两条面包

两条面包

[1]Miss Martha Meacham kept the little bakery on the corner (the one where you go up three steps, and the bell tinkles when you open the door).

[2] Miss Martha was forty,传奇私服, her bankbook showed a credit of two thousand dollars,传奇私服, and she possessed two false teeth and a sympathetic heart. Many people have married whose chances to do so were much inferior to Miss Martha's.

[3] Two or three times a week she received a customer in whom she began to take an interest. He was a middle-aged man wearing spectacles and a brown beard trimmed to a careful point. He spoke English with a strong German accent. His clothes were worn and darned in places, and wrinkled and baggy in others,基督山伯爵（The Count of Monte Cristo）第五章　婚宴, but he looked neat and had very good manners. He always bought two loaves of stale bread--fresh bread was five cents a loaf and stale ones were two for five. Never did he call for anything but stale bread.

[4] On one occasion,传奇私服, Miss Martha noticed a red and brown stain on his fingers and decided that he was a struggling artist. No doubt he lived in a garret,我和春天有个约定,传奇私服, where he painted pictures and ate stale bread and thought of the good things to eat in Miss Martha's bakery. Her sympathetic heart beat faster at the picture. In order to test her theory as to his occupation,传奇私服, Miss Martha brought from her room one day a painting that she had purchased at a sale and set it conspicuously against the shelves behind the bread counter. It was a Venetian scene, with a perfectly splendid marble palazzo and a lady in a gondola trailing her hand in the water. No artist could fail to notice it.

[5] Two days afterward the customer came in again, and he did notice the picture. "You haf here a fine bicture, madame."

[6]"Yes?" said Miss Martha,传奇私服, reveling in her own cunning white wrapping the stale loaves. "I do so admire art and paintings.., you think it is a good picture?"

[7] "Der balance,传奇私服," said the customer,传奇私服, "is not in good drawing. Der bairspective of it is not true. Goot morning, madame."

[8] He took the stale bread,装满吻的空盒子, bowed politely, and hurried out; Miss Martha carried the picture back to her room. How gentle and kindly his eyes shone behind his spectacles,传奇私服! To be able to judge perspective at a glance-- and to live on stale bread! But Miss Martha realized that,传奇私服, unfortunate though it is, genius often has to struggle before it is recognized.