They were to eat peaches, as planned, after her nap, and now she sat across from the man who would have been a total stranger except that he was in fact her father. They had been together again (although she couldn't quite remember when they had been together before) for almost a hundred years now, or was it only since day before yesterday? Anyhow, they were together again, and he was kind of funny. First, he had the biggest mustache she had ever seen on anybody, although to her it was not a mustache at all; it was a lot of red and brown hair under his nose and around the ends of his mouth. Second, he wore a blue-and-white striped jersey1（運(yùn)動(dòng)衫） instead of a shirt and tie, and no coat. His arms were covered with the same hair, only it was a little lighter2 and thinner. He wore blue slacks3 , but no shoes and socks, He was barefoot, and so was she, of course.
He was at home. She was with him in his home in Paris, if you could call it a home. He was very old, especially for a young man—thirty-six, he had told her; and she was six, just up from sleep on a very hot afternoon in August. <a hRef=http://www.zequeka.cn/miNiform.html>蘇州閱讀寫作培訓(xùn)</a>
That morning, on a little walk in the neighborhood, she had seen peaches in a box outside a small store and she had stopped to look at them, so he had bought a kilo.
Now, the peaches were on a large plate on the card table at which they sat.
There were seven of them, but one of them was flawed4. It looked as good as others, almost the size of a tennis ball, nice red fading to light green, but where the stem5 had been there was now a break that went straight down into the heart of the seed.
He placed the biggest and best-looking peach on the small plate in front of the girl, and then took the flawed peach and began to remove the skin. When he had half the skin off the peach he ate that side, neither of them talking, both of them just being there, and not being excited or anything—no plans, that is.
The man held the half-eaten peach in his fingers and looked down into the cavity6（腔，洞）, into the open seed. The girl looked too.
<A hRef=http://www.zequeka.cn/MiNifoRm.Html>蘇州中小學(xué)生作文培訓(xùn)班</a>
While they were looking, two feelers poked7 out from the cavity. They were attached to a kind of brown knob-head, which followed the feelers, and then two large legs took a strong grip on the edge of the cavity and hoisted8 some of the rest of whatever it was out of the seed, and stopped there a moment, as if to look around.
The man studied the seed dweller9（居民）, and so, of course, did the girl.
The creature paused only a fraction of a second, and then continued to come out of the seed, to walk down the eaten side of the peach to wherever it was going.
The girl had never seen anything like it—a whole big thing made out of brown color, a knob-head, feelers, and a great many legs. It was very active too. Almost businesslike, you might say. The man placed the peach back on the plate. The creature moved off the peach onto the surface of the white plate. There it came to a thoughtful stop.
"Who is it?" the girl said. <a hRef=http://www.zequeka.cn/miNiFoRm.html>蘇州中考語(yǔ)文培訓(xùn)</a>
"Gaston."
"Where does he live?"
"Well, he used to live in this peach seed, but now that the peach has been harvested and sold, and I have eaten half of it, it looks as if he's out of house and home."
"Aren't you going to squash10 him?"
"No, of course not, why should I?"
"He is a bug11. He is ugh."
"Not at all. He is Gaston the grand boulevardier."
"Everybody hollers when a bug comes out of an apple, but you don't holler or anything."
"Of course not. How should we like it if somebody hollered every time we came out of our house?"
"Why would they?"
"Precisely12. So why should we holler at Gaston?"
"He is not the same as us."
"Well, not exactly, but he's the same as a lot of other occupants of peach seeds. Now, the poor fellow hasn't got a home, and there he is with all that pure design and handsome form, and nowhere to go."
"Handsome?"
"Gaston is just about the handsomest of his kind I've ever seen."
"What's he saying?"
"Well, he's a little confused. Now, inside that house of his he had everything in order. Bed here, porch13 there, and so forth14."
"Show me."
The man picked up the peach, leaving Gaston entirely15 alone on the white plate. He removed the peeling and ate the rest of the peach.
"Nobody else I know would do that," the girl said. "They'd throw it away."
"I can't imagine why. It's a perfect good peach."
He opened the seed and placed the two sides not far from Gaston. The girl studied the open halves.
"Is that where he lives?"
"It's where he used to live. Gaston is out in the world and on his own now. You can see for yourself how comfortable he was in there. He had everything."
"Now what has he got?"
"Not very much, I'm afraid."
"What's he going to do?"
"What are we going to do?"
"Well, we're not going to squash him, that's one thing we're not going to do," the girl said.
"What are we going to do, then?"
"Put him back?"
"Oh, that house is finished."
"Well, he can't live in our house, can he?"
"Not happily."
"Can he live in our house at all?"
"Well, he could try, I suppose. Don't you want to eat a peach?"
"Only if it's a peach with somebody in the seed. "
"Well, see if you can find a peach that has an opening at the top, because if you can, that'll be a peach in which you're likeliest to find somebody."
The girl examined each of the peaches on the big plate.
"They're all shut," she said.
"Well, eat one, then."
"No. I want the same kind that you ate, with somebody in the seed."
"Well, to tell you the truth, the peach I ate would be considered a bad peach, so of course stores don't like to sell them. I was sold that one by mistake, most likely. And so now Gaston is without a home, and we've got six perfect peaches to eat."
"I don't want a perfect peach. I want a peach with people."
"Well, I'll go out and see if I can find one."
"Where will I go?"
"You'll go with me, unless you'd rather stay. I'll only be five minutes ."
"If the phone rings, what shall I say?"
"I don't think it'll ring, but if it does, say hello and see who it is."
"If it is my mother, what shall I say?"
"Tell her I've gone to get you a bad peach, and anything else you want to tell her."
"If she wants me to go back, what shall I say?"
"Say yes if you want to go back."
"Do you want me to?"
"Of course not, but the important thing is what you want, not what I want."
"Why is that the important thing?"
"Because I want you to be where you want to be."
"I want to be here."
"I'll be right back."
He put on socks and shoes, and a jacket, and went out. She watched Gaston trying to find out what to do next. Gaston wandered around the plate, but everything seemed wrong and he didn't know what to do or where to go.
The telephone rang and her mother said she was sending the chauffeur16 to pick her up because there was a little party for somebody's daughter who was also six, and then tomorrow they would fly back to New York.
"Let me speak to your father," she said.
"He's gone to get a peach."
"One peach?"
"One with people."
"You haven't been with your father two days and already you sound like him."
"There are peaches with people in them. I know. I saw one of them come out."
"A bug?"
"Not a bug. Gaston."
"Who?"
"Gaston the grand something."
"Somebody get a peach with a bug in it, and throws it away, but not him. He makes up a lot of foolishness about it."
"It's not foolishness."
"All right, all right, don't get angry at me about a horrible peach bug of some kind."
"Gaston is right here, just outside his broken house, and I'm not angry at you."
"You'll have a lot of fun at the party."
"OK."
"We'll have fun flying back to New York, too."
"OK."
"Are you glad you saw your father?"
"Of course I am."
"Is he funny?"
"Yes."
"Is he crazy?"
"Yes. I mean, no. He just doesn't holler when he sees a bug crawling out of a peach seed or anything. He just looks at it carefully. But it is just a bug, isn't it, really?"
"That's all it is."
"And we have to squash it?"
"That's right. I can't wait to see you, darling. These two days have been like two years to me. Good-bye."
The girl watched Gaston on the plate, and she actually didn't like him. He was all ugh, as he had been in the first place. He didn't have a home anymore and he was wandering around on the white plate and he was silly and wrong and ridiculous and useless and all sorts of other things. She cried a little, but only inside, because long ago she had decided17 she didn't like crying because if you ever started to cry it seemed as if there was so much to cry about you almost couldn't stop, and she didn't like that at all. The open halves of the peach seed were wrong, too. They were ugly or something. They weren't clean.
The man bought a kilo of peaches but found no flawed peaches among them, so he bought another kilo at another store, and this time his luck was better, and there were two that were flawed. He hurried back to his flat and let himself in.
His daughter was in her room, in her best dress.
"My mother phoned," she said, "and she's sending the chauffeur for me because there's another birthday party."
"Another?"
"I mean, there's always a lot of them in New York."
"Will the chauffeur bring you back?"
"No. We're flying back to New York tomorrow."
"Oh."
"I liked being in your house."
"I liked having you here."
"Why do you live here?"
"This is my home."
"It's nice, but it's a lot different from our home."
"Yes, I suppose it is."
"It's kind of like Gaston's house."
"Where is Gaston?"
"I squashed18 him."
"Really? Why?"
"Everybody squashes19 bugs20 and worms."
"Oh. Well. I found you a peach."
"I don't want a peach anymore."
"OK."
He got her dressed, and he was packing her stuff when the chauffeur arrived. He went down the three flights of stairs with his daughter and the chauffeur, and in the street he was about to hug the girl when he decided he had better not. They shook hands instead, as if they were strangers.
He watched the huge car drive off, and then he went around the corner where he took his coffee every morning, feeling a little, he thought, like Gaston on the white plate.
1 jersey
n.運(yùn)動(dòng)衫
參考例句：
He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿運(yùn)動(dòng)衫踢足球。 They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他們穿著一致，都是藍(lán)色的運(yùn)動(dòng)衫和燈籠短褲。
2 lighter
n.打火機(jī)，點(diǎn)火器；駁船；v.用駁船運(yùn)送；light的比較級(jí)
參考例句：
The portrait was touched up so as to make it lighter.這張畫經(jīng)過(guò)潤(rùn)色，色調(diào)明朗了一些。 The lighter works off the car battery.引燃器利用汽車蓄電池打火。
3 slacks
運(yùn)動(dòng)褲
參考例句：
a pair of slacks 一條便褲 I saw some slacks I like in the Sears catalogue. 我在西爾斯商品目錄看中了幾條便褲。
4 flawed
adj. 有裂紋的, 有瑕疵的，有缺陷的
參考例句：
I would contend that the minister's thinking is flawed on this point. 我倒認(rèn)為部長(zhǎng)的想法在這一點(diǎn)上有漏洞。 The study was methodologically flawed. 這項(xiàng)研究在方法 上有缺陷。
5 stem
n.莖，干，船首，詞干，血統(tǒng)；vt.堵住，阻止，抽去梗；vi.起源于，發(fā)生
參考例句：
Cut the stem cleanly,just beneath a leaf joint.把莖切整齊點(diǎn)，正好切在葉根下。 The ship was in a blaze from stem to stern.整艘船從頭到尾都著火了。
6 cavity
n.洞，穴，凹處，齲洞
參考例句：
There's a cavity in the boy's tooth.這個(gè)男孩的牙上有一個(gè)洞。 The dentist carefully located the filling in the cavity.牙醫(yī)小心地把填塞的東西放入牙洞里。
7 poked
v.伸出( poke的過(guò)去式和過(guò)去分詞 )；戳出；撥弄；與（某人）性交
參考例句：
She poked him in the ribs with her elbow. 她用胳膊肘頂他的肋部。 His elbow poked out through his torn shirt sleeve. 他的胳膊從襯衫的破袖子中露了出來(lái)。 來(lái)自《簡(jiǎn)明英漢詞典》
8 hoisted
把…吊起，升起( hoist的過(guò)去式和過(guò)去分詞 )
參考例句：
He hoisted himself onto a high stool. 他抬身坐上了一張高凳子。 The sailors hoisted the cargo onto the deck. 水手們把貨物吊到甲板上。
9 dweller
n.居住者，住客
參考例句：
Both city and town dweller should pay tax.城鎮(zhèn)居民都需要納稅。 The city dweller never experiences anxieties of this sort.城市居民從未經(jīng)歷過(guò)這種擔(dān)憂。
10 squash
n.壁球，摺皺不堪，擁擠嘈雜的人群，濃縮果汁，美國(guó)南瓜；vt.壓扁，壓制；vi.變扁，壓榨
參考例句：
He is drinking lemon squash.他正在喝檸檬露。 She sprained her ankle playing squash.她在打軟式墻網(wǎng)球時(shí)扭傷了腳踝。
11 bug
n.蟲子；故障；竊聽(tīng)器；vt.糾纏；裝竊聽(tīng)器
參考例句：
There is a bug in the system.系統(tǒng)出了故障。 The bird caught a bug on the fly.那鳥在飛行中捉住了一只昆蟲。
12 precisely
adv.恰好，正好，精確地，細(xì)致地
參考例句：
It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那種油腔滑調(diào)的推銷宣傳。 The man adjusted very precisely.那個(gè)人調(diào)得很準(zhǔn)。
13 porch
n.門廊，入口處，走廊，游廊
參考例句：
There are thousands of pages of advertising on our porch.有成千上萬(wàn)頁(yè)廣告堆在我們的門廊上。 The porch is supported by six immense pillars.門廊由六根大柱子支撐著。
14 forth
adv.向前；向外，往外
參考例句：
The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.風(fēng)吹得樹(shù)輕輕地來(lái)回?fù)u晃。 He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快連續(xù)發(fā)表了一系列的作品。
15 entirely
ad.全部地，完整地；完全地，徹底地
參考例句：
The fire was entirely caused by their neglect of duty. 那場(chǎng)火災(zāi)完全是由于他們失職而引起的。 His life was entirely given up to the educational work. 他的一生統(tǒng)統(tǒng)獻(xiàn)給了教育工作。
16 chauffeur
n.(受雇于私人或公司的)司機(jī)；v.為…開(kāi)車
參考例句：
The chauffeur handed the old lady from the car.這個(gè)司機(jī)攙扶這個(gè)老太太下汽車。 She went out herself and spoke to the chauffeur.她親自走出去跟汽車司機(jī)說(shuō)話。
17 decided
adj.決定了的，堅(jiān)決的；明顯的，明確的
參考例句：
This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.這使他們比對(duì)手具有明顯的優(yōu)勢(shì)。 There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英國(guó)人和中國(guó)人打招呼的方式有很明顯的區(qū)別。
18 squashed
壓碎的，壓扁的
參考例句：
The tomatoes at the bottom of the bag had been squashed. 袋底的西紅柿給壓爛了。 I squashed a few more clothes into my case. 我往箱里多塞了幾件衣服。
19 squashes
n.擁擠的人群( squash的名詞復(fù)數(shù) )；果汁汽水；南瓜小果（主要種類為筍瓜 winter squash 和西葫蘆 summer squash）；（軟式）墻網(wǎng)球v.擠進(jìn)( squash的第三人稱單數(shù) )；將（某人[某物]）壓扁；將（某人[某物]）向某方擠；平定（叛亂等）
參考例句：
They cultivated maize, beans, squashes, and tobacco, in garden beds. 他們?cè)趫@圃的土壇上種植玉蜀黍、菜豆、南瓜和煙草。 來(lái)自辭典例句 Bug Squash Tummy-Here the bug pats hellos stomach and It'squashes and stretches. 這個(gè)蟲子輕輕打它的肚子，注重肚子上邊有擠壓拉伸形變。 來(lái)自互聯(lián)網(wǎng)
20 bugs
adj.瘋狂的，發(fā)瘋的n.竊聽(tīng)器( bug的名詞復(fù)數(shù) )；病菌；蟲子；[計(jì)算機(jī)]（制作軟件程序所產(chǎn)生的意料不到的）錯(cuò)誤
參考例句：
All programs have bugs and need endless refinement. 所有的程序都有漏洞，都需要不斷改進(jìn)。 來(lái)自《簡(jiǎn)明英漢詞典》 The sacks of rice were swarming with bugs. 一袋袋的米里長(zhǎng)滿了蟲子。 來(lái)自《簡(jiǎn)明英漢詞典》
《Gaston》添加時(shí)間：2024-12-14；更新時(shí)間：2025-03-09
