Кентервильское привидение | страница 10



Желаемый эффект после первого же употребления. Последнее подтверждают наши известнейшие священнослужители, в чем вы можете самолично удостовериться, ознакомившись с этикеткой.
I shall leave it here for you by the bedroom candles, and will be happy to supply you with more, should you require it."Я оставлю бутылочку на столике около канделябра и почту за честь снабжать вас вышеозначенным средством по мере надобности.
With these words the United States Minister laid the bottle down on a marble table, and, closing his door, retired to rest.С этими словами посол Соединенных Штатов поставил флакон на мраморный столик и, закрыв за собой дверь, улегся в постель.
For a moment the Canterville ghost stood quite motionless in natural indignation; then, dashing the bottle violently upon the polished floor, he fled down the corridor, uttering hollow groans, and emitting a ghastly green light.Кентервильское привидение так и замерло от возмущения. Затем, хватив в гневе бутылку о паркет, оно ринулось по коридору, излучая зловещее зеленое сияние и глухо стеная.
Just, however, as he reached the top of the great oak staircase, a door was flung open, two little white-robed figures appeared, and a large pillow whizzed past his head!Но едва оно ступило на верхнюю площадку широкой дубовой лестницы, как из распахнувшейся двери выскочили две белые фигурки, и огромная подушка просвистела у него над головой.
There was evidently no time to be lost, so, hastily adopting the Fourth dimension of Space as a means of escape, he vanished through the wainscoting, and the house became quite quiet.Времени терять не приходилось и, прибегнув спасения ради к четвертому измерению, дух скрылся в деревянной панели стены. В доме все стихло.
On reaching a small secret chamber in the left wing, he leaned up against a moonbeam to recover his breath, and began to try and realize his position.Добравшись до потайной каморки в левом крыле замка, привидение прислонилось к лунному лучу и, немного отдышавшись, начало обдумывать свое положение.
Never, in a brilliant and uninterrupted career of three hundred years, had he been so grossly insulted.Ни разу за всю его славную и безупречную трехсотлетнюю службу его так не оскорбляли.
He thought of the Dowager Duchess, whom he had frightened into a fit as she stood before the glass in her lace and diamonds; of the four housemaids, who had gone into hysterics when he merely grinned at them through the curtains on one of the spare bedrooms; of the rector of the parish, whose candle he had blown out as he was coming late one night from the library, and who had been under the care of Sir William Gull ever since, a perfect martyr to nervous disorders; and of old Madame de Tremouillac, who, having wakened up one morning early and seen a skeleton seated in an armchair by the fire reading her diary, had been confined to her bed for six weeks with an attack of brain fever, and, on her recovery, had become reconciled to the Church, and broken off her connection with that notorious sceptic, Monsieur de Voltaire.