It doesn't matter that we came into this world and were born in one place by chance; over time we form in our minds our true birthplace, so perhaps we have to look back to know where we were born and become more sure every day of where we were born .Some people's spiritual place of birth coincides with that written on the passport, and it will be an unheard of happiness to achieve such harmony with the outside world. ——RM Rilke① January 1923 Catherine Mansfield was born on October 14, 1888 in Wellington, New Zealand.Saying this seems to be a simple statement of fact, not at all out of context, and all in all, it is a way of unfolding the story, so as to further describe her life, art, and the era of her life.But that doesn't express what was actually going on that Sunday morning for the Harold Beechams and their children, for Katherine Mansfield was only a pseudonym she adopted 19 years later.We can hardly say that Katherine Mansfield was born that day, and one cannot get away from the fact that her story was complicated to begin with—including the question of the name itself.

There was no difficulty in talking about her father.Hal Beecham, an ambitious, energetic young man with ginger hair, a neatly trimmed red beard, and striking blue eyes, worked for an old-established importing firm.He has been working for the company, which has an office and warehouse on the Wellington Docks, since he was 18.Although the colony was prospering at the time due to the development of the steamship industry, the business of the company had stagnated.After 11 years of hard work, he revived the company, and due to the substantial increase in business, the boss made him his partner.He was a month shy of turning thirty when his third daughter was born that morning.

His pretty, small, brown-haired, brown-eyed wife was a little sickly, suffering from bouts of rheumatism.She was six years younger than her husband, full of love for him, but resented having to sit next to him at the dinner table on certain days of the month, going over all the household accounts, counting every penny.Her own ambition is to participate in a social life, even though the town has a population of only 30,000. The Beecham family built a wooden house in Thornton, a suburb near the port, and moved into the new home with Anne's mother, Mrs. Dale, and two sisters, Katie and Bell.At this time they had two daughters, and the family was full of women, and it was time for a son.The male owner is not yet the boss of Warm Bratine Company, and has not yet started to "earn a lot of money", but the death of old Bratine in England means that the position of partner is vacant, and if another person dies, he will be in power. At that time, he can become a director of several companies in the capital, a member of the board of directors of the port, and a bright future will start in front of him.Hal Beecham was born on a gold mine in Australia. His father had a wandering nature, but he never wanted to follow his example.Maybe Wellington society never forgot his gold digger origins or Mrs Beecham's hopes of rising to the top, but in the end they would have homes much bigger than the box-house on Dinarcole Avenue, considerable wealth , domestic financial power, knighthoods and coats of arms, culminating in Beauchamp's Past and Remembrance, published in his seventies, bound in red and decorated with gold shields. RM Rilke ( 1875～1926), a famous German-Austrian writer.He made outstanding contributions to German literature in the 20th century, and his representative works include "The Prayer Book" and "The Life of Mary". ——Annotation ① Hal? Beecham is the previous Harold? Beecham. ——Annotation ② Catherine Mansfield's mother, Katie and Bell are her aunts. ——Annotation ① A place name in Sandton, a suburb of Wellington, the capital of New Zealand. ——Annotation-shaped coat of arms.Although all of this was still an unpredictable future at the time, at least some signs can be seen from Hal Beecham's photos. On this Sunday in the spring of 1888, the whole family was anxiously anticipating the birth of a son.

A short story called "Birthday," written 21 years later, describes the situation in a way that corresponds to the facts of that morning.Undoubtedly it was the house, with the fence behind it abutting a fern-covered edge, and the drawbridge a few steps away, on the way the hostess must pass to get the doctor. He was so nervous that he didn't even have time to eat lunch. This was the birth of the third child, and the kind grandmother was preparing to become a midwife.All the characters in the novel have German names, which is just a cover-up, and it is her purpose to narrate the facts without any scruples.The host came to the doctor's house: "Ah, Beecham," said the doctor cheerfully, brushing the crumbs off his pearl-gray vest, "is the son and heir imminent?"

Beecham immediately perked up.O God, son and heir! He was happy to be dealing with a man again, a smart man, it happened to him every day. "I hope so, doctor," he replied, laughing, taking up his hat; "mother dragged me out of bed early in the morning, and urged me to come and fetch you at once." "The carriage will be back soon, and ride with me, will you?" It was a boy in the story, but the baby that Dr. Kemp held in his hands that day was a girl, strong and healthy like the father, with brown hair and eyes like the mother. Mansfield.Mansfield, Mrs. Dale's maiden name, signified a love the child later felt he had enjoyed from childhood.

Anne Beecham couldn't babysit, and the baby had been in the care of Mrs. Dale from the first, Kath who became Grandma.Her mother had taken Hal on an official trip to England when she was a year old, and it didn't bother her much.Anne became pregnant again when she returned, and on October 11, 1890, she gave birth to her husband's fourth child, which was not a boy. The child was infected with infantile cholera and required Mrs. Dale's full attention. The child died on January 9, 1891, by which time Kath had begun to have nightmares at night.She looks chubby and cute, but she gradually develops a personality that is insecure about the outside world. Even when she is not sleeping, she has a fear of the night.

The Beechams lived for the next five years at No. 2 Dinakoli, facing a high, bare hill once covered with woods but now strewn with gorse and strewn with flock.Photographers in the 1990s captured panoramas of leafy Sandton, with piers and ships in the distance, and Catherine's birthplace looming in the background.In fact the road followed a great fissure in the ground, the great geological fault layer in which Katherine Mansfield was born. Thornton's houses are all wooden structures, set in the bushes and kept at a distance from each other to prevent the fire from spreading.The Beecham house was more modest than the others, a square, two-story house, the only ornament being the glass-sided porch.Hal Beecham walks from here to his office at Customs Wharf every day, refreshed by the morning breeze from Wellington.For profit, he attaches great importance to the goods of this colony ② one of the short stories written by Katherine Mansfield. ——Annotation ① Kathleen was her childhood name, and she was later renamed Catherine. ——Annotation ②Kathlyn's pet name. ——Annotation supplies, such as: Nobel's dynamite, kerosene known as "the light of the times", Dresden's piano, Egyptian cigarettes, etc. Items necessary for a comfortable life of the middle class.This life itself is being permeated, as his daughter observes more nuancedly.

The docks and ships are always beckoning people to leave, and Kathlyn has been familiar with the scenery and atmosphere there since she was half a year old. In 1889, perhaps on Easter, the family took her across the Cook Strait to visit her grandparents in the small town of Picton.Grandfather Arthur Beecham lay in bed "like a very old, sleepless bird." This image would later appear in her story "Travel." He is a very important elder.Some of the traits of Arthur Beecham's character, which she resignedly referred to in her last letter, were passed down to his famous granddaughter with no fault of her own.

Arthur was a hopeless tramp in his youth, seeking out all the bad luck the colonies had to offer, mocking them with comical western limericks, and, if the name was right, a bit of Byronian verse.He never stays in one place for a few months, and always packs up and moves. His family members have already figured out his temper, and often say with a wry smile that his chickens will immediately lie on their backs when they hear the sound of packing. Next, obediently wait for the master to tie him up and take him away.If the helpers complained at this time, he always quoted a few verses from "Don Juan" to answer, regardless of whether others were embarrassed.

He was the son of a certain John Beecham.The man, whose sons were innumerable, had an ancestral once-thriving silversmith's workshop in London, and the ancestor wrote limericks which earned him the title of "Hornsey Street poet."Yet his talents for poetry and business were limited, and although he seems to have invented a new imitation silverware, he did not patent it; ), or hunting with dogs on horseback, there was nothing left for Arthur and his brothers by the time the "hungry '40s" came. Their mothers were more closely related to art.She was the sister-in-law of the painter CR Leslie, and had posed for him.The latter was the friend and biographer of John Constable.

Constable wrote in a letter that one day he took his sons to "Mr Beecham's" workshop to see "forges, crucibles, metals, lathes, belts and bellows, coal, Cinders, dust, dirt, slag, and whatever else boys like." The silversmith's children were in school until about thirteen years old, and the slag and dust had no appeal for them. In any case, the workshop finally closed, and Hal Beecham later remarked with extreme understatement: "Under the circumstances my grandfather did nothing to prevent the boys from finding their own way." As for the "Hornsey Street Poet" , and no one mentions that the first to leave was Henry Harlan Beecham, the father of the later Edwardian best-selling author "Elizabeth" (the latter famous for his "Elizabeth and Her Germany ①A city in southeastern Germany, a city of music with a long tradition of opera,——Annotation ②Connecting the waterway between the South Island and the North Island of New Zealand.—Annotation ③George Gordon Byron (1788～1824 ), an outstanding British romantic poet, and "Don Juan" is one of his masterpieces. ——Annotation ①The name of a street in downtown London.——Annotation ② CR Leslie, a British painter in the 19th century.——Annotation ③John? Constable (1776～1837), a famous British landscape painter, advocated and pursued to reproduce the natural appearance of the British countryside as realistically as possible. ——Annotation ④ refers to King Edward VII (1841～1910), during his reign (1901 ~1910), often refers to the first 10 years of the 20th century. ——The book Annotation of the Garden of China is famous all over the world), his grandson is one of the members of Bloomsbury ⑤, and once asked Virginia Woolf Married.Henry went to Sydney, Australia at the age of 15, started a family there, spent 16 years accumulating wealth, and then returned to Europe with the family and lived in Lausanne for a few years. One day in 1889, his 22-year-old daughter May was playing the organ in the American Church in Rome. A widowed German count fell in love with her at first sight. He proposed to May in Florence and took her to his territory.A few years later, Mei concealed her real identity and began to publish her hugely popular work, her writing was free and easy, with a self-satisfied and irresistible charm. Arthur was the silversmith's sixth child, the favorite of his aunts, with piercing eyes and a poetic streak.He was apprenticed to a stingy relative in the city for seven years, and wrote limericks in which there was always the same refrain: "He kept the money, and I kept my liberty." In 1848, 21-year-old Arthur The boat trip to Sydney and the company of his non-poetic brother brought him back to those refrains.He joined the ranks of the Victorian ① gold diggers, also finding nothing, and in the next six years he traveled almost all over Australia, working as a small shopkeeper, explorer, country guide, sawmill owner, department store and auctioneer, musician, etc. Tenor pop singer in the club and small local politician, but at least one of his clever moves was in 1854 when he married Elizabeth Stanley, who did her duty as faithfully as the fowls, Whenever her husband announced the move, she would nod meekly, "Yes, Arthur," and begin packing. "I can indeed say that I have never seen her lose her temper," his son wrote condescendingly. "All I can say is that she is a saint on earth." The first two children born in the Gold Rush died in infancy. In 1858, Hal was born.He was born in the mining area, when his father seems to be a "general storeman", and he was baptized in the quicksand bath used for panning for gold.Two years later, Arthur's family crossed the Tasman Sea when a wealthy aunt left him a piece of land in New Zealand (soon to be cheated out of it). Everyone in the family called Arthur Beecham "Old Papa". This term was often used by his granddaughter and sometimes used to describe himself. It seemed to refer to a carefree and irresponsible person who always Be the first to laugh at your own inadequacies.Once Arthur gave a speech at Marlborough for 10 hours at a stretch. After 5 hours, he said: "Mr. Chairman, I just made a brief opening statement, and now I will talk about the main issue."This is indeed "old daddy style".Another typical example of "old daddy style" is that he left town to tend the jungle, and the whole family lived on fish, mutton and wild birds. "There my father continued our education," Hal wrote. He later moved, sent his son to a local school, and sent the teacher a note that read: "Sir, send my son today." Hello and Arthur, please check." It's also "truly unique old daddy style". At the age of seventeen, Harrow, having received the fullest education his father's ways could allow, resolved to find a better way out, and when his father moved again, he took a job with the Platinum Company, and from then on he began his career. City life with a thriving career. He was also somewhat interested in poetry, learned to play the piano, and even once hoped to play the cornet in concerts.In Wellington he "met a lot of very nice young people", joined the rowing club, the football club and the "little society of troubadours", acting as an accompanist for society performances. "The pieces that I can remember playing at that time are already outdated today, such as "Golden Waves" and "Fast ⑤ Some British writers and artists (1907-1930) were often in the Bloomsbury area of ​​London. A group that gradually formed after a gathering at Victoria Woolf's house. ——Annotation ①Victoria, the name of a state in southeastern Australia, the capital of Melbourne.——Note ①The southwestern Pacific Ocean between Australia and New Zealand.——Annotation ②A place name in New Zealand .—Annotation of Le Farmer" and so on." There was also a young clerk at the Platinum Company named Dale, whose beautiful sister was thirteen years old, and their mother's maiden name was Margaret Isabel Mansfield, who later became interested in Kay Mansfield's Life affected, perhaps more than Arthur Beecham. Beecham's memoirs, categorically declaring that his memoirs dealt with "good parentage", speak of Grandma Dale only as Sydney's "pretty Miss Mansfield" and that his daughters would at best say they only knew her. 'Irish', although in early Australia that meant having a not very respectable ancestor. In fact her father was a hotelier in Sydney, had come to Australia from England - not as a prisoner, but as a common passenger - and seemed to have no "Irish blood" at all. Samuel Washington Mansfield came to Sydney in 1825 at the age of 22. Five years later, he obtained a license and opened a small hotel named "Hope". After another 9 years, he married a new Cong Summer Margaret Charles, a woman from Seth ①, was his wife.She was born in Bath, the son of a sailor father.In the year of marriage, Samuel opened two hotels in Sydney, one named "Rising Sun", and the other opened for sailors, named "Golden Anchor", located near the pier where the Sydney Harbor Bridge is now built, Catherine Grandmother grew up there.Mary E. Mansfield was born in 1839 and was baptized as an Anglican, to which her father nominally belonged.She later converted to Methodism and married Joseph Dale, a 36-year-old insurance company clerk, and their fourth child, Anne, was born in 1864.Joseph was later sent to Wellington to start the first New Zealand branch of the Australian Mutual Aid Society, and died in 1877 with a large debt and several children, and his own life insurance money to no avail. Miss Anne Bennell Dale was the obvious choice from the start, Hal the Yellow Beard obviously never thought of marrying for money, he started courting her when Annie was 14 and kept her in peace until she was older Da became his own wife.He was 26 at the time and could support her mother and two other sisters. In Kay Mansfield's stories about childhood, the mother and grandmother are always opposites: the grandmother is patient and tactful; Aloof and indifferent.Anne is a delicate wife, warm and considerate to her husband, who spends all her time "rescuing him, tending him, quieting him, and listening to him talk about himself."She is as terrified of having children as Linda Bennell in "On the Bay": "Yes, that's her real dissatisfaction with life" because of having children, she's worn down and unnerved, especially The unbearable thing is that she doesn't love her children. Mrs. Dale, that is, Mrs. Field in the Bennell series of novels①, is a humble, sophisticated, and good at dealing with others. She has 9 children and later took care of 5 children for Anne.With the help of servants and several unmarried daughters, she kept her house in order for 13 years.Whenever a child was born, Anne could not touch it.Daughters came into the world one after another, and the housework arrangement can be maintained all the time, which shows that there is something commendable in Harold Beecham, not to mention the credit of grandmother. If Kay Mansfield had not experienced Ben Nai Without the kind of extended family life in her story, we can hardly imagine how much her literary creation will suffer. When Catherine was 4 years old, another daughter was born.Beecham decided to let the children spend their childhood in the country. ——Annotation ②The name of a city in southwestern England. ——Annotation ①Bennell series of novels, written by Catherine Mansfield, take the life of the protagonist Bennell's family as the main plot, such as "In the Bay" and so on. ——Annotation In 1999, he found a large empty house in Caroline ②, which was located on the side of a highland valley four miles from the city, leading to the city by a winding road.He signed a 5-year lease.Despite the house's fame in the 1950s as "Chesney Ward," it is neither "desolate" nor a bit Dickensian, and compared with Thornton's block-style house, it looks A delightful setting with trees that are nearly 40 years old, an orchard equally as old, a conservatory, level driveway with plenty of room for servants and a tall one-of-a-kind aloe beside the driveway. The house was built in Dickens' time, when the Caroley Valley was densely wooded, and glades were cleared and roads cleared, but the hillside is still full of useless tree trunks, strewn with grazing sheep, There are still some native bushes and birds in the valley, so people can often hear owls at night.The village is at the bottom of the valley, there are some sparse bungalows, surrounded by wooden fences, a department store, a wooden church, a blacksmith shop, and not far away is the large building with the same name as the house in the Dickens novel. house. My Past and Remembrance tells us: "This was the little village--cows, horses, pigs, and fowl--where Catherine spent those childhood years which determined her Years, I often think these five years mean a lot to her, just like to me and my wife." In Kathleen's eyes, the most novel character is probably Patrick Xie, an Irishman who works as a cattle herder and a gardener. Kath had already described him in a middle school composition "Talking about Pat".His duties included fetching the master home from get off work each day in a buggy (he wore a brown top hat at this time), shining the family's shoes, proposing to every new cook, and getting the children to play.He would always put Kath up to the table when the shoeshines were shining, and tell her "long stories about the Dukes of Ireland, all of whom he had met and even talked to."When drinking tea in the kitchen, he put some salt on the knife, dipped his fork, and "tucked up his little finger of his right hand gracefully, like dukes." Together with his "Irish" grandmother, he may have inspired Catherine? Mansfield's imagination.There was indeed one incident which left a deep impression on her, and which later appeared in three of her stories, but the most vivid and interesting description is in the "Prelude". While their cousins ​​Pip and Ragg were present, Pat had the Bennell children come and watch "how the kings of Ireland chop off the heads of ducks."The stone ax fell on the stump, the duck's head flew off, and blood splashed on the duck's feathers and his hands. "Look!" cried Pat, and as he set down the headless duck, the duck began to wobble, and a long stream of blood trickled down where its head had been, and made its way noiselessly to the path leading to the creek. Steep shore, . . . this is the most exciting place. "Did you see it? Did you see it?" cried Pip, running among the little girls, pulling at their bibs. "Like a little engine, like a ridiculous little train engine!" screamed Isabelle. But suddenly Kath rushed to Pat, wrapped her arms around his legs, and banged her head on his knee. "Put your head back, put your head back," she cried. As the Beechams did not want to move to Caroline unaccompanied, they were accompanied by Anne's brother-in-law, Valentine Waters, a post office official, church organist, and two sons named Barry and Eric, the prototypes of Pip and Ragg.Uncle Val and Aunt Agnes lived nearby; ——Translation note ③ "Chesney Ward" is the name of a large house in "Bleak House" written by the famous British writer Charles Dickens. ——In a smaller house, the two moved in the first week after Easter in 1893. Uncle Val was, of course, not of the Beecham blood, but he had something of "Old Daddy" in him which won him the love of his niece for life.To fertilize the garden, he often sweeps horse manure off the road on weekends.To the children, he was all the goodness of an uncle, and one shot at him with a toy gun was guaranteed to put him on the ground, moaning, "You killed me, beast." From Monday to Saturday, he endured A tedious job at the Wellington post office, finding solace in music.In town he was a popular singer and was always invited to perform in operas and oratorios.Catherine's novel "On the Bay" is based on Jonathan Trow, who is used to speaking to the ladies with theatrical comic lines, such as the scene in the garden: "Hello, Jonathan," Linda calls .Jonathan dusted off the battered Panama hat, pressed it to his chest, got down on one knee, and kissed Linda's hand. "Greetings, beauty, greetings, peach of heaven!" his bass voice echoed softly. "Where are the other noble ladies?" Like Stanley in the story, Beecham finds Val's antics embarrassing, even in Carroll, where he dresses up as a city guy and often paves and marks roads. On February 21, 1894, the family finally expected the birth of a son. They named them Laisley Harlan. The first name was meaningful and reminded of the friend who connected the family with art. ; the latter name is in honor of the great-uncle who did his best to preserve the family's business reputation.But the name Leslie was seldom used, it was shelved like fine china.Everyone called him "little boy" when he was a child, and later "young man", and his sisters often called him "kid". Beecham goes into town every day and walks there in the morning, and it takes an hour to walk the 4 miles downhill.He liked to race against his neighbours, who usually took a 9p stagecoach, making several stops along the way.Pat would pick him up in the evenings, and he would take the stagecoach only on rainy days. Now 36, he has become a principal partner in Platinum, he is a director of Gill Meats, chairman of New Zealand Candles, a magistrate, and is about to receive several other directorships. He handpicked another partner to join the firm, his Jewish friend and longtime Neighbor on Dina Curry Avenue, the steel merchant Walter Nathan. In early 1895, six-year-old Kathlyn went to school, at the Carroll Public Elementary School, along with her sisters Vera and Cherdy and all the children of the valley—farmers, milkmen, wagon drivers, The children of shopkeepers, washerwomen and dentists, among others, received the "free and universal education" required by the Education Act of 1877 for all children in the colonies, white or brown.She is good at arithmetic but terrible at spelling. Colonial children rarely went to private schools, and it was not unusual for the Beechams to send their children to the local elementary school, although they foresaw that this would change.Some of the signs of alienating the other kids from the "big house," who always wear starched bibs and speak in accents, can still be seen in Carroll. Kath was now the head of the family, much younger than Vera and Chedi, and older than the siblings.She felt that her family didn't pamper her very much, except for grandma.She grew fat, moody, angry, with a piercing gaze that embarrassed grown-ups, and she would stare at them with those sharp brown eyes, observe them, and then judge them mercilessly in front of others (Bertrand Russell said almost the same thing later).Her mother does not love her, but prefers several other daughters. Kath loved to read, although it was bad for eyesight.She always reads by candlelight until grandma comes in to sleep.The wire frame glasses made her look sharper, and she tried her best to stand out. When she was eight or nine years old, she won the English composition competition award at school.The teacher who taught Catherine at Carroll Primary School still remembers "a plump, calm little girl with bright and clever brown eyes, always so docile and obedient", she wrote as if driven by some desire, "a When I started to put my thoughts into words, I couldn’t stop writing.” The teacher had to restrict her to write shorter sentences to meet the standards of primary school students’ composition. In 1898, Chesney Ward's lease expired, and it was time for the family to return to the city, but Beecham and his wife went to England for a business trip first, leaving the children in the care of Mrs. Dale and Aunt Bell. The older girls, Vera, Cherdy and Kathlyn, started at Wellington High School for Girls in Sandton, waiting for the family to move to Sandton again. The new school had its own magazine, The Senior Reporter, and Kathlyn lost no time in contributing to it.At the end of the first term, there was a little article in the magazine titled "Ena Black," signed by Kathlyn Beecham, age 9, for whom a sixth-grade classmate wrote a wonderful note, that It was the first review of the work of the colonial writer who would later contribute to Old World literature: "This little story, written by a girl who has just entered our school, shows the potential. We will be more than happy to accept submissions from younger students." This story is just like other children's "best holidays ever spent", set in the middle class of England, confidently focusing on describing the indoor and outdoor atmosphere, which later became one of the characteristics of her works, The description of the posture standing by the window is also worth noting here. "Oh, mother, it's still raining, and you won't let me go out." The speaker was a girl, who appeared to be about 10 years old, standing in a well-furnished room looking out from a large bay window. "No, Erna dear," said the mother, "you have a cold, and I don't want to make it worse." Then the dinner bell rang, and they entered the dining room.During dinner, the maid came in with the letter.. In November 1898, the whole family was reunited at No. 25 Dinarcoli Avenue. Columned verandahs and balconies, which Kay Mansfield describes in "patios and concrete steps, Victorian gates, delivery gates, and a pair of huge old iron gates that were never used." The residence seemed just right for a colonial The "Forsytes" live there, but there's a mixed bag of good and bad in that part of Dinarcole Avenue, the most embarrassing of which is that Beecham's own washerwoman lives in a "hut" over the fence, and beyond. A "poor family with countless children, a garden littered with empty jam boxes, old saucepans and uncovered iron kettles." This is not where the old families of the capital live, and Beecham Not that kind of family either. What makes No. 25 different is its scale and its commanding position on the geological fault. The balcony with colonnade on the east side overlooks the port, but in the other direction, the rusty roofs of people's simple wooden houses can be seen under the road. Humid depressions that do not see sunlight all year round.The life of the lower class is not only seen at a glance, but also heard day and night.Later, Kay Mansfield's story "The Garden Party" was ① "The Forsyte Family", the family in the novel "The Forsyte Family" written by the British novelist John Galsworthy in the early 20th century. A typical representative of the British bourgeoisie. ——Annotation With this house as the background, the story is a story in which different classes of society are communicated through sympathy and guilt.In fact, Kathleen's next story for High Junior Magazine, "A Happy Christmas Eve," is all about the debt the rich owe to the poor. It was a coincidence that when Kathleen published her first work, another descendant of the "Hornsey Street Poets" had just become known to the world, that is, his father's cousin May Beecham, who is now von A Countess Nym. "Elisabeth and Her German Garden" was also published in September of that year. This book described the beautiful life in Germany in a teasing style, which brought a lot of fun to everyone.Harrow and Anne had probably brought a book back from London, apparently not at all suspicious of the author's true identity, having spent some time in Kent with her parents before leaving England for New Zealand, and knew of her romantic interest. The marriage and her luxurious home in Germany; by this time the book was world famous.By May 1899, MacMillan & Company had announced the 22nd reprint of the book. For the moment Kathlyn is just an unremarkable child, a serious chubby kid in the picture, dressed exactly like her two older sisters, who seem far more at ease.She doesn't talk much, is always angry, and likes to tell little lies.She rarely told adults what was on her mind, and when asked about her future, she always replied, "I want to be a writer," and people always laughed.At school she has only one bosom friend. This bosom friend is Marianne Roddick, a Canadian, an only child who crossed the Pacific Ocean with Kathlyn's parents, so she had no other friends when she met Kathlyn.Miss Roddick wrote of their brief meeting, remembering Hal Beecham striding along the shores of Honolulu, wearing a top hat and carrying a folded umbrella, his wife a "serene" Woman, upon seeing her third daughter on Wellington Pier, said: "Oh, Kathlyn, you're still so fat." In late 1898, Marianne Beechem's family went to Cove Cottage in the Cook Strait for a truly New Zealand Christmas: bucket and shovel, sunburn and citron, shepherd's pie and pudding, silverware in a green velvet box.质顶针，上面刻着“爱你，玛丽安。”一个很热的日子，RJ西顿先生像圣诞老人似地出现了，他是新西兰总理，给哈尔带来了一生中最贵重的圣诞礼物：西顿政府最近挽救了濒临破产的新西兰银行，需要一些稳妥的人负责银行事务。 《往事与追忆》中谦逊地记载着：“1898年12月，我有幸成为政府部门董事之一。” 这次任命比切姆为银行总裁使他成为除政府外，殖民地金融事务方面最有权势的人物，这并不意味着社会地位的提高，他仍是“生意人”，惠灵顿俱乐部的绅士们从没有忽略这一点。然而，他现在才刚刚度过40岁生日，便已取得了决定终身的成就。 凯什琳同玛丽安?罗迪克成为“生死之交”，共同分享小学生的秘密，写些诗，在花园里发现了一条遭了魔法的飞龙。然而遥远的神话很快就消失在新西兰童年的现实中，消失在阳光、海洋和丛林里。下一个圣诞节，比切姆家有了自己新的避暑地，为了弥补不得不搬回城里的遗憾，父亲在戴斯港口①东面租了一所别墅。 那儿的丛林仍未遭损坏，港口四周尚未修路，所以必须乘船出城，船只静静地驶进戴斯港码头，召唤乘客们，友好的汽笛声穿过空荡荡的山谷，回荡在丛林中。渡船，尤其是丛林，使戴斯港口成为与惠灵顿迥然不同的另一个世界。 ②英国东南部郡名，濒英吉利海峡，下辖阿什福德、多佛等14个区。——译注①惠灵顿一港口名。——译注伤感的小故事《幸福的圣诞夜》于1899年底刊登在《高小记者》上，此时教师们已准备好了将要在学期结束仪式上颁发的奖品，其中英文、算术和法语三项是给凯丝?比切姆的。她穿过大厅，从尊敬的罗伯特?斯托特手中接过奖品。他是首席法官，前自由党首相，大学评议会成员，当时正提倡“妇女高等教育”，他说这项改革是“比金钱更好的嫁妆”。在座的每个人都很清楚，他其实正在为维多利亚大学网罗学生，这所大学是在他的倡导下刚刚建立起来的，当时还没有校舍，但是最早任教的教授中却有后来成为麻省理工学院院长的RC麦克罗林。 虽然，比切姆的女儿毫无疑问能成为维多利亚大学的学生，但在惠灵顿这小地方受高等教育不能和“回老家”相比。在惠灵顿女子中学继续读了一个学期后，维拉、彻迪和凯什琳被送往斯维森小姐私立中学，这是通往伦敦的进身之阶，在那儿对前途将会有所选择。 被称为“斯维森小姐住宅”的大房子背靠宽广的山谷，斯维森小姐聘请亨利?史密斯太太（《水孩子》的作者查尔斯?金斯利①的一位表姐）做日校主管，学校的整个气氛让学生感到只有英格兰才是“老家”，而新西兰不过是“放逐地”，所有的孩子离开这所学校都是为了在英格兰或欧洲完成学业。 那儿的两位教师讲述过她们记忆中的凯丝?比切姆。史密斯太太说她长相不好看，“是一个无礼的小姑娘”，“好想象至几乎不真实”；她的作文太长，写得很差，拼写很糟糕，而且“放进了太多的自己”。 埃娃?巴茨小姐是那种爱德华时代所谓“衣着讲究的女人”，她说凯丝“又黑又脏”，写的作文“总是文不对题”，13岁时，她就问巴茨小姐一些有关“自由恋爱”的看法，那时哪怕对成人来说，这也是一个过于放肆，令人侧目的话题。她又矮又胖，无吸引人之处，“甚至也不调皮”，“在学校里也没什么雄心大志”。 不管怎样，正是凯什琳?比切姆创办了斯维森学校的第一份杂志，刊登一些故事和笑话。当巴茨小姐组织义演时，发现凯丝具有维妙维肖模仿别人的才能，她会随意模仿几下家庭生活细节来嘲讽父亲的虚荣心，同时也显露出她和母亲之间微妙的紧张关系。 她因扮演一个角色而赢得一位英国牧师的爱慕。英国国教对她几乎没有什么影响，但也曾经有过一个令她心荡神驰的顿悟时刻，她把这记述在祈祷书的扉页上：1901年11月3日，同E和D.本达尔以及维拉去圣?马克教堂听弗雷德?本耐特牧师讲道，极为神圣。 他还诵读了《圣经选读》第2课《背叛那稣》，我感到前所未有的愉快。 我准备去做一个毛利人①传教士。 她具有反抗精神，有一种危险的才智，很可能陷入宗教狂热，而且她很孤独，玛丽安?罗迪克走后，她似乎再也没有什么亲密朋友，所以才向巴茨小姐问及“自由恋爱”问题，此时她13岁，初次与汤姆?特罗维尔相遇。 ①查尔斯?金斯利（1819～1875），英国作家，他1863年发表的小说《水孩子》，在当时颇受欢迎。——译注①毛利人，新西兰的土著居民，信仰多神，现约有24万人。——译注“凯撒（不知为什么凯什琳这样称呼他）是惠灵顿一位音乐教师的儿子，当时已很会拉大提琴，已经有人赞助一笔钱送他和他的孪生兄弟——小提琴手加纳特一起去欧洲深造。这两兄弟像凯什琳的父亲一样有着一头的红发，但是并没有他的性格。很快凯丝就相信自己爱上了汤姆，而他却不怎么在意。 10多岁孩子的恋情通常很快就会谈忘，但这次的情形后来却被写入一个故事的开头几页，这个人们后来称为《朱丽叶》的有关爱情与死亡的无标题小故事笔调夸张，随便涂写在一本厚厚的黑封面笔记本上，虽然只不过是三流的浪漫虚构小说，但确实表达了当时这两个生活在殖民地的年轻人所感到的希望与恐惧。 在一个她那冷漠的母亲称为“一般的音乐晚会”之后，朱丽叶来看父母亲，发现大厅里只剩下自己一人同那位受到赞助的年轻大提琴手呆在一起，他把她领到一扇敞开的窗前，进行了如下的对话：“告诉我你的名字好吗？” “朱丽叶——你呢？” “戴雏，我是个音乐家，今晚表演过了，也就是拉大提琴。我明年要去欧洲。” “我也要去，但不是为了音乐，只是去完成学业。” “你想离开这儿吗！” “是的——不，我渴望体验新的生活，新的地方——但我会怀念这儿我热爱的一切。” “你喜欢夜晚吗？朱丽叶！”他的表情变了..现在她需要一把大提琴，跟凯撒的父亲学习，她自己的父亲很高兴她喜欢音乐，并立刻给她买了一把提琴。不久她的相貌变了，在一张去英格兰的途中全家合拍的照片上，站在仪态威严的父母亲身旁的是凯什琳，此时已长成秀丽、端庄的少女，脸庞更为优雅，眼神温柔了，不再戴眼镜。总而言之，凯什琳14岁时看上去比她的贝尔姨妈更成熟自信。贝尔姨母那时仍未出嫁，正要陪同外甥女们去伦敦呆三年，说实话，也不可能指望会有安静自信的表情。这次航行十分讲究排场，这是负担一切开支的男主人所熟悉的，他写道：我妻子，我自已，我们全家4个女孩，一个男孩，以及两位姻亲（贝尔和西德尼?戴尔）占居了弟赛尔航线的涅瓦鲁号客轮的整个客舱，这的确是一次辉煌的航行，先在吉斯博恩①和奥克兰②停靠，然后经过合恩角③和拉斯帕尔马斯④，整个航程花了47天，我妻子非常喜欢航海，总是陪我一起旅行，这给大家增添了乐趣。 1903年1月29日，他们从惠灵顿启程，凯什琳给尚未离开新西兰的汤姆?特罗维尔写信，从而开始他们长达6年的通信，至少在她这方面是热情①新西兰东部港市。——译注②新西兰第二大城市及最大港口。——译注③南美洲最南端合恩岛上陡峭的南角。——译注④西班牙加那利群岛港口。——译注洋溢的。特罗维尔兄弟7个月后启程去德国，得到了885英镑赞助。参加这次典型的新西兰式赞助活动的募捐者中有哈罗?比切姆，他的合伙人以及其他各种各样的人，其中包括伺养场主，旅店老板，打字员，码头工人，还有几位“绅士”。从利特尔顿到伦敦的路费是26英镑，伯拉廷公司的捐款刚好够这项支出。他们在法兰克福高等音乐学院呆了一年后，又去了布鲁塞尔音乐学院，后来阿诺尔德——这是汤姆的艺名——在音乐汇演中取得几项大提琴演奏奖后，不得不按规定离开那儿。几年以后他们两兄弟都到了伦敦，父母亲也来同他们团聚。