原文
"Oh, Marilla, it was beyond description. I was so excited I couldn't
even talk, so you may know what it was like. I just sat in enraptured
silence. Madame Selitsky was perfectly beautiful, and wore white satin
and diamonds. But when she began to sing I never thought about anything
else. Oh, I can't tell you how I felt. But it seemed to me that it could
never be hard to be good any more. I felt like I do when I look up to
the stars. Tears came into my eyes, but, oh, they were such happy tears.
I was so sorry when it was all over, and I told Miss Barry I didn't see
how I was ever to return to common life again. She said she thought if
we went over to the restaurant across the street and had an ice cream
it might help me. That sounded so prosaic; but to my surprise I found
it true. The ice cream was delicious, Marilla, and it was so lovely and
dissipated to be sitting there eating it at eleven o'clock at night.
Diana said she believed she was born for city life. Miss Barry asked
me what my opinion was, but I said I would have to think it over very
seriously before I could tell her what I really thought. So I thought it
over after I went to bed. That is the best time to think things out. And
I came to the conclusion, Marilla, that I wasn't born for city life and
that I was glad of it. It's nice to be eating ice cream at brilliant
restaurants at eleven o'clock at night once in a while; but as a regular
thing I'd rather be in the east gable at eleven, sound asleep, but kind
of knowing even in my sleep that the stars were shining outside and that
the wind was blowing in the firs across the brook. I told Miss Barry
so at breakfast the next morning and she laughed. Miss Barry generally
laughed at anything I said, even when I said the most solemn things. I
don't think I liked it, Marilla, because I wasn't trying to be funny.
But she is a most hospitable lady and treated us royally."
語彙など
- beyond description:口では言い表せないほど
- enraptured:うっとりして
- satin:サテン,繻子
- common:普通の,平凡な
- prosaic:散文的な
- dissipated:放蕩する,道楽する
- come to the conclusion that:(that 以下)という結論に達する
- brilliant:立派な
- once in a while:たまには
- sound asleep:ぐっすり寝入って
- fir:モミ
- brook:小川
- solemn:まじめな
- hospitable:温かくもてなす
- royally:最高に