«Великий Гэтсби» и другие лучшие произведения Ф.С. Фицджеральда

When it was about breast high, she glanced back toward shore: a bald man in a monocle[111 - monocle – a single eyeglass held by the muscles around the eye] and a pair of tights[112 - a pair of tights – a man’s bathing-suit of the first decades of the 20

century], his tufted chest thrown out, his brash navel sucked in, was regarding her attentively. As Rosemary returned the gaze the man dislodged the monocle, which went into hiding amid the facetious whiskers of his chest, and poured himself a glass of something from a bottle in his hand.

Rosemary laid her face on the water and swam a choppy little four-beat crawl out to the raft. The water reached up for her, pulled her down tenderly out of the heat, seeped in her hair and ran into the corners of her body. She turned round and round in it, embracing it, wallowing in it. Reaching the raft she was out of breath, but a tanned woman with very white teeth looked down at her, and Rosemary, suddenly conscious of the raw whiteness of her own body, turned on her back and drifted toward shore.

The hairy man holding the bottle spoke to her as she came out.

“I say – they have sharks out behind the raft.” He was of indeterminate nationality, but spoke English with a slow Oxford drawl. “Yesterday they devoured two British sailors from the flotte[113 - flotte = fleet (French)] at Golfe Juan[114 - Golfe Juan – a town on the French Riviera 7 km from Cannes].”

“Heavens!” exclaimed Rosemary.

“They come in for the refuse from the flotte.

”

Glazing his eyes to indicate that he had only spoken in order to warn her, he minced off two steps and poured himself another drink.

Not unpleasantly self-conscious, since there had been a slight sway of attention toward her during this conversation, Rosemary looked for a place to sit. Obviously each family possessed the strip of sand immediately in front of its umbrella; besides there was much visiting and talking back and forth – the atmosphere of a community upon which it would be presumptuous to intrude.

Farther up, where the beach was strewn with pebbles and dead sea-weed, sat a group with flesh as white as her own. They lay under small hand-parasols instead of beach umbrellas and were obviously less indigenous to the place. Between the dark people and the light, Rosemary found room and spread out her peignoir[115 - peignoir – a woman’s light dressing gown] on the sand.