"Hemingway, Ernest - The Sun Also Rises" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hemingway Ernest)

"All right. They'll probably be at the cafй."
"Have you got tickets?"
"Yes. I got them for all the unloadings."
"What's it like?" He was pulling his cheek before the glass, looking to see if there were unshaved patches under the line of the jaw.
"It's pretty good," I said. "They let the bulls out of the cages one at a time, and they have steers in the corral to receive them and keep them from fighting, and the bulls tear in at the steers and the steers run around like old maids trying to quiet them down."
"Do they ever gore the steers?"
"Sure. Sometimes they go right after them and kill them."
"Can't the steers do anything?"
"No. They're trying to make friends."
"What do they have them in for?"
"To quiet down the bulls and keep them from breaking their horns against the stone walls, or goring each other."
"Must be swell being a steer."
We went down the stairs and out of the door and walked across the square toward the cafй Iruсa. There were two lonely looking ticket-houses standing in the square. Their windows, marked SOL, SOL Y SOMBRA, and SOMBRA, were shut. They would not open until the day before the fiesta.
Across the square the white wicker tables and chairs of the Iruсa extended out beyond the Arcade to the edge of the street. I looked for Brett and Mike at the tables. There they were. Brett and Mike and Robert Cohn. Brett was wearing a Basque beret. So was Mike. Robert Cohn was bare-headed and wearing his spectacles. Brett saw us coming and waved. Her eyes crinkled up as we came up to the table.
"Hello, you chaps!" she called.
Brett was happy. Mike had a way of getting an intensity of feeling into shaking hands. Robert Cohn shook hands because we were back.
"Where the hell have you been?" I asked.
"I brought them up here," Cohn said.
"What rot," Brett said. "We'd have gotten here earlier if you hadn't come."
"You'd never have gotten here."
"What rot! You chaps are brown. Look at Bill."
"Did you get good fishing?" Mike asked. "We wanted to join you."
"It wasn't bad. We missed you."
"I wanted to come," Cohn said, "but I thought I ought to bring them."
"You bring us. What rot."
"Was it really good?" Mike asked. "Did you take many?"
"Some days we took a dozen apiece. There was an Englishman up there."
"Named Harris," Bill said. "Ever know him, Mike? He was in the war, too."
"Fortunate fellow," Mike said. "What times we had. How I wish those dear days were back."
"Don't be an ass."
"Were you in the war, Mike?" Cohn asked.
"Was I not."
"He was a very distinguished soldier," Brett said. "Tell them about the time your horse bolted down Piccadilly."
"I'll not. I've told that four times."
"You never told me," Robert Cohn said.
"I'll not tell that story. It reflects discredit on me."
"Tell them about your medals."
"I'll not. That story reflects great discredit on me."
"What story's that?"
"Brett will tell you. She tells all the stories that reflect discredit on me."
"Go on. Tell it, Brett."
"Should I?"
"I'll tell it myself."
"What medals have you got, Mike?"
"I haven't got any medals."
"You must have some."
"I suppose I've the usual medals. But I never sent in for them. One time there was this whopping big dinner and the Prince of Wales was to be there, and the cards said medals will be worn. So naturally I had no medals, and I stopped at my tailor's and he was impressed by the invitation, and I thought that's a good piece of business, and I said to him: 'You've got to fix me up with some medals.' He said: 'What medals, sir?' And I said: 'Oh, any medals. Just give me a few medals.' So he said: 'What medals _have_ you, sir?' And I said: 'How should I know?' Did he think I spent all my time reading the bloody gazette? 'Just give me a good lot. Pick them out yourself.' So he got me some medals, you know, miniature medals, and handed me the box, and I put it in my pocket and forgot it. Well, I went to the dinner, and it was the night they'd shot Henry Wilson, so the Prince didn't come and the King didn't come, and no one wore any medals, and all these coves were busy taking off their medals, and I had mine in my pocket."
He stopped for us to laugh.
"Is that all?"
"That's all. Perhaps I didn't tell it right."