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Чехов (chehov-lit.ru)

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Cлово "PAINTER"


А Б В Г Д Е Ж З И Й К Л М Н О П Р С Т У Ф Х Ц Ч Ш Щ Э Ю Я
0-9 A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
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1. Thoughts on receiving an Honorary Degree at Oxford
Входимость: 2. Размер: 9кб.

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1. Thoughts on receiving an Honorary Degree at Oxford
Входимость: 2. Размер: 9кб.
Часть текста: a lanky, sunburnt youth, I worked as a house-painter's apprentice. In spring and in summer I spent day after day on the iron roofs, painting them with a long-handled brush, painting them blue, or green, or bright red. And I always carried a book with me, a bulky and battered "English self-taught" by Professor Meyendorf. Before starting work, I used to get a piece of chalk and practise writing on the roof. This is the kind of stuff I copied out of the textbook: 'Does the gardener's two-year-old son love the grandson of his little daughter?' I had picked the book up in the market, and some pages at the beginning, where the pronunciation was explained, were torn out: that is why I never learnt to speak English. But I did learn to read. The first book I read was a volume of Swinburne, and I declaimed my favourite lines up there on the roof: From too much love of living. From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be. Than no man lives for ever. That dead men rise up never. That even the weariest river Comes somewhere safe to sea.   Later I got "The Golden Treasury of English Verse" from a bookbinder friend, and fell in love with William Blake, John Keats, and S. T. Coleridge, with all the passion of my eighteen-year-old heart. If by some miracle an Englishman could have turned up on the roof beside me and heard me spouting 'The Ancient Mariner' or 'Christabel', he would probably not have recognized his own language; for I pronounced English according to my lights - fantastically wrong, of course - and yet I thrilled to the powerful music of English poetry. I had nobody with whom to share...

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