汤姆·索亚历险记-chapter21(有声英语名著)

VACATION was approaching. The schoolmaster, always severe, grew severer and more exacting 1 than ever, for he wanted the school to make a good showing on "Examination" day. His rod and his ferule were seldom idle now -- at least among the smaller pupils. Only the biggest boys, and young ladies of eighteen and twenty, escaped lashing 2. Mr. Dobbins' lashings were very vigorous ones, too; for although he carried, under his wig 3, a perfectly 4 bald and shiny head, he had only reached middle age, and there was no sign of feebleness in his muscle. As the great day approached, all the tyranny that was in him came to the surface; he seemed to take a vindictive 5 pleasure in punishing the least shortcomings. The consequence was, that the smaller boys spent their days in terror and suffering and their nights in plotting revenge. They threw away no opportunity to do the master a mischief 6. But he kept ahead all the time. The retribution that followed every vengeful success was so sweeping 7 and majestic 8 that the boys always retired 9 from the field badly worsted. At last they conspired 10 together and hit upon a plan that promised a dazzling victory. They swore in the sign-painter's boy, told him the scheme, and asked his help. He had his own reasons for being delighted, for the master boarded in his father's family and had given the boy ample cause to hate him. The master's wife would go on a visit to the country in a few days, and there would be nothing to interfere 11 with the plan; the master always prepared himself for great occasions by getting pretty well fuddled, and the sign-painter's boy said that when the dominie had reached the proper condition on Examination Evening he would "manage the thing" while he napped in his chair; then he would have him awakened 12 at the right time and hurried away to school.

In the fulness of time the interesting occasion arrived. At eight in the evening the schoolhouse was brilliantly lighted, and adorned 13 with wreaths and festoons of foliage 14 and flowers. The master sat throned in his great chair upon a raised platform, with his blackboard behind him. He was looking tolerably mellow 15. Three rows of benches on each side and six rows in front of him were occupied by the dignitaries of the town and by the parents of the pupils. To his left, back of the rows of citizens, was a spacious 16 temporary platform upon which were seated the scholars who were to take part in the exercises of the evening; rows of small boys, washed and dressed to an intolerable state of discomfort 17; rows of gawky big boys; snowbanks of girls and young ladies clad in lawn and muslin and conspicuously 18 conscious of their bare arms, their grandmothers' ancient trinkets, their bits of pink and blue ribbon and the flowers in their hair. All the rest of the house was filled with non-participating scholars.

The exercises began. A very little boy stood up and sheepishly recited, "You'd scarce expect one of my age to speak in public on the stage," etc. -- accompanying himself with the painfully exact and spasmodic gestures which a machine might have used -- supposing the machine to be a trifle out of order. But he got through safely, though cruelly scared, and got a fine round of applause when he made his manufactured bow and retired.

A little shamefaced girl lisped, "Mary had a little lamb," etc., performed a compassion-inspiring curtsy, got her meed of applause, and sat down flushed and happy.

Tom Sawyer stepped forward with conceited 19 confidence and soared into the unquenchable and indestructible "Give me liberty or give me death" speech, with fine fury and frantic 20 gesticulation, and broke down in the middle of it. A ghastly stage-fright seized him, his legs quaked under him and he was like to choke. True, he had the manifest sympathy of the house but he had the house's silence, too, which was even worse than its sympathy. The master frowned, and this completed the disaster. Tom struggled awhile and then retired, utterly 21 defeated. There was a weak attempt at applause, but it died early.

"The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck" followed; also "The Assyrian Came Down," and other declamatory gems 22. Then there were reading exercises, and a spelling fight. The meagre Latin class recited with honor. The prime feature of the evening was in order, now -- original "compositions" by the young ladies. Each in her turn stepped forward to the edge of the platform, cleared her throat, held up her manuscript (tied with dainty ribbon), and proceeded to read, with labored 23 attention to "expression" and punctuation 24. The themes were the same that had been illuminated 25 upon similar occasions by their mothers before them, their grandmothers, and doubtless all their ancestors in the female line clear back to the Crusades. "Friendship" was one; "Memories of Other Days"; "Religion in History"; "Dream Land"; "The Advantages of Culture"; "Forms of Political Government Compared and Contrasted"; "Melancholy 26"; "Filial Love"; "Heart Longings 27," etc., etc.

A prevalent feature in these compositions was a nursed and petted melancholy; another was a wasteful 28 and opulent gush 29 of "fine language"; another was a tendency to lug 30 in by the ears particularly prized words and phrases until they were worn entirely 31 out; and a peculiarity 32 that conspicuously marked and marred 33 them was the inveterate 34 and intolerable sermon that wagged its crippled tail at the end of each and every one of them. No matter what the subject might be, a brain-racking effort was made to squirm it into some aspect or other that the moral and religious mind could contemplate 36 with edification. The glaring insincerity of these sermons was not sufficient to compass the banishment 37 of the fashion from the schools, and it is not sufficient to-day; it never will be sufficient while the world stands, perhaps. There is no school in all our land where the young ladies do not feel obliged to close their compositions with a sermon; and you will find that the sermon of the most frivolous 38 and the least religious girl in the school is always the longest and the most relentlessly 39 pious 40. But enough of this. Homely 41 truth is unpalatable.

Let us return to the "Examination." The first composition that was read was one entitled "Is this, then, Life?" Perhaps the reader can endure an extract from it:

"In the common walks of life, with what delightful 42 emotions does the youthful mind look forward to some anticipated scene of festivity! Imagination is busy sketching 44 rose-tinted pictures of joy. In fancy, the voluptuous 45 votary 46 of fashion sees herself amid the festive 47 throng 48, 'the observed of all observers.' Her graceful 49 form, arrayed in snowy robes, is whirling through the mazes 50 of the joyous 51 dance; her eye is brightest, her step is lightest in the gay assembly.

"In such delicious fancies time quickly glides 52 by, and the welcome hour arrives for her entrance into the Elysian world, of which she has had such bright dreams. How fairy-like does everything appear to her enchanted 53 vision! Each new scene is more charming than the last. But after a while she finds that beneath this goodly exterior 54, all is vanity, the flattery which once charmed her soul, now grates harshly upon her ear; the ball-room has lost its charms; and with wasted health and imbittered heart, she turns away with the conviction that earthly pleasures cannot satisfy the longings of the soul!"

And so forth 55 and so on. There was a buzz of gratification from time to time during the reading, accompanied by whispered ejaculations of "How sweet!" "How eloquent 56!" "So true!" etc., and after the thing had closed with a peculiarly afflicting 57 sermon the applause was enthusiastic.

Then arose a slim, melancholy girl, whose face had the "interesting" paleness that comes of pills and indigestion, and read a "poem." Two stanzas 58 of it will do:

"A MISSOURI MAIDEN'S FAREWELL TO ALABAMA

"Alabama, good-bye! I love thee well! But yet for a while do I leave thee now! Sad, yes, sad thoughts of thee my heart doth swell 59, And burning recollections throng my brow! For I have wandered through thy flowery woods; Have roamed and read near Tallapoosa's stream; Have listened to Tallassee's warring floods, And wooed on Coosa's side Aurora's beam.

"Yet shame I not to bear an o'er-full heart, Nor blush to turn behind my tearful eyes; 'Tis from no stranger land I now must part, 'Tis to no strangers left I yield these sighs. Welcome and home were mine within this State, Whose vales I leave -- whose spires 60 fade fast from me And cold must be mine eyes, and heart, and tête, When, dear Alabama! they turn cold on thee!"

There were very few there who knew what "tête" meant, but the poem was very satisfactory, nevertheless.

Next appeared a dark-complexioned, black-eyed, black-haired young lady, who paused an impressive moment, assumed a tragic 61 expression, and began to read in a measured, solemn tone:

"A VISION

"Dark and tempestuous 62 was night. Around the throne on high not a single star quivered; but the deep intonations 63 of the heavy thunder constantly vibrated upon the ear; whilst the terrific lightning revelled 64 in angry mood through the cloudy chambers 65 of heaven, seeming to scorn the power exerted over its terror by the illustrious Franklin! Even the boisterous 66 winds unanimously came forth from their mystic homes, and blustered 67 about as if to enhance by their aid the wildness of the scene.

"At such a time,so dark,so dreary 68, for human sympathy my very spirit sighed; but instead thereof,

"'My dearest friend, my counsellor, my comforter and guide My joy in grief, my second bliss 69 in joy,' came to my side.

She moved like one of those bright beings pictured in the sunny walks of fancy's Eden by the romantic and young, a queen of beauty unadorned save by her own transcendent loveliness. So soft was her step, it failed to make even a sound, and but for the magical thrill imparted by her genial 70 touch, as other unobtrusive beauties, she would have glided 71 away un-perceived -- unsought. A strange sadness rested upon her features, like icy tears upon the robe of December, as she pointed 72 to the contending elements without, and bade me contemplate the two beings presented."

This nightmare occupied some ten pages of manuscript and wound up with a sermon so destructive of all hope to non-Presbyterians that it took the first prize. This composition was considered to be the very finest effort of the evening. The mayor of the village, in delivering the prize to the author of it, made a warm speech in which he said that it was by far the most "eloquent" thing he had ever listened to, and that Daniel Webster himself might well be proud of it.

It may be remarked, in passing, that the number of compositions in which the word "beauteous" was over-fondled, and human experience referred to as "life's page," was up to the usual average.

Now the master, mellow almost to the verge 73 of geniality 74, put his chair aside, turned his back to the audience, and began to draw a map of America on the blackboard, to exercise the geography class upon. But he made a sad business of it with his unsteady hand, and a smothered 75 titter rippled 35 over the house. He knew what the matter was, and set himself to right it. He sponged out lines and remade them; but he only distorted them more than ever, and the tittering was more pronounced. He threw his entire attention upon his work, now, as if determined 76 not to be put down by the mirth. He felt that all eyes were fastened upon him; he imagined he was succeeding, and yet the tittering continued; it even manifestly increased. And well it might. There was a garret above, pierced with a scuttle 77 over his head; and down through this scuttle came a cat, suspended around the haunches by a string; she had a rag tied about her head and jaws 78 to keep her from mewing; as she slowly descended 79 she curved upward and clawed at the string, she swung downward and clawed at the intangible air. The tittering rose higher and higher -- the cat was within six inches of the absorbed teacher's head -- down, down, a little lower, and she grabbed his wig with her desperate claws, clung to it, and was snatched up into the garret in an instant with her trophy 80 still in her possession! And how the light did blaze abroad from the master's bald pate 43 -- for the sign-painter's boy had gilded 81 it!

That broke up the meeting. The boys were avenged 82. Vacation had come.

[NOTE:-- The pretended "compositions" quoted in this chapter are taken without alteration 83 from a volume entitled "Prose and Poetry, by a Western Lady" -- but they are exactly and precisely 84 after the schoolgirl pattern, and hence are much happier than any mere 85 imitations could be.