章节正文
'They shall see that I believe it all this time,' said Curdie.
'Tell them that tomorrow morning you must set out for the court -
not like a great man, but just as poor as you are. They had better
not speak about it. Tell them also that it will be a long time
before they hear of you again, but they must not lose heart. And
tell your father to lay that stone I gave him at night in a safe
place - not because of the greatness of its price, although it is
such an emerald as no prince has in his crown, but because it will
be a news-bearer between you and him. As often as he gets at all
anxious about you, he must take it and lay it in the fire, and
leave it there when he goes to bed. In the morning he must find it
in the ashes, and if it be as green as ever, then all goes well
with you; if it have lost colour, things go ill with you; but if it
be very pale indeed, then you are in great danger, and he must come
to me.'
'Yes, ma'am,' said Curdie. 'Please, am I to go now?'
'Yes,' answered the princess, and held out her hand to him.
Curdie took it, trembling with joy. It was a very beautiful hand
- not small, very smooth, but not very soft - and just the same to
his fire-taught touch that it was to his eyes. He would have stood
there all night holding it if she had not gentlywithdrawn it.
'I will provide you a servant,' she said, 'for your journey and to
wait upon you afterward.'
'But where am I to go, ma'am, and what am I to do? You have given
me no message to carry, neither have you said what I am wanted for.
I go without a notion whether I am to walk this way or that, or
what I am to do when I get I don't know where.'
'Curdie!' said the princess, and there was a tone of reminder in
his own name as she spoke it, 'did I not tell you to tell your
father and mother that you were to set out for the court? And you
know that lies to the north. You must learn to use far less direct
directions than that. You must not be like a dull servant that
needs to be told again and again before he will understand. You
have orders enough to start with, and you will find, as you go on,
and as you need to know, what you have to do. But I warn you that
perhaps it will not look the least like what you may have been
fancying I should require of you. I have one idea of you and your
work, and you have another. I do not blame you for that - you
cannot help it yet; but you must be ready to let my idea, which
sets you working, set your idea right. Be true and honest and
fearless, and all shall go well with you and your work, and all
with whom your work lies, and so with your parents - and me too,
Curdie,' she added after a little pause.
The young miner bowed his head low, patted the strange head that
lay at the princess's feet, and turned away. As soon as he passed
the spinning wheel, which looked, in the midst of the glorious
room, just like any wheel you might find in a country cottage - old
and worn and dingy and dusty - the splendour of the place vanished,
and he saw but the big bare room he seemed at first to have
entered, with the moon - the princess's moon no doubt - shining in
at one of the windows upon the spinning wheel.
CHAPTER 9
Hands
Curdie went home, pondering much, and told everything to his father
and mother. As the old princess had said, it was now their turn to
find what they heard hard to believe. if they had not been able to
trust Curdie himself, they would have refused to believe more than
the half of what he reported, then they would have refused that
half too, and at last would most likely for a time have disbelieved
in the very existence of the princess, what evidence their own
senses had given them notwithstanding.
For he had nothing conclusive to show in proof of what he told
them. When he held out his hands to them, his mother said they
looked as if he had been washing them with soft soap, only they did
smell of something nicer than that, and she must allow it was more
like roses than anything else she knew. His father could not see
any difference upon his hands, but then it was night, he said, and
their poor little lamp was not enough for his old eyes. As to the
feel of them, each of his own hands, he said, was hard and horny
enough for two, and it must be the fault of the dullness of his own
thick skin that he felt no change on Curdie's palms.
'Here, Curdie,' said his mother, 'try my hand, and see what beast's
paw lies inside it.'
'No, Mother,' answered Curdie, half beseeching, half indignant, 'I
will not insult my new gift by making pretence to try it. That
would be mockery. There is no hand within yours but the hand of a
true woman, my mother.'
'I should like you just to take hold of my hand though,' said his
mother. 'You are my son, and may know all the bad there is in me.'
Then at once Curdie took her hand in his. And when he had it, he
kept it, stroking it gently with his other hand.
'Mother,' he said at length, 'your hand feels just like that of the
princess.'
'What! My horny, cracked, rheumatic old hand, with its big joints,
and its short nails all worn down to the quick with hard work -
like the hand of the beautiful princess! Why, my child, you will
make me fancy your fingers have grown very dull indeed, instead of
sharp and delicate, if you talk such nonsense. Mine is such an
ugly hand I should be ashamed to show it to any but one that loved
me. But love makes all safe - doesn't it, Curdie?'
'Well, Mother, all I can say is that I don't feel a roughness, or
a crack, or a big joint, or a short nail. Your hand feels just and
exactly, as near as I can recollect, and it's not more than two
hours since I had it in mine - well, I will say, very like indeed
to that of the old princess.'
'Go away, you flatterer,' said his mother, with a smile that showed
how she prized the love that lay beneath what she took for its
hyperbole. The praise even which one cannot accept is sweet from
a true mouth. 'If that is all your new gift can do, it won't make
a warlock of you,' she added.
'Mother, it tells me nothing but the truth,' insisted Curdie,
'however unlike the truth it may seem. it wants no gift to tell
what anybody's outside hands are like. But by it I know your
inside hands are like the princess's.'
'And I am sure the boy speaks true,' said Peter. 'He only says
about your hand what I have known ever so long about yourself,
Joan. Curdie, your mother's foot is as pretty a foot as any lady's
in the land, and where her hand is not so pretty it comes of
killing its beauty for you and me, my boy. And I can tell you
more, Curdie. I don't know much about ladies and gentlemen, but I
am sure your inside mother must be a lady, as her hand tells you,
and I will try to say how I know it. This is how: when I forget
myself looking at her as she goes about her work - and that happens
often as I grow older - I fancy for a moment or two that I am a
gentleman; and when I wake up from my little dream, it is only to
feel the more strongly that I must do everything as a gentleman
should. I will try to tell you what I mean, Curdie. If a
gentleman - I mean a real gentleman, not a pretended one, of which
sort they say there are a many above ground - if a real gentleman
were to lose all his money and come down to work in the mines to
get bread for his family - do you think, Curdie, he would work like
the lazy ones? Would he try to do as little as he could for his
wages? I know the sort of the true gentleman pretty near as well
as he does himself. And my wife, that's your mother, Curdie, she's
a true lady, you may take my word for it, for it's she that makes
me want to be a true gentleman. Wife, the boy is in the right
about your hand.'
'Now, Father, let me feel yours,' said Curdie, daring a little
more.
'No, no, my boy,' answered Peter. 'I don't want to hear anything
about my hand or my head or my heart. I am what I am, and I hope
growing better, and that's enough. No, you shan't feel my hand.
You must go to bed, for you must start with the sun.'
It was not as if Curdie had been leaving them to go to prison, or
to make a fortune, and although they were sorry enough to lose him,
they were not in the least heartbroken or even troubled at his
going.
As the princess had said he was to go like the poor man he was,
Curdie came down in the morning from his little loft dressed in his
working clothes. His mother, who was busy getting his breakfast
for him, while his father sat reading to her out of an old book,
would have had him put on his holiday garments, which, she said,
would look poor enough among the fine ladies and gentlemen he was
going to. But Curdie said he did not know that he was going among
ladies and gentlemen, and that as work was better than play, his
workday clothes must on the whole be better than his playday
Clothes; and as his father accepted the argument, his mother gave
in. When he had eaten his breakfast, she took a pouch made of
goatskin, with the long hair on it, filled it with bread and
cheese, and hung it over his shoulder. Then his father gave him a
stick he had cut for him in the wood, and he bade them good-bye
rather hurriedly, for he was afraid of breaking down. As he went
out he caught up his mattock and took it with him. It had on the
one side a pointed curve of strong steel for loosening the earth
and the ore, and on the other a steel hammer for breaking the
stones and rocks. just as he crossed the threshold the sun showed
the first segment of his disc above the horizon.
CHAPTER 10
The Heath
He had to go to the bottom of the hill to get into a country he
could cross, for the mountains to the north were full of
precipices, and it would have been losing time to go that way. Not
until he had reached the king's house was it any use to turn
northwards. Many a look did he raise, as he passed it, to the dove
tower, and as long as it was in sight, but he saw nothing of the
lady of the pigeons.
On and on he fared, and came in a few hours to a country where
there were no mountains more - only hills, with great stretches of
desolate heath. Here and there was a village, but that brought him
little pleasure, for the people were rougher and worse mannered
than those in the mountains, and as he passed through, the children
came behind and mocked him.
'There's a monkeyrunning away from the mines!' they cried.
Sometimes their parents came out and encouraged them.
'He doesn't want to find gold for the king any longer - the
lazybones!' they would say. 'He'll be well taxed down here though,
and he won't like that either.'
But it was little to Curdie that men who did not know what he was
about should not approve of his proceedings. He gave them a merry
answer now and then, and held diligently on his way. When they got
so rude as nearly to make him angry, he would treat them as he used
to treat the goblins, and sing his own songs to keep out their
foolish noises. Once a child fell as he turned to run away after
throwing a stone at him. He picked him up, kissed him, and carried
him to his mother. The woman had run out in terror when she saw
the strange miner about, as she thought, to take vengeance on her
boy. When he put him in her arms, she blessed him, and Curdie went
on his way rejoicing.
And so the day went on, and the evening came, and in the middle of
a great desolate heath he began to feel tired, and sat down under
an ancient hawthorn, through which every now and then a lone wind
that seemed to come from nowhere and to go nowhither sighed and
hissed. It was very old and distorted. There was not another tree
for miles all around. it seemed to have lived so long, and to have
been so torn and tossed by the tempests on that moor, that it had
at last gathered a wind of its own, which got up now and then,
tumbled itself about, and lay down again.
Curdie had been so eager to get on that he had eaten nothing since
his breakfast. But he had had plenty of water, for Many little
streams had crossed his path. He now opened the wallet his mother
had given him, and began to eat his supper. The sun was setting.
'Tell them that tomorrow morning you must set out for the court -
not like a great man, but just as poor as you are. They had better
not speak about it. Tell them also that it will be a long time
before they hear of you again, but they must not lose heart. And
tell your father to lay that stone I gave him at night in a safe
place - not because of the greatness of its price, although it is
such an emerald as no prince has in his crown, but because it will
be a news-bearer between you and him. As often as he gets at all
anxious about you, he must take it and lay it in the fire, and
leave it there when he goes to bed. In the morning he must find it
in the ashes, and if it be as green as ever, then all goes well
with you; if it have lost colour, things go ill with you; but if it
be very pale indeed, then you are in great danger, and he must come
to me.'
'Yes, ma'am,' said Curdie. 'Please, am I to go now?'
'Yes,' answered the princess, and held out her hand to him.
Curdie took it, trembling with joy. It was a very beautiful hand
- not small, very smooth, but not very soft - and just the same to
his fire-taught touch that it was to his eyes. He would have stood
there all night holding it if she had not gentlywithdrawn it.
'I will provide you a servant,' she said, 'for your journey and to
wait upon you afterward.'
'But where am I to go, ma'am, and what am I to do? You have given
me no message to carry, neither have you said what I am wanted for.
I go without a notion whether I am to walk this way or that, or
what I am to do when I get I don't know where.'
'Curdie!' said the princess, and there was a tone of reminder in
his own name as she spoke it, 'did I not tell you to tell your
father and mother that you were to set out for the court? And you
know that lies to the north. You must learn to use far less direct
directions than that. You must not be like a dull servant that
needs to be told again and again before he will understand. You
have orders enough to start with, and you will find, as you go on,
and as you need to know, what you have to do. But I warn you that
perhaps it will not look the least like what you may have been
fancying I should require of you. I have one idea of you and your
work, and you have another. I do not blame you for that - you
cannot help it yet; but you must be ready to let my idea, which
sets you working, set your idea right. Be true and honest and
fearless, and all shall go well with you and your work, and all
with whom your work lies, and so with your parents - and me too,
Curdie,' she added after a little pause.
The young miner bowed his head low, patted the strange head that
lay at the princess's feet, and turned away. As soon as he passed
the spinning wheel, which looked, in the midst of the glorious
room, just like any wheel you might find in a country cottage - old
and worn and dingy and dusty - the splendour of the place vanished,
and he saw but the big bare room he seemed at first to have
entered, with the moon - the princess's moon no doubt - shining in
at one of the windows upon the spinning wheel.
CHAPTER 9
Hands
Curdie went home, pondering much, and told everything to his father
and mother. As the old princess had said, it was now their turn to
find what they heard hard to believe. if they had not been able to
trust Curdie himself, they would have refused to believe more than
the half of what he reported, then they would have refused that
half too, and at last would most likely for a time have disbelieved
in the very existence of the princess, what evidence their own
senses had given them notwithstanding.
For he had nothing conclusive to show in proof of what he told
them. When he held out his hands to them, his mother said they
looked as if he had been washing them with soft soap, only they did
smell of something nicer than that, and she must allow it was more
like roses than anything else she knew. His father could not see
any difference upon his hands, but then it was night, he said, and
their poor little lamp was not enough for his old eyes. As to the
feel of them, each of his own hands, he said, was hard and horny
enough for two, and it must be the fault of the dullness of his own
thick skin that he felt no change on Curdie's palms.
'Here, Curdie,' said his mother, 'try my hand, and see what beast's
paw lies inside it.'
'No, Mother,' answered Curdie, half beseeching, half indignant, 'I
will not insult my new gift by making pretence to try it. That
would be mockery. There is no hand within yours but the hand of a
true woman, my mother.'
'I should like you just to take hold of my hand though,' said his
mother. 'You are my son, and may know all the bad there is in me.'
Then at once Curdie took her hand in his. And when he had it, he
kept it, stroking it gently with his other hand.
'Mother,' he said at length, 'your hand feels just like that of the
princess.'
'What! My horny, cracked, rheumatic old hand, with its big joints,
and its short nails all worn down to the quick with hard work -
like the hand of the beautiful princess! Why, my child, you will
make me fancy your fingers have grown very dull indeed, instead of
sharp and delicate, if you talk such nonsense. Mine is such an
ugly hand I should be ashamed to show it to any but one that loved
me. But love makes all safe - doesn't it, Curdie?'
'Well, Mother, all I can say is that I don't feel a roughness, or
a crack, or a big joint, or a short nail. Your hand feels just and
exactly, as near as I can recollect, and it's not more than two
hours since I had it in mine - well, I will say, very like indeed
to that of the old princess.'
'Go away, you flatterer,' said his mother, with a smile that showed
how she prized the love that lay beneath what she took for its
hyperbole. The praise even which one cannot accept is sweet from
a true mouth. 'If that is all your new gift can do, it won't make
a warlock of you,' she added.
'Mother, it tells me nothing but the truth,' insisted Curdie,
'however unlike the truth it may seem. it wants no gift to tell
what anybody's outside hands are like. But by it I know your
inside hands are like the princess's.'
'And I am sure the boy speaks true,' said Peter. 'He only says
about your hand what I have known ever so long about yourself,
Joan. Curdie, your mother's foot is as pretty a foot as any lady's
in the land, and where her hand is not so pretty it comes of
killing its beauty for you and me, my boy. And I can tell you
more, Curdie. I don't know much about ladies and gentlemen, but I
am sure your inside mother must be a lady, as her hand tells you,
and I will try to say how I know it. This is how: when I forget
myself looking at her as she goes about her work - and that happens
often as I grow older - I fancy for a moment or two that I am a
gentleman; and when I wake up from my little dream, it is only to
feel the more strongly that I must do everything as a gentleman
should. I will try to tell you what I mean, Curdie. If a
gentleman - I mean a real gentleman, not a pretended one, of which
sort they say there are a many above ground - if a real gentleman
were to lose all his money and come down to work in the mines to
get bread for his family - do you think, Curdie, he would work like
the lazy ones? Would he try to do as little as he could for his
wages? I know the sort of the true gentleman pretty near as well
as he does himself. And my wife, that's your mother, Curdie, she's
a true lady, you may take my word for it, for it's she that makes
me want to be a true gentleman. Wife, the boy is in the right
about your hand.'
'Now, Father, let me feel yours,' said Curdie, daring a little
more.
'No, no, my boy,' answered Peter. 'I don't want to hear anything
about my hand or my head or my heart. I am what I am, and I hope
growing better, and that's enough. No, you shan't feel my hand.
You must go to bed, for you must start with the sun.'
It was not as if Curdie had been leaving them to go to prison, or
to make a fortune, and although they were sorry enough to lose him,
they were not in the least heartbroken or even troubled at his
going.
As the princess had said he was to go like the poor man he was,
Curdie came down in the morning from his little loft dressed in his
working clothes. His mother, who was busy getting his breakfast
for him, while his father sat reading to her out of an old book,
would have had him put on his holiday garments, which, she said,
would look poor enough among the fine ladies and gentlemen he was
going to. But Curdie said he did not know that he was going among
ladies and gentlemen, and that as work was better than play, his
workday clothes must on the whole be better than his playday
Clothes; and as his father accepted the argument, his mother gave
in. When he had eaten his breakfast, she took a pouch made of
goatskin, with the long hair on it, filled it with bread and
cheese, and hung it over his shoulder. Then his father gave him a
stick he had cut for him in the wood, and he bade them good-bye
rather hurriedly, for he was afraid of breaking down. As he went
out he caught up his mattock and took it with him. It had on the
one side a pointed curve of strong steel for loosening the earth
and the ore, and on the other a steel hammer for breaking the
stones and rocks. just as he crossed the threshold the sun showed
the first segment of his disc above the horizon.
CHAPTER 10
The Heath
He had to go to the bottom of the hill to get into a country he
could cross, for the mountains to the north were full of
precipices, and it would have been losing time to go that way. Not
until he had reached the king's house was it any use to turn
northwards. Many a look did he raise, as he passed it, to the dove
tower, and as long as it was in sight, but he saw nothing of the
lady of the pigeons.
On and on he fared, and came in a few hours to a country where
there were no mountains more - only hills, with great stretches of
desolate heath. Here and there was a village, but that brought him
little pleasure, for the people were rougher and worse mannered
than those in the mountains, and as he passed through, the children
came behind and mocked him.
'There's a monkeyrunning away from the mines!' they cried.
Sometimes their parents came out and encouraged them.
'He doesn't want to find gold for the king any longer - the
lazybones!' they would say. 'He'll be well taxed down here though,
and he won't like that either.'
But it was little to Curdie that men who did not know what he was
about should not approve of his proceedings. He gave them a merry
answer now and then, and held diligently on his way. When they got
so rude as nearly to make him angry, he would treat them as he used
to treat the goblins, and sing his own songs to keep out their
foolish noises. Once a child fell as he turned to run away after
throwing a stone at him. He picked him up, kissed him, and carried
him to his mother. The woman had run out in terror when she saw
the strange miner about, as she thought, to take vengeance on her
boy. When he put him in her arms, she blessed him, and Curdie went
on his way rejoicing.
And so the day went on, and the evening came, and in the middle of
a great desolate heath he began to feel tired, and sat down under
an ancient hawthorn, through which every now and then a lone wind
that seemed to come from nowhere and to go nowhither sighed and
hissed. It was very old and distorted. There was not another tree
for miles all around. it seemed to have lived so long, and to have
been so torn and tossed by the tempests on that moor, that it had
at last gathered a wind of its own, which got up now and then,
tumbled itself about, and lay down again.
Curdie had been so eager to get on that he had eaten nothing since
his breakfast. But he had had plenty of water, for Many little
streams had crossed his path. He now opened the wallet his mother
had given him, and began to eat his supper. The sun was setting.
- prince [´prins]
n.王子；亲王；君主 (初中英语单词) - princess [,prin´ses] n.公主；王妃；亲王夫人 (初中英语单词)
- gently [´dʒentli] ad.温和地；静静地 (初中英语单词)
- working [´wə:kiŋ] a.工人的；劳动的 (初中英语单词)
- cottage [´kɔtidʒ] n.村舍；小屋；小别墅 (初中英语单词)
- existence [ig´zistəns] n.存在；生存；生活 (初中英语单词)
- insult [in´sʌlt, ´insʌlt] n.&vt.侮辱；损害 (初中英语单词)
- delicate [´delikət] a.精美的；微妙的 (初中英语单词)
- ashamed [ə´ʃeimd] a.惭愧；不好意思 (初中英语单词)
- unlike [,ʌn´laik] a.不同的 prep.不象... (初中英语单词)
- strongly [´strɔŋli] ad.强烈地；强有力地 (初中英语单词)
- reading [´ri:diŋ] n.(阅)读；朗读；读物 (初中英语单词)
- holiday [´hɔlidi] n.假日，假期，节日 (初中英语单词)
- argument [´ɑ:gjumənt] n.辩论；争论；论证 (初中英语单词)
- pointed [´pɔintid] a.尖(锐)的；中肯的 (初中英语单词)
- hammer [´hæmə] n.锤子 v.重击 (初中英语单词)
- monkey [´mʌŋki] n.猴子 v.乱弄；胡闹 (初中英语单词)
- running [´rʌniŋ] a.奔跑的；流动的 (初中英语单词)
- approve [ə´pru:v] v.赞成；同意；批准 (初中英语单词)
- diligently [´dilidʒəntli] ad.勤奋地 (初中英语单词)
- terror [´terə] n.恐怖；惊骇 (初中英语单词)
- greatness [´greitnis] n.巨大；高尚；卓越 (高中英语单词)
- spinning [´spiniŋ] n.纺织 a.纺织品的 (高中英语单词)
- pretence [pri´tens] n.假装；托词；无理要求 (高中英语单词)
- nonsense [´nɔnsəns] n.胡说 int.胡说!废话 (高中英语单词)
- threshold [´θreʃhəuld] n.门槛；入门；开端 (高中英语单词)
- vengeance [´vendʒəns] n.报复，复仇 (高中英语单词)
- desolate [´desəleit] a.荒凉的；孤独的 (高中英语单词)
- nowhere [´nəuweə] n.无处；不知道 (高中英语单词)
- emerald [´emərəld] n.纯绿宝石；翠绿色 (英语四级单词)
- withdrawn [wið´drɔ:n] withdraw过去分词 (英语四级单词)
- indignant [in´dignənt] a.义愤的，愤慨的 (英语四级单词)
- recollect [rekə´lekt] v.重新集合；恢复 (英语四级单词)
- daring [´deəriŋ] a.&n.勇敢(的) (英语四级单词)
- hurriedly [´hʌridli] ad.仓促地，忙乱地 (英语四级单词)
- blessed [´blesid] a.享福的；神圣的 (英语四级单词)
- wallet [´wɑ:lit] n.(放钞票等的)皮夹子 (英语四级单词)
- setting [´setiŋ] n.安装；排字；布景 (英语四级单词)
- holding [´həuldiŋ] n.保持，固定，存储 (英语六级单词)
- reminder [ri´maində] n.提醒物；纪念品；暗示 (英语六级单词)
- mockery [´mɔkəri] n.嘲笑；笑柄 (英语六级单词)
- cracked [krækt] a.有裂缝的；碎的；粗哑 (英语六级单词)
- segment [´segmənt] n.部分；段；弓形 (英语六级单词)
- hawthorn [´hɔ:θɔ:n] n.山楂(属) (英语六级单词)
文章标签:名著
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