薩基/Saki
薩基（Saki，1870-1916），原名赫克托·休·芒羅，英國著名的幽默小說家。曾加入緬甸武裝警衛隊，後作為記者，走遍俄羅斯、波蘭和巴黎。豐富的閱曆和卓越的藝術才華為他的創造打下堅實的基礎。他的作品結構嚴謹，構思巧妙，結局出人意料。《黃昏》《敞開的窗戶》等皆為世界名篇，被各國多種短篇小說選本采用。
“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,”said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen;“in the meantime you must try and put up with me.”
Framton Nuttel endeavored to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much toward helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
“I know how it will be,”his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat;“you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.”
Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice division.
“Do you know many of the people round here?”asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.
“Hardly a soul,”said Framton.“My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.”
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
“Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?”pursued the self-possessed young lady.
“Only her name and address,”admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An un definable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.
“Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,”said the child;“that would be since your sister’s time.”
“Her tragedy?”asked Framton;somehow, in this restful country spot, tragedies seemed out of place.
“You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,”said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened onto a lawn.
“It is quite warm for the time of the year,”said Framton,“but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?”
“Out through that window, three years ago toaday, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favorite snipe-shooting ground, they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it.”
Here the child’s voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human.
“Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing,‘Bertie, why do you bound?’as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window.”
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.
“I hope Vera has been amusing you.”she said.
“She has been very interesting,”said Framton.
“I hope you don’t mind the open window,”said Mrs. Sappleton briskly;“my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn’t it?”
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton, it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk onto a less ghastly topic;he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.
“The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise,”announced Framton, who labored under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure.
“On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,”he continued.
“No?”said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment.
Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention-but not to what Framton was saying.
“Here they are at last!”she cried.“Just in time for tea, and don’t they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”
Framton shivered slightly and turned toward the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn toward the window;they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk:“I said, Bertie, why do you bound?”
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat;the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.
“Here we are, my dear,”said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window,“fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?”
“A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,”said Mrs. Sappleton;“could only talk about his illnesses and dashed off without a word of goodbye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.”
“I expect it was the spaniel,”said the niece calmly;“he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.”
“努特爾先生，我嬸嬸很快就回來了，到時候您對我可得多包涵點。”一個頗自負的十五歲小姑娘說道。
弗蘭頓·努特爾盡力說了幾句奉承的話，恭維一下這位侄女和那位很快就回家的嬸嬸。私底下，他越來越懷疑，對這麽一大群毫不相識的人作正式的拜訪，對他的正在治療的神經病究竟有何益處？
那段時間，當他準備搬到鄉下的時候，姐姐曾經對他說：“我能想象出你到了鄉下會是什麽樣子。你將整天悶在家裏，不與周圍的人打交道，如果你總是這個樣子，你的病情會越來越嚴重。我寫一封信，介紹一下我那裏認識的人，你帶著信過去，以備不時之需。我記得他們當中，不少人還是挺熱情的、挺善良的。”
弗蘭頓此時在納悶：這位薩伯萊頓夫人——就是他拿著姐姐給的介紹信正在拜訪的這位女主人——是不是也在“好人”之列？
“你是不是認識許多這裏的人？”那個小侄女問道，她覺得他們在沉默得太久了，於是想打破沉默。
“基本上沒一個認識的，”弗蘭頓回答道，“你知道，大概在四年前，我姐姐在鄰近的教區長家裏住過一段時間。於是，她寫了幾封介紹信讓我帶著，想讓我和這裏的人認識認識。”
他說最後一句話的時候，流露出一種遺憾的口氣。
“這麽說，您其實對我嬸嬸毫不知曉？”那個自負的少女接著問道。
“我隻知道她的名字和地址。”弗蘭頓誠實地回答說。他不知道薩伯萊頓的丈夫是否健在，但屋子裏有一種說不出來的東西使他覺得夫人不可能是個寡婦。
“三年前，她遭遇了非常悲慘的事情。”女孩說著，“那個時候，您的姐姐已經搬走了，所以，她對這些情況一無所知。”
“遭遇悲劇？”弗蘭頓不解地問道。不知什麽原因，反正在這個幽寂僻靜的小鄉村裏聽到“悲劇”一詞，簡直不可思議。
“您可能困惑，為什麽在寒冷的十月天氣裏，我們還在下午敞開著窗戶？”那個小侄女手指向一扇麵向草坪的巨大落地玻璃窗。
“是啊，這個時節，天氣已經有點涼意了，”弗蘭頓說，“但是，這扇窗戶跟你嬸嬸的悲劇有什麽關係呢？”
“三年前的今天，她丈夫和她的兩個弟弟從這扇窗戶前走過去打獵。可是他們再也沒有回來。通往他們最喜歡的水鷺狩獵場的必經之路有一片沼澤地，當他們穿越這片沼澤地時，三個人都被一片險惡的泥沼吞沒了。您知道嗎，在那個陰雨連綿的可惡夏天，林子裏原來安全的道路神不知鬼不覺地陷進了泥沼，沒有任何警告的標誌。時至今日，他們三個人的屍體還沒有找到呢，真是太可怕了！”
講到這裏的時候，姑娘的聲音不再像原來那麽平靜沉著了，變得支唔起來：
“可憐的嬸嬸一直認為他們有一天會回來，期待著他們三個人和那條棕色的長耳小狗——它和他們一起失蹤了——像以往那樣，從這扇窗戶麵前走過，回到家裏。這就是為什麽每天傍晚開著窗戶直到天黑的原因。可憐的嬸嬸，一直以來，她總是對我講起他們是怎樣走出去的，丈夫的胳膊上搭著一件白色的雨衣，她最小的弟弟隆尼，嘴裏哼著那支歌——‘噢，伯特利，你為何蹦蹦跳跳的？’他總是唱這首歌逗弄她，因為嬸嬸說過，這支歌令她心神不安。你知道嗎？有時候，比如說像現在寂靜的傍晚，一想到他們隨時會從那扇窗戶走進來，我就渾身起雞皮疙瘩。”
她停止了說話，輕輕地打了個冷顫。那位嬸嬸回到家裏了，弗蘭頓終於鬆了一口氣。嬸嬸一邊匆匆忙忙地走進屋子，一邊連聲道歉讓客人久等了。
薩伯萊頓夫人說：“我希望維拉（女孩的名字）沒有冷落您。”
弗蘭頓答道：“沒有，她是個很有趣的孩子。”
薩伯萊頓夫人輕快地說：“我希望您不介意打開這扇窗戶，我丈夫和兄弟們外出打獵馬上就要回來了，他們總是從窗前這條路穿過。他們今天去沼澤地那邊打獵了，所以他們又要把我可憐的地毯搞得一塌糊塗。男人們總是這樣，不是嗎？”
她興致勃勃地嘮叨起打獵的事情，比如說冬天沒有多少鳥，隻好指望那些野鴨等等。對弗蘭頓來說，這簡直太可怕了。他作了一番巨大努力，竭力把話題轉到不那麽恐怖的事情上。但他馬上明白，女主人對其他話題一點也不感興趣，她的眼光不時地從他身上轉移到那扇敞開的窗戶和外麵的草坪上。在這個充滿悲劇的周日來訪，簡直是一個不幸的巧合！太不合時宜了！
“醫生們都認為我應該好好休息，避免精神過度興奮和激烈的體育運動，”弗蘭頓煞有介事地說。像許多人一樣，他也以為陌生人或偶然相識者會對他的疾病的每一個細節、發病原因以及醫療過程等方麵會大感興趣。
“但在如何節食方麵，他們的意見就出現分歧了，”他繼續說著。
“是嗎？”薩伯萊頓夫人說完打了個哈欠。
突然，她的眼睛一亮，頓時容光煥發——但是，她的這種變化並非為弗蘭頓的故事所吸引。
“他們終於回來了！”她喊道，“又是在喝午茶的時候，太準時了。您看看，他們渾身是泥巴，連眼睛也髒兮兮的，跟抹了泥似的！”
弗蘭頓輕輕地顫抖起來，他轉頭去看她的侄女，眼睛裏含著祈求、同情、理解的神色。可是，那個小姑娘兩眼盯著窗外，眼睛裏也充滿了恐懼。弗蘭頓在座椅裏不安地扭動，朝她目光的方向望去。於是，一陣莫名的冰冷恐怖感攫住了他。
朦朧暮色中，三個人影越過草坪向窗戶走來，胳膊下麵夾著獵槍，其中的一個人在肩膀上搭掛著一件白色雨衣，一隻疲乏的棕色長耳小狗緊跟在他們腳邊，他們不聲不響地走近房子。隨後，有個青年人扯著嘶啞的嗓子在黃昏裏唱道：“噢，伯特利，你為何蹦蹦跳跳的？”
弗蘭頓像瘋了似的抓起手杖和帽子，急急忙忙、慌不擇路地從廳門、便道和大門逃出去。一個過路的騎著自行車的人為了避免撞到他，一下子撞到路旁的綠籬上了。
“親愛的，我們回來了，”那個帶著白雨衣的男人走近窗戶，對著妻子說道，“全身都髒死了，簡直像陷到泥沼裏一樣，不過還好，大部分都幹了。剛才衝出去的那個人是誰呀？”
“一個很奇怪的人，名叫努特爾先生，”薩伯萊頓夫人回答說，“他隻會講些關於他神經病的事，看見你們回來後，他一句‘再見’也沒說，就一溜煙跑掉了，人家還以為他見了鬼呢！”
“我猜都是因為這條小狗，”小姑娘平靜地說，“他曾告訴我他很怕狗。他在印度恒河邊時，有一回被一對野狗追趕到公墓地，隻好跳進一口新挖的墓穴裏過了一夜。那兩隻野狗在他頭上瘋狂地吠叫，呲著牙，冒著唾沫。誰碰上這樣的事都會被嚇掉魂的，難怪得了精神病。”
詞匯筆記
nerve[n?v]n.神經；勇氣，膽量
He never got up enough nerve to meet me.
他從沒有足夠的膽量來見我。
migrate['ma?,ɡret]v.遷移，移往；移動；隨季節而移居；使移居；使移植
Some birds migrate to find warmer places.
一些鳥遷徙尋找暖和的地方。
masculine['m?skj?l?n]adj.男子氣概的
His suit was the acme of masculine elegance.
他這套西裝盡顯男性優雅風度。
scarcity['sk?rs?ti]n.不足，缺乏；稀少；蕭條
The scarcity of fruit was caused by the drought.
水果缺乏是由幹旱引起的。
小試身手
我記得他們當中，不少人還是挺熱情的、挺善良的。
我隻知道她的名字和地址。
她停止了說話，輕輕地打了個冷顫。
Framton Nuttel endeavored to say the correct something which should duly flatter……
endeavor to：爭做
……do much toward helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
be supposed to：應該，被期望