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“长大后一定像妈妈一样聪明。”
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“一定成为好当家。”
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“一定成为本县市最美的新娘。”
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“一定会成为有名的作家。”
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最后一个祝福来自我的大伯。我知道，这是因为他自己喜欢写东西，他对每个新出生的婴儿都会这么说。
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每个人都看过妹妹以后，她又被包起来抱走了。亲戚们把礼物送给母亲，有装在编织篮中的鸡蛋、咯咯叫的母鸡、几袋糖、精挑细选的大米——好漂亮的大米啊，让人想用线穿起来当项链戴，真的很漂亮——还有很多糖果……
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奶奶的目光从那袋糖果转向我，又笑了起来。
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亲戚们涌进餐厅。餐桌旁，每个亲戚都得到了我们家的回礼：两个红鸡蛋。我很难过，因为家里并不富裕，我不能在鸡蛋上粘上一张带有表示“幸运”字样的金纸。
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一年后，我妹妹生日那天，同一批亲戚再次来到我家。客厅的桌子铺上了红布，上面摆着各种物件：针线、炖锅、茶壶、画笔、墨水瓶、刀子、诗集、故事书、柔软的钝剑、印花绸。
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小妹妹正努力把自己的脚塞进嘴里，就被抱到了桌子边，看看她首先选什么物件。如果拿起毛笔，就会成为作家；如果抓住炖锅，就为家庭主妇；如果摸到绸子，就会不愁穿戴；如果拿剑，就会成为著名的英雄或首领。
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我不知道小妹妹选的是什么。鉴于她目前在北京大学就读，并对文学表现出浓厚兴趣，我猜她当时选的一定是毛笔或书之类的。不过，要知道她有两个当老师的叔叔。那天，红布上堆了那么多书和文具，不起眼的针线根本没机会跑到我的妹妹小惜娟手上。
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那些天，惜娟是家里的重要人物。不过我并不介意，毕竟我长大了，比她大六岁。
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（彭萍 译）
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西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033798]
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5 A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG
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By Charles Lamb
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A DISSERTATION UPON ROAST PIG, from Essays of Elia , by Charles Lamb.
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Charles Lamb （1775-1834）, English essayist and humorist. This essay was first published in the London Magazine , September, 1822. It is considered to be his best narrative essay.
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The story is not original with Lamb but is found in many places in literature. Porphyry （233-304）, Greek scholar and Neoplatonist, has this story in his De abstinentin , IV, 15. Lamb may have gotten it from Manning （as he says）. The Chinese dressing is of course largely Lamb’s invention. Lamb is said to have received several gifts of pigs after the publication of the essay, and in a letter dated “Twelfth Day, ‘23” he thanks a farmer and his wife for such a gift.
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Mankind, says a Chinese manuscript, which my friend M. was obliging enough to read and explain to me, for the first seventy thousand ages ate their meat raw, clawing or biting it from the living animal, just as they do in Abyssinia to this day. This period is not obscurely hinted at by their great Confucius in the second chapter of his Mundane Mutations, where he designates a kind of golden age by the term Cho-fang, literally the Cook’s holiday. The manuscript goes on to say, that the art of roasting or rather broiling （which I take to be the elder brother） was accidentally discovered in the manner following. The swineherd, Ho-ti, having gone out into the woods one morning, as his manner was, to collect mast for his hogs, left his cottage in the care of his eldest son Bo-bo, a great lubberly boy, who being fond of playing with fire, as youngsters of his age commonly are, let some sparks escape into a bundle of straw, which, kindling quickly, spread the conflagration over every part of their poor mansion, till it was reduced to ashes. Together with the cottage （a sorry antediluvian makeshift of a building, you may think it）, what was of much more importance, a fine litter of new-farrowed pigs, no less than nine in number, perished. China pigs have been esteemed a luxury all over the East from the remotest periods that we read of. Bo-bo was in the utmost consternation, as you may think, not so much for the sake of the tenement, which his father and he could easily build up again with a few dry branches, and the labour of an hour or two, at any time, as for the loss of the pigs. While he was thinking what he should say to his father, and wringing his hands over the smoking remnants of one of those untimely sufferers, an odor assailed his nostrils, unlike any scent which he had before experienced. What could it proceed from? —not from the burnt cottage—he had smelt that smell before—indeed this was by no means the first accident of the kind which had occurred through the negligence of this unlucky young firebrand. Much less did it resemble that of any known herb, weed, or flower. A premonitory moistening at the same time overflowed his nether lip. He knew not what to think. He next stooped down to feel the pig, if there were any signs of life in it. He burned his fingers, and to cool them he applied them in his booby fashion to his mouth. Some of the crumbs of the scorched skin had come away from his fingers, and for the first time in his life （in the world’s life indeed, for before him no man had known it）he tasted—crackling! Again he felt and fumbled at the pig. It did not burn him so much now, still he licked his fingers from a sort of habit. The truth at length broke into his slow understanding, that it was the pig that smelt so, and the pig that tasted so delicious; and surrendering himself up to the new-born pleasure, he fell to tearing up whole handfuls of the scorched skin with the flesh next it, and was cramming it down his throat in his beastly fashion, when his sire entered amid the smoking rafters, armed with retributory cudgel, and finding how affairs stood, began to rain blows upon the young rogue’s shoulders, as thick as hailstones, which Bo-bo heeded not any more than if they had been flies. The tickling pleasure, which he experienced in his lower regions, had rendered him quite callous to any inconveniences he might feel in those remote quarters. His father might lay on, but he could not beat him from his pig, till he had fairly made an end of it, when, becoming a little more sensible of his situation, something like the following dialogue ensued.
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“You graceless whelp, what have you got there devouring? Is it not enough that you have burned me down three houses with your dog’s tricks, and be hanged to you! but you must be eating fire, and I know not what—what have you got there, I say?”
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“O, father, the pig, the pig! do come and taste how nice the burnt pig eats.”
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The ears of Ho-ti tingled with horror. He cursed his son, and he cursed himself that ever he should beget a son that should eat burnt pig.
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Bo-bo, whose scent was wonderfully sharpened since morning, soon raked out another pig, and fairly rending it asunder, thrust the lesser half by main force into the fists of Ho-ti, still shouting out “Eat, eat, eat the burnt pig, father, only taste—O Lord!”—with suchlike barbarous ejaculations, cramming all the while as if he would choke.
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