One Sunday, late in the summer after Marie’s graduation, she met Frank at a Bohemian picnic down the river and went rowing with him all the afternoon. When she got home that evening she went straight to her father’s room and told him that she was engaged to Shabata. Old Tovesky was having a comfortable pipe before he went to bed. When he heard his daughter’s announcement, he first prudently6 corked7 his beer bottle and then leaped to his feet and had a turn of temper. He characterized Frank Shabata by a Bohemian expression which is the equivalent of stuffed shirt.
“Why don’t he go to work like the rest of us did? His farm in the Elbe valley, indeed! Ain’t he got plenty brothers and sisters? It’s his mother’s farm, and why don’t he stay at home and help her? Haven’t I seen his mother out in the morning at five o’clock with her ladle and her big bucket on wheels, putting liquid manure8 on the cabbages? Don’t I know the look of old Eva Shabata’s hands? Like an old horse’s hoofs9 they are — and this fellow wearing gloves and rings! Engaged, indeed! You aren’t fit to be out of school, and that’s what’s the matter with you. I will send you off to the Sisters of the Sacred Heart in St. Louis, and they will teach you some sense, I guess!”
Accordingly, the very next week, Albert Tovesky took his daughter, pale and tearful, down the river to the convent. But the way to make Frank want anything was to tell him he couldn’t have it. He managed to have an interview with Marie before she went away, and whereas he had been only half in love with her before, he now persuaded himself that he would not stop at anything. Marie took with her to the convent, under the canvas lining10 of her trunk, the results of a laborious11 and satisfying morning on Frank’s part; no less than a dozen photographs of himself, taken in a dozen different love-lorn attitudes. There was a little round photograph for her watch-case, photographs for her wall and dresser, and even long narrow ones to be used as bookmarks. More than once the handsome gentleman was torn to pieces before the French class by an indignant nun12.
Marie pined in the convent for a year, until her eighteenth birthday was passed. Then she met Frank Shabata in the union Station in St. Louis and ran away with him. Old Tovesky forgave his daughter because there was nothing else to do, and bought her a farm in the country that she had loved so well as a child. Since then her story had been a part of the history of the Divide. She and Frank had been living there for five years when Carl Linstrum came back to pay his long deferred13 visit to Alexandra. Frank had, on the whole, done better than one might have expected. He had flung himself at the soil with savage14 energy. Once a year he went to Hastings or to Omaha, on a spree. He stayed away for a week or two, and then came home and worked like a demon15. He did work; if he felt sorry for himself, that was his own affair.
![](../../../skin/default/image/4.jpg)
点击
收听单词发音
![收听单词发音](/template/default/tingnovel/images/play.gif)
1
adviser
![]() |
|
n.劝告者,顾问 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
2
buck
![]() |
|
n.雄鹿,雄兔;v.马离地跳跃 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
3
cane
![]() |
|
n.手杖,细长的茎,藤条;v.以杖击,以藤编制的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
4
melancholy
![]() |
|
n.忧郁,愁思;adj.令人感伤(沮丧)的,忧郁的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
5
eligible
![]() |
|
adj.有条件被选中的;(尤指婚姻等)合适(意)的 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
6
prudently
![]() |
|
adv. 谨慎地,慎重地 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
7
corked
![]() |
|
adj.带木塞气味的,塞着瓶塞的v.用瓶塞塞住( cork的过去式 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
8
manure
![]() |
|
n.粪,肥,肥粒;vt.施肥 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
9
hoofs
![]() |
|
n.(兽的)蹄,马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.(兽的)蹄,马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
参考例句: |
|
|
10
lining
![]() |
|
n.衬里,衬料 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
11
laborious
![]() |
|
adj.吃力的,努力的,不流畅 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
12
nun
![]() |
|
n.修女,尼姑 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
13
deferred
![]() |
|
adj.延期的,缓召的v.拖延,延缓,推迟( defer的过去式和过去分词 );服从某人的意愿,遵从 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
14
savage
![]() |
|
adj.野蛮的;凶恶的,残暴的;n.未开化的人 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
15
demon
![]() |
|
n.魔鬼,恶魔 | |
参考例句: |
|
|
欢迎访问英文小说网 |