ksyu_ta: переводы

→Because it was such a clear, detailed image, Sophia concluded its irregular form could not mean lack of knowledge on her part. More likely it meant something slapdash, something for which rapidity of assembly was more important than long-term stability. She had seen images like this one frequently enough that she concluded Lord Endicott’s operation relied on an ability to move quickly between locations, leaving no traces behind. Not that this would be enough to thwart her, once she had enough information.

→The indeterminate room was small, perhaps fifteen feet on a side, and contained only a square wooden table that looked as if it had been put together by someone who had never actually seen a table before. Its top was splintery and gray; it looked like driftwood, but not planed and polished the way Sophia had seen such wood sculpted in Lisbon. Rather, it seemed as if the unknown craftsman had simply walked along the shore and gathered what planks he could find, then hammered them together.

→“Your head does not ache, does it, Sophia?” Daphne said. Bare branches cast strange shadows across her face. Sophia shook her head, but did not elaborate. Her horse Fidelius—such a perfect name for the placid chestnut gelding, so responsive to her hand on the reins, always so happy to see her—seemed not to mind the cold, but then he enjoyed their rides, no matter the weather. She patted his neck, and he tossed his head in response.

→She almost regretted her decision again when they joined the few other riders in Hyde Park that morning. It was far colder than she had expected from the brightness of the sunlight and the clearness of the pale blue sky, and traffic through the park was consequently thin. Sophia smiled at those they passed, but without feeling, and was just as happy that they met no one she would be forced to acknowledge less perfunctorily.

→She carried the feeling with her through breakfast and dressing to ride with Daphne in Hyde Park. She half-regretted agreeing to the outing, but the idea of staying indoors with nothing but her unpleasant thoughts to keep her company was repellent. And Daphne was an excellent companion—talkative, yes, but Sophia had been surprised to discover that her conversation was clever and interesting, if one could keep her from being distracted by some tangential thought.

→Unfortunately, it was a restless sleep, and Sophia was plagued with ordinary dreams in which she was expected to box up piles of unwanted things, but the piles kept multiplying, and the boxes were hard to find, and when she woke it was to a sense that she had failed terribly at some important task.

→She closed her eyes and tried to relax into a normal sleep, in which the doors of Dream would not appear. It was far easier to fall into a Dreaming sleep, since she had been trained to do it since she was twelve, but Dream provided no rest, and even if she refused to enter any of the doors, a Dream would eventually find her. She flexed her toes, contracting and relaxing the muscles, then her calves, then her fingers and hands, and gradually the exercise sent her off into sleep.

→She had gone out in society almost every night since the disastrous evening at Almack’s—to private parties, the theater, more dances—and had not seen Lord Endicott at all. The mysterious Mr. Rutledge had not made an appearance, either. She chose not to relax her guard, reasoning that preparedness was an excellent policy when unpleasant men were in the habit of appearing where they were least welcome. No, that was probably unfair to Mr. Rutledge, who had been very pleasant despite being impertinent and entirely wrong. Even so, she had no interest in seeing either of them again.

→She closed the book and set it down with more than necessary force, then turned off the light and lay back on her pillows. She would Dream no more tonight; three in a night was exceptional, even for her, and she could feel her mind clouding over with exhaustion. She was almost certain, after nearly a week of studying and meditating, that she was closing in on a detail, the detail, that would show her what crime Lord Endicott was engaged in now. And then—well, she had no plans for “then,” but there was no point in making plans until she knew what she faced.

→Everything shifts. People whose faces change—possibly members of E.’s organization, disposable? More money, all bills of low denomination, this time fading from bills to roast chicken of all things!

→Grumbling, she lit the lamp, then leaned out of her warm nest to reach, upside-down, for the pencil where it had rolled beneath her bed. Such a fuss over what was surely her most disappointing Dream to date, but she dutifully noted it down in the diary she kept by her bed:

→Sophia emerged from Dream into her dark bedchamber and fumbled about for the lamp, momentarily disoriented at not being able to simply think the light into existence. Her groping fingers knocked the pencil lying on her bedside table to the floor just as they found the lamp’s round base. She should have left it burning no matter how long this Dream might take.

→He thought I should be beholden to him, that I should be grateful for his intervention on my behalf, she thought, and that infuriated her all over again. She didn’t need the War Office’s approval or good will. She needed to see Lord Endicott brought low. She needed the world to see what evil hid behind that beautiful face. And she needed him to know she was the architect of his destruction.

→The encounter had left her as angry as her dance with Lord Endicott had, though in a completely different way. How Mr. Rutledge could expect her to work for someone who believed her either a liar or unstable was a complete mystery. No, she had been inaccurate in making that claim; he simply believed her to be wrong, and she probably should not hate him for that, since it was true there was no shame in being mistaken. But she knew she was not wrong, knew it the way she knew what her Dreams meant, and that was what ate at her, because she could have endured making a genuine mistake.

→Sophia watched him until he was a few yards away, then came to her senses and went to Cecy’s carriage. “Don’t leave yet,” she said to Peter, and kept her eyes on the tall retreating figure until he reached the end of the street and turned left out of her sight. “All right,” Sophia said. She scooted down in her seat in case they passed him, but the barouche turned right instead of left and Sophia could breathe more easily.

→Mr. Rutledge’s lips thinned as he pressed them hard together, probably trying to contain the words that wanted to escape his tongue. “As you wish. It seems the War Office was right. Forgive my importunacies.” He took a few steps away from Sophia and bowed, raising his hat to reveal dark hair swept back from his brow, then turned and walked away up Jermyn Street.

→Now it was Sophia who had to struggle to control her desire to shout at him. “Mr. Rutledge,” she said, after a moment’s tense silence, “you and I have never met before this day. You do not know me, and I am at a loss to understand why you believe you do. I will do you the courtesy of accepting that you mean me no insult in choosing to disbelieve my story. After all, everyone else feels the same; why should you be different? But this means that you can only think of me in one of two ways: either I am a liar, or I am deluded, and I cannot accept a close association with anyone who believes me to be one of those. So I must decline your offer and ask you not to approach me again, because my mind will not change however you renew your request.”

→“I—” Mr. Rutledge stopped. He appeared to be controlling his impulse to shout. “Mrs. Westlake,” he continued in a calmer voice, “I wish I could tell you the details of how you have assisted me in the past. I believe it would convince you of my sincerity in offering you this position. We need never speak of your service with the War Office again, if that would satisfy you. I know you. You have a passion for justice that I believe would be put to good use in working for my employer. Please reconsider.”

→“I believe, in your eyes, I am making another mistake. I wonder you can have any need of my services at all, if you believe me to be so entirely in the wrong.”

→“Perhaps you should have spoken to me before you wasted all of that effort,” Sophia said. “I am not so desperate that I will go crawling back to a government that thinks so poorly of me. I have no need of your offer, sir, and if repudiating what I know to be true is what it will take to reclaim my reputation, then I would rather the War Office continue to consider me unreliable.”