CHAPTER II A Man of The World

 Little Mrs. Reed-Warbler heaved five deep sighs and, at each sigh, she laid an egg. Then she sat down on the eggs and sighed again.

 

And the reeds swayed in the balmy wind and the nest swayed and the eggs swayed that lay in the nest and the dear little brown bird that sat on the eggs. Even the husband swayed. For, when one rush sways, the other sways too; and he was sitting on one just beside the nest.

 

"You're no worse off than others, darling," he said. "Look down into the water and see for yourself."

 

"I can see nothing," she said sadly.

 

"Fiddlesticks!" said the reed-warbler. "You can peep over for a minute, if you sit down again at once."

 

And so she peeped over.

 

It was certainly very busy down below.

 

The pond-snail was swimming with her pointed¹ shell on her back. She stood right on her head in the water and made a boat of her broad foot, which lay level with the surface of the pond and supported the whole fabric². Then she stretched out her foot and the boat was gone and she went down to the bottom and stuck a whole heap of slimy eggs to the stalk of a water-lily.

 

The pike came and laid an egg in a water-milfoil bush. The carp did the same; and the perch³ hung a nice nest of eggs in between the reeds where the warblers had built their nest. The frog brought her eggs, the stickleback had almost finished his nest and hundreds of animals that were so small that one could hardly see them ran about and made ready for their young ones.

 

Just then, the eel⁴ put his head up out of the mud:

 

"If you will permit me, madam ... I have seen a bit of the world myself...."

 

Mrs. Reed-Warbler gave a faint scream.

 

"I can't stand that person," she said to her husband. "He's so like the adder⁵, who ate my little sister last year, when she fell to the ground as she was learning to fly. He has the same offensive manners and is just as slippery."

 

"Oh," said the eel, "it's a great misfortune for me if I meet with your disapproval⁶, madam, on that account. And it's quite unjust. I am only a fish and not the slightest relation to the adder, who took that little liberty with your sister, madam. We may have just a superficial resemblance, in figure and movement: one has to wriggle⁷ and twist. But I am really much more slippery. My name, for that matter, is Eel ... at your service."

 

"My wife is hatching her eggs," said the reed-warbler. "She can't stand much excitement."

 

"Thank you for telling me, Mr. Reed-Warbler," said the eel. "I did not mean to intrude⁸.... But as I have travelled considerably⁹ myself, like you and your good lady, I thought I might venture to address you, in the hope that we may hold the same liberal opinions concerning the petty affairs of the pond."

 

"So you are a traveller. Can you fly?" asked the reed-warbler.

 

"Not exactly," said the eel. "I can't fly. But I can wriggle and twist. I can get over a good stretch of country, which is more than most fish are able to say. I feel grand in the damp grass; and give me the most ordinary ditch and you'll never hear me complain. I come straight from the sea, you know. And, when I've eaten myself fat here, I shall go back to the sea again."

 

"That's saying a good deal," said the reed-warbler.

 

"Yes," said the eel, modestly. "And just because I have seen something of the world, all this fuss about children in the pond here strikes me as a bit absurd."

 

"You're talking rather thoughtlessly, my good Eel," said the reed-warbler. "I can see you have neither wife nor children."

 

"Oh," said the eel, making a fine flourish with his tail, "that depends on how you look at it! Last year, I brought about a million eels¹⁰ into the world."

 

"Goodness gracious me!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

 

"Aren't you exaggerating?" asked her husband, who was equally impressed, but did not wish to show it.

 

"Possibly," replied the eel. "That's easily done, with such large figures. But it's of no consequence. You can divide it by two, if that eases your conscience."

 

"And what about your own conscience, as the father of such an enormous progeny¹¹?"

 

"I never really consulted it," said the eel.

 

"And how's your wife?" asked little Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

 

"Can't say. I never saw her."

 

"You never saw your wife?"

 

"No, madam. Nor my children either."

 

"Indeed, you do your friends an injustice," said the reed-warbler. "For, only a moment ago, with my own eyes I saw how the stickleback built a nest down there for his children."

 

"The stickleback!" said the eel, with a sneer¹². "I can't stand sticklebacks: they prick¹³ me so horribly in the neck. But that has nothing to do with the case. What is a stickleback, I ask you? I remember once when I was caught and about to be skinned. I was very small at the time and the cook, who was going to put a knife into me, said 'No bigger than a stickleback'!"

 

"Were you caught? Were you about to be skinned?" asked the reed-warbler. "How on earth did you escape?"

 

"I slipped away from the cook," replied the eel. "Thanks to my slipperiness, which your good lady disliked. Then I got into the sink ... out through the gutter¹⁴, the gutter-pipe, the ditch and so on. One has to wriggle and twist."

 

"You may well say that!" said the reed-warbler.

 

"One goes through a bit of everything, you see," said the eel. "But to return to what we were saying, take us eels, for instance. We fling our young into the sea and, for the rest, leave them to their own resources. Like men of the world that we are, we know what life is worth and therefore we fling them out wholesale¹⁵, by the million, as I said just now: I beg pardon, by the half-million; I don't want to offend your love of accuracy. In this way, the children learn to shift for themselves at once. I was brought up in this way myself and learnt to wriggle and twist."

 

"I can't understand it," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

 

"Very sorry," said the eel. "Perhaps my conversation is rather too much for a lady who is sitting on her eggs."

 

"I think children are the sweetest things in the world," she said. "One can't help being fond of them, whether they're one's own or another's."

 

"The ladies are always right," said the eel, eating a couple of caddis-grubs and a little worm. "But am I mistaken, or did I see you eat a grub just now, madam, which your husband brought you?"

 

"A grub...?"

 

"Yes ... isn't that a child too?"

 

"I shall faint in a minute," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler; and she did.

 

"Wriggle and twist!" said the eel; and off he went.

 

The reed-warbler brought his wife back to life with three fat flies, seven sweet songs and a jog on her neck.

 

"You ought to appreciate me, at any rate!" he said, when she was sufficiently¹⁶ recovered for him to speak to her. "The way I feed you and sing to you! Think what other husbands are like."

 

"So I do," she replied.

1 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

2 fabric   

n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织

参考例句：

• The fabric will spot easily.这种织品很容易玷污。
• I don't like the pattern on the fabric.我不喜欢那块布料上的图案。

3 perch   

n.栖木，高位，杆；v.栖息，就位，位于

参考例句：

• The bird took its perch.鸟停歇在栖木上。
• Little birds perch themselves on the branches.小鸟儿栖歇在树枝上。

4 eel   

n.鳗鲡

参考例句：

• He used an eel spear to catch an eel.他用一只捕鳗叉捕鳗鱼。
• In Suzhou,there was a restaurant that specialized in eel noodles.苏州有一家饭馆，他们那里的招牌菜是鳗鱼面。

5 adder   

n.蝰蛇；小毒蛇

参考例句：

• The adder is Britain's only venomous snake.蝰蛇是英国唯一的一种毒蛇。
• An adder attacked my father.一条小毒蛇攻击了我父亲。

6 disapproval   

n.反对，不赞成

参考例句：

• The teacher made an outward show of disapproval.老师表面上表示不同意。
• They shouted their disapproval.他们喊叫表示反对。

7 wriggle   

v./n.蠕动，扭动；蜿蜒

参考例句：

• I've got an appointment I can't wriggle out of.我有个推脱不掉的约会。
• Children wriggle themselves when they are bored.小孩子感到厌烦时就会扭动他们的身体。

8 intrude   

vi.闯入；侵入；打扰，侵扰

参考例句：

• I do not want to intrude if you are busy.如果你忙我就不打扰你了。
• I don't want to intrude on your meeting.我不想打扰你们的会议。

9 considerably   

adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上

参考例句：

• The economic situation has changed considerably.经济形势已发生了相当大的变化。
• The gap has narrowed considerably.分歧大大缩小了。

10 eels   

abbr. 电子发射器定位系统（=electronic emitter location system）

参考例句：

• Eels have been on the feed in the Lower Thames. 鳗鱼在泰晤士河下游寻食。
• She bought some eels for dinner. 她买回一些鳗鱼做晚餐。

11 progeny   

n.后代，子孙；结果

参考例句：

• His numerous progeny are scattered all over the country.他为数众多的后代散布在全国各地。
• He was surrounded by his numerous progeny.众多的子孙簇拥着他。

12 sneer   

v.轻蔑；嘲笑；n.嘲笑，讥讽的言语

参考例句：

• He said with a sneer.他的话中带有嘲笑之意。
• You may sneer,but a lot of people like this kind of music.你可以嗤之以鼻，但很多人喜欢这种音乐。

13 prick   

v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛

参考例句：

• He felt a sharp prick when he stepped on an upturned nail.当他踩在一个尖朝上的钉子上时，他感到剧烈的疼痛。
• He burst the balloon with a prick of the pin.他用针一戳，气球就爆了。

14 gutter   

n.沟，街沟，水槽，檐槽，贫民窟

参考例句：

• There's a cigarette packet thrown into the gutter.阴沟里有个香烟盒。
• He picked her out of the gutter and made her a great lady.他使她脱离贫苦生活，并成为贵妇。

15 wholesale   

n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售

参考例句：

• The retail dealer buys at wholesale and sells at retail.零售商批发购进货物，以零售价卖出。
• Such shoes usually wholesale for much less.这种鞋批发出售通常要便宜得多。

16 sufficiently   

adv.足够地，充分地

参考例句：

• It turned out he had not insured the house sufficiently.原来他没有给房屋投足保险。
• The new policy was sufficiently elastic to accommodate both views.新政策充分灵活地适用两种观点。