Читать книгу The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and Selected Tales of the Jazz Age Сollection. Адаптированная книга для чтения на английском языке. Уровень B1 - Френсис Скотт Фицджеральд, Френсис Фицджеральд - Страница 5

I intend to say little of the life of Benjamin Button between his twelfth and twenty-first year. It is enough to say that they were years of normal antigrowth. When Benjamin was eighteen he stopped stooping and walked straight as a man of fifty; he had more hair and it was dark gray; his step was firm, his cracked voice turned to a healthy baritone. So his father sent him up to Connecticut to take examinations for entrance to Yale College. Benjamin passed his examination and became a member of the freshman class.

On the third day after he had officially become a student he received a letter from Mr. Hart, the college secretary, to come to his office and arrange his schedule. Benjamin glanced in the mirror and decided that his hair needed a new brown dye. He looked for the dye bottle in his desk but didn't find it. Then he remembered – he had used it the day before and thrown it away.

He hesitated. He had to come to the college office in five minutes. There seemed to be no choice – he must go as he was. He did.

«Good morning», said Mr. Hart politely. «You've come to speak about your son».

«Why, as a matter of fact, my name's Button…» began Benjamin, but Mr. Hart interrupted him.

«I'm very glad to meet you, Mr. Button. I'm expecting your son here any minute».

«That's me!» shouted Benjamin. «I'm a freshman».

«What!»

«I'm a freshman».

«Surely you're joking».

«Not at all».

The secretary frowned and glanced at a card before him. «Why, I have Mr. Benjamin Button's age down here as eighteen».

«That's my age», announced Benjamin, turning slightly red in the face.

Mr. Hart looked at him. «Surely, Mr. Button, you don't expect me to believe that».

«I am eighteen», he repeated.

The secretary pointed to the door. «Get out», he said. «Get out of college and get out of town. You are a dangerous madman».

«I am eighteen».

Mr. Hart opened the door and shouted. «A man of your age is trying to enter here as a freshman. Eighteen years old, are you? Well, I'll give you eighteen minutes to get out of town».

Benjamin Button walked with dignity from the room, and half a dozen undergraduates, who were waiting in the hall, followed him curiously with their eyes. When he had gone a little way he turned around, looked at the angry secretary, who was still standing in the doorway, and repeated in a firm voice: «I am eighteen years old».

Benjamin walked away followed by a laugh, which went up from the group of undergraduates.

But he didn't escape so easily. On his sad walk to the railroad station he found that he was followed by a group, then by a crowd, and finally by a large mass of undergraduates. The news had spread around that a madman had passed the entrance examinations for Yale and attempted to present himself as a youth of eighteen. The college was in a fever of excitement. Men ran out of classes, the football team left its match and ran shouting after the crowd. Their remarks were insulting the tender feelings of Benjamin Button.

«He ought to go to prep school[25] at his age!»

«Look at the infant prodigy[26]!»

«He thought this was the aged men's home».

«Go up to Harvard[27]!»

Benjamin walked faster, and soon he was running. He would show them! He would go to Harvard, and then they would regret these insulting remarks!

When he finally got on the train for Baltimore and felt safe, he put his head from the window. «You'll regret this!» he shouted.

«Ha-ha!» the undergraduates laughed. «Ha-ha-ha!»

It was the biggest mistake that Yale College had ever made…