Martins told me (Мартинс сказал мне), "Then I nearly went away (тогда я чуть было не ушел). What was the good of tormenting her because of this wild idea of mine (какой смысл было мучить ее из-за этой моей дикой идеи)? But instead I asked her one question (но вместо этого я задал ей один вопрос). 'Do you know a man called Cooler (вы знаете человека по имени Кулер)?'"
"An American (американца)?" she asked. "I think that was the man who brought me some money when Harry died (я думаю, это был человек, который принес мне немного денег, когда Гарри умер). I didn't want to take it (я не хотела брать их), but he said Harry had been anxious (но он сказал, что Гарри хотел этого: «был желающий»)—at the last moment (в последний момент)."
"So he didn't die instantaneously (так он не умер мгновенно)?"
"Oh, no (о, нет)."
Martins said to me (Мартинс сказал мне), "I began to wonder (я начал удивляться/задаваться вопросом) why I had got that idea so firmly into my head (почему я заполучил эту мысль так твердо в мою голову), and then I thought it was only the man in the flat who told me so (и затем я подумал, что только тот человек в квартире мне так сказал)... no one else (никто еще = никто кроме него). I said to her (я сказал ей), 'He must have been very clear in his head at the end (у него должно было быть очень ясное сознание в конце: «он должен был быть очень ясным в своей голове в конце»)—because he remembered about me too (потому что он вспомнил обо мне тоже). That seems to show (это, пожалуй, показывает: «это кажется показывать») that there wasn't really any pain (что на самом деле не было какой-либо боли).'"
medicine [`medsın], afterwards [`a:ftəwədz], torment [‘to:mənt]
medicine ['medsIn], gingerly ['GInG(q)lI], delicately ['delIkqtlI], dreadful ['dredful], afterwards ['Rftqwqdz], torment /глагол/ [tO:'ment], idea [aI'dIq]
"I'd like a cup," he said, but if there was one thing he hated it was tea. He watched her while she made it, made it, of course, all wrong: the water not on the boil, the teapot unheated, too few leaves. She said, "I never quite understand why English people like tea so."
He drank his cupful quickly like a medicine and watched her gingerly and delicately sip at hers. He said, "I wanted very much to see you. About Harry."
It was the dreadful moment: he would see her mouth stiffen to meet it.
"Yes?"
"I had known him twenty years. I was his friend. We were at school together, you know, and after that—there weren't many months running when we didn't meet ..."
She said, "When I got your card, I couldn't say no. But there's nothing really for us to talk about, is there?—nothing."