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"What was that?" People cried from one end of town to another. They stared at each other, puzzled, troubled. Were the gods fighting in heaven?
“那是什么？”從城的這頭到城的那頭，人們叫喊著，他們面面相覷，迷惑不解而又萬分恐慌。難道眾神在天上打架了？
"Look!" somebody shouted. "Look at Vesuvius!"
“快看！”有人喊道，“看維蘇威山！”
Thousands of eyes turned upward. Thousands of arms pointed. A black cloud was rising from the shattered summit of the mountain. Higher and higher it rose. Like the trunk of a tree, it rose in the air, branching out as it climbed.
成千雙眼睛向上看去，成千只胳膊向上指著。一股黑色的煙云從炸開的山頂升起，越升越高。黑云不斷上升，而且就像樹干上的樹枝一樣，分成幾股向四周擴散。
Minutes passed. The sound of the explosion died away, but it still reverberated in everyone's ears. The cloud over Vesuvius continued to rise, black as night, higher and higher. A strange rain began to fall on Pompeii—a rain of stones. The stones were light. They were pumice stones, consisting mostly of air bubbles. These poured down as though there had been a sudden cloudburst. The pumice stones did little damage.
幾分鐘過去了，爆炸聲漸漸消失，但這聲音仍在每個人的耳中回響。維蘇威山上空的煙云繼續越升越高，黑得跟深夜一樣。此時龐貝上空開始下起一場特別的雨——石雨。這是浮石，主要由氣泡構成。石頭很輕，但卻像是一場傾盆大雨。浮石幾乎沒有造成什么破壞。
"What is happening?" Pompeiians asked one another. They rushed to the temples—the Temple of Jupiter, the Temple of Apollo, the Temple of Isis. Priests tried to calm the citizens. The sky was dark. An hour went by and darkness still shrouded everything. All was confusion. The people of Pompeii now knew that doom was at hand. Their fears were redoubled when a tremendous rain of hot ash began to fall. The wooden roofs of some of the houses began to catch fire as the heat of the ash reached them. Other buildings were collapsing under the weight of the pumice stones.
“出了什么事？”龐貝人你問我，我問你。他們跑到廟里——朱庇特主神廟、阿波羅太陽神 廟、伊西斯生育女神廟。祭司們盡力讓市民冷靜下來。天空漆黑一片，一個小時過去了，黑暗仍然籠罩著一切。到處都是亂哄哄的。此刻龐貝人知道他們的末日就要到了。當滾燙的火山灰像密集的雨點一樣開始降落時，他們的恐懼開始加劇。落到木質屋頂上的火山灰的巨大熱量使得有些房子著了火，還有些建筑物在大量浮石的重壓下紛紛倒塌。
