16.Rip-Van-Winkle

1、 16 Rip Van Winkle (II) After Washington IrvingWith a trouble and anxious heart, he turned his steps toward home. As he approached the village, he met several people, but he knew none of them - a fact which surprised him, for he had thought he knew everyone in the country around. Their clothes, too,

2、 were of a different fashion from the clothes of his friends and neighbors. They all stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and all who looked at him lifted their hands to touch their chins. This happened so often that Rip, without thinking, did he same. Imagine his surprise when he found that

3、his beard was a foot longer than it had been before! He had now reached the edge of the village. A crowd of strange children ran at his heels, shouting after him and pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, too, were all different from the dogs he knew. They barked at him in a most unfriendly way. Even

4、 the village had changed; it was larger than it had been. There were rows of houses which Rip had never seen before, and those which he remembered had disappeared. Strange names were over the doors - strange faces at he windows- everything was strange. Rip was now more anxious and puzzled than befor

5、e. “That cup last night,” thought he, “has ruined my poor brain.”With some difficulty, he found the way to his own house, which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the sharp voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found that the house was little more than a pile of old board. The roof

6、 had fallen in, the windows were broken, and the doors were lying on the ground. A bony dog that looked like wolf was standing beside the ruined house. Rip called him by name, but the dog merely showed his teeth and then walked away. This was the cruelest wound of all. “My dog, my faithful dog,” sig

7、hed Rip, “even my dog has forgotten me.”He entered the ruins of the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van winkle had always kept in good order. It was empty; they had all gone away. He hurried forth, to the village inn where he had spent so many idle hours. But it, too, was gone. A large old woo

8、den building stood in its place, with great windows, some of which were broken. Over the door there was a sign saying. “The Union Hotel, Jonathan Doolittle.” Instead of the tree that used to shelter the quiet little Dutch inn, there was now tall pole, with a flag bearing a strange collection of star

9、s and stripes. All this was strange, impossible to understand. But Rip recognized the picture on the sign: it was the face of King George, under which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe. But even that was oddly different from what it had been. His Majestys red coat was changed to blue, his head w

10、ore a hat instead of a crown, and below there were the words, GENERAL WASHINGTON.There was, as usual, a crowd of folk around the door, but Rip recognized none of them. He looked in vain for the wise Nicholas Vedder, with his broad face and double chin and his long pipe, uttering clouds of smoke inst

11、ead of foolish speeches. He looked for Van Bummel, the schoolteacher, reading aloud the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a thin, disagreeable-looking fellow was talking loudly about the rights of citizens - elections - Members of Congress-liberty-and other words, which meant noth

12、ing to the puzzled Van Winkle.Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm and asked what party he belonged to. While Rip was considering what these questions might mean, an important-looking gentleman pushed his way through the crowd and planted himself in front of Rip Van Winkle, dem

13、anding “Why have you come to the election with a gun on your shoulder and a noisy crowd following at your heels? Do you intend to start trouble in this village?”“Alas, gentlemen!” cried poor Rip. “I am a poor quiet man, a native of this place, and a faithful subject of the King, God Bless him!”Harin

14、g this, the crowd shouted in great ganger, “ God Bless the King, he says! Take him away! To prison with him!” The important-looking man had great difficulty calming the crowd, after which he again demanded to know why Rip had come there and whom he was seeking. Poor Rip humbly assured him that he me

15、ant no harm; he had merely come there to search for some of his neighbors, who sued to sit in front of the hotel.“Well, who are they? Name them.”Rip thought for a moment, and then inquired, “Wheres Nicholas Vedder?” There was a silence for a little while. Then an old man replied in a thin, high voic

16、e, “Nicholas Vedder! Why hes been dead and gone for eighteen years!”“Wheres Brom Dutcher?” asked Rip.“Oh, he went off to the army at the beginning of the war. Some say he was killed in a battle at Stony Point. Perhaps he was, and perhaps he wasnt. I dont know. But he never came back again.”“Wheres V

17、an Bummel, the schoolteacher?”“He went of to the wars, too,” said the old man, “He was a great General, and is now in Congress.”Rips heart was filled with grief when he heard of these changes in his home and friends, himself thus along in the world. Every answer puzzled him, too. the answers suggest

18、ed that much time had passed, and they mentioned matters which he could not understand-war-Congress-Stony Point. He was afraid to ask about any more friends, but cried out in despair, “Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?”“Oh, Rip Van Winkle,” two or three of his listeners exclaimed. “Yes, indeed!

19、Thats Rip Van Winkle over there, leaning against the tree.”Rip looked, and beheld a man who looked exactly as he had looked while climbing up the mountain. Apparently this man was no more interested in work than he himself had been; certainly his clothes were as poor. The unfortunate Rip was now in

20、a most pitiable state of mind. He began to wonder whether he was himself or some other man. And while he was wonder whither thus, someone in the crowd demanded, “Who are you? What is your name?”“God know!” exclaimed Rip, in despair. “Im not myself; Im somebody else. That s me over there. No, thats s

21、omebody else who got into my shoes. I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain, and theyve changed my gun, and everythings changed, and Im changed, and I cant tell my name or who I am.”His listeners now began to look at each other with meaningful smiles. It was easy to see that this

22、old man was mad. Someone whispered, “Get his gun! Who knows what the old fellow will think of doing next?” But just at this moment a good-looking woman pushed her way through the crowd to look at the gray-bearded man. She had a child in her arms who began to cry, frightened by his appearance. “Be qu

23、iet, Rip,” she said to the child. “Be quiet, you little fool; the old man wont hurt you.”The name of the child, the attitude of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of memories in Rip Van Winkles mind. “What is your name, good woman?” asked he.“Judith Gardenier,” she replied.“And

24、your fathers name?”“Oh, poor man! Rip Van Winkle was his name, but it is twenty years since he went away from home with his gun, and no one has heard of him since. His dog came home without him; but whether he shot himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobody can tell. I was then just little

25、girl.”Rip had only one more question to ask, and he asked it with a trembling voice: “Wheres your mother?”“Oh, she died, just a little while ago. She broke a blood vessel in anger at a man who came selling things at our door.”There was a bit of comfort, at least, in this news. The honest man could n

26、o longer control his feelings. He caught his daughter and her child in his arms. “I am your father!” he cried. “Young Rip Van Winkle once- old Rip Van Winkle now. D oes nobody poor Rip Van Winkle?”All stood too surprised to speak, until an old woman leaving the crowd, looked up into his face for a m

27、oment, and exclaimed, “Sure enough! It is Rip Van Winkle; it is Rip himself! Welcome home again, old neighbor! But where have you been these twenty long years?”Rips story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been one night to him. The neighbors stared when they heard it. Some unbelieving on

28、es were seen to smile at each other, and put their tongues in the side of their faces. The important-looking man pulled down the corners of his mouth and shook his head; and seeing this, there was a general shaking of the head throughout the entire crowd.It was decided, however, to accept the opinio

29、n of Old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advancing up the road. Peter was the oldest man then living in the village; he knew all about the history of the region. He remembered Rip at once, and supported his story in the most satisfactory manner.To make a long story short, the crowd broke up, a

30、nd returned to the more important concerns of the election. Rips daughter took him home to live with her. She had a comfortable house and a cheerful farmer for a husband, whom Rip remembered as one of the children he had often carried on his back. And Rips son, who was an exact copy of himself, was

31、employed to work on the farm though- like his father before him- he had the habit of attending to anything else but his business.Rip now went back to his old ways. He soon found many of his former companions. As they all showed the effects of age and time, he preferred making friends among the young

32、er folk, who soon learned to love him.Having nothing to do at home, and having arrived at the happy age when no one blames a man for being idle, he took a seat once more at the door of the village inn. There he was respected as one of the old men of the village; who could tell stories about the old

33、times “before the war.” It was a long time before he could really understand the strange events that had occurred during his eighteen years of sleep. He had to learn that there had been a revolutionary war-that the country had reed itself from England-that instead of being a subject of His Majesty George the Third, he was now a freecitizen of the United States. Rip, in fact, was not a politician. The cha