先讀課文﹕
Little Women 小婦人
by Louisa May Alcott
PART 1﹕ CHAPTER ONE
"Christmas won't be Christmas without any presents," grumbled Jo, lying
on the rug.
"It's so dreadful to be poor!" sighed Meg, looking down at her old dress.
"I don't think it's fair for some girls to have plenty of pretty things,
and other girls nothing at all," added little Amy, with an injured sniff.
"We've got Father and Mother, and each other," said Beth contentedly from
her corner.
The four young faces on which the firelight shone brightened at the cheerful
words, but darkened again as Jo said sadly, "We haven't got Father, and
shall not have him for a long time." She didn't say "perhaps never," but
each silently added it, thinking of Father far away, where the fighting
was.
Nobody spoke for a minute; then Meg said in an altered tone, "You know the
reason Mother proposed not having any presents this Christmas was because
it is going to be a hard winter for everyone; and she thinks we ought not
to spend money for pleasure, when our men are suffering so in the army.
We can't do much, but we can make our little sacrifices, and ought to do
it gladly. But I am afraid I don't." And Meg shook her head, as she thought
regretfully of all the pretty things she wanted.
"But I don't think the little we should spend would do any good. We've each
got a dollar, and the army wouldn't be much helped by our giving that. I
agree not to expect anything from Mother or you, but I do want to buy UNDINE
AND SINTRAM 書名 for myself. I've wanted it so long," said Jo, who was a
bookworm.
"I planned to spend mine in new music," said Beth, with a little sigh, which
no one heard but the hearth brush and kettle holder.
"I shall get a nice box of Faber's drawing pencils. I really need them,"
said Amy decidedly.
"Mother didn't say anything about our money, and she won't wish us to give
up everything. Let's each buy what we want, and have a little fun. I'm sure
we work hard enough to earn it," cried Jo, examining the heels of her shoes
in a gentlemanly manner.
"I know I do--teaching those tiresome children nearly all day, when I'm
longing to enjoy myself at home," began Meg, in the complaining tone again.
"You don't have half such a hard time as I do," said Jo. "How would you
like to be shut up for hours with a nervous, fussy old lady, who keeps you
trotting, is never satisfied, and worries you till you're ready to fly out
the window or cry?"
"It's naughty to fret, but I do think washing dishes and keeping things
tidy is the worst work in the world. It makes me cross, and my hands get
so stiff, I can't practice well at all." And Beth looked at her rough hands
with a sigh that any one could hear that time.
"I don't believe any of you suffer as I do," cried Amy, "for you don't have
to go to school with impertinent girls, who plague you if you don't know
your lessons, and laugh at your dresses, and label your father if he isn't
rich, and insult you when your nose isn't nice."
"If you mean libel, I'd say so, and not talk about labels, as if Papa was
a pickle bottle," advised Jo, laughing.
"I know what I mean, and you needn't be statirical about it. It's proper
to use good words, and improve your vocabilary," returned Amy, with dignity.
這段裡表示有兩個詞發音錯了。
"Don't peck at one another, children. Don't you wish we had the money Papa
lost when we were little, Jo? Dear me! How happy and good we'd be, if we
had no worries!" said Meg, who could remember better times.
"You said the other day you thought we were a deal happier than the King
children, for they were fighting and fretting all the time, in spite of
their money."
"So I did, Beth. Well, I think we are. For though we do have to work, we
make fun of ourselves, and are a pretty jolly set, as Jo would say."
"Jo does use such slang words!" observed Amy, with a reproving look at the
long figure stretched on the rug.
Jo immediately sat up, put her hands in her pockets, and began to whistle.
"Don't, Jo. It's so boyish!"
"That's why I do it."
"I detest rude, unladylike girls!"
"I hate affected, niminy-piminy chits!"
"Birds in their little nests agree," sang Beth, the peacemaker, with such
a funny face that both sharp voices softened to a laugh, and the "pecking"
ended for that time.
"Really, girls, you are both to be blamed," said Meg, beginning to lecture
in her elder-sisterly fashion. "You are old enough to leave off boyish tricks,
and to behave better, Josephine. It didn't matter so much when you were
a little girl, but now you are so tall, and turn up your hair, you should
remember that you are a young lady."
"I'm not! And if turning up my hair makes me one, I'll wear it in two tails
till I'm twenty," cried Jo, pulling off her net, and shaking down a chestnut
mane. "I hate to think I've got to grow up, and be Miss March, 故事人物
and wear long gowns, and look as prim as a China Aster 一種花! It's bad
enough to be a girl, anyway, when I like boy's games and work and manners!
I can't get over my disappointment in not being a boy. And it's worse than
ever now, for I'm dying to go and fight with Papa. And I can only stay home
and knit, like a poky old woman!"
And Jo shook the blue army sock till the needles rattled like castanets,
and her ball bounded across the room.
"Poor Jo! It's too bad, but it can't be helped. So you must try to be contented
with making your name boyish, and playing brother to us girls," said Beth,
stroking the rough head with a hand that all the dish washing and dusting
in the world could not make ungentle in its touch.
"As for you, Amy," continued Meg, "you are altogether too particular and
prim. Your airs are funny now, but you'll grow up an affected little goose,
if you don't take care. I like your nice manners and refined ways of speaking,
when you don't try to be elegant. But your absurd words are as bad as Jo's
slang."
"If Jo is a tomboy and Amy a goose, what am I, please?" asked Beth, ready
to share the lecture.
"You're a dear, and nothing else," answered Meg warmly, and no one contradicted
her, for the `Mouse' was the pet of the family.
As young readers like to know `how people look', we will take this moment
to give them a little sketch of the four sisters, who sat knitting away
in the twilight, while the December snow fell quietly without, and the fire
crackled cheerfully within. It was a comfortable room, though the carpet
was faded and the furniture very plain, for a good picture or two hung on
the walls, books filled the recesses, chrysanthemums and Christmas roses
bloomed in the windows, and a pleasant atmosphere of home peace pervaded
it.
Margaret, the eldest of the four, was sixteen, and very pretty, being plump
and fair, with large eyes, plenty of soft brown hair, a sweet mouth, and
white hands, of which she was rather vain. Fifteen-year-old Jo was very
tall, thin, and brown, and reminded one of a colt, for she never seemed
to know what to do with her long limbs, which were very much in her way.
She had a decided mouth, a comical nose, and sharp, gray eyes, which appeared
to see everything, and were by turns fierce, funny, or thoughtful. Her long,
thick hair was her one beauty, but it was usually bundled into a net, to
be out of her way. Round shoulders had Jo, big hands and feet, a flyaway
look to her clothes, and the uncomfortable appearance of a girl who was rapidly
shooting up into a woman and didn't like it. Elizabeth, or Beth, as everyone
called her, was a rosy, smooth-haired, bright-eyed girl of thirteen, with
a shy manner, a timid voice, and a peaceful expression which was seldom
disturbed. Her father called her `Little Miss Tranquility', and the name
suited her excellently, for she seemed to live in a happy world of her own,
only venturing out to meet the few whom she trusted and loved. Amy, though
the youngest, was a most important person, in her own opinion at least.
A regular snow maiden, with blue eyes, and yellow hair curling on her shoulders,
pale and slender, and always carrying herself like a young lady mindful
of her manners. What the characters of the four sisters were we will leave
to be found out. 太長。在此切斷。每本小說我隻能提供個引頭﹐不可能整本上貼。
要讀下去的人可網上搜索。特別英文專業人士最好都找原本來讀一下。
1) 生詞自查。
2) 作者介紹﹕Louisa May Alcott (November 29, 1832 -- March 6, 1888) was
an American novelist best known as author of the novel Little Women and
its sequels Little Men and Jo's Boys.[1] Raised by her transcendentalist
parents, Abigail May Alcott and Amos Bronson Alcott in New England, she
grew up among many of the well-known intellectuals of the day such as Ralph
Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Henry David Thoreau. Nevertheless,
her family suffered severe financial difficulties and Alcott worked to help
support the family from an early age. She began to receive critical success
for her writing in the 1860s. Early in her career, she sometimes used the
pen name A. M. Barnard. Alcott was an abolitionist and a feminist. She never
married and died in Boston.
3) 該書介紹﹕Published in 1868, Little Women is set in the Alcott family
home, Orchard House, in Concord, Massachusetts and is loosely based on Alcott'
s childhood experiences with her three sisters. The novel was very well
received and is still a popular children's novel today.
4) “小婦人”也是本著名小說。不知現在的中國讀者是否知道此書。不過﹐值得讀
一下。
