CHAPTER III

 My little boy and I have had an exceedingly interesting walk in the Frederiksberg Park.

 

There was a mouse, which was irresistible¹. There were two chaffinches, husband and wife, which built their nest right before our eyes, and a snail², which had no secrets for us. And there were flowers, yellow and white, and there were green leaves, which told us the oddest adventures: in fact, as much as we can find room for in our little head.

 

Now we are sitting on a bench and digesting our impressions.

 

Suddenly the air is shaken by a tremendous roar:

 

"What was that?" asks my little boy.

 

"That was the lion in the Zoological Gardens," I reply.

 

No sooner have I said this than I curse my own stupidity.

 

I might have said that it was a gunshot announcing the birth of a prince; or an earthquake; or a china dish falling from the sky and breaking into pieces: anything whatever, rather than the truth.

 

For now my little boy wants to know what sort of thing the Zoological Gardens is.

 

I tell him.

 

The Zoological Gardens is a horrid³ place, where they lock up wild beasts who have done no wrong and who are accustomed to walk about freely in the distant foreign countries where they come from. The lion is there, whom we have just heard roaring. He is so strong that he can kill a policeman with one blow of his paw; he has great, haughty⁴ eyes and awfully⁵ sharp teeth. He lives in Africa and, at night, when he roars, all the other beasts tremble in their holes for fear. He is called the king of beasts. They caught him one day in a cunning trap and bound him and dragged him here and locked him up in a cage with iron bars to it. The cage is no more than half as big as Petrine's room. And there the king walks up and down, up and down, and gnashes his teeth with sorrow and rage and roars so that you can hear him ever so far away. Outside his cage stand cowardly people and laugh at him, because he can't get out and eat them up, and poke⁶ their sticks through the rails and tease him.

 

My little boy stands in front of me and looks at me with wide-open eyes:

 

"Would he eat them up, if he got out?" he asks.

 

"In a moment."

 

"But he can't get out, can he?"

 

"No. That's awfully sad. He can't get out."

 

"Father, let us go and look at the lion."

 

I pretend not to hear and go on to tell him of the strange birds there: great eagles, which used to fly over every church-steeple and over the highest trees and mountains and swoop⁷ down upon lambs and hares and carry them up to their young in the nest. Now they are sitting in cages, on a perch⁸, like canaries, with clipped wings and blind eyes. I tell him of gulls⁹, which used to fly all day long over the stormy sea: now they splash about in a puddle¹⁰ of water, screaming pitifully. I tell him of wonderful blue and red birds, which, in their youth, used to live among wonderful blue and red flowers, in balmy forests a thousand times bigger than the Frederiksberg Park, where it was as dark as night under the trees with the brightest sun shining down upon the tree-tops: now they sit there in very small cages and hang their beaks¹¹ while they stare at tiresome¹² boys in dark-blue suits and black stockings and waterproof¹³ boots and sailor-hats.

 

"Are those birds really blue?" asks my little boy.

 

"Sky-blue," I answer. "And utterly¹⁴ broken-hearted."

 

"Father, can't we go and look at the birds?"

 

I take my little boy's hands in mine:

 

"I don't think we will," I say. "Why should still more silly boys do so? You can't imagine how it goes to one's heart to look at those poor captive beasts."

 

"Father, I should so much like to go."

 

"Take my advice and don't. The animals there are not the real animals, you see. They are ill and ugly and angry because of their captivity¹⁵ and their longing¹⁶ and their pain."

 

"I should so much like to see them."

 

"Now let me tell you something. To go to the Zoological Gardens costs five cents for you and ten cents for me. That makes fifteen cents altogether, which is an awful lot of money. We won't go there now, but we'll buy the biggest money-box we can find: one of those money-boxes shaped like a pig. Then we'll put fifteen cents in it. And every Thursday we'll put fifteen cents in the pig. By-and-by, that will grow into quite a fortune: it will make such a lot of money that, when you are grown up, you can take a trip to Africa and go to the desert and hear the wild, the real lion roaring and tremble just like the people tremble down there. And you can go to the great, dark forests and see the real blue birds flying proud and free among the flowers. You can't think how glad you will be, how beautiful they will look and how they will sing to you. . . ."

 

"Father, I would rather go to the Zoological Gardens now."

 

My little boy does not understand a word of what I say. And I am at my wits' end.

 

"Shall we go and have some cakes at Josty's?" I ask.

 

"I would rather go to the Zoological Gardens."

 

I can read in his eyes that he is thinking of the captive lion. Ugly human instincts are waking up in his soul. The mouse is forgotten and the snail; and the chaffinches have built their nest to no purpose.

 

At last I get up and say, bluntly, without any further explanation:

 

"You are not going to the Zoological Gardens. Now we'll go home."

 

And home we go. But we are not in a good temper.

 

Of course, I get over it and I buy an enormous money-box pig. Also we put the money into it and he thinks that most interesting.

 

But, later in the afternoon, I find him in the bed-room engaged in a piteous game.

 

He has built a cage, in which he has imprisoned¹⁷ the pig. He is teasing it and hitting it with his whip, while he keeps shouting to it:

 

"You can't get out and bite me, you stupid pig! You can't get out!"

1 irresistible   

adj.非常诱人的，无法拒绝的，无法抗拒的

参考例句：

• The wheel of history rolls forward with an irresistible force.历史车轮滚滚向前，势不可挡。
• She saw an irresistible skirt in the store window.她看见商店的橱窗里有一条叫人着迷的裙子。

2 snail   

n.蜗牛

参考例句：

• Snail is a small plant-eating creature with a soft body.蜗牛是一种软体草食动物。
• Time moved at a snail's pace before the holidays.放假前的时间过得很慢。

3 horrid   

adj.可怕的；令人惊恐的；恐怖的；极讨厌的

参考例句：

• I'm not going to the horrid dinner party.我不打算去参加这次讨厌的宴会。
• The medicine is horrid and she couldn't get it down.这种药很难吃，她咽不下去。

4 haughty   

adj.傲慢的，高傲的

参考例句：

• He gave me a haughty look and walked away.他向我摆出傲慢的表情后走开。
• They were displeased with her haughty airs.他们讨厌她高傲的派头。

5 awfully   

adv.可怕地，非常地，极端地

参考例句：

• Agriculture was awfully neglected in the past.过去农业遭到严重忽视。
• I've been feeling awfully bad about it.对这我一直感到很难受。

6 poke   

n.刺，戳，袋；vt.拨开，刺，戳；vi.戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢

参考例句：

• We never thought she would poke her nose into this.想不到她会插上一手。
• Don't poke fun at me.别拿我凑趣儿。

7 swoop   

n.俯冲，攫取；v.抓取，突然袭击

参考例句：

• The plane made a swoop over the city.那架飞机突然向这座城市猛降下来。
• We decided to swoop down upon the enemy there.我们决定突袭驻在那里的敌人。

8 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。

9 gulls   

n.鸥( gull的名词复数 )v.欺骗某人( gull的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• A flock of sea gulls are hovering over the deck. 一群海鸥在甲板上空飞翔。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• The gulls which haunted the outlying rocks in a prodigious number. 数不清的海鸥在遥远的岩石上栖息。 来自辞典例句

10 puddle   

n.(雨)水坑，泥潭

参考例句：

• The boy hopped the mud puddle and ran down the walk.这个男孩跳过泥坑，沿着人行道跑了。
• She tripped over and landed in a puddle.她绊了一下，跌在水坑里。

11 beaks   

n.鸟嘴( beak的名词复数 )；鹰钩嘴；尖鼻子；掌权者

参考例句：

• Baby cockatoos will have black eyes and soft, almost flexible beaks. 雏鸟凤头鹦鹉黑色的眼睛是柔和的，嘴几乎是灵活的。 来自互联网
• Squid beaks are often found in the stomachs of sperm whales. 经常能在抹香鲸的胃里发现鱿鱼的嘴。 来自互联网

12 tiresome   

adj.令人疲劳的，令人厌倦的

参考例句：

• His doubts and hesitations were tiresome.他的疑惑和犹豫令人厌烦。
• He was tiresome in contending for the value of his own labors.他老为他自己劳动的价值而争强斗胜，令人生厌。

13 waterproof   

n.防水材料；adj.防水的；v.使...能防水

参考例句：

• My mother bought me a waterproof watch.我妈妈给我买了一块防水手表。
• All the electronics are housed in a waterproof box.所有电子设备都储放在一个防水盒中。

14 utterly   

adv.完全地，绝对地

参考例句：

• Utterly devoted to the people,he gave his life in saving his patients.他忠于人民，把毕生精力用于挽救患者的生命。
• I was utterly ravished by the way she smiled.她的微笑使我完全陶醉了。

15 captivity   

n.囚禁；被俘；束缚

参考例句：

• A zoo is a place where live animals are kept in captivity for the public to see.动物园是圈养动物以供公众观看的场所。
• He was held in captivity for three years.他被囚禁叁年。

16 longing   

n.（for）渴望

参考例句：

• Hearing the tune again sent waves of longing through her.再次听到那首曲子使她胸中充满了渴望。
• His heart burned with longing for revenge.他心中燃烧着急欲复仇的怒火。

17 imprisoned   

下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was imprisoned for two concurrent terms of 30 months and 18 months. 他被判处30个月和18个月的监禁，合并执行。
• They were imprisoned for possession of drugs. 他们因拥有毒品而被监禁。