Скорбь сатаны / The sorrows of Satan. Уровень 4

“What a surprise for you! You will have your loan back as promptly as you sent it, with an extra fifty added for your generosity. And as for the rich friend you are sending to help me over my difficulties, well, he may be a very excellent old gentleman, but he will find himself quite useless this time. I want neither assistance nor advice nor patronage. I can buy them all! Titles, honours, possessions, – they are all purchaseable, – love, friendship, position, – they are all for sale in this admirably commercial age! The wealthy �philanthropist’ will find it difficult to match me in power[9 - to match me in power – состязаться со мной в могуществе]! He will scarcely have more than five millions to waste, I think! And now for supper, I shall have to live on credit till I get some cash.

And there is no reason why I should not leave this wretched hole at once, and go to one of the best hotels!”

I was about to leave the room on the swift impulse of excitement and joy, when a fresh and violent gust of wind cast some soot on my rejected manuscript.

It lay forgotten on the floor, as I had despairingly thrown it. I hastily picked it up and shook it. Now I could publish it myself, and not only publish it but advertise it, and not only advertise it, but �push’ it, in all the crafty and cautious ways! I smiled as I thought of the vengeance I would take on all those who had scorned and slighted me and my labour. Now they will fawn and whine at my feet like curs! Every stiff and stubborn neck will bend before me. Brains and money together can move the world!

Full of ambitious thought, I caught wild sounds from the violin, and all at once I remembered I had not yet opened the third letter addressed to me, the one coroneted in scarlet and gold, which had remained where it was on the table almost unnoticed till now. I took it up and turned it over with an odd sense of reluctance in my fingers, I read the following lines,

Dear Sir.

I am the bearer of a letter of introduction to you from your former college companion Mr. John Carrington, now of Melbourne, who has been good enough to thus give me the means of making the acquaintance of one, who, I understand, is more than exceptionally endowed with the gift of literary genius. I shall call upon you this evening between eight and nine o’clock, trusting to find you at home and disengaged.