No nursery could possibly have been conducted (管理) more correctly, and Mr. Darling knew it, yet he sometimes wondered uneasily whether the neighbours talked.
He had his position in the city to consider.
Nana also troubled him in another way. He had sometimes a feeling that she did not admire him.
"I know she admires you tremendously (非常地), George," Mrs. Darling would assure (担保) him, and then she would sign to the children to be specially nice to father.
Lovely dances followed, in which the only other servant, Liza, was sometimes allowed to join.
Such a midget (矮人) she looked in her long skirt and maid's cap, though she had sworn (发誓), when engaged, that she would never see ten again.
The gaiety (快乐) of those romps (顽皮的女孩)!
And gayest of all was Mrs. Darling, who would pirouette (用脚尖旋转) so wildly that all you could see of her was the kiss, and then if you had dashed (猛冲) at her you might have got it.
There never was a simpler happier family until the coming of Peter Pan.
Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds.
It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage (翻找) in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking (重新装入) into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day.
If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her.
It is quite like tidying up drawers.
You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten (小猫), and hurriedly stowing that out of sight.{1}
When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on. {2}
I don't know whether you have ever seen a map of a person's mind.
Doctors sometimes draw maps of other parts of you, and your own map can become intensely interesting, but catch them trying to draw a map of a child's mind, which is not only confused, but keeps going round all the time.
There are zigzag (曲折的) lines on it, just like your temperature (体温) on a card,
and these are probably roads in the island, for the Neverland is always more or less an island,
with astonishing splashes (散点) of colour here and there, and coral reefs and rakish-looking craft in the offing,
and savages and lonely lairs (巢穴), and gnomes (小矮人) who are mostly tailors (裁缝),
and caves through which a river runs, and princes with six elder brothers,
and a hut fast going to decay, and one very small old lady with a hooked (钩状的) nose.{3}
It would be an easy map if that were all, but there is also first day at school, religion, fathers, the round pond (池塘), needle-work, murders (谋杀), hangings (绞刑), verbs that take the dative, chocolate pudding day, getting into braces, say ninety-nine, three-pence for pulling out your tooth yourself, and so on, and either these are part of the island or they are another map showing through, and it is all rather confusing, especially as nothing will stand still.{4}
Of course the Neverlands vary a good deal. John's, for instance, had a lagoon (环礁湖) with flamingoes (火烈鸟) flying over it at which John was shooting, while Michael, who was very small, had a flamingo with lagoons flying over it.
John lived in a boat turned upside down on the sands, Michael in a wigwam (棚屋), Wendy in a house of leaves deftly sewn (缝上) together.
John had no friends, Michael had friends at night, Wendy had a pet wolf forsaken (被抛弃的) by its parents, but on the whole the Neverlands have a family resemblance (相像), and if they stood still in a row you could say of them that they have each other's nose, and so forth.
On these magic shores children at play are for ever beaching (将…拖上岸) their coracles (simple boat).
We too have been there; we can still hear the sound of the surf (海浪), though we shall land no more.
Of all delectable (令人愉快的) islands the Neverland is the snuggest and most compact, not large and sprawly, you know, with tedious (单调乏味的) distances between one adventure and another, but nicely crammed.{5}
When you play at it by day with the chairs and table-cloth, it is not in the least alarming, but in the two minutes before you go to sleep it becomes very real.
That is why there are night-lights.
Occasionally in her travels through her children's minds Mrs. Darling found things she could not understand, and of these quite the most perplexing was the word Peter.
She knew of no Peter, and yet he was here and there in John and Michael's minds, while Wendy's began to be scrawled (涂鸦) all over with him.
The name stood out in bolder letters than any of the other words, and as Mrs. Darling gazed she felt that it had an oddly cocky (骄傲的) appearance.
"Yes, he is rather cocky," Wendy admitted with regret. Her mother had been questioning her.
"But who is he, my pet?"
"He is Peter Pan, you know, mother."
At first Mrs. Darling did not know, but after thinking back into her childhood she just remembered a Peter Pan who was said to live with the fairies (小仙女).
There were odd stories about him, as that when children died he went part of the way with them, so that they should not be frightened.
She had believed in him at the time, but now that she was married and full of sense she quite doubted whether there was any such person.
"Besides," she said to Wendy, "he would be grown up by this time."
"Oh no, he isn't grown up," Wendy assured her confidently, "and he is just my size."
She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she didn't know how she knew, she just knew it.
Mrs. Darling consulted (找…商议) Mr. Darling, but he smiled pooh-pooh.
"Mark my words," he said, "it is some nonsense Nana has been putting into their heads; just the sort of idea a dog would have. Leave it alone, and it will blow over."
But it would not blow over and soon the troublesome (麻烦的) boy gave Mrs.Darling quite a shock.
