По мотивам Роберта Уильяма Сервиса

По мотивам Роберта Уильяма Сервиса
"Тени"



Кто не знаком с выраженьем - "Пьяный дурак"?
Без сомненья каждый знаком. Так...
Смит обладал "уникальностью" - пьяным умнел...
Пьяным писал восхитительно и... говорил...
Всем... в лицо... столь убедительно... что...
"пьяный" - о да... но "дурак" - лес сомнений...
Так и катилось до срока... до времени...
Звёздное имя себе заарканил... выудив правду
в винном стакане...

Друга имел. Собутыльника? Нет! Браун был ДРУГОМ и...
будет воспет!
Да... неразлучны были они... Рядом со светлыми
тёмные дни к ним подбирались...
Но... наши друзья руку тянули и... выручали...
Браун от пьянства Смита спасал... Смит - нищету
к другу не подпускал...
Были открыты кредиты и души...
Но... что же дальше? Послушай... послушай!

Смит загрустил... видно близок конец... Он умирал...
Браун... как мог... утешал... Каменел...
Смит повелел (как последний завет) -
сжечь непременно некий пакет...
О содержании не умолчал - самый прекрасный рассказ
обещал миру открыться, но только тогда,
если пакет будет отдан... туда,
где его предадут оглашенью...
Но... Смита решенье - пакет не хранить...
Вот огонь. Пусть горит!
Что в пакете? Какой там рассказ?
Что за "историю" Браун предаст светлому пламени?
Смит говорит: Женщина там... Жгучий магнит...
Я соблазнил?.. Соблазнила она?..
Грех этот горше и слаще вина!
Я не хочу, чтобы Дочь и Жена... знали...
Избавься!.. На все времена...
Браун поклялся... Огню не предал...
но сохранил... (как обещал)
в тайне великой секретный рассказ...

Клятва на Библии - сильная клятва...
Но наступила тёмная "жатва" - Браун нищал...
Ничего не печатал...
Вовремя... вовремя стали "богатые"
(как-то прознав про пакет) вымогать - просят
отдать... отдать... и отдать...
Денег сулят...
Как же тут устоять?
"Джонсы" сменяли - один одного...
Браун крепился - смогу... ничего...
Жизнь не менялась... давила.. пока...
не прикоснулась к руке рука...
Нежная Женщина в жизни возникла!
Было до книг ему? Было... было...
Столько писал... Как никогда...
Время летело... как всегда...
Спрятан пакет... Брат однажды просил - дай:
ждёт тюрьма. Но хватило сил
брату... родному по крови - отказ...
Что же случится ещё... И не раз...

То, что случилось пером не сказать... Но...
получилось и Браун писать стал так искренне...
так восхитительно...
Вирши отнёс... Джонсу...
Сомнительно, что публикация будет...
Однако... кто же не дразнит злую собаку?
Время летит... И... Жена заболета...
Скоро расстанутся душа с телом...
Деньги нужны... как всегда и повсюду.
Брать их, скажите, брать их откуда?
Вновь на поверхность "всплывает" пакет -
несший волшебный... страшный секрет...
Нужно Жену переправить в Прованс...
Кто ж на поездку денежку даст...
Он рассказал о страшном секрете... том
что поклялся хранить в этом свете...
Не разглашай - попросила Она...
Я - та подруга... Сказала Жена и отвернулась к стене...
Что же делать... Браун пакет разорвал и...
лист белый вылетел птицею из него...
Больше там не было ничего...
Клятву сдержал... не нарушил и что?
Ждать золотого дождя за то?
Ждать и... дождаться...
Звонок! На пороге - почта. Скорее, скорее откройте!
Вам "заказное"... Вы распишитесь...
Он расписался и прочитал - Джонс... наконец-то...
ЕГО издавал...
Можно поехать в Египет... в Прованс...
И... просто ЖИТЬ... Здесь и сейчас!



РИНА ФЕЛИКС



The  Ghosts

Smith, great writer of stories, drank; found it immortalized his pen;
Fused in his brain-pan, else a blank, heavens of glory now and then;

Gave him the magical genius touch; God-given power to gouge out, fling
Flat in your face a soul-thought - Bing! Twiddle your heart-strings in his clutch.

"Bah!" said Smith, "let my body lie stripped to the buff in swinish shame,
If I can blaze in the radiant sky out of adoring stars my name.

Sober am I nonentitized; drunk am I more than half a god.
Well, let the flesh be sacrificed; spirit shall speak and shame the clod.

Who would not gladly, gladly give
Life to do one thing that will live?"

Smith had a friend, we'll call him Brown; dearer than brothers were those two.
When in the wassail Smith would drown, Brown would rescue and pull him through.

When Brown was needful Smith would lend; so it fell as the years went by,
Each on the other would depend: then at the last Smith came to die.

There Brown sat in the sick man's room, still as a stone in his despair;
Smith bent on him his eyes of doom, shook back his lion mane of hair;

Said: "Is there one in my chosen line, writer of forthright tales my peer?
Look in that little desk of mine; there is a package, bring it here.

Story of stories, gem of all; essence and triumph, key and clue;
Tale of a loving woman's fall; soul swept hell-ward, and God! it's true.

I was the man - Oh, yes, I've paid, paid with mighty and mordant pain.
Look! here's the masterpiece I've made out of my sin, my manhood slain.

Art supreme! yet the world would stare, know my mistress and blaze my shame.
I have a wife and daughter - there! take it and thrust it in the flame."

Brown answered: "Master, you have dipped pen in your heart, your phrases sear.
Ruthless, unflinching, you have stripped naked your soul and set it here.

Have I not loved you well and true? See! between us the shadows drift;
This bit of blood and tears means You - oh, let me have it, a parting gift.

Sacred I'll hold it, a trust divine; sacred your honour, her dark despair;
Never shall it see printed line: here, by the living God I swear."

Brown on a Bible laid his hand; Smith, great writer of stories, sighed:
"Comrade, I trust you, and understand. Keep my secret!" And so he died.

Smith was buried - up soared his sales; lured you his books in every store;
Exquisite, whimsy, heart-wrung tales; men devoured them and craved for more.

So when it slyly got about Brown had a posthumous manuscript,
Jones, the publisher, sought him out, into his pocket deep he dipped.

"A thousand dollars?" Brown shook his head.
"The story is not for sale, " he said.

Jones went away, then others came. Tempted and taunted, Brown was true.
Guarded at friendship's shrine the fame of the unpublished story grew and grew.

It's a long, long lane that has no end, but some lanes end in the Potter's field;
Smith to Brown had been more than friend: patron, protector, spur and shield.

Poor, loving-wistful, dreamy Brown, long and lean, with a smile askew,
Friendless he wandered up and down, gaunt as a wolf, as hungry too.

Brown with his lilt of saucy rhyme, Brown with his tilt of tender mirth
Garretless in the gloom and grime, singing his glad, mad songs of earth. . .

So at last with a faith divine, down and down to the Hunger-line.

Who should chance to behold his plight, but the publisher, the plethoric Jones;

Peered at him for a little while, held out a bill: "NOW, will you sell?"
Brown scanned it with his twisted smile: "A thousand dollars! you go to hell!"

Brown enrolled in the homeless host, sleeping anywhere, anywhen;
Suffered, strove, became a ghost, slave of the lamp for other men;

For What's-his-name and So-and-so in the abyss his soul he stripped,
Yet in his want, his worst of woe, held he fast to the manuscript.

Then one day as he chewed his pen, half in hunger and half despair,
Creaked the door of his garret den; Dick, his brother, was standing there.

Down on the pallet bed he sank, ashen his face, his voice a wail:
"Save me, brother! I've robbed the bank; to-morrow it's ruin, capture, gaol.

Yet there's a chance: I could to-day pay back the money, save our name;
You have a manuscript, they say, worth a thousand - think, man! the shame. . . ."

Brown with his heart pain-pierced the while, with his stern, starved face, and his lips stone-pale, Shuddered and smiled his twisted smile: "Brother, I guess you go to gaol."

While poor Brown in the leer of dawn wrestled with God for the sacred fire,
Came there a woman weak and wan, out of the mob, the murk, the mire;

Frail as a reed, a fellow ghost, weary with woe, with sorrowing;
Two pale souls in the legion lost; lo! Love bent with a tender wing,

Taught them a joy so deep, so true, it seemed that the whole-world fabric shook,
Thrilled and dissolved in radiant dew; then Brown made him a golden book,

Full of the faith that Life is good, that the earth is a dream divinely fair,
Lauding his gem of womanhood in many a lyric rich and rare;

Took it to Jones, who shook his head:
"I will consider it," he said.

While he considered, Brown's wife lay clutched in the tentacles of pain;
Then came the doctor, grave and grey; spoke of decline, of nervous strain;

Hinted Egypt, the South of France - Brown with terror was tiger-gripped.
Where was the money? What the chance? Pitiful God! . . . the manuscript!

A thousand dollars! his only hope! he gazed and gazed at the garret wall. . . .
Reached at last for the envelope, turned to his wife and told her all.

Told of his friend, his promise true; told like his very heart would break:
"Oh, my dearest! what shall I do? shall I not sell it for your sake?"

Ghostlike she lay, as still as doom; turned to the wall her weary head;
Icy-cold in the pallid gloom, silent as death . . . at last she said:

"Do! my husband? Keep your vow! Guard his secret and let me die. . . .
Oh, my dear, I must tell you now - the women he loved and wronged was I;

Darling! I haven't long to live:
I never told you - forgive, forgive!"

For a long, long time Brown did not speak; sat bleak-browed in the wretched room;
Slowly a tear stole down his cheek, and he kissed her hand in the dismal gloom.

To break his oath, to brand her shame; his well-loved friend, his worshipped wife;
To keep his vow, to save her name, yet at the cost of what? Her life!

A moment's space did he hesitate, a moment of pain and dread and doubt,
Then he broke the seals, and, stern as fate, unfolded the sheets and spread them out. . . .

On his knees by her side he limply sank, peering amazed - each page was blank.

(For oh, the supremest of our art are the stories we do not dare to tell,
Locked in the silence of the heart, for the awful records of Heav'n and Hell.)

Yet those two in the silence there, seemed less weariful than before.
Hark! a step on the garret stair, a postman knocks at the flimsy door.

"Registered letter!" Brown thrills with fear; opens, and reads, then bends above:
"Glorious tidings! Egypt, dear! The book is accepted - life and love."
(Robert William Service)
***