Русское зазеркалье (двуязычная версия)

I repeat that my own interpretation of the song may be doubtful, both in my endeavour to read the text in ecclesiastical terms and in my usual attempts to get from it more than it probably can give. Your own interpretations of the song are welcome and must be dealt with after the break. The first part of today’s lesson is over.[1]

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Патрик уже ждал меня в вестибюле у выхода (слово «вестибюль» я вспомнила, обратившись к словарю, а до того, ничтоже сумняшеся, хотела написать «лобби». Конечно, моё «ничтоже сумняшеся» плохо рифмуется с тем, что я забыла такое простое слово, но человеческий мозг — вообще очень странная вещь.)

[Сноска через несколько страниц.]

— Do you go with me? — обрадовалась я.

— Uh-huh.

— They won’t penalise you for that, I hope—I mean, for the fact that you will skip other classes.

— Actually, I have written to Mrs Walking asking her permission to accompany you today, and she replied saying nice words about how thoughtful it was of me, and so on—here I am!

(Мы уже выходили на улицу.)

— It was a very good and a very mature thing to do, — сдержанно похвалила я и сразу прикусила язык, сообразив, что mature звучит снисходительно. Патрик, конечно, это тоже уловил, и возразил:

— You treat me as a child, Ms Florensky!

Впрочем, это он сказал не с обычной своей ершистостью, а с таким мягким упрёком, что ли.

— No, definitely not—in every case, I am not your mother…

— Is the car waiting for you?

— For us both. I called a minicab.

Уже внутри такси я пояснила:

— I am about to pay a very short visit to a friend of mine who has helped me with my new visa before we go to Tate Modern. I got the ‘exceptional talent’ type of visa yesterday, so I can stay in Britain for five more years. This visit won’t take longer than three minutes. Do you mind very much?

— No—that is, if you say…

— You can come with me.

— Your friend has not invited me.

— He is a very old man, and he certainly won’t mind your coming. He isn’t visited much these days.

— If you absolutely say that I can come uninvited, which is very strange.

— He is Russian, — нашлась я, — so it is perfectly acceptable to come uninvited.

— So, this explains it… Erm… I’d better not say anything.

— To avoid accusations of being a xenophobe?

— Exactly.

— You do have a sense of humour, after all.

— I get by. There must be something in your nation, Ms Florensky, that accounts for how you think. Today, I was pretty much impressed by your idea about the necessity of being left alone, which is also a sexual preference of a sort.

— You know, Patrick, — вдруг решила пооткровенничать я, правда, не без задней мысли, — the first person I met here in London was a handsome man who very nicely helped me collect the keys from my room so I was even considering for an instant whether… But I dropped the idea the very moment it entered my head because I clearly saw that a new relationship was the very last thing I needed at the moment. You cannot imagine how happy I was to understand it!

Патрик откашлялся. Слегка поёрзал на сиденье. Ничего не ответил. («Что: неужели принял как неприятное известие? — весело подумалось мне. — Но это я вовремя сказала: словно бы спонтанно, в приступе искренности, но и кстати: вдруг он неосознанно на что-то надеялся? А вообще, я придумываю его мысли на пустом месте».)

— Ahem, — нашёлся Патрик. — Speaking of your lecture: don’t you think that children ‘must be slowly admitted into the yellow zone,’ as you put it today? Sex is such a zone, after all.

— It is not yellow, Patrick. It is red.

— Why?

— Because girls can get pregnant.

— Suppose they won’t—suppose they take precautions. Why deny them a right to—

— To sleep with someone who is sixty?

— I didn’t mean it that way.

— But surely you cannot deny the imaginary someone this right since a twelve-year-old girl is allowed to enter the red zone and explore it and since you definitely cannot discriminate against the senior person whose rights are as much sacred?

— Hard as it is to imagine, Ms Florensky, we probably must assume that in some cases—

— Do you really like the picture of the world that is there as the result of this assumption? — перебила я: это постепенно начинало меня заводить. — Or, if you allow me to be straightforward, do you honestly like the image of the twelve-year-old Matryosha who was seduced by Nicholas Stavrogin and then killed herself because she felt she had committed a sacrilege, a crime against the best within her, even though the thing was done voluntarily on both sides, and who is now hanging there in the small closet under the roof?

Патрик, хоть он почти наверняка не читал «Бесов», вздрогнул, примолк. Выпрямился. Я снова прикусила язык: вдруг у него самого есть в анамнезе что-то вроде воспоминаний Матрёши? (А если и есть, то мне, однако, что за дело? Я ему не доктор.)

— Sorry if I touched upon something you wouldn’t like to remember, — прибавила я вполголоса.