Every bride is beautiful. Every bride looks charming in a simple dress of-for further particulars see local papers. Every marriage is a cause for universal rejoicing. With our wine-glass in our hand we picture the best life for them. How can it be otherwise? She, the daughter of her mother. (Cheers.) He-well, we all know him. (More cheers.)
We carry our make-believe even into our religion. We sit in church, and say to the God, that we are miserable worms-that there is no good in us. It does us no harm, we must do it anyway.
We make-believe that every woman is good, that every man is honest-until they show us, against our will, that they are not. Then we become very angry with them, and explain to them that they are such sinners, and are not to mix with us perfect people.
Everybody goes to a better world when they have got all they can here. We stand around the open grave and tell each other so. The clergyman is so assured of it that, to save time[35], they have written out the formula for him and had it printed in a little book.
When I was a child, I was very surprised that everybody went to heaven. I was thinking about all the people that had died, there were too many people there. Almost I felt sorry for the Devil, forgotten and abandoned. I saw him in imagination, a lonely old gentleman, sitting at his gate day after day, doing nothing. An old nurse whom I told my ideas was sure that he would get me anyhow. Maybe I was an evil-hearted boy. But the thought of how he will welcome me, the only human being that he had seen for years, made me almost happy.
At every public meeting the chief speaker is always “a good fellow.” The man from Mars, reading our newspapers, will be convinced that every Member of Parliament was a jovial, kindly, high-hearted, generous-souled saint. We have always listened with pleasure to the brilliant speech of our friend who has just sat down.
The higher one ascends in the social scale[36], the wider becomes the make-believe. When anything sad happens to a very important person, the lesser people round about him hardly can live. So one wonders sometimes how it is the world continues to exist.
Once upon a time a certain good and great man became ill. I read in the newspaper that the whole nation was in grief. People dining in restaurants dropped their heads upon the table and sobbed. Strangers, meeting in the street, cried like little children. I was abroad at the time, but began to return home. I almost felt ashamed to go. I looked at myself in the mirror, and was shocked at my own appearance: there was a man who had not been in trouble for weeks. Surely, I had a shallow nature. I had had luck with a play in America, and I just could not look grief-stricken. There were moments when I found myself whistling!
The first man I talked to on Dover[37] pier was a Customs House official. He appeared quite pleased when he found 48 cigars. He demanded the tax, and chuckled when he got it.
On Dover
1
What astonished me most, however, was to find in the train a respectable looking man who was reading a comic journal. True, he did not laugh much; but what was a grief-stricken citizen doing with a comic journal, anyhow? I had come to the conclusion that we English must be a people of wonderful self-control. The day before, as newspapers wrote, the whole country was in serious danger of a broken heart. “We have cried all day,” they had said to themselves, “we have cried all night. Now let us live once again.” Some of them-I noticed it in the hotel dining-room that evening-were returning to their food again.
We make believe about quite serious things. In war, each country’s soldiers are always the most courageous in the world. The other country’s soldiers are always treacherous and sly; that is why they sometimes win. Literature is the art of make-believe.
“Now all of you sit round and throw your pennies in the cap,” says the author, “and I will pretend that there lives in Bayswater[38] a young lady named Angelina[39], who is the most beautiful young lady that ever existed. And in Notting Hill[40], we will pretend, there lives a young man named Edwin[41], who is in love with Angelina.”
And then, if there are some pennies in the cap, the author pretends that Angelina thought this and said that, and that Edwin did all sorts of wonderful things. We know he is making it all up[42]. We know he is making up just to please us. But we know well enough that if we stop to throw the pennies into the cap, the author can do another things.
The manager bangs his drum.
“Come here! come here!” he cries, “we are going to pretend that Mrs. Johnson[43] is a princess, and old man Johnson is going to pretend to be a pirate. Come here, come here, and be in time!”
So Mrs. Johnson, pretending to be a princess, comes out of a paper house that we agree to pretend is a castle; and old man Johnson, pretending to be a pirate, is swimming in the thing we agree to pretend is the ocean. Mrs. Johnson pretends to be in love with him, but we know she is not. And Johnson pretends to be a very terrible person; and Mrs. Johnson pretends, till eleven o’clock, to believe it. And we pay money to sit for two hours and listen to them.
But as I explained at the beginning, my friend is a mad person.
Exercises
1. Выберите правильный вариант:
1. We make believe about quite serious things.
2. We make believe about quite stupid things.
3. We make believe about quite incredible things.
4. We make believe about quite common things.
ОТВЕТ: We make believe about quite serious things.
2. Where does a young man, who is in love with Angelina, live?
1. in Bayswater
2. in Dover
3. in London
4. in Notting Hill
ОТВЕТ: in Notting Hill
3. Who is the Prince of Wales?
1. It is a title granted to princes lived in Wales.
2. It is a title granted to princes born in England.
3. It is a title granted to princes married in Wales.
4. It is a title granted to princes born in Wales.
ОТВЕТ: It is a title granted to princes born in Wales.
4. How many cigars did a Customs House official find?
1. 35 cigars
2. 48 cigars
3. 24 cigars
4. 53 cigars
ОТВЕТ: 48 cigars
5. “Jovial” is NOT…
1. amiable
2. festive
3. angry
4. good-natured
ОТВЕТ: angry
6. What does it mean “to save time”?
1. to have extra time
2. to do useless things
3. to have a good time
4. to sleep
ОТВЕТ: to have extra time
7. Выберите правильный вариант:
1. When I was a child, I was very surprised that everybody went to hell.
2. When I was a child, I was very surprised that everybody went to heaven.
3. When I was a child, I was very surprised that everybody went to London.
4. When I was a child, I was very surprised that everybody went to Scotland.
ОТВЕТ: When I was a child, I was very surprised that everybody went to heaven.
8. What is Mrs. Johnson’s paper house?
1. a hut
2. a car
3. a bathroom
4. a castle
ОТВЕТ: a castle
9. Who must be a people of wonderful self-control?
1. English
2. French
3. German
4. Scottish
ОТВЕТ: English
10. Выберите нужный глагол:
She must ____________________ for the stage.
1. dance
2. gain
3. go
4. train
ОТВЕТ: She must train for the stage.
11. Выберите нужные глаголы:
Our host’s wine ____________________ always the best we ____________________ ever tasted.
1. was, will
2. is, have
3. is, are
4. has, have
ОТВЕТ: Our host’s wine is always the best we have ever tasted.
12. Выберите нужный предлог:
Any society is founded ____________________ the make-believe that everybody is charming.
1. on
2. in
3. at
4. after
ОТВЕТ: Any society is founded on the make-believe that everybody is charming.
13. Ответьте на вопросы:
1. How many actors are mentioned in the story?
2. What are their names?
3. What have you learned about make-believe?
4. What do you like and what don’t you like in Miss Screecher?
5. What would you do if you were Mrs. Johnson?
6. What is the end of the story?
7. How can you explain the title of the story?
8. Retell the story.
14. Заполните таблицу:
tell ____________________ ____________________
____________________ said ____________________
____________________ ____________________ put
break ____________________ ____________________
____________________ cried ____________________
ОТВЕТ:
tell-told-told
say-said-said
put-put-put
break-broke-broken
cry-cried-cried
Why we hate the foreigner
Jerome K. Jerome
The advantage of the foreigner is following: he is born good. He does not have to try to be good, as we, the Englishmen, do. He does not have to start the New Year with the decision to be good, and succeed till the middle of January. He is just good all the year round. When they tell a foreigner to mount or descend from a tram[44] from the right side, he will never try to descend that tram from the left side.
In Brussels[45] once I saw a lawless foreigner who was trying to enter a tram from the wrong side. The door was open: he was standing close beside it. A line of traffic was in his way, so he just entered when the conductor was not looking, and took his seat. The astonishment of the conductor was immense. How did he get there?
The conductor was watching the proper entrance, and the man had not passed him. Later, the true explanation came to the conductor, but he hesitated to accuse that man of such crime.
Anyway, the conductor appealed to the passenger himself. Was his presence a miracle or a sin? The passenger confessed. The conductor requested him to leave the tram immediately. The passenger refused to do so, a halt was called[46], and the police arrived. As usual, they appeared from the ground[47]. At first the sergeant did not believe the conductor’s statement. Myself, in the passenger’s case[48], I would lie. But he was proud, or stupid-one of the two, and he told the truth. The police said that he had to descend immediately and wait for the next tram. Other policemen were arriving from every corner: nowhere to run. The passenger decided get down. He walked to the proper door, but that was not correct. He had mounted the wrong side, he must descend on the wrong side, too. After that the conductor told a sermon from the centre of the tram on the danger of going from the wrong side.
There is a law in Germany-an excellent law it is-that nobody may scatter paper about the street. An English military friend told me that, one day in Dresden[49], he tore a long letter into some fifty fragments and threw them behind him. A policeman stopped him and explained to him quite politely the law. My military friend agreed that it was a very good law, thanked the man for his information, and said that for the future he would bear it in mind[50]. But the policeman was not satisfied. He offered my friend to pick up those fifty pieces of paper. My friend did not see himself, an English General, on his hands and knees in the main street of Dresden, in the middle of the afternoon, picking up paper.
The German policeman agreed that the situation was awkward. If the English General cannot accept it there is an alternative: to accompany the policeman to the nearest prison, three miles away. It was four o’clock in the afternoon, the judge probably went away. But the prison cells[51] are very comfortable, and the policeman is sure that the General, after the fine of forty marks[52], will be a free man again tomorrow. The General suggested to hire a boy to pick up the paper.
The policeman answered that it was not be permitted.
“I did not think,” my friend told me, “that picking up small pieces of thin paper off greasy stones was the hardest business of mine! It took me nearly ten minutes, and more than a thousand people enjoyed the view. But, anyway, it is a good law, I say.”
Once I accompanied an American lady to a German Opera House[53]. The spectators in the German Schauspielhaus[54] must take off their hats. Again, this is an excellent law! But the American lady disregards rules made by mere man[55]. She explained to the doorkeeper[56] that she was going to wear her hat. He, on his side, explained to her that she was not: they were a bit angry with one another. I took the opportunity to leave them and buy some things: the fewer people there are mixed in an argument, I always think, the better.
My companion explained quite frankly to the doorkeeper that it did not matter what he said, she was not going to take any notice of him. He did not answer. He just stood in the centre of the doorway. As I explained, I was buying something, and when I returned my friend had her hat in her hand, and was digging pins into it: I am sure she was thinking it was the heart of the doorkeeper. She did not want to listen to the opera, she wanted to talk all the time about that doorkeeper, but the people round us did not even let her do that.
Continental Governments[57] have trained their citizens to perfection. Obedience is the Continent’s first law. There is a story of a Spanish king who was nearly drowned because the man whose duty was to dive in after Spanish kings when they fall from the boats had died, and another one had not yet arrived. And I can believe it.
On the Continental railways if you ride second class with a first-class ticket you are probably liable to imprisonment[58]. What the penalty is for riding first with a second-class ticket I cannot say-probably death, though a friend of mine came very near to fell it.
He is very honest. He is one of those men who pride themselves because they are honest. I believe he takes a positive pleasure to be honest. He had purchased a second-class ticket, but, by chance, he met a lady acquaintance[59] on the platform, and had gone with her into a first-class apartment. When he arrived to his station, he explained to the conductor everything, and, with his purse in his hand, demanded to know the difference. They took him into a room and locked the door. After that they sent for a policeman.
The policeman examined him for about a quarter of an hour. They did not believe the story about the lady. Where was the lady? He did not know. They searched the neighbourhood for her, but could not find her. The policeman suggested to search my poor friend for bombs[60]. Fortunately, a Cook’s agent[61], with some tourists, arrived on the platform, and explained in delicate language that my friend was a bit stupid and could not distinguish first class from second. It was the red cushions that had deceived my friend: he thought it was first class, as a matter of fact[62] it was second class.
But the conductor wanted to know about the lady-who had travelled in a second-class with a first-class ticket. And the man of Cook was clever again. He explained that my friend was also a liar. When he said he had travelled with this lady he was merely boasting. He just wanted to travel with her, but his German was not perfect. So my friend’s reputation was re-established. He was not the gangster-only, apparently, a traveling idiot.
Not only the foreign man, woman and child, but the foreign dog is born good. In England, if have a dog, you spend much of your time is to drag the dog out of fights, to quarrel with the possessor of the other dog, to explain to irate elderly lady that your dog did not kill her. With the foreign dog, life is a peaceful. When the foreign dog sees a row, tears come to its eyes: the dog hastens to find a policeman. When the foreign dog sees a cat in a hurry, it stands aside. They dress the foreign dog-some of them-in a little coat, with a pocket for its handkerchief, and put shoes on its feet. They have not given it a hat-not yet. When they do, the dog will raise it politely when it meets a cat.
One morning, in a Continental city, a fox-terrier came across me[63]. After that I felt its teeth. A fox-terrier belonged to a very young lady. The poor girl was shouting all the way. When she looked round and saw all the things that had happened, she burst into tears. An English owner of that fox-terrier normally will jump upon the nearest tram. But, as I have said, the foreigner is born good. Seven different people were writing down her address.