Читать «Лучшие смешные рассказы / Best Funny Stories» онлайн - страница 7

The first man I talked to on Dover pier was a Customs House official. He appeared quite pleased when he found 48 cigars. He demanded the tax, and chuckled when he got it.

On Dover platform a little girl laughed because a lady dropped a handbox on a dog; but then children are always callous – or, perhaps, she had not heard the news.

What astonished me most, however, was to find in the train a respectable looking man who was reading a comic journal. True, he did not laugh much; but what was a grief-stricken citizen doing with a comic journal, anyhow? I had come to the conclusion that we English must be a people of wonderful self-control. The day before, as newspapers wrote, the whole country was in serious danger of a broken heart. “We have cried all day,” they had said to themselves, “we have cried all night. Now let us live once again.” Some of them – I noticed it in the hotel dining-room that evening – were returning to their food again.

We make believe about quite serious things. In war, each country’s soldiers are always the most courageous in the world. The other country’s soldiers are always treacherous and sly; that is why they sometimes win. Literature is the art of make-believe.

“Now all of you sit round and throw your pennies in the cap,” says the author, “and I will pretend that there lives in Bayswater a young lady named Angelina, who is the most beautiful young lady that ever existed. And in Notting Hill, we will pretend, there lives a young man named Edwin, who is in love with Angelina.”

And then, if there are some pennies in the cap, the author pretends that Angelina thought this and said that, and that Edwin did all sorts of wonderful things. We know he is making it all up. We know he is making up just to please us. But we know well enough that if we stop to throw the pennies into the cap, the author can do another things.

The manager bangs his drum.

“Come here! come here!” he cries, “we are going to pretend that Mrs. Johnson is a princess, and old man Johnson is going to pretend to be a pirate. Come here, come here, and be in time!”

So Mrs. Johnson, pretending to be a princess, comes out of a paper house that we agree to pretend is a castle; and old man Johnson, pretending to be a pirate, is swimming in the thing we agree to pretend is the ocean. Mrs. Johnson pretends to be in love with him, but we know she is not. And Johnson pretends to be a very terrible person; and Mrs. Johnson pretends, till eleven o’clock, to believe it. And we pay money to sit for two hours and listen to them.

But as I explained at the beginning, my friend is a mad person.

Упражнения

1. Выберите правильный вариант:

1. We make believe about quite serious things.

2. We make believe about quite stupid things.

3. We make believe about quite incredible things.