| "Или вдовец, или живет не в ладах с женой". |
| He watched his son run down to the water, then coughed and again began to speak, and I listened with all my attention. | Но вот он, проводив глазами сынишку, глухо покашлял, снова заговорил, и я весь превратился в слух. |
| "To start with, my life was just ordinary. | - Поначалу жизнь моя была обыкновенная. |
| I'm from the Voronezh Province, born there in 1900. | Сак я уроженец Воронежской губернии, с тысяча девятьсотого года рождения. |
| During the Civil War I was in the Red Army, in Kikvidze's division. | В гражданскую войну был в Красной Армии, в дивизии Киквидзе. |
| In the famine of 'twenty-two I struck out for the Kuban and worked like an ox for the kulaks, wouldn't be alive today if I hadn't. | В голодный двадцать второй год подался на Кубань, ишачить на кулаков, потому и уцелел. |
| But my whole family back home, father, mother and sister, starved to death. | А отец с матерью и сестренкой дома померли от голода. |
| So I was left alone. | Остался один. |
| As for relatives anywhere, I hadn't got a single one, not a soul. | Родни - хоть шаром покати, - нигде, никого, ни одной души. |
| Well, after a year I came back from the Kuban, sold my cottage and went to Voronezh. | Ну, через год вернулся с Кубани, хатенку продал, поехал в Воронеж. |
| First I worked as a carpenter, then I went to a factory and learned to be a fitter. | Поначалу работал в плотницкой артели, потом пошел на завод, выучился на слесаря. |
| And soon I got married. | Вскорости женился. |
| My wife had been brought up in a children's home. | Жена воспитывалась в детском доме. |
| She was an orphan. | Сиротка. |
| Yes, I got a good woman there! | Хорошая попалась мне девка! |
| Good-tempered, cheerful, always anxious to please. And smart she was, too-no comparison with me. | Смирная веселая, угодливая и умница, не мне чета. |
| She had known what real trouble was since she was a kid. I dare say that had an effect on her character. | Она с детства узнала, почем фунт лиха стоит, может, это и сказалось на ее характере. |
| Just looking at her from the side, as you might say, she wasn't all that striking, but, you see, I wasn't looking at her from the side, I was looking straight at her. | Со стороны глядеть - не так уж она была из себя видная, но ведь я-то не со стороны на нее глядел, а в упор. |
| And for me there was no more beautiful woman in the whole world, and there never will be. | И не было для меня красивее и желанней ее, не было на свете и не будет! |
| "I'd come home from work tired, and badtempered as hell sometimes. |
