Лучшие любовные истории / The Best Love Stories

Лучшие любовные истории / The Best Love Stories

Томас Харди

Джек Лондон

Натаниель Готорн

Джозеф Конрад

Елена Владимировна Глушенкова

Легко читаем по-английски

В книгу вошли прекрасные истории о любви, разные, не все со счастливым концом, подчас вызывающие удивление и заставляющие размышлять. Тексты произведений подготовлены для уровня 4 Upper-Intermediate (для продолжающих учить английский язык верхней ступени), снабжены комментариями и словарем. Издание предназначено для всех, кто стремится читать на английском языке.

Лучшие любовные истории / The Best Love Stories

© ООО «Издательство АСТ»

Rappachini’s Daughter

After Nathaniel Hawthorne (1804–1864)

A young man, named Giovanni Guasconti, came, very long ago, from the more southern region of Italy, to pursue his studies at the University of Padua. Giovanni, who did not have very many gold ducats in his pocket, took lodgings in a high and gloomy room of an old house which looked worthy to have been the palace of a Paduan noble, in fact, a family mansion.

Being heartbroken, which was natural to a young man for the first time out of his native places, Giovanni sighed heavily as he looked around the empty and ill-furnished apartment.

“Holy Virgin,[1 - Holy Virgin – Пресвятая Дева] signor!” cried old Signora Lisabetta, who, won by the youth’s remarkable beauty, was kindly trying to give the room a habitable air.[2 - a habitable air – жилой вид] “Why should[3 - Why should – c какой стати] a young man sigh like that? Do you find this old mansion gloomy? Then, put your head out of the window, and you will see as bright sunshine as you have left in Naples.

”

Guasconti mechanically did as the old woman advised, but could not quite agree with her that the Paduan sunshine was as cheerful as that of southern Italy. Such as it was, however, it fell upon a garden beneath the window with a variety of plants, which seemed to have been cultivated with exceeding care.

[4 - which seemed to have been cultivated with exceeding care – которые, по-видимому, очень заботливо возделывались]

“Does this garden belong to the house?” asked Giovanni.

“No; that garden is cultivated by the own hands of Signor Giacomo Rappaccini, the famous doctor, who has been heard of as far as Naples. It is said that he turns these plants into medicines that are as strong as a charm.