"Джон Чивер. The swimmer (Пловец, англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

a drink, they would in fact be lucky to give him a drink. The Biswangers
invited him and Lucinda for dinner four times a year, six weeks in advance.
They were always rebuffed and yet they continued to send out their invita-
tions, unwilling to comprehend the rigid and un- democratic realities of
their society. They were the sort of people who discussed the price of
things at cocktails, exchanged market tips* during dinner, and after dinner
told dirty stories to mixed company. They did not belong to Neddy's set-they
were not even on Lucinda's Christmas card list.* He went toward their pool
with feel- ings of indifference, charity, and some unease, since it seemed
to be getting dark and these were the longest days of the year. The party
when he joined it was noisy and large. Grace Biswanger was the kind of
hostess who asked the opto- metrist,* the veterinarian, the real-estate
dealer and the dentist. No one was swimming and the twilight, reflected on
the water of the pool, had a wintry gleam. There was a bar and he started
for this. When Grace Biswanger saw him she came toward him, not
affectionately as he had every right to expect, but bellicosely,
"Why, this party has everything," she said loudly, "including a gate
crasher."
She could not deal him a social blow-there was no question about this and he
did not flinch. "As a gate crasher," he asked politely, "do I rate a drink?"
"Suit yourself," she said. "You don't seem to pay much attention to
invitations."
She turned her back on him and joined some guests, and he went to the bar
and ordered a whiskey. The bartender served him but he served him rudely.
His was a world in which the cater- er's men kept the social score, and to
be rebuffed by a part-time barkeep meant that he had suf- fered some loss of
social esteem. Or perhaps the man was new and uninformed. Then he heard
Grace at his back say: "They went for broke* overnight-nothing but
income-and he showed up drunk one Sunday and asked us to loan him five
thousand dollars. . ." She was always talking about money. It was worse than
eating your peas off a knife. He dove into the pool, swam its length and
went away.
The next pool on his list, the last but two, belonged to his old mistress,
Shirley Adams. If he had suffered any injuries at the Biswangers' they would
be cured here. Love-sexual roughhouse in fact-was the supreme elixir, the
painkiller, the brightly colored pill that would put the spring back into
his step, the joy of life in his heart. They had had an affair last week,
last month, last year. He couldn't remember. It was he who had broken it
off, his was the upper hand, and he stepped through the gate of the wall
that sur- rounded her pool with nothing so considered as* self-confidence.
It seemed in a way to be his pool as the lover, particularly the illicit
lover, enjoys the possessions of his mistress with an authority unknown to
holy matrimony. She was there, her hair the color of brass, but her figure,
at the edge of the lighted, cerulean water, excited in him no profound
memories. It had been, he thought, a lighthearted affair, although she had
wept when he broke it off. She seemed confused to see him and he wondered if
she was still wounded. Would she, God forbid, weep again?
"What do you want?" she asked.
"I'm swimming across the county."
"Good Christ. Will you ever grow up?"