1、短篇小说读后续写一“My aunt will come down very soon, Mr. Nuttel,” said a very calm young lady of fifteen years of age; “meanwhile you must try to bear my company.” Framton Nuttel tried to say something which would please the niece now present, without annoying the aunt that was about to come. He was supposed
2、 to be going through a cure for his nerves; but he doubted whether these polite visits to a number of total strangers would help much. “Do you know many of the people round here?” asked the niece, when she thought that they had sat long enough in silence. “Hardly one,” said Framton. “My sister was s
3、taying here, you know, about four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.” “Then you know almost nothing about my aunt?” continued the calm young lady. “Only her name and address;” Framton admitted. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was married; perhaps s
4、he had been married and her husband was dead. But there was something of a man in the room. “Her sorrow?” asked Framton. “You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,” said the niece, pointing to a long window that opened like a door on to the grass outside. It was a rel
5、ief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance. “I hope Vera has been amusing you?” she said. “She has been very interesting,” said Framton.“I hope you dont mind the open window,” said Mrs. Sappleton briskly; “My husband and broth
6、ers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way.” She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds, and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to change the
7、topic; he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a part of her attention and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond.Paragraph 1:Then suddenly Mrs. Sappleton brightened into alert attention. Paragraph 2:Framton wildly grabbed his hat and stick; h
8、e ran out through the front door and through the gate. 二Once upon a sunny morning a man who sat in a breakfast nook looked up from his scrambled eggs to see a white unicorn with a golden horn quietly cropping the roses in the garden. The man went up to the bedroom where his wife was still asleep and
9、 woke her. Theres a unicorn in the garden, he said. Eating roses. She opened one unfriendly eye and looked at him.The unicorn is a mythical beast, she said, and turned her back on him. The man walked slowly downstairs and out into the garden. The unicorn was still there; now he was browsing among th
10、e tulips. Here, unicorn, said the man, and he pulled up a lily and gave it to him. The unicorn ate it gravely. With a high heart, because there was a unicorn in his garden, the man went upstairs and roused his wife again. The unicorn, he said, ate a lily. His wife sat up in bed and looked at him col
11、dly. You are a booby, she said, and I am going to have you put in the booby-hatch.The man, who had never liked the words booby and booby-hatch, and who liked them even less on a shining morning when there was a unicorn in the garden, thought for a moment. Well see about that, he said. He walked over
12、 to the door. He has a golden horn in the middle of his forehead, he told her. Then he went back to the garden to watch the unicorn; but the unicorn had gone away. The man sat down among the roses and went to sleep.As soon as the husband had gone out of the house, the wife got up and dressed as fast
13、 as she could. She was very excited and there was a gloat in her eye.Paragraph 1:She telephoned the police and a psychiatrist; she told them to hurry to her house and bring a strait-jacket. Paragraph 2:Just as the police got her into the strait-jacket, the husband came back into the house. Reference
14、:booby-hatch：精神病院strait-jacket: 用来束缚精神病患者的约束衣三I first heard this tale in India, where is told as if true - though any naturalist would know it couldnt be. Later someone told me that the story appeared in a magazine shortly before the First World War. That magazine story, and the person who wrote it,
15、 I have never been able to track down.The country is India. A colonial official and his wife are giving a large dinner party. They are seated with their guests - officers and their wives, and a visiting American naturalist - in their spacious dining room, which has a bare marble floor, open rafters
16、and wide glass doors opening onto a veranda.A spirited discussion springs up between a young girl who says that women have outgrown the jumping-on-a-chair-at-the-sight-of-a-mouse era and a major who says that they havent.A womans reaction in any crisis, the major says, is to scream. And while a man
17、may feel like it, he has that ounce more of self-control than a woman has. And that last ounce is what really counts.The American does not join in the argument but watches the other guests. As he looks, he sees a strange expression come over the face of the hostess. She is staring straight ahead, he
18、r muscles contracting slightly. She motions to the native boy standing behind her chair and whispers something to him. The boys eyes widen: he quickly leaves the room. Of the guests, none except the American notices this or sees the boy place a bowl of milk on the veranda just outside the open doors
19、.The American comes to with a start. In India, milk in a bowl means only one thing - bait for a snake. He realizes there must be a cobra in the room. He looks up at the rafters - the likeliest place - but they are bare. Three corners of the room are empty, and in the fourth the servants are waiting
20、to serve the next course. There is only one place left - under the table.His first impulse is to jump back and warn the others, but he knows the commotion would frighten the cobra into striking. Paragraph 1:He speaks quickly, the tone of his voice so commanding that it silences everyone. Paragraph 2
21、:Screams ring out as he jumps to slam the veranda doors safely shut. 四Just then Richness was passing by in a grand boat. Love asked, Richness, can I come with you on your boat? Richness answered, Im sorry, but there is a lot of silver and gold on my boat and there would be no room for you anywhere.T
22、hen Love decided to ask Vanity for help who was passing by in a beautiful vessel. Love cried out, Vanity, help me please! I cant help you, Vanity said, You are all wet and will damage my beautiful boat.Next, Love saw Sadness passing by. Love said, Sadness, please let me go with you. Sadness answered
23、, Love, Im sorry, but, I just need to be alone now.Then, Love saw Happiness. Love cried out, Happiness, please take me with you. But Happiness was so overjoyed that he didnt hear Love calling to him.Paragraph 1:Love began to cry. Paragraph 2:Love then found Knowledge and asked, Who was it that helpe
24、d me? 五The young people were going to Floridathree boys and three girlsand when they boarded the bus, they were carrying sandwiches and wine in paper bags, dreaming of golden beaches and sea tides as the gray cold of New York vanished behind them.As the bus rumbled south, they began to notice Vingo.
25、 He sat in front of them, dressed in a plain, ill-fitting suit, never moving, his dusty face masking his age. He chewed the inside of his lip a lot, frozen into some personal cocoon of silence.Deep into the night, outside Washington, the bus pulled into a roadside restaurant, and everybody got off e
26、xcept Vingo. He sat rooted in his seat, and the young people began to wonder about him, trying to imagine his life: perhaps he was a sea captain, a runaway from his wife, an old soldier going home. When they went back to the bus, one of the girls sat beside him and introduced herself.“Were going to
27、Florida,” she said brightly. “I hear its beautiful.”“It is,” he said quietly, as if remembering something he had tried to forget.“Want some wine?” she said. He smiled and took a swig. He thanked her and retreated again into his silence. After a while, she went back to the others, and Vingo nodded in
28、 sleep.“Are you married?”“I dont know.”“You dont know?” she said.“And youre going home now, not knowing?”“Yeah,” he said shyly. “Well, last week, when I was sure the parole was coming through, I wrote her again. Theres a big oak tree just as you come into town. I told her that if shed take me back,
29、she should put a yellow handkerchief on the oak tree, and Id get off and come home. If she didnt want me, forget it - no handkerchief, and I would go on through.“Wow,” the girl said. “Wow.”She told the others, and soon all of them were in it, caught up in the approach of Vingos home town, looking at
30、 the pictures he showed them of his wife and three children - the woman handsome in a plain way, the children still unformed in the cracked, much handled snapshots.Paragraph 1:Now they were 20 miles from the town. Paragraph 2:Vingo sat there stunned, looking at the oak tree. 六Stuffy Pete took his se
31、at on the third bench to the right as you enter Union Square from the east, at the walk opposite the fountain. Every Thanksgiving Day for nine years he had taken his seat there promptly at 1 oclock. But today Stuffy Petes appearance at the annual trysting place seemed to have been rather the result
32、of habit than of the yearly hunger which, as the philanthropists seem to think, afflicts the poor at such extended intervals.Certainly Pete was not starving. He had just come from an unexpected feast. He was passing a red brick mansion near the beginning of Fifth avenue, in which lived two old ladies of old famil
