Английский с Г. К. Честертоном. Рассказы об отце Брауне

 “In each of the hot and secret countries to which the man went he kept a harem, he tortured witnesses, he amassed shameful gold; but certainly he would have said with steady eyes that he did it to the glory of the Lord. My own theology is sufficiently expressed by asking which Lord? Anyhow, there is this about such evil, that it opens door after door in hell, and always into smaller and smaller chambers. This is the real case against crime, that a man does not become wilder and wilder, but only meaner and meaner. St. Clare was soon suffocated by difficulties of bribery and blackmail; and needed more and more cash. And by the time of the Battle of the Black River he had fallen from world to world to that place which Dante makes the lowest floor of the universe.”

“What do you mean (что вы имеете в виду)?” asked his friend again (спросил его друг снова).

“I mean that (я имею в виду),” retorted the cleric, and suddenly pointed at a puddle sealed with ice that shone in the moon (ответил священник и вдруг резко указал на лужицу, покрытую льдом, поблескивающим под лунным светом; to shine). “Do you remember whom Dante put in the last circle of ice (вы помните, кого Данте поместил в последнем, ледяном кругу /ада/)?”

“The traitors (предателей),” said Flambeau, and shuddered (сказал Фламбо и вздрогнул). As he looked around at the inhuman landscape of trees, with taunting and almost obscene outlines (когда он обвел взглядом безжизненный пейзаж с дразнящими и почти непристойными контурами деревьев; landscape – ландшафт, пейзаж; to taunt – насмехаться; дразнить; obscene – непристойный, непотребный; грязный; outline – очертание, контур), he could almost fancy he was Dante (он почти вообразил себя Данте), and the priest with the rivulet of a voice was, indeed, a Virgil leading him through a land of eternal sins (а священника – с журчащим, как ручеек, голосом – Вергилием, который вел его по земле вечных грехов; rivulet – ручеек; речушка; to lead – вести, сопровождать, быть проводником; eternal – вечный; непреходящий).

 “What do you mean?” asked his friend again.

“I mean that,” retorted the cleric, and suddenly pointed at a puddle sealed with ice that shone in the moon. “Do you remember whom Dante put in the last circle of ice?”

“The traitors,” said Flambeau, and shuddered. As he looked around at the inhuman landscape of trees, with taunting and almost obscene outlines, he could almost fancy he was Dante, and the priest with the rivulet of a voice was, indeed, a Virgil leading him through a land of eternal sins.