10 short stories O. Henry. Книга для чтения на английском языке. Неадаптированный текст

The meal had been an unexpected one |Еда получилась неожиданной|. He was passing a red brick mansion near the beginning of Fifth avenue, in which lived two old ladies of ancient family and a reverence |с глубоким уважением| for traditions. They even denied the existence of New York, and believed that Thanksgiving Day was declared solely for Washington Square |квартал Нью-Йорка, где две старые леди и жили|. One of their traditional habits was to station |поставить| a servant at the postern gate |у задних ворот| with orders to admit |впустить| the first hungry wayfarer |путника| that came along after the hour of noon had struck, and banquet him to a finish |и накормить его до потери пульса|. Stuffy Pete happened |так случилось, что| to pass by on his way to the park, and the seneschals |сенешаль, он же швейцар| gathered him in and upheld the custom of the castle.

After Stuffy Pete had gazed straight before him for ten minutes he was conscious of a desire for a more varied field of vision |к нему пришло желание расширить кругозор|. With a tremendous effort he moved his head slowly to the left. And then his eyes bulged out fearfully |его глаза выкатились от страха|, and his breath ceased, and the rough-shod ends of his short legs wriggled and rustled on the gravel |и его ступни, обутые в грубую обувь, задергались по гравию|.

For the Old Gentleman |For здесь никак не переводится| was coming across Fourth avenue toward his bench.

Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years the Old Gentleman had come there and found Stuffy Pete on his bench. That was a thing that the Old Gentleman was trying to make a tradition of. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had found Stuffy there, and had led him |отводил его| to a restaurant and watched him eat a big dinner. They do those things in England unconsciously. But this is a young country, and nine years is not so bad. The Old Gentleman was a staunch |преданный| American patriot, and considered himself a pioneer |«пионер» в смысле первооткрыватель| in American tradition. In order to become picturesque we must keep on doing one thing for a long time without ever letting it get away from us. Something like collecting the weekly dimes in industrial insurance |сбора еженедельных десятицентовых взносов в промышленном страховании|. Or cleaning the streets.

The Old Gentleman moved |двигался или приближался|, straight and stately, toward the Institution that he was rearing |он пестовал|. Truly, the annual feeding of Stuffy Pete was nothing national in its character, such as the Magna Charta |Великая Хартия| or jam for breakfast was in England. But it was a step. It was almost feudal |феодальное|. It showed, at least |по крайней мере|, that a Custom was not impossible to New Y —ahem! – America |в Нью-Й.., хм, в Америке|.

The Old Gentleman was thin and tall and sixty. He was dressed all in black, and wore the old-fashioned kind of glasses that won’t stay on your nose. His hair was whiter and thinner than it had been last year, and he seemed to make more use of his big, knobby cane |сучковатая трость| with the crooked handle.