Загадочная история Бенджамина Баттона / The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Фрэнсис Скотт Кэй Фицджеральд
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Фрэнсису Скотту Фицджеральду принадлежит, пожалуй, одна из ведущих сольных партий в оркестровой партитуре «века джаза». Писатель, ярче и беспристрастней которого вряд ли кто отразил безумную жизнь Америки 20-х годов, и сам был плотью от плоти той легендарной эпохи, его имя не сходило с уст современников и из сводок светских хроник. Его скандальная манера поведения повергала в ужас одних и вызывала восторг у других. Но эксцентричность и внешняя позолота канули в прошлое, и в настоящем остались его бессмертные книги.
В сборнике несколько лучших рассказов и «Загадочная история Бенджамина Баттона», по которой Дэвид Финчер в 2009 году снял одноименный нашумевший фильм с Брэдом Питтом в главной роли.
«Страх старения присущ всем людям. Многие втайне мечтают о вечной молодости. Но юность, проведенная в теле старика – безрадостна».
Фрэнсис Скотт Фицджеральд
Загадочная история Бенджамина Баттона / The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
© Бабков В., перевод на русский язык, 2023
© Беспалова Л., перевод на русский язык, 2023
© Чарный В., перевод на русский язык, 2023
© Издание на русском языке, оформление. ООО «Издательство «Эксмо», 2023
Francis Scott Key Fitzgerald
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
(Novels)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
I
As long ago as 1860 it was the proper thing to be born at home. At present, so I am told, the high gods of medicine have decreed that the first cries of the young shall be uttered upon the anesthetic air of a hospital, preferably a fashionable one. So young Mr. and Mrs. Roger Button were fifty years ahead of style when they decided, one day in the summer of 1860, that their first baby should be born in a hospital. Whether this anachronism had any bearing upon the astonishing history I am about to set down will never be known.
I shall tell you what occurred, and let you judge for yourself.
The Roger Buttons held an enviable position, both social and financial, in ante-bellum Baltimore. They were related to the This Family and the That Family, which, as every Southerner knew, entitled them to membership in that enormous peerage which largely populated the Confederacy. This was their first experience with the charming old custom of having babies – Mr. Button was naturally nervous. He hoped it would be a boy so that he could be sent to Yale College in Connecticut, at which institution Mr. Button himself had been known for four years by the somewhat obvious nickname of “Cuff.”
On the September morning consecrated to the enormous event he arose nervously at six o’clock, dressed himself, adjusted an impeccable stock, and hurried forth through the streets of Baltimore to the hospital, to determine whether the darkness of the night had borne in new life upon its bosom.
When he was approximately a hundred yards from the Maryland Private Hospital for Ladies and Gentlemen he saw Doctor Keene, the family physician, descending the front steps, rubbing his hands together with a washing movement – as all doctors are required to do by the unwritten ethics of their profession.
Mr. Roger Button, the president of Roger Button amp; Co., Wholesale Hardware, began to run toward Doctor Keene with much less dignity than was expected from a Southern gentleman of that picturesque period.
“Doctor Keene!” he called. “Oh, Doctor Keene!”
The doctor heard him, faced around, and stood waiting, a curious expression settling on his harsh, medicinal face as Mr. Button drew near.
“What happened?” demanded Mr. Button, as he came up in a gasping rush. “What was it? How is she? A boy? Who is it? What-”
“Talk sense!” said Doctor Keene sharply. He appeared somewhat irritated.
“
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