书城教材教辅新课标英语学习资源库-带家具出租的房子
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第3章 The Furnished Room(3)

Then, suddenly, as he rested there, the room was filled with the strong, sweet odour of mignonettemignonette n.[植]木樨草, 灰绿色, 有花样的手编花边. It came as upon a single buffet of wind with such sureness and fragrance and emphasis that it almost seemed a living visitant. And the man cried aloud: “What, dear?” As if he had been called, and sprang up and faced about. The rich odour clung to him and wrapped him around. He reached out his arms for it, all his senses for the time confused and commingled. How could one be peremptorily called by an odourodour n.<主英>气味, 香味,臭味,意味,名声? Surely it must have been a sound. But, was it not the sound that had touched, that had caressed him?

他就这样歇在那儿,突然,房间里充满木樨草浓烈的芬芳。它乘风而至,鲜明无误,香馥沁人,栩栩如生,活脱脱几乎如来访的嘉宾。年轻人忍不住大叫:“什么?亲爱的?”好像有人在喊他似的。他然后一跃而起,四下张望。浓香扑鼻而来,把他包裹其中。他伸出手臂拥抱香气。刹那间,他的全部感觉都给搅混在一起。人怎么可能被香味断然唤起呢?唤起他的肯定是声音。难道这就是曾抚摸、安慰过他的声音?

“She has been in this room.” he cried, and he sprang to wrest from it a token, for he knew he would recognize the smallest thing that had belonged to her or that she had touched. This enveloping scent of mignonette, the odour that she had loved and made her own—whence came it?

“她在这个房间住过。”他大声说,扭身寻找起来,硬想搜出什么证迹,因为他确信能辨认出属于她的或是她触摸过的任何微小的东西。这沁人肺腑的木樨花香,她所喜爱、惟她独有的芬芳,究竟是从哪儿来的?

The room had been but carelessly set in order. Scattered upon the flimsy dresser scarf were half a dozen hairpinshairpin n.发夹, 束发夹, 夹发针—those discreet, indistinguishable friends of womankind, feminine of gender, infinite of mood and uncommunicative of tense. These he ignored, conscious of their triumphant lack of identity. Ransacking the drawers of the dresser he came upon a discarded, tiny, ragged handkerchief. He pressed it to his face. It was racy and insolent with heliotropeheliotrope n.[植] 向日葵, 天芥菜属植物, 该植物的花香, 淡紫色; he hurled it to the floor. In another drawer he found odd buttons, a theatre programme, a pawnbrokers card, two lost marshmallows, a book on the divinationdivination n.预言 of dreams. In the last was a womans black satin hair bow, which halted him, poised between ice and fire. But the black satin hairbow also is femininitys demuredemure adj.端庄的, impersonal, common ornament, and tells no tales.

房间只马马虎虎收拾过。薄薄的梳妆台桌布上有稀稀拉拉五六个发夹——都是些女性朋友用的那类东西,悄声无息,具有女性特征,但不标明任何心境或时间。他没去仔细琢磨,因为这些东西显然缺乏个性。他把梳妆台抽屉搜了个底朝天,发现一条丢弃的破旧小手绢。他把它蒙在脸上,天芥菜花的怪味刺鼻而来。他顺手把手绢甩在地上。在另一个抽屉,他发现几颗零星纽扣,一张剧目表,一张当铺老板的名片,两颗吃剩的果汁软糖,一本梦释书。最后一个抽屉里有一个女人用的黑缎蝴蝶发结。他猛然一愣,悬在冰与火之间,处于兴奋与失望之间。但是黑缎蝴蝶发结也只是女性庄重端雅但不具个性特征的普通装饰,不能提供任何线索。

And then he traversed the room like a hound on the scent, skimming the walls, considering the corners of the bulging matting on his hands and knees, rummaging mantel and tables, the curtains and hangings, the drunken cabinet in the corner, for a visible sign, unable to perceive that she was there beside, around, against, within, above him, clinging to him, wooing him, calling him so poignantly through the finer senses that even his grosser ones became cognisant of the call. Once again he answered loudly: “Yes, dear!” And turned, wildeyed, to gaze on vacancy, for he could not yet discerndiscern v.目睹, 认识, 洞悉, 辨别, 看清楚 form and colour and love and outstretched arms in the odour of mignonette. Oh, God! whence that odour, and since when have odours had a voice to call? Thus he groped.

随后他在房间里四处搜寻,像一条猎狗东嗅西闻,扫视四壁,趴在地上仔细查看拱起的地毡角落,翻遍壁炉炉额和桌子、窗帘和门帘、角落里摇摇欲坠的酒柜,试图找到一个可见的、但他还未发现的迹象,以证明她就在房间里面,就在他旁边、周围、对面、心中、上面,紧紧地牵着他、追求他,并通过精微超常的感觉向他发出如此哀婉的呼唤,以至于连他愚钝的感觉都能领悟出这呼唤之声。他再次大声回答“我在这儿,亲爱的!”然后转过身子,目瞪口呆,一片漠然,因为他在木樨花香中还察觉不出形式、色彩、爱情和张开的双臂。唔,上帝啊,那芳香是从哪儿来的?从什么时候起香味开始具有呼唤之力?就这样他不停地四下摸索。

He burrowedburrow n.洞穴 v.挖地洞 in crevices and corners, and found corks and cigarettes. These he passed in passive contempt. But once he found in a fold of the matting a halfsmoked cigar, and this he ground beneath his heel with a green and trenchant oath. He sifted the room from end to end. He found dreary and ignobleignoble adj.不光彩的 small records of many a peripateticperipatetic adj.逍遥学派的, 走来走去的 n.走来走去的人,逍遥学派的人 tenant; but of her whom he sought, and who may have lodged there, and whose spirit seemed to hover there, he found no trace.