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Так получилось, что книга ко мне попала в тяжелый эмоциональный кризис и многое мне дала. Написано актуально, тут многих полезных вещей, никакого злоу...
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Plays: Lady Frederick, The Explorer, A Man of Honour
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Год написания книги
2017
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Mereston
Are you going to refuse me?
Lady Frederick
Aren't you rather glad?
Mereston
No, no, no.
Lady Frederick
[Putting her arm through his.] Now let us talk it over sensibly. You're a very nice boy, and I'm awfully fond of you. But you're twenty-two, and heaven only knows my age. You see, the church in which I was baptized was burnt down the year I was born, so I don't know how old I am.
Mereston
[Smiling.] Where was it burnt?
Lady Frederick
In Ireland.
Mereston
I thought so.
Lady Frederick
Just at present I can make a decent enough show by taking infinite pains; and my hand is not so heavy that the innocent eyes of your sex can discover how much of me is due to art. But in ten years you'll only be thirty-two, and then, if I married you, my whole life would be a mortal struggle to preserve some semblance of youth. Haven't you seen those old hags who've never surrendered to Anno Domini, with their poor, thin, wrinkled cheeks covered with paint, and the dreadful wigs that hide a hairless pate? Rather cock-eyed, don't you know, and invariably flaxen. You've laughed at their ridiculous graces, and you've been disgusted too. Oh, I'm so sorry for them, poor things. And I should become just like that, for I should never have the courage to let my hair be white so long as yours was brown. But if I don't marry you, I can look forward to the white hairs fairly happily. The first I shall pluck out, and the second I shall pluck out. But when the third comes I'll give in, and I'll throw my rouge and my poudre de riz and my pencils into the fire.
Mereston
But d'you think I should ever change?
Lady Frederick
My dear boy, I'm sure of it. Can't you imagine what it would be to be tied to a woman who was always bound to sit with her back to the light? And sometimes you might want to kiss me.
Mereston
I think it very probable.
Lady Frederick
Well, you couldn't – in case you disarranged my complexion. [Mereston sighs deeply.] Don't sigh, Charlie. I daresay I was horrid to let you fall in love with me, but I'm only human, and I was desperately flattered.
Mereston
Was that all?
Lady Frederick
And rather touched. That is why I want to give a cure with my refusal.
Mereston
But you break my heart.
Lady Frederick
My dear, men have said that to me ever since I was fifteen, but I've never noticed that in consequence they ate their dinner less heartily.
Mereston
I suppose you think it was only calf-love?
Lady Frederick
I'm not such a fool as to imagine a boy can love any less than a man. If I'd thought your affection ridiculous I shouldn't have been so flattered.
Mereston
It doesn't hurt any the less because the wounds you make are clean cut.
Lady Frederick
But they'll soon heal. And you'll fall in love with a nice girl of your own age, whose cheeks flush with youth and not with rouge, and whose eyes sparkle because they love you, and not because they're carefully made up.
Mereston
But I wanted to help you. You're in such an awful scrape, and if you'll only marry me it can all be set right.
Lady Frederick
Oh, my dear, don't go in for self-sacrifice. You must leave that to women. They're so much more used to it.
Mereston
Isn't there anything I can do for you?
Lady Frederick
No, dear. I shall get out of the mess somehow. I always do. You really need not worry about me.
Mereston
You know, you are a brick.
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Последний отзыв
Так получилось, что книга ко мне попала в тяжелый эмоциональный кризис и многое мне дала. Написано актуально, тут многих полезных вещей, никакого злоу...
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