Lalulita: переводы

→“Going where?”

→“Merci,” Rita said blankly, and the woman moved past, thrusting her papers at the rest of the evening crowd.

→As we turned the corner a young woman with more facial piercings than I would have thought possible stepped in front of us and thrust a piece of paper into Rita's hands. “Now to see the real art,” she said. “Tomorrow night, eh?”

→“Oohhh” she said, and her eyes were still large and bright, as they had been for most of the day. “That was absolutely incredible!” And she put an arm around me and nestled close as if I had been personally responsible for creating the entire museum. It made walking a bit more difficult, but it was, after all, the sort of thing one did on a honeymoon in Paris, so I let her cling on and we staggered across the courtyard and through the gate into the street.

→“Well,” I said, as we sauntered across the flagstones, “that was certainly a full day”

→After a snack that was more expensive than airport food and only a little tastier, we spent the rest of the day wandering through the museum looking at room after room of paintings and sculptures. There really were an awful lot of them, and by the time we finally stepped out into the twilit courtyard again my formerly magnificent brain had been pounded into submission.

→“And very overrated,” Rita said primly.

→“It's so tiny,” I blurted out.

→The first wonder was immediately obvious as we climbed out of the admissions area and into the actual museum. In one of the first galleries we came to, a huge crowd of perhaps five large tour groups was clustered around a perimeter marked by a red velvet rope. Rita made a noise that sounded something like “Mrmph,” and reached for my hand to drag me past. As we walked rapidly past the crowd I turned for a look; it was the Mona Lisa.

→It had seemed like such a simple thing to make a solemn stop at the Rue Morgue, to pay my respects to an important cultural landmark in the world of Monsters, but it is not to be. I repeat the question later, to a taxi driver, and receive the same answer, and Rita interprets with a somewhat embarrassed smile.

→I follow Rita off the bus, meek, humble, and mildly disappointed.

→“The Rue Morgue,” I say again. “Do we go by the Rue Morgue?” I find myself speaking in the too-loud tones of the American non-linguist, and I stumble to a stop. The driver stares at me. I can hear tinny hip-hop music coming from the dangling ear bud. Then he shrugs. He launches into a brief and passionate explanation of my complete ignorance in very rapid French, pops the ear bud back in, and opens the door to the bus.

→“Excuse me,” I say “Do we go anywhere near the Rue Morgue?” The driver is listening to an iPod. He pulls one ear bud out with an annoyed flourish, looks me over from head to toe, and raises an eyebrow.

→She marched us right up to the ticket line, where we waited for several minutes before she finally bought our tickets, and then we were off into the wonders of the Louvre.

→So it was with at least a small interest that I followed Rita across the huge courtyard of the Louvre and down the stairs into the glass pyramid. She had chosen to go this alone and forsake the tour groups —not out of any distaste for the grungy mobs of gaping, drooling, woefully ignorant sheep who seemed to coalesce around each tour guide, but because Rita was determined to prove that she was a match for any museum, even a French one.

→With only three days left before we fly back home to the blessed malice and mayhem of Miami, we come to our Full Day At The Louvre. This is something that has raised mild interest even in me; just because I have no soul does not mean I don't appreciate art. Quite the opposite, in fact. Art is, after all, all about making patterns in order to create a meaningful impact on the senses. And isn't this just exactly what Dexter does? Of course, in my case “impact” is a little more literal, but still —I can appreciate other media.

→“Oh, that's so exciting,” she said. “And we don't have anything to do tomorrow night. We're going!”

→“Oh,” said Rita. “It's a performance piece.” Now it was my turn to stare blankly, and I did. “What is?”

→I think she probably could have gotten a few more earrings on the left side,” I said as Rita frowned at the paper. “And she missed a spot on her forehead.”

→It begins to seem like a somewhat high price to pay for deguisement, but Dexter is the perfect soldier. He plods on under his heavy burden of duty and water bottles. He does not complain about the heat, his sore feet, the large and unlovely crowds in their too tight shorts, souvenir T-shirts and flip-flops.