All Flesh is Grass

Но откуда он, спрашивается, взялся? И для чего это нужно  — не пускать к нам или не выпускать от нас ни одно живое существо?!

А между тем Милвилл просыпался.

I watched Floyd Caldwell come out on his back porch, dressed in his undershirt and a pair of pants with the suspenders hanging. Except for old Doc Fabian, Floyd was the only man in Millville who ever wore suspenders. But while old Doc wore sedate and narrow black ones, Floyd wore a pair that was broad and red. Floyd was the barber and he took a lot of kidding about his red suspenders, but Floyd didn't mind.

Вышел на заднее крыльцо наш парикмахер Флойд Колдуэлл  — без пиджака, подтяжки болтаются. Во всем Милвилле, кроме доктора Фабиана, один только Флойд ходит в подтяжках. Но у старика доктора они черные и узкие, как и подобает человеку степенному, а Флойд щеголяет в широченных и притом ярко-красных. Все, кому не лень, острят насчет этих его красных подтяжек, но Флойд не обижается.

He was the village smart guy and he worked at it all the time and it probably was all right, for it brought him a lot of trade from out in the farming country.

Он у нас малый не промах, сам первый остряк  — и, видно, не зря старается: прославился на всю округу, от клиентов отбою нет, фермеры, которые с таким же успехом могли бы постричься в Кун Вэли, предпочитают съездить к нам в Милвилл, лишь бы послушать шуточки Флойда и поглядеть, как он валяет дурака.

Floyd stood out on the back porch and stretched his arms and yawned. Then he took a close look at the weather and he scratched his ribs. Down the street a woman called the family dog and in a little while I heard the flat snap of a screen door shutting and I knew the dog was in.

Стоя на заднем крыльце, Флойд потянулся и зевнул. Потом поглядел на небо  — какова будет погода?  — и почесал бок. Где-то в конце улицы женский голос позвал собаку, и немного погодя хлопнула дверь  — значит, собака прибежала на зов.

It was strange, I thought, that there'd been no alarm. Perhaps it was because few people as yet knew about the barrier.

Perhaps the few who had found out about it were still a little numb. Perhaps most of them couldn't quite believe it. Maybe they were afraid, as I was, to make too much fuss about it until they knew something more about it.

But it couldn't last for long, this morning calm.