評論
打印
'Not if it should happen to have been a tame bull, you little Infidel?' said Mrs Pipchin.
“如果碰巧這是一頭溫順的牛，那么您也不相信嗎，您這個不信神的小先生！”皮普欽太太說道。
As Paul had not considered the subject in that light, and had founded his conclusions on the alleged lunacy of the bull, he allowed himself to be put down for the present. But he sat turning it over in his mind, with such an obvious intention of fixing Mrs Pipchin presently, that even that hardy old lady deemed it prudent to retreat until he should have forgotten the subject.
由于保羅沒有從那一方面來考慮問題，而是根據公牛發瘋這一事實來作出結論的，所以他暫時只好聽憑她把自己難倒了。可是他坐在那里，心中轉悠著這個問題，顯然企圖立刻就把皮普欽太太打敗，因此連那位嚴酷的老太太也認為退卻比較穩妥，讓他把這個問題忘掉再說。
From that time, Mrs Pipchin appeared to have something of the same odd kind of attraction towards Paul, as Paul had towards her. She would make him move his chair to her side of the fire, instead of sitting opposite; and there he would remain in a nook between Mrs Pipchin and the fender, with all the light of his little face absorbed into the black bombazeen drapery, studying every line and wrinkle of her countenance, and peering at the hard grey eye, until Mrs Pipchin was sometimes fain to shut it, on pretence of dozing. Mrs Pipchin had an old black cat, who generally lay coiled upon the centre foot of the fender, purring egotistically, and winking at the fire until the contracted pupils of his eyes were like two notes of admiration. The good old lady might have been - not to record it disrespectfully - a witch, and Paul and the cat her two familiars, as they all sat by the fire together. It would have been quite in keeping with the appearance of the party if they had all sprung up the chimney in a high wind one night, and never been heard of any more.
從那時起，皮普欽太太感覺到有同樣一種奇怪的吸引力把她吸引到保羅身上，就像保羅感覺到有一種奇怪的吸引力把他吸引到她身上一樣。她會讓他 把他的椅子移到壁爐靠她的那一邊，而不是坐在她的對面；他會坐在皮普欽太太與壁爐圍欄之間的角落里，他的小臉上的所有光亮都被吸引到黑色的邦巴辛毛葛衣服中；這時他研究著她臉部的每一絲線條和每一道皺紋，凝視著那只冷酷的灰色眼睛，直到皮普欽太太借口打瞌睡，假裝閉上它為止。皮普欽太太有一只老黑貓，通常蜷曲著身子，躺在壁爐圍欄中間的一只腳上，自高自大地喵喵叫著，同時向爐火眨巴著眼睛，直到后來它的眼睛內的瞳孔縮在一起時就像兩個贊嘆號似的。當他們全都坐在壁爐旁邊的時候，這位善良的老太太活像是一位巫婆（這么說倒并不是想對她表示不尊敬），保羅與那只貓就像是供她差遣的兩位妖精。只要看到他們這一伙的這種樣子，那么如果有一天夜間他們在疾風中跳進煙囪，從此杳然無聞的話，那是不會令人驚奇的。
This, however, never came to pass. The cat, and Paul, and Mrs Pipchin, were constantly to be found in their usual places after dark; and Paul, eschewing the companionship of Master Bitherstone, went on studying Mrs Pipchin, and the cat, and the fire, night after night, as if they were a book of necromancy, in three volumes.
可是從來不曾發生過這樣的事情。天黑以后，那只貓、保羅和皮普欽太太總是始終不變地坐在他們原先的老地方。保羅避開和比瑟斯通少爺做伴，一夜又一夜，繼續研究著皮普欽太太、那只貓和火，仿佛他們是三卷巫術書似的。
Mrs Wickam put her own construction on Paul's eccentricities; and being confirmed in her low spirits by a perplexed view of chimneys from the room where she was accustomed to sit, and by the noise of the wind, and by the general dulness (gashliness was Mrs Wickam's strong expression) of her present life, deduced the most dismal reflections from the foregoing premises. It was a part of Mrs Pipchin's policy to prevent her own 'young hussy' - that was Mrs Pipchin's generic name for female servant - from communicating with Mrs Wickam: to which end she devoted much of her time to concealing herself behind doors, and springing out on that devoted maiden, whenever she made an approach towards Mrs Wickam's apartment. But Berry was free to hold what converse she could in that quarter, consistently with the discharge of the multifarious duties at which she toiled incessantly from morning to night; and to Berry Mrs Wickam unburdened her mind.
威肯姆大嫂對保羅的古怪脾氣有她自己的看法；由于她從她習慣坐著的房間望出去是一片混亂的煙囪的景色，由于風的呼嘯，由于她目前生活的沉悶無趣（用威肯姆大嫂強烈的話來說，那真是“難受得要命”），所以她的低沉的情緒無法好轉，而且她從上述的前提中得 出了極為慘淡的結論。皮普欽太太的一個方針就是阻止她自己的“輕佻的小 賤貨”——這是皮普欽太太對她的女仆的總的稱呼——跟威肯姆大嫂交往；為了這個目的，她耗費好多時間躲藏在門后，只要有一位忠心的姑娘向威肯姆的房間走去，她就會跳出來嚇唬她。可是貝里卻能自由地到那個地方去談話，只要不妨礙她從早到晚勞累不停地執行她那些五花八門的任務就行；也只有在跟貝里交談的時候，威肯姆大嫂才能把她心里的話傾吐出來。
'What a pretty fellow he is when he's asleep!' said Berry, stopping to look at Paul in bed, one night when she took up Mrs Wickam's supper.
“他睡著的時候是個多么漂亮的小家伙！”貝里有一天夜間端著威肯姆的晚餐，停下來看看床上的保羅，說道。
'Ah!' sighed Mrs Wickam. 'He need be.'
“啊！”威肯姆嘆氣道。“他應當是漂亮的。”
