PREFACE

 WHICH EXPLAINS THINGS

Father calls me Mary. Mother calls me Marie. Everybody else calls me

Mary Marie. The rest of my name is Anderson.

I'm thirteen years old, and I'm a cross-current and a contradiction. That is, Sarah says I'm that. (Sarah is my old nurse.) She says she read it once—that the children of unlikes were always a cross-current and a contradiction. And my father and mother are unlikes, and I'm the children. That is, I'm the child. I'm all there is. And now I'm going to be a bigger cross-current and contradiction than ever, for I'm going to live half the time with Mother and the other half with Father. Mother will go to Boston to live, and Father will stay here—a divorce, you know.

 

I'm terribly excited over it. None of the other girls have got a divorce in their families, and I always did like to be different. Besides, it ought to be awfully¹ interesting, more so than just living along, common, with your father and mother in the same house all the time—especially if it's been anything like my house with my father and mother in it!

 

That's why I've decided² to make a book of it—that is, it really will be a book, only I shall have to call it a diary, on account of Father, you know. Won't it be funny when I don't have to do things on account of Father? And I won't, of course, the six months I'm living with Mother in Boston. But, oh, my!—the six months I'm living here with him—whew! But, then, I can stand it. I may even like it—some. Anyhow, it'll be different. And that's something.

 

Well, about making this into a book. As I started to say, he wouldn't let me. I know he wouldn't. He says novels are a silly waste of time, if not absolutely wicked. But, a diary—oh, he loves diaries! He keeps one himself, and he told me it would be an excellent and instructive discipline for me to do it, too—set down the weather and what I did every day.

 

The weather and what I did every day, indeed! Lovely reading that would make, wouldn't it? Like this:

 

"The sun shines this morning. I got up, ate my breakfast, went to school, came home, ate my dinner, played one hour over to Carrie Heywood's, practiced on the piano one hour, studied another hour. Talked with Mother upstairs in her room about the sunset and the snow on the trees. Ate my supper. Was talked to by Father down in the library about improving myself and taking care not to be light-minded and frivolous³. (He meant like Mother, only he didn't say it right out loud. You don't have to say some things right out in plain words, you know.) Then I went to bed."

 

* * * * *

 

Just as if I was going to write my novel like that! Not much I am. But I shall call it a diary. Oh, yes, I shall call it a diary—till I take it to be printed. Then I shall give it its true name—a novel. And I'm going to tell the printer that I've left it for him to make the spelling right, and put in all those tiresome⁴ little commas and periods and question marks that everybody seems to make such a fuss⁵ about. If I write the story part, I can't be expected to be bothered with looking up how words are spelt, every five minutes, nor fussing⁶ over putting in a whole lot of foolish little dots and dashes.

 

As if anybody who was reading the story cared for that part! The story's the thing.

 

I love stories. I've written lots of them for the girls, too—little short ones, I mean; not a long one like this is going to be, of course. And it'll be so exciting to be living a story instead of reading it—only when you're living a story you can't peek⁷ over to the back to see how it's all coming out. I shan't like that part. Still, it may be all the more exciting, after all, not to know what's coming.

 

I like love stories the best. Father's got—oh, lots of books in the library, and I've read stacks of them, even some of the stupid old histories and biographies⁸. I had to read them when there wasn't anything else to read. But there weren't many love stories. Mother's got a few, though—lovely ones—and some books of poetry, on the little shelf in her room. But I read all those ages ago.

 

That's why I'm so thrilled over this new one—the one I'm living, I mean. For of course this will be a love story. There'll be my love story in two or three years, when I grow up, and while I'm waiting there's Father's and Mother's.

 

Nurse Sarah says that when you're divorced you're free, just like you were before you were married, and that sometimes they marry again. That made me think right away: what if Father or Mother, or both of them, married again? And I should be there to see it, and the courting, and all! Wouldn't that be some love story? Well, I just guess!

 

And only think how all the girls would envy me—and they just living along their humdrum⁹, everyday existence with fathers and mothers already married and living together, and nothing exciting to look forward to. For really, you know, when you come right down to it, there aren't many girls that have got the chance I've got.

 

And so that's why I've decided to write it into a book. Oh, yes, I know I'm young—only thirteen. But I feel really awfully old; and you know a woman is as old as she feels. Besides, Nurse Sarah says I am old for my age, and that it's no wonder, the kind of a life I've lived.

 

And maybe that is so. For of course it has been different, living with a father and mother that are getting ready to be divorced from what it would have been living with the loving, happy-ever-after kind. Nurse Sarah says it's a shame and a pity, and that it's the children that always suffer. But I'm not suffering—not a mite¹⁰. I'm just enjoying it. It's so exciting.

 

Of course if I was going to lose either one, it would be different.

But I'm not, for I am to live with Mother six months, then with

Father.

So I still have them both. And, really, when you come right down to it, I'd rather take them separate that way. Why, separate they're just perfectly¹¹ all right, like that—that—what-do-you-call-it powder?—sedlitzer, or something like that. Anyhow, it's that white powder that you mix in two glasses, and that looks just like water till you put them together. And then, oh, my! such a fuss and fizz and splutter! Well, it's that way with Father and Mother. It'll be lots easier to take them separate, I know. For now I can be Mary six months, then Marie six months, and not try to be them both all at once, with maybe only five minutes between them.

 

And I think I shall love both Father and Mother better separate, too. Of course I love Mother, and I know I'd just adore¹² Father if he'd let me—he's so tall and fine and splendid, when he's out among folks. All the girls are simply crazy over him. And I am, too. Only, at home—well, it's so hard to be Mary always. And you see, he named me Mary—

 

But I mustn't tell that here. That's part of the story, and this is only the Preface. I'm going to begin it to-morrow—the real story—Chapter One.

 

But, there—I mustn't call it a "chapter" out loud. Diaries don't have chapters, and this is a diary. I mustn't forget that it's a diary. But I can write it down as a chapter, for it's going to be a novel, after it's got done being a diary.

该作者的其它作品
《Pollyanna》

 

1 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。

2 decided   

adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的

参考例句：

• This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
• There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。

3 frivolous   

adj.轻薄的；轻率的

参考例句：

• This is a frivolous way of attacking the problem.这是一种轻率敷衍的处理问题的方式。
• He spent a lot of his money on frivolous things.他在一些无聊的事上花了好多钱。

4 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。

5 fuss   

n.过分关心，过分体贴，大惊小怪，小题大作

参考例句：

• My mother makes a fuss of me every time I come home.我每次回家，母亲总对我体贴备至。
• Stop all this fuss and do your homework.别大惊小怪了，去做你的家庭作业吧。

6 fussing   

小题大做，大惊小怪( fuss的现在分词 )； 烦恼，激动（尤指对小事）； 瞎忙一气，过分关心

参考例句：

• Stop fussing about; the bus will arrive on time. 别慌，公共汽车会准时到达。
• I wish you would stop fussing me about. I'm quite able to look after myself. 但愿你不要为我过于操心了，我挺能照顾我自己。

7 peek   

vi.偷看，窥视；n.偷偷的一看，一瞥

参考例句：

• Larry takes a peek out of the window.赖瑞往窗外偷看了一下。
• Cover your eyes and don't peek.捂上眼睛，别偷看。

8 biographies   

n.传记( biography的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There are plenty of biographies for him to browse over. 有大量传记供他浏览。 来自辞典例句
• He likes to read biographies of great men to promote himself. 他喜欢读伟人传记来提高自己。 来自互联网

9 humdrum   

adj.单调的，乏味的

参考例句：

• Their lives consist of the humdrum activities of everyday existence.他们的生活由日常生存的平凡活动所构成。
• The accountant said it was the most humdrum day that she had ever passed.会计师说这是她所度过的最无聊的一天。

10 mite   

n.极小的东西；小铜币

参考例句：

• The poor mite was so ill.可怜的孩子病得这么重。
• He is a mite taller than I.他比我高一点点。

11 perfectly   

adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地

参考例句：

• The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
• Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。

12 adore   

vt.崇拜，敬慕，爱慕，非常喜欢

参考例句：

• People adore him for his noble character.人们因他的高贵品质而敬爱他。
• I would adore to settle back homeland.我非常喜欢回家乡定居。