Человек с рассечённой губой. Книга для чтения на английском языке
Шрифт:
“I didn’t know what to do, so I came straight to you.” That was always the way. Folk who were in grief came to my wife like birds to a lighthouse.
010. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YYltIO7Lu9MlBJmxgj8n7TSkCT7Gx0QY/view?usp=sharing
“It was very sweet of you to come. Now, you must have some wine and water, and sit here comfortably and tell us all about it. Or should you rather that I sent James off to bed?”
011. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZckaTG9OK1JL87M52KU4ffgjxBxTCWbL/view?usp=sharing
“Oh, no, no! I want the doctor’s advice and help, too. It’s about Isa. He has not been home for two days. I am so frightened about him!”
012. https://drive.google.com/file/d/12XJ76HDRFQ-O4Hp3BkYJX4n7JtDhtbrs/view?usp=sharing
It was not the first time that she had spoken to us of her husband’s trouble, to me as a doctor, to my wife as an old friend and school companion.
013. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1U9hFy05rd-j7I6rsZRfvAnxioUQBw3VF/view?usp=sharing
We soothed and comforted her by such words as we could find. Did she know where her husband was? Was it possible that we could bring him back to her?
014. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1_nZcI5q1IZc9L84o5Xg3NeoOJGs7LQPH/view?usp=sharing
It seems that it was. She had the surest information that of late he had, when the fit was on him, made use of an opium den in the farthest east of the City. Hitherto his orgies had always been confined to one day, and he had come back, twitching and shattered, in the evening.
015. https://drive.google.com/file/d/11qTgqlLP3NY2uOOD3C1_F7eBsiPmSn7d/view?usp=sharing
But now the spell had been upon him eight-and-forty hours, and he lay there, doubtless among the dregs of the docks, breathing in the poison or sleeping off the effects. There he was to be found, she was sure of it, at the Bar of Gold, in Upper Swandam Lane.
016. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1OJF7J49yNXrnesMXxmjban17dCRH-NfF/view?usp=sharing
But what was she to do? How could she, a young and timid woman, make her way into such a place and pluck her husband out from among the ruffians who surrounded him?
017. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LN8V45PRFOMDDI1vq1xlB5erm1en9CAu/view?usp=sharing
There was the case, and of course there was but one way out of it. Might I not escort her to this place? And then, as a second thought, why should she come at all? I was Isa Whitney’s medical adviser, and as such I had influence over him.
018. https://drive.google.com/file/d/11iZ8AkgVOXbBmfNSliI0ZdsX8lmhD2cn/view?usp=sharing
I could manage it better if I were alone. I promised her on my word that I would send him home in a cab within two hours if he were indeed at the address which she had given me.
019. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LLPOcui8ZDqXcF-iny63Yo0V2DW4nlIk/view?usp=sharing
And so in ten minutes I had left my armchair and cheery sitting-room behind me, and was speeding eastward in a hansom on a strange errand, as it seemed to me at the time, though the future only could show how strange it was to be.
020. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kW-AossgjV__1JBCosSsFaRgd5JVZqp2/view?usp=sharing
But there was no great difficulty in the first stage of my adventure. Upper Swandam Lane is a vile alley lurking behind the high wharves which line the north side of the river to the east of London Bridge.
021. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1yZAGcdXcRIlmRDnRed1QeM0Rc0d8wiQk/view?usp=sharing
Between a slop-shop and a gin-shop, approached by a steep flight of steps leading down to a black gap like the mouth of a cave, I found the den of which I was in search.
022. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1XZY-B4FGsV-hkX3Ncf5Q07t2fpRgupnU/view?usp=sharing
Ordering my cab to wait, I passed down the steps, worn hollow in the centre by the ceaseless tread of drunken feet; and by the light of a flickering oil-lamp above the door I found the latch and made my way into a long, low room, thick and heavy with the brown opium smoke, and terraced with wooden berths, like the forecastle of an emigrant ship.
023. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zw_hXo11flNSNlDh9fbExCIdATK0JOgx/view?usp=sharing