狄更斯哪部作品好 狄更斯双语小说:《董贝父子》第21章Part 5

狄更斯双语小说:《董贝父子》第21章Part 5  

Whether she held cheap attractions that could only call forth admiration that was worthless to her
or whether she designed to render them more precious to admirers by this usage of them
those to whom they were precious seldom paused to consider.
'I hope
Mrs Granger
' said Mr Dombey
advancing a step towards her
'we are not the cause of your ceasing to play?'
'You! oh no!'
'Why do you not go on then
my dearest Edith?' said Cleopatra.
'I left off as I began - of my own fancy.'
The exquisite indifference of her manner in saying this: an indifference quite removed from dulness or insensibility
for it was pointed with proud purpose: was well set off by the carelessness with which she drew her hand across the strings
and came from that part of the room.
'Do you know
Mr Dombey
' said her languishing mother
playing with a hand-screen
'that occasionally my dearest Edith and myself actually almost differ - '
'Not quite
sometimes
Mama?' said Edith.
'Oh never quite
my darling! Fie
fie
it would break my heart
' returned her mother
making a faint attempt to pat her with the screen
which Edith made no movement to meet
' - about these old conventionalities of manner that are observed in little things? Why are we not more natural? Dear me! With all those yearnings
and gushings
and impulsive throbbings that we have implanted in our souls
and which are so very charming
why are we not more natural?'
Mr Dombey said it was very true
very true.
'We could be more natural I suppose if we tried?' said Mrs Skewton. Mr Dombey thought it possible.
'Devil a bit
Ma'am
' said the Major. 'We couldn't afford it. Unless the world was peopled with J.B.'s - tough and blunt old Joes
Ma'am
plain red herrings with hard roes
Sir - we couldn't afford it. It wouldn't do.'
'You naughty Infidel
' said Mrs Skewton
'be mute.'
'Cleopatra mands
' returned the Major
kissing his hand
'and Antony Bagstock obeys.'
'The man has no sensitiveness
' said Mrs Skewton
cruelly holding up the hand-screen so as to shut the Major out. 'No sympathy. And what do we live for but sympathy! What else is so extremely charming! Without that gleam of sunshine on our cold cold earth
' said Mrs Skewton
arranging her lace tucker
and placently observing the effect of her bare lean arm
looking upward from the wrist
'how could we possibly bear it? In short
obdurate man!' glancing at the Major
round the screen
'I would have my world all heart; and Faith is so excessively charming
that I won't allow you to disturb it
do you hear?'
The Major replied that it was hard in Cleopatra to require the world to be all heart
and yet to appropriate to herself the hearts of all the world; which obliged Cleopatra to remind him that flattery was insupportable to her
and that if he had the boldness to address her in that strain any more
she would positively send him home.
Withers the Wan
at this period
handing round the tea
Mr Dombey again addressed himself to Edith.
'There is not much pany here
it would seem?' said Mr Dombey
in his own portentous gentlemanly way.
'I believe not. We see none.'
'Why really
' observed Mrs Skewton fom her couch
'there are no people here just now with whom we care to associate.'
'They have not enough heart
' said Edith
with a smile. The very ilight of a smile: so singularly were its light and darkness blended.
'My dearest Edith rallies me
you see!' said her mother
shaking her head: which shook a little of itself sometimes
as if the palsy Bed now and then in opposition to the diamonds. 'Wicked one!'
'You have been here before
if I am not mistaken?' said Mr Dombey. Still to Edith.
'Oh
several times. I think we have been everywhere.'
'A beautiful country!'