So the Angel dined and talked to the Vicar, and presently the night came and he was overtaken by yawning.
"Yah——oh!" said the Angel suddenly. "Dear me! A higher power seemed suddenly to stretch my mouth open and a great breath of air went rushing down my throat."
"You yawned," said the Vicar. "Do you never yawn in the angelic country?"
"Never," said the Angel.
"Bed!" said the Angel. "Where's that?"
So the Vicar explained darkness to him and the art of going to bed. (The Angels, it seems sleep only in order to dream, and dream, like primitive2 man, with their foreheads on their knees. And they sleep among the white poppy meadows in the heat of the day.) The Angel[Pg 87] found the bedroom arrangements quaint3 enough.
"Why is everything raised up on big wooden legs?" he said. "You have the floor, and then you put everything you have upon a wooden quadruped. Why do you do it?" The Vicar explained with philosophical4 vagueness. The Angel burnt his finger in the candle-flame—and displayed an absolute ignorance of the elementary principles of combustion5. He was merely charmed when a line of fire ran up the curtains. The Vicar had to deliver a lecture on fire so soon as the flame was extinguished. He had all kinds of explanations to make—even the soap needed explaining. It was an hour or more before the Angel was safely tucked in for the night.
"He's very beautiful," said the Vicar, descending6 the staircase, quite tired out; "and he's a real angel no doubt. But I am afraid he will be a dreadful anxiety, all the same, before he gets into our earthly way with things."
He seemed quite worried. He helped himself to an extra glass of sherry before he put away the wine in the cellaret.
点击收听单词发音
1 immortal | |
adj.不朽的;永生的,不死的;神的 | |
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2 primitive | |
adj.原始的;简单的;n.原(始)人,原始事物 | |
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3 quaint | |
adj.古雅的,离奇有趣的,奇怪的 | |
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4 philosophical | |
adj.哲学家的,哲学上的,达观的 | |
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5 combustion | |
n.燃烧;氧化;骚动 | |
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6 descending | |
n. 下行 adj. 下降的 | |
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