Material for reading and discussion

В День Святого Валентина люди говорят друг другу, как они любят друг друга, и дарят подарки, всё в виде сердечек: торт - сердечко, открытку- сердечко. На улице и на работе все приветствуют друг друга и

I. Read and translate the text:

 

The Vicomte de B., a charming young man, was peacefully enjoying an income of 30,000 livres yearly, when unfortunately for him, his uncle died, leaving him all his wealth, amounting to nearly two millions.

In looking through the documents of succession, the Vicomte de B. learned that he was the proprietor of a house in the Rue de la Victoire. He learned, also, that the building, bought in 1849 for 300,000 francs, now brought in, clear of taxes, rentals amounting to 82,000 francs a year.

“Too much, too much”, thought the generous vicomte, “my uncle was too hard, to rent at this price is usury, one cannot deny it. When one bears a great name like mine, one should not plunder. I will begin tomorrow to lower my rents, and tenants will bless me.”

With this excellent purpose, the Vicomte de B. sent at once for the concierge of the building. “Bernard, my friend,” said the Vicomte, “go at once and notify all your tenants that I lower their rents by one- third.”

That unheard of word “lower” fell like a brick on Bernard’s head. But he quickly recovered himself; he had heard badly, he had not understood.

“Low-er the rents!” said he. “Monsieur le Vicomte likes to joke. Lower! Monsieur, of course, means to raise the rents.”

“I was never more serious in my life, my friend” the Vicomte answered; “I said and I repeat it, lower the rents.”

This time the concierge was so thrown off his balance that he forgot himself and lost all restraint.

“Mosieur has not thought”, persisted he. “Monsieur will regret it this evening. Lower the tenants’ rents! Such a thing has never been known, m-r! If the lodgers should learn of it, what would they think of m-r? What would people say in the neighbourhood?”

“M-r Bernard, my friend,”- interrupted the Vcomte, “ I prefer, when I give an order, to be obeyed without reply. You hear me- go!”

Staggering like a drunken man, Mr. Bernard went out of the house of his proprietor.

All his ideas were upset, overthrown. Maybe he was the plaything of a dream a ridiculous nightmare? Was he himself Pierre Bernard, or Bernard somebody else?

“Lower his rents! Lower his rents!” repeated he. “It is not to be believed! If indeed the lodgers had complained. But they had not complained; on the contrary, they are all good payers. Ah, if his uncle could only know this, he would rise from the tomb! Lower the rents! This man will finish badly! Who knows - after this - what he will do next? He lunched too well, perhaps, this morning.”

And the worthy Bernard was so pale with emotion when he came to his house, so pale and exited, that on seeing him enter, his wife and daughter Amanda exclaimed:

“Goodness! What is it? What has happened to you now?”

“Nothing,” said he, with altered voice, “absolutely nothing.”

“You are deceiving me,” said Madame Bernard, “You are concealing something from me; do not spare me; speak, I am strong - what did the new proprietor tell you? Does he think of turning us off?”

“If it were only that! But just think, he told me with his own lips, he told me to - ah! You will never believe me...”

“Oh, yes, only go on, please.”

“You will have it, then - Well. Then, he ordered me to notify all the tenants that - he lowered their rents one-third! Did you hear what I said? - Lowered the rents of the tenants”...

But neither Madame nor Mademoiselle Bernard heard him - they were twisting and doubling with convulsive laughter. “Lower!” repeated they. “Ah! What a good joke, what a strange man! Lower the tenants’ rents!”

But Bernard, losing his temper, insisted that he must be taken seriously in his own house; then his wife lost her temper too, and a quarrel followed! Madame Bernard declared that M-r Bernard had, beyond a doubt, taken some wine in the restaurant at the corner.

But for M-lle Amanda the couple would undoubtedly have come to blows, and finally Madame Bernard threw a shawl over her head and ran to the proprietor’s house. Bernard has spoken truly; with her own two ears she heard the terrible words. Only, as she was a wise woman, she demanded that the order should be given to her husband in writing, so that he should not be considered responsible for it.

She, too, returned thunderstruck, and all the evening in the house father, mother, and daughter deliberated.

Should they obey or should they warn some relative of this mad young man’s, whose common sense would oppose itself to such insanity?

They decided to obey.

Next morning, Bernard, putting on his best coat, made the rounds of the twenty three flats to announce his great news.

Ten minutes later the house in the Rue de la Victoire was in a commotion impossible to describe. People who, for forty years, had lived on the same floor, and never honoured each other with so much as a greeting, now clustered together and chattered eagerly.

“Do you know, monsieur?” “It is very extraordinary.” Simply unheard of!” “The proprietor has lowered my rent!” “One-Third? Mine also” “Astounding! It must be a mistake!”

And despite the affirmations of the Bernard family, despite even the written order, there were found among the tenants people who doubted still in the face of everything.

Three of them actually wrote to the proprietor to tell him what had happened and to warn him that his concierge had lost his mind. The proprietor answered these sceptics, confirming what Bernard had said. Doubt, therefore, was out of the question.

Then began reflections and commentaries.

“Why had the proprietor lowered his rents?” “Yes, why?” “What motives”, said they all, “has this strange man? For certainly he must have grave reasons for a step like this! An intelligent man, a man of good sense, would never deprive himself of good revenues, for the simple pleasure of depriving himself. One would not conduct himself thus without being forced to by powerful or terrible circumstances.”

And each said to himself: “There is something under all this!”

“But what?”

And from the first floor to the sixth they sought and delved in their brains. Every lodger had the preoccupied air of a man that is trying to solve an impossible cipher, and everywhere there began to be a vague disquiet, as happens where one finds himself in the presence of a mystery.

Someone went so far as to hazard: “This man must have committed a crime; remorse pushes him to philanthropy.”

It was not a pleasant idea, either, the thought of living thus side by side with a rascal, by no means; he might be repentant and all that, but suppose he yielded to temptation once more!

“The house, perhaps, was badly built?” Questioned another, anxiously.

Hun-m, no one could tell, but everybody knew one thing - it was very, very old!

“True! And it had been necessary to prop it when they dug the drain last year in March!”

“Maybe it was the roof?” suggested a tenant on the fifth floor.

“Or perhaps,” said a lodger in the garret, “There is a press for coining counterfeit money in the cellar; I have often heard at high a sound like the muffled thud of a coin-stamper.”

The opinion of another was that maybe Prussian spies had had a lodgement in the house, while the gentleman of the first storey was inclined to believe that the proprietor intended to set fire to his house and furniture with the sole object of getting great sums from insurance companies.

Then began to happen, as they all declared, extraordinary and even terrible things. On the sixth and mansard floors strange noises were heard. Then the nurse of the old lady on the fourth storey, going one night to steal wine from the cellar, encountered the ghost of the dead proprietor - he even held in his hand a receipt for rent - by which she knew him! And everybody said: “There is something under this!”

From disquietude it had come to fright; from fright to terror so, that the gentleman of the first floor, who had valuables in his room, made up his mind to go, and sent in notice by his clerk. Bernard went to inform the proprietor, who answered: “All right, let the fool go!”

But next day the chiropodist of the second floor, though he had no valuables, imitated the gentleman beneath him. Then the bachelors and the tittle households of the fifth storey quickly followed his example.

From that moment it was a general rout. By the end of the week, everybody had given notice. Everyone awaited some terrible catastrophe. They slept no more. They organized patrols. The terrified domestics had given notice that they too would quit the accursed house and remained temporarily only on tripled wages.

Bernard was no more than the ghost of himself; the fever of fear had turned him into a shadow. “No, repeated his wife mournfully at each fresh notification, “no, it is not natural”.

Meanwhile twenty three “To Let” placards appeared on the facade of the house, occasionally drawing an applicant for lodgings.

Bernard - never grumbling now - climbed the staircase and took the visitor from apartment to apartment.

“You can have your choice”, said he to the people that presented themselves, “the house is entirely vacant; all the tenants have given notice as one man. They do not know why, exactly, but things have happened, oh! Yes, things! A mystery such as was never before known - the proprietor has lowered his rents!”

And the would-be lodgers ran away frightened. 23 vans carried away the furniture of the 23 tenants. Everybody left. From top to bottom, from foundations to garret, the house was empty of lodgers.

The rats themselves, finding nothing to live on, left it also. Only the concierge remained, grey-green with fear, in his room. Terrible visions came to him in his sleep. He seemed to hear howlings and murmurs at night that made his teeth chatter with terror. M-lle Bernard no more closed an eye than he. And Amanda in her frenzy renounced all thought of the operatic stage and married - for nothing in the world but to quit the paternal home - a young barber whom she had never before been able to abide. At last, one morning, after a more terrible nightmare than usual, Bernard, too, took a great resolution. He went to the proprietor, gave up his keys, and went away.

And now on the Rue de la Victoire stands the abandoned house, “The Accursed House”, whose history I have told you.

Dust thickens upon the closed doors and windows, grass grows in the court. No tenant ever presents himself now: and in the quarter, where stands the Accursed House, so funeral is its reputation that even the neighbouring houses on either side of it have also deprecated in value.

Lower one’s rent!! Who would think of such a thing!!!

 

II. Find the following words and expressions in the text. Look up the meaning of them in the dictionary and give their Russian equivalents. Explain them in English. Make up sentences of your own with the expressions and words.

to enjoy an income of

wealth

amounting to

proprietor

clear of taxes

amounting to

to rent

rentals

usury

to deny smth

to bear

to plunder

to lower the rents

tenants

to bless

to notify

that unheard of word …

to mean

to raise

to be thrown off one’s balance

to forget oneself

to lose all restraint

to persist

to regret smth

to order

lodger

neighbourhood

to be obeyed without reply

to stagger

proprietor

to be upset, overthrown

to be the plaything of a dream

to complain

on the contrary

to exclaim

to deceive

to conceal

to turn smb. off

high

to resist

to lose one’s temper

to declare

to consider

to be responsible for

to be thunderstruck

to warn

to be in a commotion impossible to describe

to chatter

eagerly

to doubt

to doubt still in the face of everything

to have grave reasons for a step like this

to seek and delve

to go so far as to hazard

to suppose

to be inclined to believe

to intend

to set fire to

insurance companies

tittle

to give notice

to let

to draw an applicant for lodgings

would-be lodgers

to renounce all thought

to quit the paternal home

to abide

abandoned house