What do you think, Daddy? The English instructor said that my last paper shows an unusual amount of originality. She did, truly. Those were her words. It doesn't seem possible, does it, considering the eighteen years of training that I've had? The aim of the John Grier Home (as you doubtless know and heartily approve of) is to turn the ninety-seven orphans into ninety-seven twins.
叔叔，您猜怎么著？英文老師夸獎我上一篇作文別出心裁。她真的這么說！她就是這么講的。想想我這18年來受的訓練，這似乎不太可能，不是嗎？約翰?格利爾孤兒院的目的，就是要把97個小孤兒變成97個相貌、言行舉止都一樣的人。

The unusual artistic ability which I exhibit was developed at an early age through drawing chalk pictures of Mrs. Lippett on the woodshed door.
我不尋常的藝術天分，倒是在很小時就在門板上畫李皮太太培養出來的。

I hope that I don't hurt your feelings when I criticize the home of my youth? But you have the upper hand, you know, for if I become too impertinent, you can always stop payment of your cheques. That isn't a very polite thing to say--but you can't expect me to have any manners; a foundling asylum isn't a young ladies' finishing school.
我對小時候的家說長道短，希望您不要不高興。不過您大權在握，如果我冒犯了您，您隨時可以停止您的資助。這樣說是不夠禮貌，不過您不能期望我有什么教養，孤兒院畢竟不是淑女訓練學校。

You know, Daddy, it isn't the work that is going to be hard in college. It's the play. Half the time I don't know what the girls are talking about; their jokes seem to relate to a past that every one but me has shared. I'm a foreigner in the world and I don't understand the language. It's a miserable feeling. I've had it all my life. At the high school the girls would stand in groups and just look at me. I was queer and different and everybody knew it. I could FEEL 'John Grier Home' written on my face. And then a few charitable ones would make a point of coming up and saying something polite. I HATED EVERY ONE OF THEM--the charitable ones most of all.
叔叔，您知道的，大學里難的不是功課，而是娛樂。很多時候，我都不懂女孩們在談些什么，她們的玩笑似乎都與她們的過去聯系在一起。這個過去人人有份，卻與我無緣。我在她們的世界里就像是一個外國人，聽不懂她們的語言。我很沮喪，我這一生浸透了沮喪。高中時，女孩們一群一伙的，冷眼相看。我很奇怪，與眾不同，人人都知道這一點。我似乎感覺“約翰?格利爾孤兒院”就寫在我臉上。然后會有一些好人走來安慰我。我恨他們每一個人——尤其是那些好人。

Nobody here knows that I was brought up in an asylum. I told Sallie McBride that my mother and father were dead, and that a kind old gentleman was sending me to college which is entirely true so far as it goes. I don't want you to think I am a coward, but I do want to be like the other girls, and that Dreadful Home looming over my childhood is the one great big difference. If I can turn my back on that and shut out the remembrance, I think, I might be just as desirable as any other girl. I don't believe there's any real, underneath difference, do you?
這里沒有人知道我是孤兒院長大的。我告訴莎莉?麥克白我父母雙亡，是一位好心的老先生送我上大學的——到目前為止，這都是事實。我不希望您覺得我很蠢，不過我真的希望跟其他女孩子一樣，而那可怕的孤兒院的陰影卻籠罩著我的童年，把我和大家隔絕開來。若能忘懷此事，把它逐出腦海，我想我應可以變得跟其他女孩一樣可愛。我不認為自己和她們有什么真的區別。您說是嗎？

Anyway, Sallie McBride likes me!
無論如何，莎莉?麥克白喜歡我！

Yours ever, Judy Abbott (Nee Jerusha.)
您永遠的茱蒂?艾伯特（原名喬若莎）

I've just been reading this letter over and it sounds pretty un-cheerful. But can't you guess that I have a special topic due Monday morning and a review in geometry and a very sneezy cold?
我剛才又把信重讀了一遍，調子似乎很低沉。但是，您可能猜不到，我星期一早上要交一篇特殊的作文，還要復習幾何學，而且還得了感冒，不停地打噴嚏。

I forgot to post this yesterday, so I will add an indignant postscript. We had a bishop this morning, and WHAT DO YOU THINK HE SAID?
昨天忘了發信，今天再發點牢騷。早上來了個主教，您猜他都說了些什么？

'The most beneficent promise made us in the Bible is this, "The poor ye have always with you." They were put here in order to keep us charitable.'
“圣經給我們的最佳許諾是‘常有窮人和你們同在’，他們可使我們永遠以慈悲為懷。”

The poor, please observe, being a sort of useful domestic animal. If I hadn't grown into such a perfect lady, I should have gone up after service and told him what I thought.
您瞧，窮人成了有用的家畜，要不是我已經成了一位有教養的小姐，我本來會在禮拜結束后跑去告訴他我的想法。

**********************************

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
親愛的長腿叔叔：

I'm in the basket-ball team and you ought to see the bruise on my left shoulder. It's blue and mahogany with little streaks of orange. Julia Pendleton tried for the team, but she didn't get in. Hooray!
我已經入選籃球隊了，您真該看看我左肩上的“成績”，又青又紫的，繞著一圈紫色的邊。茱莉亞?平萊頓也報了名，不過沒入選真棒！

You see what a mean disposition I have.
您瞧，我心胸多狹窄。

College gets nicer and nicer. I like the girls and the teachers and the classes and the campus and the things to eat. We have ice-cream twice a week and we never have corn-meal mush.
大學越來越有趣了。我喜歡這些女孩們，喜歡老師，喜歡上課，喜歡校園，喜歡那些好吃的食物——每周吃兩次的冰淇淋，從不吃孤兒院的玉米粥。

You only wanted to hear from me once a month, didn't you? And I've been peppering you with letters every few days! But I've been so excited about all these new adventures that I MUST talk to somebody; and you're the only one I know. Please excuse my exuberance; I'll settle pretty soon. If my letters bore you, you can always toss them into the wastebasket. I promise not to write another till the middle of November.
您只要我一個月寫一封信，不是嗎？我卻每隔幾天就寄一封給您！我對這些新奇的經歷是這么的興奮，我一定要找個人傾訴，您是我惟一認識的人。請原諒我的興奮吧，我很快就會安定下來的。如果嫌煩，就把它們丟到廢紙簍里。我保證11月中旬以前不再寫信就是了。

Yours most loquaciously, Judy Abbott
您太長舌的朋友，茱蒂?艾伯特

**********************************

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
親愛的長腿叔叔：

Listen to what I've learned to-day.
請看我今天的學習內容。

The area of the convex surface of the frustum of a regular pyramid is half the product of the sum of the perimeters of its bases by the altitude of either of its trapezoids.
正棱錐形體平截頭凸面的面積等于底邊總長和梯形一邊的高度乘積的一半。

It doesn't sound true, but it is--I can prove it!
聽起來似乎不對，實際非常正確，我還驗算過呢！

You've never heard about my clothes, have you, Daddy? Six dresses, all new and beautiful and bought for me--not handed down from somebody bigger. Perhaps you don't realize what a climax that marks in the career of an orphan? You gave them to me, and I am very, very, VERY much obliged. It's a fine thing to be educated--but nothing compared to the dizzying experience of owning six new dresses. Miss Pritchard, who is on the visiting committee, picked them out-- not Mrs. Lippett, thank goodness. I have an evening dress, pink mull over silk (I'm perfectly beautiful in that), and a blue church dress, and a dinner dress of red veiling with Oriental trimming (makes me look like a Gipsy), and another of rose-coloured challis, and a grey street suit, and an every-day dress for classes. That wouldn't be an awfully big wardrobe for Julia Rutledge Pendleton, perhaps, but for Jerusha Abbott--Oh, my!
您還沒聽說過我的衣服，是嗎？我有6件漂亮的新衣服——是專為我買的，而不是什么人穿了嫌大嫌小的衣服。也許您無法理解這在一個孤兒的生命中意味著什么。這些都是您給我的，我非常非常地感激您。可以受教育固然不錯，不過沒有什么事比擁有6件新衣服更讓人快樂的了。這些衣服都是參訪團的普查德小姐替我挑的，感謝上帝幸好不是李皮太太。一件是綴著石竹花的絲綢晚禮服（我穿上很美），一件藍色禮拜服，兩件餐服：一件是紅色面料，上面鑲著東方花邊（我穿上后像個吉卜賽人）；另一件是玫瑰紅印花布料的；一套日常穿的灰色套服；還有一件是平時上課穿的。這些服裝對茱莉亞?平萊頓來說算不得什么，可是對茱蒂?艾伯特來說——天呀，委實了不起。

I suppose you're thinking now what a frivolous, shallow little beast she is, and what a waste of money to educate a girl?
我猜您現在一定這樣想——她是如此輕浮淺薄，多么愚蠢的女孩子啊！讓這樣一個女孩子受教育真是浪費錢！

But, Daddy, if you'd been dressed in checked ginghams all your life, you'd appreciate how I feel. And when I started to the high school, I entered upon another period even worse than the checked ginghams.
不過叔叔，要是您—輩子除了花格布，沒穿過別的，您會明白我的感受的。我上高中以后，穿的比花格布還不如呢。

You can't know how I dreaded appearing in school in those miserable poor-box dresses. I was perfectly sure to be put down in class next to the girl who first owned my dress, and she would whisper and giggle and point it out to the others. The bitterness of wearing your enemies' cast-off clothes eats into your soul. If I wore silk stockings for the rest of my life, I don't believe I could obliterate the scar.
您無法想像我多么害怕穿那些可怕的救濟服出現在學校里，我擔心鄰座的姑娘原本就是衣服的主人，而她會偷偷將這事告訴別的姑娘，又講又笑并對我指指點點。想到也許穿著自己討厭的人扔掉的衣服，真是心如刀絞。即使我今后一輩子都能穿上長統絲襪，也無法抹去心頭的傷痕。

PS. I know I'm not to expect any letters in return, and I've been warned not to bother you with questions, but tell me, Daddy, just this once--are you awfully old or just a little old? And are you perfectly bald or just a little bald? It is very difficult thinking about you in the abstract like a theorem in geometry.
又及：我知道我不該奢求得到回信，而我也被告誡過不要拿問題來打擾您。不過，長腿叔叔，就此一次，下不為例——您是老態龍鐘呢，還是半老？頭發全部脫落了呢，還是剛剛有些禿頂？從沒見過您而要來想象，真是有點困難。

Given a tall rich man who hates girls, but is very generous to one quite impertinent girl, what does he look like?
一個身材高高的，厭惡女孩子卻又對一個鹵莽無禮的女孩子慷慨相助的人，該是長得什么樣子呢？

R.S.V.P.
盼復。

**********************************

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,
親愛的長腿叔叔：

You never answered my question and it was very important.
您對我的問題置之不理，但對我來說那是非常重要的。

ARE YOU BALD?
您禿頂了嗎？

I have it planned exactly what you look like--very satisfactorily-- until I reach the top of your head, and then I AM stuck. I can't decide whether you have white hair or black hair or sort of sprinkly grey hair or maybe none at all.
我畫著您的長像——一切都很順利——直到您的頭頂，我卡殼了。我無法確定您的頭發是白的、黑的或灰的，或者干脆禿頂。

Here is your portrait:
這是您的畫像。

But the problem is, shall I add some hair?
問題是，我該不該加點頭發上去？

Would you like to know what colour your eyes are? They're grey, and your eyebrows stick out like a porch roof (beetling, they're called in novels), and your mouth is a straight line with a tendency to turn down at the corners. Oh, you see, I know! You're a snappy old thing with a temper.
您想知道您的眼睛是什么顏色嗎？灰色的，眉毛突出像廊檐（小說中稱為懸崖）。嘴像兩角下垂的一條直線。對啦，您瞧，我曉得！您肯定是—個精神飽滿、脾氣暴躁的老家伙。

(Chapel bell.)
（做禮拜的鐘聲響了！）

9.45 p.m.
晚上9：45

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:
我給自己訂了一條雷打不動嚴格的規定：絕不……絕不在晚上學習，只看小說，不管隔天有多少測驗——我不得不這樣，您知道的，我已經白白地浪費了18年。您無法想像，叔叔，我是多么無知。我才剛開始知道自己的淺薄。一個正常的有家庭、有朋友、有圖書館陪伴的女孩子自然而然知道的事情，對我而言卻是聞所未聞的。例如：

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 that the Garden of Eden was a beautiful myth. I didn't know that R. L. S. stood for Robert Louis Stevenson or that 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.
我從沒聽過《鵝媽媽》或《藍胡子》或《劫后英雄傳》或《灰姑娘》或《羅賓遜》或《簡?愛》或是《愛麗絲漫游記》，或者吉卜林的片言只語，我不知道亨利八世曾經再婚，雪萊是詩人，人的祖先是猴子，也沒有聽說過伊甸園是個美麗的神話。我不知道R．L．S是羅伯特?路易斯?史蒂文生的縮寫，更不知喬治?艾略特是女性。我從未看過一幅叫《蒙娜麗莎的微笑》的畫，也從未聽說過什么福爾摩斯。

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 the 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.
現在，這些東西我都知道了，還知道了一大堆其他的東西，您瞧！我還必須奮發努力跟上進度。喔！不過這是件有趣的事：我盼望黃昏早些降臨，好在門口掛上“讀書中”的牌子，然后穿上我舒服的紅睡袍和皮拖鞋，把枕頭堆在椅背上，打開手邊的臺燈，然后埋頭讀啊……讀啊，一直讀下去。

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 Women. 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!
一本書嫌不夠，我常常找來4本書同時進行。現在，我正在讀的是丁尼生的《名利場》和吉卜林的《平凡的故事》。另外，請不要笑話我，還有《小婦人》。我發現自己是大學里惟一沒有受到《小婦人》熏陶的姑娘。不過我沒告訴任何人，我只是悄悄地溜出去，用上個月剩的1.12塊零用錢買了它。如果再有人提起腌酸橙，我就知道他們在講些什么了。

(Ten o'clock bell. This is a very interrupted letter.)
（10點鐘聲響了，這封信被打斷了多次。）

**********************************

Sir,
先生：

I have the honour to report fresh explorations in the field of geometry. On Friday last we abandoned our former works in parallelopipeds and proceeded to truncated prisms. We are finding the road rough and very uphill.
我十分高興地告訴您我在幾何學方面取得的成績。上周五我們放棄了平行六面體的功課，轉而學習截頭棱柱體。學習的道路艱難坎坷。

The Christmas holidays begin next week and the trunks are up. The corridors are so filled up that you can hardly get through, and everybody is so bubbling over with excitement that studying is getting left out. I'm going to have a beautiful time in vacation; there's another Freshman who lives in Texas staying behind, and we are planning to take long walks and if there's any ice-- learn to skate. Then there is still the whole library to be read-- and three empty weeks to do it in!
下個星期圣誕假期就要到了。過道里全是行李箱，滿得難以通行，大家興高采烈，把學業全都拋到腦外。我也要好好享受自己的假期了，一個德州的新生也準備留下來，我們計劃要遠行，如果有冰的話，我們還要學溜冰。還有一整座圖書館的書可讀——有整整3個星期可以在里面讀!

Goodbye, Daddy, I hope that you are feeling as happy as am.
晚安，叔叔，我希望您跟我一樣快樂。

Yours ever, Judy
您永遠的茱蒂

PS. Don't forget to answer my question. If you don't want the trouble of writing, have your secretary telegraph. He can just say: Mr. Smith is quite bald, or Mr. Smith is not bald, or Mr. Smith has white hair.
又及：別忘了答復我的問題。您若無法提筆，也可請秘書代勞。只消說：史密斯先生很禿或史密斯先生不禿或史密斯滿頭白發。

And you can deduct the twenty-five cents out of my allowance.
您可以在我的零用錢里扣去2角5分。

Goodbye till January--and a merry Christmas!
明年—月再見。祝您圣誕快樂！

（來源：愛思英語網 編輯：丹妮）