Tag: canterville ghost

Esercizio di ascolto e lettura

[intermediate/advanced]

1. Ascolta, anche più volte, senza leggere il testo;
2. Ascolta, leggendo il testo, per chiarire eventuali dubbi;
3. Rispondi alle domande “true or false” sul testo;
4. Controlla con le soluzioni in fondo alla pagina.

The Canterville Ghost
by Oscar Wilde

Per sapere il significato delle parole evidenziate, passaci sopra con il mouse senza cliccare.

Chapter 7

Four days after these curious incidents a funeral started from Canterville Chase at about eleven o’clock at night. The hearse was drawn by eight black horses, each of which carried on its head a great tuft of nodding ostrich-plumes, and the leaden coffin was covered by a rich purple pall, on which was embroidered in gold the Canterville coat-of-arms. By the side of the hearse and the coaches walked the servants with lighted torches, and the whole procession was wonderfully impressive.

Lord Canterville was the chief mourner, having come up specially from Wales to attend the funeral, and sat in the first carriage along with little Virginia. Then came the United States Minister and his wife, then Washington and the three boys, and in the last carriage was Mrs. Umney. It was generally felt that, as she had been frightened by the ghost for more than fifty years of her life, she had a right to see the last of him. A deep grave had been dug in the corner of the churchyard, just under the old yew-tree, and the service was read in the most impressive manner by the Rev. Augustus Dampier. When the ceremony was over, the servants, according to an old custom observed in the Canterville family, extinguished their torches, and, as the coffin was being lowered into the grave, Virginia stepped forward, and laid on it a large cross made of white and pink almond-blossoms. As she did so, the moon came out from behind a cloud, and flooded with its silent silver the little church-yard, and from a distant copse a nightingale began to sing.

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Esercizio di ascolto e lettura

[intermediate]

1. Ascolta, anche più volte, senza leggere il testo;
2. Ascolta, leggendo il testo, per chiarire eventuali dubbi;
3. Rispondi alle domande “true or false” sul testo;
4. Controlla con le soluzioni in fondo alla pagina.

The Canterville Ghost
by Oscar Wilde

Per sapere il significato delle parole evidenziate, passaci sopra con il mouse senza cliccare.

Chapter 6

About ten minutes later, the bell rang for tea, and, as Virginia did not come down, Mrs. Otis sent up one of the footmen to tell her. After a little time he returned and said that he could not find Miss Virginia anywhere. As she was in the habit of going out to the garden every evening to get flowers for the dinner-table, Mrs. Otis was not at all alarmed at first, but when six o’clock struck, and Virginia did not appear, she became really agitated, and sent the boys out to look for her, while she herself and Mr. Otis searched every room in the house. At half-past six the boys came back and said that they could find no trace of their sister anywhere. They were all now in the greatest state of excitement, and did not know what to do, when Mr. Otis suddenly remembered that, some few days before, he had given a band of gypsies permission to camp in the park. He accordingly at once set off for Blackfell Hollow, where he knew they were, accompanied by his eldest son and two of the farm-servants. The little Duke of Cheshire, who was perfectly frantic with anxiety, begged hard to be allowed to go too, but Mr. Otis would not allow him, as he was afraid there might be a scuffle. On arriving at the spot, however, he found that the gypsies had gone, and it was evident that their departure had been rather sudden, as the fire was still burning, and some plates were lying on the grass. Having sent off Washington and the two men to scour the district, he ran home, and despatched telegrams to all the police inspectors in the country, telling them to look out for a little girl who had been kidnapped by tramps or gypsies. He then ordered his horse to be brought round, and, after insisting on his wife and the three boys sitting down to dinner, rode off down the Ascot road with a groom. He had hardly, however, gone a couple of miles, when he heard somebody galloping after him, and, looking round, saw the little Duke coming up on his pony, with his face very flushed and no hat. “I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Otis,” gasped out the boy, “but I can’t eat any dinner as long as Virginia is lost. Please, don’t be angry with me; if you had let us be engaged last year, there would never have been all this trouble. You won’t send me back, will you? I can’t go! I won’t go!”

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Esercizio di ascolto e lettura

[intermediate]

1. Ascolta, anche più volte, senza leggere il testo;
2. Ascolta, leggendo il testo, per chiarire eventuali dubbi;
3. Rispondi alle domande “true or false” sul testo;
4. Controlla con le soluzioni in fondo alla pagina.

The Canterville Ghost
by Oscar Wilde

Per sapere il significato delle parole evidenziate, passaci sopra con il mouse senza cliccare.

Chapter 5

A few days after this, Virginia and her curly-haired cavalier went out riding on Brockley meadows, where she tore her habit so badly in getting through a hedge, that, on their return home, she made up her mind to go up by the back staircase so as not to be seen. As she was running past the Tapestry Chamber, the door of which happened to be open, she fancied she saw some one inside, and thinking it was her mother’s maid, who sometimes used to bring her work there, looked in to ask her to mend her habit. To her immense surprise, however, it was the Canterville Ghost himself! He was sitting by the window, watching the ruined gold of the yellowing trees fly through the air, and the red leaves dancing madly down the long avenue. His head was leaning on his hand, and his whole attitude was one of extreme depression. Indeed, so forlorn, and so much out of repair did he look, that little Virginia, whose first idea had been to run away and lock herself in her room, was filled with pity, and determined to try and comfort him. So light was her footfall, and so deep his melancholy, that he was not aware of her presence till she spoke to him.

“I am so sorry for you,” she said, “but my brothers are going back to Eton tomorrow, and then, if you behave yourself, no one will annoy you.”

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Esercizio di ascolto e lettura

[intermediate]

1. Ascolta, anche più volte, senza leggere il testo;
2. Ascolta, leggendo il testo, per chiarire eventuali dubbi;
3. Rispondi alle domande “true or false” sul testo;
4. Controlla con le soluzioni in fondo alla pagina.

The Canterville Ghost
by Oscar Wilde

Per sapere il significato delle parole evidenziate, passaci sopra con il mouse senza cliccare.

Chapter 4

The next day the ghost was very weak and tired. The terrible excitement of the last four weeks was beginning to have its effect. His nerves were completely shattered, and he started at the slightest noise. For five days he kept his room, and at last made up his mind to give up the point of the blood-stain on the library floor. If the Otis family did not want it, they clearly did not deserve it. They were evidently people on a low, material plane of existence, and quite incapable of appreciating the symbolic value of sensuous phenomena. The question of phantasmic apparitions, and the development of astral bodies, was of course quite a different matter, and really not under his control. It was his solemn duty to appear in the corridor once a week, and to gibber from the large oriel window on the first and third Wednesdays in every month, and he did not see how he could honourably escape from his obligations. It is quite true that his life had been very evil, but, upon the other hand, he was most conscientious in all things connected with the supernatural. For the next three Saturdays, accordingly, he traversed the corridor as usual between midnight and three o’clock, taking every possible precaution against being either heard or seen. He removed his boots, trod as lightly as possible on the old worm-eaten boards, wore a large black velvet cloak, and was careful to use the Rising Sun Lubricator for oiling his chains. I am bound to acknowledge that it was with a good deal of difficulty that he brought himself to adopt this last mode of protection. However, one night, while the family were at dinner, he slipped into Mr. Otis’s bedroom and carried off the bottle. He felt a little humiliated at first, but afterwards was sensible enough to see that there was a great deal to be said for the invention, and, to a certain degree, it served his purpose. Still, in spite of everything, he was not left unmolested. Strings were continually being stretched across the corridor, over which he tripped in the dark, and on one occasion, while dressed for the part of ‘Black Isaac, or the Huntsman of Hogley Woods,’ he met with a severe fall, through treading on a butter-slide, which the twins had constructed from the entrance of the Tapestry Chamber to the top of the oak staircase.

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Esercizio di ascolto e lettura

[intermediate]

1. Ascolta, anche più volte, senza leggere il testo;
2. Ascolta, leggendo il testo, per chiarire eventuali dubbi;
3. Rispondi alle domande “true or false” sul testo;
4. Controlla con le soluzioni in fondo alla pagina.

The Canterville Ghost
by Oscar Wilde

Per sapere il significato delle parole evidenziate, passaci sopra con il mouse senza cliccare.

Chapter 3

The next morning, when the Otis family met at breakfast, they discussed the ghost at some length. The United States Minister was naturally a little annoyed to find that his present had not been accepted. “I have no wish,” he said, “to do the ghost any personal injury, and I must say that, considering the length of time he has been in the house, I don’t think it is at all polite to throw pillows at him” — a very just remark, at which, I am sorry to say, the twins burst into shouts of laughter. “Upon the other hand,” he continued, “if he really declines to use the Rising Sun Lubricator, we shall have to take his chains from him. It would be quite impossible to sleep, with such a noise going on outside the bedrooms.”

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Esercizio di ascolto e lettura

[intermediate]

1. Ascolta, anche più volte, senza leggere il testo;
2. Ascolta, leggendo il testo, per chiarire eventuali dubbi;
3. Rispondi alle domande “true or false” sul testo;
4. Controlla con le soluzioni in fondo alla pagina.

The Canterville Ghost
by Oscar Wilde

Per sapere il significato delle parole evidenziate, passaci sopra con il mouse senza cliccare.

Chapter 2

The storm raged fiercely all that night, but nothing of particular note occurred. The next morning, however, when they came down to breakfast, they found the terrible stain of blood once again on the floor. “I don’t think it can be the fault of the Paragon Detergent,” said Washington, “for I have tried it with everything. It must be the ghost.” He accordingly rubbed out the stain a second time, but the second morning it appeared again. The third morning also it was there, though the library had been locked up at night by Mr. Otis himself, and the key carried upstairs. The whole family were now quite interested; Mr. Otis began to suspect that he had been too dogmatic in his denial of the existence of ghosts, Mrs. Otis expressed her intention of joining the Psychical Society, and Washington prepared a long letter to Messrs. Myers and Podmore on the subject of the Permanence of Sanguineous Stains when connected with Crime. That night all doubts about the objective existence of phantasmata were removed for ever.

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Esercizio di ascolto e lettura

[intermediate]

1. Ascolta, anche più volte, senza leggere il testo;
2. Ascolta, leggendo il testo, per chiarire eventuali dubbi;
3. Rispondi alle domande “true or false” sul testo;
4. Controlla con le soluzioni in fondo alla pagina.

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