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Сказки / Fairy Tales. Уровень 1
Сказки / Fairy Tales. Уровень 1
© Матвеев С.А., адаптация текста, комментарии, упражнения, словарь
© ООО «Издательство АСТ», 2021
Rudyard Kipling
Fairy Tales
How the Whale got his throat
In the sea, once upon a time, there was a Whale, and he ate fishes. He ate the starfish and the garfish, and the crab and the dab, and the plaice and the dace, and the skate and his mate, and the mackerel and the pickerel, and the eel. All the fishes he could find in all the sea he ate with his mouth – so! But at lastthere was only one small fish left[1] in all the sea, and that was a small Astute Fish[2], and it swam a little behind the Whale’s right ear. So the Whale could not catch it. Then the Whale stood up on his tail and said,
“I’m hungry.’
And the small Astute Fish said,
‘Noble and generous Cetacean, did you taste Man?’
‘No,’ said the Whale. ‘What is it like?[3]’
‘Nice,’ said the small Astute Fish. ‘Nice but nubbly.’
‘Then fetch me some,’ said the Whale, and swam away.
‘If you swim tolatitude Fifty North, longitude Forty West[4],’ said the Astute Fish, ‘you will find a man. He is sitting on a raft, in the middle of the sea, he has only a pair of blue canvas breeches, a pair of suspenders, and a jack-knife[5]. He is a shipwrecked Mariner.’
So the Whale swam and swam to latitude Fifty North, longitude Forty West, as fast as he could swim. And the Whale found one single, solitary shipwrecked Mariner. The Mariner was on a raft, in the middle of the sea. He had a pair of blue canvas breeches, a pair of suspenders, and a jack-knife.
Then the Whale opened his mouth back and back and back till it nearly touched his tail. And then he swallowed the shipwrecked Mariner and his raft, and his blue canvas breeches, and the suspenders, and the jack-knife. After that the Whale smacked his lips, and turned round three times on his tail.