Steinbeck on travelling
Lesson I
When I was very young and the urge to be some place else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch. When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked. Four hoarse blasts of a ship’s whistle still raise the hair on my neck and set my feet to tapping. The sound of a jet, and engine warming up, even the clopping of shod hooves on pavement brings on the ancient shudder, the dry mouth and vacant eye, the hot palms and the churn of stomach high up under the rib cage. In other words, I don’t improve; in further words, once a bum always a bum. I fear the disease is incurable. I set this matter down not to instruct others but to inform myself.
When the virus of restlessness begins to take possession of a wayward man, and the road away from Here seems broad and straight and sweet, the victim must first find in himself a good and sufficient reason for going. This to the practical bum is not difficult. He has a built-in garden of reason to choose from. Next he must plan his trip in time and space, choose a direction and a destination. At last he must implement the journey. How to go, what to take, how long to stay. This part of the process is invariable and immortal. I set it down only so that newcomers to bumdom, like teen-agers in new-hatched sin, will not think they invented it.
Once a journey is designed, equipped, and put in process, a new factor enters and takes over. A trip, a safari, an exploration, is an entity, different from all other journeys. It has personality, temperament, individuality, uniqueness. A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find after years of struggle that we don’t take a trip; a trip takes us. The masters, schedules, reservations, brass-bound and inevitable, dash themselves to wreckage on the personality of the trip. Only when this is recognized can the blown-in-the-glass bum relax and go along with it. Only then do the frustrations fall away. In this a journey is like a marriage. The certain way to be wrong is to think you control it. I feel better now, having said this, although only those who have experienced it will understand it.
Exercise 1. Answer these questions.
- When did John Steinbeck fall in love with traveling first?
- What did his acquaintances say about his passion for traveling?
- Was he ever cured from his passion?
- What was his reaction to the prospects of another journey?
- What does one need to start another journey?
- What is particular about a journey?
- Why does the writer think that “we do not take a trip; a trip takes us”?
Exercise 2. Find in the text the English counterparts of these bits of the Russian translation.
мне не давала тяга закатиться куда-нибудь туда, где нас нет;
Меня уверяли люди зрелые.
излечивать от этого зуда
в качестве целебного средства мне пообещали
моя лихорадка все-таки пройдет
остается, видимо, уповать на глубокую старость
ничего не помогало
четыре хриплых паровозных гудка
шерсть у меня на загривке встает дыбом, ноги сами собой начинают притоптывать.
рев реактивного самолета
прогревание мотора
цоканье копыт по мостовой
извечная дрожь во всем теле
сухость во рту
блуждающий взор
жар в ладонях
желудок подкатывает куда-то под самые ребра;
выздоровления не наблюдается;
проще говоря
бродягу могила исправит
болезнь моя неизлечима;
Я толкую об этом не в назидание другим, а себе самому для сведения.
вирус непоседливости
проникает в беспокойную человеческую душу
дорога Прочь отсюда
дорога кажется такой прямой, широкой и заманчивой,
найти веские основания для отъезда;
Таких оснований целый вагон – выбирай любое;
Далее ему надо спланировать свою поездку во времени и пространстве,
наметить ее маршрут и конечную цель
внести полную ясность в вопрос
Эта часть процесса неизменна и пребудет во веки веков.
Как только маршрут обдуман
обретает силу некий новый фактор
У каждого свое лицо, свой нрав, темперамент, они неповторимы.
Путешествие – это индивидуальность, двух одинаковых не бывает.
не мы командуем путешествиями, а они нами.
все и вся разбивается вдребезги, столкнувшись с индивидуальностью вашей поездки.
И только тогда ему не будет угрожать крушение надежд.
Вы непременно попадете впросак, если будете думать, что тут все зависит от вас.
Ну вот, я высказался до конца, и мне сразу полегчало.
Exercise 3. Insert the right word from the list given below.
¨ urge<> else <> mature <> cure <> itch <> remedy <> prescribe <> fever <> senility <> hoarse <> whistle <> pavement <> shudder <> vacant <> palms <> improve <> further <> instruct <> virus <> possession <> wayward <> sufficient <> built-in <> implement <> temperament <> frustration<>
Part I
1. Her health is gradually ***.
2. She *** her mother to stay at home.
3. They demanded a pay deal with *** guarantees of employment.
4. The need to find a solution *** him on.
5. He went to the library and nowhere ***.
6. I’d prefer a *** person.
7. Experience has *** her greatly.
8. The doctor *** some pills to help me.
9. Is there a certain *** for cancer yet?
10. That must be somebody *** knife.
11. They have tried all sorts of ***.
12. The hospital is *** down the street.
13. Her *** seems worse than the disease.
14. She suffers from an ***.
15. This illness cannot be *** easily.
16. My plan gradually ***.
17. It wasn’t easy to *** the programme of reforms.
18. This is a popular *** for flu.
19. Army regulations *** how rifles must be carried.
20. The guide *** caution.
21. The boy waited for the arrival of his sweetheart in a *** of impatience.