Это была такая соблазнительная мишень.

I got him in the eye with an American Beauty rose.

Я вмазал ему прямо в глаз розой сорта "американская красавица".

I thought that was most appropriate. Don't you?'

По-моему, вполне подходящий снаряд, а?

'That was a terrible thing to do!' Nately shouted at him reproachfully.

- Это ужасно! - крикнул Нейтли возмущенно.

' A vicious and criminal thing!

- Это злодейство, преступление.

Major-de Coverley is our squadron executive officer!'

Майор де Каверли - начальник штаба нашей эскадрильи.

'Is he?' teased the unregenerate old man, pinching his pointy jaw gravely in a parody of repentance.

- Ах вот оно что! - издевательски проговорил старикашка. Он с плутоватым раскаянием ущипнул себя за остренький подбородочек.

'In that case, you must give me credit for being impartial.

- Прошу вас поверить, что я действовал совершенно беспристрастно.

When the Germans rode in, I almost stabbed a robust young Oberleutnant to death with a sprig of edelweiss.'

Когда в город въезжали немцы, я пребольно уколол веткой эдельвейса здоровенного молодого обер-лейтенанта.

Nately was appalled and bewildered by the abominable old man's inability to perceive the enormity of his offence.

Больше всего Нейтли смущало и даже пугало то, что этот противный старикашка не способен был даже понять всю низость своей хулиганской выходки.

'Don't you realize what you've done?' he scolded vehemently.

- Да как вы не понимаете, что вы наделали! -бушевал Нейтли.

'Major-de Coverley is a noble and wonderful person, and everyone admires him.'

- Майор де Каверли - благородный, чудесный человек, им восхищаются все.

'He's a silly old fool who really has no right acting like a silly young fool.

- Он старый болван, который не имеет права вести себя, как молодой болван.

Where is he today?

Где он теперь? Что с ним сталось?

Dead?'

Умер?

Nately answered softly with somber awe.

Нейтли ответил почтительно, с мягкой печалью в голосе:

'Nobody knows. He seems to have disappeared.' 'You see? Imagine a man his age risking what little life he has left for something so absurd as a country.' Nately was instantly up in arms again. 'There is nothing so absurd about risking your life for your country!' he declared. 'Isn't there?' asked the old man. 'What is a country? A country is a piece of land surrounded on all sides by boundaries, usually unnatural. Englishmen are dying for England, Americans are dying for America, Germans are dying for Germany, Russians are dying for Russia. There are now fifty or sixty countries fighting in this war. Surely so many countries can't all be worth dying for.' 'Anything worth living for,' said Nately, 'is worth dying for.' 'And anything worth dying for,' answered the sacrilegious old man, 'is certainly worth living for. You know, you're such a pure and naive young man that I almost feel sorry for you. How old are you? Twenty-five? Twenty-six?' 'Nineteen,' said Nately. 'I'll be twenty in January.' 'If you live.' The old man shook his head, wearing, for a moment, the same touchy, meditating frown of the fretful and disapproving old woman. 'They are going to kill you if you don't watch out, and I can see now that you are not going to watch out. Why don't you use some sense and try to be more like me? You might live to be a hundred and seven, too.' 'Because it's better to die on one's feet than live on one's knees,' Nately retorted with triumphant and lofty conviction. 'I guess you've heard that saying before.' 'Yes, I certainly have,' mused the treacherous old man, smiling again. 'But I'm afraid you have it backward. It is better to live on one's feet than die on one's knees. That is the way the saying goes.' 'Are you sure?' Nately asked with sober confusion. 'It seems to make more sense my way.' 'No, it makes more sense my way. Ask your friends.'

- Никто не знает... Он исчез...

Nately turned to ask his friends and discovered they had gone. Yossarian and Dunbar had both disappeared.

Нейтли обернулся на своих приятелей и обнаружил, что Йоссариан и Данбэр, как и Заморыш Джо, исчезли.

The old man roared with contemptuous merriment at Nately's look of embarrassed surprise.

При виде озадаченного лица Нейтли старикашка разразился оскорбительным смехом.

Nately's face darkened with shame.

Нейтли вспыхнул, щеки его заалели.

He vacillated helplessly for a few seconds and then spun himself around and fled inside the nearest of the hallways in search of Yossarian and Dunbar, hoping to catch them in time and bring them back to the rescue with news of the remarkable clash between the old man and Major-de Coverley. All the doors in the hallways were shut.

Несколько мгновений он беспомощно озирался, а затем ринулся в ближайший коридор на поиски Йоссариана и Данбэра, намереваясь рассказать им об удивительном случае - о том, что произошло между старикашкой и майором де Каверли, но в коридоре все двери были заперты.

There was light under none.

Ни под одной дверью не пробивался свет.

It was already very late.

Было уже слишком поздно.

Nately gave up his search forlornly.

Помрачневший Нейтли прекратил поиски.

There was nothing left for him to do, he realized finally, but get the girl he was in love with and lie down with her somewhere to make tender, courteous love to her and plan their future together; but she had gone off to bed, too, by the time he returned to the sitting room for her, and there was nothing left for him to do then but resume his abortive discussion with the loathsome old man, who rose from his armchair with jesting civility and excused himself for the night, abandoning Nately there with two bleary-eyed girls who could not tell him into which room his own whore had gone and who padded off to bed several seconds later after trying in vain to interest him in themselves, leaving him to sleep alone in the sitting room on the small, lumpy sofa.

Вскоре он понял, что самое лучшее - вернуться к своей возлюбленной и поговорить с ней о будущем. Но когда он появился в гостиной, его девица уже ушла спать. Нейтли решил было возобновить бесплодную дискуссию с забубенным старикашкой. Однако тот встал с кресла и, извинившись с утрированной вежливостью, оставил Нейтли в гостиной, где ему предстояло ночевать в одиночестве на крохотном ухабистом диванчике - все девицы к тому времени уже разошлись кто куда. На следующее утро Нейтли проснулся чуть свет, с болью в затылке, с трудом соображая, куда он попал.

Nately was a sensitive, rich, good-looking boy with dark hair, trusting eyes, and a pain in his neck when he awoke on the sofa early the next morning and wondered dully where he was.

Нейтли был чувствительным парнем с приятной наружностью. У него были темные волосы, доверчивые глаза, счастливое детство и обеспеченные родители.

His nature was invariably gentle and polite. He had lived for almost twenty years without trauma, tension, hate, or neurosis, which was proof to Yossarian of just how crazy he really was. His childhood had been a pleasant, though disciplined, one. He got on well with his brothers and sisters, and he did not hate his mother and father, even though they had both been very good to him.