Любовник леди Чаттерлей / Lady Chatterley's Lover

Либо вы идете вперед, либо начинаете сползать назад.

А самое главное – не прекращать изучение языка. Это может быть чтение оригинальной литературы. Любите читать про любовь – читайте про любовь, любите фантастику – читайте фантастику. Но читайте обязательно!»

В В В В Рќ.

А. Бонк, лингвист, педагог, автор наиболее популярных в России учебников английского языка

Chapter 1

Ours is essentially a tragic age, so we refuse to take it tragically. The cataclysm has happened, we are among the ruins, we start to build up new little habitats, to have new little hopes. It is rather hard work: there is now no smooth road into the future: but we go round, or scramble over the obstacles.

We’ve got to live, no matter how many skies have fallen.

This was more or less Constance Chatterley’s position. The war[1 - Первая Мировая война (1914–1918 гг.)] had brought the roof down over her head. And she had realized that one must live and learn.

She married Clifford Chatterley in 1917, when he was home for a month on leave. They had a month’s honeymoon. Then he went back to Flanders:[2 - Фландрия, или поля Фландрии – обобщенное название зоны боевых действий Первой Мировой войны, приходившихся в основном на территорию Фламандского региона Бельгии; «поехать во Фландрию» – отправиться на фронт.

] to be shipped over to England again six months later, more or less in bits. Constance, his wife, was then twenty-three years old, and he was twenty-nine.

His hold on life was marvellous. He didn’t die, and the bits seemed to grow together again. For two years he remained in the doctor’s hands. Then he was pronounced a cure, and could return to life again, with the lower half of his body, from the hips down, paralysed for ever.

This was in 1920. They returned, Clifford and Constance, to his home, Wragby Hall, the family “seat”.