英文童话剧剧本-THEHAPPYFAMILY.doc

THE HAPPY FAMILY Really, the largest green leaf in this country is a dock-leaf; if one holds itbefore one, it is like a whole apron, and if one holds it over ones head inrainy weather, it is almost as good as an umbrella, for it is so immenselylarge. The burdock never grows alone, but where there grows one there alwaysgrow several: it is a great delight, and all this delightfulness is snailsfood. The great white snails which persons of quality in former times madefricassees of, ate, and said, Hem, hem! how delicious! for they thought ittasted so delicate--lived on dock-leaves, and therefore burdock seeds weresown. Now, there was an old manor-house, where they no longer ate snails, they werequite extinct; but the burdocks were not extinct, they grew and grew all overthe walks and all the beds; they could not get the mastery over them--it was awhole forest of burdocks. Here and there stood an apple and a plum-tree, orelse one never would have thought that it was a garden; all was burdocks, andthere lived the two last venerable old snails. They themselves knew not how old they were, but they could remember very wellthat there had been many more; that they were of a family from foreign lands,and that for them and theirs the whole forest was planted. They had never beenoutside it, but they knew that there was still something more in the world,which was called the manor-house, and that there they were boiled, and thenthey became black, and were then placed on a silver dish; but what happenedfurther they knew not; or, in fact, what it was to be boiled, and to lie on asilver dish, they could not possibly imagine; but it was said to bedelightful, and particularly genteel. Neither the chafers, the toads, nor theearth-worms, whom they asked about it could give them any information--none ofthem had been boiled or laid on a silver dish. The old white snails were the first persons of distinction in the world, thatthey knew; the forest was planted for their