Острие бритвы

УДК 
372.8
ББК 
81.2 Англ-93
 
М 74

ISBN 978-5-9925-0785-0

Моэм Сомерсет У.
М 74 Острие бритвы: Книга для чтения на английском языке. — СПб., КАРО, 2012. — 416 c. — (Серия «Classical literature»)

ISBN 978-5-9925-0785-0.

Уильям Сомерсет Моэм — один из выдающихся английских писателей начала ХХ века, подаривший миру множество 
романов, пьес, рассказов.
«Острие бритвы» — один из самых интересных романов 
писателя, в котором он описывает эпоху между двумя мировыми войнами, давая яркую характеристику разным слоям европейского и североамериканского общества.
В книге представлен неадаптированный текст романа на 
языке оригинала, снабженный комментариями и словарем.

УДК 372.8 
ББК 81.2 Англ-93

© КАРО, 2012

об авторе

Знаменитый английский писательУильям Сомерсет Моэм 
родился 25 января 1874 года в Париже, в семье юриста британского посольства во Франции. Родители тщательно продумали появление Моэма на свет на территории посольства 
Великобритании, чтобы уберечь сына от воинской повинности. Помимо Уильяма, в семье было еще трое старших детей. В детстве мальчик говорил только по-французски, английский ему пришлось выучить после того, как в 11 лет он 
внезапно осиротел. Сначала скончалась мать — когда мальчику только исполнилось восемь лет, два года спустя — отец. 
Уильям очень тяжело переживал смерть родителей.
Мальчика отправили к родственникам в английский город Уитстебл в графстве Кент. Это было не лучшее время в 
жизни юного Моэма. Его дядя оказался достаточно холодным 
и жестоким человеком. Из-за постоянных стрессов Уильям 
начал заикаться — и это сохранилось на всю жизнь. Мальчику 
пришлось учиться в Королевской школе в Кентербери, что тоже стало для него испытанием. Его постоянно дразнили за 
плохой английский и малый рост, который он унаследовал от 
отца.
Затем юноша уехал в Германию, где поступил в Гейдельбергский университет и начал изучение литературы и философии. Вернувшись в Англию, недолго поработал бухгалтером, но вскоре уволился. Карьера в церковной сфере тоже была недоступна из-за дефекта речи, и в 1892 году Моэм 
поступил в медицинскую школу при больнице святого Фомы 
в Лондоне — этот опыт он отразил в романе «Лиза из 
Ламбета» («Liza of Lambeth»). Первый тираж книги разошелся в течение нескольких недель. Этого было достаточно, что

об авторе

бы Моэм, получивший диплом врача, бросил медицину и 
стал писателем.
К началу Первой мировой войны, благодаря десяти опубликованным пьесам и десяти романам, Сомерсет Моэм был 
уже достаточно известным писателем. В 1915 году вышел в 
свет роман «Время страстей человеческих», первоначально получивший неблагоприятные отзывы критиков как в Америке, 
так и в Англии. Мир Нью-Йорка, по их мнению, в романе 
Моэма выглядел «откровениями сентиментального дурака». 
Однако на самом деле Моэм написал историю о болезненном стремлении к самореализации одинокого, чувствительного молодого врача. Лишь влиятельный критик и писатель 
Теодор Драйзер спас новый роман, назвав его гениальной 
вещью и даже сравнив с симфонией Бетховена. Эта оценка 
подняла книгу до небывалых высот — с тех пор роман многократно переиздавался. Тесная взаимосвязь между вымышленным и невымышленным стала товарным знаком Моэма. 
Позже, в 1938 году, он признавался: «Реальность и вымысел 
настолько перемешались в моей работе, что сейчас, оглядываясь назад, я вряд ли смогу отличить одно от другого».
В 1916 году Моэм отправился в путешествие для сбора 
нового материала для будущего романа «Луна и грош», основанного на биографии Поля Гогена. Эти путешествия должны были навсегда утвердить писателя в качестве летописца 
последних дней колониализма в Индии, Юго-Восточной 
Азии, Китае и Тихом океане.
В 1928 году Моэм купил виллу в Кап-Ферра на Фран цузской Ривьере, которая стала его жилищем на всю оставшуюся жизнь, а также одним из самых известных литературных салонов 1920-х годов. Он продолжал писать пьесы, рассказы, романы, очерки и путевые книги. К началу 1940-х 
годов Сомерсет Моэм уже стал одним из самых известных 
и преуспевающих английских писателей.
Писатель скончался 15 декабря 1965 года в больнице в 
Ницце от пневмонии. Могилы как таковой у Моэма нет, поскольку его прах был развеян под стеной Библиотеки при 
Королевской школе в Кентербери, носящей его имя.

The sharp edge of a razor is difficult to pass 
over; thus the wise say the path to Salvation is 
hard.

KATHA-UPANISHAD

Chapter One

I

I HAVE never begun a novel with more misgiving. If I call 
it a novel it is only because I don’t know what else to call it. 
I have little story to tell and I end neither with a death nor a 
marriage. Death ends all things and so is the comprehensive 
conclusion of a story, but marriage finishes it very properly 
too and the sophisticated are ill-advised to sneer at what is by 
convention termed a happy ending. It is a sound instinct of 
the common people which persuades them that with this all 
that needs to be said is said. When male and female, after 
whatever vicissitudes you like, are at last brought together they 
have fulfilled their biological function and interest passes to 
the generation that is to come1. But I leave my reader in the 
air. This book consists of my recollections of a man with whom 

1 to the generation that is to come — (разг.) к следующему 
поколению

The RazoR’s edge

6

I was thrown into close contact only at long intervals, and I 
have little knowledge of what happened to him in between. 
I suppose that by the exercise of invention I could fill the gaps 
plausibly enough and so make my narrative more coherent; 
but I have no wish to do that. I only want to set down what I 
know of my own knowledge.
Many years ago I wrote a novel called The Moon and 
Sixpence. In that I took a famous painter, Paul Gauguin, and, 
using the novelist’s privilege, devised a number of incidents 
to illustrate the character I had created on the suggestions 
afforded me by the scanty facts I knew about the French artist. 
In the present book I have attempted to do nothing of the kind. 
I have invented nothing. To save embarrassment1 to people 
still living I have given to the persons who play a part in this 
story names of my own contriving, and I have in other ways 
taken pains to make sure that no one should recognize them. 
The man I am writing about is not famous. It may be that he 
never will be. It may be that when his life at last comes to an 
end he will leave no more trace of his sojourn on earth than a 
stone thrown into a river leaves on the surface of the water. 
Then my book, if it is read at all, will be read only for what 
intrinsic interest it may possess. But it may be that the way of 
life that he has chosen for himself and the peculiar strength 
and sweetness of his character may have an ever-growing 
influence over his fellowmen so that, long after his death 
perhaps, it may be realized that there lived in this age a very 
remarkable creature. Then it will be quite clear of whom I write 
in this book and those who want to know at least a little about 
his early life may find in it something to their purpose. I think 
my book, within its acknowledged limitations, will be a useful 
source of information to my friend’s biographers. I do not 
pretend that the conversations I have recorded can be regarded 

1 To save embarrassment — (разг.) Чтобы не смущать

ChapTeR one

as verbatim1 reports. I never kept notes of what was said on 
this or the other occasion, but I have a good memory for what 
concerns me, and though I have put these conversations in my 
own words they faithfully represent, I believe, what was said. 
I remarked a little while back that I have invented nothing; 
I want now to modify that statement. I have taken the liberty 
that historians have taken from the time of Herodotus2 to put 
into the mouths of the persons of my narrative speeches that 
I did not myself hear and could not possibly have heard. I have 
done this for the same reasons as the historians have, to give 
liveliness and verisimilitude to scenes that would have been 
ineffective if they had been merely recounted. I want to be read 
and I think I am justified in doing what I can to make my book 
readable. The intelligent reader will easily see for himself where 
I have used this artifice, and he is at perfect liberty to reject it.
Another reason that has caused me to embark upon this 
work with apprehension is that the persons I have chiefly to 
deal with are American. It is very difficult to know people and 
I don’t think one can ever really know any but one’s own 
countrymen. For men and women are not only themselves; 
they are also the region in which they were born, the city 
apartment or the farm in which they learnt to walk, the games 
they played as children, the old wives’ tales they overheard, 
the food they ate, the schools they attended, the sports they 
followed, the poets they read, and the God they believed in. It 
is all these things that have made them what they are, and these 
are the things that you can’t come to know by hearsay, you can 
only know them if you have lived them. You can only know 
them if you are them. And because you cannot know persons 
of a nation foreign to you except from observation, it is difficult 

1 verbatim — (лат.) дословный, слово в слово
2 Herodotus — Геродот (490–425 гг. до н. э.), древнегреческий историк

The RazoR’s edge

8

to give them credibility in the pages of a book. Even so subtle 
and careful an observer as Henry James1, though he lived in 
England for forty years, never managed to create an Englishman 
who was through and through English2. For my part, except 
in a few short stories I have never attempted to deal with any 
but my own countrymen, and if I have ventured to do 
otherwise in short stories it is because in them you can treat 
your characters more summarily. You give the reader broad 
indications and leave him to fill in the details. It may be asked 
why, if I turned Paul Gauguin into an Englishman, I could not 
do the same with the persons of this book. The answer is 
simple: I couldn’t. They would not then have been the people 
they are. I do not pretend that they are American as Americans 
see themselves; they are American seen through an English 
eye. I have not attempted to reproduce the peculiarities of their 
speech. The mess English writers make when they try to do 
this is only equalled by the mess American writers make when 
they try to reproduce English as spoken in England. Slang is 
the great pitfall. Henry James in his English stories made 
constant use of it, but never quite as the English do, so that 
instead of getting the colloquial effect he was after3, it too often 
gives the English reader an uncomfortable jolt.

II

In 1919 I happened to be in Chicago on my way to the Far 
East, and for reasons that have nothing to do with this narrative 
I was staying there for two or three weeks. I had recently 

1 Henry James — Генри Джеймс (1843–1916), американский 
писатель (социально-психологические повести и романы)
2 through and through English — (разг.) англичанин до мозга костей
3 he was after — (разг.) к которому он стремился

ChapTeR one

9

brought out a successful novel and being for the moment news 
I had no sooner arrived than I was interviewed. Next morning 
my telephone rang. I answered.
“Elliott Templeton speaking.”
“Elliott? I thought you were in Paris.”
“No, I’m visiting with my sister. We want you to come along 
and lunch with us today.”
“I should love to.” He named the hour and gave me the 
address.
I had known Elliott Templeton for fifteen years. He was at 
this time in his late fifties, a tall, elegant man with good features 
and thick waving dark hair only sufficiently greying to add to 
the distinction of his appearance. He was always beautifully 
dressed. He got his haberdashery at Charvet’s, but his suits, 
his shoes and his hats in London. He had an apartment in Paris 
on the Rive Gauche1 in the fashionable Rue St. Guillaume. 
People who did not like him said he was a dealer, but this was 
a charge that he resented with indignation. He had taste and 
knowledge, and he did not mind admitting that in bygone 
years, when he first settled in Paris, he had given rich collectors 
who wanted to buy pictures the benefit of his advice; and 
when through his social connections he heard that some 
impoverished nobleman, English or French, was disposed to 
sell a picture of first-rate quality he was glad to put him in 
touch with the directors of American museums who, he 
happened to know, were on the lookout for a fine example 
of such and such a master. There were many old families in 
France and some in England whose circumstances compelled 
them to part with a signed piece of Buhl2 or a writing-table 

1 on the Rive Gauche — (англ., фр.) на Левом берегу (Сены)
2 Buhl — Андре Шарль Буль (1642–1732), французский мастер художественной мебели, украшал строгую по формам мебель сложным мозаичным узором

The RazoR’s edge

10

made by Chippendale1 himself if it could be done quietly, and 
they were glad to know a man of great culture and perfect 
manners who could arrange the matter with discretion. One 
would naturally suppose that Elliott profited by the transactions, 
but one was too well-bred to mention it. Unkind people 
asserted that everything in his apartment was for sale and that 
after he had invited wealthy Americans to an excellent lunch, 
with vintage wines, one or two of his valuable drawings would 
disappear or a marquetry commode would be replaced by one 
in lacquer. When he was asked why a particular piece had 
vanished he very plausibly explained that he hadn’t thought it 
quite up to his mark and had exchanged it for one of much 
finer quality. He added that it was tiresome always to look at 
the same things.
“Nous autres americains2, we Americans,” he said, “like 
change. It is at once our weakness and our strength.” Some of 
the American ladies in Paris, who claimed to know all about 
him, said that his family was quite poor and if he was able to 
live in the way he did it was only because he had been very 
clever. I do not know how much money he had, but his ducal 
landlord certainly made him pay a lot for his apartment and 
it was furnished with objects of value. On the walls were 
drawings by the great French masters, Watteau3, Fragonard4, 
Claude Lorraine5 and so on; Savonnerie and Aubusson rugs 

1 Chippendale — Томас Чиппендейл (1718–1779), английский мастер мебельного искусства, сочетал функциональную 
сообразность форм с изяществом линий
2 Nous autres americains — (фр.) Мы американцы
3 Watteau — Антуан Ватто (1684–1721), французский художник, рисовальщик
4 Fragonard — Оноре Фрагонар (1732–1806), французский 
живописец и график
5 Claude Lorraine — Клод Лоррен (Желе) (1600–1682), французский мастер рисунка и офорта