Peter Pan--Chapter1 中英文双语阅读

别摇手

——

百日咳，算十五先令。

”——

他继

续算下去，

每次 算出的结果都不一样。

不过最后温迪总算熬了过来，

腮腺炎减到 了十二先

令六便士，两种麻疹并作一次处理。

约翰生下时，

也遇到同样的风波，

迈克尔遇到的险情更大。

不过他们两个 到底都还是

留下来养活了，

不久你就会看见姐弟三个排成一行，

由保姆陪伴着，

到福尔萨姆小姐的幼

儿 园上学去了

Chapter 1. PETER BREAKS THROUGH(2)

Mrs. Darling loved to have everything just so, and Mr. Darling had a passion

for beingexactly like his neighbours; so, of course, they had a nurse. As the

y were poor, owing to theamount of milk the children drank, this nurse was a

prim Newfoundland dog, called Nana,who had belonged to no one in partic

ular until the Darlings engaged her. She had alwaysthought children importa

nt, however, and the Darlings had become acquainted with her inKensingto

n Gardens, where she spent most of her spare time peeping into perambula

tors,and was much hated by careless nursemaids, whom she followed to th

eir homes andcomplained of to their mistresses. She proved to be quite a tr

easure of a nurse. Howthorough she was at bath-time, and up at any mome

nt of the night if one of her chargesmade the slightest cry. Of course her ken

nel was in the nursery. She had a genius forknowing when a cough is a thin

g to have no patience with and when it needs stockingaround your throat. S

he believed to her last day in old- fashioned remedies like rhubarb leaf,and

made sounds of contempt over all this new-fangled talk about germs, and s

o on. It wasa lesson in propriety to see her escorting the children to school,

walking sedately by theirside when they were well behaved, and butting the

m back into line if they strayed. OnJohn's footer [in England soccer was call

ed football,

rried an umbrella in her mouth in case of rain. There isa room in the baseme

nt of Miss Fulsom's school where the nurses wait. They sat on forms,while

Nana lay on the floor, but that was the only difference. They affected to igno

re her asof an inferior social status to themselves, and she despised their lig

ht talk. She resentedvisits to the nursery from Mrs. Darling's friends, but if th

ey did come she first whipped offMichael's pinafore and put him into the one

with blue braiding, and smoothed out Wendy andmade a dash at John's hai

r.

No nursery could possibly have been conducted more correctly, and Mr. Dar

ling knew it, yethe sometimes wondered uneasily whether the neighbours ta

lked.

He had his position in the city to consider.

Nana also troubled him in another way. He had sometimes a feeling that sh

e did not admirehim.

Darling would assure him, andthen she would sign to the children to be spe

cially nice to father. Lovely dances followed, inwhich the only other servant,

Liza, was sometimes allowed to join. Such a midget she lookedin her long s

kirt and maid's cap, though she had sworn, when engaged, that she wouldn

ever see ten again. The gaiety of those romps! And gayest of all was Mrs. D

arling, whowould pirouette so wildly that all you could see of her was the kis

s, and then if you haddashed at her you might have got it. There never was

a simpler happier family until thecoming of Peter Pan.

Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's mind

s. It is thenightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep t

o rummage in their mindsand put things straight for next morning, repacking

into their proper places the many articlesthat have wandered during the day

. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) youwould see your own

mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. Itis qui

te like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingerin

ghumorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you ha

d picked this thingup, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing

this to her cheek as if it were asnice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that o

ut of sight. When you wake in the morning, thenaughtiness and evil passion

s with which you went to bed have been folded up small andplaced at the b

ottom of your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out yourpret

tier thoughts, ready for you to put on.

I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind. Doctors

sometimesdraw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become

intensely interesting, butcatch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind,

which is not only confused, but keepsgoing round all the time. There are zig

zag lines on it, just like your temperature on a card,and these are probably r

oads in the island, for the Neverland is always more or less anisland, with a

stonishing splashes of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish- loo

kingcraft in the offing, and savages and lonely lairs, and gnomes who are m

ostly tailors, andcaves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder

brothers, and a hut fast going todecay, and one very small old lady with a ho

oked nose. It would be an easy map if thatwere all, but there is also first day

at school, religion, fathers, the round pond, needle-work,murders, hangings

, verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces,say n

inety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on, and eit

her theseare part of the island or they are another map showing through, an

d it is all rather confusing,especially as nothing will stand still.

Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a lago

on withflamingoes flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael,

who was very small, hada flamingo with lagoons flying over it. John lived in

a boat turned upside down on the sands,Michael in a wigwam, Wendy in a h

ouse of leaves deftly sewn together. John had nofriends, Michael had friend

s at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken by its parents, but onthe whole th

e Neverlands have a family resemblance, and if they stood still in a row you

could say of them that they have each other's nose, and so forth. On these

magic shoreschildren at play are for ever beaching their coracles [simple bo

at]. We too have been there;we can still hear the sound of the surf, though

we shall land no more.