| Она прислонилась к нему и лила слезы до тех пор, пока не обессилела настолько, что больше не могла плакать. Он вынул из кармана носовой платок, и тут она вдруг вцепилась ему в глаза обеими руками и испустила победоносный вопль. |
| Half blinded, he rose and stumbled after her. A noise behind him made him turn. His senses reeled in horror at what he saw. Nately's whore's kid sister, of all people, was coming after him with another long bread knife! 'Oh, no,' he wailed with a shudder, and he knocked the knife out of her hand with a sharp downward blow on her wrist. He lost patience entirely with the whole grotesque and incomprehensible melee. There was no telling who might lunge at him next through the doorway with another long bread knife, and he lifted Nately's whore's kid sister off the floor, threw her at Nately's whore and ran out of the room, out of the apartment and down the stairs. The two girls chased out into the hall after him. He heard their footsteps lag farther and farther behind as he fled and then cease altogether. He heard sobbing directly overhead. Glancing backward up the stair well, he spied Nately's whore sitting in a heap on one of the steps, weeping with her face in both hands, while her pagan, irrepressible kid sister hung dangerously over the banister shouting 'Bruto! Bruto!' down at him happily and brandished her bread knife at him as though it were an exciting new toy she was eager to use. |
Йоссариан, полуослепший, бросился вон из дома. |
| Yossarian escaped, but kept looking back over his shoulder anxiously as he retreated through the street. |
Он был сыт по горло этой чудовищной, абсурдной схваткой. |
| People stared at him strangely, making him more apprehensive. |
Прохожие бросали на него удивленные взгляды. |
| He walked in nervous haste, wondering what there was in his appearance that caught everyone's attention. |
Он нервничал и прибавлял шагу, не понимая, что в нем привлекает всеобщее внимание. |
| When he touched his hand to a sore spot on his forehead, his fingers turned gooey with blood, and he understood. |
Он потрогал рукой саднящее место на лбу, пальцы стали липкими от крови, и тогда он догадался. |
| He dabbed his face and neck with a handkerchief. |
Он провел платком по лицу и шее. |
| Wherever it pressed, he picked up new red smudges. |
До какого бы места он ни дотронулся, на платке появлялись свежие красные пятна. |
| He was bleeding everywhere. |
Все лицо кровоточило. |
| He hurried into the Red Cross building and down the two steep flights of white marble stairs to the men's washroom, where he cleansed and nursed his innumerable visible wounds with cold water and soap and straightened his shirt collar and combed his hair. |
Он поспешил в здание Красного Креста, поднялся по крутым беломраморным ступеням в мужскую уборную, там промыл свои бесчисленные раны, поправил воротник рубашки и причесался. |
| He had never seen a face so badly bruised and scratched as the one still blinking back at him in the mirror with a dazed and startled uneasiness. |
Никогда прежде ему не приходилось видеть столь жестоко исцарапанной, избитой физиономии, как та, что смотрела на него из зеркала. |
| What on earth had she wanted from him? |
Но какого черта эта девка навалилась на него? |
| When he left the men's room, Nately's whore was waiting outside in ambush. She was crouched against the wall near the bottom of the staircase and came pouncing down upon him like a hawk with a glittering silver steak knife in her fist. He broke the brunt of her assault with his upraised elbow and punched her neatly on the jaw. Her eyes rolled. He caught her before she dropped and sat her down gently. |
Когда Йоссариан вышел из уборной, нейтлева девица дожидалась его, притаившись в засаде. |
| Then he ran up the steps and out of the building and spent the next three hours hunting through the city for Hungry Joe so that he could get away from Rome before she could find him again. |
Йоссариан скатился по лестнице, выскочил из дома и три часа бегал по городу, разыскивая Заморыша Джо: ему хотелось убраться из Рима прежде, чем она его снова настигнет. |
| He did not feel really safe until the plane had taken off. |
И только когда самолет поднялся, он почувствовал себя в полной безопасности. |
| When they landed in Pianosa, Nately's whore, disguised in a mechanic's green overalls, was waiting with her steak knife exactly where the plane stopped, and all that saved him as she stabbed at his chest in her leather-soled high-heeled shoes was the gravel underfoot that made her feet roll out from under her. |
Но едва самолет приземлился на Пьяносе, Йоссариан увидел ее здесь. Переодетая в зеленый комбинезон механика, она дожидалась его с тем же ножом в руке как раз в том месте, где остановился самолет. |
| Yossarian, astounded, hauled her up into the plane and held her motionless on the floor in a double armlock while Hungry Joe radioed the control tower for permission to return to Rome. |
Йоссариану удалось зашвырнуть ее в самолет, а Заморыш Джо связался по радио с контрольно-диспетчерским пунктом и запросил разрешение на полет в Рим. |
| At the airport in Rome, Yossarian dumped her out of the plane on the taxi strip, and Hungry Joe took right off for Pianosa again without even cutting his engines. |
В римском аэропорту они выгрузили нейтлеву девицу на рулежную дорожку, и Заморыш Джо, не выключавший даже моторов, тут же взял курс обратно в Пьяносу. |
| Scarcely breathing, Yossarian scrutinized every figure warily as he and Hungry Joe walked back through the squadron toward their tents. |
Когда они с Заморышем Джо возвращались в свои палатки, Йоссариан пристально и настороженно всматривался в каждого встречного.
|