电子词典spring sowing课文原文

Spring Sowing

1.

It

was

still

dark

when

Martin

Delaney

and

his

wife

Mary

got

up.

Martin

stood

in his

shirt by

the

window,

rubbing

his

eyes

and

yawning, while Mary raked out the live coals that had lain hidden in the ashes on the hearth all night. Outside, cocks were crowing and a white

streak was rising form the ground, as it were, and beginning to scatter the darkness. It was a February morning, dry, cold and starry.

2.

The couple sat down to their breakfast of tea. bread and butter, in silence. They had only been married the previous autumn and it

was hateful leaving a warm bed at such and early hour. Martin, with his brown hair and eyes, his freckled face and his little fair moustache,

looked too young to be married, and his wife looked hardly more than a girl, red-cheeked and blue- eyed,her black hair piled at the rear of her

head with a large comb gleaming in the middle of the pile, Spanish fashion. They were both dressed in rough homespuns, and both wore the

loose white shirt that Inverara peasants use for work in the fields.

3.

They ate in silence, sleepy and yet on fire with excitement, for it was the first day of their first spring sowing as man and wife. And

each felt the glamour of that day on which they were to open up the earth together and plant seeds in

it . But somehow the imminence of an

event that had been long expected loved, feared and prepared for made them dejected. Mary, with her shrewd woman's mind, thought of as many

things as there are in life as a woman would in the first joy and anxiety of her mating. But Martin's mind was fixed on one thought. Would he be

able to prove himself a man worthy of being the head of a family by dong his spring sowing well?

4.

In the barn after breakfast, when they were getting the potato seeds and the line for measuring the ground and the spade, Martin fell

over a basket in the half-darkness of the barn, he swore and said that a man would be better off dead than.. But before he could finish whatever

he was gong to say, Mary had her arms around his waist and her face to his .

And

there

was

a

tremor

in

her

voice.

And

somehow,as

they

embraced,

all

their

irritation

and

sleepiness

left

them.

And

they

stood

there

embracing until at last Martin pushed her from him with pretended roughness and said:

rate.

5.

Still, as they walked silently in their rawhide shoes through the little hamlet, there was not a soul about. Lights were glimmering in

the windows of a few cabins. The sky had a big grey crack in it in the east, as if it were going to burst in order to give birth to the sun. Birds were

singing somewhere at a distance. Martin and Mary proudly:

the centre of their world, with throbbing hearts. For the joy of spring had now taken complete hold of them.

6.

They reached the little field where they were to sow. It was a little triangular patch of ground under an ivy-covered limestone hill. the

little field had been manured with seaweed some weeks before, and the weeds had rotted and whitened on the grass. And there was a big red

heap

of

fresh

seaweed

lying

in

a

corner

by

the

fence

to

be

spread

under

the

seeds

as

they

were

laid.

Martin,

in

spite

of

the

cold,

threw

off

everything above his waist except his striped woollen shirt. Then he spat on his hands, seized his spade and cried:

are going to see

what kind of a man you have, Mary.

7.

8.

9.

The work began. Martin measured the ground by the southern fence for the first ridge, a strip of ground four feet wide, and he placed

the line along the edge and pegged it at each end. Then he spread fresh seaweed over the strip. Mary filled her apron with seeds and began to lay

them in rows. When she was a little distance down the ridge, Martin advanced with his spade to the head, eager to commence.

10.

11.

woollen mittens were numb with the cold, and she couldn't wipe them in her apron. Her cheeks seemed to be on fire. She put an arm round

Martin's waist and stood looking at the green sod his spade was going to cut, with the excitement of a little child.

12.

would they take us for but a pair of useless, soft, empty-headed people that would be sure to die of hunger. Huh!

eyes were fixed on the ground before him. His eyes had a wild, eager light in them as if some primeval impulse were burning within his brain

and driving out every other desire but that of asserting his manhood and of subjugating the earth.

13.

what

do

we

care

who

is

looking?

said

Mary;

but

she drew

back

at

the

same

time

and

gazed

distantly

at

the

ground.

Then

Martin cut the sod, and pressing the spade deep into the earth with his foot, he turned up the first sod with a crunching sound as the grass roots

were dragged out of the earth. Mary sighed and walked back hurriedly to her seeds with furrowed brows. She picked up her seeds and began to

spread them rapidly to drive out the sudden terror that had seized her at that moment when she saw the fierce, hard look in her husband's eyes

that were unconscious of her presence. She became suddenly afraid of that pitiless, cruel earth, the peasant's slave master,

that would keep her

chained to hard work and poverty all her life until she would sink again into its bosom. Her short-lived love was gone. Henceforth she was only