Truman Capote - A Christmas Memory精品文档.doc

A Christmas Memory By Truman Capote 1924-1984 jReturn to Short Stories Home Page| Imagine a morning in late November. A coming of winter morning more than-f twenty years ago. Consider the kitchen of af spreading old house in a country town. Af great black stove is its main feature; but thereB ^^ is also a big round table and a fireplace withB*^ two rocking chairs placed in front of it. JustBf today the fireplace commenced its seasonal^ roar. A woman with shorn white hair is standing at the kitchen window. She is wearing tennis shoes and a shapeless gray sweater over a summery calico dress. She is small and sprightly, like a bantam hen; but, due to a long youthful illness, her shoulders are pitifully hunched. Her face is remarkable — not unlike Lincolns, craggy like that, and tinted by sun and wind; but it is delicate too, finely boned, and her eyes are sherry-colored and timid. Oh my, she exclaims, her breath smoking the windowpane, its fruitcake weather! The person to whom she is speaking is myself. I am seven; she is sixty-something, We are cousins, very distant ones, and we have lived together—well, as long as I can remember. Other people inhabit the house, relatives; and though they have power over us, and frequently make us cry, we are not, on the whole, too much aware of them. We are each others best friend. She calls me Buddy, in memory of a boy who was formerly her best friend. The other Buddy died in the 1880s, when she was still a child. She is still a child. I knew it before I got out of bed, she says, turning away from the window with a purposeful excitement in her eyes. The courthouse bell sounded so cold and clear. And there were no birds singing; theyve gone to warmer country, yes indeed. Oh, Buddy, stop stuffing biscuit and fetch our buggy. Help me find my hat. Weve thirty cakes to bake. Its always the same: a morning arrives in November, and my friend, as though officially inaugurating the Christmas time of year that exhilarates her imagination and