第12页
《简·爱(英文版)》章节:第12页,宠文网网友提供全文无弹窗免费在线阅读。!
placed on my knee, and I was cordially invited to eat the circlet of
delicate pastry upon it. Vain favour! coming, like most other
favours long deferred and often wished for, too late! I could not
eat the tart; and the plumage of the bird, the tints of the flowers,
seemed strangely faded: I put both plate and tart away. Bessie asked
if I would have a book: the word book acted as a transient stimulus,
and I begged her to fetch Gulliver's Travels from the library. This
book I had again and again perused with delight. I considered it a
narrative of facts, and discovered in it a vein of interest deeper
than what I found in fairy tales: for as to the elves, having sought
them in vain among fox-glove leaves and bells, under mushrooms and
beneath the ground-ivy mantling old wall-nooks, I had at length made
up my mind to the sad truth, that they were all gone out of England to
some savage country where the woods were wilder and thicker, and the
population more scant; whereas, Lilliput and Brobdingnag being, in
my creed, solid parts of the earth's surface, I doubted not that I
might one day, by taking a long voyage, see with my own eyes the
little fields, houses, and trees, the diminutive people, the tiny
cows, sheep, and birds of the one realm; and the corn-fields,
forest-high, the mighty mastiffs, the monster cats, the tower-like men
and women, of the other. Yet, when this cherished volume was now
placed in my hand- when I turned over its leaves, and sought in its
marvellous pictures the charm I had, till now, never failed to find-
all was eerie and dreary; the giants were gaunt goblins, the pigmies
malevolent and fearful imps, Gulliver a most desolate wanderer in most
dread and dangerous regions. I closed the book, which I dared no
longer peruse, and put it on the table, beside the untasted tart.
Bessie had now finished dusting and tidying the room, and having
washed her hands, she opened a certain little drawer, full of splendid
shreds of silk and satin, and began making a new bonnet for
Georgiana's doll. Meantime she sang: her song was-
'In the days when we were gipsying,
A long time ago.'
I had often heard the song before, and always with lively
delight; for Bessie had a sweet voice,- at least, I thought so. But
now, though her voice was still sweet, I found in its melody an
indescribable sadness. Sometimes, preoccupied with her work, she
sang the refrain very low, very lingeringly; 'A long time ago' came
out like the saddest cadence of a funeral hymn. She passed into
another ballad, this time a really doleful one.
'My feet they are sore, and my limbs they are weary;
Long is the way, and the mountains are wild;
Soon will the twilight close moonless and dreary
Over the path of the poor orphan child.
Why did they send me so far and so lonely,
Up where the moors spread and grey rocks are piled?