Chapter 30

CHAPTER XXX The Queens Class Is Organized Marilla laid her knitting on her lap and leaned back in her chair. Her eyes were tired, and she thought vaguely that she must see about having her glasses changed the next time she went to town, for her eyes had grown tired very often of late. It was nearly dark, for the full November twilight had fallen around Green Gables, and the only light in the kitchen came from the dancing red flames in the stove. Anne was curled up Turk-fashion on the hearthrug, gazing into that joyous glow where the sunshine of a hundred summers was being distilled from the maple cordwood. She had been reading, but her book had slipped to the floor, and now she was dreaming, with a smile on her parted lips. Glittering castles in Spain were shaping themselves out of the mists and rainbows of her lively fancy; adventures wonderful and enthralling

第三十章 女王班组建了，玛丽拉把毛线活放在膝头，往椅背上一靠。 她眼睛累了，模模糊糊想着下次进城得换副眼镜，因为最近她的眼睛总容易疲劳。 天快黑了，十一月的沉沉暮色已经笼罩了绿山墙，厨房里只有炉中跳动的红色火焰带来光亮。 安妮像土耳其人那样蜷在炉边地毯上，盯着那令人愉悦的火光看，枫木柴正把攒了百个夏天的阳光散发出来。 她原本在看书，可书已经滑到了地上，此刻她正做着梦，微张的唇边带着笑意。 一座座闪闪发光的城堡，正从她鲜活幻想里的云雾与虹霓间渐渐成型。 一场场精彩迷人的冒险

were happening to her in cloudland-adventures that always turned out triumphantly and never involved her in scrapes like those of actual life. Marilla looked at her with a tenderness that would never have been suffered to reveal itself in any clearer light than that soft mingling of fireshine and shadow. The lesson of a love that should display itself easily in spoken word and open look was one Marilla could never learn. But she had learned to love this slim, gray-eyed girl with an affection all the deeper and stronger from its very undemonstrativeness. Her love made her afraid of being unduly indulgent, indeed. She had an uneasy feeling that it was rather sinful to set one's heart so intensely on any human creature as she had set hers on Anne, and perhaps she performed a sort of unconscious penance for this by being stricter and more critical than if the girl had been less dear to her. Certainly Anne herself had no idea how Marilla loved her. She sometimes thought wistfully that Marilla was very hard to please and distinctly lacking in sympathy and understanding.

都在云间仙境里上演——这些冒险总能大获成功，从来不会像现实生活里的事那样让她陷入窘境。 玛丽拉望着她，眼底满是温柔，这份温柔只有在这火光与阴影交织的朦胧柔光里才会流露，换作更明亮的地方她绝不会显露。 把爱意挂在嘴边、放在明处，这种事玛丽拉永远学不会。 可她早已爱上了这个纤细的灰眼睛姑娘，这份爱因为不外露，反而越发深厚强烈。 事实上，这份爱让她害怕自己会过分纵容安妮。 她隐隐不安，觉得像这样把整颗心都放在一个人身上，放在安妮身上，实在不妥，也许她下意识里为此自我惩罚，所以对安妮比对那些没这么亲的孩子更严格更挑剔。 当然，安妮自己一点都不知道玛丽拉有多爱她。 她有时候还会难过地想，玛丽拉很难讨好，完全缺乏同情与理解。

But she always checked the thought reproachfully, remembering what she owed to Marilla. "Anne," said Marilla abruptly, "Miss Stacy was here this afternoon when you were out with Diana." Anne came back from her other world with a start and a sigh. "Was she? Oh, I'm so sorry I wasn't in. Why didn't you call me, Marilla? Diana and I were only over in the Haunted Wood. It's lovely in the woods now. All the little wood things-the ferns and the satin leaves and the crackerberries-have gone to sleep, just as if somebody had tucked them away until spring under a blanket of leaves. I think it was a little gray fairy with a rainbow scarf that came tiptoeing along the last moonlight night and did it. Diana wouldn't say much about that, though. Diana has never forgotten the scolding her mother gave her about imagining ghosts into the Haunted Wood. It had a very bad effect on Diana's imagination. It blighted it. Mrs. Lynde says Myrtle Bell is a blighted being. I asked Ruby Gillis why Myrtle was blighted, and Ruby said she guessed it was because her young man had gone back on her.

可她总会愧疚地打消这个念头，想起玛丽拉对她的恩情。 "安妮，"玛丽拉突然开口，"今天下午你和戴安娜出门的时候，斯泰西小姐来了这儿。" 安妮猛地从自己的幻想世界回过神，叹了口气。 "她来过了呀？ 啊，真可惜我不在家。 你怎么不叫我回来呀，玛丽拉？ 我和戴安娜就在幽灵森林那边呢。 现在的树林可美了。 所有林间小家伙——蕨草、光滑的树叶、蔓虎刺都睡着了，就好像有人把它们裹进树叶毯子，藏起来直到春天。 我觉得是围着彩虹围巾的小灰精灵，在上个月夜踮着脚过来做了这件事。 不过戴安娜不愿意多说这个。 戴安娜一直没忘记，上次她脑补幽灵森林里有鬼，被妈妈骂了一顿。 这件事对戴安娜的想象力影响坏透了。 把它给毁了。 林德太太说默特尔·贝尔就是个被毁掉的人。 我问鲁比·吉利斯默特尔为什么被毁了，鲁比说她猜是因为默特尔的男朋友抛弃了她。

Ruby Gillis thinks of nothing but young men, and the older she gets the worse she is. Young men are all very well in their place, but it doesn't do to drag them into everything, does it? Diana and I are thinking seriously of promising each other that we will never marry but be nice old maids and live together forever. Diana hasn't quite made up her mind though, because she thinks perhaps it would be nobler to marry some wild, dashing, wicked young man and reform him. Diana and I talk a great deal about serious subjects now, you know. We feel that we are so much older than we used to be that it isn't becoming to talk of childish matters. It's such a solemn thing to be almost fourteen, Marilla. Miss Stacy took all us girls who are in our teens down to the brook last Wednesday, and talked to us about it. She said we couldn't be too careful what habits we formed and what ideals we acquired in our teens, because by the time we were twenty our characters would be developed and the foundation laid for our whole future life. And she said if the foundation was shaky we could never build anything really worth while on it. Diana and I talked the matter over coming home from school. We felt extremely solemn,

鲁比·吉利斯满脑子都是年轻小伙子，年纪越大越是这样。 小伙子们本身没什么不好，可干什么都扯到他们就不对了，对吧？ 我和戴安娜正认真约定，我们一辈子都不结婚，要当两个和善的老姑娘，永远住在一起。 不过戴安娜还没完全下定决心，因为她觉得嫁给一个狂野放荡的坏小伙子再改造他，说不定更高尚。 你知道的，我和戴安娜现在聊好多严肃的话题。 我们觉得自己比以前成熟多了，再聊小孩子的话题不合适了。 马上就要十四岁了，这可是件很严肃的事，玛丽拉。 上周三斯泰西小姐带我们所有十几岁的女孩子去溪边，跟我们聊了这件事。 她说我们十几岁养成习惯、树立理想的时候，再怎么小心都不为过，因为到二十岁我们的性格就成型了，也为整个人生打好了基础。 她还说，如果基础不牢，永远没法在上面建起真正有价值的东西。 我和戴安娜放学回家的路上好好聊了这件事。 我们都觉得这事特别严肃

Marilla. And we decided that we would try to be very careful indeed and form respectable habits and learn all we could and be as sensible as possible, so that by the time we were twenty our characters would be properly developed. It's perfectly appalling to think of being twenty, Marilla. It sounds so fearfully old and grown up. But why was Miss Stacy here this afternoon?" "That is what I want to tell you, Anne, if you'll ever give me a chance to get a word in edgewise. She was talking about you." "About me?" Anne looked rather scared. Then she flushed and exclaimed: "Oh, I know what she was saying. I meant to tell you, Marilla, honestly I did, but I forgot. Miss Stacy caught me reading Ben Hur in school yesterday afternoon when I should have been studying my Canadian history. Jane Andrews lent it to me. I was reading it at dinner hour, and I had just got to the chariot race when school went in. I was simply wild to know how it turned out-although I felt sure Ben Hur must win, because it wouldn't be poetical justice if he didn't-so I spread the history open on my desk lid and then tucked Ben Hur between the desk and my knee.

玛丽拉。 我们商量好了，一定会加倍小心，养成得体的好习惯，努力学好本领，变得懂事明理，这样等我们到二十岁的时候，性格就能完全成熟了。 一想到要长到二十岁，玛丽拉，我就害怕极了。 听上去好老啊，完全是大人了。 可是斯泰西小姐今天下午为什么来这儿呀？ 安妮，只要你给我插句话的机会，我这不正要讲给你听嘛。 她刚才在说你呢。 说我？ 安妮一下子紧张了起来。 接着她红着脸大声说：“哦，我知道她要说什么了。 玛丽拉，我本来打算告诉你的，真的，可是我忘了。 昨天下午上课，本该学加拿大历史的时候，斯泰西小姐撞见我在读《宾虚》。 这本书是简·安德鲁斯借我的。 我午休的时候一直在读，刚读到战车比赛，就上课了。 我太想知道结果了——我本来就肯定宾虚一定会赢，要是他输了就太不公道了，所以我把历史书摊在桌面上，把《宾虚》夹在桌子和膝盖中间。

I just looked as if I were studying Canadian history, you know, while all the while I was reveling in Ben Hur. I was so interested in it that I never noticed Miss Stacy coming down the aisle until all at once I just looked up and there she was looking down at me, so reproachful-like. I can't tell you how ashamed I felt, Marilla, especially when I heard Josie Pye giggling. Miss Stacy took Ben Hur away, but she never said a word then. She kept me in at recess and talked to me. She said I had done very wrong in two respects. First, I was wasting the time I ought to have put on my studies; and secondly, I was deceiving my teacher in trying to make it appear I was reading a history when it was a storybook instead. I had never realized until that moment, Marilla, that what I was doing was deceitful. I was shocked. I cried bitterly, and asked Miss Stacy to forgive me and I'd never do such a thing again; and I offered to do penance by never so much as looking at Ben Hur for a whole week, not even to see how the chariot race turned out. But Miss Stacy said she wouldn't require that, and she forgave me freely. So I think it wasn't very kind of her to come up here to you about it after all."

你看，我装出一副正在学加拿大历史的样子，其实整颗心都扑在《宾虚》上了。 我看得太入迷，根本没发现斯泰西小姐走过来，我猛地一抬头，正好看见她低头看着我，满脸都是责备。 玛丽拉，你都不知道我当时有多难为情，尤其是我还听见乔西·派在一旁咯咯笑。 斯泰西小姐拿走了《宾虚》，但她当时什么话都没说。 休息的时候她把我留下，和我谈了话。 她说我错在了两个地方。 第一，我浪费了本该用来学习的时间； 第二，我假装读历史书其实读故事书，这是在骗老师呀。 玛丽拉，直到那时候我才明白，我做的事儿原来是欺骗啊。 我当时吓坏了。 我哭得很伤心，求斯泰西小姐原谅我，说我再也不会做这种事了； 我还说我愿意接受惩罚，整整一周我碰都不碰《宾虚》，连战车比赛的结果都不打听。 可是斯泰西小姐说她不要求我这么做，爽快地原谅了我。 所以我觉得，她都原谅我了还特地跑来告诉你这事，真的不太好。