Загадочная история Бенджамина Баттона / The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. Фрэнсис Скотт ФицджеральдЧитать онлайн книгу.
it up,” insisted his customer nervously. “That’s what I want.”
The astonished clerk obeyed.
Back at the hospital Mr. Button entered the nursery and almost threw the package at his son: “Here’s your clothes.”
The old man untied the package and viewed the contents.
“They look sort of funny to me,” he complained, “I don’t want to be made a monkey of—”
“You’ve made a monkey of me! Put them on—or I’ll—or I’ll spank you.” He swallowed uneasily at the word, feeling nevertheless that it was the proper thing to say.
“All right, father”—this with a grotesque simulation of respect—”you’ve lived longer; you know best. Just as you say.”
As before, the sound of the word “father” confused Mr. Button. “And hurry.”
“I’m hurrying, father.”
When his son was dressed Mr. Button regarded him with depression. The costume consisted of dotted socks, pink pants, and a belted blouse with a wide white collar. Over the collar waved the long beard.
The effect was not good.
“Wait!”
Mr. Button seized a pair of hospital shears and with three quick snaps cut a large section of the beard. But even without it his son was far from perfection. The remaining hair, the watery eyes, the ancient teeth seemed out of tone with the gayety of the costume. Mr. Button, however, held out his hand.
“Come along!” he said sternly.
His son took the hand trustingly. “What are you going to call me, dad?” he quavered as they walked from the nursery—”just ‘baby’ for a while? till you think of a better name?”
Mr. Button grunted. “I don’t know,” he answered harshly. “I think we’ll call you Methuselah.”
Even after the new-born Button had had his hair cut short and then dyed to an unnatural black, had had his face shaved so close that it glistened, and had been dressed in small-boy clothes made to order, it was impossible for Button to ignore the fact that his son was a poor excuse for a first family baby. Benjamin Button—for it was by this name they called him instead of by Methuselah—was five feet eight inches tall. His clothes did not conceal this, nor did the dyeing of his eyebrows disguise the fact that the eyes under were watery and tired. In fact, the baby-nurse left the house after one look at him in a state of considerable indignation.
But Mr. Button persisted that Benjamin was a baby, and a baby he should remain. At first, he declared that if Benjamin didn’t like warm milk he could go without food altogether, but he finally allowed his son bread and butter, and even oatmeal by way of a compromise. One day he brought home a rattle and, giving it to Benjamin, insisted that he should “play with it.” The old man took it with a weary expression and jingled it obediently at intervals throughout the day.
There can be no doubt that the rattle bored him, and that he found other amusements when he was left alone. For instance, Mr. Button discovered one day that some cigars were missing. A few days later he found the room full of faint blue haze and Benjamin, with a guilty expression on his face6, trying to hide the butt.
This, of course, called for a severe spanking, but Mr. Button found that he could not do it.
Nevertheless, he persisted in his attitude. He brought home lead soldiers, he brought toy trains, he brought large pleasant animals made of cotton, and, to perfect the illusion, which he was creating—for himself at least—he passionately demanded of the clerk in the toy store whether “the paint would come of the pink duck if the baby put it in his mouth.” But Benjamin refused to be interested. He would steal down the back stairs and return to the nursery with a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica7, which he would read through an afternoon, while his cotton cows were left neglected on the floor. Mr. Button could do nothing against such stubbornness.
The sensation was, at first, huge in Baltimore. But the outbreak of the Civil War drew the city’s attention to other things. A few people who tried to be polite about the child finally declared that the baby resembled his grandfather. Mr. and Mrs. Roger Button were not pleased, and Benjamin’s grandfather was furiously insulted.
Benjamin, once he left the hospital, took life as he found it. Several small boys were brought to see him, and he spent all afternoon trying to work up an interest in tops and marbles—he even managed, quite accidentally, to break a kitchen window with a stone from a sling shot, which secretly delighted his father.
Thereafter Benjamin decided to break something every day, but he did these things only because they were expected of him, and because he was by nature obliging. When his grandfather’s initial antagonism wore off, Benjamin and that gentleman took enormous pleasure in one another’s company. They would sit for hours, these two, so different in age and experience, and, like old friends, discuss with tireless monotony the slow events of the day. Benjamin felt more at ease in his grandfather’s presence than in his parents’—they seemed always somewhat afraid of him and, despite their dictatorial authority, frequently addressed him as “Mr.”
He was as puzzled as anyone else at the advanced age of his mind and body at birth. He read up on it in the medical journal, but found that no such case had been previously recorded.
When he was five, he was sent to kindergarten, where he was taught the art of pasting green paper on orange paper, of weaving coloured maps and manufacturing eternal cardboard necklaces. He often fell asleep in the middle of these tasks, a habit, which both irritated and frightened his young teacher. To his relief she complained to his parents, and he was removed from the school. The Roger Buttons told their friends that they felt he was too young.
By the time he was twelve years old his parents had grown used to him. Moreover, they no longer felt that he was different from any other child—except when some curious anomaly reminded them of the fact. But one day a few weeks after his twelfth birthday, looking in the mirror, Benjamin made, or thought he made, an astonishing discovery. Did his eyes deceive him, or had his hair turned from white to iron-gray under its dye? Was the network of wrinkles on his face fade? Was his skin healthier and firmer? He could not tell. He knew that his physical condition had improved since the early days of his life.
“Can it be—?” he thought to himself, or, rather, scarcely dared to think.
He went to his father. “I am grown,” he announced. “I want to put on long trousers.”
His father hesitated. “Well,” he said finally, “I don’t know. Fourteen is the age for putting on long trousers—and you are only twelve.” “But I’m big for my age.”
“Oh, I’m not so sure of that,” he said. “I was as big as you when I was twelve.”
This was not true—it was all part of Roger Button’s silent agreement with himself to believe in his son’s normality.
Finally a compromise was reached. Benjamin was to continue to dye his hair8. He was to make a better attempt to play with boys of his own age. He was not to wear his spectacles or carry a cane in the street. In return he was allowed his first suit of long trousers.
Of Benjamin Button’s life between his twelfth and twenty-first year I intend to say little. They were years of normal ungrowth. When Benjamin was eighteen he reminded of a man of fifty; he had more hair and it was of a dark gray; his step was firm, his voice had lost its cracked quaver and turned into a healthy baritone. So his father sent him up to Connecticut to take examinations for entrance to Yale College. Benjamin passed his examination and became a member of the freshman class.
On the third day after his matriculation he received a notification from Mr. Hart, the college registrar, to call at his office and arrange his schedule. Benjamin, glancing in the mirror, decided that his hair needed a new application of its brown dye, but suddenly he saw that the dye bottle was not there.
with a guilty expression on his face—с виноватым выражением лица
He would steal down the back stairs and return to the nursery with a volume of the Encyclopedia Britannica—Он прокрадывался вниз по чёрной лестнице в детскую комнату с томиком энциклопедии «Британника»
Benjamin was to continue to dye his hair.—Бенджамин должен был продолжать красить свои волосы.