Chapter 34

CHAPTER XXXIV A Queen's Girl The next three weeks were busy ones at Green Gables, for Anne was getting ready to go to Queen's, and there was much sewing to be done, and many things to be talked over and arranged. Anne's outfit was ample and pretty, for Matthew saw to that, and Marilla for once made no objections whatever to anything he purchased or suggested. More-one evening she went up to the east gable with her arms full of a delicate pale green material. "Anne, here's something for a nice light dress for you. I don't suppose you really need it; you've plenty of pretty waists; but I thought maybe you'd like something real dressy to wear if you were asked out anywhere of an evening in town, to a party or anything like that. I hear that Jane and Ruby and Josie have got `evening dresses," as they

第三十四章 女王学院的女孩 接下来的三周，绿山墙农舍天天都忙忙碌碌，因为安妮要准备去女王学院上学了，有好多针线活要做，好多事情要商量安排。 安妮的行头齐全又漂亮，这都是马修一手操办的，玛丽拉这一回对他买的任何东西、提的任何建议都没有反对。 不光这样——一天晚上，玛丽拉抱着一块精致的嫩绿色料子，走上了东阁楼。 “安妮，这是给你做一件好看的浅连衣裙的料子。 我觉得你其实不一定真的需要它； 你已经有好多漂亮的上衣了； 可我想，说不定你想要一件正式体面的裙子，要是你哪天在城里晚上被邀请出去，参加派对之类的活动可以穿。 我听说简、鲁比还有乔西都做了她们口中的‘晚礼服’，我

call them, and I don't mean you shall be behind them. I got Mrs. Allan to help me pick it in town last week, and we'll get Emily Gillis to make it for you. Emily has got taste, and her fits aren't to be equaled." "Oh, Marilla, it's just lovely," said Anne. "Thank you so much. I don't believe you ought to be so kind to me-it's making it harder every day for me to go away." The green dress was made up with as many tucks and frills and shirrings as Emily's taste permitted. Anne put it on one evening for Matthew's and Marilla's benefit, and recited "The Maiden's Vow" for them in the kitchen. As Marilla watched the bright, animated face and graceful motions her thoughts went back to the evening Anne had arrived at Green Gables, and memory recalled a vivid picture of the odd, frightened child in her preposterous yellowish-brown wincey dress, the heartbreak looking out of her tearful eyes. Something in the memory brought tears to Marilla's own eyes. "I declare, my recitation has made you cry, Marilla," said Anne gaily stooping over Marilla's

可不想让你落在她们后面。 上星期我请艾伦太太陪我在城里挑的这块料子，咱们找艾米莉·吉利斯给你做。 艾米莉很有眼光，她做的衣服合身得没人能比。” “玛丽拉，它真的太好看了，”安妮说。 “太感谢你了。 我觉得你不该对我这么好呀——这让我每天都越来越舍不得走了。” 这条绿裙子按照艾米莉的审美，做了满满的塔克褶、荷叶边还有抽褶，漂亮极了。 一天晚上，安妮穿上它给马修和玛丽拉看，还在厨房给他们朗诵了《少女的誓言》。 玛丽拉看着这张明亮灵动的脸，还有优雅的动作，思绪飘回了安妮刚到绿山墙的那个晚上，记忆里清晰浮现出那个古怪又受惊的小女孩，穿一件滑稽的黄褐色棉布衣，泪汪汪的眼睛里满是委屈心碎。 这段回忆让玛丽红了眼眶，落下泪来。 “你看，玛丽拉，是我朗诵把你弄哭了对不对，”安妮快活地弯下腰，凑到玛丽拉的

chair to drop a butterfly kiss on that lady's cheek. "Now, I call that a positive triumph." "No, I wasn't crying over your piece," said Marilla, who would have scorned to be betrayed into such weakness by any poetry stuff. "I just couldn't help thinking of the little girl you used to be, Anne. And I was wishing you could have stayed a little girl, even with all your queer ways. You've grown up now and you're going away; and you look so tall and stylish and so-so-different altogether in that dress-as if you didn't belong in Avonlea at all-and I just got lonesome thinking it all over." "Marilla!" Anne sat down on Marilla's gingham lap, took Marilla's lined face between her hands, and looked gravely and tenderly into Marilla's eyes. "I'm not a bit changed-not really. I'm only just pruned down and branched out. The real ME-back here-is just the same. It won't make a bit of difference where I go or how much I change outwardly; at heart I shall always be your little Anne, who will love you and Matthew and dear Green Gables more and better every day of her life."

椅子边，像蝴蝶落上去一样，轻轻亲了亲玛丽拉的脸颊。 “你看，我就说这是个大胜利对吧。” “我才不是因为你的朗诵哭，”玛丽拉说，她才不屑于被这种诗歌勾出眼泪，暴露自己的柔软。 “我就是忍不住想起你小时候的样子，安妮。 我真希望你还能当个小小的小女孩，哪怕你还是那套古灵精怪的样子。 你现在长大了，就要离开这里了； 你看起来这么高挑时髦，穿这条裙子整个人都不一样了——就好像你根本不属于埃文利似的，想着这一切，我就觉得好孤单。” “玛丽拉！” 安妮坐到玛丽拉穿格子布的腿上，双手捧着玛丽拉布满皱纹的脸，认真又温柔地望着玛丽拉的眼睛。 “我一点都没变——真的没有。 我只不过是修了枝、长出新枝桠了而已。 真正的我——就在这儿，还是原来的样子。 不管我去了哪里，外表变得怎么样，一点都不会变； 在我心里，我永远都是你的小安妮，我这辈子每一天都会越来越爱你，爱马修，爱亲爱的绿山墙。”

Anne laid her fresh young cheek against Marilla's faded one, and reached out a hand to pat Matthew's shoulder. Marilla would have given much just then to have possessed Anne's power of putting her feelings into words; but nature and habit had willed it otherwise, and she could only put her arms close about her girl and hold her tenderly to her heart, wishing that she need never let her go. Matthew, with a suspicious moisture in his eyes, got up and went out-of-doors. Under the stars of the blue summer night he walked agitatedly across the yard to the gate under the poplars. "Well now, I guess she ain't been much spoiled," he muttered, proudly. "I guess my putting in my oar occasional never did much harm after all. She's smart and pretty, and loving, too, which is better than all the rest. She's been a blessing to us, and there never was a luckier mistake than what Mrs. Spencer made-if it WAS luck. I don't believe it was any such thing. It was Providence, because the Almighty saw we needed her, I reckon."

安妮把自己年轻鲜活的脸颊贴在玛丽拉褪色的脸颊上，又伸出一只手轻轻拍了拍马修的肩膀。 那一刻，玛丽拉多想像安妮一样，把心里的感情都说出口； 可是天性和习惯早就注定了她做不到，她只能紧紧搂住自己的小姑娘，温柔地把她抱在胸口，多希望自己永远都不用放开她。 马修眼睛里湿乎乎的，他站起身走出门去。 夏日湛蓝夜空的星光下，他心绪难平地穿过院子，走到白杨树底下的大门边。 “嘿，我看哪，这孩子没被惯坏，”他骄傲地低声念叨。 “我偶尔插句话管管这事，原来也没什么坏处嘛。 她又聪明又漂亮，还这么贴心，这比什么都强。 她就是赐给我们的福气，斯宾塞太太犯的错，从来没有比这更幸运的了——就算这真的是运气的话。 我才不觉得这是什么运气呢。 “这肯定是天意，全能的上帝知道我们需要她，我就说嘛。”

The day finally came when Anne must go to town. She and Matthew drove in one fine September morning, after a tearful parting with Diana and an untearful practical one-on Marilla's side at least-with Marilla. But when Anne had gone Diana dried her tears and went to a beach picnic at White Sands with some of her Carmody cousins, where she contrived to enjoy herself tolerably well; while Marilla plunged fiercely into unnecessary work and kept at it all day long with the bitterest kind of heartache-the ache that burns and gnaws and cannot wash itself away in ready tears. But that night, when Marilla went to bed, acutely and miserably conscious that the little gable room at the end of the hall was untenanted by any vivid young life and unstirred by any soft breathing, she buried her face in her pillow, and wept for her girl in a passion of sobs that appalled her when she grew calm enough to reflect how very wicked it must be to take on so about a sinful fellow creature. Anne and the rest of the Avonlea scholars reached town just in time to hurry off to the Academy. That first day passed pleasantly enough in a whirl of excitement, meeting all the new

安妮必须进城的那一天终于来了。 九月一个晴朗的早晨，她和马修开车出发，临走前戴安娜哭着和她道别，玛丽拉则是没掉眼泪的克制模样——至少表面上是这样。 可安妮走后，戴安娜擦干眼泪，跟着卡莫迪的表亲们去白沙滩野餐了，玩得还算相当开心； 而玛丽拉硬逼着自己一头扎进没必要做的活里，整整忙了一天，心里满是钻心的剧痛——那种灼烧啃噬、连眼泪都没法冲淡的疼。 可那天晚上，玛丽拉上床睡觉时，清楚又痛苦地意识到，走廊尽头那间小山墙房，再也没有鲜活的年轻生命入住，再也没有轻柔的呼吸声响起，她把脸埋进枕头，为她的小姑娘失声痛哭，等她平静下来后，连自己都吃惊：为一个别人家的孩子这么伤心，实在太出格了。 安妮和其他埃文利的学生刚好准时赶到城里，急急忙忙赶去学院。 第一天在一阵兴奋的忙乱中愉快地过去了，她认识了所有新

students, learning to know the professors by sight and being assorted and organized into classes. Anne intended taking up the Second Year work being advised to do so by Miss Stacy; Gilbert Blythe elected to do the same. This meant getting a First Class teacher's license in one year instead of two, if they were successful; but it also meant much more and harder work. Jane, Ruby, Josie, Charlie, and Moody Spurgeon, not being troubled with the stirrings of ambition, were content to take up the Second Class work. Anne was conscious of a pang of loneliness when she found herself in a room with fifty other students, not one of whom she knew, except the tall, brown-haired boy across the room; and knowing him in the fashion she did, did not help her much, as she reflected pessimistically. Yet she was undeniably glad that they were in the same class; the old rivalry could still be carried on, and Anne would hardly have known what to do if it had been lacking. "I wouldn't feel comfortable without it," she thought. "Gilbert looks awfully determined. I suppose he's making up his mind, here and now, to win the

同学，认得了各位教授的模样，还完成了分班安排。 听了斯泰西小姐的建议，安妮打算修二年级的课程； 吉尔伯特·布莱斯也选了同样的课程。 这意味着如果他们顺利通过，就能用一年拿到一级教师资格证，不用花两年时间； 可这也意味着，课业会多得多，也难得多。 简、鲁比、乔西、查理和穆迪·斯珀吉翁没有什么雄心壮志，满足于修二级课程就好。 当安妮发现自己待在一间有五十名同学的教室里，除了对面那个高个子棕发男孩，一个人都不认识的时候，不由得一阵心酸，感到格外孤单。 而且以她和吉尔伯特的关系，这点认识根本帮不上忙，她悲观地想。 可她还是忍不住开心，他们居然分到了同一个班； 过去的竞争还能继续，如果没了这份竞争，安妮反而会不知所措。 "没有它我会浑身不舒服的，"她想。 "吉尔伯特看起来意志特别坚定。 我猜他已经打定主意，就在这里，要赢走那枚