【連載】提供《高級英語教程》40課起

海外逸士

高級英語教材第46課
先讀課文﹕
Snow White and Seven Dwarves 白雪公主和七個小矮人
[Grimm's Fairy Tale version - translated by Margaret Hunt - language modernized
a bit by Leanne Guenther]
Once upon a time, long, long ago, a king and queen ruled over a distant
land.  The queen was kind and lovely and all the people of the realm adored
her.  The only sadness in the queen's life was that she wished for a child
but did not have one.  
One winter day, the queen was doing needle work while gazing out her ebony
window at the new fallen snow.  A bird flew by the window startling the
queen and she pricked her finger.  A single drop of blood fell on the snow
outside her window.  As she looked at the blood on the snow she said to
herself, "Oh, how I wish that I had a daughter that had skin as white as
snow, lips as red as blood, and hair as black as ebony."  
Soon after that, the kind queen got her wish when she gave birth to a baby
girl who had skin white as snow, lips red as blood, and hair black as ebony.
They named the baby princess Snow White, but sadly, the queen died after
giving birth to Snow White.
Soon after, the king married a new woman who was beautiful, but as well
proud and cruel.  She had studied dark magic and owned a magic mirror, of
which she would daily ask,
"Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who's the fairest of them all?"
Each time this question was asked, the mirror would give the same answer,
"Thou, O Queen, art the fairest of all."  This pleased the queen greatly
as she knew that her magical mirror could speak nothing but the truth.
One morning when the queen asked, "Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who's the fairest of them all?" she was shocked when it answered:
"You, my queen, are fair; it is true.
But Snow White is even fairer than you."
The Queen flew into a jealous rage and ordered her huntsman to take Snow
White into the woods to be killed.  She demanded that the huntsman return
with Snow White's heart as proof.
The poor huntsman took Snow White into the forest, but found himself unable
to kill the girl.  Instead, he let her go, and brought the queen the heart
of a wild boar.
Snow White was now all alone in the great forest, and she did not know what
to do.  The trees seemed to whisper to each other, scaring Snow White who
began to run.  She ran over sharp stones and through thorns.  She ran as
far as her feet could carry her, and just as evening was about to fall she
saw a little house and went inside in order to rest.
Inside the house everything was small but tidy.  There was a little table
with a tidy, white tablecloth and seven little plates.  Against the wall
there were seven little beds, all in a row and covered with quilts.
Because she was so hungry Snow White ate a few vegetables and a little bread
from each little plate and from each cup she drank a bit of milk. Afterward,
because she was so tired, she lay down on one of the little beds and fell
fast asleep.
After dark, the owners of the house returned home.  They were the seven
dwarves who mined for gold in the mountains.  As soon as they arrived home,
they saw that someone had been there -- for not everything was in the same
order as they had left it.
The first one said, "Who has been sitting in my chair?"
The second one, "Who has been eating from my plate?"
The third one, "Who has been eating my bread?"
The fourth one, "Who has been eating my vegetables?"
The fifth one, "Who has been eating with my fork?"
The sixth one, "Who has been drinking from my cup?"
But the seventh one, looking at his bed, found Snow White lying there asleep.
  The seven dwarves all came running up, and they cried out with amazement.
They fetched their seven candles and shone the light on Snow White.  
"Oh good heaven! " they cried. "This child is beautiful!"
They were so happy that they did not wake her up, but let her continue to
sleep in the bed.  The next morning Snow White woke up, and when she saw
the seven dwarves she was frightened.  But they were friendly and asked,
"What is your name?"
"My name is Snow White," she answered.
"How did you find your way to our house?" the dwarves asked further.
Then she told them that her stepmother had tried to kill her, that the huntsman
had spared her life, and that she had run the entire day through the forest,
finally stumbling upon their house.
The dwarves spoke with each other for awhile and then said, "If you will
keep house for us, and cook, make beds, wash, sew, and knit, and keep everything
clean and orderly, then you can stay with us, and you shall have everything
that you want."
"Yes," said Snow White, "with all my heart."  For Snow White greatly enjoyed
keeping a tidy home.
So Snow White lived happily with the dwarves.  Every morning they went into
the mountains looking for gold, and in the evening when they came back home
Snow White had their meal ready and their house tidy.  During the day the
girl was alone, except for the small animals of the forest that she often
played with.
Now the queen, believing that she had eaten Snow White's heart, could only
think that she was again the first and the most beautiful woman of all.
She stepped before her mirror and said:
"Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who in this land is fairest of all?"
It answered: "You, my queen, are fair; it is true.
But Snow White, beyond the mountains with the seven dwarves,
Is still a thousand times fairer than you."
This startled the queen, for she knew that the mirror did not lie, and she
realized that the huntsman had deceived her and that Snow White was still
alive.  Then she thought, and thought again, how she could rid herself of
Snow White -- for as long as she was not the most beautiful woman in the
entire land her jealousy would give her no rest.
At last she thought of something.   She went into her most secret room --
no one else was allowed inside -- and she made a poisoned apple.  From the
outside it was beautiful, and anyone who saw it would want it. But anyone
who might eat a little piece of it would die.  Coloring her face, she disguised
herself as an old peddler woman, so that no one would recognize her, traveled
to the dwarves house and knocked on the door.
Snow White put her head out of the window, and said, "I must not let anyone
in; the seven dwarves have forbidden me to do so."
"That is all right with me," answered the peddler woman. "I'll easily get
rid of my apples.  Here, I'll give you one of them."
"No," said Snow White, "I cannot accept anything from strangers."
"Are you afraid of poison?" asked the old woman. "Look, I'll cut the apple
in two.  You eat half and I shall eat half."
Now the apple had been so artfully made that only the one half was poisoned.
Snow White longed for the beautiful apple, and when she saw that the peddler
woman was eating part of it she could no longer resist, and she stuck her
hand out and took the poisoned half.  She barely had a bite in her mouth
when she fell to the ground dead.
The queen looked at her with an evil stare, laughed loudly, and said, "White
as snow, red as blood, black as ebony wood!  The dwarves shall never awaken
you."
Back at home she asked her mirror: "Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who in this land is fairest of all?"
It finally answered: "You, my queen, are fairest of all."
Then her cruel and jealous heart was at rest, as well as a cruel and jealous
heart can be at rest.
When the dwarves came home that evening they found Snow White lying on the
ground.  She was not breathing at all.  She was dead.  They lifted her up
and looked at her longingly.  They talked to her, shook her and wept over
her.  But nothing helped.  The dear child was dead, and she remained dead.
They laid her on a bed of straw, and all seven sat next to her and mourned
for her and cried for three days.  They were going to bury her, but she still
looked as fresh as a living person, and still had her beautiful red cheeks.
They said, "We cannot bury her in the black earth," and they had a transparent
glass coffin made, so she could be seen from all sides.  They laid her inside,
and with golden letters wrote on it her name, and that she was a princess.
Then they put the coffin outside on a mountain, and one of them always
stayed with it and watched over her.  The animals too came and mourned for
Snow White, first an owl, then a raven, and finally a dove.
Now it came to pass that a prince entered these woods and happened onto
the dwarves' house, where he sought shelter for the night . He saw the coffin
on the mountain with beautiful Snow White in it, and he read what was written
on it with golden letters.
Then he said to the dwarves, "Let me have the coffin. I will give you anything
you want for it."
But the dwarves answered, "We will not sell it for all the gold in the world.
"
Then he said, "Then give it to me, for I cannot live without being able
to see Snow White. I will honor her and respect her as my most cherished
one."
As he thus spoke, the good dwarves felt pity for him and gave him the coffin.
  The prince had his servants carry it away on their shoulders.  But then
it happened that one of them stumbled on some brush, and this dislodged
from Snow White's throat the piece of poisoned apple that she had bitten
off.  Not long afterward she opened her eyes, lifted the lid from her coffin,
sat up, and was alive again.
"Good heavens, where am I?" she cried out.
The prince said joyfully, "You are with me."  He told her what had happened,
and then said, "I love you more than anything else in the world.  Come with
me to my father's castle.  You shall become my wife."  Snow White loved
him, and she went with him.  Their wedding was planned with great splendor
and majesty.
Snow White's wicked step-mother was invited to the feast, and when she had
arrayed herself in her most beautiful garments, she stood before her mirror,
and said:
"Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
Who in this land is fairest of all?"
The mirror answered: "You, my queen, are fair; it is true.
But the young queen is a thousand times fairer than you. "
Not knowing that this new queen was indeed her stepdaughter, she arrived
at the wedding, and her heart filled with the deepest of dread when she
realized the truth - the evil queen was banished from the land forever and
the prince and Snow White lived happily ever after.
1) 生詞自查。
2) 背景介紹﹕"Snow White" is a German fairy tale known in many countries
in Europe, the best known version being the German one collected by the
Brothers Grimm in 1812 (German: Schneewittchen und die sieben Zwerge, "Snow
White and the Seven Dwarfs").
3) 格林兄弟介紹﹕The Brothers Grimm, Jacob (January 4, 1785 -- September
20, 1863) and Wilhelm Grimm (February 24, 1786 -- December 16, 1859), were
German academics, linguists, cultural researchers, and authors who together
collected folklore. They are among the most well-known storytellers of European
folk tales, and their work popularized such stories as "Cinderella", "The
Frog Prince", "Hansel and Gretel", "Rapunzel", "Rumpelstiltskin", and "Snow
White" (Schneewittchen). Their first collection of folk tales, Children's
and Household Tales, was published in 1812.
4) 格林童話可能大家小時候都聽說過﹐或者知道幾個。可是學英文的人未必都讀過
英文版的故事。所以讀一下對學英文未必沒有幫助。

海外逸士

高級英語教材第47課

先讀課文﹕
The Grapes of Wrath 憤怒的葡萄
By John Steinbeck

CHAPTER I
To the red country and part of the gray country of Oklahoma, the last rains
came gently, and they did not cut the scarred earth. The plows crossed and
recrossed the rivulet marks. The last rains lifted the corn quickly and
scattered weed colonies and grass along the sides of the roads so that the
gray country and the dark red country began to disappear under a green cover.
In the last part of May the sky grew pale and the clouds that had hung in
high puffs for so long in the spring were dissipated. The sun flared down
on the growing corn day after day until a line of brown spread along the
edge of each green bayonet. The clouds appeared, and went away, and in a
while they did not try any more. The weeds grew darker green to protect themselves,
and they did not spread any more. The surface of the earth crusted, a thin
hard crust, and as the sky became pale, so the earth became pale, pink in
the red country and white in the gray country.
In the water-cut gullies the earth dusted down in dry little streams. Gophers
and ant lions started small avalanches. And as the sharp sun struck day
after day, the leaves of the young corn became less stiff and erect; they
bent in a curve at first, and then, as the central ribs of strength grew
weak, each leaf tilted downward. Then it was June, and the sun shone more
fiercely. The brown lines on the corn leaves widened and moved in on the
central ribs. The weeds frayed and edged back toward their roots. The air
was thin and the sky more pale; and every day the earth paled.
In the roads where the teams moved, where the wheels milled the ground and
the hooves of the horses beat the ground, the dirt crust broke and the dust
formed. Every moving thing lifted the dust into the air: a walking man lifted
a thin layer as high as his waist, and a wagon lifted the dust as high as
the fence tops, and an automobile boiled a cloud behind it. The dust was
long in settling back again.
When June was half gone, the big clouds moved up out of Texas and the Gulf,
high heavy clouds, rainheads. The men in the fields looked up at the clouds
and sniffed at them and held wet fingers up to sense the wind. And the horses
were nervous while the clouds were up. The rainheads dropped a little spattering
and hurried on to some other country. Behind them the sky was pale again
and the sun flared. In the dust there were drop craters where the rain had
fallen, and there were clean splashes on the corn, and that was all.
A gentle wind followed the rain clouds, driving them on northward, a wind
that softly clashed the drying corn. A day went by and the wind increased,
steady, unbroken by gusts. The dust from the roads fluffed up and spread
out and fell on the weeds beside the fields, and fell into the fields a
little way. Now the wind grew strong and hard and it worked at the rain crust
in the corn fields. Little by little the sky was darkened by the mixing
dust, and the wind felt over the earth, loosened the dust, and carried it
away. The wind grew stronger. The rain crust broke and the dust lifted up
out of the fields and drove gray plumes into the air like sluggish smoke.
The corn threshed the wind and made a dry, rushing sound. The finest dust
did not settle back to earth now, but disappeared into the darkening sky.

The wind grew stronger, whisked under stones, carried up straws and old
leaves, and even little clods, marking its course as it sailed across the
fields. The air and the sky darkened and through them the sun shone redly,
and there was a raw sting in the air. During a night the wind raced faster
over the land, dug cunningly among the rootlets of the corn, and the corn
fought the wind with its weakened leaves until the roots were freed by the
prying wind and then each stalk settled wearily sideways toward the earth
and pointed the direction of the wind.
The dawn came, but no day. In the gray sky a red sun appeared, a dim red
circle that gave a little light, like dusk; and as that day advanced, the
dusk slipped back toward darkness, and the wind cried and whimpered over
the fallen corn.
Men and women huddled in their houses, and they tied handkerchiefs over
their noses when they went out, and wore goggles to protect their eyes.

When the night came again it was black night, for the stars could not pierce
the dust to get down, and the window lights could not even spread beyond
their own yards. Now the dust was evenly mixed with the air, an emulsion
of dust and air. Houses were shut tight, and cloth wedged around doors and
windows, but the dust came in so thinly that it could not be seen in the
air, and it settled like pollen on the chairs and tables, on the dishes.
The people brushed it from their shoulders. Little lines of dust lay at
the door sills.
In the middle of that night the wind passed on and left the land quiet.
The dust-filled air muffled sound more completely than fog does. The people,
lying in their beds, heard the wind stop. They awakened when the rushing
wind was gone. They lay quietly and listened deep into the stillness. Then
the roosters crowed, and their voices were muffled, and the people stirred
restlessly in their beds and wanted the morning. They knew it would take
a long time for the dust to settle out of the air. In the morning the dust
hung like fog, and the sun was as red as ripe new blood. All day the dust
sifted down from the sky, and the next day it sifted down. An even blanket
covered the earth. It settled on the corn, piled up on the tops of the fence
posts, piled up on the wires; it settled on roofs, blanketed the weeds and
trees.
The people came out of their houses and smelled the hot stinging air and
covered their noses from it. And the children came out of the houses, but
they did not run or shout as they would have done after a rain. Men stood
by their fences and looked at the ruined corn, drying fast now, only a little
green showing through the film of dust. The men were silent and they did
not move often. And the women came out of the houses to stand beside their
men—to feel whether this time the men would break. The women studied the
men's faces secretly, for the corn could go, as long as something else remained.
The children stood near by, drawing figures in the dust with bare toes,
and the children sent exploring senses out to see whether men and women
would break. The children peeked at the faces of the men and women, and then
drew careful lines in the dust with their toes. Horses came to the watering
troughs and nuzzled the water to clear the surface dust. After a while the
faces of the watching men lost their bemused perplexity and became hard
and angry and resistant. Then the women knew that they were safe and that
there was no break. Then they asked, What'll we do? And the men replied,
I don't know. But it was all right. The women knew it was all right, and
the watching children knew it was all right. Women and children knew deep
in themselves that no misfortune was too great to bear if their men were
whole. The women went into the houses to their work, and the children began
to play, but cautiously at first. As the day went forward the sun became
less red. It flared down on the dust-blanketed land. The men sat in the doorways
of their houses; their hands were busy with sticks and little rocks. The
men sat still—thinking—figuring.

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕John Ernst Steinbeck, Jr. (February 27, 1902 -- December 20,
1968) was an American writer. He is widely known for the Pulitzer Prize-winning
novel The Grapes of Wrath (1939) and East of Eden (1952) and the novella
Of Mice and Men (1937). He was an author of twenty-seven books, including
sixteen novels, six non-fiction books and five collections of short stories;
Steinbeck received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1962.
3) 本書介紹﹕The Grapes of Wrath is an American realist novel written by
John Steinbeck and published in 1939. For it he won the annual National
Book Award and Pulitzer Prize for novels and it was cited prominently when
he won the Nobel Prize in 1962.
Set during the Great Depression指美國大蕭條時期, the novel focuses on the
Joads, a poor family of tenant farmers driven from their Oklahoma home by
drought, economic hardship, and changes in financial and agricultural industries.
Due to their nearly hopeless situation, and in part because they were trapped
in the Dust Bowl沙塵暴, the Joads set out for California. Along with thousands
of other "Okies", they sought jobs, land, dignity, and a future.
The Grapes of Wrath is frequently read in American high school and college
literature classes due to its historical context and enduring legacy. A
celebrated Hollywood film version, starring Henry Fonda and directed by
John Ford, was made in 1940.
4) John Steinbeck 當然是世界著名作家。其代表作“憤怒的葡萄”屬世界名著﹐
一本值得一讀的小說。

海外逸士

高級英語教材第48課

先讀課文﹕
A Doll's House 玩偶之家
by Henrik Ibsen

Act I
[SCENE:  A room furnished comfortably and tastefully, but not extravagantly.
At the back, a door to the right leads to the entrance-hall, another to
the left leads to HELMER's study. Between the doors stands a piano. In the
middle of the left-hand wall is a door, and beyond it a window. Near the
window are a round table, arm-chairs and a small sofa. In the right-hand
wall, at the farther end, another door; and on the same side, nearer the
footlights, a stove, two easy chairs and a rocking-chair; between the stove
and the door, a small table. Engravings on the walls; a cabinet with china
and other small objects; a small book-case with well-bound books. The floors
are carpeted, and a fire burns in the stove. It is winter.
A bell rings in the hall; shortly afterwards the door is heard to open.
Enter NORA , humming a tune and in high spirits. She is in out-door dress
and carries a number of parcels; these she lays on the table to the right.
She leaves the outer door open after her, and through it is seen a PORTER
who is carrying a Christmas Tree and a basket, which he gives to the MAID
who has opened the door.]
NORA: Hide the Christmas Tree carefully, Helen. Be sure the children do
not see it till this evening, when it is dressed. [To the PORTER, taking
out her purse.] How much?
PORTER: Sixpence.
NORA: There is a shilling. No, keep the change. [The PORTER thanks her,
and goes out. Nora shuts the door. She is laughing to herself, as she takes
off her hat and coat. She takes a packet of macaroons from her pocket and
eats one or two; then goes cautiously to her husband's door and listens.]
Yes, he is in. [Still humming, she goes to the table on the right.]
HELMER: [calls out from his room]. Is that my little lark twittering out
there?
NORA: [busy opening some of the parcels]. Yes, it is!
HELMER: Is it my little squirrel bustling about?
NORA: Yes!
HELMER: When did my squirrel come home?
NORA: Just now. [Puts the bag of macaroons into her pocket and wipes her
mouth.] Come in here, Torvald, and see what I have bought.
HELMER: Don't disturb me. [A little later, he opens the door and looks into
the room, pen in hand.] Bought, did you say? All these things? Has my little
spendthrift been wasting money again?
NORA: Yes, but, Torvald, this year we really can let ourselves go a little.
This is the first Christmas that we have not needed to economise.
HELMER: Still, you know, we can't spend money recklessly.
NORA: Yes, Torvald, we may be a wee bit more reckless now, mayn't we? Just
a tiny wee bit! You are going to have a big salary and earn lots and lots
of money.
HELMER: Yes, after the New Year; but then it will be a whole quarter before
the salary is due.
NORA: Pooh! we can borrow till then.
HELMER: Nora! [Goes up to her and takes her playfully by the ear.] The same
little featherhead! Suppose, now, that I borrowed fifty pounds to-day, and
you spent it all in the Christmas week, and then on New Year's Eve a slate
fell on my head and killed me, and ...
NORA: [putting her hands over his mouth]. Oh! don't say such horrid things.
HELMER: Still, suppose that happened, what then?
NORA: If that were to happen, I don't suppose I should care whether I owed
money or not.
HELMER: Yes, but what about the people who had lent it?
NORA: They? Who would bother about them? I should not know who they were.
HELMER: That is like a woman! But seriously, Nora, you know what I think
about that. No debt, no borrowing. There can be no freedom or beauty about
a home life that depends on borrowing and debt. We two have kept bravely
on the straight road so far, and we will go on the same way for the short
time longer that there need be any struggle.
NORA: [moving towards the stove]. As you please, Torvald.
HELMER: [following her]. Come, come, my little skylark must not droop her
wings. What is this! Is my little squirrel out of temper? [Taking out his
purse.] Nora, what do you think I have got here?
NORA: [turning round quickly]. Money!
HELMER: There you are. [Gives her some money.] Do you think I don't know
what a lot is wanted for housekeeping at Christmas-time?
NORA: [counting]. Ten shillings, a pound, two pounds! Thank you, thank you,
Torvald; that will keep me going for a long time.
HELMER: Indeed it must.
NORA: Yes, yes, it will. But come here and let me show you what I have bought.
And all so cheap! Look, here is a new suit for Ivar, and a sword; and a
horse and a trumpet for Bob; and a doll and dolly's bedstead for Emmy, they
are very plain, but anyway she will soon break them in pieces. And here
are dress-lengths and handkerchiefs for the maids; old Anne ought really
to have something better.
HELMER: And what is in this parcel?
NORA: [crying out]. No, no! you mustn't see that till this evening.
HELMER: Very well. But now tell me, you extravagant little person, what
would you like for yourself?
NORA: For myself? Oh, I am sure I don't want anything.
HELMER: Yes, but you must. Tell me something reasonable that you would particularly
like to have.
NORA: No, I really can't think of anything, unless, Torvald.
HELMER: Well?
NORA: [playing with his coat buttons, and without raising her eyes to his].
If you really want to give me something, you might, you might ...
HELMER: Well, out with it!
NORA: [speaking quickly]. You might give me money, Torvald. Only just as
much as you can afford; and then one of these days I will buy something
with it.
HELMER: But, Nora.
NORA: Oh, do! dear Torvald; please, please do! Then I will wrap it up in
beautiful gilt paper and hang it on the Christmas Tree. Wouldn't that be
fun?
HELMER: What are little people called that are always wasting money?
NORA: Spendthrifts,I know. Let us do as you suggest, Torvald, and then I
shall have time to think what I am most in want of. That is a very sensible
plan, isn't it?
HELMER: [smiling]. Indeed it is, that is to say, if you were really to save
out of the money I give you, and then really buy something for yourself.
But if you spend it all on the housekeeping and any number of unnecessary
things, then I merely have to pay up again.
NORA: Oh but, Torvald.
HELMER: You can't deny it, my dear little Nora. [Puts his arm round her
waist.] It's a sweet little spendthrift, but she uses up a deal of money.
One would hardly believe how expensive such little persons are!
NORA: It's a shame to say that. I do really save all I can.
HELMER: [laughing]. That's very true, all you can. But you can't save anything!

NORA: [smiling quietly and happily]. You haven't any idea how many expenses
we skylarks and squirrels have, Torvald.
HELMER: You are an odd little soul. Very like your father. You always find
some new way of wheedling money out of me, and, as soon as you have got
it, it seems to melt in your hands. You never know where it has gone. Still,
one must take you as you are. It is in the blood; for indeed it is true
that you can inherit these things, Nora.
NORA: Ah, I wish I had inherited many of papa's qualities.
HELMER: And I would not wish you to be anything but just what you are, my
sweet little skylark. But, do you know, it strikes me that you are looking
rather, what shall I say, rather uneasy to-day?
NORA: Do I?
HELMER: You do, really. Look straight at me.
NORA: [looks at him]. Well?
HELMER: [wagging his finger at her]. Hasn't Miss Sweet-Tooth been breaking
rules in town to-day?
NORA: No; what makes you think that?
HELMER: Hasn't she paid a visit to the confectioner's?
NORA: No, I assure you, Torvald.
HELMER: Not been nibbling sweets?
NORA: No, certainly not.
HELMER: Not even taken a bite at a macaroon or two?
NORA: No, Torvald, I assure you really.
HELMER: There, there, of course I was only joking.
NORA: [going to the table on the right]. I should not think of going against
your wishes.
HELMER: No, I am sure of that; besides, you gave me your word. [Going up
to her.] Keep your little Christmas secrets to yourself, my darling. They
will all be revealed to-night when the Christmas Tree is lit, no doubt.
NORA: Did you remember to invite Doctor Rank?
HELMER: No. But there is no need; as a matter of course he will come to
dinner with us. However, I will ask him when he comes in this morning. I
have ordered some good wine. Nora, you can't think how I am looking forward
to this evening.
NORA: So am I! And how the children will enjoy themselves, Torvald!
HELMER: It is splendid to feel that one has a perfectly safe appointment,
and a big enough income. It's delightful to think of, isn't it?
NORA: It's wonderful!
HELMER: Do you remember last Christmas? For a full three weeks beforehand
you shut yourself up every evening till long after midnight, making ornaments
for the Christmas Tree, and all the other fine things that were to be a
surprise to us. It was the dullest three weeks I ever spent!
NORA: I didn't find it dull.
HELMER: [smiling]. But there was precious little result, Nora.
NORA: Oh, you shouldn't tease me about that again. How could I help the
cat's going in and tearing everything to pieces?
HELMER: Of course you couldn't, poor little girl. You had the best of intentions
to please us all, and that's the main thing. But it is a good thing that
our hard times are over.
NORA: Yes, it is really wonderful.
HELMER: This time I needn't sit here and be dull all alone, and you needn't
ruin your dear eyes and your pretty little hands.
NORA: [clapping her hands]. No, Torvald, I needn't any longer, need I! It's
wonderfully lovely to hear you say so! [Taking his arm.] Now I will tell
you how I have been thinking we ought to arrange things, Torvald. As soon
as Christmas is over, [A bell rings in the hall.] There's the bell. [She
tidies the room a little.] There's some one at the door. What a nuisance!
HELMER: If it is a caller, remember I am not at home.
MAID: [in the doorway]. A lady to see you, ma'am, a stranger.
NORA: Ask her to come in.
MAID: [to Helmer]. The doctor came at the same time, sir.
HELMER: Did he go straight into my room?
MAID: Yes, sir.
[HELMER goes into his room. The MAID ushers in MRS. LINDE, who is in travelling
dress, and shuts the door.]
MRS. LINDE: [in a dejected and timid voice]. How do you do, Nora?
NORA: [doubtfully]. How do you do?
MRS. LINDE: You don't recognise me, I suppose.
NORA: No, I don't know, yes, to be sure, I seem to, [Suddenly.] Yes! Christine!
Is it really you?
MRS. LINDE: Yes, it is I.
NORA: Christine! To think of my not recognising you! And yet how could I?
[In a gentle voice.] How you have altered, Christine!
MRS. LINDE: Yes, I have indeed. In nine, ten long years.
NORA: Is it so long since we met? I suppose it is. The last eight years
have been a happy time for me, I can tell you. And so now you have come
into the town, and have taken this long journey in winter, that was plucky
of you.
MRS. LINDE: I arrived by steamer this morning.
NORA: To have some fun at Christmas-time, of course. How delightful! We
will have such fun together! But take off your things. You are not cold,
I hope. [Helps her.] Now we will sit down by the stove, and be cosy. No,
take this arm-chair; I will sit here in the rocking-chair. [Takes her hands.]
Now you look like your old self again; it was only the first moment. You
are a little paler, Christine, and perhaps a little thinner.
MRS. LINDE: And much, much older, Nora.
NORA: Perhaps a little older; very, very little; certainly not much. [Stops
suddenly and speaks seriously.] What a thoughtless creature I am, chattering
away like this. My poor, dear Christine, do forgive me.
MRS. LINDE: What do you mean, Nora?
NORA: [gently]. Poor Christine, you are a widow.
MRS. LINDE: Yes; it is three years ago now.
NORA: Yes, I knew; I saw it in the papers. I assure you, Christine, I meant
ever so often to write to you at the time, but I always put it off and something
always prevented me.
MRS. LINDE: I quite understand, dear.
NORA: It was very bad of me, Christine. Poor thing, how you must have suffered.
And he left you nothing?
MRS. LINDE: No.
NORA: And no children?
MRS. LINDE: No.
NORA: Nothing at all, then.
MRS. LINDE: Not even any sorrow or grief to live upon.
NORA: [looking incredulously at her]. But, Christine, is that possible?
MRS. LINDE: [smiles sadly and strokes her hair]. It sometimes happens, Nora.
NORA: So you are quite alone. How dreadfully sad that must be. I have three
lovely children. You can't see them just now, for they are out with their
nurse. But now you must tell me all about it.
MRS. LINDE: No, no; I want to hear about you.
NORA: No, you must begin. I mustn't be selfish to-day; to-day I must only
think of your affairs. But there is one thing I must tell you. Do you know
we have just had a great piece of good luck?
MRS. LINDE: No, what is it?
NORA: Just fancy, my husband has been made manager of the Bank!
MRS. LINDE: Your husband? What good luck!
NORA: Yes, tremendous! A barrister's profession is such an uncertain thing,
especially if he won't undertake unsavoury cases; and naturally Torvald
has never been willing to do that, and I quite agree with him. You may imagine
how pleased we are! He is to take up his work in the Bank at the New Year,
and then he will have a big salary and lots of commissions. For the future
we can live quite differently, we can do just as we like. I feel so relieved
and so happy, Christine! It will be splendid to have heaps of money and
not need to have any anxiety, won't it?
MRS. LINDE: Yes, anyhow I think it would be delightful to have what one
needs.
NORA: No, not only what one needs, but heaps and heaps of money.
MRS. LINDE: [smiling]. Nora, Nora, haven't you learnt sense yet? In our
schooldays you were a great spendthrift.
NORA: [laughing]. Yes, that is what Torvald says now. [Wags her finger at
her.] But "Nora, Nora," is not so silly as you think. We have not been in
a position for me to waste money. We have both had to work.
MRS. LINDE: You too?
NORA: Yes; odds and ends, needlework, crotchet-work, embroidery, and that
kind of thing. [Dropping her voice.] And other things as well. You know
Torvald left his office when we were married? There was no prospect of promotion
there, and he had to try and earn more than before. But during the first
year he over-worked himself dreadfully. You see, he had to make money every
way he could, and he worked early and late; but he couldn't stand it, and
fell dreadfully ill, and the doctors said it was necessary for him to go
south.
MRS. LINDE: You spent a whole year in Italy, didn't you?
NORA: Yes. It was no easy matter to get away, I can tell you. It was just
after Ivar was born; but naturally we had to go. It was a wonderfully beautiful
journey, and it saved Torvald's life. But it cost a tremendous lot of money,
Christine.
MRS. LINDE: So I should think.
NORA: It cost about two hundred and fifty pounds. That's a lot, isn't it?
MRS. LINDE: Yes, and in emergencies like that it is lucky to have the money.
NORA: I ought to tell you that we had it from papa.
MRS. LINDE: Oh, I see. It was just about that time that he died, wasn't
it?
NORA: Yes; and, just think of it, I couldn't go and nurse him. I was expecting
little Ivar's birth every day and I had my poor sick Torvald to look after.
My dear, kind father, I never saw him again, Christine. That was the saddest
time I have known since our marriage.
MRS. LINDE: I know how fond you were of him. And then you went off to Italy?
NORA: Yes; you see we had money then, and the doctors insisted on our going,
so we started a month later.
MRS. LINDE: And your husband came back quite well?
NORA: As sound as a bell!
MRS. LINDE: But, the doctor?
NORA: What doctor?

海外逸士

MRS. LINDE: I thought your maid said the gentleman who arrived here just
as I did, was the doctor?
NORA: Yes, that was Doctor Rank, but he doesn't come here professionally.
He is our greatest friend, and comes in at least once every day. No, Torvald
has not had an hour's illness since then, and our children are strong and
healthy and so am I. [Jumps up and claps her hands.] Christine! Christine!
it's good to be alive and happy! But how horrid of me; I am talking of nothing
but my own affairs. [Sits on a stool near her, and rests her arms on her
knees.] You mustn't be angry with me. Tell me, is it really true that you
did not love your husband? Why did you marry him?
MRS. LINDE: My mother was alive then, and was bedridden and helpless, and
I had to provide for my two younger brothers; so I did not think I was justified
in refusing his offer.
NORA: No, perhaps you were quite right. He was rich at that time, then?
MRS. LINDE: I believe he was quite well off. But his business was a precarious
one; and, when he died, it all went to pieces and there was nothing left.
NORA: And then?
MRS. LINDE: Well, I had to turn my hand to anything I could find, first
a small shop, then a small school, and so on. The last three years have
seemed like one long working-day, with no rest. Now it is at an end, Nora.
My poor mother needs me no more, for she is gone; and the boys do not need
me either; they have got situations and can shift for themselves.
NORA: What a relief you must feel it!
MRS. LINDE: No, indeed; I only feel my life unspeakably empty. No one to
live for any more. [Gets up restlessly.] That was why I could not stand
the life in my little backwater any longer. I hope it may be easier here
to find something which will busy me and occupy my thoughts. If only I could
have the good luck to get some regular work, office work of some kind.
NORA: But, Christine, that is so frightfully tiring, and you look tired
out now. You had far better go away to some watering-place.
MRS. LINDE: [walking to the window]. I have no father to give me money for
a journey, Nora.
NORA: [rising]. Oh, don't be angry with me!
MRS. LINDE: [going up to her]. It is you that must not be angry with me,
dear. The worst of a position like mine is that it makes one so bitter.
No one to work for, and yet obliged to be always on the lookout for chances.
One must live, and so one becomes selfish. When you told me of the happy
turn your fortunes have taken, you will hardly believe it. I was delighted
not so much on your account as on my own.
NORA: How do you mean? Oh, I understand. You mean that perhaps Torvald could
get you something to do.
MRS. LINDE: Yes, that was what I was thinking of.
NORA: He must, Christine. Just leave it to me; I will broach the subject
very cleverly. I will think of something that will please him very much.
It will make me so happy to be of some use to you.
MRS. LINDE: How kind you are, Nora, to be so anxious to help me! It is doubly
kind in you, for you know so little of the burdens and troubles of life.
NORA: I? I know so little of them?
MRS. LINDE: [smiling]. My dear! Small household cares and that sort of thing!
You are a child, Nora.
NORA: [tosses her head and crosses the stage]. You ought not to be so superior.

MRS. LINDE: No?
NORA: You are just like the others. They all think that I am incapable of
anything really serious.
MRS. LINDE: Come, come.
NORA:  that I have gone through nothing in this world of cares.
MRS. LINDE: But, my dear Nora, you have just told me all your troubles.
NORA: Pooh! those were trifles. [Lowering her voice.] I have not told you
the important thing.
MRS. LINDE: The important thing? What do you mean?
NORA: You look down upon me altogether, Christine, but you ought not to.
You are proud, aren't you, of having worked so hard and so long for your
mother?
MRS. LINDE: Indeed, I don't look down on anyone. But it is true that I am
both proud and glad to think that I was privileged to make the end of my
mother's life almost free from care.
NORA: And you are proud to think of what you have done for your brothers?
MRS. LINDE: I think I have the right to be.
NORA: I think so, too. But now, listen to this; I too have something to
be proud and glad of.
MRS. LINDE: I have no doubt you have. But what do you refer to?
NORA: Speak low. Suppose Torvald were to hear! He mustn't on any account,
no one in the world must know, Christine, except you.
MRS. LINDE: But what is it?
NORA: Come here. [Pulls her down on the sofa beside her.] Now I will show
you that I too have something to be proud and glad of. It was I who saved
Torvald's life.
MRS. LINDE: "Saved"? How?
NORA: I told you about our trip to Italy. Torvald would never have recovered
if he had not gone there.
MRS. LINDE: Yes, but your father gave you the necessary funds.
NORA: [smiling]. Yes, that is what Torvald and all the others think, but,
MRS. LINDE: But ...
NORA: Papa didn't give us a shilling. It was I who procured the money.
MRS. LINDE: You? All that large sum?
NORA: Two hundred and fifty pounds. What do you think of that?
MRS. LINDE: But, Nora, how could you possibly do it? Did you win a prize
in the Lottery?
NORA: [contemptuously]. In the Lottery? There would have been no credit
in that.
MRS. LINDE: But where did you get it from, then?
NORA: [humming and smiling with an air of mystery]. Hm, hm! Aha!
MRS. LINDE: Because you couldn't have borrowed it.
NORA: Couldn't I? Why not?
MRS. LINDE: No, a wife cannot borrow without her husband's consent.
NORA: [tossing her head]. Oh, if it is a wife who has any head for business,
a wife who has the wit to be a little bit clever.
MRS. LINDE: I don't understand it at all, Nora.
NORA: There is no need you should. I never said I had borrowed the money.
I may have got it some other way. [Lies back on the sofa.] Perhaps I got
it from some other admirer. When anyone is as attractive as I am.
MRS. LINDE: You are a mad creature.
NORA: Now, you know you're full of curiosity, Christine.
MRS. LINDE: Listen to me, Nora dear. Haven't you been a little bit imprudent?
NORA: [sits up straight]. Is it imprudent to save your husband's life?
MRS. LINDE: It seems to me imprudent, without his knowledge, to ...
NORA: But it was absolutely necessary that he should not know! My goodness,
can't you understand that? It was necessary he should have no idea what
a dangerous condition he was in. It was to me that the doctors came and
said that his life was in danger, and that the only thing to save him was
to live in the south. Do you suppose I didn't try, first of all, to get what
I wanted as if it were for myself? I told him how much I should love to
travel abroad like other young wives; I tried tears and entreaties with
him; I told him that he ought to remember the condition I was in, and that
he ought to be kind and indulgent to me; I even hinted that he might raise
a loan. That nearly made him angry, Christine. He said I was thoughtless,
and that it was his duty as my husband not to indulge me in my whims and
caprices, as I believe he called them. Very well, I thought, you must be
saved and that was how I came to devise a way out of the difficulty.
MRS. LINDE: And did your husband never get to know from your father that
the money had not come from him?
NORA: No, never. Papa died just at that time. I had meant to let him into
the secret and beg him never to reveal it. But he was so ill then, alas,
there never was any need to tell him.
MRS. LINDE: And since then have you never told your secret to your husband?
NORA: Good Heavens, no! How could you think so? A man who has such strong
opinions about these things! And besides, how painful and humiliating it
would be for Torvald, with his manly independence, to know that he owed
me anything! It would upset our mutual relations altogether; our beautiful
happy home would no longer be what it is now.
MRS. LINDE: Do you mean never to tell him about it?
NORA: [meditatively, and with a half smile]. Yes, some day, perhaps, after
many years, when I am no longer as nice-looking as I am now. Don't laugh
at me! I mean, of course, when Torvald is no longer as devoted to me as
he is now; when my dancing and dressing-up and reciting have palled on him;
then it may be a good thing to have something in reserve [Breaking off.]
What nonsense! That time will never come. Now, what do you think of my great
secret, Christine? Do you still think I am of no use? I can tell you, too,
that this affair has caused me a lot of worry. It has been by no means easy
for me to meet my engagements punctually. I may tell you that there is something
that is called, in business, quarterly interest, and another thing called
payment in instalments, and it is always so dreadfully difficult to manage
them. I have had to save a little here and there, where I could, you understand.
I have not been able to put aside much from my housekeeping money, for
Torvald must have a good table. I couldn't let my children be shabbily dressed;
I have felt obliged to use up all he gave me for them, the sweet little
darlings!
MRS. LINDE: So it has all had to come out of your own necessaries of life,
poor Nora?
NORA: Of course. Besides, I was the one responsible for it. Whenever Torvald
has given me money for new dresses and such things, I have never spent more
than half of it; I have always bought the simplest and cheapest things.
Thank Heaven, any clothes look well on me, and so Torvald has never noticed
it. But it was often very hard on me, Christine, because it is delightful
to be really well dressed, isn't it?
MRS. LINDE: Quite so.
NORA: Well, then I have found other ways of earning money. Last winter I
was lucky enough to get a lot of copying to do; so I locked myself up and
sat writing every evening till quite late at night. Many a time I was desperately
tired; but all the same it was a tremendous pleasure to sit there working
and earning money. It was like being a man.
MRS. LINDE: How much have you been able to pay off in that way?
NORA: I can't tell you exactly. You see, it is very difficult to keep an
account of a business matter of that kind. I only know that I have paid
every penny that I could scrape together. Many a time I was at my wits'
end. [Smiles.] Then I used to sit here and imagine that a rich old gentleman
had fallen in love with me.
MRS. LINDE: What! Who was it?
NORA: Be quiet! that he had died; and that when his will was opened it contained,
written in big letters, the instructio: "The lovely Mrs. Nora Helmer is
to have all I possess paid over to her at once in cash."
MRS. LINDE: But, my dear Nora, who could the man be?
NORA: Good gracious, can't you understand? There was no old gentleman at
all; it was only something that I used to sit here and imagine, when I couldn'
t think of any way of procuring money. But it's all the same now; the tiresome
old person can stay where he is, as far as I am concerned; I don't care
about him or his will either, for I am free from care now. [Jumps up.] My
goodness, it's delightful to think of, Christine! Free from care! To be
able to be free from care, quite free from care; to be able to play and
romp with the children; to be able to keep the house beautifully and have
everything just as Torvald likes it! And, think of it, soon the spring will
come and the big blue sky! Perhaps we shall be able to take a little trip,
perhaps I shall see the sea again! Oh, it's a wonderful thing to be alive
and be happy. [A bell is heard in the hall.]
MRS. LINDE: [rising]. There is the bell; perhaps I had better go.
NORA: No, don't go; no one will come in here; it is sure to be for Torvald.
SERVANT: [at the hall door]. Excuse me, ma'am, there is a gentleman to see
the master, and as the doctor is with him. 第一幕太長﹐這裡切斷一下。要讀
下去的人可上古狗。

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Henrik Ibsen (Norwegian pronunciation: [20 March 1828 -- 23
May 1906) was a major 19th-century Norwegian playwright, theatre director,
and poet. He is often referred to as "the father of prose drama" and is
one of the founders of Modernism in the theatre. His major works include
Brand, Peer Gynt, An Enemy of the People, Emperor and Galilean, A Doll's
House, Hedda Gabler, Ghosts, The Wild Duck, Rosmersholm, and The Master
Builder.
3) 玩偶之家介紹﹕A Doll's House (also translated as A Doll House) is a three-
act play in prose by the playwright Henrik Ibsen. It premiered at the Royal
Theatre in Copenhagen, Denmark, on 21 December 1879, having been published
earlier that month.
4) 易卜生是世界有名的劇作家。其三幕劇“玩偶之家”也是名劇。其英文翻譯可讀
性很高。這裡推薦作為泛讀材料。

海外逸士

高級英語教材第49課

先讀課文﹕
War and Peace 戰爭與和平
by Leo Tolstoy 托爾司泰
Translated by Louise and Aylmer Maude

Chapter I
"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the Buonapartes.
拿坡倫 But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war, if you
still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that Antichrist-
I really believe he is Antichrist- I will have nothing more to do with you
and you are no longer my friend, no longer my 'faithful slave,' as you call
yourself! But how do you do? I see I have frightened you- sit down and tell
me all the news."
It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pavlovna Scherer,
maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya Fedorovna. With these words
she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man of high rank and importance, who
was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna Pavlovna had had a cough
for some days. She was, as she said, suffering from la grippe; grippe being
then a new word in St. Petersburg, used only by the elite.
All her invitations without exception, written in French, and delivered
by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:
"If you have nothing better to do, Count [or Prince], and if the prospect
of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible, I shall
be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10- Annette Scherer."
"Heavens! what a virulent attack!" replied the prince, not in the least
disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an embroidered
court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on his breast and
a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that refined French in
which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and with the gentle, patronizing
intonation natural to a man of importance who had grown old in society and
at court. He went up to Anna Pavlovna, kissed her hand, presenting to her
his bald, scented, and shining head, and complacently seated himself on
the sofa.
"First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend's mind
at rest," said he without altering his tone, beneath the politeness and
affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony could be discerned.
"Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times like
these if one has any feeling?" said Anna Pavlovna. "You are staying the
whole evening, I hope?"
"And the fete at the English ambassador's? Today is Wednesday. I must put
in an appearance there," said the prince. "My daughter is coming for me
to take me there."
"I thought today's fete had been canceled. I confess all these festivities
and fireworks are becoming wearisome."
"If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have been
put off," said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force of habit
said things he did not even wish to be believed.
"Don't tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosiltsev's dispatch?
You know everything."
"What can one say about it?" replied the prince in a cold, listless tone.
"What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has burnt his
boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours."
Prince Vasili always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale part.
Anna Pavlovna Scherer on the contrary, despite her forty years, overflowed
with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had become her social
vocation and, sometimes even when she did not feel like it, she became enthusiastic
in order not to disappoint the expectations of those who knew her. The subdued
smile which, though it did not suit her faded features, always played round
her lips expressed, as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her
charming defect, which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it
necessary, to correct.
In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pavlovna burst
out:
"Oh, don't speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don't understand things, but
Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She is betraying us!
Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign recognizes his high
vocation and will be true to it. That is the one thing I have faith in!
Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform the noblest role on earth,
and he is so virtuous and noble that God will not forsake him. He will fulfill
his vocation and crush the hydra of revolution, which has become more terrible
than ever in the person of this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge
the blood of the just one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England
with her commercial spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor Alexander'
s loftiness of soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted to find,
and still seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What answer did Novosiltsev
get? None. The English have not understood and cannot understand the self-abnegation
of our Emperor who wants nothing for himself, but only desires the good
of mankind. And what have they promised? Nothing! And what little they have
promised they will not perform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte
is invincible, and that all Europe is powerless before him.... And I don't
believe a word that Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz either. This famous Prussian
neutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty destiny
of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!"
She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.
"I think," said the prince with a smile, "that if you had been sent instead
of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King of Prussia's
consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me a cup of tea?"
"In a moment. A propos," she added, becoming calm again, "I am expecting
two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart, who is connected
with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best French families.
He is one of the genuine emigres, the good ones. And also the Abbe Morio.
Do you know that profound thinker? He has been received by the Emperor.
Had you heard?"
"I shall be delighted to meet them," said the prince. "But tell me," he
added with studied carelessness as if it had only just occurred to him,
though the question he was about to ask was the chief motive of his visit,
"is it true that the Dowager Empress 太后 wants Baron Funke to be appointed
first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all accounts is a poor creature."
Prince Vasili wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were trying
through the Dowager Empress Marya Fedorovna to secure it for the baron.
Anna Pavlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor anyone
else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was pleased with.
"Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her sister,"
was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.
As she named the Empress, Anna Pavlovna's face suddenly assumed an expression
of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with sadness, and this
occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious patroness. She added that
Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke beaucoup d'estime, and again
her face clouded over with sadness.
The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and
courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pavlovna wished both
to rebuke him (for daring to speak he had done of a man recommended to the
Empress) and at the same time to console him, so she said:
"Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came out everyone
has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly beautiful."
The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.
"I often think," she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer to the
prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political and social
topics were ended and the time had come for intimate conversation- "I often
think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life are distributed. Why has fate
given you two such splendid children? I don't speak of Anatole, your youngest.
I don't like him," she added in a tone admitting of no rejoinder and raising
her eyebrows. "Two such charming children. And really you appreciate them
less than anyone, and so you don't deserve to have them."
And she smiled her ecstatic smile.
"I can't help it," said the prince. "Lavater would have said I lack the
bump of paternity."
"Don't joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I am dissatisfied
with your younger son? Between ourselves" (and her face assumed its melancholy
expression), "he was mentioned at Her Majesty's and you were pitied...."
The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly, awaiting
a reply. He frowned.
"What would you have me do?" he said at last. "You know I did all a father
could for their education, and they have both turned out fools. Hippolyte
is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That is the only
difference between them." He said this smiling in a way more natural and
animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round his mouth very clearly revealed
something unexpectedly coarse and unpleasant.
"And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a father
there would be nothing I could reproach you with," said Anna Pavlovna, looking
up pensively.
"I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my children
are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That is how I explain
it to myself. It can't be helped!"
He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a gesture.
Anna Pavlovna meditated.
"Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?" she asked.
"They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I don't feel
that weakness in myself as yet,I know a little person who is very unhappy
with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess Mary Bolkonskaya."
Prince Vasili did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory and perception
befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of the head that
he was considering this information.
"Do you know," he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad current
of his thoughts, "that Anatole is costing me forty thousand rubles a year?
And," he went on after a pause, "what will it be in five years, if he goes
on like this?" Presently he added: "That's what we fathers have to put up
with.... Is this princess of yours rich?"
"Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is the
well-known Prince Bolkonski who had to retire from the army under the late
Emperor, and was nicknamed 'the King of Prussia.' He is very clever but
eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy. She has a brother;
I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately. He is an aide-de-camp
of Kutuzov's 知道庫圖佐夫嗎 and will be here tonight."
"Listen, dear Annette," said the prince, suddenly taking Anna Pavlovna's
hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. "Arrange that affair for
me and I shall always be your most devoted slave- slafe with an f, as a
village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich and of good family
and that's all I want."
And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the maid
of honor's hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro as he lay
back in his armchair, looking in another direction.
"Attendez," said Anna Pavlovna, reflecting, "I'll speak to Lise, young Bolkonski'
s wife, this very evening, and perhaps the thing can be arranged. It shall
be on your family's behalf that I'll start my apprenticeship as old maid."

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (known in the Anglosphere as Leo Tolstoy)
(September 9, 1828 -- November 20, 1910) was a Russian writer who primarily
wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays.
His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina,
are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle
of realist fiction. Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world's
greatest novelists.
3) 小說介紹﹕War and Peace is a novel by the Russian author Leo Tolstoy,
first published in 1869. The work is epic in scale and is regarded as one
of the most important works of world literature. It is considered Tolstoy's
finest literary achievement, along with his other major prose work Anna
Karenina (1873 --1877).
War and Peace delineates in graphic detail events surrounding the French
invasion of Russia, and the impact of the Napoleonic era on Tsarist society,
as seen through the eyes of five Russian aristocratic families. Portions
of an earlier version of the novel, then known as The Year 1805,[4] were
serialized in the magazine The Russian Messenger between 1865 and 1867.
The novel was first published in its entirety in 1869.
4) 托爾斯泰當然是世界名作家。其“戰爭與和平”一書也屬世界名著。一般這種書
的英文翻譯是值得作為泛讀材料而一讀的。

海外逸士

高級英語教材第50課

先讀課文﹕
The Canterbury Tales
by Geoffrey Chaucer

The General Prologue--
Here begins the Book of the Tales of Canterbury﹕
When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root
And bathed each vein with liquor that has power
To generate therein and sire the flower;
When Zephyr also has, with his sweet breath,
Quickened again, in every holt and heath,
The tender shoots and buds, and the young sun
Into the Ram one half his course has run,
And many little birds make melody
That sleep through all the night with open eye
(So Nature pricks them on to ramp and rage)-
Then do folk long to go on pilgrimage,
And palmers to go seeking out strange strands,
To distant shrines well known in sundry lands.
And specially from every shire's end
Of England they to Canterbury wend,
The holy blessed martyr there to seek
Who helped them when they lay so ill and weal
Befell that, in that season, on a day
In Southwark, at the Tabard, as I lay
Ready to start upon my pilgrimage
To Canterbury, full of devout homage,
There came at nightfall to that hostelry
Some nine and twenty in a company
Of sundry persons who had chanced to fall
In fellowship, and pilgrims were they all
That toward Canterbury town would ride.
The rooms and stables spacious were and wide,
And well we there were eased, and of the best.
And briefly, when the sun had gone to rest,
So had I spoken with them, every one,
That I was of their fellowship anon,
And made agreement that we'd early rise
To take the road, as you I will apprise.
But none the less, whilst I have time and space,
Before yet farther in this tale I pace,
It seems to me accordant with reason
To inform you of the state of every one
Of all of these, as it appeared to me,
And who they were, and what was their degree,
And even how arrayed there at the inn;
And with a knight thus will I first begin.

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Geoffrey Chaucer (c. 1343 -- 25 October 1400), known as the
Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English
poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's
Corner of Westminster Abbey. While he achieved fame during his lifetime
as an author, philosopher, alchemist and astronomer, composing a scientific
treatise on the astrolabe for his ten year-old son Lewis, Chaucer also maintained
an active career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat.
Among his many works, which include The Book of the Duchess, the House
of Fame, the Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde, he is best known
today for The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer is a crucial figure in developing
the legitimacy of the vernacular, Middle English, at a time when the dominant
literary languages in England were French and Latin.
3) 本書介紹﹕The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in
Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales
(mostly written in verse although some are in prose) are presented as part
of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together
on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury
Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at
Southwark on their return.
4) 喬叟也是一個世界著名的作家。其Canterbury故事集屬文學名著。原著是用中古
英文寫的。這裡已經是被改寫為現代英文的版本。要知道中古英文是怎麼樣的﹐這
裡放上兩行﹐讓大家看一下﹕
Whan that aprill with his shoures soote
The droghte of march hath perced to the roote,
[When April with his showers sweet with fruit
The drought of March has pierced unto the root]

海外逸士

高級英語教材第51課

先讀課文﹕
Little Women 小婦人
by Louisa May Alcott

PART 1﹕ CHAPTER ONE
"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying
on the rug.
"It's so dreadful to be poor!" sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.
"I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things,
and other girls nothing at all," added little Amy, with an injured sniff.
"We've got Father and Mother, and each other," said Beth contentedly from
her corner.
The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful
words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly, "We haven't got Father, and
shall not have him for a long time." She didn't say "perhaps never," but
each silently added it, thinking of Father far away, where the fighting
was.
Nobody spoke for a minute; then Meg said in an altered tone, "You know the
reason Mother proposed not having any presents this Christmas was because
it is going to be a hard winter for everyone; and she thinks we ought not
to spend money for pleasure, when our men are suffering so in the army.
We can't do much, but we can make our little sacrifices, and ought to do
it gladly. But I am afraid I don't." And Meg shook her head, as she thought
regretfully of all the pretty things she wanted.
"But I don't think the little we should spend would do any good. We've each
got a dollar, and the army wouldn't be much helped by our giving that. I
agree not to expect anything from Mother or you, but I do want to buy UNDINE
AND SINTRAM 書名 for myself. I've wanted it so long," said Jo, who was a
bookworm.
"I planned to spend mine in new music," said Beth, with a little sigh, which
no one heard but the hearth brush and kettle holder.
"I shall get a nice box of Faber's drawing pencils. I really need them,"
said Amy decidedly.
"Mother didn't say anything about our money, and she won't wish us to give
up everything. Let's each buy what we want, and have a little fun. I'm sure
we work hard enough to earn it," cried Jo, examining the heels of her shoes
in a gentlemanly manner.
"I know I do--teaching those tiresome children nearly all day, when I'm
longing to enjoy myself at home," began Meg, in the complaining tone again.
"You don't have half such a hard time as I do," said Jo. "How would you
like to be shut up for hours with a nervous, fussy old lady, who keeps you
trotting, is never satisfied, and worries you till you're ready to fly out
the window or cry?"
"It's naughty to fret, but I do think washing dishes and keeping things
tidy is the worst work in the world. It makes me cross, and my hands get
so stiff, I can't practice well at all." And Beth looked at her rough hands
with a sigh that any one could hear that time.
"I don't believe any of you suffer as I do," cried Amy, "for you don't have
to go to school with impertinent girls, who plague you if you don't know
your lessons, and laugh at your dresses, and label your father if he isn't
rich, and insult you when your nose isn't nice."
"If you mean libel, I'd say so, and not talk about labels, as if Papa was
a pickle bottle," advised Jo, laughing.
"I know what I mean, and you needn't be statirical about it. It's proper
to use good words, and improve your vocabilary," returned Amy, with dignity.
這段裡表示有兩個詞發音錯了。
"Don't peck at one another, children. Don't you wish we had the money Papa
lost when we were little, Jo? Dear me! How happy and good we'd be, if we
had no worries!" said Meg, who could remember better times.
"You said the other day you thought we were a deal happier than the King
children, for they were fighting and fretting all the time, in spite of
their money."
"So I did, Beth. Well, I think we are. For though we do have to work, we
make fun of ourselves, and are a pretty jolly set, as Jo would say."
"Jo does use such slang words!" observed Amy, with a reproving look at the
long figure stretched on the rug.
Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her pockets, and began to whistle.
"Don't, Jo. It's so boyish!"
"That's why I do it."
"I detest rude, unladylike girls!"
"I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!"
"Birds in their little nests agree," sang Beth, the peacemaker, with such
a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the "pecking"
ended for that time.
"Really, girls, you are both to be blamed," said Meg, beginning to lecture
in her elder-sisterly fashion. "You are old enough to leave off boyish tricks,
and to behave better, Josephine. It didn't matter so much when you were
a little girl, but now you are so tall, and turn up your hair, you should
remember that you are a young lady."
"I'm not! And if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails
till I'm twenty," cried Jo, pulling off her net, and shaking down a chestnut
mane. "I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, 故事人物
and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China Aster 一種花! It's bad
enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boy's games and work and manners!
I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy. And it's worse than
ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home
and knit, like a poky old woman!"
And Jo shook the blue army sock till the needles rattled like castanets,
and her ball bounded across the room.
"Poor Jo! It's too bad, but it can't be helped. So you must try to be contented
with making your name boyish, and playing brother to us girls," said Beth,
stroking the rough head with a hand that all the dish washing and dusting
in the world could not make ungentle in its touch.
"As for you, Amy," continued Meg, "you are altogether too particular and
prim. Your airs are funny now, but you'll grow up an affected little goose,
if you don't take care. I  like your nice manners and refined ways of speaking,
when you don't try to be elegant. But your absurd words are as bad as Jo's
slang."
"If Jo is a tomboy and Amy a goose, what am I, please?" asked Beth, ready
to share the lecture.
"You're a dear, and nothing else," answered Meg warmly, and no one contradicted
her, for the `Mouse' was the pet of the family.
As young readers like to know `how people look', we will take this moment
to give them a little sketch of the four sisters, who sat knitting away
in the twilight, while the December snow fell quietly without, and the fire
crackled cheerfully within. It was a comfortable room, though the carpet
was faded and the furniture very plain, for a good picture or two hung on
the walls, books filled the recesses, chrysanthemums and Christmas roses
bloomed in the windows, and a pleasant atmosphere of home peace pervaded
it.
Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump
and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft brown hair, a sweet mouth, and
white hands, of which she was rather vain. Fifteen-year-old Jo was very
tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed
to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way.
She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared
to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful. Her long,
thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net, to
be out of her way. Round shoulders had Jo, big hands and feet, a flyaway
look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly
shooting up into a woman and didn't like it. Elizabeth, or Beth, as everyone
called her, was a rosy, smooth-haired, bright-eyed girl of thirteen, with
a shy manner, a timid voice, and a peaceful expression which was seldom
disturbed. Her father called her `Little Miss Tranquility', and the name
suited her excellently, for she seemed to live in a happy world of her own,
only venturing out to meet the few whom she trusted and loved. Amy, though
the youngest, was a most important person, in her own opinion at least.
A regular snow maiden, with blue eyes, and yellow hair curling on her shoulders,
pale and slender, and always carrying herself like a young lady mindful
of her manners. What the characters of the four sisters were we will leave
to be found out. 太長。在此切斷。每本小說我只能提供個引頭﹐不可能整本上貼。
要讀下去的人可網上搜索。特別英文專業人士最好都找原本來讀一下。

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Louisa May Alcott (November 29, 1832 -- March 6, 1888) was
an American novelist best known as author of the novel Little Women and
its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys.[1] Raised by her transcendentalist
parents, Abigail May Alcott and Amos Bronson Alcott in New England, she
grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day such as Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. Nevertheless,
her family suffered severe financial difficulties and Alcott worked to help
support the family from an early age. She began to receive critical success
for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used the
pen name A. M. Barnard. Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist. She never
married and died in Boston.
3) 該書介紹﹕Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family
home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts and is loosely based on Alcott'
s childhood experiences with her three sisters. The novel was very well
received and is still a popular children's novel today.
4) “小婦人”也是本著名小說。不知現在的中國讀者是否知道此書。不過﹐值得讀
一下。

海外逸士

高級英語教材第52課

先讀課文﹕
The Good Earth 大地
by Pearl S. Buck

Chapter One
It was Wang Lung's marriage day. At first, opening his eyes in the blackness
of the curtains about his bed, he could not think why the dawn seemed different
from any other. The house was still except for the faint, gasping cough
of his old father, whose room was opposite to his own across the middle
room. Every morning the old man's cough was the first sound to be heard.
Wang Lung usually lay listening to it and moved only when he heard it approaching
nearer and when he heard the door of his father's room squeak upon its wooden
hinges.
But this morning he did not wait. He sprang up and pushed aside the curtains
of his bed. It was a dark, ruddy dawn, and through a small square hole of
a window, where the tattered paper fluttered, a glimpse of bronze sky gleamed.
He went to the hole and tore the paper away.
"It is spring and I do not need this," he muttered. He was ashamed to say
aloud that he wished the house to look neat on this day. The hole was barely
large enough to admit his hand and he thrust it out to feel of the air.
A small soft wind blew gently from the east, a wind mild and murmurous and
full of rain. It was a good omen. The fields needed rain for fruition. There
would be no rain this day, but within a few days, if this wind continued,
there would be water. It was good.
Yesterday he had said to his father that if this brazen, glittering sunshine
continued, the wheat could not fill in the ear. Now it was as if Heaven
had chosen this day to wish him well. Earth would bear fruit. He hurried
out into the middle room, drawing on his blue outer trousers as he went,
and knotting about the fullness at his waist his girdle of blue cotton cloth.
He left his upper body bare until he had heated water to bathe himself.
He went into the shed which was the kitchen, leaning against the house,
and out of its dusk an ox twisted its head from behind the corner next the
door and lowed at him deeply.
The kitchen was made of earthen bricks as the house was, great squares of
earth dug from their own fields, and thatched with straw from their own
wheat. Out of their own earth had his grandfather in his youth fashioned
also the oven, baked and black with many years of meal preparing. On top
of this earthen structure stood a deep round iron cauldron.
This cauldron he filled partly full of water, dipping it with a half gourd
from an earthen jar that stood near, but he dipped cautiously, for water
was precious. Then, after a hesitation, he suddenly lifted the jar and emptied
all the water into the cauldron. This day he would bathe his whole body.
Not since he was a child upon his mother's knee had anyone looked upon his
body. Today one would, and he would have it clean.
He went around the oven to the rear and, selecting a handful of the dry
grass and stalks standing in the corner of the kitchen, he arranged it delicately
in the mouth of the oven, making the most of every leaf.
Then from an old flint and iron he caught a flame and thrust it into the
straw and there was a blaze.
This was the last morning he would have to light the fire. He had lit it
every morning since his mother died six years before. He had lit the fire,
boiled water, and poured the water into a bowl and taken it into the room
where his father sat upon his bed, coughing and fumbling for his shoes upon
the floor. Every morning for these six years the old man had waited for his
son to bring in hot water to ease him of his morning coughing. Now father
and son could rest. There was a woman coming to the house. Never again would
Wang Lung have to rise summer and winter at dawn to light the fire. He could
lie in his bed and wait, and he also would have a bowl of water brought
to him, and if the earth were fruitful there would be tea leaves in the water.
Once in some years it was so.
And if the woman wearied, there would be her children to light the fire,
the many children she would bear to Wang Lung. Wang Lung stopped, struck
by the thought of children running in and out of their three rooms. Three
rooms had always seemed much to them, a house half empty since his mother
died. They were always having to resist relatives who were more crowded--his
uncle, with his endless brood of children, coaxing,
"Now, how can two lone men need so much room? Cannot father and son sleep
together? The warmth of the young one's body will comfort the old one's
cough."
But the father always replied, "I am saving my bed for my grandson. He will
warm my bones in my age."
Now the grandsons were coming, grandsons upon grandsons! They would have
to put beds along the walls and in the middle room. The house would be full
of beds. The blaze in the oven died down while Wang Lung thought of all
the beds there would be in the half-empty house, and the water began to
chill in the cauldron. The shadowy figure of the old man appeared in the
doorway, holding his unbuttoned garments about him. He was coughing and spitting
and he gasped, "How is it that there is not water yet to heat my lungs?"

Wang Lung stared and recalled himself and was ashamed.
"This fuel is damp," he muttered from behind the stove.
"The damp wind--"
The old man continued to cough perseveringly and would not cease until the
water boiled. Wang Lung dipped some into a bowl, and then, after a moment,
he opened a glazed jar that stood upon a ledge of the stove and took from
it a dozen or so of the curled dried leaves and sprinkled them upon the
surface of the water. The old man's eyes opened greedily and immediately
he began to complain.
"Why are you wasteful? Tea is like eating silver."
"It is the day," replied Wang Lung with a short laugh.
"Eat and be comforted."
The old man grasped the bowl in his shriveled, knotty fingers, muttering,
uttering little grunts. He watched the leaves uncurl and spread upon the
surface of the water, unable to bear drinking the precious stuff.
"It will be cold," said Wang Lung.
"True--true..." said the old man in alarm, and he began to take great gulps
of the hot tea. He passed into an animal satisfaction, like a child fixed
upon its feeding. But he was not too forgetful to see Wang Lung dipping
the water recklessly from the cauldron into a deep wooden tub. He lifted
his head and stared at his son.
"Now there is water enough to bring a crop to fruit," he said suddenly.
Wang Lung continued to dip the water to the last drop. He did not answer.

"Now then!" cried his father loudly.
"I have not washed my body all at once since the New Year," said Wang Lung
in a low voice.
He was ashamed to say to his father that he wished his body to be clean
for a woman to see. He hurried out, carrying the tub to his own room. The
door was hung loosely upon a warped wooden frame and it did not shut closely,
and the old man tottered into the middle room and put his mouth to the
opening and bawled, "It will be ill if we start the woman like this--tea
in the morning water and all this washing!"
"It is only one day," shouted Wang Lung. And then he added, "I will throw
the water on the earth when I am finished and it is not all waste." The
old man was silent at this, and Wang Lung unfastened his girdle and stepped
out of his clothing. In the light that streamed in a square block from the
hole he wrung a small towel from the steaming water and he scrubbed his
dark slender body vigorously. Warm though he had thought the air, when his
flesh was wet he was cold, and he moved quickly, passing the towel in and
out of the water until from his whole body there went up a delicate cloud
of steam. Then he went to a box that had been his mother's and drew from
it a fresh suit of blue cotton cloth. He might be a little cold this day
without the wadding of the winter garments, but he suddenly could not bear
to put them on against his clean flesh. The covering of them was torn and
filthy and the wadding stuck out of the holes, grey and sodden. He did not
want this woman to see him for the first time with the wadding sticking
out of his clothes. Later she would have to wash and mend, but not the first
day. He drew over the blue cotton coat and trousers, a long robe made of
the same material--his one long robe, which he wore on feast days only,
ten days or so in the year, all told. Then with swift fingers he unplaited
the long braid of hair that hung down his back, and taking a wooden comb
from the drawer of the small, unsteady table, he began to comb out his hair.

His father drew near again and put his mouth to the crack of the door. 
"Am I to have nothing to eat this day?" he complained.
"At my age the bones are water in the morning until food is given them."

"I am coming," said Wang Lung, braiding his hair quickly and smoothly and
weaving into the strands a tasseled black silk cord.
Then after a moment he removed his long gown and wound his braid about his
head and went out, carrying the tub of water. He had quite forgotten the
breakfast. He would stir a little water into cornmeal and give it to his
father. For himself he could not eat. He staggered with the tub to the threshold
and poured the water upon the earth nearest the door, and as he did so he
remembered he had used all the water in the cauldron for his bathing and
he would have to start the fire again. A wave of anger passed over him at
his father.
"That old head thinks of nothing except his eating and his drinking," he
muttered into the mouth of the oven; but aloud he said nothing. It was the
last morning he would have to prepare food for the old man. He put a very
little water into the cauldron, drawing it in a bucket from the well near
the door, and it boiled quickly and he stirred meal together and took it
to the old man.
"We will have rice this night, my father," he said.
"Meanwhile, here is corn."
"There is only a little rice left in the basket," said the old man, seating
himself at the table in the middle room and stirring with his chopsticks
the thick yellow gruel.
"We will eat a little less then at the spring festival," said Wang Lung.
But the old man did not hear. He was supping loudly at his bowl.
Wang Lung went into his own room then, and drew about him again the long
blue robe and let down the braid of his hair. He passed his hand over his
shaven brow and over his cheeks. Perhaps he had better be newly shaven?
It was scarcely sunrise yet. He could pass through the Street of the Barbers
and be shaved before he went to the house where the woman waited for him.
If he had the money he would do it. He took from his girdle a small greasy
pouch of grey cloth and counted the money in it. There were six silver dollars
and a double handful of copper coins. He had not yet told his father he
had asked friends to sup that night. He had asked his male cousin, the young
son of his uncle, and his uncle for his father's sake, and three neighboring
farmers who lived in the village with him. He had planned to bring back from
the town that morning pork, a small pond fish, and a handful of chestnuts.
He might even buy a few of the bamboo sprouts from the south and a little
beef to stew with the cabbage he had raised in his own garden. But this
only if there were any money left after the bean oil and the soybean sauce
had been bought. If he shaved his head he could not, perhaps, buy the beef.
Well, he would shave his head, he decided suddenly.
He left the old man without speech and went out into the early morning.
In spite of the dark red dawn the sun was mounting the horizon clouds and
sparkled upon the dew on the rising wheat and barley. The farmer in Wang
Lung was diverted for an instant and he stooped to examine the budding heads.
They were empty as yet and waiting for the rain. He smelled the air and
looked anxiously at the sky. Rain was there, dark in the clouds, heavy upon
the wind. He would buy a stick of incense and place it in the little temple
to the Earth God. On a day like this he would do it. He wound his way in
among the fields upon the narrow path. In the near distance the grey city
wall arose. Within that gate in the wall through which he would pass stood
the great house where the woman had been a slave girl since her childhood,
the House of Hwang. There were those who said, "It is better to live alone
than to marry a woman who has been a slave in a great house." But when he
had said to his father, "Am I never to have a woman?" his father replied,
"With weddings costing as they do in these evil days and every woman wanting
gold rings and silk clothes before she will take a man, there remain only
slaves to be had for the poor."
His father had stirred himself, then, and gone to the House of Hwang and
asked if there were a slave to spare.
"Not a slave too young, and above all, not a pretty one," he had said. Wang
Lung had suffered that she must not be pretty. It would be something to
have a pretty wife that other men would congratulate him upon having. His
father, seeing his mutinous face, had cried out at him, "And what will we
do with a pretty woman? We must have a woman who will tend the house and
bear children as she works in the fields, and will a pretty woman do these
things? She will be forever thinking about clothes to go with her face!
No, not a pretty woman in our house. We are farmers. Moreover, who has heard
of a pretty slave who was virgin in a wealthy house? All the young lords
have had their fill of her. It is better to be first with an ugly woman than
the hundredth with a beauty. Do you imagine a pretty woman will think your
farmer's hands as pleasing as the soft hands of a rich man's son, and your
sun-black face as beautiful as the golden skin of the others who have had
her for their pleasure?"
Wang Lung knew his father spoke well. Nevertheless, he had to struggle with
his flesh before he could answer. And then he said violently, "At least,
I will not have a woman who is pockmarked, or who has a split upper lip."

"We will have to see what is to be had," his father replied. Well, the woman
was not pockmarked nor had she a split upper lip. This much he knew, but
nothing more. He and his father had bought two silver rings, washed with
gold, and silver earrings, and these his father had taken to the woman's
owner in acknowledgment of betrothal.
Beyond this, he knew nothing of the woman who was to be his, except that
on this day he could go and get her.
He walked into the cool darkness of the city gate. Water carriers, just
outside, their barrows laden with great tubs of water, passed to and fro
all day, the water splashing out of the tubs upon the stones.
It was always wet and cool in the tunnel of the gate under the thick wall
of earth and brick; cool even upon a summer's day, so that the melon vendors
spread their fruits upon the stones, melons split open to drink in the moist
coolness. There were none yet, for the season was too early, but baskets
of small hard green peaches stood along the walls, and the vendor cried out,
"The first peaches of spring--the first peaches! Buy, eat, purge your bowels
of the poisons of winter!"
Wang Lung said to himself, "If she likes them, I will buy her a handful
when we return." He could not realize that when he walked back through the
gate there would be a woman walking behind him.
He turned to the right within the gate and after a moment was in the Street
of Barbers. There were few before him so early, only some farmers who had
carried their produce into the town the night before in order that they
might sell their vegetables at the dawn markets and return for the day's
work in the fields. They had slept shivering and crouching over their baskets,
the baskets now empty at their feet. Wang Lung avoided them lest some recognize
him, for he wanted none of their joking on this day. All down the street
in a long line the barbers stood behind their small stalls, and Wang Lung
went to the furthest one and sat down upon the stool and motioned to the
barber who stood chattering to his neighbor. The barber came at once and
began quickly to pour hot water from a kettle on his pot of charcoal into
his brass basin.
"Shave everything?" he said in a professional tone.
"My head and my face," replied Wang Lung.
"Ears and nostrils cleaned?" asked the barber.
"How much will that cost extra?" asked Wang Lung cautiously.
"Four pence," said the barber, beginning to pass a black cloth in and out
of the hot water.
"I will give you two," said Wang Lung.
"Then I will clean one ear and one nostril," rejoined the barber promptly.

"On which side of the face do you wish it done?" He grimaced at the next
barber as he spoke and the other burst into a guffaw. Wang Lung perceived
that he had fallen into the hands of a joker, and feeling inferior in some
unaccountable way, as he always did, to these town dwellers, even though
they were only barbers and the lowest of persons, he said quickly, "As you
will--as you will..." Then he submitted himself to the barber's soaping and
rubbing and shaving, and being after all a generous fellow enough, the barber
gave him without extra charge a series of skilful poundings upon his shoulders
and back to loosen his muscles. He commented upon Wang Lung as he shaved
his upper forehead, "This would not be a badlooking farmer if he would cut
off his hair. The new fashion is to take off the braid." His razor hovered
so near the circle of hair upon Wang Lung's crown that Wang Lung cried out,
"I cannot cut it off without asking my father!" And the barber laughed and
skirted the round spot of hair.
When it was finished and the money counted into the barber's wrinkled, watersoaked
hand, Wang Lung had a moment of horror. So much money!
But walking down the street again with the wind fresh upon his shaven skin,
he said to himself, "It is only once."
He went to the market, then, and bought two pounds of pork and watched the
butcher as he wrapped it in a dried lotus leaf, and then, hesitating, he
bought also six ounces of beef. When all had been bought, even to fresh
squares of bean curd, shivering in a jelly upon its leaf, he went to a candle
maker shop and there he bought a pair of incense sticks. Then he turned his
steps with great shyness toward the House of Hwang. Once at the gate of
the house he was seized with terror. How had he come alone?

海外逸士

He should have asked his father--his uncle--even his nearest neighbor, Ching-
-anyone to come with him. He had never been in a great house before. How
could he go in with his wedding feast on his arm, and say, "I have come
for a woman"?
He stood at the gate for a long time, looking at it. It was closed fast,
two great wooden gates, painted black and bound and studded with iron, closed
upon each other. Two lions made of stone stood on guard, one at either side.
There was no one else. He turned away. It was impossible.
He felt suddenly faint. He would go first and buy a little food. He had
eaten nothing--had forgotten food. He went into a small street restaurant,
and putting two pence upon the table, he sat down. A dirty waiting boy with
a shiny black apron came near and he called out to him, "Two bowls of noodles!
" And when they were come, he ate them down greedily, pushing them into
his month with his bamboo chopsticks, while the boy stood and spun the coppers
between his black thumb and forefinger.
"Will you have more?" asked the boy indifferently. Wang Lung shook his head.
He sat up and looked about. There was no one he knew in the small, dark,
crowded room full of tables. Only a few men sat eating or drinking tea.
It was a place for poor men, and among them he looked neat and clean and
almost well-to-do, so that a beggar, passing, whined at him, "Have a good
heart, teacher, and give me a small cash--I starve!"
Wang Lung had never had a beggar ask of him before, nor had any ever called
him teacher. He was pleased and he threw into the beggar's bowl two small
cash, which are one-fifth of a penny, and the beggar pulled back with swiftness
his black claw of a hand, and grasping the cash, fumbled them within his
rags.
Wang Lung sat and the sun climbed upwards. The waiting boy lounged about
impatiently.
"If you are buying nothing more," he said at last with much impudence, "you
will have to pay rent for the stool."
Wang Lung was incensed at such impudence and he would have risen except
that when he thought of going into the great House of Hwang and of asking
there for a woman, sweat broke out over his whole body as though he were
working in a field.
"Bring me tea," he said weakly to the boy. Before he could turn it was there
and the small boy demanded sharply, "Where is the penny?" And Wang Lung,
to his horror, found there was nothing to do but to produce from his girdle
yet another penny.
"It is robbery," he muttered, unwilling. Then he saw entering the shop his
neighbor whom he had invited to the feast, and he put the penny hastily
upon the table and drank the tea at a gulp and went out quickly by the side
door and was once more upon the street.
"It is to be done," he said to himself desperately, and slowly he turned
his way to the great gates.
This time, since it was after high noon, the gates were ajar and the keeper
of the gate idled upon the threshold, picking his teeth with a bamboo sliver
after his meal. He was a tall fellow with a large mole upon his left cheek,
and from the mole hung three long black hairs which had never been cut.
When Wang Lung appeared he shouted roughly, thinking from the basket that
he had come to sell something.
"Now then, what?"
With great difficulty Wang Lung replied, "I am Wang Lung, the farmer." 
"Well, and Wang Lung, the farmer, what?" retorted the gate man who was polite
to none except the rich friends of his master and mistress.
"I am come--I am come..." faltered Wang Lung.
"That I see," said the gate man with elaborate patience, twisting the long
hairs of his mole.
"There is a woman," said Wang Lung, his voice sinking helplessly to a whisper.
In the sunshine his face was wet.
The gate man gave a great laugh.
"So you are he!" he roared.
"I was told to expect a bridegroom today.
But I did not recognize you with a basket on your arm."
"It is only a few meats," said Wang Lung apologetically, waiting for the
gate man to lead him within. But the gate man did not move. At last Wang
Lung said with anxiety,
"Shall I go alone?"
The gate man affected a start of horror.
"The Old Lord would kill you!"
Then, seeing that Wang Lung was too innocent, he said, "A little silver
is a good key."
Wang Lung saw at last that the man wanted money of him.
"I am a poor man," he said pleadingly.
"Let me see what you have in your girdle," said the gate man. And he grinned
when Wang Lung in his simplicity actually put his basket upon the stones
and lifting his robe took out the small bag from his girdle and shook into
his left hand what money was left after his purchases. There was one silver
piece and fourteen copper pence.
"I will take the silver," said the gate man coolly, and before Wang Lung
could protest the man had the silver in his sleeve and was striding through
the gate, bawling loudly, "The bridegroom, the bridegroom!"
Wang Lung, in spite of anger at what had just happened and horror at this
loud announcing of his coming, could do nothing but follow, and this he
did, picking up his basket and looking neither to the right nor left.
Afterwards, although it was the first time he had ever been in a great family'
s house, he could remember nothing. With his face burning and his head bowed,
he walked through court after court, hearing that voice roaring ahead of
him, hearing tinkles of laughter on every side. Then suddenly when it seemed
to him he had gone through a hundred courts, the gate man fell silent and
pushed him into a small waiting room. There he stood alone while the gate
man went into some inner place, returning in a moment to say, "The Old Mistress
says you are to appear before her." Wang Lung started forward, but the gate
man stopped him, crying in disgust,
"You cannot appear before a great lady with a basket on your arm--a basket
of pork and bean curd! How will you bow?"
"True--true..." said Wang Lung in agitation. But he did not dare to put
the basket down because he was afraid something might be stolen from it.
It did not occur to him that all the world might not desire such delicacies
as two pounds of pork and six ounces of beef and a small pond fish. The
gate man saw his fear and cried out in great contempt,
"In a house like this we feed these meats to the dogs!" and seizing the
basket he thrust it behind the door and pushed Wang Lung ahead of him. 
Down a long narrow veranda they went, the roofs supported by delicate carven
posts, and into a hall the like of which Wang Lung had never seen. A score
of houses such as his whole house could have been put into it and have disappeared,
so wide were the spaces, so high the roofs. Lifting his head in wonder
to see the great carven and painted beams above him he stumbled upon the
high threshold of the door and would have fallen except that the gate man
caught his arm and cried out, "Now will you be so polite as to fall on your
face like this before the Old Mistress?" And, collecting himself in great
shame, Wang Lung looked ahead of him, and upon a dais in the center of the
room he saw a very old lady, her small fine body clothed in lustrous, pearly
grey satin, and upon the low bench beside her a pipe of opium stood, burning
over its little lamp. She looked at him out of small, sharp, black eyes,
as sunken and sharp as a monkey's eyes in her thin and wrinkled face. The
skin of her hand that held the pipe's end was stretched over her little
bones as smooth and as yellow as the gilt upon an idol. Wang Lung fell to
his knees and knocked his head on the tiled floor.
"Raise him," said the old lady gravely to the gate man "these obeisances
are not necessary. Has he come for the woman?"
"Yes, Ancient One," replied the gate man.
"Why does he not speak for himself?" asked the old lady.
"Because he is a fool, Ancient One," said the gate man twirling the hairs
of his mole.
This roused Wang Lung and he looked with indignation at the gate man "I
am only a coarse person, Great and Ancient Lady," he said.
"I do not know what words to use in such a presence." The old lady looked
at him carefully and with perfect gravity and made as though she would have
spoken, except that her hand closed upon the pipe which a slave had been
tending for her and at once she seemed to forget him. She bent and sucked
greedily at the pipe for a moment and the sharpness passed from her eyes
and a film of forgetfulness came over them. Wang Lung remained standing before
her until in passing her eyes caught his figure.
"What is this man doing here?" she asked with sudden anger. It was as though
she had forgotten everything. The gate man face was immovable.
He said nothing.
"I am waiting for the woman, Great Lady," said Wang Lung in much astonishment.

"The woman? What woman? ..." the old lady began, but the slave girl at her
side stooped and whispered and the lady recovered herself.
"Ah, yes, I forgot for the moment--a small affair--you have come for the
slave called O-lan. I remember we promised her to some farmer in marriage.
You are that farmer?"
"I am he," replied Wang Lung.
"Call O-lan quickly," said the old lady to her slave. It was as though she
was suddenly impatient to be done with all this and to be left alone in
the stillness of the great room with her opium pipe.
And in an instant the slave appeared leading by the hand a square, rather
tall figure, clothed in clean blue cotton coat and trousers.
Wang Lung glanced once and then away, his heart beating. This was his woman.

"Come here, slave," said the old lady carelessly.
"This man has come for you."
The woman went before the lady and stood with bowed head and hands clasped.

"Are you ready?" asked the lady.
The woman answered slowly as an echo, "Ready."
Wang Lung, hearing her voice for the first time, looked at her back as she
stood before him. It was a good enough voice, not loud, not soft, plain,
and not ill-tempered. The woman's hair was neat and smooth and her coat
clean. He saw with an instant's disappointment that her feet were not bound.
But this he could not dwell upon, for the old lady was saying to the gate
man "Carry her box out to the gate and let them begone." And then she called
Wang Lung and said, "Stand beside her while I speak." And when Wang had
come forward she said to him, "This woman came into our house when she was
a child of ten and here she has lived until now, when she is twenty years
old. I bought her in a year of famine when her parents came south because
they had nothing to eat. They were from the north in Shantung and there they
returned, and I know nothing further of them. You see she has the strong
body and the square cheeks of her kind. She will work well for you in the
field and drawing water and all else that you wish. She is not beautiful
but that you do not need. Only men of leisure have the need for beautiful
women to divert them. Neither is she clever. But she does well what she is
told to do and she has a good temper. So far as I know she is virgin. She
has not beauty enough to tempt my sons and grandsons even if she had not
been in the kitchen. If there has been anything it has been only a serving
man. But with the innumerable and pretty slaves running freely about the
courts, I doubt if there has been anyone. Take her and use her well. She
is a good slave, although somewhat slow and stupid, and had not wished to
acquire merit at the temple for my future existence by bringing more life
into the world I should have kept her, for she is good enough for the kitchen.
But I marry my slaves off if any will have them and the lords do not want
them."
And to the woman she said, "Obey him and bear him sons and yet more sons.
Bring the first child to me to see."
"Yes, Ancient Mistress," said the woman submissively. They stood hesitating,
and Wang Lung was greatly embarrassed, not knowing whether he should speak
or what.
"Well, go, will you!" said the old lady in irritation, and Wang Lung, bowing
hastily, turned and went out, the woman after him, and after her the gate
man carrying on his shoulder the box. This box he dropped down in the room
where Wang Lung returned to find his basket and would carry it no further,
and indeed he disappeared without another word.
Then Wang Lung turned to the woman and looked at her for the first time.
She had a square, honest face, a short, broad nose with large black nostrils,
and her mouth was wide as a gash in her face. Her eyes were small and of
a dull black in color, and were filled with some sadness that was not clearly
expressed. It was a face that seemed habitually silent and unspeaking, as
though it could not speak if it would. She bore patiently Wang Lung's look,
without embarrassment or response, simply waiting until he had seen her.
He saw that it was true there was not beauty of any kind in her face--a
brown, common, patient face. But there were no pockmarks on her dark skin,
nor was her lip split. In her ears he saw his rings hanging, the gold-washed
rings he had bought, and on her hands were the rings he had given her.
He turned away with secret exultation. Well, he had his woman!
"Here is this box and this basket," he said gruffly. Without a word she
bent over and picking up one end of the box she placed it upon her shoulder
and, staggering under its weight, tried to rise. He watched her at this
and suddenly he said, "I will take the box. Here is the basket." And he
shifted the box to his own back, regardless of the best robe he wore, and
she, still speechless, took the handle of the basket. He thought of the
hundred courts he had come through and of his figure, absurd under its burden.

"If there were a side gate..." he muttered, and she nodded after a little
thought, as though she did not understand too quickly what he said. Then
she led the way through a small unused court that was grown up with weed,
its pool choked, and there under a bent pine tree was an old round gate
that she pulled loose from its bar, and they went through and into the street.

Once or twice he looked back at her. She plodded along steadily on her big
feet as though she had walked there all her life, her wide face expressionless.
In the gate of the wall he stopped uncertainly and fumbled in his girdle
with one hand for the pennies he had left, holding the box steady on his
shoulder with the other hand. He took out two pence and with these he bought
six small green peaches.
"Take these and eat them for yourself," he said gruffly. She clutched them
greedily as a child might and held them in her hand without speech. When
next he looked at her as they walked along the margin of the wheat fields
she was nibbling one cautiously, but when she saw him looking at her she
covered it again with her hand and kept her jaws motionless.
And thus they went until they reached the western field where stood the
temple to the earth. This temple was a small structure, not higher in all
than a man's shoulder and made of grey bricks and roofed with tile.
Wang Lung's grandfather, who had farmed the very fields upon which Wang
Lung now spent his life, had built it, hauling the bricks from the town
upon his wheelbarrow. The walls were covered with plaster on the outside
and a village artist had been hired in a good year once to paint upon the
white plaster a scene of hills and bamboo. But the rain of generations had
poured upon this painting until now there was only a faint feathery shadow
of bamboos left, and the hills were almost wholly gone. Within the temple
snugly under the roof sat two small, solemn figures, earthen, for they were
formed from the earth of the fields about the temple. These were the god
himself and his lady. They wore robes of red and gilt paper, and the god
had a scant, drooping moustache of real hair. Each year at the New Year
Wang Lung's father bought sheets of red paper and carefully cut and pasted
new robes for the pair. And each year rain and snow beat in and the sun
of summer shone in and spoiled their robes. At this moment, however, the
robes were still new, since the year was but well begun, and Wang Lung was
proud of their spruce appearance. He took the basket from the woman's arm
and carefully he looked about under the pork for the sticks of incense he
had bought. He was anxious lest they were broken and thus make an evil omen,
but they were whole, and when he had found them he stuck them side by side
in the ashes of other sticks of incense that were heaped before the gods,
for the whole neighborhood worshipped these two small figures. Then fumbling
for his flint and iron he caught, with a dried leaf for tinder, a flame
to light the incense.
Together this man and this woman stood before the gods of their fields.
The woman watched the ends of the incense redden and turn grey. When the
ash grew heavy she leaned over and with her forefinger she pushed the head
of ash away. Then as though fearful for what she had done, she looked quickly
at Wang Lung, her eyes dumb. But there was something he liked in her movement.
It was as though she felt that the incense belonged to them both; it was
a moment of marriage. They stood there in complete silence, side by side,
while the incense smouldered into ashes; and then because the sun was sinking,
Wang Lung shouldered the box and they went home. At the door of the house
the old man stood to catch the last rays of the sun upon him. He made no
movement as Wang Lung approached with the woman. It would have been beneath
him to notice her. Instead he feigned great interest in the clouds and he
cried, "That cloud which hangs upon the left horn of the new moon speaks
of rain. It will come not later than tomorrow night." And then as he saw
Wang Lung take the basket from the woman he cried again, "And have you spent
money?" Wang Lung set the basket on the table.
"There will be guests tonight," he said briefly, and he carried the box
into the room where he slept and set it down beside the box where his own
clothes were. He looked at it strangely. But the old man came to the door
and said volubly, "There is no end to the money spent in this house!"

海外逸士

1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Pearl Sydenstricker Buck (June 26, 1892 – March 6, 1973),
also known by her Chinese name 賽珍珠, was an American writer who spent
most of her time until 1934 in China. Her novel The Good Earth was the best-selling
fiction book in the U.S. in 1931 and 1932, and won the Pulitzer Prize in
1932. In 1938, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, "for her rich
and truly epic descriptions of peasant life in China and for her biographical
masterpieces."
3) 該書介紹﹕The Good Earth is a novel by Pearl S. Buck published in 1931
and awarded the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1932. The best-selling novel
in the United States in both 1931 and 1932, it was an influential factor
in Buck's winning the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1938. It is the first
book in a trilogy that includes Sons (1932) and A House Divided (1935).
The novel of family life in a Chinese village before World War II has been
a steady favorite ever since. In 2004, the book was returned to the bestseller
list when chosen by the television host Oprah Winfrey for Oprah's Book Club.
The novel helped prepare Americans of the 1930s to consider Chinese as allies
in the coming war with Japan. A Broadway stage adaptation was produced by
the Theatre Guild in 1932, written by the father and son playwriting team
of Owen and Donald Davis, but it was poorly received by the critics, and
ran only 56 performances. However, the 1937 film, The Good Earth, which
was based on the stage version, was more successful.
4) 賽珍珠對中國讀者應該是不陌生的。“大地”是她的名著。這裡介紹給大家看看
外國人是怎樣描寫上世紀三十年代中國農民生活的。其實這家農民不貧困﹐至少是
中農吧。

[will travel for two months. see you guys when back.]