Task 1. Reproduce from the text the situations, in which the following words and phrases are used. Translate them.

 

Esther Freud

 

Triumphant bite; hellishly; to faze; to deflate; rhubarb; lattice; a blob of cream; chauffeured; slide; to jolt; brambles; marsh; sedge; to haunt; huddle of houses; bogeyman; to hold oneself aloof; tow-coloured; ermine; psychic; idyll; to run out of clothes; bollocks; wellingtons; unmistakable buzz and chatter of a bar; tall narrow terraces; day-trippers;

 

Task 2. Translate the following sentences:

 

1. It made her think of London, the incongruous smell of nature on a city street.

2. It made the land look insignificant, as if it were unable to keep up.

3. Now new new,…but new for us.

4. There followed a moment’s silence in which they communicated with glares.

5. Occasionally they came across a shorn patch, mowed down like a boy’s hair, taken away for making thatch.

6. We never even showed you the secret!

7. His eyes looked strained, tired with searching.

8. She felt her way into the kitchen and, running the tap for coldness, she glanced sideways at Max’s canvas still turned against the wall.

9. Was it that her guest had overstayed his welcome?

10. He felt wound through with weariness, unable to control the page of Henry’s letter trembling in his hand.

11. 1938 was on the other side of history. A time when you could assume men, grown silent, were at least still alive.

12. A woman with not enough to do, she thought, and she put the card in pride of place beside the clock.

13. Pins and needles were tingling in one leg and her pulse was racketing.

 

Task 3. Comment on the following passages:

1. Lily finally got a letter from Nick.

2. Gertrude’s talk with Alf about his music lessons.

3. Max’s need to do something for people.

4. Henry’s definition of Art.

5. What did Max mean, saying that he had been in South America for very many years?

6. What brought Lily to The Sailors’ Reading Room?

7. Lily’s encounter with a stranger.

 

Task 4. Act out the talk between Max, Elsa, Klaus and Gertrude during their lunch.

Parts 13-15

Task 1. Find English equivalents of the following words and phrases in the text. Describe the situations they are used in. Find all the possible synonyms.

 

Развёртывать, корнишон, празднование, мозоль, погрузиться в сон, замирать (о звуке), шумиха, осторожно, одурачить, гвоздика, пылесос, грустный, несмываемый, я нечаянно!, «куриный бог», рассеянно, нахальство!, выветрившийся, пучок волос, юркий, шаг за шагом, хромать, яростно, держаться на плаву, пожитки, ярмарка,

 

Task 2. Translate the following sentences. Speak on the stylistic expressive means used in them:

1. It crept over the picket fence and washed the glass with colour.

2. …the leaves of the beech tree opposite, dancing in the open panes of glass.

3. …and there was the cold sharp pain of vinegar water seeping into his ear.

4. “You’ve got a fever?”

5. Soon his teeth stopped chattering…

6. Now there was nothing left except the pulsing of his ear, a sick and heavy agony that tasted, when he thought of it, of tin.

7. … his face mournful but shiny as if it has just been washed.

8. Alf flashed her a smile.

9. I don’t know if I’m cut out to be an architect.

10. …a light-filled space of calm.

11.Working like crazy. Going well. Should know soon if we’ve won.

12. But today his ears were cloaked in a warm blanket of quiet.

13. There was a new-milk look in her eyes…

14. …and only when he emerged did he allow himself to turn his

head.

15. Pierced, Gertrude repeated to herself, but there was not the same

hot feeling in her gut.

Task 3. Speak on the following topics:

1. How do you understand the meaning of the phrase: to trade gifts for trust?

2. What was the result of Gertrude’s playing ball with Alfred? Do you think she succeeded?

3. Why didn’t Lily want to sell her paintings? What were her reasons?

4. What impression did the British Museum produce on Nick and Lily? Speak about this building from the point of view of its architecture and its history.

5. Henry mentioned several painters in his letter (Degas, Manet, Monet, Pissarro). Make a short report on each of them. What were they famous for?

6. Why was Max shocked by Helga’s change while he was away? How did he manage to notice it?

7. “Psychoanalysis was in fact simply pornography in another form”.

 

Task 4. Give a short summary of the extract