木鱼翻译(完整word版)英语短篇小说TheSwingByMaryGavell

2021年1月19日发(作者：express是什么意思)

The Swing
By Mary Gavell





As she grew old, she began to dream again. She had not dreamed much in her
middle years; or, if she had , the busyness of her days, converging on her the moment
she
awoke,
had
pushed
her
dreams
right
out
of
her
head,
and
any
fragments
that
remained were as busy and prosaic as the day itself. She had only the one son, James,
but she had also mothered her younger sister after their parents died, and she had done
all of the office work during the years when her husband
’
s small engineering firm was
getting on its feet. And Julius
’
s health had not been too good, even then; it was she
who
had
mowed
the
lawn
and
had
helped
Jamie
to
learn
to
ride
his
bicycle
and
pitched balls to him in the backyard until he learned to hit them.
But she was dreaming again now, as she had when she was a child. Oh, not the
lovely foolish dreams of finding oneself alone in a candy store, or the horrible dreams
of being pursued through endless corridors without doors by nameless terrors. But as
her days grew in quietness and solitude
–
for James was grown and gone, and Julius
was drawing in
upon himself, becoming every
day more small
and chill
and dim
–

color and life and drama were returning to her dreams.
But on that first night when she heard the creak of the swing, she did not think
that she was dreaming at all. She had been lying in bed quite awake, she thought, in
the
little
room
that
used
to
be
Jamie
’
s
–

for
nowadays
her
reading
in
bed,
and
afterward
her
tossing
and
turning,
disturbed
Julius.
The
swing
was
not
an
ordinary
one.
Julius
had
put
it
up,
in
one
of
the
few
flashes
of
poetry
in
all
his
worrisome,
hardworking life, when Jamie was only a baby and nowhere near old enough to swing
in it. The ladder Julius had was not tall enough, and he had to buy a new one, for the
tree was tremendous and the branch on which he proposed to hang the swing arched a
full
forty
feet
from
the
ground,
and
much
thought
and
consideration
and
care
were
given
to
the
chain,
and
the
hooks,
and
the
seat.
The
swing
was
suspended
from
so
high, and its arc was so wide, that riding in it was like sailing through the air with the
leisurely
swoop
of
a
wheeling
bird.
One
seemed
to
travel
from
one
horizon
to
the
other. And how proud Julius had been of it when Jamie was old enough to swing in it,
and the neighborhood children had stood around to admire and be given a turn, for
there was no other swing like it.
The swing was hardly ever used now; it was only a treat, once in a while, for a
visiting child, and occasionally when she was outside working in her flower border
she would sit and rest in it for a moment or two, idling, pushing herself a little with a
toe. But the rhythmic creak of the chains was so familiar that she could not mistake it,
she thought. Could the wind be strong enough
to move it, if it came from the right
angle? She finally gave up thinking about it and went to sleep.
Nor
did
she
think
of
it
the
next
day,
for
they
were
due
for
Sunday
dinner
at
James
’
s house. He lived in a suburb on the opposite side of the city
–
just the right
distance away, she often thought, far enough so that aging parents could not meddle
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and embarrass and interfere, but near enough so that she could see him fairly often.
She loved him with all her heart, her dear, her only son. She was enormously proud of
him, too; he was a highly paid mathematician in a research foundation, and expert in a
field so esoteric that she had given up trying to grasp its point. But secretly she took
some credit, for it was she
–
who had kept the engineering firm
’
s books balanced and
done the income tax
–
who had played little mathematical games with him before he
had ever gone to school and had sat cross-legged with him on the floor tossing coins
to test the law of probability. Oh, they had had fun together in all sorts of ways; they
had done crossword puzzles together, and studied the stars together, and read books
together that were over his head and sometimes over hers too. And he had turned out
well; he was a scholar, and a success, and a worthy citizen, and he had a pretty wife, a
charming home, and two handsome children. She could not have asked for more. He
was
the
light
and
the
warmth
of
her
life,
and
her
heart
beat
fast
on
the
way
to
his
house.
She drove. She had always enjoyed driving, and
nowadays
Julius, who used to
insist on doing it himself, let her do it without a word. They drove in silence mostly,
but her heart was as light as the wind that blew on her face, and she hummed under
her breath, for she was on her way to see James. Julius said querulously,
“
I could have
told you you
’
d get into a lot of traffic this way and you
’
d do better to go by the river
road,
but
I
knew
you
wouldn
’
t
listen,
”

but
she
was
so
happy
that
she
forbore
to
mention that whenever she took the river road he remarked how much longer it was,
and only answered,
“
I expect you
’
re quite right, Julius. We
’
ll come back that way.
”

They
did
go
home
by
the
river
road,
and
it
seemed
very
long;
she
was
a
little
depressed, as she often was when she returned from James
’
s house.
“
I love him with
all my heart
”

–
the words walked unbidden into her mind
–

“
but I wish that when I
ask him how he is
he
wouldn
’
t
tell
me that there is
every likelihood that
the Basic
Research Division will be merged with the Statistics Division.
”
He had kissed her on
the cheek, and Anne, his wife, had kissed her on the cheek, and the two children had
kissed her on the cheek, and he had slipped a footstool under her feet and had seated
his father away from drafts, and they had had a fire in the magnificent stone fireplace
the architect had dreamed up and the builder added to the cost, and Anne had served
them an excellent dinner, and the children had, on request, told her of suitable A
’
s in
English and Boy Scout merit badges. They had asked her how she had been, and she
told them, in a burst of confidence, that she had had the ancient piano tuned and had
been practicing an hour
a day. They looked puzzled.
“
What
are
you planning to
do
with it, Mother?
”
Anne asked.
“
Oh, well nothing, really,
”
she said, embarrassed. She
said later on that she had been reading books on China for she was so terribly ignorant
about it, and they asked politely how her eyes were holding up, and when she said that
she was sick of phlox and was going to dig it all up and try iris, James said mildly,
“
You
really
shouldn
’
t
do
all
that
heavy
gardening
anymore,
Mother.
”

They
were
loving,
they
were
devoted,
and
it
was
the
most
pleasant
of
ordinary
family
Sunday
afternoons. James told her that he had another salary increase, and that the paper he
had delivered before the Mathematical Research Institute had been, he felt he could
say without exaggeration, most well received, and that they were getting a new station
2

wagon.
But
what,
she
wondered,
did
he
feel,
what
did
he
love
and
hate,
and
what
upset
him
or
made
him
happy,
and
what
did
he
look
forward
to?
Nonsense,
she
thought, I can
’
t expect him to tell me his secret thoughts. People can
’
t, once they
’
re
grown,
to
their
parents.
But
the
terrible
fear
rose
in
her
that
these
were
his
secret
thoughts, and that was all there was.
That
night
she
heard
the
swing
again,
the
gentle,
regular
creak
of
the
chains.
What
can
be making that noise, she wondered, for it was a still night, with surely not
enough
wind
to
stir
the
swing.
She
asked
Julius
the
next
day
if
he
ever
heard
a
creaking sound at night, a sound like the swing used to make. Julius peered out from
his afghan and said deafly,
“
Hah?
”
and she answered irritably,
“
Oh, never mind.
”
The
afghan maddened her. He was always chilly nowadays, and she had knitted the afghan
for him for Christmas, working on it in snatches when he was out from under foot for
a
bit,
with
a
vision
of
its
warming
his
knees
as
they
sat
together
in
the
evenings,
companionably watching television, or reading, or chatting. But he sat less and less
with her in the evenings; he went to bed very early nowadays, and he had taken to
wearing
the
afghan
daytimes
around
his
shoulders
like
a
shawl.
She
was
sorry
immediately for her irritation, and she tried to be very thoughtful of him the rest of the
day. But he didn
’
t seem to notice; he noticed so little now.
Other things maddened
her too.
She decided
that she should get
out
more and,
heartlessly abandoning Julius, she made a luncheon date with Jessie Carling, who had
once
been
a
girl
as
gay
and
scatterbrained
as
a
kitten.
Jessie
spent
the
entire
lunch
discussing her digestion and the problem of making the plaids match across the front
in a housecoat she was making for herself. A couple of days later, she paid a call on
Joyce Simmons, who had trouble with her back and didn
’
t get out much, and Joyce
told her in minute detail about her son, dwelling, in full circumstantial detail, on the
virtues of him, his wife, and his children. She held her tongue, though it was hard. My
trouble, she thought wryly, is that I think my son is so really superior that a kind of
noblesse oblige forces me not to mention it.
The next time she heard it was several nights later. She sat up in bed and, half
aloud, said,
“
I
’
m not dreaming, and it
certainly
is the swing!
”
She threw on her robe
and her slippers and went downstairs, feeling her way in the dark carefully, for though
sounds seemed not to reach Julius, lights did wake him. Softly she unlocked the back
door and, stepping out into the moonlight, picked her way through the wet grass and
in sight of the big oak, she saw it swooping powerfully through the air in its wide arc,
and the shock it gave her told her that she had not really believed it. There was a child
in
the
swing,
and
she
paused
with
a
terrible
fear
clutching
at
her.
Could
it
be
a
sleepwalking child from somewhere in the neighborhood? And would it be dangerous
to call out to the child, or would it be better to go up and put out a hand to catch the
swing gently and stop it? She walked nearer softly, afraid to startle the child, her heart
beating
with
panicky
speed.
It
seemed
to
be
a
little
boy
and,
she
noticed,
he
was
dressed in ordinary clothes, not pajamas, as a sleepwalker might be. Nearer she came,
still undecided what she should do, shaking with fear and strangeness.

She
saw
then
that
it
was
James.
“
Jamie?
’

she
cried
out
questioningly,
and
immediately
shrank
back,
feeling
that
she
must
be
making
some
kind
of
terrible
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