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CHAPTER III While leading the way upstairs, she recommended that I should hide the candle, and not make a noise; for her master had an odd notion about the chamber she would put me in, and never let anybody lodge there willingly. I asked the reason. She did not know, she answered: she had only lived there a year or two; and they had so many queer goings on, she could not begin to be curious. Too stupefied to be curious myself, I fastened my door and glanced round for the bed. The whole furniture consisted of a chair, a clothes-press, and a large oak case, with squares cut out near the top resembling coach windows. Having approached this structure, I looked inside, and perceived it to be a singular sort of old-fashioned couch, very conveniently designed to obviate the necessity for every member of the family having a room to himself. In fact, it formed a little closet, and the ledge of a window, which it enclosed, served as a table. I slid back the panelled sides, got in with my light, pulled them together again, and felt secure against the vigilance of Heathcliff, and every one else. The ledge, where I placed my candle, had a few mildewed books piled up in one corner; and it was covered with writing scratched on the paint. This writing, however, was nothing but a name repeated in all kinds of characters, large and small—Catherine Earnshaw, here and there varied to Catherine Heathcliff, and then again to Catherine Linton. In vapid listlessness I leant my head against the window, and continued spelling over Catherine Earnshaw—Heathcliff—Linton, till my eyes closed; but they had not rested five minutes when a glare of white letters started from the dark, as vivid as spectres—the air swarmed with Catherines; and rousing myself to dispel the obtrusive name, I discovered my candle-wick reclining on one of the antique volumes, and perfuming the place with an odour of roasted calf-skin. I snuffed it off, and, very ill at ease under the influence of cold and lingering nausea, sat up and spread open the injured tome on my knee. It was a Testament, in lean type, and smelling dreadfully musty: a fly-leaf bore the inscription—“Catherine Earnshaw, her book,” and a date some quarter of a century back. I shut it, and took up another and another, till I had examined all. Catherine’s library was select, and its state of dilapidation proved it to have been well used, though not altogether for a legitimate purpose: scarcely one chapter had escaped a pen-and-ink commentary—at least the appearance of one—covering every morsel of blank that the printer had left. Some were detached sentences; other parts took the form of a regular diary, scrawled in an unformed, childish hand. At the top of an extra page (quite a treasure, probably, when first lighted on) I was greatly amused to behold an excellent caricature of my friend Joseph,—rudely, yet powerfully sketched. An immediate interest kindled within me for the unknown Catherine, and I began forthwith to decipher her faded hieroglyphics. “An awful Sunday,” commenced the paragraph beneath. “I wish my father were back again. Hindley is a detestable substitute—his conduct to Heathcliff is atrocious—H. and I are going to rebel—we took our initiatory step this evening. “All day had been flooding with rain; we could not go to church, so Joseph must needs get up a congregation in the garret; and, while Hindley and his wife basked downstairs before a comfortable fire—doing anything but reading their Bibles, I’ll answer for it—Heathcliff, myself, and the unhappy ploughboy were commanded to take our prayer-books, and mount: we were ranged in a row, on a sack of corn, groaning and shivering, and hoping that Joseph would shiver too, so that he might give us a short homily for his own sake. A vain idea! The service lasted precisely three hours; and yet my brother had the face to exclaim, when he saw us descending, ‘What, done already?’ On Sunday evenings we used to be permitted to play, if we did not make much noise; now a mere titter is sufficient to send us into corners. “‘You forget you have a master here,’ says the tyrant. ‘I’ll demolish the first who puts me out of temper! I insist on perfect sobriety and silence. Oh, boy! was that you? Frances darling, pull his hair as you go by: I heard him snap his fingers.’ Frances pulled his hair heartily, and then went and seated herself on her husband’s knee, and there they were, like two babies, kissing and talking nonsense by the hour—foolish palaver that we should be ashamed of. We made ourselves as snug as our means allowed in the arch of the dresser. I had just fastened our pinafores together, and hung them up for a curtain, when in comes Joseph, on an errand from the stables. He tears down my handiwork, boxes my ears, and croaks: “‘T’ maister nobbut just buried, and Sabbath not o’ered, und t’ sound o’ t’ gospel still i’ yer lugs, and ye darr be laiking! Shame on ye! sit ye down, ill childer! there’s good books eneugh if ye’ll read ’em: sit ye down, and think o’ yer sowls!’ “Saying this, he compelled us so to square our positions that we might receive from the far-off fire a dull ray to show us the text of the lumber he thrust upon us. I could not bear the employment. I took my dingy volume by the scroop, and hurled it into the dog-kennel, vowing I hated a good book. Heathcliff kicked his to the same place. Then there was a hubbub! “‘Maister Hindley!’ shouted our chaplain. ‘Maister, coom hither! Miss Cathy’s riven th’ back off “Th’ Helmet o’ Salvation,” un’ Heathcliff’s pawsed his fit into t’ first part o’ “T’ Brooad Way to Destruction!” It’s fair flaysome that ye let ’em go on this gait. Ech! th’ owd man wad ha’ laced ’em properly—but he’s goan!’ “Hindley hurried up from his paradise on the hearth, and seizing one of us by the collar, and the other by the arm, hurled both into the back-kitchen; where, Joseph asseverated, ‘owd Nick’ would fetch us as sure as we were living: and, so comforted, we each sought a separate nook to await his advent. I reached this book, and a pot of ink from a shelf, and pushed the house-door ajar to give me light, and I have got the time on with writing for twenty minutes; but my companion is impatient, and proposes that we should appropriate the dairywoman’s cloak, and have a scamper on the moors, under its shelter. A pleasant suggestion—and then, if the surly old man come in, he may believe his prophecy verified—we cannot be damper, or colder, in the rain than we are here.” * * * * * * I suppose Catherine fulfilled her project, for the next sentence took up another subject: she waxed lachrymose. “How little did I dream that Hindley would ever make me cry so!” she wrote. “My head aches, till I cannot keep it on the pillow; and still I can’t give over. Poor Heathcliff! Hindley calls him a vagabond, and won’t let him sit with us, nor eat with us any more; and, he says, he and I must not play together, and threatens to turn him out of the house if we break his orders. He has been blaming our father (how dared he?) for treating H. too liberally; and swears he will reduce him to his right place—” * * * * * * |
第3章 她帶我上樓，囑咐我睡覺時把蠟燭藏起來，不要發出響聲；因為對即將把我安排住的那個房間，她的主人有個奇怪的想法，他從不樂意讓任何人住在那裏。我問及原因，她回答說不知道——她隻在那兒住過一兩年；後來發生了許多奇奇怪怪的事情，慢慢地她也就覺得不足為奇了。 我頭暈腦脹得厲害，也就不好繼續刨根究底追問下去了。我上好門閂，環顧四周看看床在什麽地方。這裏的全部家具包括一把椅子、一個衣櫥和一隻大橡木箱子，靠近箱蓋的側麵挖了一些方孔，像是馬車上的窗戶。我走近這件家具往裏麵看，發現原來是一張樣子奇特的老式睡床，設計得相當巧妙，可以省去家裏每個人占一間房的必要。事實上，這個箱子構成了一個小套間，圍在這個套間裏麵的窗台正好可以當桌子用。我朝後推開隔板，手舉蠟燭走進去，再把隔板拉上，覺得這樣可以防止黑思克裏夫和其他人的監視，而且安全妥當。 我把蠟燭放在窗台上，窗台的一個角落堆著幾本書，書已經發黴；窗台上有一些字跡刻在油漆之上。這些字跡隻是以各種各樣、大大小小的字母重複寫著——Catherine Earnshaw（闞思睿•俄韶）一會兒變成Catherine Heathcliff（闞思睿•黑思克裏夫），接著又變成Catherine Linton（闞思睿•林騰）。 我感覺索然無味、無精打采，頭斜靠在窗台上，嘴裏繼續念叨著闞思睿•俄韶—黑思克裏夫—林騰，直到合上雙眼；但是眼睛合上剛休息不到五分鍾，一道耀眼的白色字母從黑暗中出現，如同幽靈，栩栩如生——空氣中充滿了Catherine（闞思睿）；我起身想要趕走這個不知道從何處冒出來的名字，卻發現燭芯已經倒下，燒到其中一本舊書，整個屋子裏開始彌散著一股小牛皮燒焦的味道。我把燭火撲滅，寒冷和揮之不去的惡心向我襲來，我感覺渾身局促不安，於是我坐起身來，把那本燒壞的大部頭書攤在我的雙膝上。這是本《聖經》，白體活字印刷，聞起來實在是令人作嘔——扉頁上寫的：“Catherine Earnshaw, her book”（闞思睿•俄韶之書）和一個大約二十五年前的日期。我合上書，抓起另一本，接著又抓起一本，直到把所有的書都抓了一遍。闞思睿的藏書精挑細選，書的破損程度可以證明這些書都已經看過好多遍，盡管這些書不一定完全都用到了正經地方——幾乎每一章都難逃墨水筆書寫的批語——至少看上去像是批語——布滿了書頁上印刷字留下的每一個空白處。有些隻是互不關聯的句子；有些可以算是一篇正式的日記，字跡潦草，字體尚未成型，看上去像是出自小孩子之手。書的空餘頁麵（很可能第一眼看到會把它當作一件寶貝）上畫著我的朋友周思福的絕妙漫畫像，我大為高興——畫雖不精致，可是勾勒有力。對於這位素未謀麵的闞思睿，我頓時來了興致，於是我便開始辨認她那些已模糊不清的潦草文字。 “這個禮拜天真是糟糕，”底下的一段開頭這樣寫道。“但願爸爸還能再回來。亨得利真是個可惡的接班人——他對黑思克裏夫的所作所為太殘忍了——黑思克裏夫和我準備反抗了——就在今晚我們要開始實施行動的第一步。 “一整天大雨滂沱；我們無法去教堂，周思福非要把大家聚集到閣樓中；亨得利夫婦在樓下舒舒服服烤著火——我可以打保票，他倆打死也不會去讀《聖經》——而黑思克裏夫、我和那個可憐的莊稼漢卻被吆喝著手持祈禱書爬上樓——我們一字排開，坐在一袋麥子上，嘴裏呻吟，渾身哆嗦。希望周思福也和我們一樣打哆嗦，這樣為了他自己也許他會給我們少講點道。這真是個異想天開的念頭！做禮拜持續了整整三個鍾頭。可是我哥哥看見我們下樓時，居然還有臉喊叫，‘什麽，已經結束啦？’從前一到禮拜日晚上，隻要我們不怎麽吵鬧，還可以獲準玩一玩，現在哪怕我們隻是偷偷一笑，就夠得上罰我們站牆角啦！ “‘你們都忘了屋裏還有我這麽個當家人，’這個暴君說，‘哪耶先把我逗譙了，看我不把他廢了！屋裏要絕對保持肅靜，不得有任何響動。啊，孩子！是你麽？芙然希思，親愛的，你走過來時揪揪他的頭發，我聽見他捏手指頭響呢。’芙然希思痛快地揪揪孩子的頭發，然後走過來坐在她丈夫膝蓋上。他們就在那兒，像兩個小孩似的，整整一個鍾頭又是親嘴又是諞閑——那種無聊可笑的情話連我們聽了都替他們感到害臊。我們盡可能舒服地呆在櫥櫃下麵圓拱裏麵。我剛把我們的圍嘴綁在一起，掛起來當作幕布，忽然周思福有差事從馬號走進屋裏來。他把我的傑作扯下來，給了我幾記耳光，嗓子嘶啞著叫道：“‘老爺剛埋了沒幾天，安息日都還沒過完，福音的聲響還在你們耳朵裏，你們竟然還在嬉耍胡鬧！我真替你們害臊！坐下，你們這夥壞慫！善書有的是，隻要你們肯看。坐下，好好想想你們的靈魂吧！’ “說完這番話，他強迫我們坐端正，這樣我們或許能從遠處爐火那邊獲得一束微弱的光線，好給我們看他硬甩給我們的那破爛玩意的文字。我受不了這份罪。我抓起我那本肮裏肮髒的書嘎嘎作響，使勁把它扔到狗窩裏，賭咒說我恨善書。黑思克裏夫把他那本也扔到同一個地方，接下來是一場大鬧。 “‘亨得利少爺！’我們這位牧師大叫道，‘少爺，你快過來啊！闞思瑞小姐把《救世盔》書皮撕下來啦，黑思克裏夫用腳使勁踩《通向毀滅的大道》的第一部！你讓他們這樣鬧下去可不得了。唉！要是老爺在世的話可要好好收拾他們一頓——可老爺現在已經不在啦！’ “亨得利從他的爐火樂園趕過來，抓住我倆，一個薅住脖領子，另一個揪住胳臂，把我倆丟到了後廚。周思福斷言在那兒‘尼克老鬼’定會活捉我們。我們受到如此安撫後，便各自找個角落靜等‘尼克老鬼’的降臨。我伸手從書架上摸到了這本書和一瓶墨水，便把門推開一點，漏進點光亮，我寫了二十分鍾的字。可是我的同伴不耐煩了，他提議我們披上牛奶女工的外套，到曠野上奔跑。真是個不錯的提議——那麽，要是那個脾氣乖戾的老家夥進來，他也會相信他的預言驗證啦——我們的身體在雨裏也不會比在這兒感到更濕更冷了。” * * * * * * 我猜想闞思睿實現了她的計劃，因為下一句說的是另一件事，她傷心起來了。 “我做夢也很難想象亨得利會讓我哭成這樣！”她寫道，“我頭疼得都無法沾枕頭，可是我還是止不住地哭。可憐的黑思克裏夫！亨得利罵他是流浪漢，再也不許他跟我們坐在一起，吃在一起啦。而且他說，不許他和我一起玩，又嚇唬說要是我們違反他的命令，就把黑思克裏夫攆出去。還埋怨我們的父親（他怎麽敢埋怨呀？）待黑思克裏夫太寬厚了，還發誓說要把黑思克裏夫貶到他應有的地位去。” * * * * * * |
