皮漏斗之谜（1）（在线收听）

THE LEATHER FUNNEL

My friend, Lionel Dacre, lived in the Avenue de Wagram, Paris. His house was that small one, with the iron railings and grass plot in front of it, on the left-hand side as you pass down from the Arc de Triomphe. I fancy that it had been there long before the avenue was constructed, for the grey tiles were stained with lichens, and the walls were mildewed and discoloured with age. It looked a small house from the street, five windows in front, if I remember right, but it deepened into a single long chamber at the back. It was here that Dacre had that singular library of occult literature, and the fantastic curiosities which served as a hobby for himself, and an amusement for his friends. A wealthy man of refined and eccentric tastes, he had spent much of his life and fortune in gathering together what was said to be a unique private collection of Talmudic, cabalistic, and magical works, many of them of great rarity and value. His tastes leaned toward the marvellous and the monstrous, and I have heard that his experiments in the direction of the have passed all the bounds of civilization and of decorum. To his English friends he never alluded to such matters, and took the tone of the student and virtuoso; but a Frenchman whose tastes were of the same nature has assured me that the worst excesses of the black mass have been perpetrated in that large and lofty hall, which is lined with the shelves of his books, and the cases of his museum.

Dacre’s appearance was enough to show that his deep interest in these psychic matters was intellectual rather than spiritual. There was no trace of asceticism upon his heavy face, but there was much mental force in his huge, dome-like skull, which curved upward from amongst his thinning locks, like a snowpeak above its fringe of fir trees. His knowledge was greater than his wisdom, and his powers were far superior to his character. The small bright eyes, buried deeply in his fleshy face, twinkled with intelligence and an unabated curiosity of life, but they were the eyes of a sensualist and an egotist. Enough of the man, for he is dead now, poor devil, dead at the very time that he had made sure that he had at last discovered the elixir of life. It is not with his complex character that I have to deal, but with the very strange and inexplicable incident which had its rise in my visit to him in the early spring of the year ‘82.

皮漏斗之谜

我的朋友立奥奈尔达克住在巴黎的瓦格拉姆大街，房子不大，前面有草坪，有铁栏杆，如果你从特里奥夫拱门往南走，就会在左边看见它。我觉得早在大街存在之前很久就有这所房子了，灰色的瓦生着青苔，墙发了霉，因为月久年深已经辨不清颜色了。从街上看，房子显得很小，如果我记得不错，正面有五扇窗户，不过后面有个很特别的长方形房间。那是达克的藏书室，专门珍藏神秘文献，还有各种稀奇古怪的古董。收藏古董是他的爱好，他的朋友们喜欢观赏这些古董。他十分富有，品味高雅而怪异，大部分时间和财富都用在私人收藏上了，包括犹太法典、犹太神秘哲学、魔法等方面的书籍，其中许多是极罕见、极珍贵的。他的兴趣偏向神奇和恐怖的东西，听说他在超自然领域所做的实验已经超出了文明和礼法的范围。在英国朋友面前，他总是摆出学者和鉴赏家的姿态，从不谈起这方面的事，可是一位法国人，兴趣品味与他一样，曾十分肯定地对我说，就在那间高雅的大厅，在那些书籍和藏品的旁边，举行过最恶毒的“魔鬼弥撒”

仅从表面看，就可以知道，达克对超自然事物的兴趣是出于理智而非宗教的原因。在他阴沉的面孔上，没有丝毫禁欲主义的浪迹，可是，硕大而秃顶的圆脑袋，仿佛杉树环绕的圆顶雪山，却显出强大的精神力量。他的知识远多于他的智慧，他的能力远高于他的地位。小而亮的眼睛隐藏在须发丛生的脸上，闪烁着智慧的和无穷无尽好奇的光芒，不过那与好色之徒和利己者的目光并无二致。对此人说到这里已经足够了，因为他已不在人世，可怜的家伙，临死前他刚刚确信自己终于发现了长生不老之药，在此，我将要讲述的并不是他的复杂性格，而是在1882年我访问他的时候发生的一件奇特的不可思议的事情。