Countess:

> LyoSHICK:
>
> Может, добавить условие, что победитель пишет всем рецензии? Или это уж
> слишком негуманно? :)

негуманно. да. это сущее наказание.

gmk:

> народное голосование - это как?

Этого мы знать не можем; но память людская хранит: http://wodehouse.ru/cgi/mwf/topic_show.pl?tid=2144

Конечно, тогда мера была крайняя (очень уж смутные времена пришли), но почему бы истории не повториться в виде новогоднего утренника?

(Заинтересованно): Народное голосование? Любая инициатива, где мне меньше работать, немедленно получит мою горячую поддержку. Но спрошу вместе с gmk: а организационно как?

А у меня отрывочек есть. Из "Tabby Terror" ("Tales of St.Austin"). Встречала я утверждение, что именно с этого рассказа начался индивидуальный стиль Вудхауза. Можно будет и это обсудить. Но если не подходит, то я его могу тихо удалить, или gmk сам.

Mrs James Williamson, nee Miss Trentham, made her way dutifully to the
Merevale's part of the House. Mrs Prater had expressed a hope that she
would have some tea before catching her train. With tea it is usual to
have milk, and with milk it is usual, if there is a cat in the house,
to have feline society. Captain Kettle, which was the name thought
suitable to this cat by his godfathers and godmothers, was on hand
early. As he stood there pawing the mat impatiently, and mewing in a
minor key, Mrs Williamson felt that here was the cat for her. He
certainly was good to look upon. His black heart was hidden by a sleek
coat of tabby fur, which rendered stroking a luxury. His scheming brain
was out of sight in a shapely head.

'Oh, what a lovely cat!' said Mrs Williamson.

'Yes, isn't he,' agreed Mrs Prater. 'We are very proud of him.'

'Such a beautiful coat!'

'And such a sweet purr!'

'He looks so intelligent. Has he any tricks?'

Had he any tricks! Why, Mrs Williamson, he could do everything except
speak. Captain Kettle, you bad boy, come here and die for your country.
Puss, puss.

Captain Kettle came at last reluctantly, died for his country in record
time, and flashed back again to the saucer. He had an important
appointment. Sorry to appear rude and all that sort of thing, don't you
know, but he had to see a cat about a mouse.

'Well?' said Trentham, when his sister looked in upon him an hour
later.

'Oh, Dick, it's the nicest cat I ever saw. I shall never be happy if I
don't get it.'

'Have you bought it?' asked the practical Trentham.

'My dear Dick, I couldn't. We couldn't bargain about a cat during tea.
Why, I never met Mrs Prater before this afternoon.'

'No, I suppose not,' admitted Trentham, gloomily. 'Anyhow, look here,
if anything turns up to make the beak want to get rid of it, I'll tell
him you're dead nuts on it. See?'

For a fortnight after this episode matters went on as before. Mrs
Williamson departed, thinking regretfully of the cat she had left
behind her.

Captain Kettle died for his country with moderate regularity, and on
one occasion, when he attempted to extract some milk from the very
centre of a fag's tea-party, almost died for another reason. Then the
end came suddenly.

Trentham had been invited to supper one Sunday by Mr Prater. When he
arrived it became apparent to him that the atmosphere was one of
subdued gloom. At first he could not understand this, but soon the
reason was made clear. Captain Kettle had, in the expressive language
of the man in the street, been and gone and done it. He had been left
alone that evening in the drawing-room, while the House was at church,
and his eye, roaming restlessly about in search of evil to perform, had
lighted upon a cage. In that cage was a special sort of canary, in its
own line as accomplished an artiste as Captain Kettle himself. It sang
with taste and feeling, and made itself generally agreeable in a number
of little ways. But to Captain Kettle it was merely a bird. One of the
poets sings of an acquaintance of his who was so constituted that 'a
primrose by the river's brim a simple primrose was to him, and it was
nothing more'. Just so with Captain Kettle. He was not the cat to make
nice distinctions between birds. Like the cat in another poem, he only
knew they made him light and salutary meals. So, with the exercise of
considerable ingenuity, he extracted that canary from its cage and ate
it. He was now in disgrace.

Нашла вот про Captain Kettle:
“This pugnacious, red-bearded little Welsh sea-captain, created by a lively imagination, effortless humour, and a breezy vigorous style, was at one time
as popular a fictional character, both here and in America, as Sherlock Holmes.”

Отсюда:
http://www.collectingbooksandmagazines.com/hyne.html

На русский, насколько я понимаю, "Капитан" не переводился.

[ветвь темы перемещена]

Февраль короткий месяц. Перевод стихов - сложное, вдохновенное, но кропотливое занятие.

Это два разных утверждения.

Стих, как я понимаю, уже выбран. Срок, наверное, можно было бы дать до 1 апреля...

По прозе на февраль могу предложить, например, http://www.madameulalie.org/vfus/Perfectly_Furious.html

“PERFECTLY FURIOUS”
by P Brooke-Haven
Vanity Fair, October 1915

I HAD not seen Henry Bootle since his marriage. I had heard that he had taken a place in the country and settled down.
It was a pleasure, then, coming into the club one afternoon, to find him there. He wore a somewhat depressed air.
“Married life suiting you, old man?” I asked tentatively, after the first greetings.
“Splendid”, he replied. “Splendid. Never been happier. But—er, tell me, do I strike you as having grown at all ferocious since our last meeting?”
“Ferocious? How do you mean?”
“You feel safe in my presence? You have no lurking fear that I may spring at you suddenly and bite you in the leg?”
“None”, I said. He sighed with relief.
“You comfort me.”
“I don’t understand you, Henry.”
“Of course not”, he said. “Listen: I hate scenes. I loathe rows. I have always prided myself on my even temper. Yet at Bodville Corners, where I now live, I am regarded as the local Bad Man. The natives avoid me nervously. When I walk down Main Street, little children run screaming to their mothers. And it is all due to Mabel.”
“To Mabel? To Mrs. Bootle?”
He nodded mournfully.

“Let me tell you all. The house in which we live is surrounded by beautiful grounds,— so beautiful that the villagers like to wander through them, picking our flowers, trampling our grass, and shedding old newspapers and bottles as they wander. I disliked all this, but I should never have dreamed of complaining. But I did say to Mabel that I thought it rather a pity, and one morning I was surprised to find the grounds deserted.
“For a time I wallowed in the luxury of walking about the estate without bumping into strangers, and then I began to wonder what had caused this joyful deliverance. I made inquiries of Mabel.
“’Yes’, she said, ’I sent them away. I said they must not come wandering about the place. I said that you were perfectly furious about it.’
“Life went on. Except for the fact that the plumber would drop in and borrow my bicycle, invariably returning it next day with a puncture in one or both tires, all Nature may be said to have smiled.
“’What a pity it is’, I said to my wife, ’that Wilkins has such bad luck in puncturing my bicycle tires. It’s too bad, isn’t it?’
“That night at dinner Mabel said: ’Oh, it’s all right about Wilkins. I spoke to him to-day. I said that he was never to borrow the bicycle again. I told him that you were perfectly furious about it.’
“Next day I was walking along the road, and I saw Wilkins in the distance. About thirty yards away, he stopped dead, turned pale and fled in the opposite direction. I have never seen him since.
“And so it went on. It was a little hard on a sociable man like myself that, after some months at Bodville Corners, the only person who remained on speaking terms with me was a chap named Smith. He is a capital fellow, a good golfer and deeply interested in several of my particular hobbies.”

He paused, and again that look of pain came over his face.

“Cheer up, Henry”, I said. “Life may still be pleasant, while Smith remains a friend.”

“He isn’t”, said Henry dejectedly. “I was just going to tell you. You must know that he keeps his car in our barn. We were only too glad to have his car there till the other day, when we bought a car of our own. While getting our car in, for the very first time, I scraped my mud-guard against the mud-guard of Smith’s machine.

“PERHAPS I expressed myself a little strongly! I said to Mabel, ’Dear me! There is hardly room for two cars in here.’
“In the excitement of arranging my car in the barn I wholly forgot Mabel, and it was only when I had completed the operation that I turned, to find her gone. I guessed what was up and cowered in the barn with fear and trembling. An hour later she came back, looking rather flushed.
“’I have been speaking to Mr. Smith’, she said, ’about the barn.’
“’Yes?’
“’I told him that he must take his car out of here at once. I said that you were perfectly furious.’”

At this point in his narrative Henry Bootle paused.

“What brought you to the city to-day?” I asked, for lack of anything else to say.

“Oh! I merely came to try to get a cook. We had a perfect jewel till this morning, but yesterday I happened to say at breakfast that I should prefer to have my eggs boiled a trifle softer, and it seems that Mrs. Bootle told the cook I was perfectly furious about it.”