And now the darkness was diluting into a pale grey morning light, and Gordon Butcher could see the cloudy roof of the sky very low above his head and flying with the wind. Grey-blue the clouds were, flecked here and there with black, a solid mass from horizon to horizon, the whole thing moving with the wind, sliding past above his head like a great grey sheet of metal unrolling. All around him lay the bleak and lonely fen-country of Suffolk, mile upon mile of it that went on for ever. - P57

Unlike many ploughmen, Butcher always hitched his plough to the tractor with a wooden peg so that if the plough fouled a root or a large stone, the peg would simply break at once, leaving the plough behind and saving the shares from serious damage. - P60

Around three o’clock the thing happened. There was a slight jolt, the wooden peg broke, and the tractor left the plough behind. - P60

He rubbed the rim with his fingers and he rubbed again. Then all at once, the rim gave off a greenish glint, and Gordon Butcher bent his head closer and closer still, peering down into the little hole he had dug with his hands. - P62

The moment he touched it with his fingers, something electric went through his body, and there came to him a powerful premonition that this was a thing that could destroy the peace and happiness of many people. - P62


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He took from his pocket a tin of tobacco and a packet of cigarette papers and started to roll a cigarette. I was watching him out of the corner of one eye, and the speed with which he performed this rather difficult operation was incredible. The cigarette was rolled and ready in about five seconds. He ran his tongue along the edge of the paper, stuck it down and popped the cigarette between his lips. Then, as if from nowhere, a lighter appeared in his hand. The lighter flamed. The cigarette was lit. The lighter disappeared. It was altogether a remarkable performance. - P43

‘It’s because I’ve got fantastic fingers. These fingers of mine,’ he said, holding up both hands high in front of him, ‘are quicker and cleverer than the fingers of the best piano player in the world!’ - P43

‘I don’t like that word,’ he answered. ‘It’s a coarse and vulgar word. Pickpockets is coarse and vulgar people who only do easy little amateur jobs. They lift money from blind old ladies.’ - P47

‘Me? I’m a fingersmith. I’m a professional fingersmith.’ He spoke the words solemnly and proudly, as though he were telling me he was the President of the Royal College of Surgeons or the Archbishop of Canterbury. - P47

‘It’s the name given to them who’s risen to the very top of the profession. You’ve ’eard of a goldsmith and a silversmith, for instance. They’re experts with gold and silver. I’m an expert with my fingers, so I’m a fingersmith.’ - P47

In 1946, more than thirty years ago, I was still unmarried and living with my mother. I was making a fair income by writing two short stories a year. Each of them took four months to complete, and fortunately there were people both at home and abroad who were willing to buy them. - P51

True stories about the finding of really big treasure send shivers of electricity all the way down my legs to the soles of my feet. - P51

Around seven o’clock in the morning, Gordon Butcher got out of bed and switched on the light. He walked barefoot to the window and drew back the curtains and looked out. - P55

Gordon Butcher’s head was very curiously shaped, the back of it protruding like the sharp end of an enormous egg, and his ears stuck out, and a front tooth was missing on the left side. - P56


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It was always the smaller ones that offered you a lift, or the old rusty ones, or the ones that were already crammed full of children and the driver would say, ‘I think we can squeeze in one more.’ - P33

He was a small ratty-faced man with grey teeth. His eyes were dark and quick and clever, like a rat’s eyes, and his ears were slightly pointed at the top. He had a cloth cap on his head and he was wearing a greyish-coloured jacket with enormous pockets. The grey jacket, together with the quick eyes and the pointed ears, made him look more than anything like some sort of a huge human rat. - P34

‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘It’s none of my business what you do. The trouble is, I’m a writer, and most writers are terrible nosey parkers.’ - P35

‘The secret of life,’ he said, ‘is to become very very good at somethin’ that’s very very ’ard to do.’ - P35

Like an executioner approaching his victim, the policeman came strolling slowly towards us. He was a big meaty man with a belly, and his blue breeches were skintight around his enormous thighs. His goggles were pulled up on the helmet, showing a smouldering red face with wide cheeks. - P38

‘’Ave I done somethin’ wrong?’ my passenger asked. His voice was as soft and oily as haircream. - P38

‘Michael Fish,’ my passenger said. ‘Address?’ ‘Fourteen, Windsor Lane, Luton.’ ‘Show me something to prove this is your real name and address,’ the policeman said. My passenger fished in his pockets and came out with a driving-licence of his own. - P39


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up in those forests lived whole communities of diabolical people who still practised voodoo and witch-doctory and other magic rites. - P7

‘There’s things happening up there that’d make your hair turn white in a minute!’ - P7

But the feeling was there and I couldn’t shake it off. There was something weird and sinister about the place. Despite all the loveliness and the luxury, there was a whiff of danger that hung and drifted in the air like poisonous gas. - P7

There was something malignant crouching underneath the surface of this island. I could sense it in my bones. - P8

On the evening of my second day, I was sitting on my little balcony with a book on my lap and a tall glass of rum punch in my hand. I wasn’t reading the book. I was watching a small green lizard stalking another small green lizard on the balcony floor about six feet away. - P9

A haul of fish is something that has always fascinated me. - P10

The men were wearing those frightful Bermuda shorts that came down to the knees, and their shirts were bilious with pinks and oranges and every other clashing colour you could think of. The women had better taste, and were dressed for the most part in pretty cotton dresses. Nearly everyone carried a drink in one hand. - P10

I picked up my own drink and stepped down from the balcony on to the beach. I made a little detour around the coconut palm under which Mr Wasserman had supposedly met his end, and strode across the beautiful silvery sand to join the crowd. - P11

But what a turtle it was! It was a giant, a mammoth. I had not thought it possible for a turtle to be as enormous as this. How can I describe its size? Had it been the right way up, I think a tall man could have sat on its back without his feet touching the ground. It was perhaps five feet long and four feet across, with a high domed shell of great beauty. - P11

Upside down it lay, this magnificent creature, with its four thick flippers waving frantically in the air, and its long wrinkled neck stretching far out of its shell. The flippers had large sharp claws on them. - P11

Many of the women were squealing with pleasure clutching on to the arms of their men, and the men were demonstrating their lack of fear and their masculinity by making foolish remarks in loud voices. - P11

‘He’s a snapper, is he?’ ‘That’s no snapper. Snapper turtles don’t grow as big as that. But I’ll tell you what. He’ll snap your hand off quick enough if you get too close to him.’ - P11

‘I guess I’d get a bit snappish myself,’ the woman said, ‘if I was in his situation.’ - P12

I stood there listening to the conversation of these human beings. They were discussing the destruction, the consumption and the flavour of a creature who seemed, even when upside down, to be extraordinarily dignified. One thing was certain. He was senior to any of them in age. For probably one hundred and fifty years he had been cruising in the green waters of the West Indies. He was there when George Washington was President of the United States and Napoleon was being clobbered at Waterloo. He would have been a small turtle then, but he was most certainly there. - P14

They were all a bit off-balance now. They had the slightly hangdog air of people who had been caught doing something that was not entirely honourable. - P17

The two hooded black eyes of the turtle peered up at the boy. The eyes were bright and lively, full of the wisdom of great age. The boy looked back at the turtle, and this time when he spoke, his voice was soft and intimate. ‘Good-bye, old man,’ he said. ‘Go far away this time.’ The black eyes remained resting on the boy for a few seconds more. Nobody moved. Then, with great dignity, the massive beast turned away and began waddling towards the edge of the ocean. He didn’t hurry. He moved sedately over the sandy beach, the big shell rocking gently from side to side as he went. The crowd watched in silence. He entered the water. He kept going. - P24

To reach Eleuthera Island from Jamaica by sea, one must first travel north-east for two hundred and fifty miles and pass through the Windward Passage between Cuba and Haiti. Then one must go north-north-west for a further three hundred miles at least. This is a total distance of five hundred and fifty miles, which is a very long journey for a small boy to make on the shell of a giant turtle. - P31

I had a new car. It was an exciting toy, a big BMW 3.3 Li, which means 3.3 litre, long wheelbase, fuel injection. It had a top speed of 129 m.p.h. and terrific acceleration. The body was pale blue. The seats inside were darker blue and they were made of leather, genuine soft leather of the finest quality. The windows were electrically operated and so was the sun-roof. The radio aerial popped up when I switched on the radio, and disappeared when I switched it off. The powerful engine growled and grunted impatiently at slow speeds, but at sixty miles an hour the growling stopped and the motor began to purr with pleasure. - P33

My first story – 1942 I do not remember much of it; not beforehand anyway; not until it happened. - P237

Peter said, ‘It’s a piece of cake.’ ‘Yes. It ought to be easy.’ We separated and I climbed into my cockpit. - P238

‘Piece of cake,’ I said. ‘Like hell.’ ‘Really. It isn’t anything at all. It’s a piece of cake.’ - P238

How I became a writer
A fiction writer is a person who invents stories. But how does one start out on a job like this? How does one become a full-time professional fiction writer? Charles Dickens found it easy. At the age of twenty-four, he simply sat down and wrote Pickwick Papers, which became an immediate best-seller. But Dickens was a genius, and geniuses are different from the rest of us. - P199


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‘Olive will come down in about ten minutes; she told me to tell you that. About ten; that is exactly like Olive. Neither five nor fifteen, and yet not ten exactly, but either nine or eleven. She didn‘t tell me to say she was glad to see you, because she doesn‘t know whether she is or not, and she wouldn‘t for the world expose herself to telling a fib. She is very honest, is Olive Chancellor; she is full of rectitude. Nobody tells fibs in Boston; I don‘t know what to make of them all. Well, I am very glad to see you, at any rate.’

다음에서 발췌
The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II)
Henry James
이 자료는 저작권에 의해 보호됩니다. - P8

"Olive will come down in about ten minutes; she told me to tell you that. About ten; that is exactly like Olive. Neither five nor fifteen, and yet not ten exactly, but either nine or eleven. She didn‘t tell me to say she was glad to see you, because she doesn‘t know whether she is or not, and she wouldn‘t for the world expose herself to telling a fib. She is very honest, is Olive Chancellor; she is full of rectitude. Nobody tells fibs in Boston; I don‘t know what to make of them all. Well, I am very glad to see you, at any rate."

-알라딘 eBook <The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II)> (헨리 제임스) 중에서 - P3

‘These words were spoken with much volubility by a fair, plump, smiling woman who entered a narrow drawing-room in which a visitor, kept waiting for a few moments, was already absorbed in a book. ’

다음에서 발췌
The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II)
Henry James
이 자료는 저작권에 의해 보호됩니다. - P8

These words were spoken with much volubility by a fair, plump, smiling woman who entered a narrow drawing-room in which a visitor, kept waiting for a few moments, was already absorbed in a book.

-알라딘 eBook <The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II)> (헨리 제임스) 중에서 - P3

Mrs. Luna glanced at him from head to foot, and gave a little smiling sigh, as if he had been a long sum in addition. And, indeed, he was very long, Basil Ransom, and he even looked a little hard and discouraging, like a column of figures, in spite of the friendly face which he bent upon his hostess‘s deputy, and which, in its thinness, had a deep dry line, a sort of premature wrinkle, on either side of the mouth. He was tall and lean, and dressed throughout in black; his shirt-collar was low and wide, and the triangle of linen, a little crumpled, exhibited by the opening of his waistcoat, was adorned by a pin containing a small red stone. In spite of this decoration the young man looked poor—as poor as a young man could look who had such a fine head and such magnificent eyes. Those of Basil Ransom were dark, deep, and glowing; his head had a character of elevation which fairly added to his stature; it was a head to be seen above the level of a crowd, on some judicial bench or political platform, or even on a bronze medal. His forehead was high and broad, and his thick black hair, perfectly straight and glossy, and without any division, rolled back from it in a leonine manner. These things, the eyes especially, with their smouldering fire, might have indicated that he was to be a great American statesman; or, on the other hand, they might simply have proved that he came from Carolina or Alabama. He came, in fact, from Mississippi, and he spoke very perceptibly with the accent of that country. It is not in my power to reproduce by any combination of characters this charming dialect; but the initiated reader will have no difficulty in evoking the sound, which is to be associated in the present instance with nothing vulgar or vain. This lean, pale, sallow, shabby, striking young man, with his superior head, his sedentary shoulders, his expression of bright grimness and hard enthusiasm, his provincial, distinguished appearance, is, as a representative of his sex, the most important personage in my narrative; he played a very active part in the events I have undertaken in some degree to set forth. And yet the reader who likes a complete image, who desires to read with the senses as well as with the reason, is entreated not to forget that he prolonged his consonants and swallowed his vowels, that he was guilty of elisions and interpolations which were equally unexpected, and that his discourse was pervaded by something sultry and vast, something almost African in its rich, basking tone, something that suggested the teeming expanse of the cotton-field. Mrs. Luna looked up at all this, but saw only a part of it; otherwise she would not have replied in a bantering manner, in answer to his inquiry: "Are you ever different from this?" Mrs. Luna was familiar—intolerably familiar.

-알라딘 eBook <The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II)> (헨리 제임스) 중에서 - P5

"What kind of meetings do you refer to? You speak as if it were a rendezvous of witches on the Brocken."
"Well, so it is; they are all witches and wizards, mediums, and spirit-rappers, and roaring radicals."

-알라딘 eBook <The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II)> (헨리 제임스) 중에서 - P5


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