Part 2 Gulliver in Brobdingnag
第二部分 格列佛在大人国

Chapter 1 I Come to Brobdingnag

I was rich after my journey to Lilliput, and I bought a house in England. “I'll live here quietly and be happy, ” I thought. But I could not stay there. I went to sea again.

We travelled to the Indies.We bought and sold things there.Near the Molucca Islands, a great wind caught us. Day after day it carried our ship to the east. We had food on the ship, but after weeks in that angry wind, we had no clean water.

Then the wind died and one of the seamen shouted.In front of us we saw a strange country.

Men left the ship in one of the boats, and I went with them. We looked for water, but we could not find a river. We walked for a long time. I went south, but there was no water. So I went back to the boat.

But the boat was not there.

It was on the sea, a long way away, and the other men were in it. The boat moved very fast through the water. I opened my mouth because I wanted to shout to them. Then I stopped when I saw a very big man near their boat. The sea was only half-way up his legs!

I turned and ran away to the mountains. I was afraid for my life.

After a time, I found a very wide road through some trees. I walked on it and looked round me.

“These aren't trees, ”I thought.“It's corn, about twelve metres high, I think. And this isn't a road. It's a way through the corn.”

I heard a loud noise and I was afraid again. Suddenly I saw seven big men next to me.

“They're cutting the corn! ” I cried. “They'll cut me too and I'll die here,away from my dear wife and children! ”

A man heard me and looked round. Then this big man saw me in the corn. He walked to me and I began to shout loudly: “His foot is going to kill me! ”

The man stopped. For a minute he looked down at me carefully. (We look at a small animal in the same way, and think: “Will it hurt me? ”) Then he took me up in his fingers and put me about three metres from his eyes. I was about twenty metres from the ground, so I was afraid.

“Perhaps he'll throw me down onto the ground and put his foot on me, ” I thought. “In our country, we sometimes do that to animals.”

I put my hands up. I wanted to say, “Please don't kill me! ” and “Your fingers are hurting me! ”

He understood.The man turned up the bottom of his coat and put me in there. Then he carried me to the farmer and put me back on the ground.

I spoke to the farmer. He put me next to his ear — about two metres away — but he could not understand me. He answered me, and the noise was as loud as a lot of big guns. I could not understand his words.

The farmer carried me carefully to his house. It was time for the midday meal. His wife cried loudly when she saw me. Women in England do this when they see a rat.Then she began to like me.

She cut up some bread and meat for me. I smiled —“Thank you”— and took out my knife. Then I began to eat quickly. The people round the table — the farmer and his wife, three children, and the farmer's old mother — watched happily.

A cat jumped onto the table and looked down at me.

“I won't be afraid, ” I thought. “Then this cat won't hurt me.”

I walked past the cat three or four times, and in the end she was afraid of me!

But then a worse thing happened to me. The farmer and his wife had a baby, and they showed me to this child.

He pulled my body and put my head into his open mouth. Then he threw me down on the floor.

I was now very tired. The farmer's wife took me to her room and put me on her bed. I slept for about two hours — in my clothes, and with my sword.

When I woke up, I looked round me. The room was very big —about 100 metres wide and 60 metres high — and the bed was nearly 20 metres wide and about 8 metres from the floor.

Suddenly I sat up, afraid. Two rats were on the bed. They wanted some meat — me! One rat came near me, and I pulled out my sword. The two animals were not afraid. One rat tried to eat my arm, and I cut its stomach with my sword.It died.I could not kill the other rat, but I cut its back.

The farmer's daughter helped me. She was about nine years old and about twelve metres high. But in other ways she was not different from an English girl of the same age. She played with a small house in her bedroom and I slept in the little house away from the rats and other animals.

The farmer's daughter was also my teacher. I showed her things and she told me the words for them. So in one or two days I could ask for everything. She called me Grildrig. Then her family used that name, and later everybody in their country — Brobdingnag — called me Grildrig. It means a very small man.

The girl looked after me every minute of every day and night. I called her my glumdalclitch, my little helper. But in the end I made her very unhappy.

People in the villages near the farmer heard about me and discussed me.

“This animal, ” they said, “is only as big as a splacknuck! (This was an animal in their country under two metres long. ) But in other ways it is not different from a very small man.”

“It speaks its language, and it is learning our words. It walks on two legs, but its legs are very small and weak. It wears clothes, and it has a very small sword.”

The head man of the village came to the farmer's house because he wanted to see me. I stood on the table and spoke to him. Then the visitor talked to the farmer about me for a long time. Glumdalclitch listened, but she was more and more unhappy. Later, she cried and told me: “They have a plan. They want to show you to the people of our town when they sell the corn there. Some people will put you in their hands. Perhaps they will hurt you when they do this.My father will make money,but I will try to stop him.”

But she could not stop her father. One day he took me to the nearest town. His workmen made a box for me, with a little door in it. He carried me in this on his horse, and his daughter sat behind him. I had a very bad journey. The horse moved up and down as quickly as a ship in an angry wind.

The town was only forty kilometres away, about half an hour's journey.But I was tired when I arrived.Then the farmer found a room and showed me on a table to about thirty people every time.

Glumdalclitch stood on a chair next to the table and helped me. She asked me questions. I knew the answers now.

“What is your name? ” she asked in the language of Brobdingnag.

“My name, ” I said in the same language, “is Lemuel Gulliver.” I had to shout.

“Where do you come from? ”

“I come from England.”

“Why are you very small? ”

“I am not small. I am as big as the other men in England. You and your people are very, very big.”

The people laughed then. The loud noise hurt my ears and made me ill. Then I had to walk on the table and drink. I pulled out my sword and showed them an English swordfight.

And I had to do a lot of other things.

The farmer showed me twelve times that day. After that, and after a very bad journey back to the farmer's house, I was very tired and ill. I did not get better. The farmer wanted more and more money. He began to show me every day at his farm, and people came from a long way away.

Glumdalclitch cried because I was very weak.

“What can I do? ” she said.