Английский язык с Марком Твеном. Принц и нищий / Mark Twain. The Prince and the Pauper

'I (я)? Who should I be, but thy sister Nan (кем мне быть, как не твоей сестрой Нэн)? Oh, Tom, I had forgot (ох, Том, я забыла)! Thou'rt mad yet (ты безумен еще) — poor lad thou'rt mad yet (бедный мальчик, ты безумен еще), would I had never woke to know it again (чтобы мне не проснуться чтобы узнать это)! But, prithee (но прошу тебя), master thy tongue (держи свой язык за зубами: «владей своим языком»), lest we be all beaten till we die (чтобы мы не были забиты до смерти: «пока мы не умрем»)!'

The startled prince sprang partly up (испуганный принц вскочил частично), but a sharp reminder from his stiffened bruises brought him to himself (но резкое напоминание от его болящих синяков вернуло его к себе = привело его в сознание; to stiffen — затвердевать) and he sunk back among his foul straw with a moan and the ejaculation (и он упал обратно среди своей зловонной соломы со стоном и восклицанием):

'Alas (увы), it was no dream, then (это был не сон, тогда = в таком случае)!'

In a moment all the heavy sorrow and misery which sleep had banished were upon him again (через мгновение вся тяжелая грусть и страдание, которые сон прогнал, были на нем опять), and he realized that he was no longer a petted prince in a palace (и он осознал, что он не был больше обласканным принцем во дворце), with the adoring eyes of a nation upon him (под обожающим взглядом народа: «с обожающими глазами нации на нем»), but a pauper (но нищим), an outcast (изгоем), clothed in rags (одетым в лохмотья), prisoner in a den fit only for beasts (узником в конуре, подходящей только для зверей), and consorting with beggars and thieves (и якшающимся с попрошайками и ворами).

scarcely [`skeəslı], bruise [bru:z], failure [`feıljə]

By this time she had crept to the slumbering boy's side, with the candle shaded in her hand. She bent heedfully and warily over him, scarcely breathing, in her suppressed excitement, and suddenly flashed the light in his face and struck the floor by his ear with her knuckles. The sleeper's eyes sprung wide open, and he cast a startled stare about him — but he made no special movement with his hands.

The poor woman was smitten almost helpless with surprise and grief; but she contrived to hide her emotions, and to soothe the boy to sleep again; then she crept apart and communed miserably with herself upon the disastrous result of her experiment. She tried to believe that her Tom's madness had banished this habitual gesture of his; but she could not do it. 'No,' she said, 'his hands are not mad, they could not unlearn so old a habit in so brief a time. Oh, this is a heavy day for me!'

Still, hope was as stubborn now as doubt had been before; she could not bring herself to accept the verdict of the test; she must try the thing again — the failure must have been only an accident; so she startled the boy out of his sleep a second and a third time, at intervals — with the same result which had marked the first test — then she dragged herself to bed, and fell sorrowfully asleep, saying, 'But I cannot give him up — oh, no, I cannot — he must be my boy!'