Путешествие - Travelling. Руденко Т.П. - 80 стр.

       The trip took six weeks, partly because freighters have changes of        only a couple of miles from the mainland, so that a few waves could not
plan and partly because we made an unscheduled stop in a Brazilian port so       matter. A long dinner-table had been set for us in the open air near the
that we could have the ship’s engine repaired. Despite the fact that two         somewhat primitive café-restaurant. The sun was setting. The wind was
members of the crew failed to return to the ship before we sailed, we were       rising. The dinner was excellent, but it was eaten with a great deal of sand
not delayed further, as our numbers were made up by two stowaways want-          which the wind persisted in blowing across the table.
ing to go and work in Portugal, which was not on our route!                             The dinner ended in deep twilight. We returned to the covered ter-
       This experience may have soured my view of entering the freighter         race of the café-restaurant and drank at another long table. It grew dark.
business, although I was tempted after I’d spent a day with a dynamic            Somebody carelessly used the word “dangerous”. The chief organiser said
Dane, who owned those ships in which tourists travel along the shores of         lightly: “Pooh! I will telephone for the regular passage-steamer to fetch
Barbados. He expounded on his sideline: buying freighters from bankrupt          us.” But the social atmosphere was changed. Nobody, said some, could be
stock. But he insisted that he would never carry cargo, nor sell the ships for   safe in the sudden, mad Mediterranean storm. We were marooned for the
scrap. He explained enthusiastically that he would redesign the super-           night. As the oldest seafaring man present, I was invited to decide whether
structure, do them up and anchor them where they would make him a for-           or not we should make the voyage. I said, “Yes, we must make it.” But my
tune, all around the Gulf of Mexico as floating fun palaces! Though the          decision had no effect on the minds of about half of the picnickers.
project intrigued me, it remained a pipe dream!                                         By this time there was a bridge-party at work, and everyone was visi-
       Notes:                                                                    bly beginning to feel tired. No beds in the café-restaurant. The organiser said
       QE2 – the luxury passenger liner “Queen Elizabeth 2”                      that he would send up to the monastery and ask the monks to lend us mat-
       stowaway – a passenger without a ticket                                   tresses for the women. The proposal was not received with approval by the
                                                                                 women. Some of them remarked with false gaiety how jolly it would be to sit
B                                                                                up all night and play cards and watch the dawn and so on and so on. The
                                                                                 general feeling was against departure. What interested me was the psycho-
Read the text and do the following assignments.                                  logical explanation of the real reasons for or against departure. There were
                                                                                 three real reasons. The card-players were absorbed in their games, and
                   Mediterranean Islands, July                                   wished not to be disturbed. The alarmist section had passed from the normal
       A party of sixteen of us had been having a long and magnificent pic-      into a highly nervous state which no rational arguments could affect. If the
nic which included motor-boating from the mainland, bathing, motor-              Mauretania had come to fetch us, this section would still have jibbed. A third
boating from one island to another, enough walking, some dozing, and fish        and small section, to which I belonged, wished to depart because a pro-
stewed in milk, the equal of which I have never eaten in Marseilles. This        gramme is a programme and should be adhered to. This section insincerely
was the only picnic I have really enjoyed in my life. On principle I object      laughed at the alleged risks. It would not admit the risks even to itself. It
to picnics, when they comprise a meal. I prefer a table and chairs for meals,    would sooner accept risks than default on a schedule. Some people are like
and I think that most grown-up men would agree with me. Women are dif-           that. Then news arrived that the steamer refused to come, on the plausible
ferent. They would sooner eat bad food in a picturesque place than good          excuse that the crew had departed to their homes; but that our own motor-
food in a prosaic room. This picnic combined picturesqueness with very           boat was coming. I said: ”Well, if the motor-boat can safety come, it can
good food, and the food compensated for the unsuitability of the earth’s         safety go.” In the high wind and in the black darkness I stumbled along un-
surface as a chair.                                                              even ground, and got into a quagmire and out of it, to the little harbour. I
       In the late afternoon we embarked for and reached the second island,      could see the whiteness of the foam. I saw the motor-boat make three at-
whose buildings were limited to a café-restaurant and a monastery. We no-        tempts to enter the harbour, and fail. It succeeded at the fourth, and cheers
ticed that the sea was less calm than earlier in the day; but the island was     were heard. I returned to the café-restaurant still scoffing at the danger.

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