The Last Tycoon / Последний магнат. Книга для чтения на английском языке

From where he stood (and though he was not a tall man, it always seemed high up) he watched the multitudinous practicalities of his world like a proud young shepherd to whom night and day had never mattered. He was born sleepless, without a talent for rest or the desire for it.

We sat in unembarrassed silence – I had known him since he became Father’s partner a dozen years ago, when I was seven and Stahr was twenty-two. Wylie was across the aisle and I didn’t know whether or not to introduce them, but Stahr kept turning his ring so abstractedly that he made me feel young and invisible, and I didn’t dare.

“I’ll give you this ring, Cecilia.”

“I beg your pardon. I didn’t realize that I was —”

“I’ve got half a dozen like it.”

He handed it to me, a gold nugget with the letter S in bold relief. I had been thinking how oddly its bulk contrasted with his fingers, which were delicate and slender like the rest of his body, and like his slender face with the arched eyebrows and the dark curly hair.

He looked spiritual at times, but he was a fighter – somebody out of his past knew him when he was one of a gang of kids in the Bronx, and gave me a description of how he walked always at the head of his gang, this rather frail boy, occasionally throwing a command backward out of the corner of his mouth.

Stahr folded my hand over the ring, stood up and addressed Wylie.

“Come up to the bridal suite,” he said. “See you later, Cecilia.”

Before they went out of hearing, I heard Wylie’s question: “Did you open Schwartz’s note?”

And Stahr: “Not yet.”

I must be slow, for only then did I realize that Stahr was Mr. Smith.

Afterwards Wylie told me what was in the note. Written by the headlights of the taxi, it was almost illegible.

“Dear Monroe,

You are the best of them all I have always admired your mentality so when you turn against me I know it’s no use! I must be no good and am not going to continue the journey let me warn you once again look out! I know.

    “Your friend MANNY.”

Stahr read it twice, and raised his hand to the morning stubble on his chin.

“He’s a nervous wreck[23 - He’s a nervous wreck – (разг.) Он неврастеник],” he said.