Children have the strangest adventures without being troubled by them.
For instance, they may remember to mention, a week after the event happened, that when they were in the wood they had met their dead father and had a game with him.
It was in this casual (漫不经心的) way that Wendy one morning made a disquieting (令人不安的) revelation.
Some leaves of a tree had been found on the nursery floor, which certainly were not there when the children went to bed, and Mrs. Darling was puzzling over them when Wendy said with a tolerant (容忍的) smile:{1}
"I do believe it is that Peter again!"
"Whatever do you mean, Wendy?"
"It is so naughty of him not to wipe his feet," Wendy said, sighing. She was a tidy child.
She explained in quite a matter-of-fact way that she thought Peter sometimes came to the nursery in the night and sat on the foot of her bed and played on his pipes (管乐器) to her.{2}
Unfortunately she never woke, so she didn't know how she knew, she just knew.
"What nonsense (荒谬的) you talk, precious (宝贝). No one can get into the house without knocking."
"I think he comes in by the window," she said.
"My love, it is three floors up."
"Were not the leaves at the foot of the window, mother?"
It was quite true; the leaves had been found very near the window.
Mrs. Darling did not know what to think, for it all seemed so natural to Wendy that you could not dismiss (把…打发走) it by saying she had been dreaming.
"My child," the mother cried, "why did you not tell me of this before?"
"I forgot," said Wendy lightly. She was in a hurry to get her breakfast.
Oh, surely she must have been dreaming.
But, on the other hand, there were the leaves.
Mrs. Darling examined them very carefully; they were skeleton (骨瘦如柴的) leaves, but she was sure they did not come from any tree that grew in England.
She crawled (爬行) about the floor, peering at it with a candle for marks of a strange foot.
She rattled the poker up the chimney (烟囱) and tapped the walls.
She let down a tape from the window to the pavement, and it was a sheer drop of thirty feet, without so much as a spout (喷口) to climb up by.{3}
Certainly Wendy had been dreaming.
But Wendy had not been dreaming, as the very next night showed, the night on which the extraordinary adventures of these children may be said to have begun.
On the night we speak of all the children were once more in bed.
It happened to be Nana's evening off, and Mrs. Darling had bathed them and sung to them till one by one they had let go her hand and slid away into the land of sleep.{4}
All were looking so safe and cosy that she smiled at her fears now and sat down tranquilly (平静地) by the fire to sew.
It was something for Michael, who on his birthday was getting into shirts.
The fire was warm, however, and the nursery dimly lit by three night-lights, and presently the sewing lay on Mrs. Darling's lap.
Then her head nodded, oh, so gracefully. She was asleep.
Look at the four of them, Wendy and Michael over there, John here, and Mrs. Darling by the fire.
There should have been a fourth night-light. While she slept she had a dream.
She dreamt that the Neverland had come too near and that a strange boy had broken through from it.
He did not alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the faces of many women who have no children.
Perhaps he is to be found in the faces of some mothers also.
But in her dream he had rent the film that obscures (掩盖) the Neverland, and she saw Wendy and John and Michael peeping through the gap.
The dream by itself would have been a trifle (小事), but while she was dreaming the window of the nursery blew open, and a boy did drop (落下) on the floor.
He was accompanied by a strange light, no bigger than your fist, which darted about the room like a living thing and I think it must have been this light that wakened Mrs. Darling.{5}
She started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew at once that he was Peter Pan.
If you or I or Wendy had been there we should have seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling's kiss.
He was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze (渗出) out of trees but the most entrancing (使人入神的) thing about him was that he had all his first teeth.
When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed (咬) the little pearls at her.
Mrs. Darling screamed, and, as if in answer to a bell, the door opened, and Nana entered, returned from her evening out.
She growled (咆哮) and sprang at the boy, who leapt lightly through the window.
Again Mrs. Darling screamed, this time in distress for him, for she thought he was killed, and she ran down into the street to look for his little body, but it was not there;
and she looked up, and in the black night she could see nothing but what she thought was a shooting star.
She returned to the nursery, and found Nana with something in her mouth, which proved to be the boy's shadow.
As he leapt at the window Nana had closed it quickly, too late to catch him, but his shadow had not had time to get out; slam went the window and snapped it off.
You may be sure Mrs. Darling examined the shadow carefully, but it was quite the ordinary kind.
Nana had no doubt of what was the best thing to do with this shadow.
She hung it out at the window, meaning "He is sure to come back for it;
let us put it where he can get it easily without disturbing (打扰) the children."
But unfortunately Mrs. Darling could not leave it hanging out at the window, it looked so like the washing and lowered the whole tone of the house.
She thought of showing it to Mr. Darling, but he was totting up winter great-coats for John and Michael, with a wet towel around his head to keep his brain clear, and it seemed a shame to trouble him;
besides, she knew exactly what he would say: "It all comes of having a dog for a nurse."
She decided to roll the shadow up and put it away carefully in a drawer, until a fitting opportunity (机会) came for telling her husband. Ah me!
