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西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033855]
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33 长长的阴影
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我能做什么呢？她问自己。眼泪不断地从她眼里慢慢涌出，然后顺着脸颊缓缓落下，在下巴处聚成一大滴一大滴，再在不经意间落到她膝盖上。女儿的声音还在继续：
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“……不知道呀！太可怕了。我们从来就不是真正的朋友，只是因为她家离我们家近，我们经常一起走回家。为这件事争吵真愚蠢。我不是故意弄断了她的铅笔尖儿，但她说我是故意的。我们两个都说了一些可怕的话。最后，我对她说：‘我再也不想跟你一起走回家了。’‘谁稀罕你跟我一起走回家呀？’她说，‘另外，我哥哥又不是小偷。’我愤怒地大声对她喊道：‘你这个骗子！’她大笑起来，耸耸肩，只是说：‘去问随便谁吧！他们会告诉你。问随便谁！问你妈妈！’西尔维娅太恐怖了，我再也没法跟她说话了。我开始哭，并且跑得远远的。她在我背后大喊：‘监狱！监狱；他们把他关进了监狱！’
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“回到家，我冲上楼梯用水冲洗我哭红的眼睛。我不敢相信她说的是真的。妈妈，这多么可怕！别哭，宝贝。别哭！别！这就是我为什么吃不下饭的原因。食物在我嘴里，我想吃，但噎住了。我一直看着汤姆。我不想看他，但却一直看着他。这时我想起来了；我想起他离开的时候，您多么难过，以后也不愿谈起他。然后，家里的女佣弗洛丽也走了，之后您很久都没有女佣。
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“我那时只是个小姑娘，对吧，妈妈？后来汤姆又回家了，他很久都没有工作，对吧？当家里有客人来时，他就站起来回卧室了。
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“我不断回想起这些事情。即使这时，我仍然不敢相信西尔维娅说的是真的。这事太可怕了，所以我从桌旁站起来，冲出房间，这样您就看不见我在哭。当您跟着我上了楼，我想对您说，可说不出口。
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“我知道西尔维娅会到处宣扬这件事。所以今天下午我必须去学校处理这件事，拖延时间没什么好处，等到明天后果将非常可怕。现在一切都结束了。这就是为什么，当爸爸叫我别去学校时，我告诉他我绝不能因为旷课丢分。您理解我必须去学校，对吧，妈妈？这不公平，我什么也没做。为什么他们要瞧不起我？或者为我感到难过？我不需要他们的同情。哦，妈妈！妈妈！她站在学校大楼的门廊旁，我说的是西尔维娅。她盯着我，我匆忙从她身旁走过去，高昂着头。我没有跟她说话，但我希望她没有说出去。一直这么希望着。在大厅里，当我摘下帽子、脱下大衣时我念着主祷文‘我们在天上的父’，但心里一直想着这件事……我就知道……她会说出去。我走进教室，高昂着头，跟谁也不说话。但内心却感到冷飕飕、病怏怏的，尽管心里一直希望……西尔维娅坐在教室的另一边；但我观察着她。好长时间她都在写那篇作文，关于爱尔兰农民习俗的；我在写作文的间歇，就看一眼她在做什么。不久她写完了，我再次看她时，她捕捉到了我的眼神，并点点头。她的眼神很古怪。当我看到她在一张纸片上写东西时，我又感到心里冷飕飕的。她把这张纸片慢慢地卷成一团，然后递给了多拉·格林。多拉把纸团拿在课桌下面，打开了，低着头看了一眼，然后望着我。我的脸热得发烫，我转过头去。再观察她们已经没什么用了，我知道，过一会儿大家都会盯着我看。
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“我写呀写呀，不停地写，瞎写一通。我知道这篇作文我得不了什么分了。然后，我听见尼尔小姐（我们的老师）生气地问：‘多丽丝·洛尔，贝蒂·夏普刚才把什么递给了你？’多丽丝拿出一张小纸片，支支吾吾地说：‘是这张纸条，尼尔小姐。’她把纸条递给尼尔小姐。我看到尼尔小姐看了纸条后脸红了。她皱着眉头看着多丽丝，生气地问：‘这是谁写的？’多丽丝也不知道是谁写的，她踮起脚看看这个，又看看那个。尼尔小姐从一张课桌走到另一张课桌，挨个问每一个女孩：‘多丽丝手里的那张纸条，是你写的吗？’
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“突然，西尔维娅站了起来。马上就轮到她回答尼尔小姐的问题了。她说：‘是我写的，尼尔小姐。这是真的。’尼尔小姐说：‘我不想知道这种事情。你去找一下韦德小姐。告诉她是我让你去的，并说我一会儿就过去。’当西尔维娅慢慢站起身时，尼尔小姐走到我身边。我趴在桌上不停地哭。尼尔小姐说：‘到休息室来，亲爱的。’我站了起来。我眼里都是泪水，看什么都模模糊糊的。尼尔小姐搂着我的肩膀，领着我走。我从前不知道她如此正派……如此善良。她安慰了我一会儿，像您常做的那样，轻抚我的头发。但我还是止不住地又哭了一会儿。最后，她拍拍我的头，离开了。然后韦德小姐来了，她知道汤姆的事。她告诉我不必担心这件事。然后，她建议我回家，说今天下午剩下的时间我待在家里会好受一些。所以我回来了。
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“想想西尔维娅到处宣扬这事，妈妈。她怎么能这样？离开学校时我会很高兴，那时我会很高兴！我不知道汤米进过监狱！我不知道呀……”
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眼泪在妇人的脸上缓缓流淌。她不断地问自己：“我能做什么？我能做什么？”女儿的声音再次传来，进入她的意识：“不知道呀！我只是弄断了她的铅笔尖儿……”
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（余苏凌 译）
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西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033856]
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34 THE FIELD WHERE THE SATYRS DANCED
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By Lord Dunsany
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THE FIELD WHERE THE SATYRS DANCED, by Lord Dunsany, in The Atlantic Monthly , an American magazine, Vol. CXLI, pp. 830,831, June, 1928.
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Lord Dunsany, the 18th Baron Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett （1878-1957）, Irish dramatist and author of several collection of tales. His work is in fantastic vein; his characters god and men. His style is Biblical in its simplicity.
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There is a field above my house in which I sometimes walk in the evening. And whenever I go there in summer I always see the same thing, very small and far off, the tiniest fraction of the wide view that one has, and not appearing until one has looked for it a little carefully—a field surrounded by woods, a green space all among shadows, which suggested to me, the very first time I saw it, an odd idea. But the idea was so evanescent, and floated by so like a traveling butterfly, that by the time I went again a few days later to look at the view at evening I barely remembered it. But then the idea came again, coming as suddenly as a wind that got up soon after sunset, bringing the chill of night a little before its time. And the idea was that to that field at evening satyrs slipped out of the woods to dance on the grass.
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This time I did not forget the idea at all; on the contrary it rather haunted me, but down in the valley it grew to seem so unlikely that one put it away as one puts away lumber of old collections, scarcely counting it any more, though knowing that it was there.
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And then one evening, the nightingale’s song being over for many days, and hay ripening, it struck me that if I wanted to see the wild roses I must go soon or they would all be over, and I should have to wait another year to see what we can only see for a limited number of times; so I went up to the field again behind my house, on the hill. It is a perfectly ordinary field, even though at one end the hedge has run a bit wild and is one bank of wild roses. I do not know why one calls it an ordinary field, nor why one sometimes feels of another field that it lies deep under enchantment, yet ordinary it was; one felt sure of that as one walked in it.
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On my way to the wild roses at the far end of the field, with my back to the view of the valley, I almost felt as though something behind me and far away were beckoning. For a moment I felt it and the feeling passed, and I walked on toward the wild roses. Then it came again, and I turned round to look; and there was the view over the valley the same as it ever looked, rather featureless from the loss of the sunlight and not yet mysterious with night. I moved my eyes left-handed along the far ridge. And soon they fell on the field where the satyrs danced. Of this I was certain: they danced there. Nothing had changed in the view; the far field was the same as ever, a little mysterious around its edges and flat and green in the middle, high up on the top of a hill;but the certainty had grown and become immense. It was just too far to see if anything moved in the shadows, too far to see if anything came from the wood, but I was sure that this was a dancing ground for those that lurked in the dark of the distant trees, and that they were satyrs. And all things darkened towards the likely hour, till the field was too dim to see at that great distance, and I went home down the hill. And that night and all the next day the certainty remained with me, so that I decided that evening to go to the field and see.
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The field where the satyrs danced was some way from my house, so I started a little before sunset, and climbed the far hill in the cool. There I came by a little road scarce more than a lane that ran deep through a wood of Spanish chestnut and oak, to a great road of tar.
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Down this I walked for a bit, while the twentieth century streamed by me, with its machinery, its crowds, and its speed;flowing from urban sources. It was as though for a while I waded in a main current of time. But soon I saw a lane on the other side of it that ran in what should be the direction of my field; and I crossed the road of tar, and soon I was in a rural quiet again that time seemed scarcely to bother about. And so I came to the woods that I knew surrounded the field. Hazel and oak they were and masses of dogwood, on the right, and on the left they were thinning down to a hedge; and over the hedge I suddenly saw the field.
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Ahead of me, on the far side of the field, the wood was dense and old. On my right lay, as I have said, oak, hazel, and dogwood, and on the left, where the field dipped down to the valley, I saw the tops of old oaks. It was an idyllic scene amongst all that circle of woods. All the more so by contrast with the road of tar. But the moment I looked at the field I realized that there was nothing unearthly about it. There were a few buttercups growing in a very sparse crop of hay; dog daisies farther off and patches of dry brown earth showing through, and unmistakably over the whole field an ordinary air of every day. Whatever there is in enchantment is hard to define, or whatever magic is visible from the touch of fabulous things, but amongst these buttercups and dog daisies and poor crop of hay it certainly was not.