„Криминальный гений“ и его кот

[tes3m]

И это не Блофельд.

Доктор Антонио Никола и Аполлион, персонажи Гая Будби* (1867 – 1905). Следующая картинка мне не очень нравится, но именно она привлекла мое внимание к этой паре.

Черно-белые иллюстрации того же художника (Стэнли Ллевелина Вуда) мне нравятся больше. Кстати, его доктор Никола (Будби дал ему такую фамилию в честь Теслы**) часто напоминает мне Шерлока Холмса.

+4

"...an enormous cat, black as the Pit of Tophet, sprang with a bound upon the table and stood there steadfastly regarding me, its eyes flashing and its back arched. I have seen cats without number, Chinese, Persian, Manx, the Australian wild cat, and the English tabby, but never in the whole course of my existence such another as that owned by Dr. Nikola. When it had regarded me with its evil eyes for nearly a minute, it stepped daintily across to its master, and rubbed itself backwards and forwards against his arm, then to my astonishment it clambered up on to his shoulder and again gave me the benefit of its fixed attention. Dr. Nikola must have observed the amazement depicted in my face, for he smiled in a curious fashion, and coaxing the beast down into his lap fell to stroking its fur with his long, white fingers" (A Bid for Fortune: or, Dr Nikola's Vendetta).

* Guy Boothby. В русских переводах его называли еще "Бусби" и "Бутби", а я остановилась на варианте из "Словаря английских фамилий" Рыбакина: "BOOTHBY ... Будби/топон. Boothby (Линкольншир)".
** Note that the name could be Italian if only the ‘c’ replaced the ‘k’ – ‘Nicola’ – and the stress fell on the second, not the first syllable (cf. also Introduction). Boothby claimed that the villain’s name had been inspired to him by that of the famous scientist Nikola Tesla, whom he erroneously considered to be Italian (may this throw further light on his choice to make his Dr. Nikola Italian?) – ‘The name [...] was suggested to me one day in the train by seeing the name of Nicolo [sic!] Tesla, the Italian electrician, in a public print.’ Cf. HYDE. ‘The Creator of “Dr. Nikola,” 131 (Emilio Zampieri: Guy Boothby: The "Dr. Nikola" Novels. (Dissertation, Universita degli studi di Padova, p. 133))".