Hans French Wasn T As Good As Willi S, but He Could Make Himself Understood, and He And

Hans French Wasn T As Good As Willi S, but He Could Make Himself Understood, and He And

To moan
To stare at smb
To sob
To say smth with a grin / p.39 / Стонать
Пристально смотреть на к-л
Всхлипывать, рыдать
Сказать ч-л с усмешкой / He came back into the kitchen. The man was still on the floor, lying where he had hit him, and his face was bloody. He was moaning. The woman had backed against the wall and was staring with terrified eyes at Willi, his friend, and when he came in she gave a gasp and broke into loud sobbing. Willi was sitting at the table, his revolver in his hand, with half empty glass of wine beside him. Hans went up to the table, filled his glass and emptied it at a gulp.
“You look as though you’d trouble, young fellow,” said Willi with a grin.
To srteam / p.39 / струиться / It was still light and the westering sun streamed into the kitchen windows of the farm-house. Willi hasitated a moment. He was a little fellow, dark and thin-faced, a dress designer in civil life, and he didn’t want Hans to think him a cissy.
To seize smb by the shoulders
To be unconscious / p.40 / Схватить за плечи
Быть без сознания / With one step Hans was in front of her. He seized her by the shoulders and flung her violently back. She tottered and fell. He took Willi’s revolver.
“Stop still, both of you,” he rasped in french, but with his guttural German accent. He nodded his head towards the door. “Go on. I’ll look after them.”
Willi went out, but in a moment was back again.
“She’s unconscious.”
“Well, What of it?”
“I can’t. It’s no good.”e took Willi’s revolver.He
A victor
conqueror / p.40 / Победитель
Завоеватель / After all they were victors. Where was the French army? In headlong flight. And the English, leaving everything behind, had scuttled like rabbits back to their island. The conquerors took what they wanted, didn’t they? But Willi had worked at a Paris dressmaker’s for two years.
To lose one’s way / p.40 / Заблудиться / They had lost their way, he and Willi, they had stopped a peasant working in a field and he had deliberately misled them, and they found themselves on a side road. When they came to the farm they stopped to ask for a direction. They’d asked very politely, for orders were to treat the French population well as long as they behaved themselves. The door was opened for them by the girl and she said she didn’t know the way to Soisons, so they pushed in; then the woman, her mother, Hans guest, told them.
To admire smb
To lose an opportunity / p.41 / Любоваться, восхищаться к-л
Упустить возможность / Hans French wasn’t as good as Willi’s, but he could make himself understood, and he and Willi spoke it together all the time. Willi corrected his mistakes. It was because Willi was so useful in this way that he had made him his friend, and knew that Willi admired him. He admired him because he was so tall, slim and his broad-shouldered, because his curly hair was so fair and his eyes so blue. He never lost an opportunity to practice his French, and he tried to talk now, but those three French people wouldn’t meet him half-way.
To declare war (on, upon)
To clench one’s fists / p.42 / Объявлять войну
Сжать кулаки / “You ought to understand that this is the best thing that has ever happened to the Franch people. We didn’t declare the war. You declared the war. And now we are going to make France a decent country. We are going to put order into it. We’re going to teach you to work. You’ll learned obedience and discipline.”
She clenched her fists and looked at him, her eyes black with hatred. But she didn’t speak.
To hit smb in the face / p.42 / Ударить по лицу / The farmer flung himself on the German. Hans let go of her and with all his might hit him in the face. He crumpled up on the floor. Then, before she could escape him, he caught the girl in his arms. He gave him a swinging blow on the cheek.. He chuckled grimly.
A wallet / p.43 / Бумажник / “There is nothing to cry about, old woman. It had to come sooner or later.” He put his hand to his hip pocket and pulled out a wallet. “Look, here’s a hundred francs so that mademoiselle can buy herself a new dress. There’s not much left of that one.”
armistice / p.43 / Короткое перемирие / The campaign was the greatest spree he could ever have imagined. After the armistice he had spent a month in Paris. He’d sent picture postcards to his farm in Bavaria and bought them all presents. Willi, be cause he knew the city like the palm of his hand, had stayed on, but he and the rest of his unite were sent to Soissons to join the force that was holding it.
Ill-feeling / p.43 / Враждебность / It was a nice little town and he was conformably billeted. Plenty to eat and Champaign for less than a mark a bottle in German money. When he was ordered to proceed there it would be fun to gj and have a look at the girl he’d had. He’d take her a pair of silk stockings to show there was no ill-feeling.
To delay smth
To peel potatoes / p.43 / Откладывать (задерживать) ч-л
Чистить картофель / He took one wrong turning, which delayed him, but for all that he got to the place he sought in less than half an hour. A mongrel dog barked at him as he walked up to the door. He did not knock, but turned the handle and stepped in. The girl was sitting at the table peeling potatoes. She sprang ti her feet when she saw the uniformed man.
Hostile eyes / p.44 / Враждебные глаза / “Shall I peel some of your potatoes for you?” She did not answer. He bent down for the knife and then took a potato out of the bowl and went to work on it. Her face hard, her hostile eyes, she stood against the wall and watched him. He smiled at her disarmingly. “Why do you look so cross? I didn’t do you much harm, you know. I was excited, we all were, they’d talked of the invincible French army and the Maginot line…”
To send on an errand / p.45 / Послать с поручением / He wasn’t supposed to go joy-riding round the country and he had to wait to be sent on an errand before he was able to get to the farm again. It was ten days later. He walked in as unceremoniously as before and this time he found the farmer and his wife in the kitchen
to think well of smb / p.46 / Быть хорошего мнения о к-л / Why can’t we be friends? What’s done can’t be undone. War is war, you know what mean. I know Annette’s an educated girl and I want her to think well of me. I can bring you something mow and then to help out. You know, we do all we can to make friends with the towns-people, but they won’t let us. They won’t even look at us when we pass them in the street.
hostility / p.47 / Враждебность / The silent hostility that surrounded them all at Soissons got on his nerves so that sometimes he wanted to go up to a Frenchman who looked at him as if he wasn’t there and knock him down, and sometimes it affected him so that he was almost inclined to cry. It would be nice if he had some place to go where he was wellcomed.
To excite smb’s derision / p.49 / Вызывать насмешку / He used the simple wiles that he had discovered went down with women; but they only excited her derision. Thin-lipped and hard, she looked at him as though he were dirt. On more than one occasion she made him so angry that he would have liked to take her by the shoulders and shake the life out of her.
To accept smth with resignation and humanity / p.52 / Принять ч-л покорно, смиренно / She began to talk, not bitterly, not blaming him even, but as though it were a misfurtune of nature, like a cow dying in giving birth to a calf or a sharp spring frost nipping the fruit trees and running the crop,a misfortune that human kind must accept with resignation and humanity.
After that dreadful night Annette had been in bed for days with high fever. They though she was going out of her mind. She would scream for hours on end.
To exchange glances / p.55 / Переглянуться / Perier and his wife exchanged glances and Annette saw that they were wavering. That was what they'd wanted since their son had died, a son-in-law who was strong and hefty and could take over when they grew too old to do more than potter about.
To release / p.57 / Освобождать / It was a bother that Annette was in love with somebody else. Fortunately he was a prisoner; long before he was likely to be released the baby would be born. That might change her: you could never tell with a woman.
To have smth in store for smb / p.57 / Держать ч-л в запасе / The C. O. at Soissons was an elderly, easy-going fellow and in view of what the spring had in store for them he was content not to drive his men too hard.
Owing to smth
To take advantage of smth / p.58 / Благодаря ч-л
Воспользоваться ч-л / He proposed that his brother should borrow money to buy him out of his share of the family property so that he could increase the size of his own holding while land, owing to the war and the exchange, could still be bought for a song. He went over the farm with Perier. The old man listened quietly when Hans told him his ideas: the farm would have to be restocked and as a German he would have a pull; the motor tractor was old, he would get a fine one from Germany, and a motor plough. To make a farm pay you had to take advantage of modern inventions.
A mutiny / p.59 / Мятеж / “A prisoner, a friend of his, escaped through Switzerland and he wrote to Annette. We got the letter this morning. There was a mutiny in the camp because they weren’t given enough to eat, and the ringleaders were shot. Pierre was one of them.”
To come to the conclusion / p.59 / Прийти к заключению / “You can be sure of that. My husband and I, we’re agreed. We talked it over and we came to a conclusion that the only thing to do was to accept the situation. He’s no fool, my husband, and he says the best chance for France now is to collaborate. And take it all in all I don’t dislike you. I shouldn’t wonder if you didn’t make Annette a better husband that that teacher. And with the baby coming and all.”
To earn one’s living
To accept the consequences / p.60 / Зарабатывать на жизнь
Примириться, смириться / “You are wasting your breath, mother. I earned my living before. I can earn my living again. I hate them. I hate his vanity and his arrogance. I could kill him: his death wouldn’t satisfy me. I should like to torture him as he’s tortured me. I think I should die happy if I could find a way to wound him as he’s wounded me.”
“You are being very silly, my poor child.”
“Your mother’s right, my girl” said Perier. “We’ve been defeated and we must accept the consequences.”
To bear smb malice / p.61 / Таить злобу / “What have you got against the boy? He took you by force – yes, he was drunk at that time. It’s not the first time that’a happened to a woman and it won’t be the last time. He hit your father and he bled like pig, but does your father bear him malice?”
To make amends / p.61 / Исправлять что-то, улучшать / “And what is there wrong about that?” asked Madame Perier angrily. “Hasn’t he done everything he could to make amends? Where would your father have got his tobacco all these months if it hadn’t been for him? If we haven’t gone hungry it’s owing to him.”
To suit smb / p.62 / Устраивать к-л / “My parents asked you to come and they’ve gone down to the village. It suits me because I want to have a definite talk with you. Sit down.”
To respect smb / p.62 / Уважать к-л / “It’s not only that I love you, I admire you. I admired your distinction and your grace. There’s something about you I don’t understand. I respect you. Oh, I can see that you don’t want to marry me now even if it were possible. But Pierre is dead.”
To be a reproach to smb / p.62 / Быть укором для к-л / “Even if there were nothing else do you think I could ever forget that you are a German and I’m a Frenchwoman? If you weren’t as stupid as only a German can be you’d see that that child must be a reproach as long as I live. Do you thin k I have no friends? How could I ever look them in the face with the child I had with a German soldier? There’s only one thing I ask you ; leave me alone with my disgrace. Go, go – for God’ sake go and never come again.”
To despise smb / p.62 / Презирать к-л / I don’t know whether I more loathe the brutality of you Germans or despise your sentimentality.
Deliverance
To come to terms with smb / p.63 / Освобождение
Пойти на сделку с к-л / “Others may despise me. I will never do anything that can make me despise myself. You are my enemy and you will always be my enemy. I only live to see the deliverance of France. It’ll come, perhaps not next year or the year after, perhaps not for thirty years, but it’ll come. The rest of them can do what they lie, I will never come to terms with invaders of my country. I hate you and I hate this child that you’ve given me. Yes, we’ve been defeated. Before the end comes you’ll see that we haven’t been conquered. Now go. My mind’s made up and nothing on God’s earth can change it.”
To pay the expenses / p.64 / Оплачивать расходы / “Have you made the arrangements for the doctor? I’ll pay all the expenses. “
“Do you suppose we want to spread our shame through the whole countryside? My mother will do all that’s necessary.”

Characteristics

Hans.

Hans French wasn’t as good as Willi’s, but he could make himself understood, and he and Willi spoke it together all the time. Willi corrected his mistakes. It was because Willi was so useful in this way that he had made him his friend, and knew that Willi admired him. He admired him because he was so tall, slim and his broad-shouldered, because his curly hair was so fair and his eyes so blue.

You ought to understand that this is the best thing that has ever happened to the Franch people. We didn’t declare the war. You declared the war. And now we are going to make France a decent country. We are going to put order into it.

He undid the package he ad with him and set out a sizable piece of cheese, a piece of pork, and a couple of tins of sardines.

Why can’t we be friends? What’s done can’t be undone. War is war, you know what mean. I know Annette’s an educated girl and I want her to think well of me. I can bring you something mow and then to help out.

The silent hostility that surrounded them all at Soissons got on his nerves so that sometimes he wanted to go up to a Frenchman who looked at him as if he wasn’t there and knock him down, and sometimes it affected him so that he was almost inclined to cry.

She hated him, but pork was pork, and cheese was cheese. He though of her quite a lot. It tantalized him that she should have such a loathing for him. He was used to being liked by women. It would be funny if one of these days she fell in live with him.

He began to feel drowsy, and then with a start he was once more wide awake, for suddenly it came to him, it came to him with the shattering suddenness of gun-fire: he was in love with her.

It wasn’t a pleasant feeling either; it was pain. But he knew what it was all right; it was life and it made him feel happier than he had ever felt in his life. He wanted to take her in his arms, he wanted to pet her, he wanted to kiss her eyes.

It’s not only that I love you, I admire you. I admired your distinction and your grace. There’s something about you I don’t understand. I respect you. Oh, I can see that you don’t want to marry me now even if it were possible. But Pierre is dead.

Han’s heart gave a great leap in his breast. He hung his arms round the old woman and kissed her in both cheeks.

“Oh, my God! I’m so happy. How beautiful the world is!”

Hans gave a great cry, the cry of an animal wounded to death; he covered his face with his hands, and staggering like a drunken man flung out of the door.

Annette

He had hardly looked at her before, she wasn’t pretty, but she had fine dark eyes and a straight nose. Her face was very pale. She was plainly dressed, but somehow she didn’t look quite like what she evidently was. There was a sort of distinction about her.

The farmer’s wife took the lump of meat in her hands and pressed it to her bosom. You felt that she could have kissed it. Tears ran down Annette’s cheeks. “The shame of it” she groaned.

She wasn’t his type. She wasn’t very pretty. There was nothing to her. Why should he have all of a sudden this funny feeling for her?

She began to talk, not bitterly, not blaming him even, but as though it were a misfurtune of nature, like a cow dying in giving birth to a calf or a sharp spring frost nipping the fruit trees and running the crop,a misfortune that human kind must accept with resignation and humanity

After that dreadful night Annette had been in bed for days with high fever. They though she was going out of her mind. She would scream for hours on end.

“You are wasting your breath, mother. I earned my living before. I can earn my living again. I hate them. I hate his vanity and his arrogance. I could kill him: his death wouldn’t satisfy me. I should like to torture him as he’s tortured me. I think I should die happy if I could find a way to wound him as he’s wounded me.”