„The Adventures of Tom Sawyer / Przygody Tomka Sawyera”

MarkTwainThe Adventures of Tom Sawyer Przygody Tomka SawyeraCzytamy w oryginale

The Adventures of Tom Sawyer / Przygody Tomka Sawyera

SeriaCzytamy w oryginale to atrakcyjna pomoc dla uczących się języka angielskiego. Śledząc losy bohaterów powieści możemy na bieżąco porównywać tekst angielski i polski, ucząc się na podstawie wielkiej literatury. Adaptacja została przygotowana z myślą o czytelnikach średniozaawansowanych, jednak dzięki wersji polskiej z książki korzystać mogą również początkujący.

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Zapraszamy na www.44.pl gdzie dostępne są dodatkowe pomoce do samodzielnej nauki: angielska wersja audio (format mp3) oraz zeszyt ćwiczeń z kluczem odpowiedzi.

The Adventures of Tom SawyerI. In Which We Meet Tom Sawyer

[ 1 ] ‘Tom!’

[ 2 ] No answer.

[ 3 ] ‘Tom!’

[ 4 ] No answer.

[ 5 ] ‘Where’s that boy now? You Tom!’

[ 6 ] The old lady stood up, went up to the door and opened it. Looking out into the garden she shouted:

[ 7 ] ‘Tom! If I catch you, I’ll…’

[ 8 ] Suddenly she heard something behind her. She turned around and saw a small boy opening the door of a closet. She ran and caught him by his collar.

[ 9 ] ‘Tom! What have you been doing in this closet?’

[ 10 ] ‘Nothing.’

[ 11 ] ‘Nothing? And what have you got on your hands and face?’

[ 12 ] ‘I don’t know, Aunt Polly.’

[ 13 ] ‘Well, I know. It’s jam. I’ve told you forty times not to touch that jam…’

[ 14 ] ‘Look behind you, Aunt!’

[ 15 ] The old lady turned around. At that moment the boy ran out of the door, jumped over the fence, and disappeared among the trees. His aunt Polly was angry for a moment, and then started to laugh.

[ 16 ] ‘I can never learn anything. Oh, that boy! He won’t go to school this afternoon, and I’ll have to make him work tomorrow. And he won’t like it because tomorrow is Saturday and all other boys got holidays.’

[ 17 ] Of course, Tom didn’t go to school that afternoon, and neither did his best friend, Joe Harper. Together they went to the woods and played Robin Hood. Tom was the brave robber, and Joe was the terrible Sheriff of Nottingham. Then Joe became Robin, and Tom played all his men. In the evening they met Huckelberry Finn, a boy with no house and no mother, and a father who was always drunk. All the boys wanted to be like Huck because he didn’t have to go to school. Tom and Joe loved playing with him. That evening they were three Indian chiefs at war. The war was long and it was already midnight when Tom went back to his room through the window.

[ 18 ] The next morning aunt Polly said:

[ 19 ] ‘Tom, I’m sorry, but you have to work today. Can you, please, paint the fence.’

[ 20 ] ‘Can I play when I finish painting?’

[ 21 ] ‘Yes,’ said aunt Polly, but she didn’t believe for a second that Tom could paint even half the fence by the evening.

[ 22 ] Tom quickly took the pot with the paint and went into the garden. He put the pot on the floor, and took a look at the fence. It was long, very long. He took his brush and started painting. Five minutes later, he stepped back and looked at his work. There was a small patch of white on the long dirty fence. Tom sat down discouraged.

[ 23 ] ‘I’ll never finish it,’ he thought. ‘I’ll be working all day, and all the other boys will laugh at me.’

[ 24 ] Just then he saw Ben Rogers coming up the street eating an apple. Tom immediately stood up and put his whole heart into painting the fence.

[ 25 ] ‘Hello,’ said Ben.

[ 26 ] Tom paid no attention. He was painting like an artist.

[ 27 ] ‘Hi, I’m going swimming,’ said Ben with a nasty smile. ‘Would you like to come too? But of course you have to work today.’

[ 28 ] Tom looked at Ben for a moment, and then said:

[ 29 ] ‘What do you call work?’

[ 30 ] ‘Painting. Isn’t that work?’

[ 31 ] ‘Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t, but Tom Sawyer likes it.’ And Tom stepped back, looked at his work critically, like an artist at his picture.

[ 32 ] ‘Like it!’ cried Ben. ‘Oh, come on! I don’t believe you like it.’

[ 33 ] ‘Why not?’ asked Tom. ‘Does a boy get a chance to paint a fence everyday?’

[ 34 ] That put the thing in a new light. Ben came up closer and started watching Tom.

[ 35 ] ‘Tom,’ he said after some time. ‘Let me paint a little.’

[ 36 ] Tom stopped and looked at Ben.

[ 37 ] ‘I’m sorry, Ben, but I can’t,’ he said. ‘My aunt Polly asked me especially to do this job, because nobody else can do it really well. My brother Sid wanted to do it, and she said ‘No, only Tom can do it well.’

[ 38 ] ‘Oh please, Tom!’ said Ben. ‘Let me try a little. If you let me, I’ll give you my apple.’

[ 39 ] Tom stopped, looked at Ben, and slowly gave him the brush. For the next half an hour he was eating an apple, watching Ben working, and planning to employ more boys in the same way. And he did. When Ben got tired, Tom let Billy Fisher paint in exchange for a kite, then Johnny Miller sold his dead rat for half an hour of painting. By the afternoon the whole fence was painted three times, and Tom was richer than ever before. Apart from the kite and the rat, he got a fragment of chalk, a tin soldier, a piece of blue bottle glass, and lots of other boy treasures besides.

[ 40 ] Aunt Polly could not believe her eyes when she saw the fence.

[ 41 ] ‘Well, Tom,’ she said. ‘You work really well when you want to! Go and play now.’

[ 42 ] Tom went swimming with the other boys. On his way back, while he was passing the house where Jeff Thatcher lived, he saw a new girl in the garden. She was beautiful, with blue eyes and her yellow hair in two long plaits. Tom immediately fell in love. Amy Lawrence, who he had loved for months, now disappeared from his heart. Now he loved this little angel with yellow hair.

[ 43 ] He started to show off by standing on his hands or head, all to win her heart. The girl watched him for a few minutes, and then turned around and was clearly going inside. Tom stopped, and ran up to the fence. The girl was at the door, but she stopped too, and threw a flower to him. Tom’s heart was beating fast. He walked up to the flower. Then he stopped, saw that there were no boys around, picked up the flower with his toes, and hopped on one leg towards the trees, where no one could see him. There he put the flower into his jacket next to his stomach (because he believed his heart was there).

[ 44 ] Tom stayed around the girl’s house all evening, showing off as before. But she never came out again. Tom was desperate. He felt he would die without her. The more he thought about it, the more he wanted to die. Finally, he jumped over the fence and quietly lay down on the grass. Next morning he would be dead, and everybody would be sorry for all the bad things they had done to Tom Sawyer. His aunt Polly, for example, would be very sorry she didn’t give him the jam from the closet.

[ 45 ] As he was imagining the whole town crying at his funeral, someone opened the window, Tom heard the servant’s voice, and a bucket of water fell on the ‘dead boy’. Tom jumped up, wet through, and ran home.