elenaougrumova: переводы

→He met Holbach in the garden of Holbach’s mansion; they sat by the fishpond. The mansion and the grounds bustled—thin, pale scholars; artists, fashionably disheveled; various young women. Clever and elegant people. Haycock stuck out like a bruise. The whole pile, and all Holbach’s other airs and graces, including expecting household visits from professionals like Haycock, who had other pressing commitments and had their own professional dignity to consider, was all paid for by the Countess for services rendered. That was what one or two clever ideas could do for a man. That was what a man could do for himself if only—if only!—he could get himself off the grinding wheel of business for a few short days so that he could think deep thoughts and plan big plans. Some men had good fortune and others never did; but Haycock swallowed his resentment and offered a smile that was close enough to pleasant that the fat professor had to pretend not to be offended. Haycock lit a cigarette and opened the case.

→Arjun was sorry, but he had no money. He really didn’t, he told Haycock, he was sorry. He was sorry. He looked down at Haycock’s bald head. It was lined, like a thumb. The deep grooves seemed to pulse with irritation. Haycock stamped off, thinking.

→Haycock stamped all the way up Cato Road, and into Foyle’s Ward, dragging his heavy weather-beaten case behind him, snarling and spitting at anyone who got in his way or slowed him down. It was the end of the month and he had an appointment with Professor Holbach. Holbach provided Haycock with a generous allowance for transport by carriage. As was his usual practice, Haycock had opted to pocket the money and walk, and by the time he’d crested the hill he was, as was his usual practice, in a foul mood.

→In the morning, Haycock accosted Arjun in the hallway and presented him with a list of books that might shed light on his problem. Anything and everything that had been written on the relation of the city to its gods: The Detective of Dreams; The Gutter and the Stars; Lodwick’s Extrapolations; Varady’s Speculations; Riddles and Their Riddlers; Those Whom We Cannot at Present Name but Are Possessed of Animal Heads. “What languages can you read?” Haycock asked. “Tuvar; really? Akashic, too? What a lot of hard work; aren’t we eager? Then there’s a lot more I can get you. Let me think.”

→Haycock then changed the subject, starting an argument with Norris and Clement about some sporting event; a team sponsored by the Countess had pulled off a surprise win against a team sponsored by the Agdon Worker’s Combine, up at the Urgos-Eye Stadium. Some game with balls, it seemed, and spikes; Arjun couldn’t follow the rules. Nor, it seemed, could old Norris, quite, though he tried; and whenever the poor enfeebled man tried to agree with Haycock, which he did with doglike eagerness to please, stuttering and tongue-tied, Haycock would take a sharp turn, vehemently denying whatever he had asserted with equal vehemence the second earlier, until Norris’s blotchy face dripped with tears and snot, and Clement was snorting with nasty laughter.

→“In the House, they taught us about a Chaste Flame. They were a counter-church of Tiber. A kind of cult, but all children, like a gang. There was a mad monk, Vilar, Volar, I think, who founded them. They wore white robes and carried torches. The Church pronounced them anathema, and put them down. But they keep coming back. Always children: it was one of the heresies they were protecting us from in the House, they said.”

→He came back to Shutlow in the evening to find the streets full of bunting. Clotheslines were hung with red flags, and, if flags weren’t available, with cloth or rags dyed red. Red banners flew over Seven Wheels Market, stitched in black with the image of a ship, lightning at its prow, lifted by a swelling balloon. Moore Street’s evening shadows glittered with broken glass and scattered flags. Off in the distance there was still cheering and the honking of a brass band. On the horizon—north, over on the Heath—there was the faint spark of fireworks against the black sky.

→He handed the print to Fiss, who looked at him curiously and passed it wordlessly to Aiden, who shared it with Beth; then they all gathered in, looking at it and at Jack. The Thunderer: the Thunderers. No mere thieves or vagrants. It would be their name and their strength: they, too, would amaze. He was very excited; he thought they liked it. It was a start.

→They were all looking at him. Bright faces in the attic’s shadows. He was unsure what to say next, so he said again, but louder, “This is our sign.”

→“Same day as we all escaped. Same thing that brought us all together. It is amazing. It’s the future. It’s going to be our sign.”

→Namdi nodded, grinning. “It’s amazing.”

→“Wrong. That’s our sign. Ours. Namdi, you remember the day you got out from Lime Street? Beth, you remember? Turyk, you remember when you told that Master of yours where to stick it? That’s the same day this thing went up. The same thing that made us free, made this thing free. I saw it, too, up in the Tor. It’s incredible. It can go anywhere. No one can stop it or touch it. Like they can’t touch us or stop us, not if we keep moving.”

→Several hands shot up among the little ones. “That’s the Countess’s ship,” Namdi said. “I saw it.”

→He unfolded the Era’s print of the flying warship, and held it up against the light. “Know what this is?”

→“So what I think is, I think we need a name, too.”

→The little ones cheered. The older ones looked skeptical. It was all so much grander and better and more obviously right in his head than he had words to express. His mouth was dry. But they sensed his excitement, and watched him intently.

→“We broke out from all over. We were all given the signal, and we took it, and we broke out from everything, all over. No one can take us back, if we don’t want to go. We can take whatever we want. Who’s scared of the Flame?” No one was. “They got a uniform and they got a name, and that makes you think they’re something special. We’re special. Not them.”

→They shouted that they were not.

→“I hear you talking. Flame this, Flame that. I know some of you are thinking about joining them. And I know some of you are just here to hide from them. Like the Flame owns this city. Well, what are we? Are we nothing?”

→He called them all up into the Moon’s loft one evening, and stood by the window, framed by the street’s dying light.