Заявление Рэндольфа Картера [with w_cat]

Данная книга сделана из двух: "The Statement of Randolph Carter" и "Заявление Рэндольфа Картера", автор Лавкрафт Говард.

Я старался соотнести по смыслу английский текст с его переводом, часто переводчик вводит в текст "отсебятину", но ведь это не "подстрочник", цель переводчика донести смысл...

В данном случае, перевод часто не точен, а иногда и не верен. Не думаю, что я в праве изменять перевод, будем считать, упомянутые неточности, темой для обсуждения...

Отсутствие «разжеванных» ответов, как мне кажется, лучше стимулирует мысль учащегося.

Полноценно работать с данным пособием можно на устройстве, поддерживающем гиперссылки: компьютер или различные «читалки» с сенсорным экраном, желательно со словарем.

Успехов!

W_cat.

[2] Again I say, I do not know what has become of Harley Warren, though I think—almost hope—that he is in peaceful oblivion, if there be anywhere so blessed a thing.

[3] It is true that I have for five years been his closest friend, and a partial sharer of his terrible researches into the unknown.

[4] I will not deny, though my memory is uncertain and indistinct, that this witness of yours may have seen us together as he says, on the Gainsville pike, walking toward Big Cypress Swamp , at half past 11 on that awful night.

[5] That we bore electric lanterns, spades, and a curious coil of wire with attached instruments, I will even affirm; for these things all played a part in the single hideous scene which remains burned into my shaken recollection.

[6] But of what followed, and of the reason I was found alone and dazed on the edge of the swamp next morning, I must insist that I know nothing save what I have told you over and over again.

[7] You say to me that there is nothing in the swamp or near it which could form the setting of that frightful episode. I reply that I knew nothing beyond what I saw.

[8] Vision or nightmare it may have been—vision or nightmare I fervently hope it was—yet it is all that my mind retains of what took place in those shocking hours after we left the sight of men.

[9] And why Harley Warren did not return, he or his shade—or some nameless thing I cannot describe— alone can tell.

[10] As I have said before, the weird studies of Harley Warren were well known to me, and to some extent shared by me.

[11] Of his vast collection of strange, rare books on forbidden subjects I have read all that are written in the languages of which I am master; but these are few as compared with those in languages I cannot understand.

[12] Most, I believe, are in Arabic; and the fiend-inspired book which brought on the end—the book which he carried in his pocket out of the world—was written in characters whose like I never saw elsewhere. Warren would never tell me just what was in that book.

[13] As to the nature of our studies—must I say again that I no longer retain full comprehension? It seems to me rather merciful that I do not, for they were terrible studies, which I pursued more through reluctant fascination than through actual inclination.

[14] Warren always dominated me, and sometimes I feared him.

[15] I remember how I shuddered at his facial expression on the night before the awful happening, when he talked so incessantly of his theory, why certain corpses never decay, but rest firm and fat in their tombs for a thousand years.

[16] But I do not fear him now, for I suspect that he has known horrors beyond my ken. Now I fear for him.

[17] Once more I say that I have no clear idea of our object on that night.

[18] Certainly, it had much to do with something in the book which Warren carried with him—that ancient book in undecipherable characters which had come to him from India a month before—but I swear I do not know what it was that we expected to find.

[19] Your witness says he saw us at half past 11 on the Gainsville pike, headed for Big Cypress Swamp.

[20] This is probably true, but I have no distinct memory of it. The picture seared into my soul is of one scene only, and the hour must have been long after midnight; for a waning crescent moon was high in the vaporous heavens.

[21] The place was an ancient cemetery; so ancient that I trembled at the manifold signs of immemorial years.

[22] It was in a deep, damp hollow, overgrown with rank grass, moss, and curious creeping weeds, and filled with a vague stench which my idle fancy associated absurdly with rotting stone.

[23] On every hand were the signs of neglect and decrepitude, and I seemed haunted by the notion that Warren and I were the first living creatures to invade a lethal silence of centuries.

[24] Over the valley's rim a wan, waning crescent moon peered through the noisome vapors that seemed to emanate from unheard of catacombs, and by its feeble, wavering beams I could distinguish a repellent array of antique slabs, urns, cenotaphs, and mausoleum facades; all crumbling, moss-grown, and moisture-stained, and partly concealed by the gross luxuriance of the unhealthy vegetation.

[25] My first vivid impression of my own presence in this terrible necropolis concerns the act of pausing with Warren before a certain half– obliterated sepulcher and of throwing down some burdens which we seemed to have been carrying.