《七个铜板》英文短篇小说

　　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.

　　She pulled out the drawer.

　　"Come on, sonny, let us find the wicked things. Naughty, naughty coins."

　　She squatted on the floor and put down the drawer so cautiously, she seemed to fear its contents might fly away; then she daintily turned it upside down, as though she were catching butterflies under a hat.

　　You couldn't help laughing over the way she acted.

　　"Here they are, in here," she giggled, and was in no hurry to lift up the drawer. "If there's but a single one, it must be in here."

　　I squatted on my heels and watched closely for a shiny coin to creep forth somewhere. Nothing stirred.

　　To be quite frank, neither of us really believed that there were any inside.

　　We glanced at each other, laughing over the childish joke.

　　I touched the drawer as it lay there upside down.

　　"Ssht!" my mother shushed me. "Keep still, child, or they'll run away. You have no idea how nimble pennies can be. They run so fast, they simply roll away. My, how they roll..."

　　We rocked with laughter. We had seen often enough, how easily the pennies could roll away.

　　When we got over our fit of laughter, I stretched out my hand once more to lift the drawer.

　　"Don't!" mother cried out, and I snatched back my finger as if I had scorched it on a stove.

　　"Easy, you spendthrift. Why be in such a hurry to send them off? They belong to us only while they are safe here, under the hood. Let them remain there for a little while yet. For, you see, I have to do some washing and for that I need some soap, and for the soap I must have at least seven pennies, they won't give me any for less. I've got three already, I need four more, they must be in this little house. They live here, but they hate to be disturbed, and if they grow angry, they'll vanish and we shan't ever get hold of them again. Easy, then, for money is a delicate thing and must be handled gently. It wants to be respected. It takes offence quickly, like a sensitive lady... Don't you know a verse that would lure it from its house?"

　　Oh, how we laughed while she babbled along! My incantation was odd indeed. It went like this:

　　"Uncle Coin, I'm no liar,

　　Your house is on fire..."

　　At this I turned the drawer right side up again.

　　There was every kind of rubbish below it, but coins... there were none.

　　My mother kept rummaging in the heap, making a sour face, but that didn't help.

　　"What a pity," she said, "that we have no table. It would have been more respectful to turn it over on a table, and then the coins would have stayed put."

　　I swept up the things and put them back into the drawer. Mother was doing some hard thinking the while. She racked her brains to remember whether she had some time or other put any money elsewhere, but she couldn't recall it.

　　Of a sudden, I had an idea.

　　"Mother, I know a place where there is a coin."

　　"Where is it, sonny? Let us catch it before it melts like snow."

　　"There used to be one in the drawer of the glass cupboard."

　　"Oh, my lamb, I'm glad you didn't tell me before, it would surely no longer be there."