酷兔英语
    当前位置:
  1. 首页
  2. 文章
  3. 娱乐英语
  4. 原版小说
  5. 正文

Sylvie and Bruno-Part6_Lewis Carrol(1832-1898)_English Literature(文学名著)-第2页

0 收藏 0 分享 0 赞

章节正文
文章总共2页


to look grave. "At least--you didn't say it--you shouted it!"

"I'm very sorry," was all I could say, feeling very penitent and



helpless. "She has Sylvie's eyes!" I thought to myself, half-doubting

whether, even now, I were fairly awake. "And that sweet look of



innocent wonder is all Sylvie's too. But Sylvie hasn't got that calm

resolute mouth nor that far-away look of dreamysadness, like one that



has had some deep sorrow, very long ago--" And the thick-coming

fancies almost prevented my hearing the lady's next words.



"If you had had a 'Shilling Dreadful' in your hand," she proceeded,

"something about Ghosts or Dynamite or Midnight Murder--one could



understand it: those things aren't worth the shilling, unless they give

one a Nightmare. But really--with only a medical treatise,



you know--" and she glanced, with a pretty shrug of contempt,

at the book over which I had fallen asleep.



Her friendliness, and utter unreserve, took me aback for a moment;

yet there was no touch of forwardness, or boldness, about the child for



child, almost, she seemed to be: I guessed her at scarcely over

twenty--all was the innocentfrankness of some angelic visitant,



new to the ways of earth and the conventionalisms or, if you will,

the barbarisms--of Society. "Even so," I mused, "will Sylvie look and



speak, in another ten years."

"You don't care for Ghosts, then," I ventured to suggest, unless they



are really terrifying?"

"Quite so," the lady assented. "The regular Railway-Ghosts--I mean



the Ghosts of ordinary Railway-literature--are very poor affairs.

I feel inclined to say, with Alexander Selkirk, 'Their tameness is



shocking to me'! And they never do any Midnight Murders.

They couldn't 'welter in gore,' to save their lives!"



"'Weltering in gore' is a very expressivephrase, certainly.

Can it be done in any fluid, I wonder?"



"I think not," the lady readily replied--quite as if she had thought

it out, long ago. "It has to be something thick. For instance, you



might welter in bread-sauce. That, being white, would be more suitable

for a Ghost, supposing it wished to welter!"



"You have a real good terrifying Ghost in that book?" I hinted.

"How could you guess?" she exclaimed with the most engaging frankness,



and placed the volume in my hands. I opened it eagerly, with a not

unpleasant thrill like what a good ghost-story gives one) at the



'uncanny' coincidence of my having so unexpectedly divined the subject

of her studies.



It was a book of Domestic Cookery, open at the article Bread Sauce.'

I returned the book, looking, I suppose, a little blank, as the lady



laughed merrily at my discomfiture. "It's far more exciting than some

of the modern ghosts, I assure you! Now there was a Ghost last



month--I don't mean a real Ghost in in Supernature--but in a

Magazine. It was a perfectly flavourless Ghost. It wouldn't have



frightened a mouse! It wasn't a Ghost that one would even offer a chair

to!"



"Three score years and ten, baldness, and spectacles, have their

advantages after all!", I said to myself. "Instead of a bashful youth



and maiden, gasping out monosyllables at awful intervals, here we have

an old man and a child, quite at their ease, talking as if they had



known each other for years! Then you think," I continued aloud,

"that we ought sometimes to ask a Ghost to sit down? But have we any



authority for it? In Shakespeare, for instance--there are plenty of

ghosts there--does Shakespeare ever give the stage-direction 'hands



chair to Ghost'?"

The lady looked puzzled and thoughtful for a moment: then she almost



clapped her hands. "Yes, yes, he does!" she cried.

"He makes Hamlet say 'Rest, rest, perturbed Spirit!"'



"And that, I suppose, means an easy-chair?"

"An American rocking-chair, I think--"



"Fayfield Junction, my Lady, change for Elveston!" the guard announced,

flinging open the door of the carriage: and we soon found ourselves,



with all our portable property around us, on the platform.

The accommodation, provided for passengers waiting at this Junction,



was distinctly inadequate--a single wooden bench, apparently intended

for three sitters only: and even this was already partially occupied by



a very old man, in a smock frock, who sat, with rounded shoulders and

drooping head, and with hands clasped on the top of his stick so as to



make a sort of pillow for that wrinkled face with its look of patient




文章总共2页
文章标签:名著  

章节正文
Copyright © 2023 Qeto All rights reserved.
商务合作 | 联系我们 | 关于我们 | 版权声明 | 隐私条款 | 如果智培

京ICP备05059198号-1 京公网安备 11011202003401号