【荆棘鸟】第一章 10

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She picked up a small lamp from the table, then put it down again and walked across to where Frank was squatted¹ before the stove, packing wood into the big firebox and fiddling² with the damper. His white arm was roped with prominent veins³, his finely made hands too stained ever to come clean. Her own hand went out timidly, and very lightly smoothed the straight black hair out of his eyes; it was as close as she could bring herself to a caress⁴. "Good night, Frank, and thank you."

  The shadows wheeled and darted⁵ before the advancing light as Fee moved silently through the door leading into the front part of the house. Frank and Bob shared the first bedroom; she pushed its door open noiselessly and held the lamp high, its light flooding the double bed in the corner. Bob was lying on his back with his mouth sagging⁶ open, quivering and twitching⁷ like a dog; she crossed to the bed and rolled him over onto his right side before he could pass into a full-fledged nightmare, then stayed looking down at him for a moment. How like Paddy he was! Jack⁸ and Hughie were almost braided together in the next room. What dreadful scamps they were! Never out of mischief⁹, but no malice¹⁰ in them. She tried vainly to separate them and restore some sort of order to their bedclothes, but the two curly red heads refused to be parted. Softly sighing, she gave up. How they managed to be refreshed after the kind of night they passed was beyond her, but they seemed to thrive on it. The room where Meggie and Stuart slept was a dingy¹¹ and cheerless place for two small children; painted a stuffy¹² brown and floored in brown linoleum¹³, no-pictures on the walls. Just like the other bedrooms. Stuart had turned himself upside down and was quite invisible except for his little night shirted bottom sticking out of the covers where his head ought to have been; Fee found his head touching¹⁴ his knees, and as usual marveled that he had not suffocated¹⁵. She slid her hand gingerly across the sheet and stiffened¹⁶. Wet again!

 

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