| 'Nobody knows. He seems to have disappeared.' 'You see? Imagine a man his age risking what little life he has left for something so absurd as a country.' Nately was instantly up in arms again. 'There is nothing so absurd about risking your life for your country!' he declared. 'Isn't there?' asked the old man. 'What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for.' 'Anything worth living for,' said Nately, 'is worth dying for.' 'And anything worth dying for,' answered the sacrilegious old man, 'is certainly worth living for. You know, you're such a pure and naive young man that I almost feel sorry for you. How old are you? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?' 'Nineteen,' said Nately. 'I'll be twenty in January.' 'If you live.' The old man shook his head, wearing, for a moment, the same touchy, meditating frown of the fretful and disapproving old woman. 'They are going to kill you if you don't watch out, and I can see now that you are not going to watch out. Why don't you use some sense and try to be more like me? You might live to be a hundred and seven, too.' 'Because it's better to die on one's feet than live on one's knees,' Nately retorted with triumphant and lofty conviction. 'I guess you've heard that saying before.' 'Yes, I certainly have,' mused the treacherous old man, smiling again. 'But I'm afraid you have it backward. It is better to live on one's feet than die on one's knees. That is the way the saying goes.' 'Are you sure?' Nately asked with sober confusion. 'It seems to make more sense my way.' 'No, it makes more sense my way. Ask your friends.' | - Никто не знает... Он исчез... |
| Nately turned to ask his friends and discovered they had gone. Yossarian and Dunbar had both disappeared. | Нейтли обернулся на своих приятелей и обнаружил, что Йоссариан и Данбэр, как и Заморыш Джо, исчезли. |
| The old man roared with contemptuous merriment at Nately's look of embarrassed surprise. | При виде озадаченного лица Нейтли старикашка разразился оскорбительным смехом. |
| Nately's face darkened with shame. | Нейтли вспыхнул, щеки его заалели. |
| He vacillated helplessly for a few seconds and then spun himself around and fled inside the nearest of the hallways in search of Yossarian and Dunbar, hoping to catch them in time and bring them back to the rescue with news of the remarkable clash between the old man and Major-de Coverley. All the doors in the hallways were shut. | Несколько мгновений он беспомощно озирался, а затем ринулся в ближайший коридор на поиски Йоссариана и Данбэра, намереваясь рассказать им об удивительном случае - о том, что произошло между старикашкой и майором де Каверли, но в коридоре все двери были заперты. |
| There was light under none. | Ни под одной дверью не пробивался свет. |
| It was already very late. | Было уже слишком поздно. |
| Nately gave up his search forlornly. | Помрачневший Нейтли прекратил поиски. |
| There was nothing left for him to do, he realized finally, but get the girl he was in love with and lie down with her somewhere to make tender, courteous love to her and plan their future together; but she had gone off to bed, too, by the time he returned to the sitting room for her, and there was nothing left for him to do then but resume his abortive discussion with the loathsome old man, who rose from his armchair with jesting civility and excused himself for the night, abandoning Nately there with two bleary-eyed girls who could not tell him into which room his own whore had gone and who padded off to bed several seconds later after trying in vain to interest him in themselves, leaving him to sleep alone in the sitting room on the small, lumpy sofa. | Вскоре он понял, что самое лучшее - вернуться к своей возлюбленной и поговорить с ней о будущем. Но когда он появился в гостиной, его девица уже ушла спать. Нейтли решил было возобновить бесплодную дискуссию с забубенным старикашкой. Однако тот встал с кресла и, извинившись с утрированной вежливостью, оставил Нейтли в гостиной, где ему предстояло ночевать в одиночестве на крохотном ухабистом диванчике - все девицы к тому времени уже разошлись кто куда. На следующее утро Нейтли проснулся чуть свет, с болью в затылке, с трудом соображая, куда он попал. |
| Nately was a sensitive, rich, good-looking boy with dark hair, trusting eyes, and a pain in his neck when he awoke on the sofa early the next morning and wondered dully where he was. | Нейтли был чувствительным парнем с приятной наружностью. У него были темные волосы, доверчивые глаза, счастливое детство и обеспеченные родители. |
| His nature was invariably gentle and polite. He had lived for almost twenty years without trauma, tension, hate, or neurosis, which was proof to Yossarian of just how crazy he really was. His childhood had been a pleasant, though disciplined, one. He got on well with his brothers and sisters, and he did not hate his mother and father, even though they had both been very good to him. | Неизменно вежливый, мягкий по натуре, он прожил свои девятнадцать с лишним лет без душевных травм, потрясений и неврозов. Для Йоссариана все это было лишним доказательством ненормальности Нейтли. |
| Nately had been brought up to detest people like Aarfy, whom his mother characterized as climbers, and people like Milo, whom his father characterized as pushers, but he had never learned how, since he had never been permitted near them. | Нейтли с детства прививалось отвращение к таким людям, как Аарфи. Его мать, происходившая из старинного семейства, называла таких "пронырами", а людей типа Милоу отец Нейтли называл "рвачами", но что это значит на деле, Нейтли так и не удалось узнать, ибо ему и близко не позволялось подходить к подобным типам. |
| As far as he could recall, his homes in Philadelphia, New York, Maine, Palm Beach, Southampton, London, Deauville, Paris and the south of France had always been crowded only with ladies and gentlemen who were not climbers or pushers. Nately's mother, a descendant of the New England Thorntons, was a Daughter of the American Revolution. His father was a Son of a Bitch. | Насколько Нейтли мог припомнить, в многочисленных домах его родителей - в Филадельфии, Нью-Йорке, Мейне, Палм-Биче, Саутгемптоне, Лондоне, Довилле, Париже и на юге Франции - его всегда окружали леди и джентльмены, которые не были ни "пронырами", ни "рвачами". |
| 'Always remember,' his mother had reminded him frequently, 'that you are a Nately. | - Помни всегда, - часто напоминала ему мать, -что ты - Нейтли. |
| You are not a Vanderbilt, whose fortune was made by a vulgar tugboat captain, or a Rockefeller, whose wealth was amassed through unscrupulous speculations in crude petroleum; or a Reynolds or Duke, whose income was derived from the sale to the unsuspecting public of products containing cancer-causing resins and tars; and you are certainly not an Astor, whose family, I believe, still lets rooms. | Ты - не Вандербильд, чье состояние заработано вульгарным капитаном буксира, не Рокфеллер, чье богатство накоплено с помощью грязных нефтяных махинаций, не Рейнолдс и не Дьюк -они нажились на продаже легковерным людям продуктов, от которых появляются раковые опухоли. И, разумеется, ты - не Астор, чья семья, не сомневаюсь, до сих пор еще сдает комнаты. |
| You are a Nately, and the Nately s have never done anything for their money.' | Ты - Нейтли, а Нейтли еще не сделали ничего ради денег. |
| 'What your mother means, son,' interjected his father affably one time with that flair for graceful and economical expression Nately admired so much, 'is that old money is better than new money and that the newly rich are never to be esteemed as highly as the newly poor. | - Твоя мать хочет сказать, сынок, - как-то вежливо вмешался отец, - что старое состояние лучше вновь приобретенного и что недавно разбогатевшие никогда не пользуются таким уважением, как недавно обедневшие. |
| Isn't that correct, my dear? | Правильно, дорогая? |
| Nately's father brimmed continually with sage and sophisticated counsel of that kind. | Нейтли всегда восхищала в отце способность обходиться короткими изящными формулировками. |
| He was as ebullient and ruddy as mulled claret, and Nately liked him a great deal, although he did not like mulled claret. | Отец Нейтли постоянно изрекал подобные мудрые и глубокомысленные сентенции. Краснолицый и горячий, он напоминал сыну подогретый кларет, хотя Нейтли любил отца, но не любил подогретого кларета. |
| When war broke out, Nately's family decided that he would enlist in the armed forces, since he was too young to be placed in the diplomatic service, and since his father had it on excellent authority that Russia was going to collapse in a matter of weeks or months and that Hitler, Churchill, Roosevelt, Mussolini, Gandhi, Franco, Peron and the Emperor of Japan would then all sign a peace treaty and live together happily ever after. |