On the morning when the final results of all the examinations were to be posted on the bulletin board at Queen’s, Anne and Jane walked down the street together. Jane was smiling and happy; examinations were over and she was comfortably sure she had made a pass at least; further considerations troubled Jane not at all; she had no soaring ambitions and consequently was not affected with the unrest attendant thereon. For we pay a price for everything we get or take in this world; and although ambitions are well worth having, they are not to be cheaply won, but exact their dues of work and self-denial, anxiety and discouragement. Anne was pale and quiet; in ten more minutes she would know who had won the medal and who the Avery. Beyond those ten minutes there did not seem, just then, to be anything worth being called Time.
“Of course you’ll win one of them anyhow,” said Jane, who couldn’t understand how the faculty could be so unfair as to order it otherwise.
“I have not hope of the Avery,” said Anne. “Everybody says Emily Clay will win it. And I’m not going to march up to that bulletin board and look at it before everybody. I haven’t the moral courage. I’m going straight to the girls’ dressing room. You must read the announcements and then come and tell me, Jane. And I implore you in the name of our old friendship to do it as quickly as possible. If I have failed just say so, without trying to break it gently; and whatever you do DON’T sympathize with me. Promise me this, Jane.”
Jane promised solemnly; but, as it happened, there was no necessity for such a promise. When they went up the entrance steps of Queen’s they found the hall full of boys who were carrying Gilbert Blythe around on their shoulders and yelling at the tops of their voices, “Hurrah for Blythe, Medalist!”
For a moment Anne felt one sickening pang of defeat and disappointment. So she had failed and Gilbert had won! Well, Matthew would be sorry—he had been so sure she would win.
And then!
Somebody called out:
“Three cheers for Miss Shirley, winner of the Avery!”
“Oh, Anne,” gasped Jane, as they fled to the girls’ dressing room amid hearty cheers. “Oh, Anne I’m so proud! Isn’t it splendid?”
And then the girls were around them and Anne was the center of a laughing, congratulating group. Her shoulders were thumped and her hands shaken vigorously. She was pushed and pulled and hugged and among it all she managed to whisper to Jane:
“Oh, won’t Matthew and Marilla be pleased! I must write the news home right away.”
Commencement was the next important happening. The exercises were held in the big assembly hall of the Academy. Addresses were given, essays read, songs sung, the public award of diplomas, prizes and medals made.
Matthew and Marilla were there, with eyes and ears for only one student on the platform—a tall girl in pale green, with faintly flushed cheeks and starry eyes, who read the best essay and was pointed out and whispered about as the Avery winner.
“Reckon you’re glad we kept her, Marilla?” whispered Matthew, speaking for the first time since he had entered the hall, when Anne had finished her essay.
“It’s not the first time I’ve been glad,” retorted Marilla. “You do like to rub things in, Matthew Cuthbert.”
Miss Barry, who was sitting behind them, leaned forward and poked Marilla in the back with her parasol.
“Aren’t you proud of that Anne-girl? I am,” she said.
Anne went home to Avonlea with Matthew and Marilla that evening. She had not been home since April and she felt that she could not wait another day. The apple blossoms were out and the world was fresh and young. Diana was at Green Gables to meet her. In her own white room, where Marilla had set a flowering house rose on the window sill, Anne looked about her and drew a long breath of happiness.
“Oh, Diana, it’s so good to be back again. It’s so good to see those pointed firs coming out against the pink sky—and that white orchard and the old Snow Queen. Isn’t the breath of the mint delicious? And that tea rose—why, it’s a song and a hope and a prayer all in one. And it’s GOOD to see you again, Diana!”
“I thought you liked that Stella Maynard better than me,” said Diana reproachfully. “Josie Pye told me you did. Josie said you were INFATUATED with her.”
Anne laughed and pelted Diana with the faded “June lilies” of her bouquet.
“Stella Maynard is the dearest girl in the world except one and you are that one, Diana,” she said. “I love you more than ever—and I’ve so many things to tell you. But just now I feel as if it were joy enough to sit here and look at you. I’m tired, I think—tired of being studious and ambitious. I mean to spend at least two hours tomorrow lying out in the orchard grass, thinking of absolutely nothing.”
“You’ve done splendidly, Anne. I suppose you won’t be teaching now that you’ve won the Avery?”
“No. I’m going to Redmond in September. Doesn’t it seem wonderful? I’ll have a brand new stock of ambition laid in by that time after three glorious, golden months of vacation. Jane and Ruby are going to teach. Isn’t it splendid to think we all got through even to Moody Spurgeon and Josie Pye?”
“The Newbridge trustees have offered Jane their school already,” said Diana. “Gilbert Blythe is going to teach, too. He has to. His father can’t afford to send him to college next year, after all, so he means to earn his own way through. I expect he’ll get the school here if Miss Ames decides to leave.”
Anne felt a queer little sensation of dismayed surprise. She had not known this; she had expected that Gilbert would be going to Redmond also. What would she do without their inspiring rivalry? Would not work, even at a coeducational college with a real degree in prospect, be rather flat without her friend the enemy?
The next morning at breakfast it suddenly struck Anne that Matthew was not looking well. Surely he was much grayer than he had been a year before.
“Marilla,” she said hesitatingly when he had gone out, “is Matthew quite well?”
“No, he isn’t,” said Marilla in a troubled tone. “He’s had some real bad spells with his heart this spring and he won’t spare himself a mite. I’ve been real worried about him, but he’s some better this while back and we’ve got a good hired man, so I’m hoping he’ll kind of rest and pick up. Maybe he will now you’re home. You always cheer him up.”
Anne leaned across the table and took Marilla’s face in her hands.
“You are not looking as well yourself as I’d like to see you, Marilla. You look tired. I’m afraid you’ve been working too hard. You must take a rest, now that I’m home. I’m just going to take this one day off to visit all the dear old spots and hunt up my old dreams, and then it will be your turn to be lazy while I do the work.”
Marilla smiled affectionately at her girl.
“It’s not the work—it’s my head. I’ve got a pain so often now—behind my eyes. Doctor Spencer’s been fussing with glasses, but they don’t do me any good. There is a distinguished oculist coming to the Island the last of June and the doctor says I must see him. I guess I’ll have to. I can’t read or sew with any comfort now. Well, Anne, you’ve done real well at Queen’s I must say. To take First Class License in one year and win the Avery scholarship—well, well, Mrs. Lynde says pride goes before a fall and she doesn’t believe in the higher education of women at all; she says it unfits them for woman’s true sphere. I don’t believe a word of it. Speaking of Rachel reminds me—did you hear anything about the Abbey Bank lately, Anne?”
“I heard it was shaky,” answered Anne. “Why?”
“That is what Rachel said. She was up here one day last week and said there was some talk about it. Matthew felt real worried. All we have saved is in that bank—every penny. I wanted Matthew to put it in the Savings Bank in the first place, but old Mr. Abbey was a great friend of father’s and he’d always banked with him. Matthew said any bank with him at the head of it was good enough for anybody.”
“I think he has only been its nominal head for many years,” said Anne. “He is a very old man; his nephews are really at the head of the institution.”
“Well, when Rachel told us that, I wanted Matthew to draw our money right out and he said he’d think of it. But Mr. Russell told him yesterday that the bank was all right.”
Anne had her good day in the companionship of the outdoor world. She never forgot that day; it was so bright and golden and fair, so free from shadow and so lavish of blossom. Anne spent some of its rich hours in the orchard; she went to the Dryad’s Bubble and Willowmere and Violet Vale; she called at the manse and had a satisfying talk with Mrs. Allan; and finally in the evening she went with Matthew for the cows, through Lovers’ Lane to the back pasture. The woods were all gloried through with sunset and the warm splendor of it streamed down through the hill gaps in the west. Matthew walked slowly with bent head; Anne, tall and erect, suited her springing step to his.
“You’ve been working too hard today, Matthew,” she said reproachfully. “Why won’t you take things easier?”
“Well now, I can’t seem to,” said Matthew, as he opened the yard gate to let the cows through. “It’s only that I’m getting old, Anne, and keep forgetting it. Well, well, I’ve always worked pretty hard and I’d rather drop in harness.”
“If I had been the boy you sent for,” said Anne wistfully, “I’d be able to help you so much now and spare you in a hundred ways. I could find it in my heart to wish I had been, just for that.”
“Well now, I’d rather have you than a dozen boys, Anne,” said Matthew patting her hand. “Just mind you that—rather than a dozen boys. Well now, I guess it wasn’t a boy that took the Avery scholarship, was it? It was a girl—my girl—my girl that I’m proud of.”
He smiled his shy smile at her as he went into the yard. Anne took the memory of it with her when she went to her room that night and sat for a long while at her open window, thinking of the past and dreaming of the future. Outside the Snow Queen was mistily white in the moonshine; the frogs were singing in the marsh beyond Orchard Slope. Anne always remembered the silvery, peaceful beauty and fragrant calm of that night. It was the last night before sorrow touched her life; and no life is ever quite the same again when once that cold, sanctifying touch has been laid upon it.
背景介绍和作者介绍
这段摘录出自加拿大作家露西·莫德·蒙哥马利创作的经典小说《绿山墙的安妮》。这部小说于1908年首次出版，讲述了充满想象力和活力的孤儿安妮·雪莉的故事，她被误送到马里拉和马修·卡斯伯特那里，这对兄妹原本打算收养一个男孩来帮助他们在爱凡里农场工作。小说背景设定在加拿大爱德华王子岛虚构的爱凡里村庄，它捕捉了20世纪初乡村生活的优美和朴素。
露西·莫德·蒙哥马利从她自己的童年经历和爱德华王子岛的风景中汲取灵感。她生动的描写和丰富的人物刻画使《绿山墙的安妮》一百多年来深受世界各地读者的喜爱。
故事的详细解读和意义
这段文字捕捉了安妮生命中的一个关键时刻——学术奖项的公布和对她成功的庆祝。它揭示了安妮深刻的情感敏感性以及她对野心、竞争和友谊的复杂感受。简的自信与安妮的焦虑希望形成了鲜明对比，突出了安妮的热情和她远大的志向。
安妮最初看到吉尔伯特·布莱斯受到庆祝时感到失望，后来却被欣喜地宣布为艾弗里奖学金的获得者，这一幕有力地描绘了希望、韧性以及辛勤工作的胜利。它也强调了友谊和支持的重要性，因为简的鼓励和女孩们的祝贺振奋了安妮。
这段文字还通过马修和马里拉这两个角色介绍了家庭、责任和健康的主题，展示了个人成就与社区之间的相互联系。安妮回家、对野心的反思以及对马修健康的担忧，为故事增添了温暖和真实感。
给学生的启示和见解
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**野心和努力的价值：**安妮的旅程告诉学生，野心是有价值的，但需要奉献、自律和韧性。成功并非易事；它需要努力，有时还会涉及焦虑和挫折。
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**优雅地处理失望：**安妮最初对吉尔伯特受到欢呼感到失望，这表明了如何勇敢地面对挫折。她能够恢复并庆祝自己的成功，是情感成熟的重要一课。
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**友谊的力量：**简对安妮的承诺以及安妮从同伴那里获得的帮助，突出了忠诚和诚实的朋友的重要性，他们在困难时刻鼓励我们。
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**平衡野心与休息：**安妮希望从学习中抽出时间在自然中放松，这提醒学生们需要在工作和休息之间取得平衡，以保持身心健康。
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**同情心和家庭关怀：**安妮对马修和马里拉健康的关心，教会了同情心以及关爱亲人的重要性，认识到个人成就是更大范围的家庭和社区背景的一部分。
将这些经验应用于生活、学习和社会环境中
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**在学校：**学生可以学会设定现实的目标，并稳步朝着目标努力，理解坚持是关键。他们还应该练习优雅地处理考试结果和竞争，支持同学而不是嫉妒他们。
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**在社交生活中：**建立像安妮和简那样的诚实和支持性的友谊，可以在挑战中提供力量。倾听朋友的需求并提供鼓励，可以建立牢固的联系。
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**在个人成长中：**平衡野心与自我关怀至关重要。休息、享受大自然和反思个人梦想有助于保持动力并防止倦怠。
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**在家庭关系中：**表现出对家庭成员福祉的关心，并与他们分享成就，可以加强家庭联系，创造一个支持性的环境。
从故事中培养积极的品质
- **韧性：**效仿安妮面对不确定性和失望而不失去希望的能力。
- **勇气：**培养道德勇气，诚实地面对困难的真相，正如安妮要求简做的那样。
- **感恩：**感谢朋友和家人的支持，认识到他们在个人成功中的作用。
- **谦逊的野心：**充满激情地追求目标，但保持谦逊并体谅他人。
- **同情心：**关注周围人的需求和感受，并在需要时提供帮助。
通过反思安妮的经历，学生们可以在自己的生活中培养这些品质，帮助他们成长为有思想、有决心和富有同情心的人。这个故事鼓励年轻读者大胆梦想，同时重视友谊、家庭和平衡——这是一个永恒的信息，至今仍然具有现实意义。
