During the next two weeks, the weather turned very cold. First came the snow. It began very suddenly one morning just as Charlie Bucket was getting dressed for school. Standing by the window, he saw the huge flakes drifting slowly down out of an icy sky that was the colour of steel.
接下来的两星期，天气变得非常冷。先是下雪。一天早晨它来得很突然，当时查理·巴克特正穿衣服准备上学去。他站在窗前，看见大雪从像钢铁一样颜色的冷冰冰天空上缓缓地飘落下来。
By evening, it lay four feet deep around the tiny house, and Mr Bucket had to dig a path from the front door to the road.
到傍晚，小木屋周围积起了一米多深的雪。巴克特先生只好从前门铲出一条小路通到大路上去。
After the snow, there came a freezing gale that blew for days and days without stopping. And oh, how bitter cold it was! Everything that Charlie touched seemed to be made of ice, and each time he stepped outside the door, the wind was like a knife on his cheek.
下雪以后，一连好多天寒风刮个不停。噢，多么冷啊！查理摸上去的每一样东西都像是冰做的。每次出门，风都像刀一样刺痛他的脸。
Inside the house, little jets of freezing air came rushing in through the sides of the windows and under the doors, and there was no place to go to escape them. The four old ones lay silent and huddled in their bed, trying to keep the cold out of their bones. The excitement over the Golden Tickets had long since been forgotten. Nobody in the family gave a thought now to anything except the two vital problems of trying to keep warm and trying to get enough to eat.
在屋子里，一小股一小股寒气从窗缝和门缝下钻进来，简直无处可躲。四位老人家在他们的床上默默地躺着，把身子缩作一团，以免寒风刺骨。对金奖券产生的兴奋早已被忘得干干净净。除了保暖和吃饭这两个性命交关的问题外，家中没有一个人再去想别的事情。
There is something about very cold weather that gives one an enormous appetite. Most of us find ourselves beginning to crave rich steaming stews and hot apple pies and all kinds of delicious warming dishes; and because we are all a great deal luckier than we realize, we usually get what we want — or near enough. But Charlie Bucket never got what he wanted because the family couldn’t afford it, and as the cold weather went on and on, he became ravenously and desperately hungry. Both bars of chocolate, the birthday one and the one Grandpa Joe had bought, had long since been nibbled away, and all he got now were those thin, cabbagy meals three times a day.
严寒天气能使人的胃口特别好。碰到这种天气，大多数人都渴望吃到热气腾腾的肥美焖肉、热苹果馅饼和各种美味的热菜。由于我们身在福中而自己还不大知道，我们想要什么总能得到什么，或者几乎总能得到什么。但查理·巴克特想要什么从来不能如愿，因为他家里买不起，现在天气一直冷下去，他就饿到了极点。两块巧克力糖，过生日的一块和后来约瑟夫爷爷让他买的一块，早就一点儿一点儿吃光了，现在他能得到的就是一天三餐卷心菜稀汤。
Then all at once, the meals became even thinner.
再下来，一天三餐的卷心菜汤一下子变得更稀了。
The reason for this was that the toothpaste factory, the place where Mr Bucket worked, suddenly went bust and had to close down. Quickly, Mr Bucket tried to get another job. But he had no luck. In the end, the only way in which he managed to earn a few pennies was by shovelling snow in the streets. But it wasn’t enough to buy even a quarter of the food that seven people needed. The situation became desperate. Breakfast was a single slice of bread for each person now, and lunch was maybe half a boiled potato.
这是因为巴克特先生工作的牙膏厂忽然破了产，只好关门。巴克特先生赶紧去找别的工作。但是他运气不好，到最后只能在街上铲雪，挣几枚便士。这点钱甚至不够买一家七口所需要的四分之一的食物。情况变得毫无办法了。现在早餐是每人一片面包，午餐顶多是半个土豆。
And every day, little Charlie Bucket, trudging through the snow on his way to school, would have to pass Mr Willy Wonka’s giant chocolate factory. And every day, as he came near to it, he would lift his small pointed nose high in the air and sniff the wonderful sweet smell of melting chocolate. Sometimes, he would stand motionless outside the gates for several minutes on end, taking deep swallowing breaths as though he were trying to eat the smell itself.
每天小查理·巴克特踏雪上学，必须经过威利·旺卡那家巧克力大工厂。每次走近这家工厂时，他便高兴地抬起他的小尖鼻子去吸融化的巧克力香喷喷的气味。有时候他会在大门外一动不动地站上几分钟，深深地呼吸，好像要把香气也吃下去似的。
“That child,” said Grandpa Joe, poking his head up from under the blanket one icy morning, “that child has got to have more food. It doesn’t matter about us. We’re too old to bother with. But a growing boy! He can’t go on like this! He’s beginning to look like a skeleton!”
“那孩子，”一个严寒的早晨，约瑟夫爷爷从毯子底下伸出头来说，“那孩子必须有更多的食物，我们倒无所谓。我们太老了，不必管我们。但他是一个正在长大的孩子！他不能这样下去！他现在看上去像一具骷髅！”
“What can one do?” murmured Grandma Josephine miserably. “He refuses to take any of ours. I hear his mother tried to slip her own piece of bread on to his plate at breakfast this morning, but he wouldn’t touch it. He made her take it back.”
“有什么办法呢？”约瑟芬奶奶难过地嘟哝着，“他不肯吃我们省给他的食物。今天吃早餐时，我听见他的妈妈要把自己的一片面包放到他的碟子里，但是他碰也不肯碰。他硬逼着妈妈把面包拿回去。”
Slowly but surely, everybody in the house began to starve.
一点儿一点儿，但毫无疑问，一家人开始挨饿了。
And now, very calmly, with that curious wisdom that seems to come so often to small children in times of hardship, he began to make little changes here and there in some of the things that he did, so as to save his strength. In the mornings, he left the house ten minutes earlier so that he could walk slowly to school, without ever having to run. He sat quietly in the classroom during break, resting himself, while the others rushed outdoors and threw snowballs and wrestled in the snow. Everything he did now, he did slowly and carefully, to prevent exhaustion.
在艰难的日子里，小孩子常常会产生一种令人奇怪的智慧。查理就是这样。现在他做起事来十分镇静地开始作一些小小的改变，好节省下他的一点儿体力。早上他提早十分钟离家，这样上学就可以慢慢地走而不必跑。课间休息时别的同学冲到户外去掷雪球，在雪地里摔跤，他却安静地坐在教室里休息。现在他不管做什么事都又慢又小心，不让自己精疲力竭。
And every day, Charlie Bucket grew thinner and thinner. His face became frighteningly white and pinched. The skin was drawn so tightly over the cheeks that you could see the shapes of the bones underneath. It seemed doubtful whether he could go on much longer like this without becoming dangerously ill.
查理·巴克特一天比一天瘦。他的脸变得惨白和瘦削，十分可怕，脸颊上的皮肤绷得那么紧，甚至可以看到下面骨头的轮廓。真怕他这样下去，不久便会害上一场大病。
“He’s a fine little fellow,” said Grandpa George. “He deserves better than this.”
“他是一个好孩子，”乔治姥爷说，“他应该生活得更好。”
The cruel weather went on and on.
严寒的天气一直持续下去。
Then one afternoon, walking back home with the icy wind in his face (and incidentally feeling hungrier than he had ever felt before), his eye was caught suddenly by something silvery lying in the gutter, in the snow. Charlie stepped off the kerb and bent down to examine it. Part of it was buried under the snow, but he saw at once what it was.
一天下午，他迎着扑面而来的寒风放学回家不时感到前所未有的饥饿，但突然他的眼睛被雪地上路沟里一样银光闪闪的东西吸引住了。查理走下人行道，弯下腰去看。这东西有一部分埋在雪下，但他马上看出这是什么了。
Automatically, Charlie turned and began moving towards the nearest shop. It was only ten paces away… it was a newspaper and stationery shop, the kind that sells almost everything, including sweets and cigars… and what he would do, he whispered quickly to himself… he would buy one luscious bar of chocolate and eat it all up, every bit of it, right then and there… and the rest of the money he would take straight back home and give to his mother.
查理不知不觉地转过身，朝最近的一家商店走去。它只有十步远…是一家卖报纸和文具的商店。这种商店差不多什么东西都卖，包括糖果和烟…他马上轻轻对自己说，他该做什么呢…他可以买一块好吃的巧克力糖，把它全部吃下去，一点儿不剩，买来就当场吃掉…余下的钱直接带回家去交给他的妈妈。
No — that was impossible because of the way part of it was buried.
不是，不可能是刚掉下的，因为它有一部分已经埋在雪里。
Had somebody just dropped it?
是有人刚掉下的吗？
Several people went hurrying past him on the pavement, their chins sunk deep in the collars of their coats, their feet crunching in the snow. None of them was searching for any money; none of them was taking the slightest notice of the small boy crouching in the gutter.
人行道上，有几个人在他的身边匆匆走过，他们把下巴深深地埋在大衣的领子里，脚嘎吱嘎吱地踩着雪。他们没有一人在找钱，也没有一人稍微注意一下这个蹲在路沟旁的小孩子。
Then was it his, this fifty pence?
那么，这枚五十便士的银币便是他的了？
Could he have it?
他可以要吗？
Quickly he looked around him.
他连忙环顾四周。
A WHOLE fifty pence!
整整五十便士！
Carefully, Charlie pulled it out from under the snow. It was damp and dirty, but otherwise perfect.
查理小心翼翼地把它从雪里拉出来。它又湿又脏，但仍然完好无缺。
He held it tightly between his shivering fingers, gazing down at it. It meant one thing to him at that moment, only one thing. It meant FOOD.
查理用颤抖着的手指把它夹紧，低下头来看。这时候它使他想到一样东西，只想到一样东西，那就是吃的东西。
It was a fifty-pence piece!
是枚五十便士的银币！
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