"Benchley, Peter- Jaws" - читать интересную книгу автора (Benchley Peter)

Jaws
by Peter Benchley

Sceny Bookz Etext Version 1.0




PART 1



The great fish moved silently through the night water, propelled by short sweeps of its
crescent tail. The mouth was open just enough to permit a rush of water over the gills.
There was little other motion: an occasional correction of the apparently aimless course
by the slight raising or lowering of a pectoral fin -- as a bird changes direction by dipping
one wing and lifting the other. The eyes were sightless in the black, and the other senses
transmitted nothing extraordinary to the small, primitive brain. The fish might have been
asleep, save for the movement dictated by countless millions of years of instinctive
continuity: lacking the flotation bladder common to other fish and the fluttering flaps to
push oxygen-bearing water through its gills, it survived only by moving. Once stopped, it
would sink to the bottom and die of anoxia. The land seemed almost as dark as the water,
for there was no moon. All that separated sea from shore was a long, straight stretch of
beach -- so white that it shone. From a house behind the grass-splotched dunes, lights cast
yellow glimmers on the sand. The front door to the house opened, and a man and a
woman stepped out onto the wooden porch. They stood for a moment staring at the sea,
embraced quickly, and scampered down the few steps onto the sand. The man was drunk,
and he stumbled on the bottom step. The woman laughed and took his hand, and together
they ran to the beach.
"First a swim," said the woman, "to clear your head."
"Forget my head," said the man. Giggling, he fell backward onto the sand, pulling
the woman down with him. They fumbled with each other's clothing, twined limbs
around limbs, and thrashed with urgent ardor on the cold sand. Afterward, the man lay
back and closed his eyes. The woman looked at him and smiled. "Now, how about that
swim?" she said.
"You go ahead. I'll wait for you here."
The woman rose and walked to where the gentle surf washed over her ankles. The
water was colder than the night air, for it was only mid-June. The woman called back,
"You're sure you don't want to come?" But there was no answer from the sleeping man.
She backed up a few steps, then ran at the water. At first her strides were long and
graceful, but then a small wave crashed into her knees. She faltered, regained her footing,
and flung herself over the next waist-high wave. The water was only up to her hips, so
she stood, pushed the hair out of her eyes, and continued walking until the water covered
her shoulders. There she began to swim -- with the jerky, head-above-water stroke of the
untutored.
A hundred yards offshore, the fish sensed a change in the sea's rhythm. It did not
see the woman, nor yet did it smell her. Running within the length of its body were a
series of thin canals, filled with mucus and dotted with nerve endings, and these nerves
detected vibrations and signaled the brain. The fish turned toward shore.
The woman continued to swim away from the beach, stopping now and then to