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FIRST STORY: Which Treats of a Mirror and of the Splinters
第一个故事:关于一面镜子和它的碎片
Now then, let us begin. When we are at the end of the story, we shall know more than we know now: but to begin.
请注意!现在我们就要开始讲了。当我们听到这故事的结尾的时候,我们就会知道比现在还要多的事情。
Once upon a time there was a wicked sprite, indeed he was the most mischievous of all sprites.
从前,有一个很坏的小魔鬼,他是所有妖魔中最坏的家伙。
One day he was in a very good humor, for he had made a mirror with the power of causing all that was good and beautiful when it was reflected therein, to look poor and mean; but that which was good-for-nothing and looked ugly was shown magnified and increased in ugliness. In this mirror the most beautiful landscapes looked like boiled spinach, and the best persons were turned into frights, or appeared to stand on their heads; their faces were so distorted that they were not to be recognised; and if anyone had a mole, you might be sure that it would be magnified and spread over both nose and mouth.
??有一天他心情很好,因为他制造出了一面镜子。这镜子有一个特点:那就是,一切好的和美的东西,在里面一照,就缩作一团,变成乌有;但是,一些没有价值和丑陋的东西都会显得突出,而且看起来比原形还要糟。最美丽的风景在这镜子里就会像煮烂了的菠菜;最好的人不是现出使人憎恶的样子,就是头朝下,脚朝上,没有身躯,面孔变形,认不出来。如果你有一个雀斑,你不用怀疑,它可以扩大到盖满你的鼻子和嘴。
??"That's glorious fun!" said the sprite. If a good thought passed through a man's mind, then a grin was seen in the mirror, and the sprite laughed heartily at his clever discovery.
魔鬼说:这真够有趣。当一个虔诚和善良的思想在一个人的心里出现的时候,它就在这镜子里表现为一个露齿的怪笑。于是魔鬼对于他这巧妙的发明就发出得意的笑声来。
All the little sprites who went to his school--for he kept a sprite school--told each other that a miracle had happened; and that now only, as they thought, it would be possible to see how the world really looked.
那些进过魔鬼学校的人――因为他开办一个学校――到处宣传说有奇迹发生了。他们说,人们第一次可以看到世界和人类的本来面目。
They ran about with the mirror; and at last there was not a land or a person who was not represented distorted in the mirror. So then they thought they would fly up to the sky, and have a joke there. The higher they flew with the mirror, the more terribly it grinned: they could hardly hold it fast. Higher and higher still they flew, nearer and nearer to the stars, when suddenly the mirror shook so terribly with grinning, that it flew out of their hands and fell to the earth, where it was dashed in a hundred million and more pieces.
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