He thought about alone in Constantinople that time, having quarrelled in Paris before he had gone out. He had whored the whole time and then, when that was over, and he had failed to kill his loneliness, but only made it worse, he had written her, the first one, the one who left him, a letter telling her how he had never been able to kill it... How when he thought he saw outside the Regence one time it made him go all faint and sick inside, and that he would follow a woman who looked like her in some way, along the Boulevard, afraid to see it was not she, afraid to lose the feeling it gave him. How every one he had slept with had only made him miss her more. How what she had done could never matter since he knew he could not cure himself of loving her. He wrote this letter at the Club, cold sober, and mailed it to New York asking her to write him at the office in Paris. That seemed safe.
And that night missing her so much it made him feel hollow sick inside (и в тот же вечер, истосковавшись по ней до чувства щемящей пустоты внутри: «скучая по ней так сильно, что это заставляло его почувствовать пустую тошноту внутри»), he wandered up past Taxim's (он прогулялся мимо Таксима[14]), picked a girl up (подцепил девушку) and took her out to supper (и пошел с ней ужинать: «повел ее на ужин»). He had gone to a place to dance with her afterward (потом он поехал с ней в дансинг: «в /одно/ место, чтобы потанцевать»), she danced badly (танцевала она плохо), and left her for a hot Armenian slut (и он променял ее на шикарную армянскую девку; hot — горячий; сексуально привлекательная), that swung her belly against him so it almost scalded (которая так терлась об него животом, что его почти обжигало; to swing — качать; раскачивать; вертеть; to scald — обваривать, ошпаривать, обжигать). He took her away from a British gunner subaltern after a row (он со скандалом забрал = отбил ее у британского офицера-артиллериста; gun — пушка; орудие; subaltern — младший офицер). The gunner asked him outside (артиллерист вызвал его на улицу) and they fought in the street on the cobbles in the dark (и они дрались там в темноте, на булыжной мостовой; cobble — булыжник; to fight). He'd hit him twice, hard, on the side of the jaw (он два раза сильно ударил его по скуле) and when he didn't go down (и когда тот не упал) he knew he was in for a fight (он понял, что драка предстоит серьезная; to be in for smth. — находиться в ожидании чего-либо /неприятного/). The gunner hit him in the body (артиллерист ударил его по туловищу)