфилд «я же говорила тебе») would be the sympathy that would follow (будет сочувствие, которое затем последует), the tuttings and duckings (охи и вздохи;
eternity [i:'tq:nItI], ignore [Ig'nO:], eager ['i:gq]