The Last Tycoon / Последний магнат. Книга для чтения на английском языке

“I told you it’d be morning soon,” said Wylie. “I was born near here – the son of impoverished southern paupers. The family mansion is now used as an outhouse. We had four servants – my father, my mother and my two sisters. I refused to join the guild, and so I went to Memphis to start my career, which has now reached a dead end[15 - has now reached a dead end – (разг.) зашла в тупик].” He put his arm around me: “Cecilia, will you marry me, so I can share the Brady fortune?”

He was disarming enough, so I let my head lie on his shoulder.

“What do you do, Celia. Go to school?”

“I go to Bennington. I’m a junior.”

“Oh, I beg your pardon. I should have known, but I never had the advantage of college training. But a junior – why I read in Esquire that juniors have nothing to learn, Cecilia.”

“Why do people think that college girls —”

“Don’t apologize – knowledge is power.”

“You’d know from the way you talk that we were on our way to Hollywood,” I said.

“It’s always years and years behind the times.”

He pretended to be shocked.

“You mean girls in the East have no private lives?”

“That’s the point. They have got private lives. You’re bothering me, let go.”

“I can’t. It might wake Schwartz, and I think this is the first sleep he’s had for weeks. Listen, Cecilia: I once had an affair with the wife of a producer. A very short affair. When it was over she said to me in no uncertain terms[16 - in no uncertain terms – (уст.

) недвусмысленно, четко и ясно], she said: �Don’t you ever tell about this or I’ll have you thrown out of Hollywood. My husband’s a much more important man than you!’”

I liked him again now, and presently the taxi turned down a long lane fragrant with honeysuckle and narcissus, and stopped beside the great grey hulk of the Andrew Jackson house. The driver turned around to tell us something about it, but Wylie shushed him, pointing at Schwartz, and we tiptoed out of the car.

“You can’t get into the Mansion now,” the taxi man told us politely.

Wylie and I went and sat against the wide pillars of the steps.

“What about Mr. Schwartz,” I asked. “Who is he?”

“To hell with Schwartz. He was the head of some combine once – First National? Paramount? United Artists? Now he’s down and out[17 - he’s down and out – (разг.