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1、【国外文学】弗洛斯河上的磨坊 The Mill on the FlossBook I: Boy and Girl Chapter I: Outside Dorlcote MillA wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace. On this mighty tide the black ships
2、laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, or with the dark glitter of coal are borne along to the town of St. Oggs, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river-brink, tingeing the water wi
3、th a soft purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch the rich pastures, and the patches of dark earth made ready for the seed of broad-leaved green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still o
4、f last years golden clusters of beehive-ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees; the distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by the red-roofed tow
5、n the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who is deaf and loving. I remember tho
6、se large dipping willows. I remember the stone bridge.And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at perhaps th
7、e chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house.
8、As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water here among the wi
9、thes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the drier world above.The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. They are like a great curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world beyond. And now there
10、 is the thunder of the huge covered wagon coming home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is thinking of his dinner, getting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour; but he will not touch it till he has fed his horses the strong, submissive, meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild repr
11、oach at him from between their blinkers, that he should crack his whip at them in that awful manner as if they needed that hint! See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near home. Look at their grand shaggy feet that seem to g
12、rasp the firm earth, at the patient strength of their necks, bowed under the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their struggling haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their hardly earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks freed from the harness, dipping their eager
13、 nostrils into the muddy pond. Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at a swifter pace, and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at the turning behind the trees.Now I can turn my eyes toward the mill again, and watch the unresting wheel sending out its diamond jets of water. That li
14、ttle girl is watching it too; she has been standing on just the same spot at the edge of the water ever since I paused on the bridge. And that queer white cur with the brown ear seems to be leaping and barking in ineffectual remonstrance with the wheel; perhaps he is jealous because his playfellow i
15、n the beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement. It is time the little playfellow went in, I think; and there is a very bright fire to tempt her: the red light shines out under the deepening gray of the sky. It is time, too, for me to leave off resting my arms on the cold stone of this bridge. . . .A
16、h, my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the arms of my chair, and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill, as it looked one February afternoon many years ago. Before I dozed off, I was going to tell you what Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver were talking ab
17、out, as they sat by the bright fire in the left-hand parlor, on that very afternoon I have been dreaming of.Chapter II: Mr. Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution about Tom“What I want, you know,” said Mr. Tulliver “what I want is to give Tom a good eddication; an eddication asll be a b
18、read to him. That was what I was thinking of when I gave notice for him to leave the academy at Lady-day. I mean to put him to a downright good school at Midsummer. The two years at th academy ud ha done well enough, if Id meant to make a miller and farmer of him, for hes had a fine sight more schoo
19、lin nor I ever got. All the learnin my father ever paid for was a bit o birch at one end and the alphabet at th other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard, so as he might be up to the tricks o these fellows as talk fine and write with a flourish. It ud be a help to me wi these lawsuits,
20、and arbitrations, and things. I wouldnt make a downright lawyer o the lad I should be sorry for him to be a raskill but a sort o engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or one o them smartish businesses as are all profits and no outlay, only for a big watch-chain and a hig
21、h stool. Theyre pretty nigh all one, and theyre not far off being even wi the law, I believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem i the face as hard as one cat looks another. Hes none frightened at him.”Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blond comely woman in a fan-shaped cap (I am afraid to think ho
22、w long it is since fan-shaped caps were worn, they must be so near coming in again. At that time, when Mrs. Tulliver was nearly forty, they were new at St. Oggs, and considered sweet things).“Well, Mr. Tulliver, you know best: Ive no objections. But hadnt I better kill a couple o fowl, and have th a
23、unts and uncles to dinner next week, so as you may hear what sister Glegg and sister Pullet have got to say about it? Theres a couple o fowl wants killing!”“You may kill every fowl i the yard if you like, Bessy; but I shall ask neither aunt nor uncle what Im to do wi my own lad,” said Mr. Tulliver,
24、defiantly.“Dear heart!” said Mrs. Tulliver, shocked at this sanguinary rhetoric, “how can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? But its your way to speak disrespectful o my family; and sister Glegg throws all the blame upome, though Im sure Im as innocent as the babe unborn. For nobodys ever heard me say as it
25、 wasnt lucky for my children to have aunts and uncles as can live independent. Howiver, if Toms to go to a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and mend him; else he might as well have calico as linen, for theyd be one as yallow as th other before theyd been washed half-a-dozen t
26、imes. And then, when the box is goin backard and forrard, I could send the lad a cake, or a pork-pie, or an apple; for he can do with an extry bit, bless him! whether they stint him at the meals or no. My children can eat as much victuals as most, thank God!”“Well, well, we wont send him out o reach
27、 o the carriers cart, if other things fit in,” said Mr. Tulliver. “But you mustnt put a spoke i the wheel about the washin, if we cant get a school near enough. Thats the fault I have to find wi you, Bessy; if you see a stick i the road, youre allays thinkin you cant step over it. Youd want me not t
28、o hire a good wagoner, cause hed got a mole on his face.”“Dear heart!” said Mrs. Tulliver, in mild surprise, “when did I iver make objections to a man because hed got a mole on his face? Im sure Im rether fond o the moles; for my brother, as is dead an gone, had a mole on his brow. But I cant rememb
29、er your iver offering to hire a wagoner with a mole, Mr. Tulliver. There was John Gibbs hadnt a mole on his face no more nor you have, an I was all for having you hire him; an so you did hire him, an if he hadnt died o th inflammation, as we paid Dr. Turnbull for attending him, hed very like ha been
30、 drivin the wagon now. He might have a mole somewhere out o sight, but how was I to know that, Mr. Tulliver?”“No, no, Bessy; I didnt mean justly the mole; I meant it to stand for summat else; but niver mind its puzzling work, talking is. What Im thinking on, is how to find the right sort o school to
31、 send Tom to, for I might be taen in again, as Ive been wi th academy. Ill have nothing to do wi a cademy again: whativer school I send Tom to, it shant be a cademy; it shall be a place where the lads spend their time i summat else besides blacking the familys shoes, and getting up the potatoes. Its
32、 an uncommon puzzling thing to know what school to pick.”Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands into his breeches pockets as if he hoped to find some suggestion there. Apparently he was not disappointed, for he presently said, “I know what Ill do: Ill talk it over wi Riley; h
33、es coming to-morrow, t arbitrate about the dam.”“Well, Mr. Tulliver, Ive put the sheets out for the best bed, and Kezias got em hanging at the fire. They arent the best sheets, but theyre good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he who he will; for as for them best Holland sheets, I should repent buy
34、ing em, only theyll do to lay us out in. An if you was to die to-morrow, Mr. Tulliver, theyre mangled beautiful, an all ready, an smell o lavender as it ud be a pleasure to lay em out; an they lie at the left-hand corner o the big oak linen-chest at the back: not as I should trust anybody to look em
35、 out but myself.”As Mrs. Tulliver uttered the last sentence, she drew a bright bunch of keys from her pocket, and singled out one, rubbing her thumb and finger up and down it with a placid smile while she looked at the clear fire. If Mr. Tulliver had been a susceptible man in his conjugal relation,
36、he might have supposed that she drew out the key to aid her imagination in anticipating the moment when he would be in a state to justify the production of the best Holland sheets. Happily he was not so; he was only susceptible in respect of his right to water-power; moreover, he had the marital hab
37、it of not listening very closely, and since his mention of Mr. Riley, had been apparently occupied in a tactile examination of his woollen stockings.“I think Ive hit it, Bessy,” was his first remark after a short silence. “Rileys as likely a man as any to know o some school; hes had schooling himsel
38、f, an goes about to all sorts o places, arbitratin and vallyin and that. And we shall have time to talk it over to-morrow night when the business is done. I want Tom to be such a sort o man as Riley, you know as can talk pretty nigh as well as if it was all wrote out for him, and knows a good lot o
39、words as dont mean much, so as you cant lay hold of em i law; and a good solid knowledge o business too.”“Well,” said Mrs. Tulliver, “so far as talking proper, and knowing everything, and walking with a bend in his back, and setting his hair up, I shouldnt mind the lad being brought up to that. But
40、them fine-talking men from the big towns mostly wear the false shirt-fronts; they wear a frill till its all a mess, and then hide it with a bib; I know Riley does. And then, if Toms to go and live at Mudport, like Riley, hell have a house with a kitchen hardly big enough to turn in, an niver get a f
41、resh egg for his breakfast, an sleep up three pair o stairs or four, for what I know and be burnt to death before he can get down.”“No, no,” said Mr. Tulliver, “Ive no thoughts of his going to Mudport: I mean him to set up his office at St. Oggs, close by us, an live at home. But,” continued Mr. Tul
42、liver after a pause, “what Im a bit afraid on is, as Tom hasnt got the right sort o brains for a smart fellow. I doubt hes a bit slowish. He takes after your family, Bessy.”“Yes, that he does,” said Mrs. Tulliver, accepting the last proposition entirely on its own merits; “hes wonderful for liking a
43、 deal o salt in his broth. That was my brothers way, and my fathers before him.”“It seems a bit a pity, though,” said Mr. Tulliver, “as the lad should take after the mothers side instead o the little wench. Thats the worst ont wi crossing o breeds: you can never justly calkilate whatll come ont. The
44、 little un takes after my side, now: shes twice as cute as Tom. Too cute for a woman, Im afraid,” continued Mr. Tulliver, turning his head dubiously first on one side and then on the other. “Its no mischief much while shes a little un; but an over-cute womans no better nor a long-tailed sheep shell
45、fetch none the bigger price for that.”“Yes, it is a mischief while shes a little un, Mr. Tulliver, for it runs to naughtiness. How to keep her in a clean pinafore two hours together passes my cunning. An now you put me i mind,” continued Mrs. Tulliver, rising and going to the window, “I dont know wh
46、ere she is now, an its pretty nigh tea-time. Ah, I thought so wanderin up an down by the water, like a wild thing: Shell tumble in some day.”Mrs. Tulliver rapped the window sharply, beckoned, and shook her head a process which she repeated more than once before she returned to her chair.“You talk o
47、cuteness, Mr. Tulliver,” she observed as she sat down, “but Im sure the childs half an idiot i some things; for if I send her upstairs to fetch anything, she forgets what shes gone for, an perhaps ull sit down on the floor i the sunshine an plait her hair an sing to herself like a Bedlam creatur, al
48、l the while Im waiting for her downstairs. That niver run i my family, thank God! no more nor a brown skin as makes her look like a mulatter. I dont like to fly i the face o Providence, but it seems hard as I should have but one gell, an her so comical.”“Pooh, nonsense!” said Mr. Tulliver; “shes a straight, black-eyed wench as anybody need wish to see. I dont know i what shes behind other folkss children; and she can read almost as well as the parson.”“But her hair wont curl all I can do with it, and shes so franzy about having it put i paper, and Ive