While I was much interested in Dejah Thoris' explanation of this wonderful adjunct to Martian warfare, I was more concerned by the immediate problem of their treatment of her. That they were keeping her away from me was not a matter for surprise, but that they should subject her to dangerous and arduous labor filled me with rage.
"Have they ever subjected you to cruelty and ignominy, Dejah Thoris?" I asked, feeling the hot blood of my fighting ancestors leap in my veins as I awaited her reply.
"Only in little ways (только в мелочах), John Carter," she answered. "Nothing that can harm me outside my pride (ничего, что могло бы ранить меня, за исключением моей гордости;
straight [streIt], horrid ['hOrId], wreak [ri: k]
"Only in little ways, John Carter," she answered. "Nothing that can harm me outside my pride. They know that I am the daughter of ten thousand jeddaks, that I trace my ancestry straight back without a break to the builder of the first great waterway, and they, who do not even know their own mothers, are jealous of me. At heart they hate their horrid fates, and so wreak their poor spite on me who stand for everything they have not, and for all they most crave and never can attain. Let us pity them, my chieftain, for even though we die at their hands we can afford them pity, since we are greater than they and they know it."
Had I known the significance of those words "my chieftain" (если бы я знал значение этих слов «мой вождь»), as applied by a red Martian woman to a man (/которые/ красная марсианская женщина применяет по отношению к мужчине), I should have had the surprise of my life (то это было бы самой большой неожиданностью в моей жизни), but I did not know at that time (но в то время я этого не знал), nor for many months thereafter (/и узнал/ лишь много месяцев спустя). Yes, I still had much to learn upon Barsoom (да, мне предстояло еще многое узнать на Барсуме).