Короли и капуста

УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ93
 О 36

ISBN 9785992501483
© КАРО, 2008

О. Генри
О 36
Короли и капуста: Книга для чтения на английском языке — СПб.: КАРО, 2012. — 352 с.

ISBN 9785992501483.

О.Генри (настоящее имя Уильям Сидни Портер, Porter)
(1862–1910) — американский писательюморист, непревзойденный мастер короткого рассказа.
«Короли и капуста» (1904) — сборник авантюрноюмористических новелл, действие которых происходит в Латинской
Америке. Книга отличается занимательным сюжетом и парадоксально неожиданной развязкой.
Неадаптированный текст на языке оригинала снабжен
комментариями и словарем.
УДК 372.8
ББК 81.2 Англ93

CABBAGES AND KINGS

“The time has come” the Walrus said,
 “To talk of many things;
 Of shoes and ships and sealingwax,
 And cabbages and kings.”

The Walrus and the Carpenter*

The Proem

By the Carpenter

They will tell you in Anchuria, that
President Miraflores, of that volatile republic, died by his own hand in the coast
town of Coralio; that he had reached thus
far in flight from the inconveniences of an
imminent revolution; and that one hundred
thousand dollars, government funds, which
he carried with him in an American leather valise as a souvenir of his tempestuous
administration, was never afterward recovered.

* Строчки из книги Л. Кэрролла «Алиса в стране чудес»

O. HENRY

For a real, a boy will show you his grave.
It is back of the town near a little bridge
that spans a mangrove swamp. A plain slab
of wood stands at its head. Some one has
burned upon the headstone with a hot iron
this inscription:

RAMÓN ANGEL DE LAS CRUZES
Y MIRAFLORES
PRESIDENTE DE LA REPÚBLICA
DE ANCHURIA
QUE SEA SU JUEZ DIOS

It is characteristic of this buoyant
people that they pursue no man beyond the
grave. “Let God be his judge!” — Even with
the hundred thousand unfound, though
greatly coveted, the hue and cry* went no
further than that.
To the stranger or the guest the people
of Coralio will relate the story of the tragic end of their former president; how he
strove to escape from the country with the
public funds and also with Doña Isabel
Guilbert, the young American opera singer; and how, being apprehended by members of the opposing political party in Cor* the hue and cry — шумиха

CABBAGES AND KINGS

alio, he shot himself through the head rather than give up the funds, and, in consequence, the Señorita Guilbert. They will
relate further that Doña Isabel, her adventurous bark of fortune shoaled by the simultaneous loss of her distinguished admirer and the souvenir hundred thousand,
dropped anchor on this stagnant coast,
awaiting a rising tide.
They say, in Coralio, that she found a
prompt and prosperous tide in the form of
Frank Goodwin, an American resident of
the town, an investor who had grown
wealthy by dealing in the products of the
country — a banana king, a rubber prince,
a sarsaparilla, indigo, and mahogany
baron. The Señorita Guilbert, you will be
told, married Señor Goodwin one month
after the president’s death, thus, in the
very moment when Fortune had ceased to
smile, wresting from her a gift greater than
the prize withdrawn.
 Of the American, Don Frank Goodwin,
and of his wife the natives have nothing
but good to say. Don Frank has lived
among them for years, and has compelled
their respect. His lady is easily queen of
what social life the sober coast affords.
The wife of the governor of the district,

O. HENRY

herself, who was of the proud Castilian
family of Monteleon y Dolorosa de los Santos y Mendez, feels honoured to unfold her
napkin with olivehued, ringed hands at the
table of Señora Goodwin. Were you to refer (with your northern prejudices) to the
vivacious past of Mrs. Goodwin when her
audacious and gleeful abandon in light opera 
captured 
the 
mature 
president’s
fancy, or to her share in that statesman’s
downfall and malfeasance, the Latin shrug
of the shoulder would be your only answer
and rebuttal. What prejudices there were
in Coralio concerning Señora Goodwin
seemed now to be in her favour, whatever
they had been in the past.
It would seem that the story is ended,
instead of begun; that the close of a tragedy and the climax of a romance have covered the ground of interest; but, to the
more curious reader it shall be some slight
instruction to trace the close threads that
underlie the ingenuous web of circumstances.
The headpiece bearing the name of President Miraflores is daily scrubbed with
soapbark and sand. An old halfbreed Indian tends the grave with fidelity and the
dawdling minuteness of inherited sloth. He

CABBAGES AND KINGS

chops down the weeds and everspringing
grass with his machete, he plucks ants and
scorpions and beetles from it with his horny
fingers, and sprinkles its turf with water
from the plaza fountain. There is no grave
anywhere so well kept and ordered.
Only by following out the underlying
threads will it be made clear why the old
Indian, Galvez, is secretly paid to keep
green the grave of President Miraflores by
one who never saw that unfortunate statesman in life or in death, and why that one
was wont to walk in the twilight, casting
from a distance looks of gentle sadness
upon that unhonoured mound.
Elsewhere than at Coralio one learns of
the impetuous career of Isabel Guilbert.
New Orleans gave her birth and the
mingled French and Spanish Creole nature
that tinctured her life with such turbulence
and warmth. She had little education, but a
knowledge of men and motives that seemed
to have come by instinct. Far beyond the
common woman was she endowed with intrepid rashness, with a love for the pursuit
of adventure to the brink of danger, and
with desire for the pleasures of life. Her
spirit was one to chafe under any curb;
she was Eve after the fall, but before the

O. HENRY

bitterness of it was felt. She wore life as a
rose in her bosom.
Of the legion of men who had been at her
feet it was said that but one was so fortunate as to engage her fancy. To President
Miraflores, the brilliant but unstable ruler
of Anchuria, she yielded the key to her resolute heart. How, then, do we find her (as
the Coralians would have told you) the wife
of Frank Goodwin, and happily living a life
of dull and dreamy inaction?
The underlying threads reach far,
stretching across the sea. Following them
out it will be made plain why “Shorty”
O’Day, of the Columbia Detective Agency,
resigned his position. And, for a lighter
pastime, it shall be a duty and a pleasing
sport to wander with Momus* beneath the
tropic stars where Melpomene** once
stalked austere. Now to cause laughter to
echo from those lavish jungles and frowning crags where formerly rang the cries
of pirates’ victims; to lay aside pike and
cutlass and attack with quip and jollity;
to draw one saving titter of mirth from
the rusty casque of Romance — this were

*Momus — Момус, шут богов, бог насмешки
** Melpomene — Мельпомена, муза трагедии

CABBAGES AND KINGS

pleasant to do in the shade of the lemontrees on that coast that is curved like lips
set for smiling.
For there are yet tales of the Spanish
Main. That segment of continent washed by
the tempestuous Caribbean, and presenting
to the sea a formidable border of tropical
jungle topped by the overweening Cordilleras, is still begirt by mystery and romance.
In past times buccaneers and revolutionists
roused the echoes of its cliffs, and the condor wheeled perpetually above where, in the
green groves, they made food for him with
their matchlocks and toledos. Taken and
retaken by sea rovers, by adverse powers
and by sudden uprising of rebellious factions, the historic 300 miles of adventurous coast has scarcely known for hundreds
of years whom rightly to call its master.
Pizarro, Balboa, Sir Francis Drake, and
Bolivar* did what they could to make it a

* Pizarro, Balboa, Sir Francis Drake, and Bolivar — Франциско Пиззаро (1475–1517) — испанец, завоеватель
Перу; Бальбоа (1475–1571) — испанец, один из первых
исследователей, добравшихся до Тихого океана; сэр
Френсис Дрейк (1540–1596) — англичанин, мореплаватель, колонизатор; Боливар (1783–1830) — виднейший борец за независимость испанских колоний в Центральной и Южной Америке

0

O. HENRY

part of Christendom. Sir John Morgan,
Lafitte* and other eminent swashbucklers
bombarded and pounded it in the name of
Abaddon.
The game still goes on. The guns of the
rovers are silenced; but the tintype man,
the enlarged photograph brigand, the kodaking tourist and the scouts of the gentle
brigade of fakirs have found it out, and
carry on the work. The hucksters of
Germany, France, and Sicily now bag its
small change across their counters. Gentleman adventurers throng the waitingrooms
of its rulers with proposals for railways and
concessions. The little opе´rabouffe nations** play at government and intrigue
until some day a big, silent gunboat glides
into the offing and warns them not to break
their toys. And with these changes comes
also the small adventurer, with empty pockets to fill, light of heart, busybrained —
the modern fairy prince, bearing an alarm
clock with which, more surely than by the
sentimental kiss, to awaken the beautiful

* Sir John Morgan, Lafitte — Дж. Морган (1635–1688) —
английский пират и завоеватель; Лафит (1780–1825) —
французский корсар и путешественник
** The little opérabouffe nations — крошечные опереточные народы