| Beyond the Hostel, the great pile of the House of Christopoulos stood massively against the gray, star-starved sky. | Позади Приюта высился массив Дома Кристопулоса на фоне серого, с бледнеющими звездами неба. |
| It had been patterned after the Parthenon, but in the distance-decimated sunlight its noble Doric columns and magnificent entablature tools on a pale cast that was out of keeping with the trabeate architecture. | Дом был скопирован с Парфенона, но в бледном солнечном свете утра благородные дорические колонны и великолепные антаблементы казались какими-то ненастоящими, надуманными. |
| And while the force-field that played darkly between the columns let in what little light there was, it gave back nothing in return. | И сквозь силовое поле, мрачно светящееся между колоннами, было видно, как мало света там, внутри. |
| The over-all effect was one of Gothic gloom. | Там стоял какой-то готический мрак. |
| Usually the House awoke vague longings in the deeps of Matthew North's being. | Обычно Дом будил какую-то неосознанную тоску в глубине души Мэтью Норта. |
| Today it did not -perhaps because he was not really seeing it. | Но сегодня этого не случилось, может, потому, что он не видел его. |
| He was seeing the girls he had known instead - the girls he had slept with down through the decades, some of whom were old and withered women now, and some of whom had lain for centuries dead. | А видел он знакомых девушек, девушек, с которыми спал прошедшие десятилетия. |
| The pretty little call girls he had had with the sweet sad swiftness of a hummingbird's flight and then had known no more ... and now the room that summer dresses in new bloom was empty, and only the sporadic fluttering of the window curtains betrayed the presence of their ghosts. | Некоторые из них стали уже иссохшими старухами, а некоторые много веков лежали в могилах. Симпатичные девчонки по вызову, с которыми он проводил встречи, мимолетные и стремительные, точно полет колибри, а потом больше никогда их не видел... А теперь комната была пуста, и только трепетание оконных занавесок выдавало их призрачное присутствие. |
| It was as well, perhaps-who knew? | Так ли это было - кто знает? |
| Matthew North sighed, and walked past the tavern doors agape. | Мэтью Норт вздохнул и прошел мимо удивленных дверей таверны. |
| He avoided the expectant looks of the villagers - the villagers whose function it was to cater to him during his layover and see to it that he wanted for nothing, and beneath whose breasts pulsed not hearts but tiny motors that never ran down, and behind whose welcoming eyes dwelled not memories but memory banks. |
