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| “That’s better,” said Father Brown. “Thank God; that’s a great deal better.” | – Это гораздо лучше, – сказал священник. – Милостив Бог. Да, гораздо лучше. |
| “Better than the ugly things you thought of, I suppose?” said the general gruffly. “Well, it’s all very well for you to sneer at the pure and perfect affection; but it was true for all that. James Mair really was devoted to his cousin, who’d grown up with him like a younger brother. Elder brothers and sisters do sometimes devote themselves to a child like that, especially when he’s a sort of infant phenomenon. But James Mair was the sort of simple character in whom even hate is in a sense unselfish. I mean that even when his tenderness turns to rage it is still objective, directed outwards to its object; he isn’t conscious of himself. Now poor Maurice Mair was just the opposite. He was far more friendly and popular; but his success had made him live in a house of mirrors. He was first in every sort of sport and art and accomplishment; he nearly always won and took his winning amiably. But if ever, by any chance, he lost, there was just a glimpse of something not so amiable; he was a little jealous. I needn’t tell you the whole miserable story of how he was a little jealous of his cousin’s engagement; how he couldn’t keep his restless vanity from interfering. It’s enough to say that one of the few things in which James Mair was admittedly ahead of him was marksmanship with a pistol; and with that the tragedy ended.” | – Лучше, чем ваши догадки? – угрюмо сказал хозяин. – Вольно вам смеяться над совершенной любовью, но, поверьте, она существовала. Джеймс боготворил кузена, и выросли они вместе. Старший брат или старшая сестра иногда обожают младшего, особенно, когда он и впрямь истинное чудо. У простодушного Джеймса даже ненависть не была себялюбивой. Понимаете, если он сердился на кого-нибудь, он думал о нем, не о себе. А бедный Морис жил и чувствовал иначе. Люди тянулись к нему, и он любил общество, но любовался лишь собой, словно в зеркальном зале. Никто не превзошел его ни в спорте, ни в искусствах; он почти всегда побеждал и легко принимал победу. Но если ему случалось проиграть, легкость исчезала. Поражений он не терпел. Стоит ли рассказывать вам, какую досаду породила в нем помолвка Джеймса? Остаться в стороне он просто не мог. Джеймс превосходил его лишь в одном – стрелял он гораздо лучше. Так и кончилась трагедия. |
| “You mean the tragedy began,” replied the priest. “The tragedy of the survivor. I thought he did not need any monkish vampires to make him miserable.” | – Вернее, так она началась, – сказал священник. – Так начались страдания того, кто остался живым. Мне кажется, здесь можно обойтись и без зловещих монахов. |
| “To my mind he’s more miserable than he need be,” said the general. “After all, as I say, it was a ghastly tragedy, but it was a fair fight. And Jim had great provocation.” | – А мне кажется, – сказал генерал, – что Джим страдает больше, чем нужно. Конечно, беда немалая, но дрались они честно. Кроме того, Морис вынудил его стреляться. |
| “How do you know all this?” asked the priest. | – Откуда вы это знаете? – удивленно спросил священник. |
| “I know it because I saw it,” answered Outram stolidly. “I was James Mair’s second, and I saw Maurice Mair shot dead on the sands before my very eyes.” | – Я это видел, – печально ответил Аутрэм. – Я был секундантом у Джеймса, и Морис на моих глазах рухнул мертвым. |
| “I wish you would tell me more about it,” said Father Brown reflectively. “Who was Maurice Mair’s second?” | – Пожалуйста, расскажите мне все, – задумчиво произнес священник. – Кто был секундантом у Мориса? |
| “He had a more distinguished backing,” replied the general grimly. “Hugo Romaine was his second; the great actor, you know. Maurice was mad on acting and had taken up Romaine (who was then a rising but still a struggling man), and financed the fellow and his ventures in return for taking lessons from the professional in his own hobby of amateur acting. But Romaine was then, I suppose, practically dependent on his rich friend; though he’s richer now than any aristocrat. So his serving as second proves very little about what he thought of the quarrel. They fought in the English fashion, with only one second apiece; I wanted at least to have a surgeon, but Maurice boisterously refused it, saying the fewer people who knew, the better; and at the worst we could immediately get help. ‘There’s a doctor in the village not half a mile away,’ he said; ‘I know him and he’s got the fastest horse in the country. He could be brought here in no time; but there’s no need to bring him here till we know.’ Well, we all knew that Maurice ran most risk, as the pistol was not his weapon; so when he refused aid nobody liked to ask for it. The duel was fought on a flat stretch of sand on the east coast of Scotland; and both the sight and sound of it were masked from the hamlets inland by a long rampart of sandhills patched with rank grass; probably part of the links, though in those days no Englishman had heard of golf. There was one deep, crooked cranny in the sandhills through which we came out on the sands. I can see them now; first a wide strip of dead yellow, and beyond, a narrower strip of dark red; a dark red that seemed already like the long shadow of a deed of blood. | – Хьюго Ромейн, знаменитый актер, – угрюмо отвечал хозяин. – Морис увлекался сценой и брал у него уроки. Ромейн славился и тогда, но еще не встал на ноги, и Морис давал ему деньги. Теперь этот актер богаче аристократа, однако в те времена он зависел от богатого ученика. Поэтому мы не знаем, как он относился к ссоре – он мог не одобрять ее и согласиться поневоле. Стрелялись на английский манер, у каждого был один секундант. Я хотел позвать врача, но Морис отказался. Он сказал мне: «Чем меньше народу узнает, тем лучше. Кроме того, в деревне есть врач. У него прекрасный конь, и если надо, он мигом прискачет». Мы знали, что Морис рискует больше – как вы помните, он неважно стрелял, – и согласились. Противники сошлись на песке, у моря. Между ними и деревушкой лежали дюны – глухая стена, поросшая редкими пучками травы. К морю мы вышли через узкий, извилистый проход. Так и вижу мертвенно-желтую полосу, а за нею, у самой воды, – узкую, мертвенно-красную, словно отсвет крови. |
| “The thing itself seemed to happen with horrible speed; as if a whirlwind had struck the sand. With the very crack of sound Maurice Mair seemed to spin like a teetotum and pitch upon his face like a ninepin. And queerly enough, while I’d been worrying about him up to that moment, the instant he was dead all my pity was for the man who killed him; as it is to this day and hour. I knew that with that, the whole huge terrible pendulum of my friend’s life-long love would swing back; and that whatever cause others might find to pardon him, he would never pardon himself for ever and ever. And so, somehow, the really vivid thing, the picture that burns in my memory so that I can’t forget it, is not that of the catastrophe, the smoke and the flash and the falling figure. That seemed to be all over, like the noise that wakes a man up. What I saw, what I shall always see, is poor Jim hurrying across towards his fallen friend and foe; his brown beard looking black against the ghastly pallor of his face, with its high features cut out against the sea; and the frantic gestures with which he waved me to run for the surgeon in the hamlet behind the sandhills. He had dropped his pistol as he ran; he had a glove in one hand and the loose and fluttering fingers of it seemed to elongate and emphasize his wild pantomime of pointing or hailing for help. That is the picture that really remains with me; and there is nothing else in that picture, except the striped background of sands and sea and the dark, dead body lying still as a stone, and the dark figure of the dead man’s second standing grim and motionless against the horizon.” | Дальше все произошло так стремительно, словно песок взметнуло ветром. Выстрел как будто и щелкнуть не успел, а Морис Мэйр закружился юлою и кеглей рухнул в песок. Конечно, я испугался за него, но, хоть это и странно, пожалел я не убитого, а убийцу. Ярче и яснее всего я вижу по сей день не Мориса, падающего мертвым, а несчастного Джима, который бежит к поверженному другу и врагу. Я вижу его бородку, его смертельно бледное лицо, его тонкий профиль. Пистолет он отшвырнул, в левой руке держал перчатку, и пустые пальцы бились на ветру, как бы взывая о помощи, когда он кричал мне, чтобы я поскорее привел врача. Все это я вижу, а больше – ничего, кроме моря, и неподвижного тела, и неподвижного секунданта на фоне светлых небес. |
| “Did Romaine stand motionless?” asked the priest. “I should have thought he would have run even quicker towards the corpse.” | – Ромейн не двигался? – спросил священник. – Почему же он не подбежал к Морису Мэйру? |
| “Perhaps he did when I had left,” replied the general. “I took in that undying picture in an instant and the next instant I had dived among the sandhills, and was far out of sight of the others. Well, poor Maurice had made a good choice in the matter of doctors; though the doctor came too late, he came quicker than I should have thought possible. This village surgeon was a very remarkable man, redhaired, irascible, but extraordinarily strong in promptitude and presence of mind. I saw him but for a flash as he leapt on his horse and went thundering away to the scene of death, leaving me far behind. But in that flash I had so strong a sense of his personality that I wished to God he had really been called in before the duel began; for I believe on my soul he would have prevented it somehow. As it was, he cleaned up the mess with marvellous swiftness; long before I could trail back to the sea-shore on my two feet his impetuous practicality had managed everything; the corpse was temporarily buried in the sandhills and the unhappy homicide had been persuaded to do the only thing he could do – to flee for his life. He slipped along the coast till he came to a port and managed to get out of the country. You know the rest; poor Jim remained abroad for many years; later, when the whole thing had been hushed up or forgotten, he returned to his dismal castle and automatically inherited the title. I have never seen him from that day to this, and yet I know what is written in red letters in the inmost darkness of his brain.” | – Может быть, он подбежал, когда меня уже не было, – ответил генерал. – Я кинулся в деревню и больше ничего не видел. Бедный Морис был прав: доктор сразу вскочил в седло, я едва рассмотрел его, но он показался мне весьма предприимчивым и умелым. Задолго до того, как я пришел к морю, он сделал все, что мог: похоронил тело в песках и убедил несчастного убийцу бежать, в прямом смысле слова просто бежать по берегу. Джеймс добрался до ближайшего порта, и ему удалось покинуть Англию. Остальное вы знаете. Через много лет он вернулся и поселился в мрачном замке. К тому времени титул уже перешел к нему. Я не видел его ни разу, но мне известно, что начертано мертвенно-красными буквами во мраке его души. |
| “I understand,” said Father Brown, “that some of you have made efforts to see him?” | – Насколько я понимаю, – спросил отец Браун, – другие его друзья пытались встретиться с ним? |
| “My wife never relaxed her efforts,” said the general. “She refuses to admit that such a crime ought to cut a man off for ever; and I confess I am inclined to agree with her. Eighty years before it would have been thought quite normal; and really it was manslaughter rather than murder. My wife is a great friend of the unfortunate lady who was the occasion of the quarrel and she has an idea that if Jim would consent to see Viola Grayson once again, and receive her assurance that old quarrels are buried, it might restore his sanity. My wife is calling a sort of council of old friends to-morrow, I believe. She is very energetic.” | – Моя жена пыталась и сейчас решила попытаться снова, – сказал Аутрэм. – Она очень дружна с несчастной дамой, которая была причиной ссоры, и хочет свести с нею Джима. Ей кажется, если он увидит Виолу, разум вернется к нему. Как раз завтра она собирается устроить это свидание. |
| Father Brown was playing with the pins that lay beside the general’s map; he seemed to listen rather absent-mindedly. He had the sort of mind that sees things in pictures; and the picture which had coloured even the prosaic mind of the practical soldier took on tints yet more significant and sinister in the more mystical mind of the priest. He saw the dark-red desolation of sand, the very hue of Aceldama, and the dead man lying in a dark heap, and the slayer, stooping as he ran, gesticulating with a glove in demented remorse, and always his imagination came back to the third thing that he could not yet fit into any human picture: the second of the slain man standing motionless and mysterious, like a dark statue on the edge of the sea. It might seem to some a detail; but for him it was that stiff figure that stood up like a standing note of interrogation. | Отец Браун перебирал булавки, лежавшие около него, и слушал довольно рассеянно. Он мыслил образами, и картина, поразившая даже солдата, становилась все явственнее и ярче в сознании мистика. Он видел тускло-багровый песок, страшный, как земля крови, и темное тело, и убийцу, который, спотыкаясь на бегу, отчаянно взывает о помощи, взмахивая перчаткой; но воображение его не могло совладать с неподвижным силуэтом, стоявшим, словно статуя, у самой воды. Что-то он значил, но для священника был лишь вопросительным знаком. |
| Why had not Romaine moved instantly? It was the natural thing for a second to do, in common humanity, let alone friendship. Even if there were some double-dealing or darker motive not yet understood, one would think it would be done for the sake of appearances. Anyhow, when the thing was all over, it would be natural for the second to stir long before the other second had vanished beyond the sandhills. “Does this man Romanic move very slowly?” he asked. | – Этот Ромейн всегда реагирует не сразу? – спросил отец Браун. |
| “It’s queer you should ask that,” answered. Outram, with a sharp glance. “No, as a matter of fact he moves very quickly when he moves at all. But, curiously enough, I was just thinking that only this afternoon I saw him stand exactly like that, during the thunderstorm. He stood in that silver-clasped cape of his, and with one hand on his hip, exactly and in every line as he stood on those bloody sands long ago. The lightning blinded us all, but he did not blink. When it was dark again he was standing there still.” “I suppose he isn’t standing there now?” inquired Father Brown. “I mean, I suppose he moved sometime?” | – Странно, что вы об этом спросили, – ответил Аутрэм, зорко глянув на него. – Нет, он реагирует мгновенно. Однако как раз вчера, перед грозой, я видел его в этой самой позе. Молния ослепила нас, но он не шелохнулся. – А потом? – спросил священник. |
| “No, he moved quite sharply when the thunder came,” replied the other. “He seemed to have been waiting for it, for he told us the exact time of the interval. Is anything the matter?” | – Резко повернулся, когда грянул гром, – сказал хозяин. – Должно быть, он его ждал. Он объяснил нам, через сколько секунд… Простите, что с вами? |
| “I’ve pricked myself with one of your pins,” said Father Brown. “I hope I haven’t damaged it.” But his eyes had snapped and his mouth abruptly shut. | – Я укололся булавкой, – отвечал священник, часто моргая. |
| “Are you ill?” inquired the general, staring at him. | – Вам плохо? – спросил Аутрэм. |
| “No,” answered the priest; “I’m only not quite so stoical as your friend Romaine. I can’t help blinking when I see light.” | – Нет, ничего, – сказал священник. – Просто я не такой стоик, как ваш Ромейн. Когда я вижу свет, я моргаю, ничего не могу поделать. |
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(G. K. Chesterton, "The Secret of Father Brown")
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