1. It was after school, and Susy sat in one of the great windows of the library, writing out her French exercises. It was evidently dull work for her, for she yawned and fi dgeted and sighed in a very restless manner; and every now and then she would stop in the midst of a line, and watch the boys playing at marbles on the sidewalk. There was little Kit and Jimmy Grant; what good times they did have! O dear! she wished she were a boy, and were playing marbles on the sidewalk, instead of toiling at these tiresome French exercises. Nobody had to study as hard as she did, she was sure. There was Tom, now, flying his kite an hour ago; and there—yes, there was Fanny Hamlin going after trailing arbutus, as true as the world! This was too great a temptation. Down went the exercises, and up went the window, in a breath. “O Fanny! Fanny! are you going after trailing arbutus?”

2. Yes, Fanny was going after trailing arbutus, and she wished Susy would come with her. Why couldn’t she? Susy asked herself the very question, and came to the conclusion that there was really no sufficient reason why she couldn’t. “Because I can write the rest of my exercises.out to-morrow morning,” she thought.

3. “I’m just going for a walk to Pine-woods,” she said to Aunt Cathy, who had the charge of Susy and her brothers since their mother’s death.

Aunt Cathy lifted her kind but penetrating gaze to Susy’s face, and Susy felt uncomfortable, though all her aunt said in reply was, “Very well, my dear; you know best whether you can spare the time.”

4. This was always Aunt Cathy’s way. She said a sensible girl of thirteen, like Susy, should be taught to depend on her own judgment in matters of this kind. Susy was the one who went to school; Susy was the one who had lessons to learn;—then Susy was the only one who could tell when these

school duties were over, and whether her lessons were learned. And if Susy wasn’t faithful to her duty, then she must suffer the penalty. She was a baby no longer, to be governed blindly; she must learn to govern herself; it would teach her to know herself a great deal better, and to be self-reliant.

5. Susy liked Aunt Cathy’s “way”, but she always knew when Aunt Cathy thought she had neglected anything, and it always made her feel very uneasy, as people do when they abuse the trust reposed in them. And now this lovely spring afternoon, searching for arbutus with Fanny Hamlin, there was this shadow of uneasiness, of something unfulfilled, which clouded the bright day, and made the pleasure half a pain. But they were very successful in their hunt for fl owers. Susy had never carried home such a big basketful, and dear, kind Aunt Cathy admired them to her heart’s content.

6. “But you look tired, Susy,” she said to her.

“Yes, we went farther than we meant to at the start; why, we went almost to Long-Roads, Aunt Cathy.”

“Which is almost three miles. I should think you’d be tired, Susy. Now I should advise you, my dear, to eat your supper at once and go to bed.”

7. And Susy was sensible enough to take this advice, for she remembered what she had to do in the morning: and if she should oversleep the time!

“Will you call me when you get up, Bridget?” she asked of the cook, when she went up stairs.

“Shure, it’s not at five o’clock you’d be wanting to rise?” exclaimed Bridget, in astonishment.

“But I do, Bridget; and I want you to call me.”

8. “O well, I can do that aisy, Miss; but it’ll not be so aisy for you to mind it,” Bridget replied in her dry way; “for shure,” she said to Katy Malony, the chambermaid, “haven’t I tried her at this calling before, and didn’t she always fail at the minding!”

It didn’t seem more than an hour to Susy when she heard Bridget calling at the door, “Come, Miss Susy, it’s five o’clock, and you remember you wanted me to call yer.”

9. “Yes, Bridget, I hear,” she answered, “and I’m going to get right up,” which she certainly meant to do. But it was so early, so long before nine o’clock, she would lie just a minute: and that was the last she remembered until a great thumping at her door broke into a morning dream.

It was her brother Tom. “Come, Sue,” he shouted, “aren’t you ever going to get up? It’s breakfast-time, and Bridget says she woke you hours ago. Come, hurry up! I want you to see me fl y my new kite. I bought it of Sam Green yesterday; it’s the tallest kite you ever saw.”

10. Susy was horrified at one part of Tom’s communication. Breakfasttime! How could she have slept so long? Only an hour to school-time, and— those exercises! Was there ever such an unlucky girl? “Do go away, Tom,” she said petulantly to her brother, as she hurried into the library after a hasty breakfast. “I can’t attend to your kite now; I’m in a hurry.”

11. Tom fl ung out of the room in disgust. “I never saw such a girl in my life as you are, Sue. You’re always in a hurry, and you never get out of it.”

There was no time given her to reply to this assertion, for Tom had banged the door, and was half-way down the avenue in a minute. Then what could she have replied? When the truth is told us, however unpleasantly, what is there for us to say?

12. But the fact was, at present Susy didn’t think much about the saying ; it was the doing that occupied her. Here were two pages yet to translate! She set to work now in good earnest, but, of necessity, it had to be very hurried work; and Susy was never a ready translator. She was always a little uncertain with those perplexing verbs and pronouns. There was one rule she had to repeat to herself over and over again:“ Ne before the verb, and pas after it.” She had no time this morning to go back and correct mistakes, however, for there rang the quarter bell, and she was only at that moment at the foot of the page.

13. “Dear me,” she sighed; “if I get another tardy mark, or an imperfect one, Miss Hill will change my seat, I know. Everything has gone wrong this week. I suppose it’s what Cousin Bella calls a Fate.”

Poor Susy! she got both,—the tardy mark and the imperfect one; for that French lesson was an awful boggle.

“What does ail you, Susy?” said Miss Hill, as Mademoiselle Le Brun reported her angrily.

14. “She has de grand talent, but she is not attenteev !” cried Mademoiselle, in her broken English, and her little shrill, impatient voice. “I am afraid that is it, Susy,” said Miss Hill, kindly.

Susy burst into tears. A dim consciousness was stealing over her, that the “everything going wrong” wasn’t Fate exactly.

15. Her eyes were so red from these tears when she went home that Aunt Cathy asked the same question Miss Hill had asked, but with a different solicitude, “What does ail you, Susy?”

Then Susy told her troubles: how she had missed yesterday in her geography, and to-day in her French; how she had been marked tardy just for being a second behind the last bell-tinging; and then the dreaded result of all,—losing her seat beside Fanny Hamlin.

16. Aunt Cathy heard her gently and patiently, but at the end she did not say much; she felt sure that Susy was finding out for herself the cause of these troubles, and she thought this would be better for her in the end than to have her fault held up before her by somebody else. That time, at least, Susy was on her guard. She took her history lesson into a little back room, where she could neither see the boys playing at marbles, nor Tom fl ying his kite, nor Fanny Hamlin if she passed; and then she put her mind upon her task, and was astonished to fi nd that, by this steady, uninterrupted application, she had accomplished in an hour what she had many a time spent three hours over.

17. When she went down stairs, Tom was crossing the hall whistling one of his favorite negro melodies; and, remembering her ungraciousness of the morning, she said to him, “I want to see your new kite, Tom.”

“O, you’re over your hurry, are you? Well, the new kite’s gone to bed for to-day,—you’ll have to wait till to-morrow;”—and away he went towards the parlor, looking rather “huffy” and injured still.

18. Susy followed him, and found Aunt Cathy reading aloud to little Kit. It was a pleasant story, and Aunt Cathy was a pleasant reader; and after the reading, which both Susy and Tom had enjoyed as much as little Kit, they all began looking over the engravings in the book; and here Susy came across a picture of St. George and the Dragon.

“Who was St. George, Aunt Cathy?” she asked.

19. “St. George? O, he was a saint or hero, whose story belongs to the age of the crusades. The crusaders, you know, were those who fought in what are called ‘The Holy Wars,’ for the conquest of Palestine. Palestine, you see, was in the hands of unbelievers, and the Christians were horrifi ed that the land where Jesus had lived and taught and died, should be in such possession; so for years they disputed this possession by fi ghting these battles.

20. “The legend of St George is, that he was a renowned prince, whose greatest achievement was the slaying of an enormous dragon, by which exploit he effected the deliverance from bondage of Aja, the daughter of a king. His story and character were so popular with the ancient Christians, that they bore the representation of the knight upon their standards. And at this day the badge of the famous Order of the Knights of the Garter, in England, is the image of St. George.

21. “To every one now it is a symbol of victory of some kind,—the victory gained over any weakness or sin; for we all of us have some weakness or sin which is a dragon for us to fi ght. Thackeray, the great novelist, whom your father admires so much, said he had not one dragon, but two, and that they were Indolence and Luxury; and he said it in connection with this picture of St. George, which had just been given him, and which he declared he should hang at the head of his bed, where he could see it every morning.”

22. As Aunt Cathy concluded, Susy’s face grew very grave and earnest, and, bending over the picture of St. George, she looked at it a long time in silence; but it was not until she was alone with Aunt Cathy that she spoke what was in her mind.

23. The boys had both gone to bed, and she still held the picture before her, regarding it with great interest, when she said: “Aunt Cathy, I’ve found out my dragon. It is that long word beginning with P, that little Kit was trying to spell the other day; and it means, to keep putting everything off till another time, that ought to be done fi ght away.”

“I know. Procrastination, —that is the word, Susy.”

24. “Yes, that is it; that is my dragon, and it’s been the cause of all my troubles, Aunt Cathy. Now I’ll tell you what I’m going to do. I’m going to ask father if he will let me have this picture cut out and framed, and I’ll hang it at the foot of my bed, and try to remember, when I look at it, that I’ve got a battle to fi ght everyday; for I have, Aunt Cathy.

25. “O, you don’t know what hard work it is for me to sit and study. If it isn’t one thing it is another that makes my mind wander. Sometimes it’s little Kit at his marbles, or the school-girls passing, or what people are saying: and then at the end of an hour I don’t know a word of my lesson, and the teabell will ring, or somebody’ll call for me to go somewhere, and I’ll think,‘O, well, I can get the lesson tomorrow.’

26. “And then when tomorrow comes, all sorts of things will happen, so there won’t be a scrap of time; and that’s the way the dragon has gone on beating me, ever and ever so long; and I don’t know, Aunt Cathy, but—but he always will.” And here Susy began to choke a little; the next moment she burst out bravely, in a determined voice: “But I shall try real hard to beat him , any way!”

27. “That’s it, Susy!” Aunt Cathy exclaimed. “Try real hard; it’s all any body can do; and in trying I know you will win the battle, my dear.”

And Susy was true to her word. She did try “real hard,” and at last she won the battle.

( NORA PERRY )

中文阅读

1. 放学后，苏西坐在图书馆高大的窗户前写法语作业。显然，这份作业对她来说十分枯燥，不然她就不会又是呻吟又是叹气、烦躁不安了，而且写着写着还不时停下来，看着外面人行道上一群男孩子玩弹球。是小凯特和吉米·格兰特；他们玩得多开心啊！噢，天哪！她多希望自己是个男孩儿，到人行道上去玩弹珠，而不是辛辛苦苦地在这里做这些烦人的法语作业。她敢肯定，绝对没有谁学习像她这么刻苦。一个小时前汤姆在放风筝，是的，还有范尼·哈姆林，她在找野杨梅，世界就是这么真实！这太诱人了。她一会儿低下头做作业，一会儿抬起头看看窗外，叹口气。“噢，范尼！范尼！你要去找野杨梅吗？”

2. 是的，范尼要去找野杨梅，她希望苏西跟她一起去。苏西问自己，我为什么不能去？最后她得出结论：确实没有什么充分的理由不能去。“我可以明天早上把作业补上。”她想。

3. “我去松树林散散步。”她对凯西阿姨说。母亲去世后，凯西阿姨照管着苏西和她的弟弟们。凯西阿姨抬头看了看苏西的脸，她目光十分和蔼，却能洞悉一切。可她还是答道：“好的，亲爱的，你最知道是否能抽出时间了。”尽管如此，苏西还是觉得心里很别扭。

4. 这就是凯西阿姨的一贯方式。她说过，像苏西这样明白事理的十三岁女孩儿，这种情况应该学会自己判断怎么做。上学的是苏西，需要做作业的也是苏西——所以，何时做完课后作业，书是否念好了，应该由苏西说了算。如果苏西不忠于自己的职责，那她就必须受到惩罚。她不是不懂事的襁褓婴儿，不应该盲目地受人管教；她必须学会如何管教自己；这会教她更深入地了解自己，变得更独立。

5. 苏西很喜欢凯西阿姨的“方式”，但是，每次凯西阿姨认为她疏忽了什么的时候，她都能看得出来，这总是让她感觉忐忑不安，就像辜负了别人的信任一样。现在，这个明媚的春日午后，跟范尼·哈姆林一起去寻找野杨梅这件乐事也笼罩着不安的阴影，没有完成的作业让这个明丽的日子乌云密布，快乐中也掺杂着一半痛苦。不管怎么说，她们找杨梅花儿还是找得很顺利。苏西从来没有往家里采过这么大一篮花儿，况且，和蔼可亲的凯西阿姨打心眼里喜欢这些花儿。

6. “不过你看上去累坏了，苏西。”她对她说。

“是很累，我们最开始也没打算跑那么远。哇，我们都快跑到长路去了，凯西阿姨。”

“长路离这里将近三英里呢。我早该知道你累坏了的，苏西。现在，亲爱的，我建议你赶紧吃完晚餐去上床睡觉。”

7. 苏西很乖，她赶紧去了，因为她知道自己明天早上还得干什么：要是睡过头就糟了！

“布丽奇特，明天早上叫我起床可以吗？”她一边往楼上走，一边对厨娘说。

“当然可以，你想五点就起床吗？”布丽奇特吃了一惊，她大声问道。

“没错，布丽奇特；我想让你叫我起床。”

8. “哦，好吧。我叫你一声很容易，小姐；可是你自己要记得起来就没那么容易了。”布丽奇特干巴巴地说；她转身对凯蒂·马伦妮说：“以前又不是没有叫过她，可她哪次起得来！”

苏西觉得自己还没睡够一个小时，就听到布丽奇特叫门了：“起床了，苏西小姐。五点了。你不是让我叫你起床吗！”

9. “知道了，布丽奇特！我听到了！”她答道，“马上就起床。”她确实是打算马上起床的。可是现在实在太早了，离9点还有那么长时间，她想再躺一分钟，就一分钟：她一边想着，一边又睡着了，一觉睡到擂门的声音惊醒她的晨梦。

是她弟弟汤姆。“快来，苏西！”他大叫道，“你不是已经起来了吗？早餐时间到了，布丽奇特说她几个小时前就叫醒你了。快来，快啊！我想让你看看我放新风筝。我昨天从山姆·格林那里买的，你肯定没见过飞得这么高的风筝。”

10. 汤姆的话把苏西吓了一跳。

早餐时间！她怎么会睡了这么久？离上学只有一个小时了。那些作业怎么办！还有哪个女孩比她更倒霉的吗？“快走开，汤姆。”她气急败坏地冲弟弟大吼，然后匆匆扒了几口饭，就朝书房冲去。“我现在不能去跟你去看风筝，我赶时间。”

11. 汤姆厌恶地冲出她的房间。“我这一辈子都没见过像你这样的女孩，苏西。你总是在赶时间，你永远都在赶时间。”

她来不及反驳，汤姆已经甩门下楼，冲到了楼梯上。她有什么可反驳的？事实就是这样，就算我们再怎么不开心，又有什么话可说？

12. 事实上，关于该说什么，苏西根本就顾不上多想了，她只顾着想该做什么。还有两页没翻译！她赶紧认认真真地开始做作业，但是，现在这么赶必然会做得十分草率，而且苏西又不是个熟练的翻译。对那些费解的动词、名词，她总是有那么点儿不确定。她不得不一遍遍地重复语法规则：“副词在动词前，名词在动词后。”今天早上她已经没有时间检查纠错了，一刻钟的铃声敲响了，她才刚写了不到一页。

13. “哎呀！”她叹了口气，“我知道，如果再有迟到或没有做完作业的记录，希尔小姐就会给我换座位的。这个星期什么都不顺利。我觉得这就是贝拉表弟所说的命不好。”

可怜的苏西！她两个记录——迟到记录和没有做完作业的记录一个没少；因为她的法语作业做得一团糟。

法国女教师乐·布朗生气地向希尔小姐报告她的成绩，希尔小姐一边听，一边问：“你怎么了，苏西？”

14. “她很有天赋，可她根本不专心！”法国女教师用蹩脚的英语尖叫，她很不耐烦。

“我也是这么觉得的，苏西。”希尔小姐和蔼地说。

苏西突然哭了起来。她隐隐约约意识到，“什么都不顺利”根本不是什么命不好。

15. 她哭红了双眼，回到家，凯西阿姨也提出了跟希尔小姐一样的问题，不过她跟希尔小姐所担心的不同。“你怎么了，苏西？”

苏西把她的倒霉事一五一十地告诉了凯西阿姨：她是怎样昨天没做完地理作业，今天又没做完法语作业的；她是怎样在最后一声铃声过后一秒钟冲进教室却被记了迟到的；于是，她失去了跟范尼·哈姆林的邻桌座位，这个结果太可怕了。

16. 凯西阿姨温柔而耐心地听她倾诉，但是，听完之后，她什么都没说。她觉得苏西自己肯定已经发现了这些倒霉事的根源所在。她觉得，对苏西来说，自己意识到自己的错误总比被别人指出来要好。这次，苏西至少已经开始上心了。她拿着历史课作业走进后面一个房间里。在这里，她看不到男孩子们玩弹球，看不到汤姆放风筝，也看不到范尼·哈姆林从窗子底下路过；她全副心思都放在作业上，结果很惊奇地发现，这样一心一意、聚精会神地做，平时要花三个小时写的作业，现在只用了一个小时她就写完了。

17. 走下楼梯时，她看到汤姆正跑过大厅，嘴里吹着他最喜欢的黑人小调。她想起自己早上的失礼，于是叫住了汤姆：“我想看看你的新风筝，汤姆。”

“哦，你不赶时间了？新风筝今天已经睡觉去了——你得等到明天了。”他说着朝客厅跑去，看上去还是有点“气鼓鼓的”，有点受伤。

18. 苏西跟在他身后朝外走去，只见凯西阿姨正在给小凯特朗读故事。故事很好听，凯西阿姨朗读得也很好。苏西和汤姆也跟小凯特一样，听得津津有味。听完故事，他们一起翻看里面的插图。苏西翻到一幅插图，上面画着圣乔治和恶龙。

“凯西阿姨，圣乔治是谁？”她问道。

19. “圣乔治？噢，他是个圣人，或者说是个英雄，是十字军东征时期的人物。十字军就是参加‘圣战’的军队，而圣战是为了征服巴勒斯坦。当时，巴勒斯坦落入异教徒手中，基督教徒大骇，因为耶稣曾在那片土地生活过，教导过世人，并在那里去世，可是那个地方竟然落入异教徒手中！于是，数年来，他们为了夺回这片土地而战，这就是人们说的‘圣战’。

20. “故事说，圣乔治是位声名卓著的王子，他最伟大的成就，就是杀死了一条凶暴的恶龙，从恶龙口中救出了国王的女儿阿亚。他的故事在那些远古的基督徒中间十分流行。他们把这位骑士的肖像画到旗帜上。在英国，著名的嘉德骑士号令就是圣乔治的画像。

21. “对大家来说，现在这个标志已经成了某种胜利的象征，——圣乔治的胜利在于克服了所有的弱点或过失；我们每个人都一样，多多少少都有弱点或过失，这就是我们要征服的恶龙。你爸爸很喜欢小说家萨克雷。这位伟大的小说家曾说过，他要征服的恶龙不只一条，而是两条，其中一条是懒惰，一条是淫靡。别人送了他一幅圣乔治的画像，他说这句话意有所指。他宣布要把那幅画像挂在自己床头，每天早上一睁眼就能看到。”

22. 听了凯西阿姨的话，苏西脸色十分严肃。她弯下腰去，认真地看着圣乔治那幅插图，很长时间没说话。一直等到只剩下她跟凯西阿姨在一起的说话，她才把心里话说出来。

23. 男孩儿们都上床睡觉去了，她还拿着那幅画兴致勃勃地看。最后，她说：“凯西阿姨，我知道我的恶龙是什么了。它的第一个字母是P，小凯特那天还试过怎么拼写；意思是，不管做什么事都拖延到以后。这个毛病应该要改掉。”

“我知道。你说的是 Procrastination——‘拖拖拉拉’，苏西。”

24. “没错，正是这个词；它就是我的恶龙，它是我所有麻烦的根源，凯西阿姨。想知道我打算怎么办？我打算去找爸爸，让他把这幅画撕下来裱糊一下，我要把它挂在我的床脚，每次看到它，都提醒自己，要跟恶龙战斗到底，凯西阿姨。

25. “噢，您不知道，对我来说，安安静静地坐下来学习有多难。不是这事就是那事，都会让我心不在焉。有时候是小凯特在玩弹球，有时候是女同学从窗下路过，有时候是人们在聊天：结果一个小时过去了，一个字都没记住。有时候午茶铃声响了，有时候有人叫我出去了，我就会想，噢，算了，我可以明天再做。

26. “等到了第二天，又会发生各种各样的事，到最后弄得一点儿时间都没了。那条恶龙就是这样击败我的，每次都这样。我不知道，凯西阿姨，可——可是他总是会得逞。”说到这里，苏西开始抽噎，接着，她放声大哭起来，一边哭一边坚定地说：“可是不管怎么样，我都要试试，努力打败他！”

27. “这就对了，苏西。”凯西阿姨高兴地说，“试着努力打败它。我们所能做的，就只有这些。我知道，亲爱的，只要你努力做，就一定能赢。”

苏西果然说到做到。她真的“很努力”，最终，她打败了“恶龙”。

（诺拉·佩里） BXjRVVs5ZbLYre1ej7QTwu8R11aWeQuGx4QG+6DFx4ppRij2oIoZCzwvKSLMyf4i