高中生经典英文小说阅读与欣赏系列 Sredni Vashtar

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Sredni Vashtar
by H.H. Munro (SAKI)
Conradin was ten years old, and the doctor had pronounced his professional
opinion that the boy would not live another five years. The doctor was silky and
effete, and counted for little, but his opinion was endorsed by Mrs. De Ropp, who
counted for nearly everything. Mrs. De Ropp was Conradin's cousin and guardian,
and in his eyes she represented those three-fifths of the world that are necessary
and disagreeable and real; the other two-fifths, in perpetual antagonism to the
foregoing, were summed up in himself and his imagination. One of these days
Conradin supposed he would succumb to the mastering pressure of wearisome
necessary things---such as illnesses and coddling restrictions and drawn-out
dullness. Without his imagination, which was rampant under the spur of loneliness,
he would have succumbed long ago.
Mrs. De Ropp would never, in her honestest moments, have confessed to
herself that she disliked Conradin, though she might have been dimly aware that
thwarting him his goodwas a duty which she did not find particularly
irksome. Conradin hated her with a desperate sincerity which he was perfectly able
to mask. Such few pleasures as he could contrive for himself gained an added relish
from the likelihood that they would be displeasing to his guardian, and from the
realm of his imagination she was locked out---an unclean thing, which should find
no entrance.
In the dull, cheerless garden, overlooked by so many windows that were ready
to open with a message not to do this or that, or a reminder that medicines were due,
he found little attraction. The few fruit-trees that it contained were set jealously
apart from his plucking, as though they were rare specimens of their kind blooming
in an arid waste; it would probably have been difficult to find a market-gardener
who would have offered ten shillings for their entire yearly produce. In a forgotten
corner, however, almost hidden behind a dismal shrubbery, was a disused tool-shed
of respectable proportions, and within its walls Conradin found a haven, something
that took on the varying aspects of a playroom and a cathedral. He had peopled it
with a legion of familiar phantoms, evoked partly from fragments of history and
partly from his own brain, but it also boasted two inmates of flesh and blood. In
one corner lived a ragged-plumaged Houdan hen, on which the boy lavished an
affection that had scarcely another outlet. Further back in the gloom stood a large
hutch, divided into two compartments, one of which was fronted with close iron
bars. This was the abode of a large polecat-ferret, which a friendly butcher-boy had
once smuggled, cage and all, into its present quarters, in exchange for a

1


long- secreted hoard of small silver. Conradin was dreadfully afraid of the lithe,
sharp-fanged beast, but it was his most treasured possession. Its very presence in
the tool-shed was a secret and fearful joy, to be kept scrupulously from the
knowledge of the Woman, as he privately dubbed his cousin. And one day, out of
Heaven knows what material, he spun the beast a wonderful name, and from that
moment it grew into a god and a religion. The Woman indulged in religion once a
week at a church near by, and took Conradin with her, but to him the church service
was an alien rite in the House of Rimmon. Every Thursday, in the dim and musty
silence of the tool-shed, he worshipped with mystic and elaborate ceremonial
before the wooden hutch where dwelt Sredni Vashtar, the great ferret. Red flowers
in their season and scarlet berries in the winter-time were offered at his shrine, for
he was a god who laid some special stress on the fierce impatient side of things, as
opposed to the Woman's religion, which, as far as Conradin could observe, went to
great lengths in the contrary direction. And on great festivals powdered nutmeg was
strewn in front of his hutch, an important feature of the offering being that the
nutmeg had to be stolen. These festivals were of irregular occurrence, and were
chiefly appointed to celebrate some passing event. On one occasion, when Mrs. De
Ropp suffered from acute toothache for three days, Conradin kept up the festival
during the entire three days, and almost succeeded in persuading himself that
Sredni Vashtar was personally responsible for the toothache. If the malady had
lasted for another day the supply of nutmeg would have given out.
The Houdan hen was never drawn into the cult of Sredni Vashtar. Conradin had
long ago settled that she was an Anabaptist. He did not pretend to have the remotest
knowledge as to what an Anabaptist was, but he privately hoped that it was dashing
and not very respectable. Mrs. De Ropp was the ground plan on which he based
and detested all respectability.
After a while Conradin's absorption in the tool-shed began to attract the notice
of his guardian.
she promptly decided, and at breakfast one morning she announced that the
Houdan hen had been sold and taken away overnight. With her short-sighted eyes
she peered at Conradin, waiting for an outbreak of rage and sorrow, which she was
ready to rebuke with a flow of excellent precepts and reasoning. But Conradin said
nothing: there was nothing to be said. Something perhaps in his white set face gave
her a momentary qualm, for at tea that afternoon there was toast on the table, a
delicacy which she usually banned on the ground that it was bad for him; also
because the making of it trouble,a deadly offence in the middle-class
feminine eye.

he did not touch it.

2



In the shed that evening there was an innovation in the worship of the
hutch-god. Conradin had been wont to chant his praises, tonight be asked a boon.

The thing was not specified. As Sredni Vashtar was a god he must be supposed
to know. And choking back a sob as he looked at that other empty comer, Conradin
went back to the world he so hated.
And every night, in the welcome darkness of his bedroom, and every evening
in the dusk of the tool-shed, Conradin's bitter litany went up:
Sredni Vashtar.
Mrs. De Ropp noticed that the visits to the shed did not cease, and one day she
made a further journey of inspection.
are you keeping in that locked hutch?she asked. believe it's
guinea-pigs. I'll have them all cleared away.
Conradin shut his lips tight, but the Woman ransacked his bedroom till she
found the carefully hidden key, and forthwith marched down to the shed to
complete her discovery. It was a cold afternoon, and Conradin had been bidden to
keep to the house. From the furthest window of the dining-room the door of the
shed could just be seen beyond the corner of the shrubbery, and there Conradin
stationed himself. He saw the Woman enter, and then be imagined her opening the
door of the sacred hutch and peering down with her short-sighted eyes into the
thick straw bed where his god lay hidden. Perhaps she would prod at the straw in
her clumsy impatience. And Conradin fervently breathed his prayer for the last time.
But he knew as he prayed that he did not believe. He knew that the Woman would
come out presently with that pursed smile he loathed so well on her face, and that
in an hour or two the gardener would carry away his wonderful god, a god no
longer, but a simple brown ferret in a hutch. And he knew that the Woman would
triumph always as she triumphed now, and that he would grow ever more sickly
under her pestering and domineering and superior wisdom, till one day nothing
would matter much more with him, and the doctor would be proved right. And in
the sting and misery of his defeat, he began to chant loudly and defiantly the hymn
of his threatened idol:
Sredni Vashtar went forth,
His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.
His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.
Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.
And then of a sudden he stopped his chanting and drew closer to the
window-pane. The door of the shed still stood ajar as it had been left, and the
minutes were slipping by. They were long minutes, but they slipped by nevertheless.

3


He watched the starlings running and flying in little parties across the lawn; he
counted them over and over again, with one eye always on that swinging door. A
sour-faced maid came in to lay the table for tea, and still Conradin stood and waited
and watched. Hope had crept by inches into his heart, and now a look of triumph
began to blaze in his eyes that had only known the wistful patience of defeat. Under
his breath, with a furtive exultation, he began once again the pan of victory and
devastation. And presently his eyes were rewarded: out through that doorway came
a long, low, yellow-and-brown beast, with eyes a-blink at the waning daylight, and
dark wet stains around the fur of jaws and throat. Conradin dropped on his knees.
The great polecat-ferret made its way down to a small brook at the foot of the
garden, drank for a moment, then crossed a little plank bridge and was lost to sight
in the bushes. Such was the passing of Sredni Vashtar.
ready,the sour-faced maid; the mistress?went
down to the shed some time ago,said Conradin. And while the maid went to
summon her mistress to tea, Conradin fished a toasting-fork out of the sideboard
drawer and proceeded to toast himself a piece of bread. And during the toasting of
it and the buttering of it with much butter and the slow enjoyment of eating it,
Conradin listened to the noises and silences which fell in quick spasms beyond the
dining-room door. The loud foolish screaming of the maid, the answering chorus of
wondering ejaculations from the kitchen region, the scuttering footsteps and
hurried embassies for outside help, and then, after a lull, the scared sobbings and
the shuffling tread of those who bore a heavy burden into the house.
will break it to the poor child? I couldn't for the life of me!
exclaimed a shrill voice. And while they debated the matter among themselves,
Conradin made himself another piece of toast.


4


Sredni Vashtar
by H.H. Munro (SAKI)
Conradin was ten years old, and the doctor had pronounced his professional
opinion that the boy would not live another five years. The doctor was silky and
effete, and counted for little, but his opinion was endorsed by Mrs. De Ropp, who
counted for nearly everything. Mrs. De Ropp was Conradin's cousin and guardian,
and in his eyes she represented those three- fifths of the world that are necessary
and disagreeable and real; the other two-fifths, in perpetual antagonism to the
foregoing, were summed up in himself and his imagination. One of these days
Conradin supposed he would succumb to the mastering pressure of wearisome
necessary things---such as illnesses and coddling restrictions and drawn-out
dullness. Without his imagination, which was rampant under the spur of loneliness,
he would have succumbed long ago.
Mrs. De Ropp would never, in her honestest moments, have confessed to
herself that she disliked Conradin, though she might have been dimly aware that
thwarting him his goodwas a duty which she did not find particularly
irksome. Conradin hated her with a desperate sincerity which he was perfectly able
to mask. Such few pleasures as he could contrive for himself gained an added relish
from the likelihood that they would be displeasing to his guardian, and from the
realm of his imagination she was locked out--- an unclean thing, which should find
no entrance.
In the dull, cheerless garden, overlooked by so many windows that were ready
to open with a message not to do this or that, or a reminder that medicines were due,
he found little attraction. The few fruit-trees that it contained were set jealously
apart from his plucking, as though they were rare specimens of their kind blooming
in an arid waste; it would probably have been difficult to find a market- gardener
who would have offered ten shillings for their entire yearly produce. In a forgotten
corner, however, almost hidden behind a dismal shrubbery, was a disused tool-shed
of respectable proportions, and within its walls Conradin found a haven, something
that took on the varying aspects of a playroom and a cathedral. He had peopled it
with a legion of familiar phantoms, evoked partly from fragments of history and
partly from his own brain, but it also boasted two inmates of flesh and blood. In
one corner lived a ragged-plumaged Houdan hen, on which the boy lavished an
affection that had scarcely another outlet. Further back in the gloom stood a large
hutch, divided into two compartments, one of which was fronted with close iron
bars. This was the abode of a large polecat-ferret, which a friendly butcher-boy had
once smuggled, cage and all, into its present quarters, in exchange for a

1


long-secreted hoard of small silver. Conradin was dreadfully afraid of the lithe,
sharp-fanged beast, but it was his most treasured possession. Its very presence in
the tool-shed was a secret and fearful joy, to be kept scrupulously from the
knowledge of the Woman, as he privately dubbed his cousin. And one day, out of
Heaven knows what material, he spun the beast a wonderful name, and from that
moment it grew into a god and a religion. The Woman indulged in religion once a
week at a church near by, and took Conradin with her, but to him the church service
was an alien rite in the House of Rimmon. Every Thursday, in the dim and musty
silence of the tool-shed, he worshipped with mystic and elaborate ceremonial
before the wooden hutch where dwelt Sredni Vashtar, the great ferret. Red flowers
in their season and scarlet berries in the winter-time were offered at his shrine, for
he was a god who laid some special stress on the fierce impatient side of things, as
opposed to the Woman's religion, which, as far as Conradin could observe, went to
great lengths in the contrary direction. And on great festivals powdered nutmeg was
strewn in front of his hutch, an important feature of the offering being that the
nutmeg had to be stolen. These festivals were of irregular occurrence, and were
chiefly appointed to celebrate some passing event. On one occasion, when Mrs. De
Ropp suffered from acute toothache for three days, Conradin kept up the festival
during the entire three days, and almost succeeded in persuading himself that
Sredni Vashtar was personally responsible for the toothache. If the malady had
lasted for another day the supply of nutmeg would have given out.
The Houdan hen was never drawn into the cult of Sredni Vashtar. Conradin had
long ago settled that she was an Anabaptist. He did not pretend to have the remotest
knowledge as to what an Anabaptist was, but he privately hoped that it was dashing
and not very respectable. Mrs. De Ropp was the ground plan on which he based
and detested all respectability.
After a while Conradin's absorption in the tool-shed began to attract the notice
of his guardian.
she promptly decided, and at breakfast one morning she announced that the
Houdan hen had been sold and taken away overnight. With her short-sighted eyes
she peered at Conradin, waiting for an outbreak of rage and sorrow, which she was
ready to rebuke with a flow of excellent precepts and reasoning. But Conradin said
nothing: there was nothing to be said. Something perhaps in his white set face gave
her a momentary qualm, for at tea that afternoon there was toast on the table, a
delicacy which she usually banned on the ground that it was bad for him; also
because the making of it trouble,a deadly offence in the middle-class
feminine eye.

he did not touch it.

2



In the shed that evening there was an innovation in the worship of the
hutch-god. Conradin had been wont to chant his praises, tonight be asked a boon.

The thing was not specified. As Sredni Vashtar was a god he must be supposed
to know. And choking back a sob as he looked at that other empty comer, Conradin
went back to the world he so hated.
And every night, in the welcome darkness of his bedroom, and every evening
in the dusk of the tool-shed, Conradin's bitter litany went up:
Sredni Vashtar.
Mrs. De Ropp noticed that the visits to the shed did not cease, and one day she
made a further journey of inspection.
are you keeping in that locked hutch?she asked. believe it's
guinea-pigs. I'll have them all cleared away.
Conradin shut his lips tight, but the Woman ransacked his bedroom till she
found the carefully hidden key, and forthwith marched down to the shed to
complete her discovery. It was a cold afternoon, and Conradin had been bidden to
keep to the house. From the furthest window of the dining-room the door of the
shed could just be seen beyond the corner of the shrubbery, and there Conradin
stationed himself. He saw the Woman enter, and then be imagined her opening the
door of the sacred hutch and peering down with her short-sighted eyes into the
thick straw bed where his god lay hidden. Perhaps she would prod at the straw in
her clumsy impatience. And Conradin fervently breathed his prayer for the last time.
But he knew as he prayed that he did not believe. He knew that the Woman would
come out presently with that pursed smile he loathed so well on her face, and that
in an hour or two the gardener would carry away his wonderful god, a god no
longer, but a simple brown ferret in a hutch. And he knew that the Woman would
triumph always as she triumphed now, and that he would grow ever more sickly
under her pestering and domineering and superior wisdom, till one day nothing
would matter much more with him, and the doctor would be proved right. And in
the sting and misery of his defeat, he began to chant loudly and defiantly the hymn
of his threatened idol:
Sredni Vashtar went forth,
His thoughts were red thoughts and his teeth were white.
His enemies called for peace, but he brought them death.
Sredni Vashtar the Beautiful.
And then of a sudden he stopped his chanting and drew closer to the
window-pane. The door of the shed still stood ajar as it had been left, and the
minutes were slipping by. They were long minutes, but they slipped by nevertheless.

3


He watched the starlings running and flying in little parties across the lawn; he
counted them over and over again, with one eye always on that swinging door. A
sour-faced maid came in to lay the table for tea, and still Conradin stood and waited
and watched. Hope had crept by inches into his heart, and now a look of triumph
began to blaze in his eyes that had only known the wistful patience of defeat. Under
his breath, with a furtive exultation, he began once again the pan of victory and
devastation. And presently his eyes were rewarded: out through that doorway came
a long, low, yellow-and-brown beast, with eyes a-blink at the waning daylight, and
dark wet stains around the fur of jaws and throat. Conradin dropped on his knees.
The great polecat-ferret made its way down to a small brook at the foot of the
garden, drank for a moment, then crossed a little plank bridge and was lost to sight
in the bushes. Such was the passing of Sredni Vashtar.
ready,the sour-faced maid; the mistress?went
down to the shed some time ago,said Conradin. And while the maid went to
summon her mistress to tea, Conradin fished a toasting-fork out of the sideboard
drawer and proceeded to toast himself a piece of bread. And during the toasting of
it and the buttering of it with much butter and the slow enjoyment of eating it,
Conradin listened to the noises and silences which fell in quick spasms beyond the
dining-room door. The loud foolish screaming of the maid, the answering chorus of
wondering ejaculations from the kitchen region, the scuttering footsteps and
hurried embassies for outside help, and then, after a lull, the scared sobbings and
the shuffling tread of those who bore a heavy burden into the house.
will break it to the poor child? I couldn't for the life of me!
exclaimed a shrill voice. And while they debated the matter among themselves,
Conradin made himself another piece of toast.


4

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