The Village School
乡村小学
Charles Dickens
查尔斯·狄更斯
Little Nell looked round the room as she took her seat. There were a couple of forms, notched and cut and inked all over; a small deal desk perched on four legs, at which no doubt the master sat, a few dog eared books upon a high shelf; and beside them a motley collection of peg-tops, balls, kites, fishing-lines, marbles, half-eaten apples, and other confiscated property of idle unchins. Displayed on hooks upon the wall in all their terrors were the cane and ruler; and near them, on a small shelf of its own, the dunce’s cap, made of old newspapers and decorated with glaring wafers of the largest size. But the greatest ornaments of the walls were certain moral sentences fainly copied in good round text, and well-worded sums in simple addition and multiplication, evidently achieved by the same hand, which were plentifully pasted all around the room for the double purpose, as it seemed, of bearing testimony to the excellence of the school and kindling a worthy emulation in the bosoms of the scholars.
小内尔坐上座位的时候，朝房间四下望了一望。有两条长凳，凳上到处都是刻痕，涂着墨水；一只松木的小书桌，架在四条长腿上，有点摇摇欲坠的样子，不容怀疑，这就是教师的座头；几本书角卷摺的书放在一块高高的搁板上；书旁是杂七杂八的一堆东西：陀螺、皮球、风筝、钓丝、石弹、吃剩了一半的苹果，以及其它一些从吊儿郎当的小淘气鬼那儿没收来的财物。在墙上钩子上威势十足地陈列着苔杖和戒尺；靠近这两件东西，在一块专用的小搁板上的是劣等学生所戴的尖顶帽，它们用旧报纸做成，还用特大尺寸薄脆饼模样的、色彩鲜艳的圆纸加以装璜。可是墙上最出色的装饰品却是一些道德格言，用秀美的圆体字抄写得端端正正，还有精心解答的简单的加法和乘法算术题，两者明摆着是出自同一个人的手笔。它们在房间四处大量地张贴着，这好象有双重的用意，一是证明学校办得出色，二是在小学生的内心点燃高尚的竞争热情。
As the schoolmaster, after arranging the two forms in due order, took his seat behind his desk, and made other preparations for school, Nell was apprehensive that she might be in the way, and offered to withdraw to her little bedroom. But this he would not allow, and, as he seemed pleased to have here there, she remained, busying herself with her knitting.
教师把两条长凳挨次排好后，坐在书桌后面的座位上，为上课做好其他的准备工作。内尔担心她可能会碍事，就主动提出要退回到她的小卧室去。可是教师并不同意，既然他似乎喜欢她在那儿，她就留下来了，一边忙着打毛线。
A small white-headed boy with a sunburst face appeared at the door while the schoolmaster was speaking, and stopping there to make a rustic bow, came, in, and took his seat upon one of the forms. The white-hearded boy put an open book, astonishingly dog-eared, upon his knees, and thrusting his hands into his pockets began counting the marbles with wich they were filled, displaying in the expression of his face a remarkable capacity of totally abstracting his mind from the spelling on which his eye…. Soon afterwards another white-headed boy came straggling in, and after him a red-headed lad, and after him two more with white heads, and then one with a flaxen poll, and so on until the forms were occupied by a dozen boys or thereabouts, with heads of every color but gray, and ranging in their ages from four years old to fourteen or more; for the legs of the youngest were a long way from the floor when he sat upon the form, and the eldest was a good-tempered fellow, about half a head taller than the schoolmaster.
教师正在讲话的时候，一个淡黄色头发、脸被晒成棕色的小男孩在门口出现了，停在门口老老实实地鞠了个躬，就进来坐在一条长凳上。这个淡黄头发的男孩把一本书打开放在膝盖上，书角卷得叫人惊奇，随后把两手插进口袋，开始数着袋里满装着的石弹。他脸上的神情显示出一种能够使思想从眼睛所注视着的拼写成的词上完全开小差的非凡本领。不多一会儿，另一个淡黄头发的男孩拖拖拉拉地进来了，他后面来了个红发小伙子，后面又来了两个淡黄头发的，再后面来的是一个亚麻色头发的，这样陆续不断，直到长凳上坐满了约莫十二个男孩，各色头发都有，就差了灰色的，按年龄来看，从四岁到十四岁的或许更大一些的都有；因为最小的那个孩子坐在长凳上，两条腿离地板还有一大段呢，而那个年龄最大的是个脾气挺好的小家伙，比教师高出了差不多半个头哩。
