Вечер в Византии

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ93
 Ш 81

Шоу И.
Ш 81 Вечер в Византии: Книга для чтения на
английском языке.— СПб.: КАРО, 2007. — 512 с.

ISBN 5898158545

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ93

ISBN 5898158545
© КАРО, 2007

Ирвин Шоу (19131984) – американский писатель.

В романе «Вечер в Византии», написанном в 1973 году,
остросоциальная проблематика сочетается с раскрытием
нравственных исканий личности.
Неадаптированный текст на языке оригинала снабжен
комментариями и словарем.

Overture

Dinosauric, obsolete, functions and powers atrophied, dressed in sport shirts from Sulka and
Cardin, they sat across from each other at small
tables in airy rooms overlooking the changing sea
and dealt and received cards just as they had done
in the lush years in the rainfall forest of the West
Coast, when in all seasons they had announced the
law in the banks, the board rooms, the Moorish
mansions, the chateaux, the English castles, the
Georgian town houses of Southern California.
From time to time, phones rang and hearty, deferential voices spoke from Oslo, New Delhi, Paris,
Berlin, New York, and the card players barked into
the instruments and gave orders that at another
time would have had meaning and no doubt been
obeyed.
Exiled kings on annual pilgrimage, unwitting
Lears permitted small bands of faithful retainers,
living in pomp without circumstance, they said
“Gin” and “You’re on the Schneider” and passed
checks for thousands of dollars back and forth.
Sometimes they talked of the pre-glacial era. “I
gave her her first job. Seventy-five a week. She was
laying a dialogue coach in the Valley at the time.”

3

IRWIN SHAW

And, “He brought it two and a half million over
the budget and we had to yank it in Chicago after
three days and now look at him, the pricks in New
York say he’s a genius. Shit.”
And they said, “The future is in cassettes” and
the youngest of them in the room, who was fiftyeight, said, “What future?”
And they said, “Spades. Double.”
Below, on the terrace seven feet above sea-level,
open to the sun and wind, leaner and hungrier men
spoke their minds. Signalling the hurrying waiters
for black coffee and aspirin, they said, “It isn’t like
the old days.”
They also said, “The Russians aren’t coming this
year. Or the Japanese,” and “Venice is finished.”
Under shifting clouds, in sporadic sunlight, the
shifty young men carrying lion cubs and Polaroid
cameras wound among them, with hustlers’ international smiles, soliciting trade. But after the first
day the cubs were ignored, except by the tourists,
and the conversation flowed on and they said, “Fox is
in trouble. Big trouble,” and, “So is everybody else.”
“A prize here is worth a million,” they said.
“In Europe,” they said.
And, “What’s wrong with Europe?” they said.
“It’s a Festival-type picture,” they said, “but it
won’t draw flies in release.”
And they said, “What are you drinking?” and,
“Are you coming to the party tonight?”

EVENING IN BYZANTIUM

5

They spoke in English, French, Spanish, German, Hebrew, Arabic, Portuguese, Rumanian,
Polish, Dutch, Swedish, on the subject of sex,
money, success, failure, promises kept and promises
broken. They were honest men and thieves, pimps
and panderers and men of virtue. Some were talented, or more than that, some shrewd, or less
than that. There were beautiful women and delicious girls, handsome men and men with the faces
of swine. Cameras were busy and everybody pretended he didn’t know that photographs were being
taken.
There were people who had been famous and
were no longer, people who would be famous next
week or next year, and people who would die unknown. There were people going up and people going down, people who had won their victories easily and people unjustly flung aside.
They were all gamblers in a game with no rules,
placing their bets debonairly or in the sweat of fear.
At other places, in other meetings, men of science were predicting that within fifty years, the sea
that lapped on the beach in front of the terrace
would be a dead body of water and there was a
strong probability that this was the last generation
to dine on lobster or be able to sow an uncontaminated seed.
In still other places, bombs were being dropped,
targets chosen, hills lost and taken; there were

floods and volcanic eruptions, wars and the preparation for wars, governments shaken, funerals and
marches. But on the terrace for two weeks in
Springtime France, all the world was printed on
sprocketed strips of acetate that passed through a
projector at the rate of ninety feet per minute, and
hope and despair and beauty and death were carried around the city in flat, round, shining tin cans.

IRWIN SHAW

1

The plane bucked as it climbed through black
pillars of cloud. To the west, there were streaks of
lightning. The seat belt sign, in English and French,
remained lit. The stewardesses served no drinks.
The pitch of the engines changed. The passengers
did not speak.
The tall man, cramped in next to the window,
opened a magazine, closed it. Drops of rain made
pale, transparent traces, like ghostly fingers, along
the plexiglass portholes.
There was a muffled explosion, a ripping noise.
A ball of lightning rolled down the aisle, incredibly
slow, then flashed out over the wing. The plane
shuddered. The pitch of the engines changed again.
How comfortable it would be, the man thought,
if we crashed, how definitive.
But the plane steadied, broke out of the clouds
into sunlight. The lady across the aisle said, “That’s
the second time that’s happened to me. I’m beginning to feel that I’m being followed.” The seat light
signs went off. The stewardesses started to push the
drink cart down the aisle. The man asked for a

IRWIN SHAW

Scotch and Perrier. He drank appreciatively as the
plane whispered south, high across the clouded
heart of France.
Craig took a cold shower to wake himself up.
While he didn’t exactly have a hangover, he had the
impression that his eyes were fractionally slow in
keeping up with the movements of his head. As usual
on such mornings he decided to go on the wagon
that day.
He dried himself without bothering to towel his
hair. The cool wetness against his scalp was soothing. He wrapped himself in one of the big rough
white terrycloth bathrobes the hotel supplied and
went into the living room of the suite and rang for
breakfast. He had flung his clothes around the room
while having a last whisky before going to bed and
his dinner jacket and dress shirt and tie lay crumpled
on a chair. The whisky glass, still half full, was beaded
with drops of moisture. He had left the bottle of
Scotch next to it open.
He looked for mail in the box on the inside of the
door. There was a copy of NiceMatin and a packet
of letters forwarded from New York by his secretary.
There was a letter from his accountant and another
from his lawyer in the packet. He recognized the
monthly statement from his brokers among the
other envelopes. He dropped the letters, unopened,
on a table. With the way the market was going, his

EVENING IN BYZANTIUM

9

brokers’ statement could only be a cry from the
abyss1. The accountant would be sending him unpleasant bulletins about his running battle with the
Internal Revenue Service. And his lawyer’s letter
would remind him of his wife. They could all wait. It
was too early in the morning for his broker, his
accountant, his lawyer, and his wife.
He glanced at the front page of NiceMatin. An
agency despatch told of more troops moving into
Cambodia. Cambodge, in French. Next to the Cambodian story there was a picture of an Italian actress, smiling on the Carlton terrace. She had won a
prize at Cannes2 some years before, but her smile revealed that she had no illusions about this year.
There was also a photograph of the President of
France, M.3 Pompidou, in Auvergne. M. Pompidou
was quoted as addressing the silent majority of the
French people and assuring them that France was
not on the brink of revolution.
Craig dropped NiceMatin on the floor. Barefooted, he crossed the carpeted, highceilinged
white room furnished for liquidated Russian nobility.

1 a cry from the abyss — (разг.) глас вопиющего в пустыне
2 Cannes — Канны, курортный город на средиземноморском побережье Франции, место проведения международных фестивалей

3  M. — сокр. от Monsieur — господин

IRWIN SHAW

He went out on the balcony and regarded the Mediterranean below him, on the other side of the Croisette. The three American assault ships that had
been in the bay had departed during the night.
There was a wind and the sea was gray and ruffled
and there were whitecaps. The beach boys had already raked the sand and put out the mattresses and
umbrellas. The umbrellas trembled unopened, because of the wind. A choppy surf beat at the beach.
One brave fat woman was swimming in front of the
hotel. The weather has changed since I was last
here, he thought.
The last time had been in the autumn, past the
season. Indian summer, on a coast that had never
known Indians. Golden mist, muted fall flowers. He
remembered Cannes when pink and amber mansions stood in gardens along the sea front. Now the
garish apartment buildings, orange and bright blue
balconies flying, disfigured the littoral. Cities
rushed to destroy themselves.
There was a knock at the door.
“Entrez,1” he called, without turning, still judging the Mediterranean. There was no need to tell the
waiter where to put the table. Craig had been there
three days already and the waiter knew his habits.

1 Entrez — (фр.) Войдите