Рэй Бредбери. И грянул гром

(звук грома)

Рассказ адаптировала Наталья Федченко

Метод чтения Ильи Франка

Метод чтения Ильи Франка

Каждый текст разбит на небольшие отрывки. Сначала идет адаптированный отрывок - текст с вкрапленным в него дословным русским переводом и небольшим лексическим комментарием. Затем следует тот же текст, но уже неадаптированный, без подсказок.

Конечно, сначала на вас хлынет поток неизвестных слов и форм. Этого не нужно бояться: никто никого по ним не экзаменует. По мере чтения (пусть это произойдет хоть в середине или даже в конце книги) все «утрясется», и вы будете, пожалуй, удивляться: «Ну зачем опять дается перевод, зачем опять приводится исходная форма слова, все ведь и так понятно!» Когда наступает такой момент, «когда и так понятно», стоит уже читать наоборот: сначала неадаптированную часть, а потом заглядывать в адаптированную. (Этот же способ чтения можно рекомендовать и тем, кто осваивает язык не с нуля.)

Язык по своей природе - средство, а не цель, поэтому он лучше всего усваивается не тогда, когда его специально учат, а когда им естественно пользуются - либо в живом общении, либо погрузившись в занимательное чтение. Тогда он учится сам собой, подспудно.

Наша память тесно связана с тем, что мы чувствуем в какой-либо конкретный момент, зависит от нашего внутреннего состояния, от того, насколько мы «разбужены» сейчас (а не от того, например, сколько раз мы повторим какую-нибудь фразу или сколько выполним упражнений).

Для запоминания нужна не сонная, механическая зубрежка или вырабатывание каких-то навыков, а новизна впечатлений. Чем несколько раз повторить слово, лучше повстречать его в разных сочетаниях и в разных смысловых контекстах. Основная масса общеупотребительной лексики при том чтении, которое вам предлагается, запоминается без зубрежки, естественно - за счет повторяемости слов. Поэтому, прочитав текст, не нужно стараться заучить слова из него. «Пока не усвою, не пойду дальше» - этот принцип здесь не подходит. Чем интенсивнее человек будет читать, чем быстрее бежать вперед - тем лучше. В данном случае, как ни странно, чем поверхностнее, чем расслабленнее, тем лучше. И тогда объем материала делает свое дело, количество переходит в качество. Таким образом, все, что требуется от читателя, - это просто почитывать, думая не об иностранном языке, который по каким-либо причинам приходится учить, а о содержании книги.

Если вы действительно будете читать интенсивно, то метод сработает. Главная беда всех изучающих долгие годы один какой-либо язык в том, что они занимаются им понемножку, а не погружаются с головой. Язык - не математика, его надо не учить, к нему надо привыкать. Здесь дело не в логике и не в памяти, а в навыке. Он скорее похож в этом смысле на спорт, которым нужно заниматься в определенном режиме, так как в противном случае не будет результата. Если сразу и много читать, то свободное чтение на новом языке - вопрос трех-четырех месяцев (начиная «с нуля»). А если учить помаленьку, то это только себя мучить и буксовать на месте. Язык в этом смысле похож на ледяную горку - на нее надо быстро взбежать. Пока не взбежите - будете скатываться. Если достигается такой момент, что человек свободно читает, то он уже не потеряет этот навык и не забудет лексику, даже если возобновит чтение на этом языке лишь через несколько лет. А если не доучил - тогда все выветрится.

А что делать с грамматикой? Собственно для понимания текста, снабженного такими подсказками, знание грамматики уже не нужно - и так все будет понятно. А затем происходит привыкание к определенным формам - и грамматика усваивается тоже подспудно. Это похоже на то, как осваивают же язык люди, которые никогда не учили его грамматики, а просто попали в соответствующую языковую среду. Я говорю это не к тому, чтобы вы держались подальше от грамматики (грамматика - очень интересная и полезная вещь), а к тому, что приступать к чтению подобной книги можно и без особых грамматических познаний, достаточно самых элементарных. Данное чтение можно рекомендовать уже на самом начальном этапе.

Такие книги помогут вам преодолеть важный барьер: вы наберете лексику и привыкнете к логике языка, сэкономив много времени и сил.

Ray Bradbury. A Sound of Thunder

The sign on the wall seemed to quaver under a film of sliding warm water (вывеска на стене, казалось, дрожала под пленкой скользящей теплой воды) . Eckels felt his eyelids blink over his stare (почувствовал его веки мигнуть = почувствовал, как его веки мигнули над его взглядом) , and the sign burned in this momentary darkness (и вывеска горела в этой минутной тьме) :

TIME SAFARI (временнóе сафари) , INC. (Incorporated, зарегистрированный как корпорация, т.е. фирма «Сафари во времени»)

SAFARIS TO ANY YEAR IN THE PAST (сафари /мн. ч./ в любой год в прошлом) .

YOU NAME THE ANIMAL (вы называете животное) .

WE TAKE YOU THERE (мы доставляем вас туда) .

YOU SHOOT IT (вы стреляете в него) .

Warm phlegm gathered in Eckels" throat (теплая слизь собралась /накопилась/ в горле Экельса) ; he swallowed and pushed it down (он глотнул и протолкнул ее вниз) . The muscles around his mouth formed a smile (мышцы вокруг его рта образовали улыбку) as he put his hand slowly out upon the air (когда он вытянул руку медленно в воздух) , and in that hand waved a check for ten thousand dollars to the man behind the desk (и в его руке колыхался чек на десять тысяч долларов для человека за письменным столом) .

"Does this safari guarantee I come back alive (гарантирует ли это сафари, что я вернусь домой живым) ?" "We guarantee nothing (мы ничего не гарантируем) ," said the official (сказал служащий) , "except the dinosaurs (кроме динозавров) ." He turned (он повернулся) . "This is Mr. Travis, your Safari Guide in the Past (это мистер Тревис, ваш проводник в Прошлое) . He"ll tell you what and where to shoot (он скажет вам, что и где стрелять) . If he says no shooting, no shooting (если он скажет не стрелять, не стрелять) . If you disobey instructions, there"s a stiff penalty of another ten thousand dollars (если вы ослушаетесь инструкций, существует жесткий штраф еще на десять тысяч долларов) , plus possible government action, on your return (плюс возможные действия правительства после вашего возвращения) ."

The sign on the wall seemed to quaver under a film of sliding warm water. Eckels felt his eyelids blink over his stare, and the sign burned in this momentary darkness:

TIME SAFARI, INC.

SAFARIS TO ANY YEAR IN THE PAST.

YOU NAME THE ANIMAL.

WE TAKE YOU THERE.

Warm phlegm gathered in Eckels" throat; he swallowed and pushed it down. The muscles around his mouth formed a smile as he put his hand slowly out upon the air, and in that hand waved a check for ten thousand dollars to the man behind the desk.

"Does this safari guarantee I come back alive?"

"We guarantee nothing," said the official, "except the dinosaurs." He turned. "This is Mr. Travis, your Safari Guide in the Past. He"ll tell you what and where to shoot. If he says no shooting, no shooting. If you disobey instructions, there"s a stiff penalty of another ten thousand dollars, plus possible government action, on your return."

Eckels glanced across the vast office at a mass and tangle (взглянул через просторный офис «на кучу и путаницу» = на кучу чего-то спутанного) , a snaking and humming of wires and steel boxes (/на/ извивание и жужжание проводов и стальные коробки: snake - змея) , at an aurora (на сияние: aurora - заря) that flickered now orange, now silver, now blue (которое вспыхивало то оранжевым, то серебряным, то синим) . There was a sound like a gigantic bonfire burning all of Time (то был звук, похожий на гигантский костер, сжигающий полностью Время) , all the years and all the parchment calendars (все годы и все пергаментные календари /летописи/) , all the hours piled high and set aflame (все часы, сваленные высоко в кучу и подожженные) .

A touch of the hand and this burning would (прикосновение руки и это горение бы) , on the instant (мгновенно) , beautifully reverse itself (прекрасно повернулось вспять) . Eckels remembered the wording in the advertisements to the letter (помнил формулировку в объявлении /с точностью/ до буквы) . Out of chars and ashes (из пепла и золы) , out of dust and coals (из пыли и углей) , like golden salamanders (как золотистые саламандры) , the old years, the green years (старые годы, зеленые = молодые годы) , might leap (могли бы выскочить = подняться) ; roses sweeten the air (розы услаждают воздух) , white hair turn Irish-black (белые /седые/ волосы становятся черными, как у ирландцев) , wrinkles vanish (морщины исчезают) ; all, everything fly back to seed (всё и все возвращаются /«летят»/обратно в семя) , flee death (убегают от смерти) , rush down to their beginnings (бросаются к своим истокам) , suns rise in western skies and set in glorious easts (солнца восходят на западных небесах и садятся на великолепных востоках) , moons eat themselves opposite to the custom (луны съедают себя вопреки обычаю = убывают с другого конца) , all and everything cupping one in another like Chinese boxes (все и всё складывающееся одно в другое как китайские коробочки /по принципу матрешки/) , rabbits into hats (/как/ кролики в шляпы) , all and everything returning to the fresh death (все и всё, возвращающееся к свежей /новой/ смерти) , the seed death (смерти семени) , the green death (зеленой смерти) , to the time before the beginning (ко времени до начала = к началу начал) . A touch of a hand might do it (прикосновение руки могло бы сделать это) , the merest touch of a hand (простейшее прикосновение руки) .

"Ready?”
– Готовы?

"Now?"
– Уже?

"Soon."
– Скоро!

"Do the scientists really know? Will it happen today, will it?"
– А ученые верно знают? Это правда будет сегодня?

"Look, look; see for yourself!"
– Смотри, смотри, сам видишь!

The children pressed to each other like so many roses, so many weeds, intermixed, peering out for a look at the hidden sun.
Теснясь, точно цветы и сорные травы в саду, все вперемешку, дети старались выглянуть наружу – где там запрятано солнце?

It rained.
Лил дождь.

It had been raining for seven years; thousands upon thousands of days compounded and filled from one end to the other with rain, with the drum and gush of water, with the sweet crystal fall of showers and the concussion of storms so heavy they were tidal waves come over the islands.
Он лил не переставая семь лет подряд; тысячи и тысячи дней, с утра до ночи, без передышки дождь лил, шумел, барабанил, звенел хрустальными брызгами, низвергался сплошными потоками, так что кругом ходили волны, заливая островки суши.

A thousand forests had been crushed under the rain and grown up a thousand times to be crushed again.
Ливнями повалило тысячи лесов, и тысячи раз они вырастали вновь и снова падали под тяжестью вод.

And this was the way life was forever on the planet Venus,
Так навеки повелось здесь, на Венере,

and this was the schoolroom of the children of the rocket men and women who had come to a raining world to set up civilization and live out their lives.
а в классе было полно детей, чьи отцы и матери прилетели застраивать и обживать эту дикую дождливую планету.

"It"s stopping, it"s stopping!"
– Перестает! Перестает!

"Yes, yes!"
– Да, да!

Margot stood apart from them, from these children who could never remember a time when there wasn"t rain and rain and rain.
Марго стояла в стороне от них, от всех этих ребят, которые только и знали, что вечный дождь, дождь, дождь.

They were all nine years old, and if there had been a day, seven years ago, when the sun came out for an hour and showed its face to the stunned world, they could not recall.
Им всем было по девять лет, и если выдался семь лет назад такой день, когда солнце все-таки выглянуло, показалось на час изумленному миру, они этого не помнили.

Sometimes, at night, she heard them stir, in remembrance, and she knew they were dreaming and remembering gold or a yellow crayon or a coin large enough to buy the world with.
Иногда по ночам Марго слышала, как они ворочаются, вспоминая, и знала: во сне они видят и вспоминают золото, яркий желтый карандаш, монету – такую большую, что можно купить целый мир.

She knew they thought they remembered a warmness, like a blushing in the face, in the body, in the arms and legs and trembling hands.
Она знала, им чудится, будто они помнят тепло, когда вспыхивает лицо и все тело – руки, ноги, дрожащие пальцы.

But then they always awoke to the tatting drum, the endless shaking down of clear bead necklaces upon the roof, the walk, the gardens, the forests, and their dreams were gone.
А потом они просыпаются – и опять барабанит дождь, без конца сыплются звонкие прозрачные бусы на крышу, на дорожку, на сад и лес, и сны разлетаются как дым.

All day yesterday they had read in class about the sun. About how like a lemon it was, and how hot.
Накануне они весь день читали в классе про солнце. Какое оно желтое, совсем как лимон, и какое жаркое.

And they had written small stories or essays or poems about it:
И писали про него маленькие рассказы и стихи.

I think the sun is a flower;
Мне кажется, солнце – это цветок,

That blooms for just one hour.
Цветет оно только один часок.

That was Margot"s poem, read in a quiet voice in the still classroom while the rain was falling outside.
Такие стихи сочинила Марго и негромко прочитала их перед притихшим классом. А за окнами лил дождь.

"Aw, you didn"t write that!" protested one of the boys.
– Ну, ты это не сама сочинила! – крикнул один мальчик.

"I did," said Margot, "I did."
– Нет, сама, – сказала Марго, – Сама.

"William!" said the teacher.
– Уильям! – остановила мальчика учительница.

But that was yesterday.
Но то было вчера.

Now the rain was slackening, and the children were crushed in the great thick windows.
А сейчас дождь утихал, и дети теснились к большим окнам с толстыми стеклами.

"Where"s teacher?"
– Где же учительница?

"She"ll be back."
– Сейчас придет.

"She"d better hurry; we"ll miss it!"
– Скорей бы, а то мы все пропустим!

They turned on themselves, like a feverish wheel, all tumbling spokes.
Они вертелись на одном месте, точно пестрая беспокойная карусель.

Margot stood alone.
Марго одна стояла поодаль.

She was a very frail girl who looked as if she had been lost in the rain for years and the rain had washed out the blue from her eyes and the red from her mouth and the yellow from her hair.
Она была слабенькая, и казалось, когда-то давно она заблудилась и долго-долго бродила под дождем, и дождь смыл с нее все краски: голубые глаза, розовые губы, рыжие волосы – все вылиняло.

She was an old photograph dusted from an album, whitened away, and if she spoke at all her voice would be a ghost.
Она была точно старая поблекшая фотография, которую вынули из забытого альбома, и все молчала, а если и случалось ей заговорить, голос ее шелестел еле слышно.

Now she stood, separate, staring at the rain and the loud wet world beyond the huge glass.
Сейчас она одиноко стояла в сторонке и смотрела на дождь, на шумный мокрый мир за толстым стеклом.

"What"re you looking at?" said William.
– Ты-то чего смотришь? – сказал Уильям.

Margot said nothing.
Марго молчала.

"Speak when you"re spoken to."
– Отвечай, когда тебя спрашивают!

He gave her a shove.
Уильям толкнул ее.

But she did not move; rather she let herself be moved only by him and nothing else.
Но она не пошевелилась; покачнулась – и только.

They edged away from her, they would not look at her.
Все ее сторонятся, даже и не смотрят на нее.

She felt them go away.
Вот и сейчас бросили ее одну.

And this was because she would play no games with them in the echoing tunnels of the underground city.
Потому что она не хочет играть с ними в гулких туннелях того города-подвала.

If they tagged her and ran, she stood blinking after them and did not follow.
Если кто-нибудь осалит ее и кинется бежать, она только с недоумением поглядит вслед, но догонять не станет.

When the class sang songs about happiness and life and games her lips barely moved.
И когда они всем классом поют песни о том, как хорошо жить на свете и как весело играть в разные игры, она еле шевелит губами.

Only when they sang about the sun and the summer did her lips move as she watched the drenched windows.
Только когда поют про солнце, про лето, она тоже тихонько подпевает, глядя в заплаканные окна.

And then, of course, the biggest crime of all was that she had come here only five years ago from Earth, and she remembered the sun and the way the sun was and the sky was when she was four in Ohio.
Ну а самое большое ее преступление, конечно, в том, что она прилетела сюда с Земли всего лишь пять лет назад, и она помнит солнце, помнит, какое оно, солнце, и какое небо она видела в Огайо, когда ей было четыре года.

And they, they had been on Venus all their lives, and they had been only two years old when last the sun came out and had long since forgotten the color and heat of it and the way it really was.
А они – они всю жизнь живут на Венере; когда здесь в последний раз светило солнце, им было только по два года, и они давно уже забыли, какое оно, и какого цвета, и как жарко греет.

But Margot remembered.
А Марго помнит.

"It"s like a penny," she said once, eyes closed.
– Оно большое, как медяк, – сказала она однажды и зажмурилась.

"No it"s not!" the children cried.
– Неправда! – закричали ребята.

"It"s like a fire," she said, "in the stove."
– Оно – как огонь в очаге, – сказала Марго.

"You"re lying, you don"t remember!" cried the children.
– Врешь, врешь, ты не помнишь! – кричали ей.

But she remembered and stood quietly apart from all of them and watched the patterning windows.
Но она помнила и, тихо отойдя в сторону, стала смотреть в окно, по которому сбегали струи дождя.

And once, a month ago, she had refused to shower in the school shower rooms, had clutched her hands to her ears and over her head, screaming the water mustn"t touch her head.
А один раз, месяц назад, когда всех повели в душевую, она ни за что не хотела стать под душ и, прикрывая макушку, зажимая уши ладонями, кричала – пускай вода не льется на голову!

So after that, dimly, dimly; she sensed it, she was different and they knew her difference and kept away.
И после того у нее появилось странное, смутное чувство: она не такая, как все. И другие дети тоже это чувствовали и сторонились ее.

There was talk that her father and mother were taking her back to Earth next year; it seemed vital to her that they do so, though it would mean the loss of thousands of dollars to her family.
Говорили, что на будущий год отец с матерью отвезут ее назад на Землю – это обойдется им во много тысяч долларов, но иначе она, видимо, зачахнет.

And so, the children hated her for all these reasons of big and little consequence.
И вот за все эти грехи, большие и малые, в классе ее невзлюбили.

They hated her pale snow face, her waiting silence, her thinness, and her possible future.
Противная эта Марго, противно, что она такая бледная немочь, и такая худющая, и вечно молчит и ждет чего-то, и, наверно, улетит на Землю...

"Get away!" The boy gave her another push. "What"re you waiting for?"
– Убирайся! – Уильям опять ее толкнул. – Чего ты еще ждешь?

Then, for the first time, she turned and looked at him.
Тут она впервые обернулась и посмотрела на него.

And what she was waiting for was in her eyes.
И по глазам было видно, чего она ждет.

"Well, don"t wait around here!" cried the boy savagely: "You won"t see nothing!"
Мальчишка взбеленился. – Нечего тебе здесь торчать! – закричал он. – Не дождешься, ничего не будет!

Her lips moved.
Марго беззвучно пошевелила губами.

"Nothing!" he cried.
– Ничего не будет! – кричал Уильям.

"It was all a joke, wasn"t it?"
– Это просто для смеха, мы тебя разыграли.

He turned to the other children.
Он обернулся к остальным.

"Nothing"s happening today: Is it?"
– Ведь сегодня ничего не будет, верно?

They all blinked at him and then, understanding, laughed and shook their heads. "Nothing, nothing!"
Все поглядели на него с недоумением, а потом поняли, и засмеялись, и покачали головами: верно, ничего не будет!

"Oh, but," Margot whispered, her eyes helpless.
– Но ведь... – Марго смотрела беспомощно.

"But this is the day, the scientists predict, they say, they know, the sun. . ."
– Ведь сегодня тот самый день, – прошептала она. – Ученые предсказывали, они говорят, они ведь знают... Солнце...

Пер. Норы Галь

You are a child in a small town. You are, to be exact, eight years old, and it is growing late at night. Late for you, accustomed to bedding in at nine or nine-thirty: once in a while perhaps begging Mom or Dad to let you stay up later to hear Sam and Henry on that strange radio that is popular in this year of 1927. But most of the time you are in bed and snug at this time of night.

It is a warm summer evening. You live in a small house on a small street in the outer part of town where there are few street lights. There is only one store open, about a block away: Mrs Singer’s. In the hot evening Mother has been ironing the Monday wash and you have been intermittently begging for ice cream and staring into the dark.

You and your mother are all alone at home in the warm darkness of summer. Finally, just before it is time for Mrs Singer to close her store, Mother relents and tells you:

‘Run get a pint of ice cream and be sure she packs it tight.’

You ask if you can get a scoop of chocolate ice cream on top, because you don’t like vanilla, and Mother agrees. You clutch the money and run barefooted over the warm evening cement sidewalk, under the apple trees and oak trees, toward the store. The town is so quiet and far off, you can only hear the crickets sounding in the spaces beyond the hot indigo trees that hold back the stars.

Your bare feet slap the pavement, you cross the street and find Mrs Singer moving ponderously about her store, singing Yiddish melodies.

‘Pint ice cream?’ she says. ‘Chocolate on top? Yes!’

You watch her fumble the metal top off the ice-cream freezer and manipulate the scoop, packing the cardboard pint chock full with ‘chocolate on top, yes!’ You give the money, receive the chill, icy pack, and rubbing it across your brow and cheek, laughing, you thump barefootedly homeward. Behind you, the lights of the lonely little store blink out and there is only a street light shimmering on the corner, and the whole city seems to be going to sleep…

Opening the screen door you find Mom still ironing. She looks hot and irritated, but she smiles just the same.

‘When will Dad be home from lodge-meeting?’ you ask.

‘About eleven-thirty or twelve,’ Mother replies. She takes the ice cream to the kitchen, divides it. Giving you your special portion of chocolate, she dishes out some for herself and the rest is put away. ‘For Skipper and your father when they come.’

Skipper is your brother. He is your older brother. He’s twelve and healthy, red-faced, hawk-nosed, tawny-haired, broad-shouldered for his years, and always running. He is allowed to stay up later than you. Not much later, but enough to make him feel it is worthwhile having been born first. He is over on the other side of town this evening to a game of kick-the-can and will be home soon. He and the kids have been yelling, kicking, running for hours, having fun. Soon he will come clomping in, smelling of sweat and green grass on his knees where he fell, and smelling very much in all ways like Skipper; which is natural.

You sit enjoying the ice cream. You are at the core of the deep quiet summer night. Your mother and yourself and the night all around this small house on this small street. You lick each spoon of ice cream thoroughly before digging for another, and Mom puts her ironing board away and the hot iron in its case, and she sits in the armchair by the phonograph, eating her dessert and saying, ‘My lands, it was a hot day today. It’s still hot. Earth soaks up all the heat and lets it out at night. It’ll be soggy sleeping.’

You both sit there listening to the summer silence. The dark is pressed down by every window and door, there is no sound because the radio needs a new battery, and you have played all the Knickerbocker Quartet records and Al Jolson and Two Black Crows records to exhaustion: so you just sit on the hardwood floor by the door and look out into the dark dark dark, pressing your nose against the screen until the flesh of its tip is molded into small dark squares.

‘I wonder where your brother is?’ Mother says after a while. Her spoon scrapes on the dish. ‘He should be home by now. It’s almost nine-thirty.’

‘He’ll be here,’ you say, knowing very well that he will be.

You follow Mom out to wash the dishes. Each sound, each rattle of spoon or dish is amplified in the baked evening. Silently, you go to the living room, remove the couch cushions and, together, yank it open and extend it down into the double bed that it secretly is. Mother makes the bed, punching pillows neatly to flump them up for your head. Then, as you are unbuttoning your shirt, she says:

‘Wait awhile, Doug.’

‘Because. I say so.’

‘You look funny, Mom.’

Mom sits down a moment, then stands up, goes to the door, and calls. You listen to her calling and calling Skipper. Skipper, Skiiiiiiiiiperrrrrrrr over and over. Her calling goes out into the summer warm dark and never comes back. The echoes pay no attention.

Skipper, Skipper, Skipper.

And as you sit on the floor a coldness that is not ice cream and not winter, and not part of summer’s heat, goes through you. You notice Mom’s eyes sliding, blinking; the way she stands undecided and is nervous. All of these things.

She opens the screen door. Stepping out into the night she walks down the steps and down the front sidewalk under the lilac bush. You listen to her moving feet.

She calls again. Silence.

She calls twice more. You sit in the room. Any moment now Skipper will reply, from down the long long narrow street:

‘All right, Mom! All right, Mother! Hey!’

But he doesn’t answer. And for two minutes you sit looking at the made-up bed, the silent radio, the silent phonograph, at the chandelier with its crystal bobbins gleaming quietly, at the rug with the scarlet and purple curlicues on it. You stub your toe on the bed purposely to see if it hurts. It does.

Whining, the screen door opens, and Mother says:

‘Come on, Shorts. We’ll take a walk.’

‘Where to?’

‘Just down the block. Come on. Better put your shoes on, though. You’ll catch cold.’

‘No, I won’t. I’ll be all right.’

You take her hand. Together you walk down St James Street. You smell roses in blossom, fallen apples lying crushed and odorous in the deep grass. Underfoot, the concrete is still warm, and the crickets are sounding louder against the darkening dark. You reach a corner, turn, and walk toward the ravine.

Off somewhere, a car goes by, flashing its lights in the distance. There is such a complete lack of life, light, and activity. Here and there, back off from where you are walking toward the ravine, you see faint squares of light where people are still up. But most of the houses, darkened, are sleeping already, and there are a few lightless places where the occupants of a dwelling sit talking low dark talk on their front porches. You hear a porch swing squeaking as you walk near.

‘I wish your father was home,’ says Mother. Her large hand tightens around your small one. ‘Just wait’ll I get that boy. I’ll spank him within an inch of his life.’

A razor strop hangs in the kitchen for this. You think of it, remember when Dad has doubled and flourished it with muscled control over your frantic limbs. You doubt Mother will carry out her promise.

Now you have walked another block and are standing by the holy black silhouette of the German Baptist Church at the corner of Chapel Street and Glen Rock. In back of the church a hundred yards away, the ravine begins. You can smell it. It has a dark sewer, rotten foliage, thick green odor. It is a wide ravine that cuts and twists across the town, a jungle by day, a place to let alone at night, Mother has often declared.

You should feel encouraged by the nearness of the German Baptist Church, but you are not-because th
e building is not illumined, is cold and useless as a pile of ruins on the ravine edge.

You are only eight years old, you know little of death, fear, or dread. Death is the waxen effigy in the coffin when you were six and Grandfather passed away-looking like a great fallen vulture in his casket, silent, withdrawn, no more to tell you how to be a good boy, no more to comment succinctly on politics. Death is your little sister one morning when you awaken at the age of seven, look into her crib and see her staring up at you with a blind blue, fixed and frozen stare until the men come with a small wicker basket to take her away. Death is when you stand by her high chair four weeks later and suddenly realize she’ll never be in it again, laughing and crying, and make you jealous of her because she was born. That is death.

But this is more than death. This summer night wading deep in time and stars and warm eternity. It is an essence of all the things you will ever feel or see or hear in your life again, being brought steadily home to you all at once.

Leaving the sidewalk, you walk along a trodden, pebbled, weed-fringed path to the ravine’s edge. Crickets, in loud full drumming chorus now, are shouting to quiver the dead. You follow obediently behind brave, fine, tall Mother who is defender of all the universe. You feel braveness because she goes before, and you hang back a trifle for a moment, and then hurry on, too. Together, then, you approach, reach, and pause at the very edge of civilization.

Here and now, down there in that pit of jungled blackness is suddenly all the evil you will ever know. Evil you will never understand. All of the nameless things are there. Later, when you have grown you’ll be given names to label them with. Meaningless syllables to describe the waiting nothingness. Down there in the huddled shadow, among thick trees and trailed vines, lives the odor of decay. Here, at this spot, civilization ceases, reason ends, and a universal evil takes over.

You realize you are alone. You and your mother. Her hand trembles.

Her hand trembles.

Your belief in your private world is shattered. You feel Mother tremble. Why? Is she, too, doubtful? But she is bigger, stronger, more intelligent than yourself, isn’t she? Does she, too, feel that intangible menace, that groping out of darkness, that crouching malignancy down below? Is there, then, no strength in growing up? no solace in being an adult? no sanctuary in life? no flesh citadel strong enough to withstand the scrabbling assault of midnights? Doubts flush you. Ice cream lives again in your throat, stomach, spine and limbs; you are instantly cold as a wind out of December-gone.

You realize that all men are like this. That each person is to himself one alone. One oneness, a unit in a society, but always afraid. Like here, standing. If you should scream now, if you should holler for help, would it matter?

You are so close to the ravine now that in the instant of your scream, in the interval between someone hearing it and running to find you, much could happen.

Blackness could come swiftly, swallowing; and in one titanically freezing moment all would be concluded. Long before dawn, long before police with flashlights might probe the disturbed pathway, long before men with trembling brains could rustle down the pebbles to your help. Even if they were within five hundred yards of you now, and help certainly is, in three seconds a dark tide could rise to take all eight years of life away from you and-

The essential impact of life’s loneliness crushes your beginning-to-tremble body. Mother is alone, too. She cannot look to the sanctity of marriage, the protection of her family’s love, she cannot look to the United States Constitution or the City Police, she cannot look anywhere, in this very instant, save into her heart, and there she’ll find nothing but uncontrollable repugnance and a will to fear. In this instant it is an individual problem seeking an individual solution. You must accept being alone and work on from there.

You swallow hard, cling to her. Oh Lord, don’t let her die, please, you think. Don’t do anything to us. Father will be coming home from lodgemeeting in an hour and if the house is empty…?

Mother advances down the path into the primeval jungle. Your voice trembles. ‘Mom. Skip’s all right. Skip’s all right. He’s all right. Skip’s all right.’

Mother’s voice is strained, high. ‘He always comes through here. I tell him not to, but those darned kids, they come through here anyway. Some night he’ll come through and never come out again-’

Never come out again. That could mean anything. Tramps. Criminals. Darkness. Accident. Most of all-death.

Alone in the universe.

There are a million small towns like this all over the world. Each as dark, as lonely, each as removed, as full of shuddering and wonder. The reedy playing of minor-key violins is the small towns’ music, with no lights but many shadows. Oh the vast swelling loneliness of them. The secret damp ravines of them. Life is a horror lived in them at night, when at all sides sanity, marriage, children, happiness, are threatened by an ogre called Death.

Mother raises her voice into the dark.

‘Skip! Skipper!’ she calls. ‘Skip! Skipper!’

Suddenly, both of you realize there is something wrong. Something very wrong. You listen intently and realize what it is.

The crickets have stopped chirping.

Silence is complete.

Never in your life a silence like this one. One so utterly complete. Why should the crickets cease? Why? What reason? They have never stopped ever before. Not ever.

Unless, Unless-

Something is going to happen.

It is as if the whole ravine is tensing, bunching together its black fibers, drawing in power from all about sleeping countrysides, for miles and miles. From dew-sodden forests and dells and rolling hills where dogs tilt heads to moons, from all around the great silence is sucked into one center, and you at the core of it. In ten seconds now, something will happen, something will happen. The crickets keep their truce, the stars are so low you can almost brush the tinsel. There are swarms of them, hot and sharp.

Growing, growing, the silence. Growing, growing, the tenseness. Oh it’s so dark, so far away from everything. Oh God!

And then, way way off across the ravine:

‘Okay, Mom! Coming, Mother!’

‘Hi, Mom! Coming, Mom!’

And then the quick scuttering of tennis shoes padding down through the pit of the ravine as three kids come dashing, giggling. Your brother Skipper, Chuck Redman, and Augie Bartz. Running, giggling.

The stars suck up like the stung antennae of ten million snails.

The crickets sing!

The darkness pulls back, startled, shocked, angry. Pulls back, losing its appetite at being so rudely interrupted as it prepared to feed. As the dark retreats like a wave on a shore, three kids pile out of it, laughing.

‘Hi, Mom! Hi, Shorts! Hey!’

It smells like Skipper all right. Sweat and grass and his oiled leather baseball glove.

‘Young man, you’re going to get a licking,’,declares Mother. She puts away her fear instantly. You know she will never tell anybody of it, ever. It will be in her heart though, for all time, as it is in your heart, for all time.

You walk home to bed in the late summer night. You are glad Skipper is alive. Very glad. For a moment there you thought-

Far off in the dim moonlit country, over a viaduct and down a valley, a train goes rushing along and it whistles like a lost metal thing, nameless and running. You go to bed, shivering, beside your brother, listening to that train whistle, and thinking of a cousin who lived way out in the country where that train is now; a cousin who died of pneumonia late at night years and years ago…You smell the sweat of Skip beside you. It is magic. You stop trembling. You hear footsteps outside the house on the sidewalk, as Mother is turning out the lights. A man clears his throat in a way you recognize.

Mom says, ‘That’s your father.’

‘Here they come,’ said Cecy, lying there
flat in her bed.

‘Where are they?’ cried Timothy from the doorway.

‘Some of them are over Europe, some over Asia, some of them over the Islands, some over South America!’ said Cecy, her eyes closed, the lashes long, brown, and quivering.

Timothy came forward upon the bare plankings of the upstairs room. ‘Who are they?’

‘Uncle Einar and Uncle Fry, and there’s Cousin William, and I see Frulda and Helgar and Aunt Morgiana and Cousin Vivian, and I see Uncle Johann! They’re all coming fast!’

‘Are they up in the sky?’ cried Timothy, his little gray eyes flashing. Standing by the bed, he looked no more than his fourteen years. The wind blew outside, the house was dark and lit only by starlight.

‘They’re coming through the air and traveling along the ground, in many forms,’ said Cecy, in her sleeping. She did not move on the bed: she thought inward on herself and told what she saw. ‘I see a wolflike thing coming over a dark river-at the shallows-just above a waterfall, the starlight shining up his pelt. I see a brown oak leaf blowing far up in the sky. I see a small bat flying. I see many other things, running through the forest trees and slipping through the highest branches: and they’re all coming this way!’

‘Will they be here by tomorrow night?’ Timothy clutched the bedclothes. The spider on his lapel swung like a black pendulum, excitedly dancing. He leaned over his sister. ‘Will they all be here in time for the Homecoming?’

‘Yes, yes, Timothy, yes,’ sighed Cecy. She stiffened. ‘Ask no more of me. Go away now. Let me travel in the places I like best.’

‘Thanks, Cecy,’ he said. Out in the hall, he ran to his room. He hurriedly made his bed. He had just awakened a few minutes ago, at sunset, and as the first stars had risen, he had gone to let his excitement about the party run with Cecy. Now she slept so quietly there was not a sound. The spider hung on a silvery lasso about Timothy’s slender neck as he washed his face. ‘Just think. Spid, tomorrow night is Allhallows Eve!’

He lifted his face and looked into the mirror. His was the only mirror allowed in the house. It was his mother’s concession to his illness. Oh, if only he were not so afflicted! He opened his mouth, surveyed the poor, inadequate teeth nature had given him. No more than so many corn kernels-round, soft and pale in his jaws. Some of the high spirit died in him.

And an awareness of the hazards of runaway technology.

Early life

As a child, Bradbury loved such as (1925); the books of and , and the first magazine, Amazing Stories . Bradbury often told of an encounter with a magician, Mr. Electrico, in 1932 as a notable influence. Wreathed in static electricity, Mr. Electrico touched the young Bradbury on the nose and said, “Live forever!” The next day, Bradbury returned to the carnival to ask Mr. Electrico’s advice on a trick. After Mr. Electrico introduced him to the other performers in the carnival, he told Bradbury that he was a of his best friend who died in . Bradbury later wrote, “a few days later I began to write, full-time. I have written every single day of my life since that day.”

First short stories

Britannica Classic: Edgar Allan Poe"s “The Fall of the House of Usher” Science-fiction writer Ray Bradbury discussing Edgar Allan Poe"s “The Fall of the House of Usher” in an Encyclopædia Britannica Educational Corporation film, 1975. Bradbury compares the screenplay with the written work and discusses both the Gothic tradition and Poe"s influence on contemporary science fiction. Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc.

Bradbury’s family moved to Los Angeles in 1934. In 1937 Bradbury joined the Los Angeles Science Fiction League, where he received encouragement from young writers such as Henry Kuttner, Edmond Hamilton, and Leigh Brackett, who met weekly with him. Bradbury published his first , “Hollerbochen’s Dilemma” (1938), in the league’s “fanzine,” Imagination! He published his own fanzine, Futuria Fantasia , in 1939. That same year Bradbury traveled to the first World Science Fiction convention, in , where he met many of the genre’s editors. He made his first sale to a professional science fiction magazine in 1941, when his short story “Pendulum” (written with Henry Hasse) was published in Super Science Stories . Many of Bradbury’s earliest stories, with their elements of and horror, were published in Weird Tales . Most of these stories were collected in his first book of short stories, Dark Carnival (1947). Bradbury’s style, with its rich use of and , stood out from the more utilitarian work that dominated pulp magazine writing.

In the mid-1940s Bradbury’s stories started to appear in major such as The American Mercury , and McCall’s , and he was unusual in publishing both in pulp magazines such as Planet Stories and Thrilling Wonder Stories and “slicks” (so-called because of their high-quality paper) such as and Collier’s without leaving behind the genres he loved. The Martian Chronicles (1950), a series of short stories, depicts colonization of , which leads to the extinction of an idyllic Martian civilization. However, in the face of an oncoming nuclear war, many of the settlers return to Earth, and after Earth’s destruction, a few surviving humans return to Mars to become the new Martians. The short-story collection The Illustrated Man (1951) included one of his most famous stories, “The Veldt,” in which a mother and father are concerned about the effect their house’s simulation of on the African is having on their children.

Fahrenheit 451 , Dandelion Wine , and scripts

Bradbury’s next , (1953), is regarded as his greatest work. In a future society where books are forbidden, Guy Montag, a “fireman” whose job is the burning of books, takes a book and is seduced by reading. Fahrenheit 451 has been acclaimed for its anti- themes and its defense of against the encroachment of electronic media. An acclaimed was released in 1966.

The collection The Golden Apples of the Sun (1953) contained “The Fog Horn” (loosely adapted for film as The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms ), about two keepers’ terrifying encounter with a sea monster; the title story, about a dangerous journey to scoop up a piece of the ; and “A Sound of Thunder,” about a safari back to the to hunt a . In 1954 Bradbury spent six months in Ireland with director working on the screenplay for the film Moby Dick (1956), an experience Bradbury later fictionalized in his novel Green Shadows, White Whale (1992). After the release of Moby Dick , Bradbury was in demand as a screenwriter in Hollywood and wrote scripts for Playhouse 90 , Alfred Hitchcock Presents , and The Twilight Zone .

One of Bradbury’s most personal works, Dandelion Wine (1957), is an autobiographical novel about a magical but too brief summer of a 12-year-old boy in Green Town, Illinois (a fictionalized version of his childhood home of Waukegan). His next collection, A Medicine for Melancholy (1959), contained “All Summer in a Day,” a poignant story of childhood cruelty on , where the Sun comes out only every seven years. The Midwest of his childhood was once again the setting of Something Wicked This Way Comes (1962), in which a carnival comes to town run by the mysterious and evil Mr. Dark. The next year, he published his first collection of short plays, The Anthem Sprinters and Other Antics .

Later work and awards

In the 1970s Bradbury no longer wrote short fiction at his previous pace, turning his energy to and . Earlier in his career he had sold several short stories, and he returned to the genre with Death Is a Lonely Business (1985), an homage to the detective stories of writers such as

В представленной адаптации были собраны одиннадцать коротеньких рассказов всемирно известного американского сочинителя-фантаста Рэя Брэдбери, которые написались ним в различные годы ХХ века. Видение будущего в рассказах маэстро-сочинителя не всегда является безоблачным – особенно это читается в таких рассказах, как: The Pedestrian, All summer in a day, The Veldt. Фантастическое окружение способствует созданию текста на грани притчи (Death and the maiden), а также психологического изыскания (The best of all possible worlds, A scent of sarsaparilla). Неподражаемая авторская речь и тончайший юмор качественно дополняют сочинения Брэдбери, которые отлично знают и чтят во всем мире. Малообъемные рассказы, около четырех с небольшим тысяч знаков, могут использоваться для домашнего чтения и обговаривания на уроках. По доброй традиции в книжку помещены постраничное комментирование, словарик сложной лексики и удачно подобранные упражнения. Уровень адаптации – Pre-Intermediate.