Funny stories / Сборник лучших смешных рассказов. Уровень 2

Our host’s wine is always the best we have ever tasted. No, not another glass; we dare not-doctor’s orders, very strict. Our host’s cigar! We did not know they made such cigars in this world. No, we really cannot smoke another. Well, if he insists, may we put it in our pocket? The truth is, we do not like to smoke.

Our hostess’s coffee! Will she tell us her secret?

The baby! The usual baby-we have seen it. To be honest, we do not like babies a lot. But this baby! It is just the kind we wanted for ourselves.

Little Janet’s recitation[34 - Little Janet’s recitation – декламирование маленькой Дженет]: “A Visit to the Dentist”! This is genius, surely. She must train for the stage. Her mother does not like the stage. But the theatre will lose such talent.

Every bride is beautiful. Every bride looks charming in a simple dress of-for further particulars see local papers. Every marriage is a cause for universal rejoicing. With our wine-glass in our hand we picture the best life for them. How can it be otherwise? She, the daughter of her mother. (Cheers.) He-well, we all know him. (More cheers.)

We carry our make-believe even into our religion. We sit in church, and say to the God, that we are miserable worms-that there is no good in us. It does us no harm, we must do it anyway.

We make-believe that every woman is good, that every man is honest-until they show us, against our will, that they are not. Then we become very angry with them, and explain to them that they are such sinners, and are not to mix with us perfect people.

Everybody goes to a better world when they have got all they can here. We stand around the open grave and tell each other so. The clergyman is so assured of it that, to save time[35 - to save time – чтобы сэкономить время], they have written out the formula for him and had it printed in a little book.

When I was a child, I was very surprised that everybody went to heaven. I was thinking about all the people that had died, there were too many people there. Almost I felt sorry for the Devil, forgotten and abandoned. I saw him in imagination, a lonely old gentleman, sitting at his gate day after day, doing nothing. An old nurse whom I told my ideas was sure that he would get me anyhow. Maybe I was an evil-hearted boy. But the thought of how he will welcome me, the only human being that he had seen for years, made me almost happy.

At every public meeting the chief speaker is always “a good fellow.” The man from Mars, reading our newspapers, will be convinced that every Member of Parliament was a jovial, kindly, high-hearted, generous-souled saint. We have always listened with pleasure to the brilliant speech of our friend who has just sat down.

The higher one ascends in the social scale[36 - the social scale – общественная лестница], the wider becomes the make-believe. When anything sad happens to a very important person, the lesser people round about him hardly can live. So one wonders sometimes how it is the world continues to exist.

Once upon a time a certain good and great man became ill. I read in the newspaper that the whole nation was in grief. People dining in restaurants dropped their heads upon the table and sobbed. Strangers, meeting in the street, cried like little children. I was abroad at the time, but began to return home. I almost felt ashamed to go. I looked at myself in the mirror, and was shocked at my own appearance: there was a man who had not been in trouble for weeks. Surely, I had a shallow nature. I had had luck with a play in America, and I just could not look grief-stricken. There were moments when I found myself whistling!

The first man I talked to on Dover[37 - Dover – Дувр] pier was a Customs House official. He appeared quite pleased when he found 48 cigars. He demanded the tax, and chuckled when he got it.

On Dover

platform a little girl laughed because a lady dropped a handbox on a dog; but then children are always callous-or, perhaps, she had not heard the news.

What astonished me most, however, was to find in the train a respectable looking man who was reading a comic journal. True, he did not laugh much; but what was a grief-stricken citizen doing with a comic journal, anyhow? I had come to the conclusion that we English must be a people of wonderful self-control. The day before, as newspapers wrote, the whole country was in serious danger of a broken heart. “We have cried all day,” they had said to themselves, “we have cried all night. Now let us live once again.” Some of them-I noticed it in the hotel dining-room that evening-were returning to their food again.

We make believe about quite serious things. In war, each country’s soldiers are always the most courageous in the world. The other country’s soldiers are always treacherous and sly; that is why they sometimes win. Literature is the art of make-believe.

“Now all of you sit round and throw your pennies in the cap,” says the author, “and I will pretend that there lives in Bayswater[38 - Bayswater – Бейсуотер] a young lady named Angelina[39 - Angelina – Анжелина], who is the most beautiful young lady that ever existed. And in Notting Hill[40 - Notting Hill – Ноттинг-Хилл], we will pretend, there lives a young man named Edwin[41 - Edwin – Эдвин], who is in love with Angelina.”

And then, if there are some pennies in the cap, the author pretends that Angelina thought this and said that, and that Edwin did all sorts of wonderful things. We know he is making it all up[42 - is making it all up – измышляет всё это]. We know he is making up just to please us. But we know well enough that if we stop to throw the pennies into the cap, the author can do another things.

The manager bangs his drum.

“Come here! come here!” he cries, “we are going to pretend that Mrs. Johnson[43 - Mrs. Johnson – миссис Джонсон] is a princess, and old man Johnson is going to pretend to be a pirate. Come here, come here, and be in time!”

So Mrs. Johnson, pretending to be a princess, comes out of a paper house that we agree to pretend is a castle; and old man Johnson, pretending to be a pirate, is swimming in the thing we agree to pretend is the ocean. Mrs. Johnson pretends to be in love with him, but we know she is not. And Johnson pretends to be a very terrible person; and Mrs. Johnson pretends, till eleven o’clock, to believe it. And we pay money to sit for two hours and listen to them.

But as I explained at the beginning, my friend is a mad person.

Exercises

1. Выберите правильный вариант:

1. We make believe about quite serious things.

2. We make believe about quite stupid things.

3. We make believe about quite incredible things.

4. We make believe about quite common things.

ОТВЕТ: We make believe about quite serious things.

2. Where does a young man, who is in love with Angelina, live?

1. in Bayswater

2. in Dover

3. in London

4. in Notting Hill

ОТВЕТ: in Notting Hill

3. Who is the Prince of Wales?

1. It is a title granted to princes lived in Wales.

2. It is a title granted to princes born in England.

3. It is a title granted to princes married in Wales.

4. It is a title granted to princes born in Wales.

ОТВЕТ: It is a title granted to princes born in Wales.

4. How many cigars did a Customs House official find?

1. 35 cigars

2. 48 cigars

3. 24 cigars

4. 53 cigars

ОТВЕТ: 48 cigars

5. “Jovial” is NOT…

1. amiable