| In this particular case, however mechanical and innocuous it might be at other times, Hepzibah's contortion of brow served her its good stead. | На этот раз нахмуренные брови Г епзибы очень ей пригодились. |
| "I never was so frightened in my life!" said the curious customer in describing the incident of her acquaintances. | - Никогда еще в жизни я не был так испуган! -говорил любопытный покупатель, описывая это приключение своему знакомому. |
| "She's a real old vixen, take my word for it! | - Это настоящая старая ведьма, честное слово, ведьма! |
| She says little, to be sure; but if you could only see the mischief in her eye!" | Говорит она мало, но посмотрел бы ты, какая злость у нее в глазах! |
| On the whole, therefore, her new experience led our decayed gentlewoman to very disagreeable conclusions as to the temper and manners of what she termed the lower classes, whom heretofore she had looked down upon with a gentle and pitying complaisance, as herself occupying a sphere of unquestionable superiority. | Вообще новый жизненный опыт привел Г епзибу к весьма неприятным заключениям касательно характера низших слоев общества, на которые она до сих пор взирала с благосклонностью и состраданием, так как сама вращалась в сфере неоспоримо высшей. |
| But, unfortunately, she had likewise to struggle against a bitter emotion of a directly opposite kind: a sentiment of virulence, we mean, towards the idle aristocracy to which it had so recently been her pride to belong. | Но, к несчастью, она вынуждена была бороться в то же время с сильным душевным волнением противоположного рода: мы говорим о чувстве неприязни к высшему сословию, принадлежностью к которому она еще недавно так гордилась. |
| When a lady, in a delicate and costly summer garb, with a floating veil and gracefully swaying gown, and, altogether, an ethereal lightness that made you look at her beautifully slippered feet, to see whether she trod on the dust or floated in the air-when such a vision happened to pass through this retired street, leaving it tenderly and delusively fragrant with her passage, as if a bouquet of tea-roses had been borne along-then again, it is to be feared, old Hepzibah's scowl could no longer vindicate itself entirely on the plea of near-sightedness. "For what end," thought she, giving vent to that feeling of hostility which is the only real abasement of the poor, in presence of the rich, "for what good end, in the wisdom of Providence, does that woman live? Must the whole world toil, that the palms of her hands may be kept white and delicate?" |