Jerry of the Islands / Джерри-островитянин. Книга для чтения на английском языке

Painters were cast off, and in the sternsheets of each boat solitary white men were standing up, heads bared in graciousness of conduct to the furnace-stab of the tropic sun, as they waved additional and final farewells. And Michael, swept by the contagion of excitement, barked and barked again, as if it were a festival of the gods being celebrated.

“Say good-bye to your brother, Jerry,” Villa Kennan prompted in Jerry’s ear, as she held him, his quivering flanks between her two palms, on the rail where she had lifted him.

And Jerry, not understanding her speech, torn about with conflicting desires, acknowledged her speech with wriggling body, a quick back-toss of head, and a red flash of kissing tongue, and, the next moment, his head over the rail and lowered to see the swiftly diminishing Michael, was mouthing grief and woe very much akin to the grief and woe his mother, Biddy, had mouthed in the long ago, on the beach of Meringe, when he had sailed away with Skipper.

For Jerry had learned partings[391], and beyond all peradventure this was a parting, though little he dreamed that he would again meet Michael across the years and across the world, in a fabled valley of far California, where they would live out their days in the hearts and arms of the beloved gods.

Michael, his forefeet on the gunwale[392], barked to him in a puzzled, questioning sort of way, and Jerry whimpered back incommunicable understanding. The lady-god pressed his two flanks together reassuringly, and he turned to her, his cool nose touched questioningly to her cheek. She gathered his body close against her breast in one encircling arm, her free hand resting on the rail, half-closed, a pink-and-white heart of flower, fragrant and seducing. Jerry’s nose quested the way of it. The aperture invited. With snuggling, budging, and nudging movements he spread the fingers slightly wider as his nose penetrated into the sheer delight and loveliness of her hand.

He came to rest, his golden muzzle soft-enfolded to the eyes, and was very still, all forgetful of the Ariel showing her copper to the sun under the press of the wind, all forgetful of Michael growing small in the distance as the whaleboat grew small astern. No less still was Villa. Both were playing the game, although to her it was new.

As long as he could possibly contain himself, Jerry maintained his stiffness. And then, his love bursting beyond the control of him, he gave a sniff – as prodigious a one as he had sniffed into the tunnel of Skipper’s hand in the long ago on the deck of the Arangi. And, as Skipper had relaxed into the laughter of love, so did the lady-god now. She gurgled gleefully. Her fingers tightened, in a caress that almost hurt, on Jerry’s muzzle. Her other hand and arm crushed him against her till he gasped. Yet all the while his stump of tail valiantly bobbed back and forth[393], and, when released from such blissful contact, his silky ears flattened back and down as, with first a scarlet slash of tongue to cheek, he seized her hand between his teeth and dented the soft skin with a love bite that did not hurt.

And so, for Jerry, vanished Tulagi, its Commissioner’s bungalow on top of the hill, its vessels riding to anchor in the harbour[394], and Michael, his full blood-brother. He had grown accustomed to such vanishments. In such way had vanished as in the mirage of a dream, Meringe, Somo, and the Arangi. In such way had vanished all the worlds and harbours and roadsteads and atoll lagoons where the Ariel had lifted her laid anchor and gone on across and over the erasing sea-rim.

Vocabulary

A

abaft adv (мор.) на корме, в сторону кормы

abject a жалкий, презренный

abjectness n униженность; презренность

abode n жилище

abstinence n воздержание

accord v соответствовать, согласовывать, оказывать

acolyte n служитель, помощник

acrid a едкий

addled a повредившийся умом, помешанный

aegis n щит, эгида; покровительство, защита

afi nity n родственность, близость

aft adv (мор.) в кормовой части

agility n ловкость, проворство

airedale n эрдель-терьер

albeit cj (уст.) хотя

alembic n (уст.) перегонный куб

aloft adv (мор.) на марсе, на реях

amidships adv (мор.) в середине корабля

anthropophagi n людоеды

anticking a (уст.) устаревший, древний; прыгающий

a-plenty adv (уст.) в изобилии

apportion v разделять, распределять

apprehend v предчувствовать, ожидать

arborean a покрытый зеленью; обезьяноподобный

askance adv искоса

attest v подтверждать, удостоверять

augustness n величественность

aver v утверждать, доказывать

B

babble v бормотать, болтать

beam n (мор.) бимс; ширина судна

bearing n показания (прибора)

bêche-de-mer n трепанг; искаженный английский язык ловцов трепанга

befoolment n одурачивание, обман