Элиас и Драг - страница 2

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He was so absurdly fond of the boat that it was a mere pastime for him to light a lantern and go down to have a look at it.	Он питал нелепую привязанность к лодке, поэтому ему ничего не стоило встать, зажечь фонарь и спуститься к ней на берег.
Now as he stood looking at it there by the light of the lantern, he suddenly caught a glimpse in the corner opposite, on a coil of nets, of a face which exactly resembled the seal's.	Войдя в сарай, он поднял над головой фонарь и внезапно заметил на сваленных в углу сетях лицо, удивительно напоминающее морду того тюленя.
For an instant it grinned savagely at him and the light, its mouth all the time growing larger and larger; and then a big man whisked out of the door, not so quickly, however, but that Elias could catch a glimpse, by the light of the lantern, of a long iron hooked spike sticking out of his back.	Оно злобно поморщилось от света. Его рот открывался все шире и шире, и через мгновение Элиас, не успев ничего понять, увидел удаляющуюся из эллинга грузную фигуру человека. Однако ему хватило времени, чтобы разглядеть длинный железный наконечник, торчащий из его спины.
And now he began to put one and two together.	Только теперь до Элиаса дошло, с кем он повстречался.
Still he was less anxious about his life than about his boat; so he there and then sat him down in it with the lantern, and kept watch. When his wife came in the morning, she found him sleeping there, with the burnt-out lantern by his side.	Но тем не менее его больше беспокоила безопасность лодки, нежели собственная жизнь.
One morning in January, while he was out fishing in his boat with two other men, he heard, in the dark, a voice from a skerry at the very entrance of the creek.	Ранним январским утром он вышел на промысел на своей лодке вместе с двумя другими рыбаками, и из погруженных во тьму прибрежных скал до него донесся голос.
It laughed scornfully, and said,	Ему показалось, что он смеется над ним.
"When it comes to a Femb?ring,4 Elias, look to thyself!"	- Будь осторожен, Элиас, когда купишь себе фембёринг[2]!
But there was many a long year yet before it did come to that; but one autumn, when his son Bernt was sixteen, Elias knew he could manage it, so he took his whole family with him in his boat to Ranen,5 to exchange his Sexaering for a Femb?ring.	Но прошло немало времени, прежде чем Элиас сумел купить фембёринг, - только после того, как его старшему сыну исполнилось семнадцать лет. В конце года Элиас погрузился со всей семьей в свою шестивесельную лодку и отправился в Ранен, чтобы обменять ее на фембёринг.
The only person left at home was a little Finn girl, whom they had taken into service some few years before, and who had only lately been confirmed.	Дома они оставили лишь маленькую девчонку-лопарку, недавно прошедшую обряд конфирмации, которую они приютили несколько лет назад.
Now there was a boat, a little Femb?ring, for four men and a boy, that Elias just then had his eye upon--a boat which the best boat-builder in the place had finished and tarred over that very autumn.	Он облюбовал одну фембёринг - небольшую шхуну, которую лучший в округе кораблестроитель закончил и просмолил лишь этой осенью.

Elias had a very good notion of what a boat should be, and it seemed to him that he had never seen a Femb?ring so well built below the water-line. Above the water-line, indeed, it looked only middling, so that, to one of less experience than himself, the boat would have seemed rather a heavy goer than otherwise, and anything but a smart craft. Now the boat-master knew all this just as well as Elias. He said he thought it would be the swiftest sailer in Ranen, but that Elias should have it cheap, all the same, if only he would promise one thing, and that was, to make no alteration whatever in the boat, nay, not so much as adding a fresh coat of tar. Only when Elias had expressly given his word upon it did he get the boat. But "yon laddie" 6 who had taught the boat-master how to build his boats so cunningly below the water-line--above the water-line he had had to use his native wits, and they were scant enough--must surely have been there beforehand, and bidden him both sell it cheaply, so that Elias might get it, and stipulate besides that the boat should not be looked at too closely. In this way it escaped the usual tarring fore and aft.