Gentlemen Prefer Blondes / Джентльмены предпочитают блондинок. Анита Лус

face to face and I really saw it was him and he really saw it was me. I mean his face became so red it was almost a picture. So I was so upset I said good-bye to Mr. Mountginz and I started to rush right down to my room and cry. But when I was going down the steps, I bumped right into Major Falcon who noticed that I was upset. So Major Falcon made me go to the Ritz and have some champagne and tell him all about it.

      So then I told Maj or Falcon about the time in Arkansas when Papa sent me to Little Rock to study how to become a stenographer. I mean Papa and I had quite a little quarrel because Papa did not like a gentleman who used to pay calls on me in the park and Papa thought it would do me good to get away for a while[33]. So I was in the business college in Little Rock for about a week when a gentleman called Mr. Jennings paid a call on the business college because he wanted to have a new stenographer. So he looked over all we college girls and he picked me out. So he told our teacher that he would help me finish my course in his office because he was only a lawyer and I really did not have to know so much. So Mr. Jennings helped me quite a lot and I stayed in his office about a year when I found out that he was not the kind of a gentleman that a young girl is safe with. I mean one evening when I went to pay a call on him at his apartment, I found a girl there who really was famous all over Little Rock for not being nice. So when I found out that girls like that paid calls on Mr. Jennings I had quite a bad case of hysterics and my mind was really a blank and when I came out of it, it seems that I had a revolver in my hand and it seems that the revolver had shot Mr. Jennings.

      So this gentleman on the boat was really the District Attorney[34] who was at the trial and he really was quite harsh at the trial and he called me names[35] that I would not even put in my diary. Because everyone at the trial except the District Attorney was really lovely to me and all the gentlemen in the jury all cried when my lawyer pointed at me and told them that they practically all had had either a mother or a sister. So the jury was only out three minutes and then they came back and acquitted me and they were all so lovely that I really had to kiss all of them and when I kissed the judge he had tears in his eyes. I mean it was when Mr. Jennings became shot that I got the idea to go into the cinema, so Judge Hibbard got me a ticket to Hollywood. So it was Judge Hibbard who really gave me my name because he did not like the name I had because he said a girl should have a name that should express her personality. So he said my name should be Lorelei[36] which is the name of a girl who became famous for sitting on a rock in Germany. So I was in Hollywood in the cinema when I met Mr. Eisman and he said that a girl with my brains should not be in the cinema but she should be educated, so he took me out of the cinema so he could educate me.

      So Major Falcon was really quite interested in everything I talked about, because he said it was quite a coincidence because this District Attorney, who is called Mr. Bartlett, is now working for the government of America and he is on his way to a place called Vienna on some business for Uncle Sam[37] that is quite a great secret and Mr. Falcon would like very much to know what the secret is, because the Government in London sent him to America especially to find out what it was. Only of course Mr. Bartlett does not know who Major Falcon is, because it is such a great secret, but Major Falcon can tell me, because he knows who he can trust. So Major Falcon says he thinks a girl like I should forgive and forget what Mr. Bartlett called me and he wants to bring us together and he says he thinks Mr. Bartlett would talk to me quite a lot when he really gets to know me and I forgive him for that time in Little Rock. Because it would be quite romantic for Mr. Bartlett and I to become friendly, and gentlemen who work for Uncle Sam generally like to become romantic with girls. So he is going to bring us together on the deck after dinner tonight and I am going to forgive him and talk with him quite a lot, because why should a girl hold a grudge[38] against a gentleman who had to do it. So Major Falcon brought me quite a large bottle of perfume and I mean Major Falcon really knows how to cheer a girl up quite a lot and so tonight I am going to make it all up[39] with Mr. Bartlett.

      April 14th:

      Well, Mr. Bartlett and I made it all up last night and we are going to be the best of friends and talk quite a lot. So I told Major Falcon how Mr. Bartlett thinks I should write a play about how he called me all those names in Little Rock and then, after seven years, we became friendly.

      So I told Major Falcon that I told Mr. Bartlett I would like to write the play but I really did not have time as it takes quite a lot of time to write my diary and read good books. So Mr. Bartlett did not know that I read books which is quite a coincidence because he reads them too. So he is going to bring me a book of philosophy this afternoon called “Smile, Smile, Smile” which all the brainy senators in Washington are reading which cheers you up quite a lot.

      So I told Major Falcon that having a friendship with Mr. Bartlett was really quite enervating because Mr. Bartlett does not drink anything or dances. But he did ask me to dine at his table, which is not in the Ritz and I told him I could not, but Major Falcon told me I should, but I told Major Falcon that there was a limit to almost everything. So I am going to stay in my room until luncheon and I am going to luncheon in the Ritz with Mr. Mountginz who really knows how to treat a girl.

      Dorothy is up on the deck wasting quite a lot of time with a gentleman who is only a tennis champion. So I am going to ring for the steward and have some champagne which is quite good for a person on a boat. The steward is really quite a nice boy and he has had quite a sad life and he likes to tell me all about himself. I mean it seems that he was arrested because he promised a gentleman that he would bring him some very very good scotch and they mistook him for a bootlegger. So it seems they put him in a prison and they put him in a cell with two other gentlemen who were very, very famous burglars. I mean they really had their pictures in all the newspapers and everybody was talking about them. So my steward was very very proud to be in the same cell with such famous burglars. So when they asked him what he was in for[40], he did not like to tell them that he was only a bootlegger, so he told them that he set fire to a house and burned up quite a large family in Oklahoma[41]. So everything would have gone alright except that the police had put a dictaphone in the cell and used it all against him and he could not get out until they had investigated all the fires in Oklahoma. So I always think that it is much more educational to talk to a boy like Fred who has been through a lot[42] and really suffered than it is to talk to a gentleman like Mr. Bartlett. But I will have to talk to Mr. Bartlett all afternoon as Major Falcon has made an appointment for me to spend the whole afternoon with him.

      April 15th:

      Last night there was quite a maskerade ball on the ship which was really all for the sake of charity[43] because most of the sailors seem to have orphans which they get from going on the ocean when the sea is very rough. So Mr. Bartlett made quite a long speech in favor of orphans especially when their parents are sailors. Mr. Bartlett really likes to make speeches quite a lot. I mean he even likes to make speeches when he is all alone with a girl when they are walking up and down a deck. But the maskerade ball was quite cute and one gentleman really looked almost like an imitation of Mr. Chaplin. So Dorothy and I really did not want to go to the ball but Mr. Bartlett bought us two scarfs at the little store which is on the ship so we tied them around our hips and everyone said we made quite a cute Carmen. So Mr. Bartlett and Major Falcon and the tennis

33

на некоторое время

34

окружной прокурор

35

называл меня нехорошими словами / обзывал меня по- всякому

36

Лорелея – волшебница, использующая свой голос, чтобы подчинять мужчин.

37

Дядя Сэм – персонифицированный образ Соединённых Штатов Америки.

38

затаить обиду / держать зло

39

поладить / забыть обиду

40

за что он сидел

41

Оклахома – американский штат.

42

который много пережил

43

с благотворительной целью