“I’m so sorry for people who live in lands where there are no Mayflowers,” said Anne. “Diana says perhaps they have something better, but there couldn’t be anything better than Mayflowers, could there, Marilla? And Diana says if they don’t know what they are like they don’t miss them. But I think that is the saddest thing of all. I think it would be tragic6, Marilla, not to know what Mayflowers are like and not to miss them. Do you know what I think Mayflowers are, Marilla? I think they must be the souls of the flowers that died last summer and this is their heaven. But we had a splendid time today, Marilla. We had our lunch down in a big mossy hollow by an old well—such a romantic spot. Charlie Sloane dared Arty Gillis to jump over it, and Arty did because he wouldn’t take a dare. Nobody would in school. It is very fashionable to dare. Mr. Phillips gave all the Mayflowers he found to Prissy Andrews and I heard him to say ‘sweets to the sweet.’ He got that out of a book, I know; but it shows he has some imagination. I was offered some Mayflowers too, but I rejected them with scorn. I can’t tell you the person’s name because I have vowed7 never to let it cross my lips. We made wreaths of the Mayflowers and put them on our hats; and when the time came to go home we marched in procession down the road, two by two, with our bouquets8 and wreaths, singing ‘My Home on the Hill.’ Oh, it was so thrilling, Marilla. All Mr. Silas Sloane’s folks rushed out to see us and everybody we met on the road stopped and stared after us. We made a real sensation.”
“Not much wonder! Such silly doings!” was Marilla’s response.
After the Mayflowers came the violets, and Violet Vale was empurpled with them. Anne walked through it on her way to school with reverent9 steps and worshiping eyes, as if she trod on holy ground.
“Somehow,” she told Diana, “when I’m going through here I don’t really care whether Gil—whether anybody gets ahead of me in class or not. But when I’m up in school it’s all different and I care as much as ever. There’s such a lot of different Annes in me. I sometimes think that is why I’m such a troublesome person. If I was just the one Anne it would be ever so much more comfortable, but then it wouldn’t be half so interesting.”
One June evening, when the orchards10 were pink blossomed again, when the frogs were singing silverly sweet in the marshes11 about the head of the Lake of Shining Waters, and the air was full of the savor12 of clover fields and balsamic fir woods, Anne was sitting by her gable window. She had been studying her lessons, but it had grown too dark to see the book, so she had fallen into wide-eyed reverie, looking out past the boughs13 of the Snow Queen, once more bestarred with its tufts of blossom.
In all essential respects the little gable chamber14 was unchanged. The walls were as white, the pincushion as hard, the chairs as stiffly and yellowly upright as ever. Yet the whole character of the room was altered. It was full of a new vital, pulsing personality that seemed to pervade15 it and to be quite independent of schoolgirl books and dresses and ribbons, and even of the cracked blue jug16 full of apple blossoms on the table. It was as if all the dreams, sleeping and waking, of its vivid occupant had taken a visible although unmaterial form and had tapestried17 the bare room with splendid filmy tissues of rainbow and moonshine. Presently Marilla came briskly in with some of Anne’s freshly ironed school aprons18. She hung them over a chair and sat down with a short sigh. She had had one of her headaches that afternoon, and although the pain had gone she felt weak and “tuckered out,” as she expressed it. Anne looked at her with eyes limpid20 with sympathy.
“I do truly wish I could have had the headache in your place, Marilla. I would have endured it joyfully21 for your sake.”
“I guess you did your part in attending to the work and letting me rest,” said Marilla. “You seem to have got on fairly well and made fewer mistakes than usual. Of course it wasn’t exactly necessary to starch22 Matthew’s handkerchiefs! And most people when they put a pie in the oven to warm up for dinner take it out and eat it when it gets hot instead of leaving it to be burned to a crisp. But that doesn’t seem to be your way evidently.”
“Oh, I’m so sorry,” said Anne penitently24. “I never thought about that pie from the moment I put it in the oven till now, although I felt instinctively25 that there was something missing on the dinner table. I was firmly resolved, when you left me in charge this morning, not to imagine anything, but keep my thoughts on facts. I did pretty well until I put the pie in, and then an irresistible26 temptation came to me to imagine I was an enchanted27 princess shut up in a lonely tower with a handsome knight28 riding to my rescue on a coal-black steed. So that is how I came to forget the pie. I didn’t know I starched29 the handkerchiefs. All the time I was ironing I was trying to think of a name for a new island Diana and I have discovered up the brook30. It’s the most ravishing spot, Marilla. There are two maple2 trees on it and the brook flows right around it. At last it struck me that it would be splendid to call it Victoria Island because we found it on the Queen’s birthday. Both Diana and I are very loyal. But I’m sorry about that pie and the handkerchiefs. I wanted to be extra good today because it’s an anniversary. Do you remember what happened this day last year, Marilla?”
“No, I can’t think of anything special.”
“Oh, Marilla, it was the day I came to Green Gables. I shall never forget it. It was the turning point in my life. Of course it wouldn’t seem so important to you. I’ve been here for a year and I’ve been so happy. Of course, I’ve had my troubles, but one can live down troubles. Are you sorry you kept me, Marilla?”
“No, I can’t say I’m sorry,” said Marilla, who sometimes wondered how she could have lived before Anne came to Green Gables, “no, not exactly sorry. If you’ve finished your lessons, Anne, I want you to run over and ask Mrs. Barry if she’ll lend me Diana’s apron19 pattern.”
“Oh—it’s—it’s too dark,” cried Anne.
“Too dark? Why, it’s only twilight. And goodness knows you’ve gone over often enough after dark.”
“I’ll go over early in the morning,” said Anne eagerly. “I’ll get up at sunrise and go over, Marilla.”
“What has got into your head now, Anne Shirley? I want that pattern to cut out your new apron this evening. Go at once and be smart too.”
“I’ll have to go around by the road, then,” said Anne, taking up her hat reluctantly.
“Go by the road and waste half an hour! I’d like to catch you!”
“I can’t go through the Haunted Wood, Marilla,” cried Anne desperately31.
Marilla stared.
“The spruce wood over the brook,” said Anne in a whisper.
“Fiddlesticks! There is no such thing as a haunted wood anywhere. Who has been telling you such stuff?”
“Nobody,” confessed Anne. “Diana and I just imagined the wood was haunted. All the places around here are so—so—commonplace. We just got this up for our own amusement. We began it in April. A haunted wood is so very romantic, Marilla. We chose the spruce grove33 because it’s so gloomy. Oh, we have imagined the most harrowing things. There’s a white lady walks along the brook just about this time of the night and wrings34 her hands and utters wailing36 cries. She appears when there is to be a death in the family. And the ghost of a little murdered child haunts the corner up by Idlewild; it creeps up behind you and lays its cold fingers on your hand—so. Oh, Marilla, it gives me a shudder37 to think of it. And there’s a headless man stalks up and down the path and skeletons glower38 at you between the boughs. Oh, Marilla, I wouldn’t go through the Haunted Wood after dark now for anything. I’d be sure that white things would reach out from behind the trees and grab me.”
“Did ever anyone hear the like!” ejaculated Marilla, who had listened in dumb amazement39. “Anne Shirley, do you mean to tell me you believe all that wicked nonsense of your own imagination?”
“Not believe exactly,” faltered40 Anne. “At least, I don’t believe it in daylight. But after dark, Marilla, it’s different. That is when ghosts walk.”
“There are no such things as ghosts, Anne.”
“Oh, but there are, Marilla,” cried Anne eagerly. “I know people who have seen them. And they are respectable people. Charlie Sloane says that his grandmother saw his grandfather driving home the cows one night after he’d been buried for a year. You know Charlie Sloane’s grandmother wouldn’t tell a story for anything. She’s a very religious woman. And Mrs. Thomas’s father was pursued home one night by a lamb of fire with its head cut off hanging by a strip of skin. He said he knew it was the spirit of his brother and that it was a warning he would die within nine days. He didn’t, but he died two years after, so you see it was really true. And Ruby41 Gillis says—”
“Anne Shirley,” interrupted Marilla firmly, “I never want to hear you talking in this fashion again. I’ve had my doubts about that imagination of yours right along, and if this is going to be the outcome of it, I won’t countenance42 any such doings. You’ll go right over to Barry’s, and you’ll go through that spruce grove, just for a lesson and a warning to you. And never let me hear a word out of your head about haunted woods again.”
Anne might plead and cry as she liked—and did, for her terror was very real. Her imagination had run away with her and she held the spruce grove in mortal dread43 after nightfall. But Marilla was inexorable. She marched the shrinking ghost-seer down to the spring and ordered her to proceed straightaway over the bridge and into the dusky retreats of wailing ladies and headless specters beyond.
“Oh, Marilla, how can you be so cruel?” sobbed44 Anne. “What would you feel like if a white thing did snatch me up and carry me off?”
“I’ll risk it,” said Marilla unfeelingly. “You know I always mean what I say. I’ll cure you of imagining ghosts into places. March, now.”
Anne marched. That is, she stumbled over the bridge and went shuddering45 up the horrible dim path beyond. Anne never forgot that walk. Bitterly did she repent46 the license47 she had given to her imagination. The goblins of her fancy lurked48 in every shadow about her, reaching out their cold, fleshless hands to grasp the terrified small girl who had called them into being. A white strip of birch bark blowing up from the hollow over the brown floor of the grove made her heart stand still. The long-drawn wail35 of two old boughs rubbing against each other brought out the perspiration49 in beads50 on her forehead. The swoop51 of bats in the darkness over her was as the wings of unearthly creatures. When she reached Mr. William Bell’s field she fled across it as if pursued by an army of white things, and arrived at the Barry kitchen door so out of breath that she could hardly gasp52 out her request for the apron pattern. Diana was away so that she had no excuse to linger. The dreadful return journey had to be faced. Anne went back over it with shut eyes, preferring to take the risk of dashing her brains out among the boughs to that of seeing a white thing. When she finally stumbled over the log bridge she drew one long shivering breath of relief.
“Well, so nothing caught you?” said Marilla unsympathetically.
“Oh, Mar—Marilla,” chattered53 Anne, “I’ll b-b-be contt-tented with c-c-commonplace places after this.”
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1
chilly
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| adj.凉快的，寒冷的 | |
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2
maple
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| n.槭树，枫树，槭木 | |
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maples
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| 槭树，枫树( maple的名词复数 )； 槭木 | |
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gathering
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| n.集会，聚会，聚集 | |
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twilight
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| n.暮光，黄昏；暮年，晚期，衰落时期 | |
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6
tragic
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| adj.悲剧的，悲剧性的，悲惨的 | |
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7
vowed
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| 起誓，发誓（vow的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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8
bouquets
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| n.花束( bouquet的名词复数 )；（酒的）芳香 | |
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9
reverent
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| adj.恭敬的，虔诚的 | |
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10
orchards
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| （通常指围起来的）果园( orchard的名词复数 ) | |
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marshes
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| n.沼泽，湿地( marsh的名词复数 ) | |
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savor
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| vt.品尝，欣赏；n.味道，风味；情趣，趣味 | |
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13
boughs
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| 大树枝( bough的名词复数 ) | |
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14
chamber
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| n.房间，寝室；会议厅；议院；会所 | |
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15
pervade
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| v.弥漫，遍及，充满，渗透，漫延 | |
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16
jug
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| n.(有柄，小口，可盛水等的)大壶，罐，盂 | |
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17
tapestried
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| adj.饰挂绣帷的，织在绣帷上的v.用挂毯（或绣帷）装饰( tapestry的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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18
aprons
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| 围裙( apron的名词复数 )； 停机坪，台口（舞台幕前的部份） | |
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19
apron
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| n.围裙；工作裙 | |
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limpid
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| adj.清澈的，透明的 | |
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joyfully
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| adv. 喜悦地, 高兴地 | |
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22
starch
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| n.淀粉；vt.给...上浆 | |
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23
sarcastic
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| adj.讥讽的，讽刺的，嘲弄的 | |
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24
penitently
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25
instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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irresistible
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| adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的 | |
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27
enchanted
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| adj. 被施魔法的，陶醉的，入迷的 动词enchant的过去式和过去分词 | |
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28
knight
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| n.骑士，武士；爵士 | |
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29
starched
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| adj.浆硬的，硬挺的，拘泥刻板的v.把（衣服、床单等）浆一浆( starch的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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30
brook
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| n.小河，溪；v.忍受，容让 | |
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31
desperately
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| adv.极度渴望地，绝望地，孤注一掷地 | |
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32
canopy
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| n.天篷，遮篷 | |
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33
grove
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| n.林子，小树林，园林 | |
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34
wrings
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| 绞( wring的第三人称单数 )； 握紧（尤指别人的手）； 把（湿衣服）拧干； 绞掉（水） | |
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35
wail
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| vt./vi.大声哀号，恸哭；呼啸，尖啸 | |
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36
wailing
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| v.哭叫，哀号( wail的现在分词 )；沱 | |
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37
shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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38
glower
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| v.怒目而视 | |
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39
amazement
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| n.惊奇，惊讶 | |
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40
faltered
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| （嗓音）颤抖( falter的过去式和过去分词 )； 支吾其词； 蹒跚； 摇晃 | |
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41
ruby
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| n.红宝石，红宝石色 | |
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42
countenance
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| n.脸色，面容；面部表情；vt.支持，赞同 | |
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43
dread
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| vt.担忧，忧虑；惧怕，不敢；n.担忧，畏惧 | |
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44
sobbed
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| 哭泣，啜泣( sob的过去式和过去分词 )； 哭诉，呜咽地说 | |
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45
shuddering
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| v.战栗( shudder的现在分词 )；发抖；（机器、车辆等）突然震动；颤动 | |
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46
repent
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| v.悔悟，悔改，忏悔，后悔 | |
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47
license
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| n.执照，许可证，特许；v.许可，特许 | |
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48
lurked
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| vi.潜伏，埋伏（lurk的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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49
perspiration
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| n.汗水；出汗 | |
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50
beads
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| n.（空心）小珠子( bead的名词复数 )；水珠；珠子项链 | |
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51
swoop
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| n.俯冲，攫取；v.抓取，突然袭击 | |
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52
gasp
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| n.喘息，气喘；v.喘息；气吁吁他说 | |
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53
chattered
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| （人）喋喋不休( chatter的过去式 )； 唠叨； （牙齿）打战； （机器）震颤 | |
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