When I pulled the trigger, I didn't hear a shot or feel the recoil that's normal when a bullet hits its target, but I did hear a diabolical triumphant roar rising over the crowd. And almost immediately, it seemed, the bullet could not reach the target so quickly - a mysterious, terrible change took place with the elephant. He did not move, did not fall, but every line of his body changed. He suddenly turned out to be sick, wrinkled, incredibly old, as if a terrible, although not knocking down, bullet hit paralyzed him. It seemed like an infinite amount of time—perhaps five seconds—before he sank heavily to his knees. Saliva flowed from his mouth. The elephant somehow became incredibly decrepit. It would not be difficult to imagine that he is not one thousand years old. I fired again at the same spot. He did not collapse even after the second shot: on the contrary, with great difficulty, he got up incredibly slowly and, weakened, with his head limply lowered, straightened up on buckling legs. I fired a third time.
This shot proved fatal. The whole body of the elephant shuddered from unbearable pain, the legs lost the last remnants of strength. Falling, he seemed to rise: the legs bent under the weight of the body and the trunk directed upwards made the elephant look like an overturning huge rock with a tree growing on top.
He blew his trumpet for the first and last time. And then he fell on his belly towards me, with a dull thud, from which the whole earth trembled, it seemed, even where I lay.
I wake up. The Burmese raced through the mud past me. It was clear that the elephant would never rise again, but he still lived. He breathed very rhythmically, noisily, taking in the air with difficulty; its huge, hillock-like side rose and fell painfully. The mouth was wide open, and I could look far into the depths of the pale pink mouth. I hesitated for a long time in anticipation of the death of the animal, but my breath did not weaken. In the end, I fired my two remaining cartridges into where I thought the heart was. Blood, thick as red velvet, gushed from the wound, but the elephant still lived. His body didn't even flinch when the bullets hit; breathlessness continued unabated. He was dying incredibly painfully and slowly, existing in some other world, far from me, where even a bullet is already powerless to cause more harm. I felt I had to cut off this terrifying noise. It was unbearable to look at a huge defeated, unable to move or die beast, and to realize that you were not even able to finish it off. They brought me my small-caliber rifle, and I began to fire bullet after bullet into the heart and throat. The elephant didn't seem to notice them. Painful noisy breathing was still rhythmic, reminiscent of the work of a clockwork. Finally, unable to bear it any longer, I left. Then I learned that half an hour passed before the elephant died. But even before I left, the Burmese began to bring baskets and large Burmese knives: they said that by the evening there was almost nothing left of the carcass except the skeleton.
Elephant killing has become a topic of endless controversy. The owner of the elephant raged, but he was just a Hindu, and, of course, he could not do anything. Besides, legally I was right, because a raging elephant, like a rabid dog, must be killed if the owner is somehow unable to cope with it. Among Europeans, opinions are divided. Older people thought my behavior was right, young people said that it was damn stupid to shoot an elephant just because it killed a coolie - an elephant is much more valuable than any damn coolie. I myself was unspeakably glad that the coolie had been killed - this meant, from a legal point of view, that I acted within the law and had every reason to shoot the animal. I often wonder if anyone realized that my only desire was not to be a laughing stock.
in saecula saeculorum (lat.) - forever and ever.
in terrorem (lat.) - to intimidate.
Jack London's story "The Love of Life" made a deep impression on me. From the first to the last line, you are in suspense, you follow the fate of the hero with bated breath. You worry and believe that he will survive.
At the beginning of the story, we have two comrades wandering around Alaska in search of gold. They are exhausted, hungry, moving with the last of their strength. It seems obvious that it is possible to survive in such difficult conditions if there is mutual support, mutual assistance. But Bill turns out to be a bad friend: he leaves a friend after he twisted his leg while crossing a rocky stream. When the protagonist was left alone in the middle of a deserted desert, with an injured leg, he was seized with despair. But he couldn't believe that Bill had finally abandoned him, because he would never have done that to Bill. He decided that Bill was waiting for him near the cache, where they hid together the pre-byte gold, food supplies, cartridges. And this hope helps him to go, overcoming a terrible pain in his leg, hunger, cold and fear of Loneliness.
But what was the disappointment of the hero when he saw that the cache was empty. Bill betrayed him a second time, taking all the supplies and dooming him to certain death. And then the man decided that he would come at all costs, that he would survive, despite Bill's betrayal. The hero gathers all his will and courage into a fist and fights for his life. He tries to catch partridges with his bare hands, eats the roots of plants, defends himself from hungry wolves and crawls, crawls, crawls when he can no longer walk, skinning his knees to blood. Along the way, he finds the body of Bill, who was killed by wolves. Betrayal did not help him to be saved. Nearby lies a bag-check with gold, which the greedy Bill did not throw until the last moment.
And the main character does not even think to take the gold. It doesn't matter to him now. A person understands that the most precious thing is life. material from the site
And his path becomes more and more difficult and dangerous. He has a companion - a hungry and sick wolf. An exciting duel begins between an exhausted and weakened man and a wolf. Each of them understands that they will only survive if they kill the other. Now a person is always on the alert, he is deprived of rest and sleep. The wolf guards him. As soon as a person falls asleep for a minute, he feels the teeth of a wolf on himself. But the hero emerges victorious from this test and eventually gets to the people.
I was very worried when I read how a man of the last strength was crawling towards the ship for several days. It seemed to me that people would not notice it. But everything ended well. The hero was saved.
I think that his courage, perseverance, great willpower and love of life helped him survive. This story helps to understand that even in the most dangerous situation one should not despair, but one must believe in the good, gather strength and fight for life.
George Orwell is the pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair. He was born in the small Indian town of Motihari, in the northwestern part of the state of Bihar. However, memories of this place were vague and inaccurate. The boy lived in England since childhood, studied at Eton College, received a university education.
But the service for six years in the Burmese police left an indelible mark on his life and filled him with the most valuable observations, from which the first works of the future writer would later grow: Days in Burma, Killing an Elephant. During the British rule, the English colonists felt their superiority over the natives, who retained an Eastern mentality incomprehensible to strangers, and constantly felt flows of poorly hidden self-hatred from the indigenous population.
“Theoretically - and, of course, secretly - I was entirely on the side of the Burmese and against their oppressors, the British ... However, it was not easy for me to understand what was happening. I was young, poorly educated, and had to ponder over my problems in the desperate loneliness to which every Englishman living in the East is doomed. I did not even realize that the British Empire was nearing collapse, and even less understood that it was much better than the young empires that would replace it.
Orwell had to see prisoners in the stinking cells of prisons, sentenced to death, punished with bamboo sticks, and hatred, mixed with guilt, overwhelmed him and did not give rest.
Recalling real cases, he talks about the motives of the actions of a person who finds himself at a crossroads and makes his choice. The hero does not want to kill the raging domestic elephant. However, the huge crowd that has gathered is watching what is happening not only out of curiosity. She expects to get the meat of a slaughtered animal. The author describes this dramatic story with a fair amount of irony:
“Having gone all this way with a gun in my hand, pursued by a crowd of two thousand, I could not be cowardly, do nothing - no, this is unthinkable. The crowd will make me laugh. But my whole life, the whole life of any white in the East, is an endless struggle with one goal - not to become a laughingstock.
From the point of view of the law, everything was done correctly, but there was no unanimity among the Europeans: the elderly justified, the young condemned the actions of the policeman. The hero himself asks himself if anyone guessed that he killed the elephant "solely in order not to look like a fool."
It was also difficult after returning to Europe. Orwell had to live in poverty, agree to any paid job, so as not to starve to death in Paris and London. Describing a quite ordinary Parisian slum, similar to a five-story anthill, he shares his experience of surviving in a "cozy" room infested with bugs:
“Their strings, marching under the ceiling during the day as if on drill exercises, greedily rushed down at night, so that you can sleep for an hour or two and jump up, creating fierce mass executions. If the bugs are too baked, you burn the sulfur, driving the insects over the bulkhead, in response to which the neighbor arranges a sulfur ignition in his room and distills the bugs back.
What to say! Casual earnings, willy-nilly, supplied the young resilient writer, who did not leave attempts to print his works, with a mass of impressions, and what impressions ... Work in a bookstore is especially noteworthy in this sense, he will talk about it in "Memoirs of a bookseller". The second-hand bookseller makes an interesting and very accurate classification of buyers.
Here is a charming old gentleman rummaging through leather tomes, or snobs chasing first editions, or Eastern students eyeing cheap anthologies, or bewildered women looking for birthday gifts for their nephews. Few of them, according to the hero, are able to distinguish a good book from a fake!
But most of all, the funny requests of respectable ladies are remembered. One "needs a book for the disabled", the other does not remember either the title, or the author, or the content of that red-bound book that she once read in her youth. Particularly annoying are stamp collectors and gentlemen who try to sell books no one wants or order a huge amount of books that they do not come for. The author's remarks about book commerce are witty. What is worth, for example, such a line from the invoice receipt on the eve of Christmas: "Two dozen Jesus-baby with rabbits."
“Did I want to be a professional bookseller? Ultimately - despite my host's kindness and the happy days I spent there - no... I once really loved books - loved the look of them, their smell, their touch, especially if they were more than half a century old. But ever since I started working in a bookstore, I stopped buying books.”
A prosperous life in the country with a young wife soon gets bored, and Orwell sets off for Spain, engulfed in the flames of civil war.
“Much of what I saw was incomprehensible to me and in some ways I didn’t even like it, but I immediately understood that it was worth fighting for,” he concludes in the book “In honor of Catalonia”. Fighting on the Aragonese front, he will be seriously injured: his vocal cords are seriously damaged, and his right hand is paralyzed.
“My wound was in a sense a landmark. Various doctors examined me, clicking their tongues in surprise ... Everyone with whom I dealt at that time - doctors, nurses, trainees, roommates - invariably assured me that the person who was wounded in the neck and survived was lucky . Personally, I could not get rid of the thought that a real lucky person would not have been hit by a bullet at all.
The war left Orwell with bad memories: boredom, heat, cold, dirt, deprivation, poor supplies, inactivity, rare moments of danger. But the revolution in worldview was not long in coming. Having no clear idea of the differences between the left parties, he saw in Spain the first sprouts of totalitarianism and understood the inevitability of the defeat of the Republicans, because of the ideological intolerance persecuting their like-minded people.
Returning to England, Orwell is engaged in gardening and literary creativity, skillfully combining these two activities without compromising the quality of the produced "product". Among his works are stories, essays, articles, a fairy tale story "Animal Farm", a dystopian novel "1984".
The writer uses the form of an allegorical fairy tale to warn humanity against any political experiments based on unanimity and violence, lawlessness and opportunism, general suspicion and distrust, unscrupulousness and ignorance.
“I am writing a little satirical thing, but it is so unreliable politically that I am not sure in advance that anyone will print it,” Orwell worried about the fate of his parable “Animal Farm”. Fortunately, doubts were in vain! The story has been repeatedly reprinted, has several versions of the Russian translation. How hard the translators have tried can be seen even from the names:
1. Maria Krieger and Gleb Struve, 1950. Animal Farm: A Tale
2. Telesin Julius, 1982. Animal Farm: A Tale
3. The translator is unknown. Animal farm / Samizdat, 80s
4. Ilan Polotsk, 1988. Animal farm
5. Vladimir Pribylovsky, 1986. Animal Farm: A Tale-Tale
6. Bespalova Larisa Georgievna, 1989. Animal Farm (the most republished translation)
7. G. Shcherbak, 1989. Cattle farm - Incredible story
8. Vladimir Pribylovsky, 1989. Animal Farm: A Parable Tale
9. Task Sergey Emilevich, 1989. Animal Corner (the most interesting, in my opinion, translation)
10. D. Ivanov, V. Nedoshivin, 1992. Animal Farm: A Tale
11. Maria Karp, 2001. Animal husbandry: A fairy tale
12. Vladimir Pribylovsky, 2002. Atrocious Farm: A Tale
You can learn more about the reviews of the fairy tale-parable at: http://www.orwell.ru/library/novels/Animal_Farm/russian/
Orwell's story is written in the spirit of the satirical works of D. Swift, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin. Her animal characters speak human language and dream of a better life. One day they capture the farm "Paradise", drive away the cruel and unjust owner Mr. Jones and establish a just state, following the theory of "animalism" and the seven laws:
1. Every biped is an enemy.
2. Every four-legged or winged animal is a friend.
3. Don't wear clothes.
4. Don't sleep in bed.
6. Do not kill your own kind.
7. All animals are equal.
A short saying: "Four legs is good, two legs is bad" - becomes the main slogan of the new system. Animals are "wisely" led by pigs and gradually deviate from the commandments, secretly rewriting them in their favor. The most powerful controls in the barnyard are lies and fear.
With a careful study of the characters of the characters, you can find recognizable human types. Here there is a dictator and an exile, an informer and a demagogue, a traitor and a philosopher, hard workers and guards. Indeed, there are many coincidences with real regimes in European countries. The writer himself recommended, when translating his book, to rely on the authentic historical material of a particular country. In this sense, Sergei Task's translation is one of the most successful.
Orwell's allegorical tale exposes the cunning of the authorities, skillfully manipulating the masses, covering up their outrages and privileges with false speeches from the stands. She teaches to see things as they really are, and not to succumb to seductive slogans about freedom, equality and fraternity, about justice and general welfare (“All animals are equal, but some are more equal”).
Shortly before his death, Orwell completed the dystopian novel 1984, a satirical fantasy about the future that was already beginning to come true in some countries. He convincingly showed how a person pays for the happiness arranged for everyone without exception.
False propaganda, slogans, posters, total surveillance, denunciation, austerity, hatred, a system that regulates not only nutrition, but also the continuation of the human race - all these are the components of a state that follows the principles: "War is peace", "Ignorance is strength", "Freedom is slavery". Four ministries: truth, peace, love, abundance - allow you to manage the country reasonably and in an orderly manner.
If someone commits a "thought crime", the thought police will definitely find him, use the most sophisticated torture to suppress the desire for reflection and love of freedom.
“To the future or the past - a time when thought is free, people differ from each other and do not live alone, a time where truth is truth and the past does not turn into fiction,” Winston Smith addresses, secretly writing down his innermost memories and thoughts in his diary. - From the era of the same, the era of the lonely, from the era of Big Brother, from the era of doublethink - hello!
This era also has its own language, maximally regulated and economically reduced: “... the reduction of the dictionary was considered as an end in itself, and all words that could be dispensed with were subject to withdrawal. Newspeak was intended not to expand, but to narrow the horizons of thought, and indirectly this goal was served by the fact that the choice of words was reduced to a minimum. The ritual even touched the language, excluding the chaotic movement of the personality, forever limiting its creative "I".
The stories told by Mr. Orwell still ring true today. Double standards, general surveillance, the search for the enemy, the war for the sake of peace - is not it, there is something very familiar in this? ..
In Moulmein, Lower Burma, I was hated by many - the only time in my life I was so significant a person that this could happen. I served as a police officer in a small town where hatred of Europeans was very strong, although it was distinguished by some senseless pettiness. No one dared to rebel, but if a European woman walked alone through the market, someone usually spit on her dress with betel gum. As a police officer, I represented the obvious object of such feelings, and I was bullied whenever it seemed safe. When a nimble Burmese knocked me down on the football field, and the referee (also a Burmese) looked the other way, the crowd burst into disgusting laughter. This has happened many times. The mocking yellow faces of young people looked at me from everywhere, curses flew after me from a safe distance, and in the end it all began to get on my nerves. Worse than the others were the young Buddhist monks. There were several thousand of them in the city, and it seemed that they had no other occupation than to stand at crossroads and mock the Europeans.
All this puzzled and irritated. The fact is that even then I came to the conclusion that imperialism is evil and the sooner I say goodbye to my service and leave, the better. Theoretically - and, of course, secretly - I was entirely on the side of the Burmese and against their oppressors, the British. As for the work I did, I hated it more than words can express. In such a service, the dirty work of the Empire is seen from a close distance. The unfortunate prisoners crammed into the stinking cells of prisons, the grey, frightened faces of long-term prisoners, the scarred buttocks of people after being punished with bamboo sticks - all this filled me with an unbearable, oppressive sense of guilt. However, it was not easy for me to understand what was happening. I was young, poorly educated, and had to ponder over my problems in the desperate loneliness to which every Englishman living in the East is doomed. I did not even realize that the British Empire was about to collapse, and even less realized that it was much better than the young empires that would replace it. All I knew was that I had to live torn between hatred of the Empire I served and resentment at the evil creatures who tried to make my job impossible. One part of my mind believed that the British Raj- unshakable tyranny, a vice that squeezed saecula saeculorum the will of the enslaved peoples; the other part suggested that there was no greater joy in the world than to thrust a bayonet into the belly of a Buddhist monk. Feelings like this are normal by-products of imperialism; ask any official of the Anglo-Indian Service if you manage to surprise him.
One day an event happened which, in a roundabout way, contributed to my enlightenment. In itself it was a minor incident, but it revealed to me, with far greater clarity than anything else, the true nature of imperialism—the true motives of despotic governments. Early in the morning I got a call from the police inspector of the station at the other end of the city and said that the elephant was rampaging in the market. Would I be so kind as to go there and do something about it? I didn't know what I could do, but I wanted to see what was going on, so I mounted my pony and set off. I brought a gun, an old Winchester 44 caliber, too small for an elephant, but I thought that the noise of the shot would be useful in terrorem. The Burmese stopped me on the way and told me about the deeds of the elephant. Of course, it was not a wild elephant, but a domestic one, which had a “hunting period”. He was on a chain, all domestic elephants are put on a chain when this period approaches, but at night he broke the chain and ran away. his mahout, the only one who could cope with him in such a state, pursued him, but took the wrong direction and is now twelve hours away from here; In the morning, the elephant suddenly reappeared in the city. The Burmese population had no weapons and was completely helpless. The elephant has already crushed someone's bamboo hut, killed a cow, attacked a fruit stand and ate everything; besides, he met a municipal garbage wagon and, when the driver took off running, overturned it and trampled it viciously.
A Burmese inspector and several Indian constables were waiting for me at the place where they had seen the elephant. It was a poor quarter, a labyrinth of miserable bamboo huts roofed with palm leaves and sloping gently up the side of the mountain. I remember it was a cloudy, muggy morning at the beginning of the rainy season. We started interviewing people, trying to find out where the elephant went, and, as always in such cases, we did not get clear information. This is always the case in the East; the story seems quite clear from a distance, but the closer you get to the scene, the more vague it becomes. Some said that he moved in one direction, others in another, and some claimed that they had not heard of any elephant at all. I was almost convinced that the whole story was a complete fiction when we heard screams nearby. Someone shouted loudly: “Children, get out of here! Get out this minute,” and an old woman with a whip in her hand ran around the corner of the hut, driving away a flock of naked children. Behind her poured more women, they squealed and shouted; obviously there was something that children shouldn't see. I walked around the hut and saw a dead man on the ground. An Indian from the south, a dark-skinned coolie, almost naked, who had recently died. People said that an elephant suddenly attacked him from around the corner of the hut, grabbed him with his trunk, stepped on his back and pressed him into the ground. It was the rainy season, the ground softened, and his face dug a ditch a foot deep and several yards long. He was lying on his stomach, his arms outstretched, his head thrown to one side. Clay covered his face, his eyes were wide open, his teeth bared in terrible agony. (By the way, don't ever tell me that the dead look peaceful. Most of the dead I've seen looked terrible.) The huge animal's foot had torn the skin off its back, like the skin of a rabbit. As soon as I saw the dead man, I sent an orderly to the house of my friend, who lived nearby, for a gun for hunting elephants. I also got rid of the pony, lest the poor animal go mad with fear and throw me to the ground when it smells the elephant.
The orderly appeared a few minutes later, carrying a gun and five rounds of ammunition, and in the meantime the Burmese approached and said that the elephant was in the rice fields nearby, a few hundred yards away. When I walked in that direction, probably all the inhabitants poured out of their houses and followed me. They saw the gun and excitedly shouted that I was going to kill the elephant. They didn't show much interest in the elephant when it was destroying their houses, but now that it was about to be killed, things were different. It was entertainment for them, as it would have been for the English crowd; in addition, they counted on meat. All this drove me crazy. I did not want to kill the elephant - I sent for the gun primarily for self-defense - and besides, when a crowd follows you, it gets on your nerves. I went down the side of the mountain and looked and felt like an idiot: with a gun over my shoulder and an ever-arriving crowd, almost stepping on my heels. Below, when the huts had been left behind, there was a gravel road, and behind it marshy rice fields, not yet plowed, but viscous from the first rains and overgrown with coarse grass in some places. The elephant stood about eight yards from the road, his left side turned towards us. He paid no attention to the approaching crowd. He tore out the grass in bunches, hit it on his knee to shake off the earth, and sent it into his mouth.
I stopped on the road. When I saw the elephant, I clearly realized that I did not need to kill him. Shooting a working elephant is serious business; it is like destroying a huge, expensive machine, and of course, this should not be done unless absolutely necessary. From a distance, the elephant, peacefully chewing grass, looked no more dangerous than a cow. I thought then, and think now, that his urge to hunt was already passing; he will roam without harming anyone until the mahout returns and catches him. And I didn't want to kill him. I decided that I would keep an eye on him for a while, to make sure he didn't go crazy again, and then I'd go home.
But at that moment I looked back and looked at the crowd that was following me. The crowd was huge, at least two thousand people, and everyone was coming. She blocked the road for a long distance in both directions. I looked at the sea of yellow faces above the bright robes, faces happy, excited with fun, sure that the elephant would be killed. They followed me like a magician who has to show them a trick. They did not like me, but with a gun in my hands, I received their close attention. And suddenly I realized that I still have to kill the elephant. This was expected of me, and I was obliged to do it; I felt two thousand wills pushing me irresistibly forward. And at this moment, when I stood with a gun in my hands, I realized for the first time all the futility and senselessness of the white man's rule in the East. Here I am, white with a gun, standing in front of an unarmed crowd of natives - seemingly the main character of the drama, but in reality I was nothing more than a stupid puppet, which is controlled this way and that by the will of yellow faces behind my back. I realized then that when a white man becomes a tyrant, he destroys his freedom. He turns into an empty, pliable doll, a conditional figure of a sahib. Because the condition of his rule is the need to live, impressing the "natives", and in every crisis he must do what the "natives" expect from him. He wears a mask, and his face inhabits this mask. I had to kill the elephant. I doomed myself to this by sending for a gun. The sahib must act as a sahib, he must appear decisive, be aware of everything and act in a certain way. Having traveled all this way with a gun in my hand, pursued by a crowd of two thousand, I could not be cowardly, do nothing - no, this is unthinkable. The crowd will make me laugh. But my whole life, the whole life of any white in the East, is an endless struggle with one goal - not to become a laughing stock.
But I didn't want to kill the elephant. I watched him hit his knee with tufts of grass, and there was in him some kind of good-natured concentration, so characteristic of elephants. I thought it would be a real crime to shoot him. At that age, I had no qualms about killing animals, but I had never killed an elephant and didn't want to. (For some reason, it's always harder to kill a large animal.) In addition, it was necessary to reckon with the owner of the elephant. The elephant cost a good hundred pounds; dead, it will only cost as much as its tusks, five pounds, no more. But we must act quickly. I turned to several experienced-looking Burmese who were there when we got there and asked how the elephant was behaving. They all said the same thing: he doesn't pay attention to anyone if left alone, but can become dangerous if he gets close.
It was very clear to me what I had to do. I have to get within twenty-five yards of the elephant and see how he reacts. If he shows aggression, I will have to shoot, if he does not pay attention to me, then it is quite possible to wait for the mahout to return. And yet, I knew it wouldn't happen. I was a poor shooter, and the ground under my feet was a viscous slurry in which you would get bogged down with every step. If the elephant lunges at me and I miss, I have as much chance as a toad under a steamroller. But even then I thought not so much of my own skin as of the yellow faces watching me. Because at that moment, feeling the eyes of the crowd on me, I did not feel fear in the usual sense of the word, as if I were alone. The white man should not feel fear in front of the "natives", so he is by and large fearless. The only thought circling in my mind was that if anything went wrong, these two thousand Burmese would see me fleeing, knocked down, trampled, like that grinning corpse of an Indian on the mountain from which we descended. And if this happens, then, it is possible that some of them will laugh. This shouldn't happen. There is only one alternative. I loaded the cartridge into the magazine and lay down on the road to get a better aim.
The crowd froze, and a deep, low, happy sigh of people who had finally waited for the moment when the curtain was raised escaped from countless throats. They waited for their entertainment. I had in my hands an excellent German rifle with an optical sight. I didn't know then that when shooting at an elephant, you have to aim at an imaginary line going from one ear cavity to another. I had therefore - the elephant was standing sideways - to aim at his ear; in fact, I was aiming a few inches to the side, assuming that the brain was slightly ahead.
When I pulled the trigger, I didn't hear the shot or feel the recoil - that's what always happens when you hit the target - but I heard a devilish joyous roar from the crowd. And in the same instant, too short, if you think about it, even for the bullet to reach its target, a terrible, mysterious metamorphosis took place with the elephant. He did not move or fall, but every line of his body was suddenly different from what it was before. He suddenly began to look somehow nailed, wrinkled, incredibly aged, as if the monstrous contact with the bullet paralyzed him, although he did not knock him to the ground. Finally - it seemed that a long time had passed, but five seconds had passed, no more - he went limp and collapsed to his knees. Saliva flowed from his mouth. A terrible decrepitude took possession of his entire body. It seemed to be many thousands of years old. I fired again, in the same place. He did not fall even from the second shot, with inexpressible slowness he got to his feet and straightened with difficulty; his legs gave way, his head fell. I fired a third time. This shot finished him off. It was evident how the agony shook his body and knocked out the last strength from his legs. But even falling, he seemed to try for a moment to rise, because when his hind legs gave way, he seemed to rise like a rock, and his trunk shot up like a tree. He blew a trumpet, for the first and only time. And then he collapsed, belly toward me, with a crash that seemed to shake the ground even where I lay.
I wake up. The Burmese were already running past me through the viscous mess. It was obvious that the elephant would not rise again, although he was not dead. He breathed very rhythmically, long, squelching breaths, and his huge side rose and fell painfully. The mouth was wide open - I could see the pale pink hollow of his throat. I waited for him to die, but his breath did not let up. Then I fired the two remaining bullets at the spot where I figured his heart was. Thick blood like scarlet velvet gushed out of him, and again he did not die. His body did not even flinch from the shots, and the painful breathing did not stop. He was dying in slow and painful agony and was somewhere in a world so remote from me that no bullet could harm him. I knew that I had to put an end to this. It was terrible to see a huge lying animal, powerless to move, but not having the strength to die, and not being able to finish it off. I sent for my small gun and shot him in the heart and throat without counting. Everything seemed useless. Painful sighs followed each other with the constancy of the clock.
Finally, I couldn't take it anymore and walked away. Then I was told that he was dying for another half an hour. The Burmese brought knives and baskets while I was there; I was told that they had butchered the carcass to the bone by noon.
Then, of course, there were endless talks about killing the elephant. The owner was beside himself with anger, but he was only an Indian and there was nothing he could do. Besides, I did the right thing legally, because rabid elephants should be killed like rabid dogs, especially if the owners cannot keep track of them. Among Europeans, opinions are divided. The elderly thought that I was right, the young said that it was shameful to kill an elephant that trampled on some coolie, because the elephant was more expensive than any worthless coolie. In the end, I was very glad that the coolie had died: from a legal point of view, this gave me sufficient reason for killing the elephant. I often wondered if anyone had figured out that I did it solely to avoid looking like a fool.
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Translation from English:
1988 A. A. Faingar
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George Orwell: 'Shooting an Elephant'
First post: New Writing. — WB, London. - autumn 1936
Republished: — ‘Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays’. - 1950. - 'The Orwell Reader, Fiction, Essays, and Reportage' - 1956. - 'Collected Essays'. - 1961. - 'The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell'. — 1968.
Publication of the translation: George Orwell: 1984 and essays from various years - Ed. "Progress". - USSR, Moscow, 1989. - June 23. - S. 222-227. - ISBN BBK 84.4 Vl; 0-70.
When you first appear in the camp of the Dalish elves in the task "Nature of the Beast", Zathrian, the keeper of the clan, will tell about the disaster that befell his relatives. Recently, werewolves began to attack the elves in the depths of the forest with enviable constancy. The curse was originally delivered by Raging Fang, but now it can be contracted by any werewolf. Symptoms of infection begin to appear after a few days, after which the victim turns into a werewolf. To finally get rid of the curse, Zathrian will ask you to find a huge white wolf Raging Fang, kill and bring his heart. With the help of the heart, the keeper will be able to remove the curse. The decision made in the conflict between elves and werewolves will affect who will be in the role of an ally in the final battle with the archdemon. And also on the development of events after the game.
If you kill Raging Fang or persuade Zathrian to give up revenge, the elves will become allies. If Zathrian is killed, the werewolves become allies. You can persuade Zathrian to refuse revenge after talking with Mad Fang in the elven ruins, and then invite the keeper to the werewolves and the Lady of the Forest. True, for this you need to properly build a dialogue and have developed skills of influence. Elven ruins are located in the eastern part of the Brecilian forest, which can be overcome either by a hermit or the Great Oak from the western part of the forest. Depending on the choice made, one of the achievements "Killer" or "Poacher" is unlocked. If the werewolves' curse is not lifted, the quest "Essential Change" will appear in Shattered Mountain (typical story No Compromise).
Items for killing Mad Fang in Dragon Age: Origins:
- Amulet "Heart of the Mad Fang"- +1 to strength and magic, +50 to resistance to the forces of nature.
- Battle Ax "Gryphon's Beak"- strength: 34; damage: 15.00; +4 damage against darkspawn, 2 slots for runes.
Items for killing Zathrian and the clan in Dragon Age: Origins:
- Magister's Staff- magic: 32; +1 mana regen in combat, +5 magic power, +10% spiritual damage.
- Ring of the Guardian- +1 Agility.
- Dagger "Gift" Misu Varathorn"- dexterity: 18; damage: 5.20; +2 Armor Penetration, +6 Attack, 1 Rune Slot.
The impact of the decision made about the fate of elves and werewolves on the ending of the game Dragon Age: Origins:
- The Dalish elves did well after the siege of Denerim. They earned considerable respect for their participation in the battle. For the first time in many years, the wandering people in the lands of men began to be treated well. The new guardian Lanaya became a respected figure among both the Dalish and the Fereldan court. She was the voice of reason, and since then she has often been called upon by other Dalish clans to resolve disputes with people. Over time, many Dalish clans moved into the new lands granted to them in the South near Ostagar. Nevertheless, the neighborhood with people turned out to be not cloudless, and only through the efforts of the keeper Lanaya managed to maintain hope for peace in the future. As for the werewolves, having got rid of the curse, they remained together and took the family name "Wolves" in memory of the past. Subsequently, they became the most skilled trainers in all of Thedas. Every year they get together and light a candle in memory of the Lady of the Forest, who loved them so much.
- The werewolves in the Brecilian Forest prospered for a time, settling on the site of the Dalish encampment, and earned a reputation for bravery during the siege of Denerim. But this prosperity did not last long. The Lady of the Forest, no matter how hard she tried, could not completely suppress the animal nature either in the werewolves or in herself. And eventually the curse began to spread to the surrounding human settlements. More werewolves began to appear, until finally the Fereldan army was called in to end the threat once and for all. Many werewolves were killed, but when the soldiers reached the old Dalish camp, it was empty. The Lady of the Forest disappeared along with her followers, and no one has seen them since.
- Zathrian remained the guardian of his clan for many more years, until he finally realized that the world was changing too fast to keep up with it. He constantly feuded with the royal court, building up tension, until one day he disappeared. The Dalish searched for him, but in vain. It was obvious that he had left of his own accord and had no intention of returning. Over time, many Dalish clans moved into the new lands granted to them in the South near Ostagar. Nevertheless, the neighborhood with people was not cloudless. Despite all hopes, many clans fear a repeat of the old bloodshed. As for werewolves, even with the death of Mad Fang, the curse did not end. Over time, the number of werewolves increased, and they returned to their wild nature. As a result, it was forbidden to enter the Brecilian Forest, but this did not stop the spread of the curse beyond its borders.
