标题: 两条面包(1) [打印本页] 作者: celiahe 时间: 2008-5-4 17:11 标题: 两条面包(1) [1]Miss Martha Meacham kept the little bakery on the corner (the one where you go up three steps, and the bell tinkles when you open the door).
[2] Miss Martha was forty, her bankbook showed a credit of two thousand dollars, and she possessed two false teeth and a sympathetic heart. Many people have married whose chances to do so were much inferior to Miss Martha's.
[3] Two or three times a week she received a customer in whom she began to take an interest. He was a middle-aged man wearing spectacles and a brown beard trimmed to a careful point. He spoke English with a strong German accent. His clothes were worn and darned in places, and wrinkled and baggy in others, but he looked neat and had very good manners. He always bought two loaves of stale bread--fresh bread was five cents a loaf and stale ones were two for five. Never did he call for anything but stale bread.
[4] On one occasion, Miss Martha noticed a red and brown stain on his fingers and decided that he was a struggling artist. No doubt he lived in a garret, where he painted pictures and ate stale bread and thought of the good things to eat in Miss Martha's bakery. Her sympathetic heart beat faster at the picture. In order to test her theory as to his occupation, Miss Martha brought from her room one day a painting that she had purchased at a sale and set it conspicuously against the shelves behind the bread counter. It was a Venetian scene, with a perfectly splendid marble palazzo and a lady in a gondola trailing her hand in the water. No artist could fail to notice it.
[5] Two days afterward the customer came in again, and he did notice the picture. "You haf here a fine bicture, madame."
[6]"Yes?" said Miss Martha, reveling in her own cunning white wrapping the stale loaves. "I do so admire art and paintings.., you think it is a good picture?"
[7] "Der balance," said the customer, "is not in good drawing. Der bairspective of it is not true. Goot morning, madame."
[8] He took the stale bread, bowed politely, and hurried out; Miss Martha carried the picture back to her room. How gentle and kindly his eyes shone behind his spectacles! To be able to judge perspective at a glance-- and to live on stale bread! But Miss Martha realized that, unfortunate though it is, genius often has to struggle before it is recognized.
待续……作者: celiahe 时间: 2008-5-4 17:13 标题: 两条面包 (2) [9] Following that incident, the gentle-mannered artist (for so she thought of him now) would chat for a while. He continued to order the stale bread never a cake, never a pie, never one of the other delicious pastries in the showcase. He was beginning to look thinner and very discouraged. Miss Martha became concerned; her sympathetic heart ached to add some delicacy to his meager purchase, but her courage failed. She did not dare affront him, for she understood the pride of artists.
[10] Miss Martha * took to wearing her blue-dotted silk waist behind the counter. One day the customer came in as usual, laid his nickel on the showcase, and called for his stale loaves. While Miss Martha was reaching for them there was a great tooting and clanging, and a fire engine came lumbering past.
[11] The kindly customer hurried to the door to look, as anyone will. Struck with sudden inspiration, Miss Martha seized the occasion so opportunely offered. On the bottom shelf behind the counter was a pound of fresh butter left by the dairyman minutes before. With a bread knife Miss Martha quickly made a deep slash in each of the stale loaves, inserted a generous quantity of butter, and pressed the loaves tight again. When the gentleman turned back to the counter, she was tying the paper around them as usual.
[12] When he had gone, after an unusually pleasant little chat, Miss Martha smiled to herself. She was pleased with her daring and generous impulse, but her heart was fluttering in anxiety. Had she been to bold? Would he take offense? Surely he would not; there was no language of edibles, and butter was no emblem of unmaidenly forwardness.
[13] For a long time that day her mind dwelt on the imagined scene when he should discover her little deception. Probably he would lay down his brushes and palette and stand by his easel with the picture he was painting--the perspective, of course, would be beyond criticism. Then he would prepare for his luncheon of dry bread and water; he would slice into the loaf--ah! Miss Martha blushed at the thought. Would he think of the hand that placed it there as he ate? Would he...
[14] The front door bell jangled viciously, interrupting the delightful speculations. Miss Martha sighed and hurried to the front, because somebody was making a great deal of noise. Two men were standing before the showcase. One was a young man smoking a pipe (she had never seen him before), and the other was the kindly, poverty-stricken artist for whom her sympathetic heart had interceded only this morning.
[15] He did not look or act like his usual self--his face was very red, his hat was on the back of his head, his hair was wildly rumpled. He clenched his fists tightly and shook them ferociously at Miss Martha. At Miss Martha!
[16] "Dummkopf!" he shouted with extreme loudness. He made a bass drum of Miss Martha's counter. "You haf shpoilt me," he cried, his blue eyes blazing angrily behind his spectacles. "I vill tell you, you vas von meddingsome old cat!"
[17] Miss Martha leaned weakly against the showcase, one hand on her best blue-dotted silk shirtwaist as the pipe-smoking stranger gripped the shouting customer by the collar.
[18] "Come on, you've said enough." He dragged the irate fellow to the door, and then he turned again to Miss Martha.
[19] "Guess you ought to be told, ma'am-that's Blumberger. He's an architectural draftsman in the office where I work. He's been working hard for three months drawing a plan for a new city hall. He was going to enter it in a prize competition; he finished inking in the lines yesterday. You know, a draftsman always makes his drawing in pencil first, and when it's done he rubs out the pencil lines with stale bread crumbs.
[20] "Blumberger's been buying the bread here. Well, today--well, you know, ma'am, that butter isn't--well, Blumberger's plan isn't good for anything now."
[21] Miss Martha Meacham went into the back room, took off the blue-dotted silk waist, and put on the old brown serge one; then she returned to sit before the counter.