Gulliver's Travels. A Voyage to Lilliput. A2 / Путешествия Гулливера. Гулливер в стране лилипутов. Джонатан СвифтЧитать онлайн книгу.

      When I stood up, I looked around and understood that I had never seen such a beautiful place. It looked like a green garden, with so many beds of flowers. There were a lot of forests with trees, about seven feet high. It all looked like a painting, not real life.

      For a few hours, I enjoyed the beauty of nature. I left my house and walked as much as I could. Since that time, I went out every day, as soon as I woke up.

      So, I came out of my house, enjoying the fresh air and saw the emperor coming up to me on his horse. He kindly looked at me, but didn't come close. He ordered his cooks to give me food: I had a lot of meat and liquor. The empress and the young princes stood far from me.

      The emperor, who was taller than his people, had a strong face of olive colour. He was already twenty-eight years old and he was a king for about seven years. His dress was very simple, the fashion of it between the Asiatic and European, but he had a sword of gold to protect himself from me. His voice was very clear; and I could hear it when I stood up. The emperor spoke to me, and I answered: but we didn't understand each other. There were other people who talked to me and I tried to speak as many languages as I knew, High and Low Dutch, Latin, French, Spanish, Italian, and Lingua Franca; it didn't help.

      After a while, everyone left, and I stayed with some strong guards to keep me safe. There were people who wanted to get close to me, but some of them were not nice and sent arrows to me. One arrow almost crashed in my left eye. The emperor told to bring these people to me. I put five of them in my pocket, and for the sixth, I acted like I was going to eat him. Anyway, after all, I let them all go: people understood that I was good and started to respect me more.

      At first, I slept on the ground; then the emperor ordered people to make a bed for my size. A hundred and fifty of their beds were used, so that I no longer slept on the floor, which was hard like a stone. They also gave me some sheets and blankets to make my sleep even better.

      After I came to the kingdom, there were many rich and curious people who wanted to see me; so the emperor had to tell everyone not to come within fifty yards of my house; it was possible only for some money.

      At the same time, the emperor had many meetings to decide what to do with me: my food was so expensive, that others could have nothing to eat. They wanted to stop giving me food, or to kill me quickly, but they thought that my big dead body would be a problem for the health of the kingdom. Surprisingly, my last actions helped me: when the emperor learnt that I let six bad people go and didn't kill them, he felt more kindness to me. He ordered to bring some fresh food for me every morning, and gave his own money for bread, wine, and other drinks. He also sent hundreds of people to help me: three hundred to make clothes for me, after the fashion of the country, and other six to teach me their language.

      In three weeks, I made great progress in learning their language; thanks to the emperor's visits and his help to my teachers. We began speaking to each other a little bit, and the first phrase I learnt was “please let me be free;” which I repeated every day. His answer was, “I need time and and I need to speak to the council and you must first lumos kelmin pesso desmar lon emposo”. The phrase meant that I had to swear to be their friend. He told me to be patient and to behave well. He also added that the police need to search me for weapons; and I told that they can do it. I took the two of the police officers in my hands, put them first into my pockets, and then into every other pocket about me, and another secret pocket. They wrote down everything that they found, and here are some parts of it in English:

      “Imprimis: In the right pocket of the great man-mountain (that's how I understand quinbus flestrin), we found only one large piece of cloth. In the left pocket, we saw something big made of silver; and we couldn't lift it. We asked him to open it, and there was something like dust inside. In another pocket, we found some white substances, about the size of three men. After, there was something that the man-mountain used to brush his head. We are not sure about it but we didn't always ask him questions since it was difficult to make him understand us. In the next pocket, there were some pieces of white and red metal of different sizes. Some of the white ones were so large and heavy that my friend and I could hardly lift them. In the left pocket, we found something that looked dangerous. We asked him to show us how it works. After he did it, he told us that in his country they shave with one of these, and cut their meat with the other. There were also two pockets which we could not open: we told him to show what he had inside; it looked like a globe. We believe that it was an animal we don't know, or his God; because he told us that he always asks it for advice before doing something. From the left pocket, he showed us big pieces of yellow metal, which looked like real gold.

      These are all the things that we have found in the pockets of the man-mountain. We want to add that he was good to us and you, our great emperor, and treated us with great respect.

      Clefrin Frelock, Marsi Frelock.”

      When it was read to the emperor, he asked me to give some details. At the same time, he ordered three thousand people with arrows to be ready to fight; I didn't see it because I only looked at the emperor. He asked to show him my sword, which was bad because of the sea water; when I showed it, everyone was surprised by the light it reflected so brightly. The prince was less shocked than everyone: he ordered me to put it on the ground. After that, he asked for my pistols, which they also found. I showed how they worked; everyone got scared their noise: hundreds fell down as if they were dead. They took away my pistols and my sword. I showed them all my money, my shaver; my brush and my diary. I only hid some personal things, for example, my glasses, which were not