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| The seal immediately rose up on its tail right into the air as high as a boat's mast, and looked so evilly and viciously at him with its bloodshot eyes, at the same time showing its grinning teeth, that Elias thought he should have died on the spot for sheer fright. | И вдруг - ах незадача! - тюлень встал на дыбы, опираясь на хвост, высокий, как мачта, и вперил в него налитые кровью глаза, обнажив зубы в такой дьявольской и злобной усмешке, что Элиас едва с ума не сошел от страха. |
| Then it plunged into the sea, and lashed the water into bloody foam behind it. | Потом он нырнул в море и исчез под водой, оставляя за собой кровавый след. |
| Elias didn't stop to see more, but that same evening there drifted into the boat place on Kvalcreek, on which his house stood, a Kvejtepole, with the hooked iron head snapped off. | Больше Элиас его не видел; но в тот же день отломанное древко гарпуна без железного наконечника прибило к берегу рядом с лодкой, привязанной недалеко от дома. |
| Elias thought no more about it, but in the course of the autumn he bought his Sexaering, for which he had been building a little boat-shed the whole summer. | Элиас вскоре забыл о тюлене. Той же осенью он купил шестивесельную лодку и поставил ее в сарай, который построил за лето. |
| One night as he lay awake, thinking of his new Sexaering, it occurred to him that his boat would balance better, perhaps, if he stuck an extra log of wood on each side of it. | Однажды ночью он лежал и думал о своей новой лодке, как вдруг ему пришло в голову, что для верности нужно поставить под нее дополнительные подпорки. |
| He was so absurdly fond of the boat that it was a mere pastime for him to light a lantern and go down to have a look at it. | Он питал нелепую привязанность к лодке, поэтому ему ничего не стоило встать, зажечь фонарь и спуститься к ней на берег. |
| Now as he stood looking at it there by the light of the lantern, he suddenly caught a glimpse in the corner opposite, on a coil of nets, of a face which exactly resembled the seal's. | Войдя в сарай, он поднял над головой фонарь и внезапно заметил на сваленных в углу сетях лицо, удивительно напоминающее морду того тюленя. |
| For an instant it grinned savagely at him and the light, its mouth all the time growing larger and larger; and then a big man whisked out of the door, not so quickly, however, but that Elias could catch a glimpse, by the light of the lantern, of a long iron hooked spike sticking out of his back. |
