All Flesh is Grass

— Никто, надо думать."

"“Brad,” he said, almost kindly, “don't be a complete damn fool. Pick up that envelope and put it in your pocket. Come back some other time and talk with me—any time you want. I have a hunch there may be a lot of things we'll want to talk about.”

I reached out my hand and picked up the money. I stuffed it in my pocket.

— Брэд,  — сказал Шервуд почти ласково,  — не валяй дурака, черт тебя дери. Возьми-ка этот конверт и сунь в карман. Приходи когда-нибудь еще. Как захочешь, так и приходи  — посидим, потолкуем.

Чует мое сердце, что нам найдется о чем потолковать.

Я протянул руку и взял деньги. И сунул в карман.

“Thank you, sir,” I said.

“Don't mention it,” he told me. He raised a hand. “Be seeing you,” he said.

— Спасибо, сэр.

— Не стоит благодарности,  — сказал он и помахал рукой на прощанье.  — Еще увидимся.

4

I WENT slowly down the hall and there was no sign of Nancy, nor was she on the porch, where I had half expected to find her waiting for me.

She had said yes, that I would see her later, that we had a lot to talk about, and I had thought, of course, that she meant tonight. But she might not have meant tonight. She might have meant some other time than this. Or she might have wafted and then grown tired of waiting. After all, I had spent a long time with her father.

Я медленно прошел через прихожую  — Нэнси нигде не было видно, ее не оказалось и на веранде, а я-то надеялся, что она меня там ждет. Она ведь сказала  — да, попозже увидимся, нам надо о многом поговорить, и я, конечно, решил, что это значит  — попозже сегодня же вечером.

А может, она совсем этого не думала. Может, она думала  — как-нибудь в другой раз. Или, может, она меня ждала, а потом ей надоело. Я ведь и правда очень засиделся у ее отца.

The moon had risen in a cloudless sky and there was not a breath of breeze. The great oaks stood like graven monuments and the summer night was filled with the glittering of moonbeams. I walked down the stairs and stood for a moment at their foot and it seemed for all the world that I was standing in a circle of enchantment.

For this, I thought, could not be the old, familiar earth, this place of ghostly, brooding oaken sentinels, this air so drenched with moonlight, this breathless, waiting silence hanging over all, and the faint, other-world perfume that hung above the soft blackness of the ground.

В безоблачном небе взошла луна, в тиши  — ни ветерка.