作者：（美）弗朗西丝·霍奇森·伯内特
出版社：清华大学出版社
格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT
小公主试读：
前言
弗朗西丝·霍奇森·伯内特(Frances Hodgson Burnett，1849-1924)，美国著名的儿童文学家和剧作家。
1849年11月24日，伯内特生于英国的曼彻斯特市，1865年随全家移民至美国田纳西州。父亲早逝，家境贫寒，从18岁开始在杂志上发表故事，贴补家用。1877年，伯内特出版了第一部小说《劳瑞家的那闺女》，该书取材于幼年她在英国煤矿的生活，该书一出版便成为当时最畅销的小说之一。1886年，出版了小说《小爵爷》，描写一个美国小男孩成为英国伯爵继承人的故事，该书让伯内特成为当时最畅销、最富有的畅销书作家之一。1905年，伯内特出版了《小公主》，该书通过一位遭遇家庭变故，善良、美丽的印度富家千金的成长和生活经历，讲述一个关于财富、地位以及人生态度的故事。1909年，当她在纽约长岛布置自己家花园的时候，突发灵感，构思出《秘密花园》，该书于1911年出版，成为当时英国和美国最畅销童话图书。她的许多作品被改编为电影、电视剧、动画片、音乐剧和话剧，这其中包括《小少爷方特罗伊》、《小公主》和《秘密花园》。伯内特一生共出版了40多部小说，许多作品入选英国、美国、加拿大、澳大利亚等国中小学课文，而真正使她名扬世界是她的儿童文学作品。
在伯内特的所有作品中，《小公主》是最重要的代表作之一，同时也是她最成功的儿童文学作品。《小公主》于1939年在美国被拍成电影，且由当时红极一时的童星秀兰·邓波儿主演，并获得巨大成功，而已经逝世的伯内特的声誉也由此达到巅峰。这部催人泪下的作品被看作是一剂抚慰人心的良药，它激起了人们对于人性的关注与深思。“成长中的内心秘密”，或者说，“伴随着内心秘密的成长”一直是弗朗西斯·霍奇森·伯内特作品的永恒主题，这位影响了整个二十世纪的女作家，她对“成长”中那种内心获得的力量非常敬畏，这一点在其代表作《小公主》和《秘密花园》中显露无遗，前者的力量来自于磨难和爱，而后者的力量则来自于爱和大自然，伯内特用她那优美、细腻、化普通为神奇的文笔，给这些力量穿上了带有“魔法”色彩的外衣。美国国务卿希拉里·克林顿对《小公主》给予很高的评价，她说：“在我年少的时候，经常会被一种巨大的忧郁笼罩，觉得自己所处的环境糟糕透顶。我经常处于失意和烦躁中，是《小公主》给了我冲出阴影的勇气。《小公主》的确是一本非凡的书，她甚至让我觉得，我自己就是一位来到凡间的公主。”《小公主》的故事感动了一代又一代人，美丽的故事曾经带给了许多人梦想和希望，相信即使在今天，这个故事仍旧能带给你由衷的感动。
在中国，《小公主》同样是最受广大青少年读者欢迎的经典文学作品之一。自20世纪20年代引进中国以来，各种版本总计不下百种。作为世界儿童文学宝库中的经典之作，它影响了一代又一代中国人的美丽童年、少年直至成年。目前，在国内数量众多的《小公主》书籍中，主要的出版形式有两种：一种是中文翻译版，另一种是中英文对照版。其中的中英文对照读本比较受读者的欢迎，这主要得益于中国人热衷于学习英文的大环境。从英文学习的角度来看，直接使用纯英文的学习资料更有利于英语学习。考虑到对英文内容背景的了解有助于英文阅读，使用中文导读应该是一种比较好的方式，也可以说是该类型书的第三种版本形式。采用中文导读而非中英文对照的方式进行编排，这样有利于国内读者摆脱对英文阅读依赖中文注释的习惯。基于以上原因，我们决定编译《小公主》，并采用中文导读英文版的形式出版。在中文导读中，我们尽力使其贴近原作的精髓，也尽可能保留原作简洁、精练、明快的风格。我们希望能够编出为当代中国读者所喜爱的经典读本。读者在阅读英文故事之前，可以先阅读中文导读内容，这样有利于了解故事背景，从而加快阅读速度。同时，为了读者更好地理解故事内容，书中加入了大量的插图。我们相信，该经典著作的引进对加强当代中国读者，特别是青少年读者的人文修养是非常有帮助的。
本书主要内容由王勋、纪飞编译。参加本书故事素材搜集整理及编译工作的还有郑佳、赵雪、左新杲、黄福成、冯洁、徐鑫、马启龙、王业伟、王旭敏、陈楠、王多多、邵舒丽、周丽萍、王晓旭、李永振、孟宪行、熊红华、胡国平、熊建国、徐平国和王小红等。限于我们的文学素养和英语水平，书中难免会有不当之处，衷心希望读者朋友批评指正。
第一章 萨拉 Chapter 1 Sara
导读
在冬日的伦敦街头，小女孩萨拉·克鲁和她的爸爸正在前往闵钦女子私立学校的路上，他们是从印度孟买来的。
萨拉是一个身材高挑纤弱的小姑娘，年龄只有7岁，但是个子要比她的同龄人高，跟军团里的美人儿伊莎贝尔·格雷奇的美截然不同，她有着自己独特的魅力，她的小脸蛋精致而迷人，头发乌黑浓密，只是在发梢上稍稍翘起，虽然绿色的眼珠略带灰色，但却是一双美丽的大眼睛，睫毛又黑又长。
萨拉的爸爸——克鲁上校，是一个富有又英俊的年轻人，也是她在这个世界上唯一的亲人，她的母亲在她出生的时候就去世了。这一对父女之间感情深厚，对于年轻的克鲁上校来说，女儿萨拉就是他的全部，他竭尽所能让他的女儿拥有同龄的孩子都没有的豪华舒适的生活，让他的女儿拥有所想要的一切。
尽管萨拉比起同龄的孩子来说略微有些老成，但是她的一切在她爸爸的眼里都是那么可爱，萨拉对于父亲的依恋也超过了一切。
虽然小萨拉并不喜欢来到英国，可是由于印度的气候并不适应孩子的成长，所以到了一定的年龄他们都会被尽快送走，萨拉当然也不例外。
在见到闵钦女士——学校的女校长之后，萨拉确定自己并不喜欢这个长相体面却很难看还喜欢阿谀奉承的女人，闵钦女士也从介绍人那里知道了萨拉父亲的富有，和他可以为女儿付出全部的事实，这时的她对于小萨拉又多了一层恭维。事实上，萨拉在这里将是“优待寄宿生”，而她会享有比通常的优待生更多的优越待遇。她将会拥有自己单独的漂亮卧室和客厅，一匹小马和马车，还有一个法国的女仆来代替她在印度的保姆。萨拉来到女子学校
萨拉非常喜欢读书，除非别人把她从书本边拖走，否则，她会一直读下去，她喜欢看那些成人的书——不管是英文的、法文的，还是德文的——历史书，传记还有诗歌。
克鲁上校走之前，为自己心爱的小女儿买了一大橱的漂亮名贵的衣服和用具，远远超出了她的所需，他希望自己的女儿在这里的生活能够像在家里一样无忧无虑。他们还一起找遍了大街小巷终于找到了萨拉想要的一个洋娃娃，她管它叫做艾米丽，那是一个可以听她说话的娃娃。因为爸爸走后，可怜的萨拉只能够对着它来诉说自己的心里话了。
在克鲁上校走之前再次叮咛闵钦女士好好照顾自己的女儿，并要求她满足萨拉的每一个要求，其实萨拉是一个很懂事的小女孩，她并不会提出什么过分的要求。
父亲终于走了，小萨拉在送别父亲之后把自己锁在房间里不出来，她非常礼貌地请求闵钦女士让她自己待一会儿，她的举止让所有人都感到非常诧异，尽管她是一个很有礼貌又很有教养的孩子，但是她表现出来的成熟和老气让所有人惊讶。而她所受的待遇更是让人觉得她好像是一位公主，她被作为了闵钦女士的示范生。
Once on a dark winter’s day, when the yellow fog hung so thick and heavy in the streets of London that the lamps were lighted and the shop windows blazed with gas as they do at night, an oddlooking little girl sat in a cab with her father and was driven rather slowly through the big thoroughfares.
She sat with her feet tucked under her, and leaned against her father, who held her in his arm, as she stared out of the window at the passing people with a queer old-fashioned thoughtfulness in her big eyes.
She was such a little girl that one did not expect to see such a look on her small face. It would have been an old look for a child of twelve, and Sara Crewe was only seven. The fact was, however, that she was always dreaming and thinking odd things and could not herself remember any time when she had not been thinking things about grownup people and the world they belonged to. She felt as if she had lived a long, long time.
At this moment she was remembering the voyage she had just made from Bombay with her father, Captain Crewe. She was thinking of the,big ship, of the lascars passing silently to and fro on it, of the children playing about on the hot deck, and of some young officers’ wives who used to try to make her talk to them and laugh at the things she said.
Principally, she was thinking of what a queer thing it was that at one time one was in India in the blazing sun, and then in the middle of the ocean, and then driving in a strange vehicle through strange streets where the day was as dark as the night. She found this so puzzling that she moved closer to her father.
“Papa,” she said in a low, mysterious little voice which was almost a whisper, “papa.”
“What is it, darling?” Captain Crewe answered, holding her closer and looking down into her face. “What is Sara thinking of?”
“Is this the place?”Sara whispered, cuddling still closer to him. “Is it,papa?”
“Yes, little Sara, it is. We have reached it at last.” And though she was only seven years old, she knew that he felt sad when he said it.
It seemed to her many years since he had begun to prepare her mind for “the place,” as she always called it. Her mother had died when she was born, so she had never known or missed her. Her young, handsome, rich, petting father seemed to be the only relation she had in the world. They had always played together and been fond of each other. She only knew he was rich because she had heard people say so when they thought she was not listening, and she had also heard them say that when she grew up she would be rich, too. She did not know all that being rich meant. She had always lived in a beautiful bungalow, and had been used to seeing many servants who made salaams to her and called her “Missee Sahib,” and gave her her own way in everything. She had had toys and pets and an ayah who worshipped her, and she had gradually learned that people who were rich had these things. That,however, was all she knew about it.
During her short life only one thing had troubled her, and that thing was “the place” she was to be taken to some day. The climate of India was very bad for children, and as soon as possible they were sent away from it-generally to England and to school. She had seen other children go away, and had heard their fathers and mothers talk about the letters they received from them. She had known that she would be obliged to go also, and though sometimes her father’s stories of the voyage and the new country had attracted her, she had been troubled by the thought that he could not stay with her.
“Couldn’t you go to that place with me, papa?” she had asked when she was five years old. “Couldn’t you go to school, too? I would help you with your lessons.”
“But you will not have to stay for a very long time, little Sara,” he had always said. “You will go to a nice house where there will be a lot of little girls, and you will play together, and I will send you plenty of books, and you will grow so fast that it will seem scarcely a year before you are big enough and clever enough to come back and take care of papa.”
She had liked to think of that. To keep the house for her father; to ride with him, and sit at the head of his table when he had dinner parties; to talk to him and read his books-that would be what she would like most in the world, and if one must go away to “the place” in England to attain it, she must make up her mind to go. She did not care very much for other little girls, but if she had plenty of books she could console herself. She liked books more than anything else, and was, in fact, always inventing stories of beautiful things and telling them to herself. Sometimes she had told them to her father, and he had liked them as much as she did.
“Well, papa,” she said softly, “if we are here I suppose we must be resigned.”
He laughed at her old-fashioned speech and kissed her. He was really not at all resigned himself, though he knew he must keep that a secret. His quaint little Sara had been a great companion to him,and he felt he should be a lonely fellow when, on his return to India, he went into his bungalow knowing he need not expect to see the small figure in its white frock come forward to meet him. So he held her very closely in his arms as the cab rolled into the big, dull square in which stood the house which was their destination.
It was a big, dull, brick house, exactly like all the others in its row, but that on the front door there shone a brass plate on which was engraved in black letters:MISS MINCHIN,Select Seminary for Young Ladies
“Here we are, Sara,”said Captain Crewe, making his voice sound as cheerful as possible. Then he lifted her out of the cab and they mounted the steps and rang the bell. Sara often thought afterward that the house was somehow exactly like Miss Minchin.It was respectable and wellfurnished, but everything in it was ugly; and the very armchairs seemed to have hard bones in them. In the hall everything was hard and polished-even the red cheeks of the moon face on the tall clock in the corner had a severe varnished look. The drawing room into which they were ushered was covered by a carpet with a square pattern upon it, the chairs were square, and a heavy marble timepiece stood upon the heavy marble mantel.
As she sat down in one of the stiff mahogany chairs, Sara cast one of her quick looks about her.
“I don’t like it,papa,” she said. “But then I dare say soldiers-even brave ones-don’t really like going into battle.”
Captain Crewe laughed outright at this. He was young and full of fun, and he never tired of hearing Sara’s queer speeches.
“Oh, little Sara,” he said. “What shall I do when I have no one to say solemn things to me? No one else is as solemn as you are.”
“But why do solemn things make you laugh so?” inquired Sara.
“Because you are such fun when you say them,” he answered, laughing still more. And then suddenly he swept her into his arms and kissed her very hard, stopping laughing all at once and looking almost as if tears had come into his eyes.克鲁上校走前再次叮咛闵钦女士好好照顾自己的女儿
It was just then that Miss Minchin entered the room. She was very like her house, Sara felt: tall and dull, and respectable and ugly. She had large, cold, fishy eyes, and a large, cold, fishy smile. It spread itself into a very large smile when she saw Sara and Captain Crewe. She had heard a great many desirable things of the young soldier from the lady who had recommended her school to him. Among other things, she had heard that he was a rich father who was willing to spend a great deal of money on his little daughter.
“It will be a great privilege to have charge of such a beautiful and promising child, Captain Crewe,” she said, taking Sara’s hand and stroking it. “Lady Meredith has told me of her unusual cleverness. A clever child is a great treasure in an establishment like mine.”
Sara stood quietly, with her eyes fixed upon Miss Minchin’s face. She was thinking something odd, as usual.
“Why does she say I am a beautiful child?” she was thinking. “I am not beautiful at all. Colonel Grange’s little girl, Isobel, is beautiful. She has dimples and rose-colored cheeks, and long hair the color of gold. I have short black hair and green eyes; besides which, I am a thin child and not fair in the least. I am one of the ugliest children I ever saw. She is beginning by telling a story.”
She was mistaken, however, in thinking she was an ugly child. She was not in the least like Isobel Grange, who had been the beauty of the regiment, but she had an odd charm of her own. She was a slim, supple creature, rather tall for her age, and had an intense, attractive little face. Her hair was heavy and quite black and only curled at the tips;her eyes were greenish gray, it is true, but they were big, wonderful eyes with long, black lashes, and though she herself did not like the color of them, many other people did. Still she was very firm in her belief that she was an ugly little girl, and she was not at all elated by Miss Minchin’s flattery.
“I should be telling a story if I said she was beautiful,” she thought, “and I should know I was telling a story. I believe I am as ugly as she is-in my way. What did she say that for?”
After she had known Miss Minchin longer she learned why she had said it. She discovered that she said the same thing to each papa and mamma who brought a child to her school.
Sara stood near her father and listened while he and Miss Minchin talked. She had been brought to the seminary because Lady Meredith’s two little girls had been educated there,and Captain Crewe had a great respect for Lady Meredith’s experience. Sara was to be what was known as “a parlor boarder,” and she was to enjoy even greater privileges than parlor boarders usually did. She was to have a pretty bedroom and sitting room of her own; she was to have a pony and a carriage, and a maid to take the place of the ayah who had been her nurse in India.
“I am not in the least anxious about her education,” Captain Crewe said, with his gay laugh, as he held Sara’s hand and patted it. “The difficulty will be to keep her from learning too fast and too much. She is always sitting with her little nose burrowing into books. She doesn’t read them, Miss Minchin; she gobbles them up as if she were a little wolf instead of a little girl. She is always starving for new books to gobble, and she wants grownup books-great, big, fat ones-French and German as well as English-history and biography and poets, and all sorts of things. Drag her away from her books when she reads too much. Make her ride her pony in the Row or go out and buy a new doll. She ought to play more with dolls.”
“Papa,” said Sara, “you see, if I went out and bought a new doll every few days I should have more than I could be fond of. Dolls ought to be intimate friends. Emily is going to be my intimate friend.”
Captain Crewe looked at Miss Minchin and Miss Minchin looked at Captain Crewe.
“Who is Emily?” she inquired.
“Tell her, Sara,”Captain Crewe said, smiling.
Sara’s green-gray eyes looked very solemn and quite soft as she answered.
“She is a doll I haven’t got yet,” she said. “She is a doll papa is going to buy for me. We are going out together to find her. I have called her Emily. She is going to be my friend when papa is gone. I want her to talk to about him.”
Miss Minchin’s large,fishy smile became very flattering indeed.
“What an original child!” she said. “What a darling little creature!”
“Yes,” said Captain Crewe, drawing Sara close. “She is a darling little creature. Take great care of her for me, Miss Minchin.”
Sara stayed with her father at his hotel for several days; in fact, she remained with him until he sailed away again to India. They went out and visited many big shops together, and bought a great many things. They bought, indeed, a great many more things than Sara needed;but Captain Crewe was a rash, innocent young man and wanted his little girl to have everything she admired and everything he admired himself, so between them they collected a wardrobe much too grand for a child of seven. There were velvet dresses trimmed with costly furs, and lace dresses, and embroidered ones, and hats with great, soft ostrich feathers, and ermine coats and muffs,and boxes of tiny gloves and handkerchiefs and silk stockings in such abundant supplies that the polite young women behind the counters whispered to each other that the odd little girl with the big, solemn eyes must be at least some foreign princess-perhaps the little daughter of an Indian rajah.
And at last they found Emily, but they went to a number of toy shops and looked at a great many dolls before they discovered her.
“I want her to look as if she wasn’t a doll really,” Sara said. “I want her to look as if she listens when I talk to her. The trouble with dolls, papa”-and she put her head on one side and reflected as she said it-“the trouble with dolls is that they never seem to bear.” So they looked at big ones and little ones-at dolls with black eyes and dolls with blue-at dolls with brown curls and dolls with golden braids, dolls dressed and dolls undressed.
“You see,” Sara said when they were examining one who had no clothes. “If,when I find her, she has no frocks, we can take her to a dressmaker and have her things made to fit. They will fit better if they are tried on.”
After a number of disappointments they decided to walk and look in at the shop windows and let the cab follow them.They had passed two or three places without even going in, when, as they were approaching a shop which was really not a very large one, Sara suddenly started and clutched her father’s arm.
“Oh, papa!” she cried. “There is Emily!”
A flush had risen to her face and there was an expression in her green-gray eyes as if she had just recognized someone she was intimate with and fond of.
“She is actually waiting there for us!” she said. “Let us go in to her.”
“Dear me,” said Captain Crewe, “I feel as if we ought to have someone to introduce us.”
“You must introduce me and I will introduce you,” said Sara. “But I knew her the minute I saw her-so perhaps she knew me, too.”
Perhaps she had known her. She had certainly a very intelligent expression in her eyes when Sara took her in her arms. She was a large doll, but not too large to carry about easily; she had naturally curling golden-brown hair, which hung like a mantle about her, and her eyes were a deep, clear, gray-blue, with soft, thick eyelashes which were real eyelashes and not mere painted lines.
“Of course,” said Sara, looking into her face as she held her on her knee, “of course papa, this is Emily.”
So Emily was bought and actually taken to a children’s outfitter’s shop and measured for a wardrobe as grand as Sara’s own. She had lace frocks, too, and velvet and muslin and ones, and hats and coats and beautiful lace-trimmed underclothes, and gloves and handkerchiefs and furs.
“I should like her always to look as if she was a child with a good mother,” said Sara. “I’m her mother, though I am going to make a companion of her.”
Captain Crewe would really have enjoyed the shopping tremendously, but that a sad thought kept tugging at his heart. This all meant that he was going to be separated from his beloved, quaint little comrade.
He got out of his bed in the middle of that night and went and stood looking down at Sara, who lay asleep with Emily in her arms. Her black hair was spread out on the pillow and Emily’s golden-brown hair mingled with it, both of them had lace-ruffled nightgowns, and both had long eyelashes which lay and curled up on their cheeks. Emily looked so like a real child that Captain Crewe felt glad she was there. He drew a big sigh and pulled his mustache with a boyish expression.
“Heigh-ho, little Sara!” he said to himself. “I don’t believe you know how much your daddy will miss you.”
The next day he took her to Miss Minchin’s and left her there. He was to sail away the next morning. He explained to Miss Minchin that his solicitors, Messrs. Barrow & Skipworth,had charge of his affairs in England and would give her any advice she wanted,and that they would pay the bills she sent in for Sara’s expenses. He would write to Sara twice a week, and she was to be given every pleasure she asked for.
“She is a sensible little thing, and she never wants anything it isn’t safe to give her,” he said.
Then he went with Sara into her little sitting room and they bade each other good-bye. Sara sat on his knee and held the lapels of his coat in her small hands, and looked long and hard at his face.
“Are you learning me by heart, little Sara?” he said, stroking her hair.
“No,” she answered. “I know you by heart. You are inside my heart.” And they put their arms round each other and kissed as if they would never let each other go.
When the cab drove away from the door, Sara was sitting on the floor of her sitting room, with her hands under her chin and her eyes following it until it had turned the corner of the square. Emily was sitting by her, and she looked after it, too. When Miss Minchin sent her sister, Miss Amelia, to see what the child was doing, she found she could not open the door.
“I have locked it,”said a queer, polite little voice from inside. “I want to be quite by myself, if you please.”
Miss Amelia was fat and dumpy, and stood very much in awe of her sister. She was really the better-natured person of the two,but she never disobeyed Miss Minchin. She went downstairs again, looking almost alarmed.
“I never saw such a funny, old-fashioned child, sister,” she said. “She has locked herself in, and she is not making the least particle of noise.”
“It is much better than if she kicked and screamed, as some of them do,” Miss Minchin answered. “I expected that a child as much spoiled as she is would set the whole house in an uproar. If ever a child was given her own way in everything,she is.”
“I’ve been opening her trunks and putting her things away,” said Miss Amelia. “I never saw anything like them-sable and ermine on her coats, and real Valenciennes lace on her underclothing. You have seen some of her clothes. What do you think of them?”
“I think they are perfectly ridiculous,” replied Miss Minchin, sharply, “but they will look very well at the head of the line when we take the schoolchildren to church on Sunday. She has been provided for as if she were a little princess.”
And upstairs in the locked room Sara and Emily sat on the floor and stared at the corner round which the cab had disappeared, while Captain Crewe looked backward, waving and kissing his hand as if he could not bear to stop.
第二章 法语课 Chapter 2 A French Lesson
导读
当萨拉第一次走进教室的时候，所有人的目光都聚集在她的身上，大家都知道她来自遥远的印度，家里非常富有，有着许多漂亮的衣裙和他们都没有的优厚待遇，还有一个法国女仆，在他们眼中，这一切都是那么神奇，那么不可思议，仿佛是一个遥远国家的公主突然出现在他们的眼前，他们看着她，在下面窃窃私语着，谈论着她的衣着和神情。
而萨拉对于这一切反倒没有感到有什么不自在，她反而饶有兴趣地看着那些望着她的孩子们，在想着关于他们的一切。她是一个爱幻想的孩子，她坚持认为她的洋娃娃一定会听懂她的话，就在她的女仆玛瑞蒂给娃娃束好头发，穿好衣服的时候，她拿了一本书放在它的手里，她觉得艾米丽肯定会在他们不在的时候下来活动的，她不希望它寂寞。
而玛瑞蒂也非常喜欢这个有点古怪的小女孩，她以前也照看过其他的孩子，但是没有一个像她这么有礼貌。萨拉的确是一个很有教养的孩子，对人说话总是带着温柔感激的语气，她真的是一个让人怜爱的可人儿。
现在回到课堂上来，在闵钦女士向同学们介绍了萨拉的情况之后，给她安排了一个座位，她的座位就在闵钦女士的旁边，尽管她自己并不喜欢，但是这也许是示范生的另一个优待吧！闵钦女士把萨拉交给了法语老师
对于萨拉的法国女仆，萨拉觉得这只是她的父亲觉得她会喜欢而雇佣的，但是闵钦女士显然不同意这一观点，她坚持认为这是萨拉的爸爸希望她能够学好法语而雇的，同时，她还认为萨拉是一个被娇惯坏的孩子。
在课堂上，闵钦女士认为萨拉并不会讲法语，并且不允许萨拉有什么解释，其实小萨拉是会讲的，这也许是受父母的熏陶。可是很显然，闵钦女士有点生气了，她把可怜的小萨拉交给她的法语老师杜法其先生——那是一个非常可敬而睿智的中年人，小萨拉被武断的闵钦女士描述成了一个不爱学习、不懂礼貌的坏小孩，萨拉非常委屈，她抬起头望着杜法其先生的脸，似乎在无声地哀求他。她知道只要她一开口说话，他就会全部明白了，她虽然没有经过什么特殊的法语训练，但是她所生活的环境让她对于这个美丽的语言早已熟知了，甚至于她早已认得了闵钦女士发给她的法语书上的那些词汇了。
她开口说话了，她用优美的声音说着如此简洁、美丽的法语，让杜法其先生觉得自己似乎是回到了故乡法国，而不是身处大雾弥漫的英国。闵钦女士却觉得非常愤怒，她觉得自己的权威遭到了前所未有的挑战，可是，当时她确实没有允许萨拉解释，在愤怒的同时她又看到下面的其他学生都在听，还在偷笑，她简直被激怒了，从那一刻起，她开始对她的示范生怀恨在心。
When Sara entered the schoolroom the next morning everybody looked at her with wide, interested eyes. By that time every pupil-from Lavinia Herbert, who was nearly thirteen and felt quite grown up, to Lottie Legh, who was only just four and the baby of the school-had heard a great deal about her. They knew very certainly that she was Miss Minchin’s show pupil and was considered a credit to the establishment. One or two of them had even caught a glimpse of her French maid, Mariette, who had arrived the evening before. Lavinia had managed to pass Sara’s room when the door was open, and had seen Mariette opening a box which had arrived late from some shop.
“It was full of petticoats with lace frills on them-frills and frills,” she whispered to her friend Jessie as she bent over her geography. “I saw her shaking them out. I heard Miss Minchin say to Miss Amelia that her clothes were so grand that they were ridiculous for a child. My mamma says that children should be dressed simply. She has got one of those petticoats on now. I saw it when she sat down.”
“She has silk stockings on!” whispered Jessie, bending over her geography also. “And what little feet! I never saw such little feet.”
“Oh,” sniffed Lavinia, spitefully, “that is the way her slippers are made. My mamma says that even big feet can be made to look small if you have a clever shoemaker. I don’t think she is pretty at all.Her eyes are such a queer color.”
“She isn’t pretty as other pretty people are,” said Jessie, stealing a glance across the room, “but she makes you want to look at her again. She has tremendously long eyelashes, but her eyes are almost green.”
Sara was sitting quietly in her seat, waiting to be told what to do. She had been placed near Miss Minchin’s desk. She was not abashed at all by the many pairs of eyes watching her. She was interested and looked back quietly at the children who looked at her. She wondered what they were thinking of, and if they liked Miss Minchin, and if they cared for their lessons, and if any of them had a papa at all like her own. She had had a long talk with Emily about her papa that morning.
“He is on the sea now, Emily,” she had said. “We must be very great friends to each other and tell each other things. Emily, look at me. You have the nicest eyes I ever saw-but I wish you could speak.”
She was a child full of imaginings and whimsical thoughts, and one of her fancies was that there would be a great deal of comfort in even pretending that Emily was alive and really heard and understood. After Mariette had dressed her in her dark-blue schoolroom frock and tied her hair with a dark-blue ribbon, she went to Emily, who sat in a chair of her own, and gave her a book.
“You can read that while I am downstairs,” she said; and seeing Mariette looking at her curiously, she spoke to her with a serious little face.
“What I believe about dolls,” she said, “is that they can do things they will not let us know about. Perhaps, really, Emily can read and talk and walk,but she will only do it when people are out of the room. That is her secret.You see, if people knew that dolls could do things, they would make them work.So, perhaps, they have promised each other to keep it a secret. If you stay in the room, Emily will just sit there and stare; but if you go out, she will begin to read, perhaps, or go and look out of the window. Then if she heard either of us coming, she would just run back and jump into her chair and pretend she had been there all the time.”
“Comme elle est dr?le!’’ Mariette said to herself, and when she went downstairs she told the head housemaid about it. But she had already begun to like this odd little girl who had such an intelligent small face and such perfect manners. She had taken care of children before who were not so polite. Sara was a very fine little person, and had a gentle, appreciative way of saying, “If you please, Mariette,” “Thank you, Mariette,” which was very charming. Mariette told the head housemaid that she thanked her as if she was thanking a lady.
“Elle al’air d’une princesse, cette petite,” she said.Indeed, she was very much pleased with her new little mistress and liked her place greatly.
After Sara had sat in her seat in the schoolroom for a few minutes, being looked at by the pupils, Miss Minchin rapped in a dignified manner upon her desk.
“Young ladies,” she said, “I wish to introduce you to your new companion.” All the little girls rose in their places, and Sara rose also. “I shall expect you all to be very agreeable to Miss Crewe; she has just come to us from a great distance-in fact, from India. As soon as lessons are over you must make each other’s acquaintance.”
The pupils bowed ceremoniously, and Sara made a little curtsy, and then they sat down and looked at each other again.
“Sara,” said Miss Minchin in her schoolroom manner, “come here to me.”
She had taken a book from the desk and was turning over its leaves. Sara went to her politely.
“As your papa has engaged a French maid for you,” she began, “I conclude that he wishes you to make a special study of the French language.”
Sara felt a little awkward.
“I think he engaged her,” she said, “because he-he thought I would like her, Miss Minchin.”
“I am afraid,” said Miss Minchin, with a slightly sour smile, “that you have been a very spoiled little girl and always imagine that things are done because you like them. My impression is that your papa wished you to learn French.”
If Sara had been older or less punctilious about being quite polite to people, she could have explained herself in a very few words. But, as it was, she felt a flush rising on her cheeks. Miss Minchin was a very severe and imposing person, and she seemed so absolutely sure that Sara knew nothing whatever of French that she felt as if it would be almost rude to correct her. The truth was that Sara could not remember the time when she had not seemed to know French. Her father had often spoken it to her when she had been a baby. Her mother had been a French woman, and Captain Crewe had loved her language, so it happened that Sara had always heard and been familiar with it.
“I-I have never really learned French,but-but-” she began, trying shyly to make herself clear.
One of Miss Minchin’s chief secret annoyances was that she did not speak French herself, and was desirous of concealing the irritating fact. She, therefore, had no intention of discussing the matter and laying herself open to innocent questioning by a new little pupil.
“That is enough,” she said with polite tartness. “If you have not learned,you must begin at once. The French master, Monsieur Dufarge, will be here in a few minutes. Take this book and look at it until he arrives.”
Sara’s cheeks felt warm. She went back to her seat and opened the book. She looked at the first page with a grave face. She knew it would be rude to smile, and she was very determined not to be rude. But it was very odd to find herself expected to study a page which told her that “le père” meant “the father,” and “la mere” meant “the mother.”她开口说话了，她用优美的声音说着这么简洁、美丽的法语，让杜法其先生觉得自己似乎是回到了故乡法国，而不是身处大雾弥漫的英国
Miss Minchin glanced toward her scrutinizingly.
“You look rather cross, Sara,” she said. “I am sorry you do not like the idea of learning French.”
“I am very fond of it,” answered Sara, thinking she would try again, “but-”
“You must not say ‘but’ when you are told to do things,” said Miss Minchin. “Look at your book again.”
And Sara did so, and did not smile, even when she found that “le fils” meant “the son,” and “le frère” meant “the brother.”
“When Monsieur Dufarge comes,” she thought, “I can make him understand.”
Monsieur Dufarge arrived very shortly afterward. He was a very nice, intelligent, middle-aged Frenchman, and he looked interested when his eyes fell upon Sara trying politely to seem absorbed in her little book of phrases.
“Is this a new pupil for me, madame?” he said to Miss Minchin. “I hope that is my good fortune.”
“Her papa-Captain Crewe-is very anxious that she should begin the language. But I am afraid she has a childish prejudice against it. She does not seem to wish to learn,” said Miss Minchin.
“I am sorry of that, mademoiselle,” he said kindly to Sara. “Perhaps, when we begin to study together, I may show you that it is a charming tongue.”
Little Sara rose in her seat. She was beginning to feel rather desperate, as if she were almost in disgrace. She looked up into Monsieur Dufarge’s face with her big, green-gray eyes,and they were quite innocently appealing. She knew that he would understand as soon as she spoke. She began to explain quite simply in pretty and fluent French. Madame had not understood. She had not learned French exactly-not out of books-but her papa and other people had always spoken it to her, and she had read it and written it as she had read and written English. Her papa loved it,and she loved it because he did. Her dear mamma, who had died when she was born, had been French. She would be glad to learn anything monsieur would teach her, but what she had tried to explain to madame was that she already knew the words in this book-and she held out the little book of phrases.
When she began to speak Miss Minchin started quite violently and sat staring at her over her eyeglasses, almost indignantly,until she had finished. Monsieur Dufarge began to smile, and his smile was one of great pleasure. To hear this pretty childish voice speaking his own language so simply and charmingly made him feel almost as if he were in his native land-which in dark, foggy days in London sometimes seemed worlds away. When she had finished, he took the phrase book from her, with a look almost affectionate. But he spoke to Miss Minchin.
“Ah, madame,” he said, “there is not much I can teach her. She has not Learned French; she is French. Her accent is exquisite.”
“You ought to have told me,” exclaimed Miss Minchin, much mortified, turning to Sara.
“I-I tried,” said Sara. “I-I suppose I did not begin right.”
Miss Minchin knew she had tried, and that it had not been her fault that she was not allowed to explain. And when she saw that the pupils had been listening and that Lavinia and Jessie were giggling behind their French grammars, she felt infuriated.
“Silence, young ladies!” she said severely, rapping upon the desk. “Silence at once!”
And she began from that minute to feel rather a grudge against her show pupil.
第三章 厄门加德 Chapter 3 Ermengarde
导读
当萨拉坐定之后，她很快就注意到一个和她年龄相仿的女孩正在全神贯注地看着她，她的那双浅蓝色的眼睛颇显迟钝，她长得胖胖的，看上去一点都不聪明，但是外翘的嘴唇让她看起来既温和又敦厚。她亚麻色的头发用丝带紧紧地在脑后扎了一个发辫，她把辫子绕过脖子拖到胸前，嘴里咬着丝带，胳膊肘撑在桌子上，她自己对于法语的学习非常吃力，看到有一个和她的年龄相仿的女孩儿能用这么流利的法语来和老师交谈，感到很吃惊，也很佩服。
可是，她对萨拉的关注惹怒了憋了一肚子火没处发的闵钦女士，她把心里对于萨拉的愤怒全都发泄到了她的身上，厉声呵斥了她。
这位闵钦女士口中的圣约翰小姐听到对自己的呵斥，非常羞愧，满脸通红，眼睛里蓄满了泪水。萨拉看到了，很为她打抱不平，她一贯行侠仗义，看到有人在吵架或是在冲突中受了委屈、伤心了，就想冲上前去帮他们。
在课堂上，萨拉注意到这位圣约翰小姐的功课简直是一塌糊涂，她的发音让杜法其先生都不禁笑了出来。可是看到其他同学对她的嗤笑，萨拉甚至觉得有点气愤了，她觉得他们不应该这样嘲笑她。下课之后，萨拉主动结识了圣约翰小姐
下课之后，萨拉主动结识了圣约翰小姐，她叫圣约翰·厄门加德，她有一位非常聪明并且知识渊博的父亲，这使得可怜的厄门加德从小就被迫读许多的书，但是她又很笨，花费很大工夫学到的一点点东西会很快忘记，于是这样就会经常受到父亲的训斥，她的父亲甚至要求闵钦女士要强迫她学习。
善良的萨拉非常同情她的遭遇，她带她来到她的住所，让她认识了艾米丽，厄门加德非常喜欢艾米丽，萨拉还给她讲自己在印度的生活和乘船在海上的所见所闻，更让厄门加德着迷的是她对于洋娃娃的幻想。
萨拉还和她讲自己心爱的爸爸，并说她爱她的爸爸胜过爱这个世界十倍，这些对于厄门加德来说都是不可思议的，就算是和爸爸单独呆上十分钟她也会想办法逃避。
厄门加德很喜欢她的新朋友萨拉，希望做她的好朋友，萨拉也很喜欢她，最后两个人成了好朋友，萨拉还主动帮助厄门加德学习法语。
On that first morning, when Sara sat at Miss Minchin’s side, aware that the whole schoolroom was devoting itself to observing her, she had noticed very soon one little girl,about her own age, who looked at her very hard with a pair of light, rather dull, blue eyes. She was a fat child who did not look as if she were in the least clever, but she had a good-naturedly pouting mouth. Her flaxen hair was braided in a tight pigtail, tied with a ribbon, and she had pulled this pigtail around her neck, and was biting the end of the ribbon, resting her elbows on the desk, as she stared wonderingly at the new pupil. When Monsieur Dufarge began to speak to Sara, she looked a little frightened; and when Sara stepped forward and, looking at him with the innocent, appealing eyes, answered him,without any warning, in French, the fat little girl gave a startled jump, and grew quite red in her awed amazement. Having wept hopeless tears for weeks in her efforts to remember that “la mère” meant “the mother,” and “le père,” “the father”-when one spoke sensible English-it was almost too much for her suddenly to find herself listening to a child her own age who seemed not only quite familiar with these words, but apparently knew any number of others, and could mix them up with verbs as if they were mere trifles.
She stared so hard and bit the ribbon on her pigtail so fast that she attracted the attention of Miss Minchin, who, feeling extremely cross at the moment, immediately pounced upon her.
“Miss St. John!” she exclaimed severely. “What do you mean by such conduct?Remove your elbows! Take your ribbon out of your mouth! Sit up at once!”
Upon which Miss St. John gave another jump,and when Lavinia and Jessie tittered she became redder than ever-so red,indeed, that she almost looked as if tears were coming into her poor, dull,childish eyes; and Sara saw her and was so sorry for her that she began rather to like her and want to be her friend. It was a way of hers always to want to spring into any fray in which someone was made uncomfortable or unhappy.
“If Sara had been a boy and lived a few centuries ago,” her father used to say, “she would have gone about the country with her sword drawn, rescuing and defending everyone in distress. She always wants to fight when she sees people in trouble.”
So she took rather a fancy to fat, slow,little Miss St.John, and kept glancing toward her through the morning. She saw that lessons were no easy matter to her, and that there was no danger of her ever being spoiled by being treated as a show pupil. Her French lesson was a pathetic thing. Her pronunciation made even Monsieur Dufarge smile in spite of himself, and Lavinia and Jessie and the more fortunate girls either giggled or looked at her in wondering disdain. But Sara did not laugh. She tried to look as if she did not hear when Miss St. John called “le bon pain,” “lee bongpang.” She had a fine, hot little temper of her own, and it made her feel rather savage when she heard the titters and saw the poor, stupid, distressed child’s face.
“It isn’t funny,really,” she said between her teeth, as she bent over her book. “They ought not to laugh.”
When lessons were over and the pupils gathered together in groups to talk, Sara looked for Miss St. John, and finding her bundled rather disconsolately in a windowseat, she walked over to her and spoke. She only said the kind of thing little girls always say to each other by way of beginning an acquaintance, but there was something friendly about Sara,and people always felt it.
“What is your name?”she said.
To explain Miss St. John’s amazement one must recall that a new pupil is, for a short time, a somewhat uncertain thing; and of this new pupil the entire school had talked the night before until it fell asleep quite exhausted by excitement and contradictory stories. A new pupil with a carriage and a pony and a maid, and a voyage from India to discuss, was not an ordinary acquaintance.
“My name’s Ermengarde St. John,” she answered.
“Mine is Sara Crewe,”said Sara. “Yours is very pretty. It sounds like a story book.”
“Do you like it?”fluttered Ermengarde. “I-I like yours.”
Miss St. John’s chief trouble in life was that she had a clever father. Sometimes this seemed to her a dreadful calamity. If you have a father who knows everything, who speaks seven or eight languages, and has thousands of volumes which he has apparently learned by heart, he frequently expects you to be familiar with the contents of your lesson books at least; and it is not improbable that he will feel you ought to be able to remember a few incidents of history and to write a French exercise. Ermengarde was a severe trial to Mr. St. John. He could not understand how a child of his could be a notably and unmistakably dull creature who never shone in anything.
“Good heavens!” he had said more than once, as he stared at her, “there are times when I think she is as stupid as her Aunt Eliza!”
If her Aunt Eliza had been slow to learn and quick to forget a thing entirely when she had learned it, Ermengarde was strikingly like her. She was the monumental dunce of the school, and it could not be denied.
“She must be made to learn,” her father said to Miss Minchin.
Consequently Ermengarde spent the greater part of her life in disgrace or in tears. She learned things and forgot them;or, if she remembered them, she did not understand them. So it was natural that, having made Sara’s acquaintance, she should sit and stare at her with profound admiration.
“You can speak French, can’t you?” she said respectfully.
Sara got on to the window-seat, which was a big, deep one, and, tucking up her feet, sat with her hands clasped round her knees.
“I can speak it because I have heard it all my life,” she answered. “You could speak it if you had always heard it.”
“Oh, no, I couldn’t,” said Ermengarde. “I never could speak it!”
“Why?” inquired Sara,curiously.
Ermengarde shook her head so that the pigtail wobbled.
“You heard me just now,” she said. “I’m always like that. I can’t say the words. They’re so queer.”
She paused a moment, and then added with a touch of awe in her voice, “You are clever, aren’t you?”
Sara looked out of the window into the dingy square, where the sparrows were hopping and twittering on the wet, iron railings and the sooty branches of the trees. She reflected a few moments. She had heard it said very often that she was “clever,” and she wondered if she was-and if she was, how it had happened.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I can’t tell.” Then, seeing a mournful look on the round,chubby face, she gave a little laugh and changed the subject.
“Would you like to see Emily?” she inquired.
“Who is Emily?”Ermengarde asked, just as Miss Minchin had done.
“Come up to my room and see,” said Sara, holding out her hand.
They jumped down from the window-seat together, and went upstairs.
“Is it true,”Ermengarde whispered, as they went through the hall-“is it true that you have a playroom all to yourself?.”
“Yes,” Sara answered.“Papa asked Miss Minchin to let me have one,because-well, it was because when I play I make up stories and tell them to myself, and I don’t like people to hear me. It spoils it if I think people listen.”
They had reached the passage leading to Sara’s room by this time, and Ermengarde stopped short, staring, and quite losing her breath.
“You make up stories!” she gasped. “Can you do that-as well as speak French? Can you?”
Sara looked at her in simple surprise.
“Why, anyone can make up things,” she said. “Have you never tried?”
She put her hand warningly on Ermengarde’s.
“Let us go very quietly to the door,” she whispered, “and then I will open it quite suddenly; perhaps we may catch her.”
She was half laughing, but there was a touch of mysterious hope in her eyes which fascinated Ermengarde, though she had not the remotest idea what it meant, or whom it was she wanted to “catch,” or why she wanted to catch her.Whatsoever she meant, Ermengarde was sure it was something delightfully exciting. So, quite thrilled with expectation, she followed her on tiptoe along the passage. They made not the least noise until they reached the door. Then Sara suddenly turned the handle, and threw it wide open. Its opening revealed the room quite neat and quiet, a fire gently burning in the grate, and a wonderful doll sitting in a chair by it, apparently reading a book.
“Oh, she got back to her seat before we could see her!” Sara explained. “Of course they always do. They are as quick as lightning.”
Ermengarde looked from her to the doll and back again.
“Can she-walk?” she asked breathlessly.
“Yes,” answered Sara.“At least I believe she can. At least I pretend I believe she can. And that makes it seem as if it were true. Have you never pretended things?”
“No,” said Ermengarde. “Never. I-tell me about it.”
She was so bewitched by this odd, new companion that she actually stared at Sara instead of at Emily-notwithstanding that Emily was the most attractive doll person she had ever seen.
“Let us sit down,”said Sara, “and I will tell you. It’s so easy that when you begin you can’t stop. You just go on and on doing it always. And it’s beautiful. Emily, you must listen. This is Ermengarde St.John, Emily.Ermengarde, this is Emily. Would you like to hold her?”
“Oh, may I?” said Ermengarde. “May I, really? She is beautiful!” And Emily was put into her arms.
Never in her dull, short life had Miss St.John dreamed of such an hour as the one she spent with the queer new pupil before they heard the lunch bell ring and were obliged to go downstairs.
Sara sat upon the hearth rug and told her strange things. She sat rather huddled up, and her green eyes shone and her cheeks flushed. She told stories of the voyage, and stories of India; but what fascinated Ermengarde the most was her fancy about the dolls who walked and talked, and who could do anything they chose when the human beings were out of the room, but who must keep their powers a secret and so flew back to their places “like lightning” when people returned to the room.
“We couldn’t do it,” said Sara, seriously. “You see, it’s a kind of magic.”
Once, when she was relating the story of the search for Emily, Ermengarde saw her face suddenly change. A cloud seemed to pass over it and put out the light in her shining eyes. She drew her breath in so sharply that it made a funny, sad little sound, and then she shut her lips and held them tightly closed, as if she was determined either to do or not to do something. Ermengarde had an idea that if she had been like any other little girl, she might have suddenly burst out sobbing and crying. But she did not.
“Have you a-a pain?”Ermengarde ventured.
“Yes,” Sara answered,after a moment’s silence. “But it is not in my body.” Then she added something in a low voice which she tried to keep quite steady, and it was this: “Do you love your father more than anything else in all the whole world?”
Ermengarde’s mouth fell open a little. She knew that it would be far from behaving like a respectable child at a select seminary to say that it had never occurred to you that you could love your father, that you would do anything desperate to avoid being left alone in his society for ten minutes. She was, indeed, greatly embarrassed.
“I-I scarcely ever see him,” she stammered. “He is always in the library-reading things.”
“I love mine more than all the world ten times over,” Sara said. “That is what my pain is. He has gone away.”
She put her head quietly down on her little,huddled-up knees, and sat very still for a few minutes.
“She’s going to cry out loud,” thought Ermengarde, fearfully.
But she did not. Her short, black locks tumbled about her ears, and she sat still. Then she spoke without lifting her head.
“I promised him I would bear it,” she said. “And I will. You have to bear things.Think what soldiers bear! Papa is a soldier. If there was a war he would have to bear marching and thirstiness and, perhaps, deep wounds. And he would never say a word-not one word.”
Ermengarde could only gaze at her, but she felt that she was beginning to adore her. She was so wonderful and different from anyone else.
Presently, she lifted her face and shook back her black locks, with a queer little smile.
“If I go on talking and talking,” she said, “and telling you things about pretending, I shall bear it better. You don’t forget,but you bear it better.”
Ermengarde did not know why a lump came into her throat and her eyes felt as if tears were in them.
“Lavinia and Jessie are ‘best friends,’” she said rather huskily. “I wish we could be ‘best friends.’ Would you have me for yours? You’re clever,and I’m the stupidest child in the school, but I-oh, I do so like you!”
“I’m glad of that,” said Sara. “It makes you thankful when you are liked. Yes. We will be friends. And I’ll tell you what”-a sudden gleam lighting her face-“I can help you with your French lessons.”
第四章 洛蒂 Chapter 4 Lottie
导读
萨拉真的是一个谦逊的小姑娘，她在闵钦女士的学校里受到的待遇就好像是一个贵宾，而不仅仅是一个小姑娘，而正是因为她的这种秉性，使得她在这种纵容和奉承下并没有变成一个既自负又专横的孩子。萨拉还是一个非常聪明勤奋的孩子，她自己就可以学习到好多知识，而不像其他孩子那样老是要人催促。
虽然闵钦女士并不喜欢萨拉，但是由于她的存在以及她爸爸的慷慨大方可以给她带来巨额的财富，因此她也乐意给这个孩子更多的耐心，并处处奉承她、讨好她。闵钦女士是一个老练、世故的女人，如果她说一些不中听的话让萨拉产生了想离开这个学校的想法而写信给她的父亲，她的父亲就会觉得自己的女儿在这里受了委屈而把她接走。精明的闵钦女士当然不会傻到这种程度的。
对于这一切，聪明的萨拉当然十分清楚，她也常常和厄门加德说起。
在学校里，拉维纳对萨拉一直都心存着恶意，她觉得是萨拉抢走了她在学校里的地位和荣耀，她其实是一个蛮漂亮的小姑娘，穿着在队伍里也一直都是最考究的，但是这一切只是持续到萨拉来之前，很显然，她为自己感到不平。因为萨拉的善良和纯朴使得她成了队伍里的头儿，萨拉从不像拉维纳一样为难别人，也从不盛气凌人。在学校里，大一点的孩子总是凭借自己在年龄上的优势来欺负年幼的孩子，而萨拉从不，她的身上有一种母性的爱，她经常请她们去她的房间里喝茶。所以小孩子们都很喜欢萨拉。小洛蒂就是其中的一员，她对她的崇拜简直到了一种疯狂的程度了。萨拉安慰小洛蒂
洛蒂是被她不负责任的爸爸送到这里来的，她的妈妈也早就去世了，人们把她当成了一个可爱的宠物来对待，但她是一个令人头疼的小家伙，常常使得房间里充满了尖叫声，人们对她一点办法都没有，只好满足她的一个个的无理要求，这样，反倒使得她找到了一个可以撒娇的好方法。
有一次她又开始哭闹要妈妈了。这一次所有的人都拿她一点办法都没有，阿米莉亚女士——闵钦女士的妹妹，只是会简单地吓唬她，却什么都做不了。
萨拉主动要求帮助洛蒂安静下来，虽然闵钦女士心里不是那么乐意，但是还是谄媚地答应了。然后就留她们两个人在房间里，萨拉对于小洛蒂没有妈妈的事情并不感到奇怪，因为她自己也没有，她以自己豁达的心灵安慰着小洛蒂，她告诉她，她们的妈妈都是身穿白衣的住在天堂的天使，也许在某一个角落里，她们的妈妈正在望着她们呢。这样的描述对于小洛蒂来说还是头一回，她被这美丽的画面迷住了。萨拉还答应作为她的妈妈照顾她。小洛蒂完全把自己交给了这位好心的“妈妈”，而刚刚哭闹的事早就抛在脑后了。从这一天起，萨拉就成了一个领养孩子的母亲。
If Sara had been a different kind of child,the life she led at Miss Minchin’s Select Seminary for the next few years would not have been at all good for her. She was treated more as if she were a distinguished guest at the establishment than as if she were a mere little girl. If she had been a self-opinionated, domineering child,she might have become disagreeable enough to be unbearable through being so much indulged and flattered. If she had been an indolent child, she would have learned nothing. Privately Miss Minchin disliked her, but she was far too worldly a woman to do or say anything which might make such a desirable pupil wish to leave her school. She knew quite well that if Sara wrote to her papa to tell him she was uncomfortable or unhappy, Captain Crewe would remove her at once. Miss Minchin’s opinion was that if a child were continually praised and never forbidden to do what she liked, she would be sure to be fond of the place where she was so treated. Accordingly, Sara was praised for her quickness at her lessons, for her good manners, for her amiability to her fellow pupils, for her generosity if she gave sixpence to a beggar out of her full little purse; the simplest thing she did was treated as if it were a virtue, and if she had not had a disposition and a clever little brain, she might have been a very self-satisfied young person. But the clever little brain told her a great many sensible and true things about herself and her circumstances, and now and then she talked these things over to Ermengarde as time went on.
“Things happen to people by accident,” she used to say. “A lot of nice accidents have happened to me. It just happened that I always liked lessons and books,and could remember things when I learned them. It just happened that I was born with a father who was beautiful and nice and clever, and could give me everything I liked. Perhaps I have not really a good temper at all, but if you have everything you want and everyone is kind to you, how can you help but be good-tempered? I don’t know”-looking quite serious-“how I shall ever find out whether I am really a nice child or a horrid one. Perhaps I’m a hideous child, and no one will ever know, just because I never have any trials.”
“Lavinia has no trials,” said Ermengarde, stolidly, “and she is horrid enough.”
Sara rubbed the end of her little nose reflectively,as she thought the matter over.
“Well,” she said at last, “perhaps-perhaps that is because Lavinia is growing.”
This was the result of a charitable recollection of having heard Miss Amelia say that Lavinia was growing so fast that she believed it affected her health and temper.
Lavinia, in fact, was spiteful. She was inordinately jealous of Sara. Until the new pupil’s arrival, she had felt herself the leader in the school. She had led because she was capable of making herself extremely disagreeable if the others did not follow her. She domineered over the little children, and assumed grand airs with those big enough to be her companions. She was rather pretty, and had been the best-dressed pupil in the procession when the Select Seminary walked out two by two, until Sara’s velvet coats and sable muffs appeared, combined with drooping ostrich feathers, and were led by Miss Minchin at the head of the line. This, at the beginning, had been bitter enough; but as time went on it became apparent that Sara was a leader, too, and not because she could make herself disagreeable, but because she never did.
“There’s one thing about Sara Crewe,” Jessie had enraged her “best friend” by saying honestly, “she’s never ‘grand’ about herself the least bit, and you know she might be, Lavvie. I believe I couldn’t help being-just a little-if I had so many fine things and was made such a fuss over. It’s disgusting, the way Miss Minchin shows her off when parents come.”
“Dear Sara must come into the drawing room and talk to Mrs. Musgrave about India,’” mimicked Lavinia, in her most highly flavored imitation of Miss Minchin. “‘Dear Sara must speak French to Lady Pitkin. Her accent is so perfect.’ She didn’t learn her French at the Seminary, at any rate. And there’s nothing so clever in her knowing it. She says herself she didn’t learn it at all. She just picked it up, because she always heard her papa speak it. And, as to her papa, there is nothing so grand in being an Indian officer.”
“Well,” said Jessie,slowly, “he’s killed tigers. He killed the one in the skin Sara has in her room. That’s why she likes it so. She lies on it and strokes its head, and talks to it as if it was a cat.”
“She’s always doing something silly,” snapped Lavinia. “My mamma says that way of hers of pretending things is silly. She says she will grow up eccentric.”
It was quite true that Sara was never “grand.” She was a friendly little soul, and shared her privileges and belongings with a free hand. The little ones, who were accustomed to being disdained and ordered out of the way by mature ladies aged ten and twelve, were never made to cry by this most envied of them all.She was a motherly young person, and when people fell down and scraped their knees, she ran and helped them up and patted them, or found in her pocket a bonbon or some other article of a soothing nature. She never pushed them out of her way or alluded to their years as a humiliation and a blot upon their small characters.
“If you are four you are four,” she said severely to Lavinia on an occasion of her having-it must be confessed-slapped Lottie and called her “a brat”, “but you will be five next year, and six the year after that. And,” opening large, convicting eyes, “it takes sixteen years to make you twenty.”
“Dear me,” said Lavinia, “how we can calculate!” In fact, it was not to be denied that sixteen and four made twenty-and twenty was an age the most daring were scarcely bold enough to dream of.
So the younger children adored Sara. More than once she had been known to have a tea party, made up of these despised ones, in her own room. And Emily had been played with, and Emily’s own tea service used-the one with cups which held quite a lot of much-sweetened weak tea and had blue flowers on them. No one had seen such a very real doll’s tea set before. From that afternoon Sara was regarded as a goddess and a queen by the entire alphabet class.
Lottie Legh worshipped her to such an extent that if Sara had not been a motherly person, she would have found her tiresome.Lottie had been sent to school by a rather flighty young papa who could not imagine what else to do with her. Her young mother had died, and as the child had been treated like a favorite doll or a very spoiled pet monkey or lap dog ever since the first hour of her life, she was a very appalling little creature. When she wanted anything or did not want anything she wept and howled; and, as she always wanted the things she could not have, and did not want the things that were best for her, her shrill little voice was usually to be heard uplifted in wails in one part of the house or another.
Her strongest weapon was that in some mysterious way she had found out that a very small girl who had lost her mother was a person who ought to be pitied and made much of. She had probably heard some grown-up people talking her over in the early days, after her mother’s death. So it became her habit to make great use of this knowledge.
The first time Sara took her in charge was one morning when, on passing a sitting room, she heard both Miss Minchin and Miss Amelia trying to suppress the angry wails of some child who, evidently,refused to be silenced. She refused so strenuously indeed that Miss Minchin was obliged to almost shout-in a stately and severe manner-to make herself heard.
“What is she crying for?” she almost yelled.
“Oh-oh-oh!” Sara heard, “I haven’t got any mam-ma-a!”
“Oh, Lottie!”screamed Miss Amelia. “Do stop, darling! Don’t cry! Please don’t!”
“Oh! Oh! Oh!” Lottie howled tempestuously. “Haven’t-got-any-roam-ma-a!”
“She ought to be whipped,” Miss Minchin proclaimed. “You shall be whipped, you naughty child!”
Lottie wailed more loudly than ever. Miss Amelia began to cry. Miss Minchin’s voice rose until it almost thundered, then suddenly she sprang up from her chair in impotent indignation and flounced out of the room, leaving Miss Amelia to arrange the matter.
Sara had paused in the hall, wondering if she ought to go into the room, because she had recently begun a friendly acquaintance with Lottie and might be able to quiet her. When Miss Minchin came out and saw her, she looked rather annoyed. She realized that her voice, as heard from inside the room, could not have sounded either dignified or amiable.
“Oh, Sara!” she exclaimed, endeavoring to produce a suitable smile.
“I stopped,” explained Sara, “because I knew it was Lottie-and I thought,perhaps-just perhaps, I could make her be quiet. May I try, Miss Minchin?”
“If you can, you are a clever child,” answered Miss Minchin, drawing in her mouth sharply. Then, seeing that Sara looked slightly chilled by her asperity, she changed her manner. “But you are clever in everything,” she said in her approving way. “I dare say you can manage her.Go in.” And she left her.
When Sara entered the room, Lottie was lying upon the floor, screaming and kicking her small fat legs violently, and Miss Amelia was bending over her in consternation and despair, looking quite red and damp with heat. Lottie had always found, when in her own nursery at home, that kicking and screaming would always be quieted by any means she insisted on.Poor plump Miss Amelia was trying first one method, and then another.
“Poor darling,” she said one moment, “I know you haven’t any mamma, poor-”Then in quite another tone, “If you don’t stop,Lottie, I will shake you. Poor little angel! There-! You wicked, bad,detestable child, I will smack you! I will!”
Sara went to them quietly. She did not know at all what she was going to do, but she had a vague inward conviction that it would be better not to say such different kinds of things quite so helplessly and excitedly.
“Miss Amelia,” she said in a low voice, “Miss Minchin says I may try to make her stop-may I?”
Miss Amelia turned and looked at her hopelessly. “Oh, do you think you can?” she gasped.
“I don’t know whether I can,” answered Sara, still in her half-whisper, “but I will try.”萨拉还答应像妈妈那样照顾她
Miss Amelia stumbled up from her knees with a heavy sigh, and Lottie’s fat little legs kicked as hard as ever.
“If you will steal out of the room,” said Sara, “I will stay with her.”
“Oh, Sara!” almost whimpered Miss Amelia. “We never had such a dreadful child before. I don’t believe we can keep her.”
But she crept out of the room, and was very much relieved to find an excuse for doing it.
Sara stood by the howling furious child for a few moments, and looked down at her without saying anything. Then she sat down flat on the floor beside her and waited. Except for Lottie’s angry screams, the room was quite quiet. This was a new state of affairs for little Miss Legh, who was accustomed, when she screamed, to hear other people protest and implore and command and coax by turns. To lie and kick and shriek, and fred the only person near you not seeming to mind in the least,attracted her attention. She opened her tight-shut streaming eyes to see who this person was. And it was only another little girl. But it was the one who owned Emily and all the nice things. And she was looking at her steadily and as if she was merely thinking. Having paused for a few seconds to fred this out,Lottie thought she must begin again, but the quiet of the room and of Sara’s odd, interested face made her first howl rather half-hearted.
“I-haven’t-any-ma-ma-ma-a!” she announced; but her voice was not so strong.
Sara looked at her still more steadily, but with a sort of understanding in her eyes.
“Neither have I,” she said.
This was so unexpected that it was astounding. Lottie actually dropped her legs, gave a wriggle, and lay and stared. A new idea will stop a crying child when nothing else will. Also it was true that while Lottie disliked Miss Minchin, who was cross, and Miss Amelia,who was foolishly indulgent, she rather liked Sara, little as she knew her. She did not want to give up her grievance, but her thoughts were distracted from it, so she wriggled again, and, after a sulky sob, said, “Where is she?”
Sara paused a moment. Because she had been told that her mamma was in heaven, she had thought a great deal about the matter, and her thoughts had not been quite like those of other people.
“She went to heaven,”she said. “But I am sure she comes out sometimes to see me-though I don’t see her. So does yours. Perhaps they can both see us now. Perhaps they are both in this room.”
Lottie sat bolt upright, and looked about her. She was a pretty, little, curly-headed creature, and her round eyes were like wet forget-me-nots. If her mamma had seen her during the last half-hour,she might not have thought her the kind of child who ought to be related to an angel.
Sara went on talking. Perhaps some people might think that what she said was rather like a fairy story, but it was all so real to her own imagination that Lottie began to listen in spite of herself.She had been told that her mamma had wings and a crown, and she had been shown pictures of ladies in beautiful white nightgowns, who were said to be angels.But Sara seemed to be telling a real story about a lovely country where real people were.
“There are fields and fields of flowers,” she said, forgetting herself, as usual, when she began, and talking rather as if she were in a dream, “fields and fields of lilies-and when the soft wind blows over them it wafts the scent of them into the air-and everybody always breathes it, because the soft wind is always blowing. And little children run about in the lily fields and gather armfuls of them, and laugh and make little wreaths. And the streets are shining. And people are never tired, however far they walk. They can float anywhere they like. And there are walls made of pearl and gold all round the city, but they are low enough for the people to go and lean on them, and look down on to the earth and smile, and send beautiful messages.”
whatsoever story she had begun to tell,Lottie would, no doubt, have stopped crying, and been fascinated into listening; but there was no denying that this story was prettier than most others. She dragged herself close to Sara, and drank in every word until the end came-far too soon. When it did come, she was so sorry that she put up her lip ominously.
“I want to go there,”she cried. “I-haven’t any mamma in this school.”
Sara saw the danger signal, and came out of her dream. She took hold of the chubby hand and pulled her close to her side with a coaxing little laugh.
“I will be your mamma,” she said. “We will play that you are my little girl. And Emily shall be your sister.”
Lottie’s dimples all began to show themselves.
“Shall she?” she said.
“Yes,” answered Sara,jumping to her feet. “Let us go and tell her. And then I will wash your face and brush your hair.”
To which Lottie agreed quite cheerfully, and trotted out of the room and upstairs with her, without seeming even to remember that the whole of the last hour’s tragedy had been caused by the fact that she had refused to be washed and brushed for lunch and Miss Minchin had been called in to use her majestic authority.
And from that time Sara was an adopted mother.
第五章 贝基 Chapter 5 Becky
导读
对于许多人来说，萨拉都是一个和蔼可亲、令人着迷的女孩，她最大的魅力还在于她能够绘声绘色地讲故事的本领，不管讲什么，都是那么吸引人。这比她的“示范生”地位为她赢得了更多的追随者。
无论她走到哪里都会有一大帮人跟着她，她们都非常希望能够听到她讲的那些美妙的故事，而萨拉也热衷于此，她经常沉浸在自己所讲的故事中。
在萨拉小姐的幻想世界中，似乎真的有着水晶般的世界，画一样的人生，而这一切也许在她那装满了无数稀奇古怪想法的小脑袋中是真的存在的，而听故事的每一个人都为这种奇妙而又美丽的幻影折服了，她们在萨拉精彩的描述中仿佛真的看到了一个美丽的仙境，就连一向都很嫉妒萨拉的拉维纳也被她的故事深深吸引了。
在闵钦女士的学校里，不仅有一群像萨拉这样养尊处优的贵小姐，更有一些穷苦人家的孩子在这里干些杂活，贝基就是这其中的一员。她是一个很可怜的孩子——虽然是厨房里的帮工，但是闵钦女士是不会让她闲着的，她得学习擦炉栅，拎着沉重的煤炭箱楼上楼下地跑，还得擦地板、擦窗户，每个人都可以使唤她做这做那。她已经14岁了，但是因为发育不良，看起来只有12岁的样子。她经常站在地下室前的台阶上透过栏杆朝萨拉这边看，瘦小的身躯邋里邋遢，满是污垢的脸上流露出的渴望和羞涩让萨拉朝她多看了几眼并对她笑了笑，萨拉对人一贯都是微笑的。但是，在这个穷苦孩子的心目中，这位公主一样的孩子的生活和自己的生活相差太远了。身材瘦小的贝基
但是，这位公主精彩的故事还是吸引了她，使得她在壁炉中添煤火的时候动作慢了好多，也许，对于美好生活的向往是每一个人都渴望的，不管是地位尊贵还是地位卑微，都有幻想的权利。聪明的萨拉看到之后也意识到了这个可怜的小女工似乎也好想听她的故事，因此她故意把声音提高了许多，她是一个好心的人，她打心眼里希望自己的故事能够为贝基的生活增添一点色彩。
此时她正在讲关于一位人鱼公主和一位王子相爱的故事，这个故事深深地吸引了可怜的小女工，她完全忘记了周围的一切，跪在地毯上的她缓缓地坐在了自己的脚跟上，手里的刷子晃荡着挂在手指上，最后掉了下来。这一切都被可恶的拉维纳发现了，她的惊叫惊扰了贝基，把她吓跑了，在拉维纳的心里自己是贵族小姐，怎么可以和一个地位卑微的下人坐在一起呢！萨拉感到很恼怒，在她小小的心灵里面，故事是属于大家的，是属于生活在这个世界上的每一个人的，而不应该有等级的差别，所以对于拉维纳的言论她表示非常不赞同。从玛瑞蒂那儿知道有关贝基的情况之后，她开始关注这个可怜的小女孩，并渴望能够见到她，但是每次见到她的时候，她总是匆匆忙忙的，所以根本没有时间说话。
但是在几个星期之后，她在自己的起居室的舒适的小椅子上看到了贝基，可怜的孩子已经睡着了。贝基总是最后一个打扫这间房，因为这间专门为萨拉配置的小房间对于她这个小女工来说是那么豪华和舒适，她很羡慕拥有这一切的那个女孩，总是忍不住想象如果是自己拥有这一切，那该是多么幸运啊！
其实她只是想稍稍坐一下马上就起来，但是，那张椅子是那么舒适，而劳累了一天的她又是那么疲倦，她居然睡着了。萨拉看到这些后一点都没有生气，反而很欣慰，她终于可以找到机会和这个小女孩说说话了。她其实刚从舞蹈课上下来，她的舞跳得是最棒的，总是被老师叫上去做示范，因此，玛瑞蒂把她打扮得很漂亮，好像一只粉红色的蝴蝶。
她在桌子边坐下来了，想等待贝基醒来，贝基醒来后发现了自己的失态，感到很惊慌，连忙向萨拉道歉，萨拉却很体贴地安慰她，还说了许多贴心的话，让贝基觉得很感动。也许，她从来都没有想到会有一位如此高贵的小姐会包容她甚至关心她，在她的心里面，萨拉就像公主一样，这使她感到受宠若惊。
萨拉甚至还给她好吃的蛋糕，让她能够填饱肚子，看到贝基穷困的样子，萨拉的心里非常难过，她要贝基每天借打扫的名义来她的起居室呆一会，收拾完之后，萨拉会给她吃的，还会给她讲故事，这一切对于贝基来说太重要了，这就意味着在这个世界上还有人关心她，她不再是孤单一人了。那个房间对她来说不仅仅是蛋糕、炉火和精彩的故事，还有其他的原因，那就是萨拉！也许，当一个人在孤单寂寞的时候真的需要一个可以安慰，可以相伴的人，萨拉就是这样一个可以让人依靠的人。
事实上，天真的萨拉经常会幻想自己是一个公主，一个真正的公主，她常常这样幻想。她想，即使她只是一个假想的公主，她也可以想出一些事情来为别人做，她喜欢与人为善。
Of course the greatest power Sara possessed and the one which gained her even more followers than her luxuries and the fact that she was “the show pupil,”the power that Lavinia and certain other girls were most envious of, and at the same time most fascinated by in spite of themselves, was her power of telling stories and of making everything she talked about seem like a story, whether it was one or not.
Anyone who has been at school with a teller of stories knows what the wonder means-how he or she is followed about and besought in a whisper to relate romances; how groups gather round and hang on the outskirts of the favored party in the hope of being allowed to join in and listen. Sara not only could tell stories, but she adored telling them. When she sat or stood in the midst of a circle and began to invent wonderful things, her green eyes grew big and shining, her cheeks flushed, and, without knowing that she was doing it, she began to act and made what she told lovely or alarming by the raising or dropping of her voice, the bend and sway of her slim body, and the dramatic movement of her hands. She forgot that she was talking to listening children; she saw and lived with the fairy folk, or the kings and queens and beautiful ladies, whose adventures she was narrating.
Sometimes when she had finished her story,she was quite out of breath with excitement, and would lay her hand on her thin, little, quick-rising chest, and half laugh as if at herself. “When I am telling it,” she would say, “it doesn’t seem as if it was only made up.It seems more real than you are-more real than the schoolroom. I feel as if I were all the people in the story-one after the other. It is queer.”
She had been at Miss Minchin’s school about two years when, one foggy winter’s afternoon, as she was getting out of her carriage, comfortably wrapped up in her warmest velvets and furs and looking very much grander than she knew, she caught sight, as she crossed the pavement, of a dingy little figure standing on the area steps, and stretching its neck so that its wide-open eyes might peer at her through the railings. Something in the eagerness and timidity of the smudgy face made her look at it, and when she looked she smiled because it was her way to smile at people.
But the owner of the smudgy face and the wide-open eyes evidently was afraid that she ought not to have been caught looking at pupils of importance. She dodged out of sight like a jack-in-the-box and scurried back into the kitchen, disappearing so suddenly that if she had not been such a poor little forlorn thing, Sara would have laughed in spite of herself. That very evening, as Sara was sitting in the midst of a group of listeners in a corner of the schoolroom telling one of her stories, the very same figure timidly entered the room, carrying a coal box much too heavy for her, and knelt down upon the hearth rug to replenish the fire and sweep up the ashes.
She was cleaner than she had been when she peeped through the area railings, but she looked just as frightened. She was evidently afraid to look at the children or seem to be listening. She put on pieces of coal cautiously with her fingers so that she might make no disturbing noise, and she swept about the fire irons very softly. But Sara saw in two minutes that she was deeply interested in what was going on, and that she was doing her work slowly in the hope of catching a word here and there. And realizing this, she raised her voice and spoke more clearly.
“The Mermaids swam softly about in the crystal-green water, and dragged after them a fishing-net woven of deep-sea pearls,” she said. “The Princess sat on the white rock and watched them.”
It was a wonderful story about a princess who was loved by a Prince Merman, and went to live with him in shining caves under the sea.
The small drudge before the grate swept the hearth once and then swept it again. Having done it twice, she did it three times; and, as she was doing it the third time, the sound of the story so lured her to listen that she fell under the spell and actually forgot that she had no right to listen at all, and also forgot everything else. She sat down upon her heels as she knelt on the hearth rug, and the brush hung idly in her fingers.The voice of the storyteller went on and drew her with it into winding grottos under the sea, glowing with soft, clear blue light, and paved with pure golden sands. Strange sea flowers and grasses waved about her, and far away faint singing and music echoed.
The hearth brush fell from the work-roughened hand, and Lavinia Herbert looked round.
“That girl has been listening,” she said.
The culprit snatched up her brush, and scrambled to her feet. She caught at the coal box and simply scuttled out of the room like a frightened rabbit.
Sara felt rather hot-tempered.
“I knew she was listening,” she said. “Why shouldn’t she?”
Lavinia tossed her head with great elegance.
“Well,” she remarked,“I do not know whether your mamma would like you to tell stories to servant girls, but I know my mamma wouldn’t like me to do it.”
“My mamma!” said Sara, looking odd. “I don’t believe she would mind in the least. She knows that stories belong to everybody.”
“I thought,” retorted Lavinia, in severe recollection, “that your mamma was dead. How can she know things?”
“Do you think she doesn’t know things?” said Sara, in her stem little voice. Sometimes she had a rather stern little voice.
“Sara’s mamma knows everything,” piped in Lottie. “So does my mamma-’cept Sara is my mamma at Miss Minchin’s-my other one knows everything. The streets are shining, and there are fields and fields of lilies, and everybody gathers them. Sara tells me when she puts me to bed.”
“You wicked thing,”said Lavinia, turning on Sara, “making fairy stories about heaven.”
“There are much more splendid stories in Revelation,” returned Sara. “Just look and see! How do you know mine are fairy stories? But I can tell you”-with a fine bit of unheavenly temper-“you will never find out whether they are or not if you’re not kinder to people than you are now. Come along, Lottie.” And she marched out of the room, rather hoping that she might see the little servant again somewhere, but she found no trace of her when she got into the hall.
“Who is that little girl who makes the fires?” she asked Mariette that night.
Mariette broke forth into a flow of description.
Ah, indeed, Mademoiselle Sara might well ask.She was a forlorn little thing who had just taken the place of scullery maid-though, as to being scullery maid, she was everything else besides. She blacked boots and grates, and carried heavy coal-scuttles up and down stairs,and scrubbed floors and cleaned windows, and was ordered about by everybody.She was fourteen years old, but was so stunted in growth that she looked about twelve. In truth, Mariette was sorry for her. She was so timid that if one chanced to speak to her it appeared as if her poor, frightened eyes would jump out of her head.
“What is her name?”asked Sara, who had sat by the table, with her chin on her hands, as she listened absorbedly to the recital.
Her name was Becky. Mariette heard everyone belowstairs calling, “Becky, do this,” and “Becky, do that,” every five minutes in the day.她在自己的起居室的舒适的小椅子上看到了贝基，这个可怜的孩子已经睡着了
Sara sat and looked into the fire, reflecting on Becky for some time after Mariette left her. She made up a story of which Becky was the ill-used heroine. She thought she looked as if she had never had quite enough to eat. Her very eyes were hungry. She hoped she should see her again, but though she caught sight of her carrying things up or down stairs on several occasions, she always seemed in such a hurry and so afraid of being seen that it was impossible to speak to her.
But a few weeks later, on another foggy afternoon, when she entered her sitting room she found herself confronting a rather pathetic picture. In her own special and pet easy-chair before the bright fire, Becky-with a coal smudge on her nose and several on her apron,with her poor little cap hanging half off her head, and an empty coal box on the floor near her-sat fast asleep, tired out beyond even the endurance of her hard-working young body. She had been sent up to put the bedrooms in order for the evening. There were a great many of them, and she had been running about all day. Sara’s rooms she had saved until the last.
They were not like the other rooms, which were plain and bare. Ordinary pupils were expected to be satisfied with mere necessaries. Sara’s comfortable sitting room seemed a bower of luxury to the scullery maid, though it was, in fact, merely a nice,bright little room. But there were pictures and books in it, and curious things from India; there was a sofa and the low, soft chair; Emily sat in a chair of her own, with the air of a presiding goddess, and there was always a glowing fire and a polished grate. Becky saved it until the end of her afternoon’s work, because it rested her to go into it, and she always hoped to snatch a few minutes to sit down in the soft chair and look about her, and think about the wonderful good fortune of the child who owned such surroundings and who went out on the cold days in beautiful hats and coats one tried to catch a glimpse of through the area railing.
On this afternoon, when she had sat down, the sensation of relief to her short, aching legs had been so wonderful and delightful that it had seemed to soothe her whole body, and the glow of warmth and comfort from the fire had crept over her like a spell, until, as she looked at the red coals, a tired, slow smile stole over her smudged face, her head nodded forward without her being aware of it, her eyes drooped, and she fell fast asleep. She had really been only about ten minutes in the room when Sara entered, but she was in as deep a sleep as if she had been, like the Sleeping Beauty, slumbering for a hundred years. But she did not look-poor Becky-like a Sleeping Beauty at all. She looked only like an ugly, stunted, wornout little scullery drudge.
Sara seemed as much unlike her as if she were a creature from another world.
On this particular afternoon she had been taking her dancing lesson, and the afternoon on which the dancing master appeared was rather a grand occasion at the seminary, though it occurred every week. The pupils were attired in their prettiest frocks, and as Sara danced particularly well, she was very much brought forward, and Mariette was requested to make her as diaphanous and fine as possible.
Today a frock the color of a rose had been put on her, and Mariette had bought some real buds and made her a wreath to wear on her black locks. She had been learning a new, delightful dance in which she had been skimming and flying about the room, like a large rose-colored butterfly,and the enjoyment and exercise had brought a brilliant, happy glow into her face.
When she entered the room, she floated in with a few of the butterfly steps-and there sat Becky, nodding her cap sideways off her head.
“Oh!” cried Sara,softly, when she saw her. “That poor thing!”
It did not occur to her to feel cross at finding her pet chair occupied by the small, dingy figure. To tell the truth,she was quite glad to find it there. When the ill-used heroine of her story wakened, she could talk to her. She crept toward her quietly, and stood looking at her. Becky gave a little snore.
“I wish she’d waken herself,” Sara said. “I don’t like to waken her. But Miss Minchin would be cross if she found out. I’ll just wait a few minutes.”
She took a seat on the edge of the table, and sat swinging her slim, rose-colored legs, and wondering what it would be best to do. Miss Amelia might come in at any moment, and if she did, Becky would be sure to be scolded.
“But she is so tired,” she thought. “She is so tired!”
A piece of flaming coal ended her perplexity for her that very moment. It broke off from a large lump and fell on to the fender. Becky started, and opened her eyes with a frightened gasp. She did not know she had fallen asleep. She had only sat down for one moment and felt the beautiful glow-and here she found herself staring in wild alarm at the wonderful pupil, who sat perched quite near her, like a rose-colored fairy,with interested eyes.
She sprang up and clutched at her cap. She felt it dangling over her ear, and tried wildly to put it straight. Oh, she had got herself into trouble now with a vengeance! To have impudently fallen asleep on such a young lady’s chair! She would be turned out of doors without wages.
She made a sound like a big breathless sob.
“Oh, miss! Oh, miss!”she stuttered. “I arst yer pardon, miss! Oh, I do,miss!”
Sara jumped down, and came quite close to her.
“Don’t be frightened,” she said, quite as if she had been speaking to a little girl like herself. “It doesn’t matter the least bit.”
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