Journals.ru - Basilews

"Понедельник начинается в субботу" в английском переводе. По-своему забавно.

Вот фрагмент про склеротичного говорящего кота.

"So-o, then . . ." said a well-poised male voice. "In a certain kingdom, in an ancient tsardom, there was and lived a tsar by the name of . . . mmm . . . well, anyway, it's really not all that important. Let's say . . . me-eh . . . Polouekt. He had three sons. tsareviches. The first . . . me-eh ... the third was an imbecile, but the first...?"

Bending down like a trooper under fire, I sneaked up to the window and looked out. The oak was in its place. Tomcat Basil stood on his hind legs with his back to it, immersed in deep thought. In his teeth, he clamped the stem of a water lily. He kept looking down at his feet and sounding a drawn-out "Me-eh-eh." Then he shook his head, put his front legs behind his back, and, hunching over like a lecturing professor, glided smoothly away from the oak.

"Very well," he enunciated through his teeth. "So, once upon a time there lived a tsar and tsarina. And they had one son... me-eh.. . an imbecile, naturally..."

Chagrined, he spit out the flower, and, frowning mightily, rubbed his forehead.

"A desperate situation," he stated. "But I do remember this and that! ‘Ha-ha-ha! There'll be something to feast on: a stallion for dinner, a brave lad for supper.' Now, where would that be from? But, Ivan, you can figure out for yourself, the imbecile replies: ‘Hey, you, revolting monstrosity, stuffing yourself before you caught the snow-white swan!' And later, of course, the tempered arrow and off with all the three heads. Ivan removes the three hearts and carts them home to his mother; the cretin. . . . Now, how do you like that for a gift!" The cat laughed sardonically, and then sighed. "Then there is that sickness - sclerosis," he remarked.

Sighing again, he turned back toward the oak and began to sing. "Krou, krou, my little ones! Krou, krou, my pigeonlets! I... me-eh... I slaked your thirst with the dew of my eyes . . . more exactly - watered you. .

He sighed for the third time and walked on silently for some time. As he reached the oak, he yelled out abruptly in a very unmusical voice, "Choice morsel she finished not!"

A massive psaltery suddenly appeared in his paws; I didn't notice at all how he came by it. Desperately he struck with his paw, and, catching the strings with his claws, bellowed even louder, as though trying to drown out the music:

"Doss im tann void foster ist

Doss macht dos hoitz

Dass... me-eh ... mein shatz... or katz?"

He stopped and paced a while, banging the strings in silence; then he sang in a low, uncertain voice:

"Oi, I been by that there garden That I'll tell as gospel truth:

Thus and snappy, They dug the poppy."

He returned to the oak, leaned the psaltery against it, and scratched behind his ear with a hind leg.

"Work, work, work," he said, "and nothing but work!"

He placed his paws behind his back again and went off to the left of the oak, muttering, "It has come to me, oh great tsar, that in the splendid city of Baghdad, there lived a tailor, by the name . . ." He dropped to all fours, arched his back, and hissed angrily. "It's especially bad with the names! Abu . . . Au . . . Somebody Ibn, whoever. . . . So-o, all right, let's say Polouekt. Polouekt Ibn, me-eh. . . Polouektovich. .. . In any event, I can't recall what happened to him. Dog take it, let's start another."

I lay with my stomach on the sill in a trance-like state, watching the unfortunate Basil wandering about the oak, now to the left and then to the right, muttering, coughing, meowing and mooing, standing on all fours in his efforts - in a word, suffering endlessly. The diapason of his knowledge was truly grandiose. He did not know a single tale or song more than halfway, but to make up for this, the repertoire included Russian, Ukrainian, West Slavic, German, English - I think even Japanese, Chinese, and African - fairy tales, legends, sermons, ballads, songs, romances, ditties, and refrains. The misfunction drove him into such a rage that several times he flung himself at the oak, ripping its bark with his claws, hissing and spitting while his eyes glowed with a satanic gleam and his furry tail, thick as a log, would now point at the zenith, then twitch spasmodically, then lash his sides. But the only song he carried to the end was "Tchizhik Pizhic,"( Common children's song )and the only fairy tale he recounted at all coherently was "The House that Jack Built" in the Marshak translation, and even that with several excisions. Gradually - apparently fatiguing - his speech acquired more and more catlike accent. "Ah me, in the field and meadow," he sang. "the plow goes by itself, and . . . me-e . . . ah . . . me-a-ou...and behind that plow the master himself has paced... or is it wended his way . . . ?" Finally, altogether spent, he sat down on his tail and stayed thus for some time, his head bent low. Then, meowing softly and sorrowfully, he took the psaltery under his arm and wandered off on the dewy grass, haltingly on three legs.

5 баллов за слово tsardom