A year had elapsed since Adam Ladd'sprize had been discussed over the teacupsin Riverboro. The months had come andgone, and at length the great day had dawned forRebecca,--the day to which she had been lookingforward for five years, as the first goal to be reachedon her little journey through the world. School-days were ended, and the mystic function knownto the initiated1 as "graduation" was about to becelebrated; it was even now heralded2 by the sundawning in the eastern sky. Rebecca stole softlyout of bed, crept to the window, threw open theblinds, and welcomed the rosy3 light that meant acloudless morning. Even the sun looked differentsomehow,--larger, redder, more important thanusual; and if it were really so, there was no memberof the graduating class who would have thoughtit strange or unbecoming, in view of all thecircumstances. Emma Jane stirred on her pillow,woke, and seeing Rebecca at the window, came andknelt on the floor beside her. "It's going to bepleasant!" she sighed gratefully. "If it wasn'twicked, I could thank the Lord, I'm so relieved inmind! Did you sleep?""Not much; the words of my class poem keptrunning through my head, and the accompanimentsof the songs; and worse than anything, MaryQueen of Scots' prayer in Latin; it seemed as if"`Adoro, imploro,Ut liberes me!'
were burned into my brain."No one who is unfamiliar4 with life in ruralneighborhoods can imagine the gravity, the importance,the solemnity of this last day of school. Inthe matter of preparation, wealth of detail, and generalexcitement it far surpasses a wedding; for thatis commonly a simple affair in the country, sometimeseven beginning and ending in a visit to theparsonage. Nothing quite equals graduation in theminds of the graduates themselves, their families,and the younger students, unless it be the inaugurationof a governor at the State Capitol. Wareham,then, was shaken to its very centre on thisday of days. Mothers and fathers of the scholars,as well as relatives to the remotest generation, hadbeen coming on the train and driving into the townsince breakfast time; old pupils, both married andsingle, with and without families, streamed back tothe dear old village. The two livery stables werecrowded with vehicles of all sorts, and lines of buggiesand wagons5 were drawn6 up along the sides ofthe shady roads, the horses switching their tails inluxurious idleness. The streets were filled withpeople wearing their best clothes, and the fashionsincluded not only "the latest thing," but the wellpreserved relic7 of a bygone day. There were allsorts and conditions of men and women, for therewere sons and daughters of storekeepers, lawyers,butchers, doctors, shoemakers, professors, ministers,and farmers at the Wareham schools, eitheras boarders or day scholars. In the seminary buildingthere was an excitement so deep and profoundthat it expressed itself in a kind of hushed silence,a transient suspension of life, as those most interestedapproached the crucial moment. The femininegraduates-to-be were seated in their ownbedrooms, dressed with a completeness of detailto which all their past lives seemed to have beenbut a prelude9. At least, this was the case with theirbodies; but their heads, owing to the extreme heatof the day, were one and all ornamented10 with leads,or papers, or dozens of little braids, to issue laterin every sort of curl known to the girl of thatperiod. Rolling the hair on leads or papers was afavorite method of attaining11 the desired result, andthough it often entailed12 a sleepless13 night, therewere those who gladly paid the price. Others, inwhose veins14 the blood of martyrs15 did not flow,substituted rags for leads and pretended that theymade a more natural and less woolly curl. Heat,however, will melt the proudest head and reduceto fiddling16 strings17 the finest product of the waving-pin; so anxious mothers were stationed overtheir offspring, waving palm-leaf fans, it havingbeen decided18 that the supreme19 instant when thetown clock struck ten should be the one chosenfor releasing the prisoners from their self-imposedtortures.
Dotted or plain Swiss muslin was the favoritegarb, though there were those who were steamingin white cashmere or alpaca, because in some casessuch frocks were thought more useful afterwards.
Blue and pink waist ribbons were lying over thebacks of chairs, and the girl who had a Romansash was praying that she might be kept fromvanity and pride.
The way to any graduating dress at all had notseemed clear to Rebecca until a month before.
Then, in company with Emma Jane, she visited thePerkins attic20, found piece after piece of white butter-muslin or cheesecloth, and decided that, at apinch, it would do. The "rich blacksmith's daughter"cast the thought of dotted Swiss behind her,and elected to follow Rebecca in cheesecloth asshe had in higher matters; straightway devisingcostumes that included such drawing of threads,such hemstitching and pin-tucking, such insertionsof fine thread tatting that, in order to be finished,Rebecca's dress was given out in sections,--thesash to Hannah, waist and sleeves to Mrs. Cobb,and skirt to aunt Jane. The stitches that wentinto the despised material, worth only three orfour pennies a yard, made the dresses altogetherlovely, and as for the folds and lines into whichthey fell, they could have given points to satinsand brocades.
The two girls were waiting in their room alone,Emma Jane in rather a tearful state of mind. Shekept thinking that it was the last day that theywould be together in this altogether sweet andclose intimacy21. The beginning of the end seemedto have dawned, for two positions had been offeredRebecca by Mr. Morrison the day before: one inwhich she would play for singing and calisthenics,and superintend the piano practice of the youngergirls in a boarding-school; the other an assistant'splace in the Edgewood High School. Both werevery modest as to salary, but the former includededucational advantages that Miss Maxwell thoughtmight be valuable.
Rebecca's mood had passed from that of excitementinto a sort of exaltation, and when the firstbell rang through the corridors announcing that infive minutes the class would proceed in a body tothe church for the exercises, she stood motionlessand speechless at the window with her hand onher heart.
"It is coming, Emmie," she said presently; "doyou remember in The Mill on the Floss, whenMaggie Tulliver closed the golden gates of childhoodbehind her? I can almost see them swing;almost hear them clang; and I can't tell whether Iam glad or sorry.""I shouldn't care how they swung or clanged,"said Emma Jane, "if only you and I were on thesame side of the gate; but we shan't be, I knowwe shan't!""Emmie, don't dare to cry, for I'm just on thebrink myself! If only you were graduating withme; that's my only sorrow! There! I hear therumble of the wheels! People will be seeing ourgrand surprise now! Hug me once for luck, dearEmmie; a careful hug, remembering our butter-muslin frailty22!"Ten minutes later, Adam Ladd, who had justarrived from Portland and was wending his way tothe church, came suddenly into the main street andstopped short under a tree by the wayside, rivetedto the spot by a scene of picturesque23 lovelinesssuch as his eyes had seldom witnessed before. Theclass of which Rebecca was president was notlikely to follow accepted customs. Instead of marchingtwo by two from the seminary to the church,they had elected to proceed thither24 by royal chariot.
A haycart had been decked with green vines andbunches of long-stemmed field daisies, those gaydarlings of New England meadows. Every inch ofthe rail, the body, even the spokes26, all were twinedwith yellow and green and white. There were twowhite horses, flower-trimmed reins27, and in the floralbower, seated on maple28 boughs29, were the twelvegirls of the class, while the ten boys marched oneither side of the vehicle, wearing buttonholebouquets of daisies, the class flower.
Rebecca drove, seated on a green-covered benchthat looked not unlike a throne. No girl cladin white muslin, no happy girl of seventeen, isplain; and the twelve little country maids, fromthe vantage ground of their setting, lookedbeautiful, as the June sunlight filtered down on theiruncovered heads, showing their bright eyes, theirfresh cheeks, their smiles, and their dimples.
Rebecca, Adam thought, as he took off his hatand saluted30 the pretty panorama,--Rebecca, withher tall slenderness, her thoughtful brow, the fireof young joy in her face, her fillet of dark braidedhair, might have been a young Muse31 or Sibyl; andthe flowery hayrack, with its freight of bloominggirlhood, might have been painted as an allegoricalpicture of The Morning of Life. It all passed him,as he stood under the elms in the old village streetwhere his mother had walked half a century ago,and he was turning with the crowd towards thechurch when he heard a little sob32. Behind a hedgein the garden near where he was standing33 was aforlorn person in white, whose neat nose, chestnuthair, and blue eyes he seemed to know. He steppedinside the gate and said, "What's wrong, MissEmma?""Oh, is it you, Mr. Ladd? Rebecca wouldn'tlet me cry for fear of spoiling my looks, but I musthave just one chance before I go in. I can be ashomely as I like, after all, for I only have to singwith the school; I'm not graduating, I'm justleaving! Not that I mind that; it's only beingseparated from Rebecca that I never can stand!"The two walked along together, Adam comfortingthe disconsolate34 Emma Jane, until they reachedthe old meeting-house where the Commencementexercises were always held. The interior, withits decorations of yellow, green, and white, wascrowded, the air hot and breathless, the essays andsongs and recitations precisely35 like all others thathave been since the world began. One always fearsthat the platform may sink under the weight ofyouthful platitudes36 uttered on such occasions; yetone can never be properly critical, because the sightof the boys and girls themselves, those young andhopeful makers8 of to-morrow, disarms37 one's scorn.
We yawn desperately38 at the essays, but our heartsgo out to the essayists, all the same, for "the visionsplendid" is shining in their eyes, and there is nofear of "th' inevitable39 yoke40" that the years are sosurely bringing them.
Rebecca saw Hannah and her husband in theaudience; dear old John and cousin Ann also, andfelt a pang41 at the absence of her mother, thoughshe had known there was no possibility of seeingher; for poor Aurelia was kept at Sunnybrook bycares of children and farm, and lack of moneyeither for the journey or for suitable dress. TheCobbs she saw too. No one, indeed, could fail tosee uncle Jerry; for he shed tears more than once,and in the intervals42 between the essays descantedto his neighbors concerning the marvelous giftsof one of the graduating class whom he had knownever since she was a child; in fact, had driven herfrom Maplewood to Riverboro when she left herhome, and he had told mother that same night thatthere wan't nary rung on the ladder o' fame thatthat child wouldn't mount before she got throughwith it.
The Cobbs, then, had come, and there wereother Riverboro faces, but where was aunt Jane,in her black silk made over especially for thisoccasion? Aunt Miranda had not intended to come,she knew, but where, on this day of days, was herbeloved aunt Jane? However, this thought, likeall others, came and went in a flash, for the wholemorning was like a series of magic lanternpictures, crossing and recrossing her field of vision.
She played, she sang, she recited Queen Mary'sLatin prayer, like one in a dream, only brought toconsciousness by meeting Mr. Aladdin's eyes asshe spoke25 the last line. Then at the end of theprogramme came her class poem, Makers of To-morrow; and there, as on many a former occasion,her personality played so great a part that sheseemed to be uttering Miltonic sentiments insteadof school-girl verse. Her voice, her eyes, her bodybreathed conviction, earnestness, emotion; andwhen she left the platform the audience felt thatthey had listened to a masterpiece. Most of herhearers knew little of Carlyle or Emerson, or theymight have remembered that the one said, "Weare all poets when we read a poem well," and theother, "'T is the good reader makes the goodbook."It was over! The diplomas had been presented,and each girl, after giving furtive43 touches to herhair, sly tweaks to her muslin skirts, and caressingpats to her sash, had gone forward to receive theroll of parchment with a bow that had been thesubject of anxious thought for weeks. Rounds ofapplause greeted each graduate at this thrillingmoment, and Jeremiah Cobb's behavior, whenRebecca came forward, was the talk of Wareham andRiverboro for days. Old Mrs. Webb avowed44 thathe, in the space of two hours, had worn out herpew more--the carpet, the cushions, and woodwork--than she had by sitting in it forty years.
Yes, it was over, and after the crowd had thinneda little, Adam Ladd made his way to the platform.
Rebecca turned from speaking to some stran-gers and met him in the aisle45. "Oh, Mr. Aladdin,I am so glad you could come! Tell me"--and shelooked at him half shyly, for his approval was dearerto her, and more difficult to win, than that of theothers--"tell me, Mr. Aladdin,--were you satisfied?""More than satisfied!" he said; "glad I metthe child, proud I know the girl, longing46 to meetthe woman!"
收听单词发音 |
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initiated
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| n. 创始人 adj. 新加入的 vt. 开始，创始，启蒙，介绍加入 | |
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heralded
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| v.预示( herald的过去式和过去分词 )；宣布（好或重要） | |
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rosy
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| adj.美好的，乐观的，玫瑰色的 | |
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unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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wagons
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| n.四轮的运货马车( wagon的名词复数 )；铁路货车；小手推车 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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makers
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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prelude
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| n.序言，前兆，序曲 | |
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ornamented
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| adj.花式字体的v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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attaining
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| （通常经过努力）实现( attain的现在分词 )； 达到； 获得； 达到（某年龄、水平、状况） | |
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entailed
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| 使…成为必要( entail的过去式和过去分词 )； 需要； 限定继承； 使必需 | |
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sleepless
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| adj.不睡眠的，睡不著的，不休息的 | |
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veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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martyrs
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| n.martyr的复数形式；烈士( martyr的名词复数 )；殉道者；殉教者；乞怜者（向人诉苦以博取同情） | |
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fiddling
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| 微小的 | |
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strings
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| n.弦 | |
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decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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supreme
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| adj.极度的，最重要的；至高的，最高的 | |
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attic
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| n.顶楼，屋顶室 | |
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intimacy
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| n.熟悉，亲密，密切关系，亲昵的言行 | |
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frailty
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| n.脆弱；意志薄弱 | |
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picturesque
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| adj.美丽如画的，（语言）生动的，绘声绘色的 | |
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thither
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| adv.向那里；adj.在那边的，对岸的 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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spokes
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| n.（车轮的）辐条( spoke的名词复数 )；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 | |
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reins
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| 感情，激情； 缰( rein的名词复数 )； 控制手段； 掌管； （成人带着幼儿走路以防其走失时用的）保护带 | |
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maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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saluted
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| v.欢迎，致敬( salute的过去式和过去分词 )；赞扬，赞颂 | |
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muse
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| n.缪斯（希腊神话中的女神），创作灵感 | |
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sob
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| n.空间轨道的轰炸机；呜咽，哭泣 | |
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standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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disconsolate
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| adj.忧郁的，不快的 | |
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precisely
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| adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地 | |
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platitudes
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| n.平常的话，老生常谈，陈词滥调( platitude的名词复数 )；滥套子 | |
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disarms
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| v.裁军( disarm的第三人称单数 )；使息怒 | |
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desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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inevitable
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| adj.不可避免的，必然发生的 | |
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yoke
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| n.轭；支配；v.给...上轭，连接，使成配偶 | |
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pang
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| n.剧痛，悲痛，苦闷 | |
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intervals
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| n.[军事]间隔( interval的名词复数 )；间隔时间；[数学]区间；（戏剧、电影或音乐会的）幕间休息 | |
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furtive
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| adj.鬼鬼崇崇的，偷偷摸摸的 | |
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avowed
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| adj.公开声明的，承认的v.公开声明，承认( avow的过去式和过去分词) | |
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aisle
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| n.（教堂、教室、戏院等里的）过道，通道 | |
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longing
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| n.（for）渴望 | |
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