lady_H: переводы

→‘I expect there was plenty of material around the place, unless Rubber Ramkin tidied up after himself,’ said Vimes.

→The tour continued, across meadows of what Vimes decided to call cows and around fields of standing corn. They navigated their way around a ha-ha, kept their distance from the ho-ho and completely ignored the he-he, then climbed a gentle path up a hill on which was planted a grove of beech trees and from which you could see practically everywhere, and certainly to the end of the universe, but that probably involved looking straight up with no beech trees in the way. It was even possible to make out the tall cloud of smoke and fumes that rose from the city of Ankh-Morpork.

→This time it was Willikins who interrupted his master. ‘And then there was the flying machine, of course. Her ladyship’s late brother put a lot of work into the project, but it never got off the ground. Flying without a broomstick or a magic spell was his goal, but regrettably he fell victim to the outbreak of crisms, poor lad. There’s a model of it in the nursery, as a matter of fact. It runs on rubber bands.’

→‘Who can imagine his joy when the inevitable apple fell and a second apple was seen rising from the tree and disappearing at speed into the vaults of heaven, proving the hypothesis that what goes up must come down, provided that what goes down must come up, thus safeguarding the equilibrium of the universe. Regrettably, this only works with apples and, amazingly, only the apples on this one tree, Malus equilibria! I hear someone has worked out that the apples at the top of the tree fill with gas and fly up when the tree is disturbed so that it can set its seeds some way off. Wonderful thing, nature, shame the fruit tastes like dog’s business,’ Willikins added as Young Sam spat some out. ‘To tell you the truth, commander, I wouldn’t give you tuppence for a lot of the upper classes I’ve met, especially in the city, but some of them in these old country houses changed the world for the better. Like Turnip Ramkin, who revolutionized agriculture …’

→‘Nevertheless, young Woolsthorpe persevered in his studies of natural philosophy in the way a gentleman should, by digging into any suspicious-looking burial mounds he could find in the neighbourhood, filling up his lizard press with as many rare species as he could collect, and drying samples of any flowers he could find before they became extinct. The story runs that, on one warm summer day, he dozed off under an apple tree and was awakened when an apple fell on his head. A lesser man, as his biographer put it, would have seen nothing untoward about this, but Woolsthorpe surmised that, since apples and practically everything else always fell down, then the world would eventually become dangerously unbalanced … unless there was another agency involved that natural philosophy had yet to discover. He lost no time in dragging one of the footmen to the orchard and ordering him, on pain of dismissal, to lie under the tree until an apple hit him on the head! The possibility of this happening was increased by another footman who had been told by Woolsthorpe to shake the tree vigorously until the required apple fell. Woolsthorpe was ready to observe this from a distance.

→‘The little boy will want to see this,’ Willikins said enthusiastically. ‘Saw it myself when I was the boot boy. Totally changed the way I thought about the world. The third earl, “Mad” Jack Ramkin, had a brother called Woolsthorpe, probably for his sins. He was something of a scholar and would have been sent to the university to become a wizard were it not for the fact that his brother let it be known that any male sibling of his who took up a profession that involved wearing a dress would be disinherited with a cleaver.

→Willikins looked up into the trees and replied, thoughtfully, ‘It looks as though there’ll be a lot of conkers this year, commander, and if you don’t mind me suggesting it, you might think of bringing this young lad down here when they start falling. I was the dead-rat conkers champion for years when I was a kid, until I found out that the real things grew on trees and didn’t squish so easily. As for your question,’ he went on, ‘I think Sam Vimes is at his best when he’s confident that he’s Sam Vimes. Good grief, and they are fruiting early this year!’

→‘It’s snobbishness and I don’t like it,’ Vimes said.

→They were now walking across an ornamental bridge, over what was probably the trout stream and, Vimes assumed, a tributary of Old Treachery, a name whose origin he had yet to comprehend. Two men and one little boy, walking over a bridge that might be carrying crowds, and carts and horses. The world seemed unbalanced.

→‘Watched them, sir. In the good old days when her ladyship’s granddad was alive he made certain that the whole staff of Scoone Avenue came down here with the family in the summer. As you know, I’m not much of a scholar and, truth to tell, neither are you, but when you grow up on the street you learn fast because if you don’t learn fast you’re dead.’

→It was Willikins who found the mental space to say, ‘You keep your great-grandfather’s skull in a cave?’

→Willikins cleared his throat, and said, ‘I think this is the hermit, commander.’

→Young Sam did not need very much in the way of entertainment. In fact he made his own entertainment, manufacturing it in large quantities out of observations of the landscape, the stories that had lulled him to sleep at bedtime last night, or some butterfly thought that had just sped across his mind, and, increasingly, he’d talk about Mister Whistle, who lived in a house in a tree but was sometimes a dragon. He also had a big boot and didn’t like Wednesdays because they smell funny and he had a rainbrella.

→‘And were all named Tom?’ said Vimes.

→‘That would be Long Tom, Short Tom and Tom Tom,’ said Jiminy, reaching for some mugs. ‘Decent lads – triplets, as it happens. They earn their keep but, as you might say, they shared one brain out between all three of them and it wasn’t that good a brain to start with. Very good when it comes to scaring crows, though.’

→Jiminy busied himself with the dozens of little tasks that a barman can always find to do, while occasionally glancing at his single customer. Vimes thought for a moment and said, ‘Can you take a pint to those gentlemen outside, Mister Jiminy, and put a brandy in each one so that a man knows he’s drinking something?’

→Vimes leaned on the counter, inexplicably at peace. The wall over the bar was hung with the heads of dead animals, particularly those possessed of antlers and fangs, but it came as a shock to spot, in the grubby light, a goblin’s head. I’m on holiday, he thought, and that probably happened a long time ago, ancient history, and he left it at that.

→Jiminy winked at Vimes, who held out his hand and said, ‘Then I’ll happily shake the hand of a republican!’

→There was another nod and the man disappeared briefly behind the scenes and came back with a large glass overflowing with red foam. ‘There you go,’ he said, putting it carefully on the bar. ‘We don’t put it in pewter because it does something to the metal. This one is on the house, sir. My name is Jiminy, landlord of the Goblin’s Head. I dare say I know yours. My daughter is a maid at the big house, and I treat every man alike, the reason being that the publican is a friend to any man with money in his pockets and also, if the whim takes him, perhaps even to those who temporarily find themselves stony broke, which does not, at the moment, include them three herberts outside. The publican sees all men after a couple of pints, and sees no reason to discriminate.’

→‘Well, I’ve always thought of myself as a regular kind of person,’ said Vimes. ‘Give me a pint – no, make that half a pint, thanks.’