P21
1.
It was the least I could do, but it was the most also:
I was so overwhelmed by emotion that I could only
say that much.
P23
1. sophistication: various experience of the year
2. enchantment: charm, delight, fascination, miracle
3.
I have tried often to search…in those gifts: Throughout
the past years of experience in life, I have often
tried to recall the miracle (or magic power) I got
so easily in those gifts in my early years.
4. aura: the effect and feeling that come from a person
or a place; atmosphere, mood, feeling, feel, character,
quality, air
5. wormwood: disturbing and annoying matters, gall
and wormwood; a kind of perennial herb used in making
Vermouth
6. mead: sweet wine
7. Beowulf: the name of the hero in an ancient poem
bearing the same name in Anglo-Saxon time
8.
…to exchange the Southern bitter wormwood for a cup
of mead with Beowulf…: Wormwood is a kind of perennial
herb with a bitter taste used in making Vermouth.
Here it indicates her bitter experience in her childhood.
Mead is an alcoholic liquor of fermented honey and
water. It means the change of her life from bitterness
to happiness.
9. To be allowed…with Olive Twist: To be invited…became
a good chance for me to read the works of Beowulf
and Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens and to forget
my bitter experience in the South (to have been raped
by her mother’s boyfriend and the death of the rapist)
10.
“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have
ever done…”: The author borrowed some of the words
said by Sydney Carton, a character in A Tale of Two
Cities, who went to the guillotine instead of Evremonde.
What Sydney Carton said is (see the last few lines
of the novel), “It is a far, far better thing that
I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better
rest that I go than I have ever known.”
11. at my selflessness: filled with gratitude for
Mrs. Flowers
