Читать книгу Revenge of the Translator - Brice Matthieussent - Страница 29

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*You will have noticed, my reader, that above I deleted all the “stage directions,” conserving only, for excellent reasons of austerity and internal dynamic, the dialogues between characters. Here, for your curiosity, the list of these deleted directions:

“ !” hurled Doris in a defiant voice as she walked toward him.

“ ,” Grey replied coldly.

“ …”

“ ,” Grey cut her off, drawing right up close to her beautiful face with its slightly hooked nose.

“ ?”

“ ,” he retorted ruthlessly, grabbing her by the collar of her blue terry cloth nightgown.

“ !” Doris whined, undone.

“ …” Grey insinuated without loosening his grip.

“ ,” unleashed that beauty who (etc.).

“ ?”

“ ,” she confessed, batting her eyelashes.

“ ,” he replied dryly.

He pushed Doris violently down onto the crimson sofa, where she collapsed, a wreck, making sure to modestly tug her dressing gown over her legs, which were shapely / slender / thin as matchsticks / very skinny / could take a footbath in a double-barreled shotgun (I still have to choose).

The translator left the room slamming the door behind him.

Here are the stage directions from the next scene:

“ ?” the stranger in the frayed black coat, wearing a fedora of an indefinable color, asks him out of the blue.

“ ,” Grey replies, still thinking of Doris, of how he left her in tears on the crimson sofa.

“ ?” continues the stranger.

“ ?” Grey retorts tit for tat.

“ .”

“ ?” ventures the translator, suddenly wary.

“ !” says the other.

“ ,” Grey concludes.

They go to the nearest bar, where they drink beers until nightfall. (Eraser’s Numerus Clausus)