Английский язык с П. Треверс. Мэри Поппинс / P. L. Travers: Mary Poppins

Michael had the compass so the picture is for you. Au revoir.

MARY POPPINS

She read it out loud till she came to the words she couldn’t understand.

“Mrs Brill!” she called. “What does ‘au revoir’ mean?”

“Au revore, dearie?” shrieked Mrs Brill from the next room. “Why, doesn’t it mean — let me see, I’m not up in these foreign tongues — doesn’t it mean ‘God bless you’? No. No, I’m wrong. I think, Miss Jane dear, it means ‘To Meet Again’.”

Jane and Michael looked at each other. Joy and understanding shone in their eyes. They knew what Mary Poppins meant.

Michael gave a long sigh of relief. “That’s all right,” he said shakily. “She always does what she says she will.” He turned away.

“Michael, are you crying?” Jane asked.

He twisted his head and tried to smile at her.

“No, I am not,” he said. “It is only my eyes.”

She pushed him gently towards his bed, and as he got in she slipped the portrait of Mary Poppins into his hand — hurriedly, in case she should regret it.

“You have it for tonight, darling,” whispered Jane, and she tucked him in just as Mary Poppins used to do…

Postscript ( эпилог )

“If you are looking for autobiographical facts (если вы ищете автобиографические факты),” P. L. Travers once wrote (Памела Треверс однажды написала), “Mary Poppins is the story of my life («МэриПоппинс — история моей жизни»).” This seems rather unlikely (это кажется довольно невероятным / неправдоподобным), when you consider (если вы учитываете) that Mary Poppins goes inside a chalk pavement picture (что Мэри Поппинс входит в меловую картину на тротуаре), slides up banisters (скользит вверх по перилам), arranges tea-parties on the ceiling (устраивает чаепития на потолке) and has a carpet bag (и имеет ковровую сумку) which is both empty and — at the same time — contains many strange but useful objects (которая одновременно пустая ивтожевремя содержит много странных, но полезных вещей). And yet memories of people and events from her life did find their way into the Mary Poppins stories (и однако воспоминания о людях и событиях из ее жизни нашли свой путь в рассказах Мэри Поппинс) — not that most people were aware of that (правда, большинство людей не знали об этом). Even those of us (даже те из нас) who were her friends knew little about her private life (кто были ее друзьями, знали немного о ее личной жизни).

One thing we did know was that (одно, что мы знали — это то), as a child growing up in Australia (что как ребенок, выросший в Австралии), she had fallen in love with the fairy-tales, myths and legends (она влюбилась в сказки, мифы и легенды) from which she later borrowed some of the ideas and images found in her own books (из которых она позднее заимствовала некоторые из идей и образов, найденных в ее собственных книгах). Her passion for reading naturally led her to become a storyteller (ее страсть к чтению естественно привела ее к тому, что она стала рассказчицей), beginning her writing career as a journalist and poet some years before she wrote her first full-length novel (начав свою писательскую карьеру в качестве журналиста и поэтессы за несколько лет до того, как она написала свой первый солидный роман; full-lenth — «полнойпротяженности»). It was in one of her earliest stories (это было в одном из ее ранних рассказов) — written before she left Australia for Britain in 1924 (написанном перед тем, как она покинула Австралию ради Британии = переезжаю в Британию в 1924) — that a character appeared named Mary Poppins (появился персонаж, которого звали Мэри Поппинс). She was neither magical nor particularly memorable (она была ни магической, ни особенно запоминающейся), but the author had found a name (но автор обнаружил имя) that she would one day give to somebody else (которое она однажды даст кому-то еще)…

autobiographical ['O:tquֽbaIqu'græfIk(q)l] Australia [Os'treIljq] character ['kærIktq]

“If you are looking for autobiographical facts,” P. L. Travers once wrote, “Mary Poppins is the story of my life.” This seems rather unlikely, when you consider that Mary Poppins goes inside a chalk pavement picture, slides up banisters, arranges tea-parties on the ceiling and has a carpet bag which is both empty and — at the same time — contains many strange but useful objects. And yet memories of people and events from her life did find their way into the Mary Poppins stories — not that most people were aware of that. Even those of us who were her friends knew little about her private life.