| "I certainly am," answered Phoebe, and added, with a little air of ladylike assumption (for civil as the gentleman was, he evidently took her to be a young person serving for wages), "I am a cousin of Miss Hepzibah, on a visit to her." | - Да, - ответила Фиби и прибавила с достоинством (потому как джентльмен при всей своей учтивости, очевидно, счел, что она работает здесь за жалованье): - Я кузина мисс Гепзибы и приехала к ней в гости. |
| "Her cousin? and from the country? | - Кузина? Не из деревни ли? |
| Pray pardon me, then," said the gentleman, bowing and smiling as Phoebe never had been bowed to nor smiled on before; "in that case, we must be better acquainted; for, unless I am sadly mistaken, you are my own little kinswoman likewise! | Тогда извините меня, - сказал джентльмен, кланяясь и улыбаясь, как никогда еще никто не кланялся и не улыбался Фиби. - В таком случае мы должны познакомиться ближе, потому что, если только я не ошибаюсь самым печальным образом, вы также и моя родственница! |
| Let me see-Mary?-Dolly?-Phoebe?-yes, Phoebe is the name! | Позвольте... Мэри?.. Долли?.. Фиби... да, именно Фиби! |
| Is it possible that you are Phoebe Pyncheon, only child of my dear cousin and classmate, Arthur? | Возможно ли, что вы - Фиби Пинчон, единственное дитя моего милого кузена Артура? |
| Ah, I see your father now, about your mouth. | О, да! Я вижу по вашим губкам, что он был вашим отцом. |
| Yes, yes! we must be better acquainted! | Да-да! Мы должны познакомиться поближе! |
| I am your kinsman, my dear. | Я ваш родственник, моя милая. |
| Surely you must have heard of Judge Pyncheon?" | Вы, верно, слышали о судье Пинчоне? |
| As Phoebe curtsied in reply, the judge bent forward, with the pardonable and even praiseworthy purpose-considering the nearness of blood, and the difference of age-of bestowing on his young relative a kiss of acknowledged kindred and natural affection. | Когда Фиби присела в ответ на его вопрос, судья наклонился вперед с простительным и даже похвальным намерением - если принять во внимание близость родства и разницу в возрасте -поцеловать свою молодую кузину. |
| Unfortunately (without design, or only with such instinctive design as gives no account of itself to the intellect), Phoebe, just as the critical moment, drew back; so that her highly respectable kinsman, with his body bent over the counter, and his lips protruded, was betrayed into the rather absurd predicament of kissing the empty air. It was a modern parallel to the case of Ixion embracing a cloud, and was so much the more ridiculous, as the judge prided himself on eschewing all airy matter, and never mistaking a shadow for a substance. The truth was-and it is Phoebe's only excuse-that although Judge Pyncheon's glowing benignity might not be absolutely unpleasant to the feminine beholder, with the width of a street, or even an ordinary-sized room, interposed between, yet it became quite too intense, when this dark, full-fed physiognomy (so roughly bearded, too, that no razor could ever make it smooth) sought to bring itself into actual contact with the object of its regards. The man, the sex, somehow or other, was entirely too prominent in the judge's demonstrations of that sort. |