Book, Book , and Book again

​

سلام ، چه هوای خوبی!

___________________________

Mrs. Lippett allowed a moment of silence to fall, then resumed in a slow, placid manner extremely trying to her hearer's suddenly tightened nerves.

'Usually, as you know, the children are not kept after they are sixteen, but an exception was made in your case. You had finished our school at fourteen, and having done so well in your studies-- not always, I must say, in your conduct--it was determined to let you go on in the village high school. Now you are finishing that, and of course the asylum cannot be responsible any longer for your support. As it is , you have had two years more than most.'

اسم

exception استثنا، اعتراض، رد

conduct رفتار ، سلوک

_________________________

فعل

to resume از سر گرفتن ، دوباره ادامه دادن

to determine مشخص کردن ، حکم دادن ، معلوم کردن

to tighten سفت کردن ، محکم کردن، تنگ کردن ، فشردن ، بستن
to conduct، اداره کردن ، عمل آوردن ، هدایت کردن ، بردن

خانم لیپت چند لحظه سکوت کرد و با این سکوت جروشا احساس کرد زیر فشار ناراحتی عصبی قرار گرفته است. بعد خانم لیپت ادامه داد:

- بله ... اغلب ما بچه های از شانزده سال به بالا را اینجا نگاهداری نمی کنیم ، البته تو غیر از همه بودی ، چون تو مدرسه را در چهارده سالگی تمام کردی و خیلی هم درسهایت و نمره هایت عالی بود . خوب آنطورها هم نمی توان گفت که رفتار و اخلاقت خوب بوده است ، بگذریم . نتیجه اینکه تصمیم گرفته شد که ترا به دبیرستان دهکده بفرستیم . حالا دوره ی دبیرستان هم دارد تمام می شود و از این به بعد پرورشگاه نمی تواند مخارج ترا بعهده بگیرد. چون تاکنون تو دو سال هم بیشتر از دیگران در اینجا مانده ای.

_______________________________________

19 دسامبر
_________

بابا لنگ دراز عزیز

شما هرگز به پرسش من پاسخ ندادید، حال آنکه برای من خیلی مهم بود.

آیا سر شما طاس است؟
__________________

من تصویر شما را آنطور که خودم خیال می کنم نقاشی کرده ام ، اما وقتی به سر شما می رسم ، آن وقت نمی دانم باید چه کار کنم ، نمی دانم موی سر شما سفید است یا سیاه یا جو گندمی یا بطور کلی طاس هستید . ملاحظه بفرمایید این عکس شما هست. حالا مسأله ی اینجاست که باید مو روی سرتان بگذارم یا نگذارم.

دوست دارید بدانید چشم های شما را چطور کشیده ام؟ رنگش خاکستری است و ابروهای شما سیخ ایستاده و دهانتان یک خط صاف و راست است که دو طرف آن کمی به طرف پایین متمایل است.

ملاحظه می فرمایید که می دانم چطور است.

شما پیرمرد با روح ، خونگرم و خوشخوئی هستید.

( زنگ کلیسا را زدند)

______________________________________

9.45 p.m.

I have a new unbreakable rule: never, never to study at night no matter how many written reviews are coming in the morning. Instead, I read just plain books--I have to, you know, because there are eighteen blank years behind me. You wouldn't believe, Daddy, what an abyss of ignorance my mind is; I am just realizing the depths myself. The things that most girls with a properly assorted family and a home and friends and a library know by absorption, I have never heard of. For example: I never read Mother Goose or David Copperfield or Ivanhoe or Cinderella or Blue Beard or Robinson Crusoe or Jane Eyre or Alice in Wonderland or a Word of Rudyard Kipling. I didn't know that Henry the Eighth was married more than once or that Shelley was a poet. I didn't Know that people used to be monkeys and the Garden of Eden was a beautiful myth. I didn't know R. L. S. stood for Robert Louis Stevenson or George Eliot was a lady. I had never seen a picture of the 'Mona Lisa' and ( it's true but you won't believe it) I had never heard of Sherlock Holmes.

Now, I know all of these things and a lot of others besides, but you can see how much I need to catch up. And oh, but it's fun! I look forward all day to evening, and then I put an 'engaged' on the door and get into my nice red bath robe and furry slippers and pile all cushions behind me on the couch, and light the brass student lamp at my elbow, and read and read and read one book isn't enough. I have four going at once. Just now, they're Tennyson's poems and Vanity Fair and Kipling's Plain Tales and--don't laugh--Little Women. I find that I am the only girl in college who wasn't brought up on Little woman. I haven't told anybody though ( that WOULD stamp me as queer ) . I just quietly went and bought it with $1.12 of my last month's allowance; and the next time somebody mentions pickled limes, I'll know what she is talking about!

( Ten o'clock bell. This is a very interrupted letter.)

M.T