英文短篇小说欣赏- 七个铜板

七个铜板

主要内容：

小说以母亲的笑贯穿全篇，描写一个贫苦的妇女为了凑够七个铜板，买一块肥皂给家人洗衣服，不得不翻箱倒柜，最后在一个老乞丐的帮助下，才凑够七个铜板，可肥皂却没买成，女主人终于笑的咯了血的悲惨故事。反映了20世纪初匈牙利劳动人民的贫困和痛苦，赞扬了母子间、穷人间深刻的理解和淳朴真诚的友爱。

作者介绍：

莫里兹早期短篇小说《七个铜板》，以别开生面的形式描写了穷人的“哭”与“笑”，因内容与形式的创新而轰动文坛。第一次世界大战期间到前线采访，1916年发表了反战小说《穷人》。中篇小说《火炬》描写一个有志于社会改革的青年牧师被旧势力同化的过程。20年代的中篇小说《一生做好人》、长篇三部曲《爱尔德伊》、长篇小说《通宵达旦》、《老爷的狂欢》和《亲戚》，多以揭露封建社会的腐朽堕落和探索治国道路为主题。 30年代写出《 幸福的人》、《强盗》、《罗饶·山多尔》等小说，反映农民悲惨遭遇和反抗斗争。莫里兹一生还写过80多部剧本，大部分根据自己的小说改编。SEVEN PENNIES

The gods in their wisdom have granted the benefit of laughter also to the poor.

The tenants of huts do not wail all the time, often enough a hearty laughter comes ringing from their dwellings. I might even go to the length of saying that the poor often laugh when they have every reason to cry.

I happen to be thoroughly familiar with that kind of world. The generation of the Soós tribe that had brought forth my father went through the direst stages of destitution. At that time, my father worked as a day-labourer in a machine shop. There was nothing for him, nor for anyone else, to brag about in those days. (Yet brag they did.)

And it is a fact that never in my life was I to laugh as much as in those very years of my childhood.

How, indeed, should I ever again have laughed so heartily after I had lost my merry, red-cheeked mother, who used to laugh so sweetly that, in the end, tears came trickling down her cheeks and her laughter ended in a fit of coughing that almost choked her...

But she never laughed as merrily as on the afternoon which we spent searching for seven pennies. We searched, and we found them, too. Three were in the drawer of the sewing machine one in the cupboard... the rest were more difficult to find.

My mother found the first three pennies all by herself. She thought there ought to be more coins in the drawer, for she used to turn a penny by sewing and kept whatever she earned in that drawer. To me, the drawer of the sewing machine seemed an inexhaustible gold mine, and whenever you delved into it, all your wishes came true.

Thus I was flabbergasted to see my mother digging into a mess of needles, thimbles, scissors, bits of ribbon, braid and buttons, and, after she had poked around in them a while, to hear her say in astonishment:

"They have gone into hiding."

"Who?"

"The coins," she said with a laugh.

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