Просто впечатления... И немного Уайльда.

Сегодня были с братом в одной конторе, оформляли документы. Пока мы ждали договор, у брата зазвонил мобильный телефон, брат изменился в лице, оборвал звонок и начал что-то набирать на телефоне.
читать дальшеБРАТ: У меня творческий кризис...
Я: Что такое?
БРАТ: Да вот звонит человек, который мне хотел продать те же услуги, что это контора, только дороже...
Я: Значительно?
БРАТ: Офигительно.
Я: И теперь как-то неловко написать ему, что его услуги больше не нужны?
БРАТ: Ага...
*Пауза*
БРАТ *пишет, мучительно морща лоб*: К сожалению...
*Пауза*
Я *начиная хихикать*: Самая подходящая к ситуации фраза.
БРАТ *с надеждой*: Краткость - сестра таланта. Может, так и оставить?

Мы едем по центру. Пятница. Шесть часов. Пробки. Мы с братом весело болтаем, периодически ругаясь на женщин за рулем, а параллельно я пытаюсь зачитывать ему любимые места из "The Picture of Dorian Gray" (остроты сэра Генри, разумеется). Наблюдаем очаровательную сценку: мужчина, стоя не первую минуту в центре пробки, нервно грызет зубами ремень безопасности. Через некоторое время вижу другого - он нежно прижался к широкой ленте ремня и почти дремлет, полузакрыв глаза.

Из "The Picture of Dorian Gray":
читать дальше"I adore simple pleasures," said Lord Henry. "They are the last refuge of the complex".

"...the costume of the nineteenth century is detestable. It is so sombre, so depressing. Sin is the only real colour-element left in modern life."

"What a fuss people make about fidelity!" exclaimed Lord Henry. - "Why, even in love it is purely a question for physiology. It has nothing to do with our own will. Young men want to be faithful, and are not; old men want to be faithless, and cannot: that is all one can say."

Вот это люблю:
- "Well, sit down and tell me all about it. Young people, nowadays, imagine that money is everything."
- "Yes," - murmured Lord Henry, settling his button-hole in his coat; - "and when they grow older they know it.

"American girls are as clever at concealing their parents, as English women are at concealing their past..."
Шедевр:
"Philanthropic people lose all sense of humanity. It is their distinguishing characteristic."

Очень нравится этот разговор:
"We are talking about poor Dartmoor, Lord Henry," - cried the duchess, nodding pleasantly to him across the table. -"Do you think he will really marry this fascinating young person?"
"I believe she has made up her mind to propose to him, Duchess."
"How dreadful!" - exclaimed Lady Agatha. - "Really, some one should interfere."
"I am told, on excellent authority, that her father keeps an American dry-goods store",- said Sir Thomas Burdon, looking supercilious.
"My has already suggested pork-packing Sir Thomas."
"Dry-goods! What are American dry-goods?" - asked the duchess, raising her large hands in wonder and accentuating the verb.
"American novels," - answered Lord Henry, helping himself to some quail. The duchess looked puzzled.
"Don't mind him, my dear," - whispered Lady Agatha. - "He never means anything that he says."
"When America was discovered," - said the Radical member-- and he began to give some wearisome facts. Like all people who try to exhaust a subject, he exhausted his listeners. The duchess sighed and exercised her privilege of interruption.
"I wish to goodness it never had been discovered at all!" - she exclaimed. - "Really, our girls have no chance nowadays. It is most unfair."
"Perhaps, after all, America never has been discovered," - said Mr. Erskine; "I myself would say that it had merely been detected."
"Oh! but I have seen specimens of the inhabitants," - answered the duchess vaguely.
"I must confess that most of them are extremely pretty. And they dress well, too. They get all their dresses in Paris. I wish I could afford to do the same."
"They say that when good Americans die they go to Paris," - chuckled Sir Thomas, who had a large wardrobe of Humour's cast-off clothes.
"Really! And where do bad Americans go to when they die?" - inquired the duchess.
"They go to America," - murmured Lord Henry.
Ну и так далее. Как же я люблю Уайльда! Кто не читал - читайте обязательно!