Сага о Форсайтах. Сдается внаем

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ93
 
Г 60

© КАРО, 2009
ISBN 9785992503333

Голсуорси Дж.
Г 60
Сага о Форсайтах. Сдается внаем: Книга для чтения
на английском языке. — СПб.: КАРО, 2009. — 416 с. —
(Серия «Classical Literature»)

ISBN 9785992503333

Предлагаем вниманию читателей заключительную часть
трилогии Дж. Голсуорси «Сага о Форсайтах» — «Сдается внаем». В центре повествования — судьбы Флер и Джона, представителей молодого поколения семьи Форсайтов.
Неадаптированный текст романа снабжен комментариями и словарем. Книга адресована студентам языковых вузов и всем любителям английской литературы.

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ93

TO LET

“From out the fatal loins of those two foes
A pair of starcrossed lovers take their life.”

Romeo and Juliet

To Charles Scribner1

1 Charles Scribner — Чарльз Скрибнер, американский
издатель

PART I

Chapter I

ENCOUNTER

Soames Forsyte emerged from the Knightsbridge Hotel, where he was staying, in the afternoon of the 12th of May, 1920, with the intention of visiting a collection of pictures in a Gallery off Cork Street, and looking into the Future.
He walked. Since the War he never took a cab if
he could help it. Their drivers were, in his view,
an uncivil lot, though now that the War was over
and supply beginning to exceed demand again,
getting more civil in accordance with the custom
of human nature. Still, he had not forgiven them,
deeply identifying them with gloomy memories,
and now, dimly, like all members of their class,
with revolution. The considerable anxiety he had
passed through during the War, and the more considerable anxiety he had since undergone in the
Peace, had produced psychological consequences

TO LET

6

in a tenacious nature. He had, mentally, so frequently experienced ruin, that he had ceased to
believe in its material probability. Paying away
four thousand a year in income and super tax1,
one could not very well be worse off! A fortune
of a quarter of a million, encumbered only by a
wife and one daughter, and very diversely invested,
afforded substantial guarantee even against that
“wildcat notion2” a levy on capital. And as to
confiscation of war profits, he was entirely in
favour of it, for he had none, and “serve the beggars right!” The price of pictures, moreover, had,
if anything, gone up, and he had done better with
his collection since the War began than ever before. Airraids, also, had acted beneficially on a
spirit congenitally cautious, and hardened a character already dogged. To be in danger of being
entirely dispersed inclined one to be less apprehensive of the more partial dispersions involved
in levies and taxation, while the habit of condemning the impudence of the Germans had led
naturally to condemning that of Labour, if not
openly at least in the sanctuary of his soul.
He walked. There was, moreover, time to spare,
for Fleur was to meet him at the Gallery at four

1 super tax — во время войны в Англии было введено
дополнительное обложение налогом больших доходов
2 wildcat notion — (разг.) рискованное предприятие

PART I

7

o’clock, and it was as yet but halfpast two. It was
good for him to walk — his liver was a little constricted, and his nerves rather on edge. His wife was
always out when she was in Town, and his daughter
would flibbertygibbet all over the place like most
young women since the War. Still, he must be thankful that she had been too young to do anything in
that War itself. Not, of course, that he had not supported the War from its inception, with all his soul,
but between that and supporting it with the bodies
of his wife and daughter, there had been a gap fixed
by something oldfashioned within him which abhorred emotional extravagance. He had, for instance,
strongly objected to Annette, so attractive, and in
1914 only thirtyfour, going to her native France,
her “chère patrie1” as, under the stimulus of war, she
had begun to call it, to nurse her “braves poilus2,”
forsooth! Ruining her health and her looks! As if she
were really a nurse! He had put a stopper on it. Let
her do needlework for them at home, or knit! She
had not gone, therefore, and had never been quite
the same woman since. A bad tendency of hers to
mock at him, not openly, but in continual little ways,
had grown. As for Fleur, the War had resolved the
vexed problem whether or not she should go to
school. She was better away from her mother in her

1 chère patrie — (фр.) дорогая родина
2 braves poilus — (фр.) бравые солдаты

TO LET

8

war mood, from the chance of airraids, and the impetus to do extravagant things; so he had placed her
in a seminary as far West as had seemed to him compatible with excellence, and had missed her horribly.
Fleur! He had never regretted the somewhat outlandish name by which at her birth he had decided
so suddenly to call her — marked concession though
it had been to the French. Fleur! A pretty name — a
pretty child! But restless — too restless; and wilful!
Knowing her power too over her father! Soames often reflected on the mistake it was to dote on his
daughter. To get old and dote! Sixtyfive! He was
getting on1; but he didn’t feel it, for, fortunately perhaps, considering Annette’s youth and good looks,
his second marriage had turned out a cool affair. He
had known but one real passion in his life — for that
first wife of his — Irene. Yes, and that fellow, his
cousin Jolyon, who had gone off with her, was looking very shaky, they said. No wonder, at seventytwo, after twenty years of a third marriage!
Soames paused a moment in his march to lean
over the railings of the Row2. A suitable spot for
reminiscence, halfway between that house in Park
Lane which had seen his birth and his parents’ deaths,
and the little house in Montpellier Square where
thirtyfive years ago he had enjoyed his first edition

1 he was getting on — (разг.) он старел
2 the Row — дорога в Гайдпарке для верховых прогулок

PART I

9

of matrimony. Now, after twenty years of his second
edition, that old tragedy seemed to him like a previous existence — which had ended when Fleur was
born in place of the son he had hoped for. For many
years he had ceased regretting, even vaguely, the son
who had not been born; Fleur filled the bill in his
heart. After all, she bore his name; and he was not
looking forward at all to the time when she would
change it. Indeed, if he ever thought of such a calamity, it was seasoned by the vague feeling that he
could make her rich enough to purchase perhaps and
extinguish the name of the fellow who married her —
why not, since, as it seemed, women were equal to
men nowadays? And Soames, secretly convinced
that they were not, passed his curved hand over his
face vigorously, till it reached the comfort of his
chin. Thanks to abstemious habits1, he had not
grown fat and flabby; his nose was pale and thin, his
grey moustache closeclipped, his eyesight unimpaired. A slight stoop closened and corrected the
expansion given to his face by the heightening of
his forehead in the recession of his grey hair. Little
change had Time wrought in the “warmest” of the
young Forsytes, as the last of the old Forsytes — Timothy — now in his hundred and first year, would
have phrased it.

1 thanks to abstemious habits — (разг.) благодаря привычке питаться весьма умеренно

TO LET

10

The shade from the planetrees fell on his neat
Homburg hat; he had given up top hats — it was
no use attracting attention to wealth in days like
these. Planetrees! His thoughts travelled sharply
to Madrid — the Easter before the War, when,
having to make up his mind about that Goya1 picture, he had taken a voyage of discovery to study
the painter on his spot. The fellow had impressed
him — great range, real genius! Highly as the chap
ranked, he would rank even higher before they had
finished with him. The second Goya craze would
be greater even than the first; oh, yes! And he had
bought. On that visit he had — as never before —
commissioned a copy of a fresco painting called
“La Vendimia,”2 wherein was the figure of a girl
with an arm akimbo, who had reminded him of his
daughter. He had it now in the Gallery at Mapledurham, and rather poor it was — you couldn’t
copy Goya. He would still look at it, however, if
his daughter were not there, for the sake of something irresistibly reminiscent in the light, erect
balance of the figure, the width between the arching eyebrows, the eager dreaming of the dark eyes.
Curious that Fleur should have dark eyes, when
his own were grey — no pure Forsyte had brown

1 Goya — Франсиско Гойя (1746–1828), прославленный
испанский живописец
2 “La Vendimia” — (исп.) «Сбор винограда»