《简·爱》 Chapter 36 第三十六章（8）（在线收听）

I looked with timorous joy towards a stately house: I saw a blackened ruin.

我带着怯生生的喜悦朝堂皇的府第看去，我看到了一片焦黑的废墟。

No need to cower behind a gate-post, indeed! --

没有必要躲在门柱后面畏缩不前了，真的！

to peep up at chamber lattices, fearing life was astir behind them!

偷看房间的格子，害怕生活在后面！

No need to listen for doors opening -- to fancy steps on the pavement or the gravel-walk!

不用听门开着——人行道上或碎石路上的花哨的脚步声！

The lawn, the grounds were trodden and waste: the portal yawned void.

草坪，地面被践踏，荒芜不堪：大门虚空荡荡。

The front was, as I had once seen it in a dream, but a well-like wall,

我曾经在梦中见过，前面是一堵墙，

very high and very fragile-looking, perforated with paneless windows:

非常高，非常脆弱的外观，穿孔无镶板窗户：

no roof, no battlements, no chimneys -- all had crashed in.

没有屋顶，没有城垛，没有烟囱——全都倒塌了。

And there was the silence of death about it: the solitude of a lonesome wild.

这里笼罩着死一般的沉寂和旷野的凄凉。

No wonder that letters addressed to people here had never received an answer: as well despatch epistles to a vault in a church aisle.

怪不得给这儿的人写信，仿佛是送信给教堂过道上的墓穴，从来得不到答复。

The grim blackness of the stones told by what fate the Hall had fallen -- by conflagration: but how kindled?

黑森森的石头诉说着府宅遭了什么厄运，一火灾。但又是怎么烧起来的呢？

What story belonged to this disaster?

这场灾难的经过加何？

What loss, besides mortar and marble and wood-work had followed upon it?

除了灰浆、大理石和木制品，还有什么其他损失呢，

Had life been wrecked as well as property?

生命是不是象财产一样遭到了毁灭？

If so, whose? Dreadful question: there was no one here to answer it -- not even dumb sign, mute token.

如果是，谁丧失了生命？这个可怕的问题，眼前没有谁来回答——甚至连默默的迹象、无言的标记都无法回答。

In wandering round the shattered walls and through the devastated interior, I gathered evidence that the calamity was not of late occurrence.

我徘徊在断垣颓壁之间，穿行于残破的府宅内层之中，获得了迹象，表明这场灾难不是最近发生的。

Winter snows, I thought, had drifted through that void arch, winter rains beaten in at those hollow casements;

我想，冬雪曾经飘入空空的拱门，冬雨打在没有玻璃的窗户上。

for, amidst the drenched piles of rubbish, spring had cherished vegetation: grass and weed grew here and there between the stones and fallen rafters.

在一堆堆湿透了的垃圾中，春意催发了草木，乱石堆中和断梁之间，处处长出了野草。

And oh! where meantime was the hapless owner of this wreck?

呵！这片废墟的主人又在哪里？

In what land? Under what auspices?

他在哪个国度？在谁的保护之下？