现代⼤学英语精读第⼆版（第四册）学习笔记（原⽂及全⽂翻译）——9A-AStringofBe。。。
A String of Beads
W.Somert Maugham
"What a bit of luck that I'm placed next to you," said Laura, as we sat down to dinner.
"For me," I replied politely.
"That remains to be en. I particularly wanted to have the chance of talking to you. I've got a story to tell you."
At this my heart sank a little.
"I'd sooner you talked about yourlf," I answered. "Or even about me."
beefsteak"Oh, but I must tell you the story. I think you'll be able to u it."
"If you must, you must. But let's look at the menu first."
"Don't you want me to?" she said, somewhat aggrieved. "I thought you'd be plead."
"I am. You might have written a play and wanted to read me that."
"It happened to some friends of mine. It's perfectly true."
"That's no recommendation. A true story is never quite so true as an invented one."
"What does that mean?"
"Nothing very much," I admitted. "But I thought it sounded well."
"I wish you'd let me get on with it."
"I'm all attention. I'm not going to eat the soup. It's fattening."
She gave me a pinched look and then glanced at the menu. She uttered a light sigh.
"Oh, well, if you're going to deny yourlf I suppo I must too. Heaven knows, I can't afford to take liberties with my figure."
"And yet is there any soup more heavenly than the sort of soup in which you put a great dollop of cream?"
"Borscht," she said. "It's the only soup I really like."
"Never mind. Tell me your story and we'll forget about food till the fish comes."
"Well, I was actually there when it happened. I was dining with the Livingstones. Do you know the Livingstones?"
kelis
"No, I don't think I do."
"Well, you can ask them and they'll confirm every word I say. They'd asked their governess to come in to dinner becau some woman had thrown them over at the last moment—you know how inconsiderate people are—and they would have been thirteen at table. Their governess was a Miss Robinson, quite a nice girl, young, you know, twenty or twenty-one, and rather pretty. Personally I would never engage a governess who was young and pretty. One never knows."
"But one hopes for the best."stubbornly
Laura paid no attention to my remark.
"The chances are that she'll be thinking of young men instead of attending to her duties and then, jus
t when she's got ud to your ways, she'll want to go and get married. But Miss Robinson had excellent references, and I must allow that she was a very nice, respectable person. I believe in point of fact she was a clergyman's daughter.
"There was a man at dinner whom I don't suppo you've ever heard of, but who's quite a celebrity in his way. He's a Count Borlli and he knows more about precious stones than anyone in the world. He was sitting next to Mary Lyngate, who rather fancies herlf on her pearls, and in the cour of conversation she asked him what he thought of the string she was wearing. He said it was very pretty. She was rather piqued at this and told him it was valued at eight thousand pounds.
"Yes, it's worth that,' he said.
"Miss Robinson was sitting opposite to him. She was looking rather nice that evening. Of cour I recognized her dress, it was one of Sophie's old ones; but if you hadn't known Miss Robinson was the governess you would never have suspected it.
"'That's a very beautiful necklace that young lady has on,' said Borlli.
"Oh, but that's Mrs Livingstone's governess,' said Mary Lyngate.
"'I can't help that,' he said. 'She's wearing one of the finest strings of pearls for its size that I've en in my life. It must be worth fifty thousand pounds.'nissin
"'Nonn.'
"'I give you my word it is.'
"Mary Lyngate leant over. She has rather a shrill voice.
六级高频词汇"'Miss Robinson, do you know what Count Borlli says?' she exclaimed. 'He says that string of pearls you're wearing is worth fifty thousand pounds.'"
Just at that moment there was a sort of pau in the conversation so that everybody heard. We all turned and looked at Miss Robinson. She flushed a little and laughed.
"'Well, I made a very good bargain,' she said, 'becau I paid fifteen shillings for it.'
"'You certainly did.'
images是什么意思"We all laughed. It was of cour absurd. We've all heard of wives palming off on their husbands as fal a string of pearls that was real and expensive. That story is as old as the hills."
"Thank you," I said, thinking of a little narrative of my own.
"But it was too ridiculous to suppo that a governess would remain a governess if she owned a string of pearls worth fifty thousand pounds. It was obvious that the Count had made a bloomer. Then an extraordinary thing happened. The long arm of coincidence came in."
"It shouldn't," I retorted. "It's had too much exerci. Haven't you en that charming book called A Dictionary of English Usage?"
"I wish you wouldn't interrupt just when I'm really getting to the exciting point."
But I had to do so again, for just then a young grilled salmon was insinuated round my left elbow.
"Mrs Livingstone is giving us a heavenly dinner," I said.
"Is salmon fattening?" asked Laura.
"Very," I answered as I took a large helping.
"Bunk," she said.
"Go on," I begged her. "The long arm of coincidence was about to make a gesture."
"Well, at that very moment the butler bent over Miss Robinson and whispered something in her ear. I thought she turned a trifle pale. It's such a mistake not to wear rouge; you never know what tricks nature will play on you. She certainly looked startled. She leant forwards.
"'Mrs Livingstone, Dawson says there are two men in the hall who want to speak to me at once.'人际沟通能力
"'Well, you'd better go,' said Sophie Livingstone.
"Miss Robinson got up and left the room. Of cour the same thought flashed through all our minds, but I said it first.
"'I hope they haven't come to arrest her,' I said to Sophie. 'It would be too dreadful for you, my dear.'
"'Are you sure it was a real necklace, Borlli?' she asked.
"'Oh, quite.'
"'She could hardly have had the nerve to wear it tonight if it were stolen,' I said.
"Sophie Livingstone turned as pale as death under her makeup and I saw she was wondering if everything was all right in her jewel ca. I only had on a little chain of diamonds, but instinctively I put my hand up to my neck to feel it was still there.
"'Don't talk nonn,' said Sophie Livingstone. 'How on earth would Miss Robinson have had the chance of sneaking a valuable string of pearls?'
"'She may be a receiver,' I said.
"'Oh, but she had such wonderful references," said Sophie.
"'They always do,' I said.
I was positively forced to interrupt Laura once more.
"You don't em to have been determined to take a very bright view of the ca," I remarked.
"Of cour I knew nothing against Miss Robinson and I had every reason to think her a very nice girl, but it would have been rather thrilling to find out that she was a notorious thief and a well-known member of a gang of international crooks."
"Just like a film. I'm dreadfully afraid that it's only in films that exciting things like that happen."
"Well, we waited in breathless suspen. There was not a sound. I expected to hear a scuffle in the hall or at least a smothered shriek. I thought the silence very ominous. Then the door opened and Miss Robinson walked in. I noticed at once that the necklace was gone. I could e that she was pale and excited. She came back to the table, sat down and with a smile threw on it—''
"On what?"
"On the table, you fool. A string of pearls."
"'There's my necklace,' she said.
"Count Borlli leant forwards.
"'Oh, but tho are fal,' he said.
"'I told you they were,' she laughed.
"'That's not the same string you had on a few moments ago,' he said.
"She shook her head and smiled mysteriously. We were all intrigued. I don't know that Sophie Livingstone was so very much plead at her governess making herlf the centre of interest like that and I thought there was a suspicion of tartness in her manner when she suggested that Miss Robinson had better explain. Well, Miss Robinson said that when she went into the hall she found two men who said they'd come from Jarrot's Stones. She'd bought her string there, as she said, for fifteen shillings, and she'd taken it back becau the clasp was loo and had only fetched it that afternoon. The men said they had given her the wrong string. Someone had left a string of real pearls to be restrung and the assistant had made a mistake. Of cour I can't understand how anyone could be so stupid as to take a really valuable string to Jarrot's, they aren't ud to dealing with that sort of thing, and they wouldn't know real pearls from fal; but you know what fools some women are. Anyhow it was the string Miss Robinson was wearing and it was valued at fifty thousand pounds. She naturally gave it back to them—she couldn't do anything el, I suppo, though it must have been a wrench— and they returned her own string to her; then they said that although of cour they were under no obligation—you know the silly, pompous way men talk when they're trying to be businesslike—they were instructed, as a solatium or whatever you call it, to offer her a check for three hundred pounds. Miss Robinson actually showed it to us. She was as plead as Punch."
"Well, it was a piece of luck, wasn't it?"
"You'd have thought so. As it turned out it was the ruin of her."
"Oh, how was that?"
"Well, when the time came for her to go on her holiday she told Sophie Livingstone that she'd made up her mind to go to Deauville for a month and blow the whole three hundred pounds. Of cour Sophie tried to dissuade her, and begged her to put the money in the savings bank, but she wouldn't hear of it. She said she'd never had such a chance before and would never have it again and she meant for at least four weeks to live like a duchess. Sophie couldn't really do anything and so she gave way. She sold Miss Robinson a lot of clothes that she didn't want; she'd been wearing them all through the ason and was sick to death of them; she says she gave them to her, but I don't suppo she quite did that—I dare say she sold them very cheap—and Miss Robinson started off, entirely alone, for Deauville. What do you think happened then?"
"I haven't a notion," I replied. "I hope she had the time of her life."
"Well, a week before she was due to come back she wrote to Sophie and said that she'd changed he
r plans and had entered another profession and hoped Mrs Livingstone would forgive her if she didn't return. Of cour poor Sophie was furious. What had actually happened was that Miss Robinson had picked up a rich Argentine in Deauville and had gone off to Paris with him. She's been in Paris ever since. I've en her mylf at Florence's, with bracelets right up to her elbow and ropes of pearls round her neck. Of cour I cut her dead. They say she has a hou in the Bois de Boulogne and I know she has a Rolls. She threw over the Argentine in a few months and then got hold of a Greek; I don't know who she's with now, but the long and short of it is that she's far and away the smartest cocotte in Paris."
"When you say she was ruined you u the word in a purely technical n, I conclude," said I.
"I don't know what you mean by that," said Laura. "But don't you think you could make a story out of it?"
"Unfortunately I've already written a story about a pearl necklace. One can't go on writing stories about pearl necklaces."
"I've got half a mind to write it mylf. Only of cour I should change the end."
mf global"Oh, how would you end it?"
"Well, I should have had her engaged to a bank clerk who had been badly knocked about in the war, with only one leg, say, or half his face shot away: and they'd be dreadfully poor and there would be no prospect of their marriage for years, and he would be putting all his savings into buying a little hou in the suburbs and they'd have arranged to marry when he had saved the last installment. And then she takes him the three hundred pounds and they can hardly believe it, they're so happy and he cries on her shoulder. He just cries like a child. And they get the little hou in the suburbs and they marry, and they have his old mother to live with them, and he goes to the bank every day, and if she's careful not to have babies she can still go out as a daily governess and he's often ill—with his wound, you know—and she nurs him, and it's all very pathetic and sweet and lovely."
"It sounds rather dull to me," I ventured.
"Yes, but moral," said Laura.
⼀串珍珠项链
W.萨摩赛特·⽑姆
“我能和你挨着真是荣幸，”劳拉在我们坐下吃饭的时候说。
“我也感到很荣幸，”我礼貌地回答。
“这得看情况再说。我特别想有机会和你谈谈。我有个故事想讲给你听。"
听到这句话，我的⼼微微⼀沉。
“我宁愿你谈谈你⾃⼰，”我答道“或者甚⾄谈谈我”
“哦，但我必须要讲这个故事给你听我觉得你能⽤得上。”
“如果你⼀定要讲的话，那就请讲吧。不过咱们先来看看菜单。”
“难道你不想让我讲吗？ ”她有点委屈地说“我本以为你会很⾼兴呢”
“我很⾼兴。你可能写了剧本要念给我听。”
“这件事发⽣在我的⼀些朋友⾝上。它完全属实。”新加坡私立院校
“这并⾮好的推荐。⼀个真实的故事从来都没有虚构的故事来得真实。”
“这是什么意思？”
“没什么意思，”我承认“但我觉得这听起来不错。”
“我希望你能让我继续讲这个故事。”
“我洗⽿恭听。我不打算喝这汤了，这汤令⼈发胖。”
她⾯容疲倦地看了我⼀眼，粗略地看了看菜单，发出⼀声轻叹。
“哦，那么如果你要克制⾃⼰的话，我想我必须也这么做。天知道，我不能随意对待我的⾝材。”
“那么有⽐那种放了⼀⼤团奶油的汤更美味的汤吗？”
“罗宋汤，”她说。“那是我唯⼀真正喜欢的汤。”
“没关系。给我讲你的故事吧，让我们在鱼上来之前先忘记⾷物。”
“嗯，事情发⽣的时候我实际上在场。当时我正和利⽂斯通家的⼈⼀起⽤餐。你认识利⽂斯通⼀家吗？”
“不，我不认识。”
“哦，你可以问问他们，他们会证实我所说的每句话。他们请他们的⼥家庭教师过来⽤餐，因为某位⼥⼠在最后⼀刻爽约了——你知道的，⼈们是多么不为别⼈着想——他们本应该有13个⼈⼀起⽤餐的。他们的⼥家庭教师是罗宾逊⼩姐，很好的⼀位⼥孩，很年轻，你知道
的，20岁或21岁的样⼦，⽽且⾮常漂亮。我个⼈是绝不会聘⽤年轻漂亮的家庭⼥教师的。都不知道会发⽣什么事。”
“但是⼈都希望⼀切顺利。”
劳拉没有在意我的话。
“很有可能她会想着年轻男⼈⽽不是专注于⾃⼰的职责，然后，当她刚习惯了你的⾏事⽅式后，她会想要离开去结婚。但是罗宾逊⼩姐有极好的推荐⼈，⽽且我必须承认她是⼀位很好的、值得尊敬的⼈。事实上，我认为她是⼀位牧师的⼥⼉。
“⼀起⽤餐的有⼀位先⽣，我想你应该从来没听说过他，但他在⾃⼰的领域⾮常有名。他是博尔塞利爵⼠，⽐世界上任何⼈都懂宝⽯。他挨着玛丽·林格特，她因⾃⼰的珍珠很是⾃命不凡，在谈话期间，她问他觉得她戴的那串珍珠怎么样。他说很漂亮。为此她感到⾮常恼怒，并告诉他这串项链值8,000英镑。
“‘是的，它值这么多，’他说。
pants
