Chapter 1 Mainly Concerning Books
‘Books!’ said Tuppence.
She produced the word rather with the effect of a bad-tempered1 explo-sion.
‘What did you say?’ said Tommy.
Tuppence looked across the room at him.
‘I said “books”,’ she said.
‘I see what you mean,’ said Thomas Beresford.
In front of Tuppence were three large packing cases. From each of themvarious books had been extracted. The larger part of them were still filledwith books.
‘It’s incredible,’ said Tuppence.
‘You mean the room they take up?’
‘Yes.’
‘Are you trying to put them all on the shelves?’
‘I don’t know what I’m trying to do,’ said Tuppence. ‘That’s the awkwardpart of it. One doesn’t know ever, exactly, what one wants to do. Oh dear,’
she sighed.
‘Really,’ said her husband, ‘I should have thought that that was not at allcharacteristic of you. The trouble with you has always been that you knewmuch too well what you do want to do.’
‘What I mean is,’ said Tuppence, ‘that here we are, getting older, gettinga bit–well, let’s face it–definitely rheumatic, especially when one is stretch-ing; you know, stretching putting in books or lifting things down fromshelves or kneeling down to look at the bottom shelves for something,then finding it a bit difficult to get up again.’
‘Yes, yes,’ said Tommy, ‘that’s an account of our general disabilities. Isthat what you started to say?’
‘No, it isn’t what I started to say. What I started to say was, it was lovelyto be able to buy a new home and find just the place we wanted to go andlive in, and just the house there we’d always dreamt of having–with a littlealteration, of course.’
‘Knocking one or two rooms into each other,’ said Tommy, ‘and addingto it what you call a veranda3 and your builder calls a lodger4, though Iprefer to call it a loggia.’
‘And it’s going to be very nice,’ said Tuppence firmly.
‘When you’ve done it I shan’t know it! Is that the answer?’ said Tommy.
‘Not at all. All I said was that when you see it finished you’re going to bedelighted and say what an ingenious and clever and artistic5 wife youhave.’
‘All right,’ said Tommy. ‘I’ll remember the right thing to say.’
‘You won’t need to remember,’ said Tuppence. ‘It will burst upon you.’
‘What’s that got to do with books?’ said Tommy.
‘Well, we brought two or three cases of books with us. I mean, we soldoff the books we didn’t much care about. We brought the ones we reallycouldn’t bear to part with, and then, of course, the what-you-call-’ems–Ican’t remember their name now, but the people who were selling us thishouse–they didn’t want to take a lot of their own things with them, andthey said if we’d like to make an offer they would leave things includingbooks, and we came and looked at things–’
‘And we made some offers,’ said Tommy.
‘Yes. Not as many as they hoped we would make, I expect. Some of thefurniture and ornaments6 were too horrible. Well, fortunately we didn’thave to take those, but when I came and saw the various books–therewere some nursery ones, you know, some down in the sitting-room–andthere are one or two old favourites. I mean, there still are. There are oneor two of my own special favourites. And so I thought it’d be such fun tohave them. You know, the story of Androcles and the Lion,’ she said. ‘I re-member reading that when I was eight years old. Andrew Lang.’
‘Tell me, Tuppence, were you clever enough to read at eight years old?’
‘Yes,’ said Tuppence, ‘I read at five years old. Everybody could, when Iwas young. I didn’t know one even had to sort of learn. I mean, somebodywould read stories aloud, and you liked them very much and you re-membered where the book went back on the shelf and you were alwaysallowed to take it out and have a look at it yourself, and so you found youwere reading it too, without bothering to learn to spell or anything likethat. It wasn’t so good later,’ she said, ‘because I’ve never been able tospell very well. And if somebody had taught me to spell when I was aboutfour years old I can see it would have been very good indeed. My fatherdid teach me to do addition and subtraction7 and multiplication8, of course,because he said the multiplication table was the most useful thing youcould learn in life, and I learnt long division too.’
‘What a clever man he must have been!’
‘I don’t think he was specially2 clever,’ said Tuppence, ‘but he was justvery, very nice.’
‘Aren’t we getting away from the point?’
‘Yes, we are,’ said Tuppence. ‘Well, as I said, when I thought of readingAndrocles and the Lion again–it came in a book of stories about animals, Ithink, by Andrew Lang–oh, I loved that. And there was a story about “aday in my life at Eton” by an Eton schoolboy. I can’t think why I wanted toread that, but I did. It was one of my favourite books. And there weresome stories from the classics, and there was Mrs Molesworth, The CuckooClock, Four Winds Farm–’
‘Well, that’s all right,’ said Tommy. ‘No need to give me a whole accountof your literary triumphs in early youth.’
‘What I mean is,’ said Tuppence, ‘that you can’t get them nowadays. Imean, sometimes you get reprints of them, but they’ve usually beenaltered and have different pictures in them. Really, the other day Icouldn’t recognize Alice in Wonderland when I saw it. Everything looks sopeculiar in it. There are the books I really could get still. Mrs Molesworth,one or two of the old fairy books– Pink, Blue and Yellow– and then, ofcourse, lots of later ones which I’d enjoyed. Lots of Stanley Weymans andthings like that. There are quite a lot here, left behind.’
‘All right,’ said Tommy. ‘You were tempted9. You felt it was a good buy.’
‘Yes. At least–what d’you mean a “goodbye”?’
‘I mean b-u-y,’ said Tommy.
‘Oh. I thought you were going to leave the room and were saying good-bye to me.’
‘Not at all,’ said Tommy, ‘I was deeply interested. Anyway, it was a goodb-u-y.’
‘And I got them very cheap, as I tell you. And–and here they all areamong our own books and others. Only, we’ve got such a terrible lot nowof books, and the shelves we had made I don’t think are going to be nearlyenough. What about your special sanctum? Is there room there for morebooks?’
‘No, there isn’t,’ said Tommy. ‘There’s not going to be enough for myown.’
‘Oh dear, oh dear,’ said Tuppence, ‘that’s so like us. Do you think wemight have to build on an extra room?’
‘No,’ said Tommy, ‘we’re going to economize10. We said so the day beforeyesterday. Do you remember?’
‘That was the day before yesterday,’ said Tuppence. ‘Time alters. What Iam going to do now is put in these shelves all the books I really can’t bearto part with. And then–and then we can look at the others and–well, theremight be a children’s hospital somewhere and there might, anyway, beplaces which would like books.’
‘Or we could sell them,’ said Tommy.
‘I don’t suppose they’re the sort of books people would want to buy verymuch. I don’t think there are any books of rare value or anything likethat.’
‘You never know your luck,’ said Tommy. ‘Let’s hope something out ofprint will fulfil some bookseller’s long-felt want.’
‘In the meantime,’ said Tuppence, ‘we have to put them into the shelves,and look inside them, of course, each time to see whether it’s a book I doreally want and I can really remember. I’m trying to get them roughly–well, you know what I mean, sort of sorted. I mean, adventure stories,fairy stories, children’s stories and those stories about schools, where thechildren were always very rich– L. T. Meade, I think. And some of thebooks we used to read to Deborah when she was small, too. How we allused to love Winnie the Pooh. And there was The Little Grey Hen too, but Ididn’t care very much for that.’
‘I think you’re tiring yourself,’ said Tommy. ‘I think I should leave offwhat you’re doing now.’
‘Well, perhaps I will,’ said Tuppence, ‘but I think if I could just finish thisside of the room, just get the books in here…’
‘Well, I’ll help you,’ said Tommy.
He came over, tilted11 the case so that the books fell out, gathered up arm-fuls of them and went to the shelves and shoved them in.
‘I’m putting the same sized ones together, it looks neater,’ he said.
‘Oh, I don’t call that sorting,’ said Tuppence.
‘Sorting enough to get on with. We can do more of that later. You know,make everything really nice. We’ll sort it on some wet day when we can’tthink of anything else to do.’
‘The trouble is we always can think of something else to do.’
‘Well now, there’s another seven in there. Now then, there’s only thistop corner. Just bring me that wooden chair over there, will you? Are itslegs strong enough for me to stand on it? Then I can put some on the topshelf.’
With some care he climbed on the chair. Tuppence lifted up to him anarmful of books. He insinuated12 them with some care on to the top shelf.
Disaster only happened with the last three which cascaded13 to the floor,narrowly missing Tuppence.
‘Oh,’ said Tuppence, ‘that was painful.’
‘Well, I can’t help it. You handed me up too many at once.’
‘Oh well, that does look wonderful,’ said Tuppence, standing14 back alittle. ‘Now then, if you’ll just put these in the second shelf from the bot-tom, there’s a gap there, that will finish up this particular caseful anyway.
It’s a good thing too. These ones I’m doing this morning aren’t really ours,they’re the ones we bought. We may find treasures.’
‘We may,’ said Tommy.
‘I think we shall find treasures. I think I really shall find something.
Something that’s worth a lot of money, perhaps.’
‘What do we do then? Sell it?’
‘I expect we’ll have to sell it, yes,’ said Tuppence. ‘Of course we mightjust keep it and show it to people. You know, not exactly boasting, but justsay, you know: “Oh yes, we’ve got really one or two interesting finds.” Ithink we shall make an interesting find, too.’
‘What–one old favourite you’ve forgotten about?’
‘Not exactly that. I meant something startling, surprising. Somethingthat’ll make all the difference to our lives.’
‘Oh Tuppence,’ said Tommy, ‘what a wonderful mind you’ve got. Muchmore likely to find something that’s an absolute disaster.’
‘Nonsense,’ said Tuppence. ‘One must have hope. It’s the great thing youhave to have in life. Hope. Remember? I’m always full of hope.’
‘I know you are,’ said Tommy. He sighed. ‘I’ve often regretted it.’
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1
bad-tempered
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| adj.脾气坏的 | |
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specially
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| adv.特定地；特殊地；明确地 | |
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3
veranda
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| n.走廊；阳台 | |
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4
lodger
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| n.寄宿人，房客 | |
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5
artistic
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| adj.艺术(家)的，美术(家)的；善于艺术创作的 | |
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6
ornaments
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| n.装饰( ornament的名词复数 )；点缀；装饰品；首饰v.装饰，点缀，美化( ornament的第三人称单数 ) | |
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7
subtraction
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| n.减法，减去 | |
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multiplication
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| n.增加，增多，倍增；增殖，繁殖；乘法 | |
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9
tempted
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| v.怂恿（某人）干不正当的事；冒…的险（tempt的过去分词） | |
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10
economize
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| v.节约，节省 | |
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11
tilted
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| v. 倾斜的 | |
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12
insinuated
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| v.暗示( insinuate的过去式和过去分词 )；巧妙或迂回地潜入；（使）缓慢进入；慢慢伸入 | |
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13
cascaded
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| 级联的 | |
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14
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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