Gone with the Wind. Volume 2

"Янки лишили её удовольствия пить настоящий кофе с сахаром и сливками, и одного этого было уже достаточно, чтобы она возненавидела их всей душой."

"Я сама как Атланта, - подумала Скарлетт. - Ни пожарам, ни янки меня не сломить."

"Скарлетт в эту пору очень редко задумывалась над собственной честностью, но чем меньше ценила она это качество в себе, тем больше начинала ценить в других."

" ... Может, я и мерзавка, но я не буду всю жизнь мерзавкой, Ретт. А эти годы - что ещё мне оставалось делать, да что ещё остаётся делать и сейчас? Разве могла вести себя иначе? У меня такое чувство, будто я пытаюсь грести в тяжело нагруженной лодке, а на море - буря. Мне так трудно было держаться на поверхности, что не могла я думать о всякой ерунде, о том, без чего легко можно обойтись, - как. скажем, без хороших манер, или... ну, словом, без всякого такого. Слишком я боялась, что лодка моя затонет, и потому выкинула за борт всё, что не имело для меня особой цены.

• Гордость, и честь, и правдивость, и целомудрие, и милосердие, - хмуро перечислил он. - Вы правы, Скарлетт. Всё это перестаёт иметь цену, когда лодка идёт ко дну. Но посмотрите вокруг на своих друзей. Они либо благополучно пристают к берегу со всем этим грузом, либо. подняв все флаги, идут ко дну.
• Они идиоты, - отрезала Скарлетт. - Всему своё время. Когда у меня будет достаточно денег, я тоже буду со всеми милой. Такая буду скромненькая - воды не замучу. Тогда я смогу быть такой.
• Сможете... но не станете. Трудно спасти выброшенный за борт груз: да если его и удастся вытащить, всё равно он уже безнадежно подмочен. И боюсь, что когда вы сочтёте возможным втянуть обратно в лодку честь, целомудрие и милосердие, которые вышвырнули за борт, вы обнаружите, что они претерпели в воде существенные изменения, и причем отнюдь не к лучшему..."

— Это еще кто такая? — подозрительно спросила Мамушка. — Она вас знает, а не поклонилась. Вот уж отродясь не видела, чтоб у человека были такие волосы. Даже у Тарлтонов и то не такие. Похоже… ну, прямо будто крашеные!
— Они и есть крашеные, — отрезала Скарлетт и пошла быстрее.
— И вы знаетесь с крашеной женщиной? Да кто она такая, спрашиваю я вас.
— Падшая женщина, — коротко пояснила Скарлетт, — и я даю тебе слово, что не знакома с ней, так что перестань мне докучать.
— Господи Иисусе! — ахнула Мамушка и, разинув рот, с жадным любопытством уставилась вслед карете. Она не видела ни одной падшей женщины с тех пор, как уехала с Эллин из Саванны, — а было это более двадцати лет назад, — и сейчас очень жалела, что не пригляделась повнимательнее к Красотке.

Ellen had never told her that desire and attainment were two different matters; life had not taught her that the race was not to the swift. She lay in the silvery shadows with courage rising and made the plans that a sixteen- year-old makes when life has been so pleasant that defeat is an
impossibility and a pretty dress and a clear complexion are weapons to vanquish fate.

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But with young bachelors--ah, that was a different matter! You could laugh softly at them
and when they came flying to see why you laughed, you could refuse to tell them and laugh
harder and keep them around indefinitely trying to find out. You could promise, with your
eyes, any number of exciting things that would make a man maneuver to get you alone. And,
having gotten you alone, you could be very, very hurt or very, very angry when he tried to
kiss you. You could make him apologize for being a cur and forgive him so sweetly that he
would hang around trying to kiss you a second time. Sometimes, but not often, you did let
him kiss you. (Ellen and Mammy had not taught her that but she learned it was effective.)
Then you cried and declared you didn’t know what had come over you and that he couldn’t
ever respect you again. Then he had to dry your eyes and usually he proposed, to show just
how much he did respect you. And then there were-- Oh, there were so many things to do to
bachelors and she knew them all, the nuance of the sidelong glance, the half-smile behind the
fan, the swaying of the hips so that skirts swung like a bell, the tears, the laughter, the flattery,the sweet sympathy. Oh, all the tricks that never failed to work--except with Ashley.[хорошие советы, можно взять на заметку :)]
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“Bravo! Now you are beginning to think for yourself instead of letting others think for you.
That’s the beginning of wisdom.” [Rhett]

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Until you’ve lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or
what freedom really is.”[Rhett]

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She had learned to say, “I won’t think of this or that bothersome thought now.
I’ll think about it tomorrow.” [один из корень зла для Скарлетт]

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“All wars are sacred,” he said. “To those who have to fight them. If the people who started
wars didn’t make them sacred, who would be foolish enough to fight? But, no matter what
rallying cries the orators give to the idiots who fight, no matter what noble purposes they
assign to wars, there is never but one reason for a war. And that is money. All wars are in
reality money squabbles. But so few people ever realize it. Their ears are too full of bugles
and drums and the fine words from stay-at-home orators. Sometimes the rallying cry is ‘Save
the Tomb of Christ from the Heathen!’ Sometimes it’s ‘Down with Popery!’ and sometimes
‘Liberty!’ and sometimes ‘Cotton, Slavery and States’ Rights!’”

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“They both see the same unpleasant truth, but Rhett likes to look it in the face and enrage people by talking about it--and Ashley can hardly bear to face it.”
[ну ведь есть же мозг у девчонки, близко была к пониманию того, кто есть кто, но все равно упрямая ослица.](What is courage?)

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England will never help the Confederacy. England never bets on the
underdog. That’s why she’s England.
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“I never heard of any system,” she said crossly.

“No? And yet you are a part of it, like I was, and I’ll wager you don’t like it any more than I
did. Well, why am I the black sheep of the Butler family? For this reason and no other--I
didn’t conform to Charleston and I couldn’t. And Charleston is the South, only intensified. I
wonder if you realize yet what a bore it is? So many things that one must do because they’ve
always been done. So many things, quite harmless, that one must not do for the same reason.
So many things that annoyed me by their senselessness. Not marrying the young lady, of
whom you have probably heard, was merely the last straw. Why should I marry a boring
fool, simply because an accident prevented me from getting her home before dark? And why
permit her wild-eyed brother to shoot and kill me, when I could shoot straighter? If I had
been a gentleman, of course, I would have let him kill me and that would have wiped the blot
from the Butler escutcheon. But--I like to live. And so I’ve lived and I’ve had a good time. . . .
When I think of my brother, living among the sacred cows of Charleston, and most reverent
toward them, and remember his stodgy wife and his Saint Cecilia Balls and his everlasting
rice fields--then I know the compensation for breaking with the system. Scarlett, our
Southern way of living is as antiquated as the feudal system of the Middle Ages. The wonder
is that it’s lasted as long as it has. It had to go and it’s going now. And yet you expect me to
listen to orators like Dr. Meade who tell me our Cause is just and holy? And get so excited by
the roll of drums that I’ll grab a musket and rush off to Virginia to shed my blood for Marse
Robert? What kind of a fool do you think I am? Kissing the rod that chastised me is not in my
line. The South and I are even now. The South threw me out to starve once. I haven’t
starved, and I am making enough money out of the South’s death throes to compensate me
for my lost birthright.”
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“Candy and flowers, dear,” Ellen had said time and again, “and perhaps a book of poetry or
an album or a small bottle of Florida water are the only things a lady may accept from a
gentleman. Never, never any expensive gift, even from your fiance. And never any gift of
jewelry or wearing apparel, not even gloves or handkerchiefs. Should you accept such gifts,
men would know you were no lady and would try to take liberties.”
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“It isn’t the darkies, Scarlett. They’re just the excuse. There’ll always be wars because men
love wars. Women don’t, but men do--yea, passing the love of women.”
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Never pass up new
experiences, Scarlett. They enrich the mind.
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“I won’t need you to rescue me. I can take care of myself, thank you.”
“Don’t say that, Scarlett! Think of it, if you like, but never, never say it to a man. That’s the
trouble with Yankee girls. They’d be most charming if they weren’t always telling you that
they can take care of themselves, thank you. Generally they are telling the truth, God help
them. And so men let them take care of themselves.”
[о Боже, как это правдиво. Да, есть свои минусы в женской самоуверенности. Нужно давать мужчинам быть мужчинами]

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Her burdens were her own and burdens were for shoulders strong enough to bear them. She thought without surprise, looking down from her height, that her shoulders were strong enough to bear anything now, having borne the worst that could ever happen to her.

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All had suffered crushing misfortunes and had not been crushed. They had not been broken
by the crash of empires, the machetes of revolting slaves, war, rebellion, proscription,
confiscation. Malign fate had broken their necks, perhaps, but never their hearts. They had
not whined, they had fought. And when they died, they died spent but unquenched. All of
those shadowy folks whose blood flowed in her veins seemed to move quietly in the moonlit
room. And Scarlett was not surprised to see them, these kinsmen who had taken the worst
that fate could send and hammered it into the best. Tara was her fate, her fight, and she must
conquer it.

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Scarlett dropped her head on her arms and struggled not to cry. Crying was so useless now.
The only time crying ever did any good was when there was a man around from whom you
wished favors.

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“Times never change when there’s a need for honest work to be done,”

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“Child, it’s a very bad thing for a woman to face the worst that can happen to her, because
after she’s faced the worst she can’t ever really fear anything again. And it’s very bad for a
woman not to be afraid of something.

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“Why, that’s not so! Would a coward have climbed on the cannon at Gettysburg and rallied
the men? Would the General himself have written Melanie a letter about a coward? And--”

“That’s not courage,” he said tiredly. “Fighting is like champagne. It goes to the heads of
cowards as quickly as of heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battle field when it’s be brave or
else be killed. I’m talking of something else. And my kind of cowardice is infinitely worse
than if I had run the first time I heard a cannon fired.”

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He knew she had no such word in her
vocabulary as gallantry, knew she would have stared blankly if he had told her she was the
most gallant soul he had ever known. He knew she would not understand how many truly
fine things he ascribed to her when he thought of her as gallant. He knew that she took life as
it came, opposed her tough-fibered mind to whatever obstacles there might be, fought on
with a determination that would not recognize defeat, and kept on fighting even when she
saw defeat was inevitable.

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When you are trying to get something out of a man, don’t
blurt it out as you did to me. Do try to be more subtle, more seductive. It gets better results.
You used to know how, to perfection. But just now when you offered me your--er--collateral
for my money you looked as hard as nails. I’ve seen eyes like yours above a dueling pistol
twenty paces from me and they aren’t a pleasant sight. They evoke no ardor in the male
breast. That’s no way to handle men, my dear. You are forgetting your early training.”

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She wasn’t going to sit down and patiently wait for a miracle to help her. She was going to rush into life and wrest from it what she could.

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She was not the only one who had seen the opportunities for making money out of lumber,
but she did not fear her competitors. She knew with conscious pride in her own smartness
that she was the equal of any of them. She was Gerald’s own daughter and the shrewd
trading instinct she had inherited was now sharpened by her needs.
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It’s a poor person and a poor nation that sits down and cries because life isn’t precisely what they expected it to be.

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She must not count on anything or anybody but herself.

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“Death and taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them!”

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At first Scarlett was shocked and disappointed that Ashley did not immediately take hold
and make the mill pay double what it had paid under her management. He was so smart and
he had read so many books and there was no reason at all why he should not make a brilliant
success and lots of money. But he was no more successful than Hugh. His inexperience, his
errors, his utter lack of business judgment and his scruples about close dealing were the same
as Hugh’s.

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They’re young again because they are of use again and feel that they are needed. And they like this new day that gives old men another chance.

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My pretty, there are penalties in the business world for crooked dealing.

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But Ashley Wilkes--bah! His breed is of no use or value
in an upside-down world like ours. Whenever the world up-ends, his kind is the first to
perish. And why not? They don’t deserve to survive because they won’t fight-- don’t know
how to fight. This isn’t the first time the world’s been upside down and it won’t be the last.
It’s happened before and it’ll happen again. And when it does happen, everyone loses
everything and everyone is equal. And then they all start again at taw, with nothing at all.
That is, nothing except the cunning of their brains and strength of their hands. But some
people, like Ashley, have neither cunning nor strength or, having them, scruple to use them.
And so they go under and they should go under. It’s a natural law and the world is better off
without them. But there are always a hardy few who come through and given time, they are
right back where they were before the world turned over.”

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“My pet, the world can forgive practically anything except people who mind their own
business.

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“Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it’s no worse than it is.”

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“I’m not afraid of what people say as long as I’m right. And I have never felt that convict
labor was right.”

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“Burdens are for shoulders strong enough to carry them.”

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