"GL1" - читать интересную книгу автора (vol06)

time called 'the shire' (see, however, p. 31). But the first names of the
hobbits were only at the beginning of their protean variations - such
names as Sago and Semolina would be rejected as unsuitable, others
(Amalda, Inigo, Obo) would have no place in the final genealogies, and
yet others (Mungo, Gorboduc) would be given to different persons; only
the vain Angelica Baggins survived.

*

(ii)
The Second Version.

The next manuscript, while closely based on the first, introduced much
new material - most notably the arrival of Gandalf, and the fireworks.
This version breaks off at the words 'Morning went on' (FR p. 45).
The manuscript was much emended, and it is very difficult to distin-
guish those changes made at the time of composition from those made
subsequently: in any case the third version no doubt followed hard upon
the second, superseding it before it was completed. I give this second text
also in full, so far as it goes, but in this case I include virtually all the
emendations made to it (in some cases the original reading is given in the
notes which follow the text on p. 25).

Chapter 1.

A long-expected party.

When Bilbo, son of Bungo, of the respectable family of Baggins
prepared to celebrate his seventy-first' birthday there was some
little talk in the neighbourhood, and people polished up their
memories.(2) Bilbo had once had some brief notoriety amoug the
hobbits of Hobbiton and Bywater - he had disappeared after
breakfast one April 30th and had not reappeared until lunch-time
on June 22nd in the following year. A very odd proceeding, and
one for which he had never accounted satisfactorily. He wrote a
book about it, of course: but even those who had read it never took
that seriously. It is no good talking to hobbits about dragons: they
either disbelieve you, or feel uncomfortable; and in either case
tend to avoid you afterwards. Mr Baggins, however, had soon
returned to more or less normal ways; and though the shaken
confidence of the countryside was never quite restored, in time the
hobbits agreed to pardon the past, and Bilbo was on calling-terms
again with all his relatives and neighbours, except of course the
Sackville-Bagginses. For one thing Bilbo seemed by some un-
explained method to have become more than comfortably off, in
fact positively wealthy. Indeed it was the magnificence of the
preparations for his birthday-party far more than his brief and
distant fame that caused the talk. After all that other odd business
had happened some twenty years ago and was all but forgotten;
the party was going to happen that very month of September. The