【资料下载】雾都孤儿 （英语原版）

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胡郁欣

CHAPTER II  



TREATS OF OLIVER TWIST'S GROWTH, EDUCATION, AND BOARD

胡郁欣

For the next eight or ten months, Oliver was the victim of a

systematic course of treachery and deception.  He was brought up

by hand.  The hungry and destitute（极端穷困的） situation of the infant orphan（孤儿）

was duly reported by the workhouse authorities to the parish

authorities.  The parish authorities inquired with dignity（尊严） of the

workhouse authorities, whether there was no female then domiciled

in 'the house' who was in a situation to impart to Oliver Twist,

the consolation and nourishment of which he stood in need.  The

workhouse authorities replied with humility, that there was not.

Upon this, the parish authorities magnanimously and humanely

resolved, that Oliver should be 'farmed,' or, in other words,

that he should be dispatched to a branch-workhouse some three

miles off, where twenty or thirty other juvenile offenders

against the poor-laws, rolled about the floor all day, without

the inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing, under

the parental superintendence of an elderly female, who received

the culprits（犯人） at and for the consideration of sevenpence-halfpenny

per small head per week.  Sevenpence-halfpenny's worth per week

is a good round diet for a child; a great deal may be got for

sevenpence-halfpenny, quite enough to overload its stomach, and

make it uncomfortable. The elderly female was a woman of wisdom

and experience; she knew what was good for children; and she had

a very accurate perception of what was good for herself.  So, she

appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her own

use, and consigned the rising parochial （教区的）generation to even a

shorter allowance than was originally provided for them.  Thereby

finding in the lowest depth a deeper still; and proving herself a

very great experimental philosopher.

胡郁欣

Everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher who

had a great theory about a horse being able to live without

eating, and who demonstrated it so well, that he had got his own

horse down to a straw a day, and would unquestionably have

rendered him a very spirited and rampacious animal on nothing at

all, if he had not died, four-and-twenty hours before he was to

have had his first comfortable bait of air.  Unfortunately for,

the experimenal philosophy of the female to whose protecting care

Oliver Twist was delivered over, a similar result usually

attended the operation of HER system; for at the very moment when

the child had contrived to exist upon the smallest possible

portion of the weakest possible food, it did perversely happen in

eight and a half cases out of ten, either that it sickened from

want and cold, or fell into the fire from neglect, or got

half-smothered by accident; in any one of which cases, the

miserable little being was usually summoned into another world,

and there gathered to the fathers it had never known in this.

胡郁欣

Occasionally, when there was some more than usually interesting

inquest upon a parish child who had been overlooked in turning up

a bedstead, or inadvertently（疏忽地） scalded to death when there happened

to be a washing--though the latter accident was very scarce,

anything approaching to a washing being of rare occurance in the

farm--the jury （陪审团）would take it into their heads to ask troublesome

questions, or the parishioners would rebelliously affix their

signatures to a remonstrance.  But these impertinences were

speedily checked by the evidence of the surgeon, and the

testimony of the beadle; the former of whom had always opened the

body and found nothing inside (which was very probable indeed),

and the latter of whom invariably swore whatever the parish

wanted; which was very self-devotional.  Besides, the board made

periodical pilgrimages to the farm, and always sent the beadle

the day before, to say they were going.  The children were neat

and clean to behold, when THEY went; and what more would the

people have!

胡郁欣

It cannot be expected that this system of farming would produce

any very extraordinary or luxuriant crop.  Oliver Twist's ninth

birthday found him a pale thin child, somewhat diminutive（小的） in

stature, and decidely small in circumference.  But nature or

inheritance had implanted a good sturdy spirit in Oliver's

breast.  It had had plenty of room to expand, thanks to the spare

diet of the establishment; and perhaps to this circumstance may

be attributed his having any ninth birth-day at all.  Be this as

it may, however, it was his ninth birthday; and he was keeping it

in the coal-cellar with a select party of two other young

gentleman, who, after participating with him in a sound

thrashing, had been locked up for atrociously presuming to be

hungry, when Mrs. Mann, the good lady of the house, was

unexpectedly startled by the apparition of Mr. Bumble, the

beadle, striving to undo the wicket of the garden-gate.

胡郁欣

'Goodness gracious!  Is that you, Mr. Bumble, sir?' said Mrs.

Mann, thrusting her head out of the window in well-affected

ecstasies of joy.  '(Susan, take Oliver and them two brats

upstairs, and wash 'em directly.)--My heart alive!  Mr. Bumble,

how glad I am to see you, sure-ly!'

胡郁欣

Now, Mr. Bumble was a fat man, and a choleric; so, instead of

responding to this open-hearted salutation in a kindred spirit,

he gave the little wicket a tremendous shake, and then bestowed

upon it a kick which could have emanated from no leg but a

beadle's.

胡郁欣

'Lor, only think,' said Mrs. Mann, running out,--for the three

boys had been removed by this time,--'only think of that!  That I

should have forgotten that the gate was bolted on the inside, on

account of them dear children!  Walk in sir; walk in, pray, Mr.

Bumble, do, sir.'

胡郁欣

Although this invitation was accompanied with a curtsey that

might have softened the heart of a church-warden, it by no means

mollified the beadle.