耳边名著 | 中英字幕

By and by in came the masters ofthe cottage. They were seven dwarfs, returning home from their work of miningfor gold and silver in the nearby mountains. They lighted up their sevenlamps, and saw at once that all was not right. The first said, ‘Who has beensitting on my stool?’ The second, ‘Who has been eating off my plate?’ Thethird, ‘Who has been picking my bread?’ The fourth, ‘Who has been meddling withmy spoon?’ The fifth, ‘Who has been handling my fork?’ The sixth, ‘Who has beencutting with my knife?’ The seventh, ‘Who has been drinking my wine?’ Then thefirst looked round and said, ‘Who has been lying on my bed?’ And the rest camerunning to him, and everyone cried out that somebody had been upon his bed. Butthe seventh saw Snow White, and called all his brothers to come and see her;and they cried out with wonder and astonishment and brought their lamps to lookat her, and said, ‘Good heavens! what a lovely child she is!’ And they werevery glad to see her, and took care not to wake her; and the seventh dwarfslept that night under the kitchen table so as not to disturb her rest.

In the morning Snow White toldthem all her story; and they pitied her, and implored her to stay with them,and they would take good care of her and protect her as best they could. SnowWhite readily agreed, provided she be allowed to earn her room andboard by keeping the cottage in order, and cook and wash and knit andspin for them.

Then poor Snow White wandered alone through the wood in greatfear. Several times she spied wild beasts among the trees. The beasts regardedher with curiosity and some howled, but none did her any harm. Finally asdarkness began to fall she came to a cottage among the hills, and went in torest, for her little feet would carry her no further. Everything was clean and neatin the cottage: on the table was spread a white cloth, and there were sevenlittle plates, seven little loaves, and seven little glasses with wine in them;and seven knives and forks laid in order; and by the wall stood seven littlebeds. As she was very hungry, she picked a little piece of each loaf and dranka very little wine out of each glass; and after that she thought she would liedown and rest. So she tried all the little beds; but one was too long, andanother was too short, till at last the seventh suited her: and there she laidherself down and went to sleep.

But Snow White grew more and more beautiful; and when she was sixteenyears old she was as bright as the day, and fairer than the queen herself. Thenthe glass one day answered the queen, when she went to look in it as usual:

‘Thou, queen, artfair, and beauteous to see,
But Snow White has grown lovelier than thee!’

When she heardthis she turned pale with rage and envy, and called to one of her servants, andsaid, ‘Tie Snow White hand and foot, then take her away into the wide woodand slay her, that I may never again be cursed with her wretched presence.’

The servant boundSnow White as ordered, and carried her deep into the wood. There in a clearinghe stopped and drew his sword. But he was a kind man, and could not bringhimself to harm her. Instead he cut the ropes that bound her, andurged her to seek safety and to never under any circumstances return to the palaceor the queen would surely have her slain. He then left her alone in the wood;in the hope that she would somehow be rescued.

“Stop! stop!” cried the City Mouse. “That is a trap!”

The little Country Mouse stopped and said, “What is a trap?”

“That thing is a trap,” said the little City Mouse. “The minute you touch the cheese with your teeth something comes down on your head hard, and you’re dead.”

The little Country Mouse looked at the trap, and he looked at the cheese, and he looked at the little City Mouse. “If you’ll excuse me,” he said, “I think I will go home. I’d rather have barley and grain to eat and eat it in peace and comfort, than have brown sugar and dried prunes and cheese,–and be frightened to death all the time!”

So the little Country Mouse went back to his home, and there he stayed all the rest of his life.

The Country Mouse ran after, you may be sure, as fast as HE could. As soon as they were out of danger the City Mouse said, “That was the old Cat; she is the best mouser in town,–if she once gets you, you are lost.”

“This is very terrible,” said the little Country Mouse; “let us not go back to the cupboard again.”

“No,” said the City Mouse, “I will take you to the cellar; there is something especial there.”

“Run!” whispered the City Mouse. And they ran as fast as they could to the little hole where they had come in. The little Country Mouse was shaking all over when they got safely away, but the little City Mouse said, “That is nothing; she will soon go away and then we can go back.”

After the cook had gone away and shut the door they stole softly back, and this time the City Mouse had something new to show: he took the little Country Mouse into a corner on the top shelf, where a big jar of dried prunes stood open. After much tugging and pulling they got a large dried prune out of the jar on to the shelf and began to nibble at it. This was even better than the brown sugar. The little Country Mouse liked the taste so much that he could hardly nibble fast enough. But all at once, in the midst of their eating, there came a scratching at the door and a sharp, loud MIAOUW!

Once a little mouse who lived in the country invited a little Mouse from the city to visit him. When the little City Mouse sat down to dinner he was surprised to find that the Country Mouse had nothing to eat except barley and grain.

“Really,” he said, “you do not live well at all; you should see how I live! I have all sorts of fine things to eat every day. You must come to visit me and see how nice it is to live in the city.”

The little Country Mouse was glad to do this, and after a while he went to the city to visit his friend.

The very first place that the City Mouse took the Country Mouse to see was the kitchen cupboard of the house where he lived. There, on the lowest shelf, behind some stone jars, stood a big paper bag of brown sugar. The little City Mouse gnawed a hole in the bag and invited his friend to nibble for himself.

The two little mice nibbled and nibbled, and the Country Mouse thought he had never tasted anything so delicious in his life. He was just thinking how lucky the City Mouse was, when suddenly the door opened with a bang, and in came the cook to get some flour.

It all happened as the fairies had predicted. When the princess was sixteen years old she saw an old woman spinning and took the spindle from her to try this strange new work. Instantly she pricked her hand and fell into a deep sleep, as did everyone else in the palace.

There she lay in a bower of roses, year after year, and the hedge around the palace garden grew so tall and thick that at last you could not have told that there was a castle at all.

At the end of the hundred years a brave young prince heard of the castle and then enchanted princess who lay asleep there and determined to rescue her. So he cut his way through the thick prickly hedge and at length he came to the princess.

Even in her deep slumber the princess wore an expression of utmost kindness, and the prince determined to do everything in his power to wake her. But alas, nothing he tried could raise the princess from her sleep. At last, heartbroken and exhausted, he gave up, and prepared to return to his father’s kingdom alone. He stooped and kissed her lips in a gesture of farewell. To his great surprise, at the touch of his lips to hers she awoke and with her the king and queen and all the courtiers, who had fallen asleep at the same time.

The prince and princess quickly became close friends, and after a time fell in love and were wed. The wedding was celebrated with great pomp and ceremony. The prince and princess eventually became king and queen, celebrated for their rule over the kingdom, and lived happily ever after.

Once upon a time there was a king and queen who for a very long time had no children, and when at length a little daughter was born to them they were so pleased that they gave a christening feast to which they invited a number of fairies. But, unfortunately, they accidentally left out one especially vengeful old fairy, and she was so angry that she laid a curse on the princess, that she would die when she reached the age of sixteen, by pricking her hand with a spindle.

All the other fairies present, except one, had already given the princess their beautiful gifts, and this last one said she could not prevent part of the wicked wish coming true; but her gift should be that the princess should not really die, but only fall into a deep sleep, which should last for a hundred years, and at the end of that time she would be awakened by a prince.

For a time the royal family lived in happiness, and the daughter grew into an intelligent and charming young woman, whose kindness was known and admired throughout the kingdom.