| "Помпея", в здании отеля Торнлей, и всякий раз, проходя мимо парикмахерской Ривс-Билдинг, чувствовал, что изменяет, родной деревне. |
| Now, as one of the squirearchy, greeted with honorable salutations by the villagers, he marched into his office, and peace and dignity were upon him, and the morning's dissonances all unheard. | Но сейчас его, как представителя касты хозяев, почтительно приветствовали местные жители, и он проследовал в свою контору, важный и спокойный, словно неприятности никогда и не начинались. |
| They were heard again, immediately. | Впрочем, они тут же начались снова. |
| Stanley Graff, the outside salesman, was talking on the telephone with tragic lack of that firm manner which disciplines clients: | Стэнли Грэф, разъездной агент, разговаривал по телефону тем катастрофически неубедительным тоном, который никак не может воздействовать на клиента: |
| "Say, uh, I think I got just the house that would suit you-the Percival House, in Linton.... | "М-мм - так вот... понимаете... есть у меня для вас подходящий дом - Персиваль-Хауз, в Линтоне. |
| Oh, you've seen it. | Ах, видели? |
| Well, how'd it strike you?... | Ну, как он вам понравился?.. |
| Huh? ...Oh," irresolutely, "oh, I see." | Что?.. Мммм-н-да... - и уж совсем нерешительно: - М-м... понятно..." |
| As Babbitt marched into his private room, a coop with semi-partition of oak and frosted glass, at the back of the office, he reflected how hard it was to find employees who had his own faith that he was going to make sales. | И, проходя в свой кабинетик - вернее, небольшой закуток, отделенный от общего помещения дубовой перегородкой с матовым стеклом, -Бэббит подумал, как трудно найти помощников, которые с такой же уверенностью, как он сам, умели бы уговорить покупателя. |
| There were nine members of the staff, besides Babbitt and his partner and father-in-law, Henry Thompson, who rarely came to the office. The nine were Stanley Graff, the outside salesman-a youngish man given to cigarettes and the playing of pool; old Mat Penniman, general utility man, collector of rents and salesman of insurance-broken, silent, gray; a mystery, reputed to have been a "crack" real-estate man with a firm of his own in haughty Brooklyn; Chester Kirby Laylock, resident salesman out at the Glen Oriole acreage development-an enthusiastic person with a silky mustache and much family; Miss Theresa McGoun, the swift and rather pretty stenographer; Miss Wilberta Bannigan, the thick, slow, laborious accountant and file-clerk; and four freelance part-time commission salesmen. |
