第四章: 星期三 Wednesday |《好兆头》双语小说在线阅读

Warlock’s eleventh birthday was very well attended.

沃洛克的十一岁生日派对宾客如云。

Everyone has his little hobby. Despite Crowley’s urgent advice, Aziraphale was intending to turn his to good use.

每人都有些小爱好。尽管克鲁利极力反对，但亚茨拉菲尔还是决定把自己的业余爱好派上用场。

It was a hot, fume-filled August day in Central London.

八月的一天，伦敦市中心酷热难耐，烟气蒸腾。

The Amazing Harvey and Wanda, Children’s Parties a Specialty, had both been struck down by an unexpected tummy bug, but by a providential turn of fortune a replacement had turned up, practically out of the blue. A stage magician.

“神奇的哈维和旺达”以及“儿童聚会专家”都被突如其来的胃病击倒，但幸运之神从天而降，一位舞台魔术师简直可以说是横空出世，出现在人们面前。

There were twenty small boys and seventeen small girls. There were a lot of men with identical blond crew cuts, dark blue suits, and shoulder holsters. There was a crew of caterers, who had arrived bearing jellies, cakes, and bowls of crisps. Their procession of vans was led by a vintage Bentley.

这里有二十个小男孩和十七个小女孩。这里有很多留板寸的金发男子，一个个身着深蓝套装，佩带手枪。这里还有一群宴会餐饮业者，他们带来了果冻、蛋糕和一碗碗水果甜点。他们的面包车队列前头有一辆老式宾利车开道。

Aziraphale was particularly proud of his magical skills. He had attended a class in the 1870s run by John Maskelyne, and had spent almost a year practicing sleight of hand, palming coins, and taking rabbits out of hats. He had got, he had felt at the time, quite good at it. The point was that although Aziraphale was capable of doing things that could make the entire Magic Circle hand in their wands, he never applied what might be called his intrinsic powers to the practice of sleight-of-hand conjuring. Which was a major drawback. He was beginning to wish that he’d continued practicing.

亚茨拉菲尔特别欣赏自己的魔术技巧。他曾在十九世纪七十年代参加过手技魔术巨匠约翰·马斯基林的一个培训班，还花了整整一年时间练习魔术手技、硬币戏法和从帽子里变兔子。他当时觉得自己精于此道。亚茨拉菲尔能办到的事，足以令整个英国魔法师协会俯首称臣，但他从来不肯在变戏法时运用自己与生俱来的能力。这是极大的障碍。他此刻已经开始希望自己一直有在练习。

The children watched him in blank, disdainful incomprehension. Behind the buffet Crowley, in his white waiter’s coat, cringed with contact embarrassment.

孩子们不屑地看着他，完全没有反应。克鲁利穿着白色侍者制服，站在餐台后面，尴尬得直皱眉。

Still, he mused, it was like riding a velocipede. You never forgot how. His magician’s coat had been a little dusty, but it felt good once it was on. Even his old patter began to come back to him.

但是，他心想，这就像骑自行车。你永远不会忘记。魔术师长袍有点脏，但穿在身上还挺不错。他甚至想起了那些饶舌的垫场话。

“Now then, young masters and mistresses, do you see my battered old top hat? What a shocking bad hat, as you young’uns do say! And see, there’s nothing in it. But bless my britches, who’s this rum customer? Why, it’s our furry friend, Harry the rabbit!”

“好了，小绅士小淑女们，你们看见我这顶皱巴巴的旧高帽了吗？你们年轻人会说，多难看的帽子啊！好好看看，这里什么都没有。哦我的天啊，这个怪家伙是谁？啊，是我们毛茸茸的朋友，兔子哈里！”

Aziraphale remembered what Maskelyne had told him about dealing with hecklers. “Make a joke of it, you pudding-heads — and I do mean you, Mr. Fell” (the name Aziraphale had adopted at that time), “Make ’em laugh, and they’ll forgive you anything!”

亚茨拉菲尔记得马斯基林曾跟他说过如何对付拆台的人。“讲个笑话，你这布丁脑袋。我说的就是你，堕落先生（这是亚茨拉菲尔当时给自己起的艺名）。让人们笑起来，他们就会原谅一切。”

“It was in your pocket,” pointed out Warlock. The other children nodded agreement. What did he think they were? Kids?

“它藏在你的口袋里。”沃洛克说。其他孩子纷纷点头。他们以为自己是谁？小孩吗？

“Ho, so you’ve rumbled my hat trick,” he chuckled. The children stared at him impassively.

“哈，你戳穿了我的帽子戏法。”天使咯咯笑了起来。但孩子们还是面无表情地盯着他。

“You’re rubbish,” said Warlock. “I wanted cartoons anyway.”

“你真烂。”沃洛克说，“我要卡通片。”

Aziraphale stared desperately at Crowley. As far as he was concerned young Warlock was obviously infernally tainted, and the sooner the Black Dog turned up and they could get away from this place, the better.

亚茨拉菲尔绝望地看向克鲁利，在他看来小沃洛克显然已经被地狱玷污了。他巴望着那条黑狗赶快出现，好让他们尽早离开。

“He’s right, you know,” agreed a small girl with a pony tail. “You are rubbish. And probably a faggot.”

“知道吗，他说得对。”一个绑马尾辫的小女孩说，“你真烂。可能还是个死基佬。”

“Now, do any of you young’uns have such a thing as a thruppenny bit about your persons? No, young master? Then what’s this I see behind your ear…?”

“哦，亲爱的小朋友们，你们谁有一便士硬币？没有，小主人们？那我在你耳朵后面看到的是什么…”

Crowley groaned. Children’s parties were obviously places where any angel with an ounce of common sense should fear to tread. Piping infant voices were raised in cynical merriment as Aziraphale dropped three linked metal rings.

克鲁利呻吟一声。任何有半点常识的天使，都该对儿童聚会唯恐避之不及。当亚茨拉菲尔把三个连在一起的金属环掉在地上时，一群孩子幸灾乐祸地尖叫起来。

Crowley looked away, and his gaze fell on a table heaped high with presents. From a tall plastic structure two beady little eyes stared back at him.

克鲁利把头扭开，目光落在堆满礼物的桌子上。两颗乌黑的小眼睛在一个高大的塑料建筑中注视着他。

“I got cartoons at my birthday,” announced the little girl. “An I gotter transformer anna mylittleponyer anna decepticonattacker anna thundertank anna…”

“我的生日上就有卡通片。”那个小女孩大声说，“我还得到了变形金刚和霸天虎和霹雳猫坦克和小马驹布娃娃和…”

Crowley scrutinized them for a glint of red fire. You could never be certain when you were dealing with the bureaucrats of Hell. It was always possible that they had sent a gerbil instead of a dog.

克鲁利眼冒红光，迅速检查了一遍。你永远也不知道地狱官僚机构会搞出什么乱子。他们没准儿会送来一只仓鼠代替地狱犬。

No, it was a perfectly normal gerbil. It appeared to be living in an exciting construction of cylinders, spheres, and treadmills, such as the Spanish Inquisition would have devised if they’d had access to a plastics molding press.

不，它是只绝对正常的仓鼠，生活在一个由圆柱体、圆球和脚踏转轮组成的特别刺激的建筑中。西班牙宗教审判所当年如果拥有一家塑料模型工场，多半会设计出类似的东西。

Aziraphale was getting more and more flustered.

亚茨拉菲尔越来越狼狈。

He checked his watch. It had never occurred to Crowley to change its battery, which had rotted away three years previously, but it still kept perfect time. It was two minutes to three.

克鲁利看看表。他从没换过电池，而表里的电池也在三年前烂光了，但这块表走得很准。现在是差两分钟三点。

“Do any of the company here assembled possess such a thing about their persons as a pocket handkerchief? No?” In Victorian days it had been unheard of for people not to carry handkerchiefs, and the trick, which involved magically producing a dove who was even now pecking irritably at Aziraphale’s wrist, could not proceed without one. The angel tried to attract Crowley’s attention, failed, and, in desperation, pointed to one of the security guards, who shifted uneasily.

“在场的诸位有人带着手绢吗？没有？”在维多利亚时代，不带手绢出门可是闻所未闻的事情。接下来的戏法是变白鸽——它正烦躁地啄着亚茨拉菲尔的手腕，这个魔术没有手绢可不行。天使试图吸引克鲁利的注意，但没成功，于是绝望地指向一位保安人员。那人不安地扭了扭身子。

“You, my fine jack-sauce. Come here. Now, if you inspect your breast pocket, I think you might find a fine silk handkerchief.”

“你，我亲爱的朋友，到这儿来。好了，如果你检查一下自己的胸袋，也许就会发现一条上好的丝质手帕。”

The guard reached a hand inside his inside pocket, looked surprised, and pulled out a handkerchief, duck-egg-blue silk, with lace edging. Aziraphale realized almost immediately that the lace had been a mistake, as it caught on the guard’s holstered gun, and sent it spinning across the room to land heavily in a bowl of jelly.

保安把手伸进内袋，脸色一变，惊奇地掏出一块鸭蛋青色蕾丝边手帕。亚茨拉菲尔很快就意识到蕾丝边是个错误。手帕挂住保安的配枪，把它甩了出来，重重地落在一碗果冻里。

Aziraphale winked desperately. “No, go on, dear boy, take a look, please.”

亚茨拉菲尔绝望地挤挤眼。“不，来吧，小伙子。就看一眼，求你了。”

“Nossir. ‘Mafraidnotsir,” said the guard, staring straight ahead.

“不，先生。恐怕没有，先生。”保安正视前方，开口说道。

The children applauded spasmodically. “Hey, not bad!” said the pony-tailed girl.

孩子们猛地鼓起掌来。“嗨，不坏！”马尾辫女孩说。

Warlock had already run across the room, and grabbed the gun.

沃洛克已经跑过去，抓住那把手枪。

“Hands up, dogbreaths!” he shouted gleefully.

“举起手来，不许喘气！”他高兴地喊道。

The security guards were in a quandary.

保安们进退两难。

Some of them fumbled for their own weapons; others started edging their way toward, or away from, the boy. The other children started complaining that they wanted guns as well, and a few of the more forward ones started trying to tug them from the guards who had been thoughtless enough to take their weapons out.

有些人摸索着自己的武器；另一些正往前蹭，或是往后退。其他孩子抱怨说他们也要枪，有几个行动力强的已经开始跟那些傻到把枪掏出来的保安争夺。

Crowley found him on the pavement outside, trying to extricate a rather squishy dove from the arm of his frock coat.

克鲁利在外面便道上发现了他。天使正忙着把软塌塌的鸽子从双排扣长礼服的袖管里解救出来。

Aziraphale blinked.

亚茨拉菲尔眨眨眼。

A thin stream of water squirted from the nozzle and soaked Crowley, who had been looking out the window, trying to see if there was a huge black dog in the garden.

一道水流从枪口喷出，打湿了克鲁利的衣服。此时恶魔正望着窗外，想看看花园里有没有大黑狗。

Then a cream cake hit him in the face.

接着一块奶油蛋糕拍在他脸上。

“It’s late,” said Aziraphale.

“它晚了。”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“I can see that,” said Crowley. “Comes of sticking it up your sleeve.” He reached out and pulled the limp bird from Aziraphale’s coat, and breathed life back into it. The dove cooed appreciatively and flew off, a trifle warily.

“是完了，我看得出来。”克鲁利说，“都是因为要贴在你的袖子上。”恶魔伸手把鸽子从亚茨拉菲尔的袖子里掏出来，将生命送回它体内。鸽子感激地咕咕叫了两声，随后有点过分小心地飞走了。

With a gesture, Aziraphale turned the rest of the guns into water pistols as well, and walked out.

亚茨拉菲尔一摆手，把其他枪支也都变成水枪，然后走出房间。

The boy squeaked, and pulled the trigger of the gun. It was a Magnum.32, CIA issue, gray, mean, heavy, capable of blowing a man away at thirty paces, and leaving nothing more than a red mist, a ghastly mess, and a certain amount of paperwork.

男孩尖叫着扣动扳机。这是一把点32口径马格南左轮手枪，美国中情局制式、灰色、沉重、火力强劲，足以在三十步内把一个人轰爆，只留下一团红雾、一摊恶心的零碎和一堆要写的报告。

It was almost five past three.

此时大约三点过五分。

Aziraphale looked embarrassed.

亚茨拉菲尔尴尬得要命。

Then someone threw some jelly at Warlock.

有人朝沃洛克身上扔了一块果冻。

“Hello. Um, who is this?”

“您好。嗯，您是谁？”

He opened the car door, flipped on the radio. “I — should — be — solucky,– lucky — lucky — lucky — lucky,– I — should — be — so — lucky — in — HELLO CROWLEY.”

他打开车门，拨开收音机。澳大利亚女歌星凯莉·米洛的成名曲传了出来，“我应该如此幸运，幸运——幸运——幸运——幸运。我应该如此幸运——你好，克鲁利。”

He flipped off the radio.

他关掉收音机。

“DAGON, LORD OF THE FILES, MASTER OF MADNESS, UNDER-DUKE OF THE SEVENTH TORMENT. WHAT CAN I DO FOR YOU?”

“大衮，苍蝇之君、疯狂之主、掌管十七酷刑的下界公爵。我能帮你什么忙？”

“The hell-hound. I’m just, uh, just checking that it got off okay.”

“地狱犬。我只是，呃，只是确认一下它快到了吗？”

“RELEASED TEN MINUTES AGO. WHY? HASN’T IT ARRIVED? IS SOMETHING WRONG?”

“十分钟前就放出去了。怎么了？它还没到？出了什么问题吗？”

Crowley shook his head, thoughtfully. “We’ll see.”

克鲁利若有所思地摇摇头。“咱们查查看。”

They stared at each other. There was a loud bang from inside the house, and a window shattered. “Oh dear,” muttered Aziraphale, not swearing with the practiced ease of one who has spent six thousand years not swearing, and who wasn’t going to start now. “I must have missed one.”

两人对视良久。房子里传来一声巨响，一扇窗户应声而碎。“哦。”亚茨拉菲尔喃喃说道。他六千年都没说过脏话，所以现在也不准备改口。“我肯定漏了一把。”

“Not the bird,” said the angel. “The dog. It’s late.”

“我没说鸟。”天使说，“地狱犬。我说的是它来晚了。”

“Oh no. Nothing’s wrong. Everything’s fine. Oops, I can see it now. Good dog. Nice dog. Everything’s terrific. You’re doing a great job down there, people. Well, lovely talking to you, Dagon. Catch you soon, huh?”

“哦，不。什么问题也没有。一切正常。哦哦，我看见它了。真是条好狗。太棒了。从头到尾都那么吓人。伙计们，你们的活儿干得漂亮。好了，很高兴跟您聊天，大衮。回头再聊，好吗？”

“No dog,” said Aziraphale.

“没有狗。”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“No dog,” said Crowley.

“没有狗。”克鲁利说。

The demon sighed. “Get in the car,” he said. “We’ve got to talk about this. Oh, and Aziraphale…?”

恶魔叹了口气。“上车吧。”他说，“咱们得好好谈谈。哦，对了，亚茨拉菲尔…”

“Clean off that blasted cream cake before you get in.”

“上车前把这该死的奶油蛋糕清理一下。”

“Yes.”

“嗯。”

It had to be a dog. It was dog-shaped.

它只能是条狗，它的形状像狗。

It was a hot, silent August day far from Central London. By the side of the Tadfield road the dust weighed down the hogweed. Bees buzzed in the hedges. The air had a leftover and reheated feel.

八月的一天，远离伦敦市中心的某个地方酷热难耐，寂静无声。塔德菲尔德道路两侧的杂草都被尘土压弯了腰。蜜蜂在树篱间嗡嗡飞舞。周围的空气让人感觉像是重新热过一遍的剩菜。

There was a sound like a thousand metal voices shouting “Hail!” cut off abruptly.

一个声音突然爆发，仿佛上千金铁之声共同高喊“万岁”！

And there was a black dog in the road.

路上出现一条黑狗。

There are some dogs which, when you meet them, remind you that, despite thousands of years of man-made evolution, every dog is still only two meals away from being a wolf. These dogs advance deliberately, purposefully, the wilderness made flesh, their teeth yellow, their breath a-stink, while in the distance their owners witter, “He’s an old soppy really, just poke him if he’s a nuisance,” and in the green of their eyes the red campfires of the Pleistocene gleam and flicker…

你大概也遇到过一些特别凶的狗，它们会让你记起，尽管经过数千年的人为进化过程，但每条狗跟狼的差距也就是两顿饭而已。这些狗行动起来目的明确、意志坚定，一个个又大又壮，牙齿发黄，呼吸间泛着臭气。主人们在远处唠叨“它很乖，真的，如果嫌烦，只要戳它一下”时，它们绿意盈盈的眼睛中会闪烁出冰河时期篝火跃动的红光…

It was already growling, and the growl was a low, rumbling snarl of spring-coiled menace, the sort of growl that starts in the back of one throat and ends up in someone else’s.

它咆哮一声，声音低沉喑哑，充满蓄势待发的威胁。这种咆哮会始自它的喉咙深处，结束在别人的喉咙之中。

This dog would make even a dog like that slink nonchalantly behind the sofa and pretend to be extremely preoccupied with its rubber bone.

但就连那种狗看到现在这条黑狗，也会装作若无其事地钻到沙发后面，特别专心地玩自己的狗咬胶。

Saliva dripped from its jaws and sizzled on the tar.

口水从它下巴滴落，砸在柏油路上发出嘶嘶声响。

There were voices, a long way off. A voice. A boyish voice, but one it had been created to obey, could not help but obey. When that voice said “Follow,” it would follow; when it said “Kill,” it would kill. His master’s voice.

有声音从远处传来。一个声音。孩子气的声音，但又是它生来就要服从，忍不住想要服从的声音。如果这声音说“走”，它就会走；如果说“杀”，它就会杀。这是主人的声音。

It took a few steps forward, and sniffed the sullen air.

它朝前走了几步，用力嗅着沉闷的空气。

It leapt the hedge and padded across the field beyond. A grazing bull eyed it for a moment, weighed its chances, then strolled hurriedly toward the opposite hedge.

它跳过树篱，跑过后方旷野。一头吃草的公牛看了它两眼，权衡利弊后，匆忙跑向对面的篱笆。

Its ears flicked up.

它的耳朵转了一下。

The voices were coming from a copse of straggly trees. The black hound slunk closer, jaws streaming.

那些声音从一片稀稀拉拉的杂树林中传来。黑狗慢慢靠近，口水滴答不止。

One of the other voices said: “He never will. You’re always saying he will, and he never does. Catch your dad giving you a pet. An int’restin’ pet, anyway. It’ll prob’ly be stick insects. That’s your dad’s idea of int’restin’.”

另一个声音说：“他不会的。你老说他会，但他绝对不会。假设你老爹送你一只宠物。就算是有趣的宠物，多半也会是竹节虫。那就是你老爹对有趣的定义。”

“It’ll be a dog,” it said.

“会是条狗。”

The hound gave the canine equivalent of a shrug, but immediately lost interest because now the Master, the Center of its Universe, spoke.

黑狗做了个相当于耸肩的犬类动作，但很快就对这声音丧失了兴趣。因为它的主人，它的宇宙中心说话了。

“Privet.” This third voice was rather more prim than the first two. The owner of a voice like that would be the sort of person who, before making a plastic model kit, would not only separate and count all the parts before commencing, as per the instructions, but also paint the bits that needed painting first and leave them to dry properly prior to construction. All that separated this voice from chartered accountancy was a matter of time.

“水蜡树。”第三个声音一本正经地说。它的主人应该是那种一丝不苟的人，在制作塑料模型前，不仅会首先按照说明清点所有部件，分门别类摆好，还会把所有需要上色的部件涂好颜色，等待干透再开始组装。这个声音与注册会计师之间的差别，完全是时间问题。

“They don’t eat privet, Wensley. You never saw a dog eatin’ privet.”

“它们不吃水蜡树，温斯利。你什么时候见过狗吃水蜡树？”

“Huh. You don’t know it’s going to be a dog. No one’s said it’s going to be a dog. How d’you know it’s goin’ to be a dog if no one’s said? Your dad’d be complaining about the food it eats the whole time.”

“哈。你不知道会不会是狗。谁都没说过会是条狗。如果谁都没说过，你怎么知道会是狗？你爹会抱怨它吃得太多。”

“Stick insects do, I mean. They’re jolly interesting, actually. They eat each other when they’re mating.”

“我是说竹节虫吃。它们其实挺有意思的。它们交配时还会把对方吃了。”

There was a thoughtful pause. The hound slunk closer, and realized that the voices were coming from a hole in the ground.

周围安静下来，似乎所有人都在思考。猎犬继续靠近，最终意识到这些声音是从地上的一个大坑里传来的。

If you were a child, it was paradise. The local adults called it The Pit.

如果你是个孩子，这里就是天堂。但本地的成年人称其为“大坑”。

In one corner a tangle of wheels and corroded wire marked the site of the famous Lost Graveyard where the supermarket trolleys came to die.

在一个角落里，乱七八糟的破轮胎和严重腐蚀的铁丝为它赢得了“失落墓场”的大名，所有超市手推车都会到这儿来寻死。

“They don’t!”

“它们不吃！”

The hound peered through a clump of nettles, and spotted four figures sitting in the center of the quarry on that indispensable prop to good secret dens everywhere, the common milk crate.

猎犬从一片荨麻间窥视过去，看到采掘场中心有四个人影。他们正坐在所有秘密据点都必不可少的道具上——一个牛奶箱。

The trees in fact concealed an ancient chalk quarry, now half overgrown with thorn trees and vines. Ancient, but clearly not disused. Tracks crisscrossed it; smooth areas of slope indicated regular use by skateboards and Wall-of-Death, or at least Wall-of-Seriously-Grazed-Knee, cyclists. Old bits of dangerously frayed rope hung from some of the more accessible greenery. Here and there sheets of corrugated iron and old wooden boards were wedged in branches. A burnt-out, rusting Triumph Herald Estate was visible, half-submerged in a drift of nettles.

这片树林掩住一个几乎长满灌木和藤蔓的古老白垩采掘场。古老，但显然没被废弃。自行车车辙纵横交错，光滑的斜坡经常被用来玩滑板和被称作“死亡之墙”——至少是“膝盖严重挫伤之墙”的单车特技。严重磨损的绳索挂在某些较矮的树木上。随处可见的波状钢板和旧木板就插在枝条间。一块残破生锈的牌子从荨麻丛间探出头来，上面写着“胜利捷报地产”。

“They do.”

“它们吃。”

“Bet you they don’t,” said the first speaker. It had a certain timbre to it that identified it as young and female, and it was tinted with horrified fascination.

“我跟你打赌它们不吃。”第一个声音说。从音色可以辨别出，它属于一位年轻女性，而且带着惊恐又着迷的情绪。

“They do, actually. I had six before we went on holiday and I forgot to change the privet and when I came back I had one big fat one.”

“它们吃，真的。我曾经养过六只。有一次我们去度假前，我忘了换水蜡树树叶。结果等我回来，就剩下又大又肥的一只。”

“Nah. That’s not stick insects, that’s praying mantises. I saw on the television where this big female one ate this other one and it dint hardly take any notice.”

“不对。那不是竹节虫，是螳螂，就是那种姿势好像在祈祷的虫子。我在电视里见过，大个儿的母虫会把对方吃掉，公虫连眼都不眨一下。”

The hound managed to get one huge eye against an empty knothole in the quarry’s broken-down fence, and squinted downward.

猎犬设法把大眼睛对准采掘场坍塌的木板围墙上的一个小洞，朝下方看去。

“Dunno. Prayin’ they don’t have to get married, I s’pect.”

“不知道。祈祷不用被迫结婚吧，我估计。”

There was another crowded pause.

又是一阵寂静。

“What’re they prayin’ about?” said his Master’s voice.

“它们都祈祷些什么？”主人的声音说。

“Anyway, it’s like with bikes,” said the first speaker authoritatively. “I thought I was going to get this bike with seven gears and one of them razorblade saddles and purple paint and everything, and they gave me this light blue one. With a basket. A girl’s bike.”

“总之，这就好像自行车。”第一个声音很权威地总结道，“我本以为会得到一辆七变速自行车，有剃刀刃一样的座子、紫色涂装和一切的一切。结果他们给了我一辆天蓝色的。还带车筐。女孩骑的车。”

“Well. You’re a girl,” said one of the others.

“哦。你是女孩。”另一个人说。

“That’s sexism, that is. Going around giving people girly presents just because they’re a girl.”

“只因为某些人是女孩，就给她们女孩的玩具。这是性别歧视，我跟你说。”

“I’m going to get a dog,” said his Master’s voice, firmly. His Master had his back to him; the hound couldn’t quite make out his features.

“我会得到一条狗。”主人坚定地说。男孩背冲着猎犬，它看不清主人的相貌。

“– but one of those dogs that’s brilliantly intelligent and can go down rabbit holes and has one funny ear that always looks inside out. And a proper mongrel, too. A pedigree mongrel.”

“…而是绝顶聪明的狗。可以钻进兔子洞。好玩的小耳朵老是朝外翻着。而且是个混血。一条纯种混血狗。”

“No, it’s going to be the kind of dog you can have fun with,” said his Master’s voice. “Not a big dog –“

“不，是那种可以跟你一块儿玩的狗。”主人的声音说，“不是大狗…”

— the eye in the nettles vanished abruptly downwards —

——荨麻丛中的红眼睛突然向下移动——

“Oh, yeah, one of those great big Rottenweilers, yeah?” said the girl, with withering sarcasm.

“哦，对，那种大个罗威纳犬，对吗？”女孩讽刺道。

Unheard by those within, there was a tiny clap of thunder on the lip of the quarry. It might have been caused by the sudden rushing of air into the vacuum caused by a very large dog becoming, for example, a small dog.

孩子们没注意到，采掘场边上响过一阵细小的噼啪声。很可能是四周空气突然涌入真空地带而产生的声音，比方说因为一条特别大的猎犬变成了小狗。

The tiny popping noise that followed might have been caused by one ear turning itself inside out.

而接下来的砰砰响动，没准儿是因为有个耳朵朝外翻了过来。

The hound waited. This was the moment. The Naming. This would give it its propose, its function, its identity. Its eyes glowed a dull red, even though they were a lot closer to the ground, and it dribbled into the nettles.

猎犬等待着。是时候了。命名。这会赋予它本性，确定它的功用和身份。它的两只眼睛虽说距离地面近了许多，但还是闪现出隐隐红光。口水也滴在荨麻丛中。

“And I’ll call him…” said his Master’s voice. “I’ll call him…”

“我会叫它…”主人的声音说，“我会叫它…”

“Yes?” said the girl. “What’re you goin’ to call it?”

“什么？”女孩说，“你要叫它什么？”

“You’ll be amazed at the kind of things they can do to you, down there,” he said.

“如果你知道下边那帮人都有什么手段，肯定会大吃一惊。”恶魔说。

He thumped the steering wheel.

他拍了下方向盘。

“There isn’t anyone else! There’s just us, right? Good and Evil. One side or the other.”

“没别人了！只有咱们，不是吗？善良和邪恶。一方和另一方。”

“It was him,” said Crowley. “I mean, I should know, shouldn’t I?”

“本来是他。”克鲁利说，“我是说，我早该知道，不是吗？”

“I imagine they’re very similar to the sort of things they can do to one up there,” said Aziraphale.

“我估计跟上面那帮人会做的事差不多。”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“Then someone else must be interfering.”

“那就是有人动了手脚。”

The hell-hound paused. Deep in its diabolical canine brain it knew that something was wrong, but it was nothing if not obedient and its great sudden love of its Master overcame all misgivings. Who was it to say what size it should be, anyway?

地狱犬愣了一下。在那恶魔狗脑子的最深处，它知道这事儿有点不对头，但它心中只有服从。对主人的满腔敬爱更扫平了所有疑虑。再说了，它算什么东西，哪有资格决定自己的大小？

Strange, though. It had always wanted to jump up at people but, now, it realized that against all expectation it wanted to wag its tail at the same time.

奇怪的是，它过去总有扑咬的欲望，但现在却意识到这跟同时想要摇尾巴的冲动完全抵触。

It trotted down the slope to meet its destiny.

小狗三两步跑下斜坡，去迎接自己的命运。

“I’ll call him Dog,” said his Master, positively. “It saves a lot of trouble, a name like that.”

“我会叫它狗狗。”主人肯定地说，“这个名字可以省不少事。”

“You said it was him!” moaned Aziraphale, abstractedly picking the final lump of cream-cake from his lapel. He licked his fingers clean.

“你说是他！”亚茨拉菲尔一边嘟囔，一边漫不经心地把最后一块奶油蛋糕从领子上拿掉，随即将手指舔干净。

“Sure,” said the demon. “There was this great little tavern where you could get these terrific fermented date-palm cocktails with nutmeg and crushed lemongrass –“

“当然去过。”恶魔说，“那里有家特别棒的小馆子，你可以吃到美妙至极的肉豆蔻拌碎柠檬香草，搭配发酵海藻鸡尾酒…”

“Yes? Did you ever visit Gomorrah?”

“是吗？你没去过蛾摩拉城吗，被他老人家毁掉的那座？”

“Oh.”

“哦。”

Aziraphale said: “Something must have happened in the hospital.”

亚茨拉菲尔说：“肯定是医院里出了什么岔子。”

He tried to say it dismissively. Apart from, of course, the fact that the world was an amazing interesting place which they both wanted to enjoy for as long as possible, there were few things that the two of them agreed on, but they did see eye to eye about some of those people who, for one reason or another, were inclined to worship the Prince of Darkness. Crowley always found them embarrassing. You couldn’t actually be rude to them, but you couldn’t help feeling about them the same way that, say, a Vietnam veteran would feel about someone who wears combat gear to Neighborhood Watch meetings.

他试图表现出轻蔑的口吻。除了都认为世界是个有趣的地方、希望享受得越久越好以外，克鲁利和亚茨拉菲尔很少有共同语言。不过说到撒旦信徒，他俩倒是很有共识。那些人出于这样或那样的原因，主动敬拜黑暗王子。克鲁利总觉得他们令人尴尬。你没法冲他们发火，但始终会有种怪怪的感觉，就跟越战老兵看到有人身穿野战服，去参加邻里安全互助会时的感觉一样。

“Come off it. Your lot get ineffable mercy,” said Crowley sourly.

“别逗了。至少你们有不可言喻的慈悲。”克鲁利酸溜溜地说。

“I meant afterwards.”

“我是说在那之后。”

“It couldn’t have! It was full of our people!”

“不可能！那里都是咱们的人！”

“Whose people?” said Aziraphale coldly.

“谁的人？”亚茨拉菲尔冷冰冰地说。

“My people,” corrected Crowley. “Well, not my people. Mmm, you know. Satanists.”

“我的人。”克鲁利更正道，“好吧，不是我的人。嗯，你明白的。撒旦信徒们。”

And as for the rest of it…

当然还有些人…

There were people who called themselves Satanists who made Crowley squirm. It wasn’t just the things they did, it was the way they blamed it all on Hell. They’d come up with some stomach-churning idea that no demon could have thought of in a thousand years, some dark and mindless unpleasantness that only a fully-functioning human brain could conceive, then shout “The Devil Made Me Do It” and get the sympathy of the court when the whole point was that the Devil hardly ever made anyone do anything. He didn’t have to. That was what some humans found hard to understand. Hell wasn’t a major reservoir of evil, any more than Heaven, in Crowley’s opinion, was a fountain of goodness; they were just sides in the great cosmic chess game. Where you found the real McCoy, the real grace and the real heart-stopping evil, was right inside the human mind.

这些自称撒旦信徒的家伙，让克鲁利局促不安。不光是因为他们所做的事，更是因为他们把一切都怪在地狱头上。他们想出的点子，恶魔们花一千年都摸不着边。这些让人浑身发冷的主意，充满黑暗和龌龊的气息，只有功能正常的人类大脑才能孕育出来。然后这些人会大叫着“是恶魔让我这么干的”，以得到陪审团的同情。但问题在于，恶魔几乎不会让任何人做任何事。他没这个必要。有些人就是无法理解这一点。在克鲁利看来，地狱并非邪恶的蓄水池，天堂也不是仁慈的喷泉。它们只是宇宙大棋局的两个玩家。你只能在人类的头脑中找到货真价实的玩意儿，无论是纯粹的仁慈，还是彻底的邪恶。

Besides, some of the old-style Satanists tended, in fact, to be quite nice people. They mouthed the words and went through the motions, just like the people they thought of as their opposite numbers, and then went home and lived lives of mild unassuming mediocrity for the rest of the week with never an unusually evil thought in their heads.

再说了，有些老派撒旦信徒其实都是大好人。他们咏颂祷词、举行仪式，其实跟自己的假想敌们没什么区别。仪式结束后，他们回到家中，继续谦逊温和的平凡人生。一周余下的日子里，可能连半个邪恶念头都没有。

Besides, they were always so depressingly enthusiastic. Take all that stuff with the inverted crosses and pentagrams and cockerels. It mystified most demons. It wasn’t the least bit necessary. All you needed to become a Satanist was an effort of will. You could be one all your life without ever knowing what a pentagram was, without ever seeing a dead cockerel other than as Chicken Marengo.

除此以外，他们还老是热忱得让人郁闷。没完没了的倒十字架啊、五芒星啊、小公鸡啊。这让大部分恶魔迷惑不解。根本没必要。想成为撒旦信徒，你只需要有一颗虔诚的心。你可以当一辈子撒旦信徒，都不用知道五芒星是什么，也不用看到肯德基以外的任何死公鸡。

“Good point.”

“说得好。”

There must have been a third baby.

肯定有第三个婴儿。

“How do we know?”

“咱们怎么知道？”

“And then what?” he said.

“然后怎么办？”他说。

“We know the child must be alive,” said Crowley, “so –“

“咱们知道那孩子肯定还活着。”克鲁利说，“那么…”

He told Aziraphale.

他把这个想法讲给亚茨拉菲尔。

“If it had turned up Down There again, do you think I’d still be sitting here?”

“如果他重新在下界显身，你觉得我还能坐在这儿吗？”

“And then what?” The angel shut his eyes as the car crabbed around a corner.

“然后怎么办？”车子横着甩过一个拐角，天使紧紧闭住双眼。

“I don’t see how they could have messed it up,” said Crowley. “I mean, two babies. It’s not exactly taxing, is it…?” He stopped. Through the mists of memory he pictured a small nun, who had struck him at the time as being remarkably loose-headed even for a Satanist. And there had been someone else. Crowley vaguely recalled a pipe, and a cardigan with the kind of zigzag pattern that went out of style in 1938. A man with “expectant father” written all over him.

“我不觉得他们有可能把这件事搞砸。”克鲁利说，“我是说，就两个婴儿。一点也不复杂，难道不是…”他忽然愣住了。拨开记忆的迷雾，一位小个子修女凸显出来，克鲁利当时就觉得即便作为撒旦教徒，她也迷糊得有点过分。而且还有个人。克鲁利隐约记得一杆烟斗、一件1938年就该过气的之字形图案开襟羊毛衫。一个身上插满“准爸爸”标签的男人。

“So all we’ve got to do is find it,” said Crowley. “Go through the hospital records.” The Bentley’s engine coughed into life and the car leapt forward, forcing Aziraphale back into the seat.

“所以咱们所要做的就是找到他。”克鲁利说，“可以通过医院档案查询。”宾利车的引擎开始轰鸣，车子猛地一蹿，把亚茨拉菲尔拍在车座上。

“And then we find the child.”

“然后咱们找到那个孩子。”

“Not a lot to go on,” said the angel.

“线索可不怎么多。”天使说。

“Huh,” said Aziraphale. “Satanists.”

“哈。”亚茨拉菲尔说，“撒旦信徒。”

“You’ll get us killed!” Aziraphale hesitated. “Inconveniently discorporated,” he corrected, lamely, relaxing a little. “Anyway, you might kill other people.”

“你会把咱们弄死！”亚茨拉菲尔说完这话顿了一下，“造成麻烦的灵肉分离。”他毫无说服力地改口道，随即放松了些，“何况你可能把别人弄死。”

Crowley shrugged. The angel had never really come to grips with the twentieth century, and didn’t realize that it is perfectly possible to do ninety miles an hour down Oxford Street. You just arranged matters so that no one was in the way. And since everyone knew that it was impossible to do ninety miles an hour down Oxford Street, no one noticed.

克鲁利耸耸肩。天使从没真正理解二十世纪，也就意识不到完全有可能沿牛津街开到一百四。你只需要把东西安排好，保证没人挡路。而且既然所有人都觉得不可能沿牛津街开到一百四，也就不会有人注意。

“It’s on the street, it knows the risks it’s taking!” said Crowley, easing the accelerating car between a parked car and a taxi and leaving a space which would have barely accepted even the best credit card.

“他既然在街上走，就应该知道有多大风险！”克鲁利驾驶着不断加速的宾利，从一辆停在路边的小车和一辆出租车之间挤了过去，留下的缝隙仅能插进一张最薄的信用卡。

“I was going to ask you the same thing — Watch out for that pedestrian!”

“我正要问你相同的问题…注意行人！”

“Somewhere south of Oxford!”

“牛津以南某个地方！”

“Watch the roadl Watch the road! Where is this hospital, anyway?”

“看着路！看着路！说起来，医院在哪儿？”

“Good grief.”

“真让人放心。”

Aziraphale grabbed the dashboard. “You can’t do ninety miles an hour in Central London!”

亚茨拉菲尔抓着仪表板说：“你不能在伦敦中心区开到一百四！”

Crowley peered at the dial. “Why not?” he said.

克鲁利瞥了一眼时速表。“为什么不能？”他说。

“I suppose — get off the road you clown — your people wouldn’t consider… and the scooter you rode in on!– giving me asylum?”

“我想…滚开，你这笨蛋！…你们的人不会考虑…还有你骑的小摩托！…给我提供庇护所吧？”

“Don’t know.”

“不知道。”

Somewhere around Chiswick, Aziraphale scrabbled vaguely in the scree of tapes in the glove compartment.

到了奇西克区附近时，亚茨拉菲尔开始翻找汽车杂物箱里堆成一摊的磁带。

“What’s a Velvet Underground?” he said.

“地下丝绒乐队[1]是什么？”他说。【注：[1]The Velvet Underground，美国摇滚乐队，其最广为人知的是由波普艺术大师安迪·沃霍尔（Andy Warhol）设计的“大香蕉”专辑封面。】

“You wouldn’t like it,” said Crowley.

“你不会喜欢的。”克鲁利说。

“Do you know, Aziraphale, that probably if a million human beings were asked to describe modern music, they wouldn’t use the term ‘bebop’?’ said Crowley.

“知道吗，亚茨拉菲尔，如果你请一百万人各自形容一下现代音乐，估计没有一个会用‘爵士乐’这个词。”克鲁利说。

“Oh,” said the angel dismissively. “Be-bop.”

“哦。”天使不屑地说，“爵士乐。”

“Ah, this is more like it. Tchaikovsky,” said Aziraphale, opening a case and slotting its cassette into the Blaupunkt.

“哦，这个还差不多。柴可夫斯基。”亚茨拉菲尔说着打开盒子，把磁带塞进车载音响。

At least cars were better than horses. The internal combustion engine had been a godse — a blessi — a windfall for Crowley. The only horses he could be seen riding on business, in the old days, were big black jobs with eyes like flame and hooves that struck sparks. That was de rigueur for a demon. Usually, Crowley fell off. He wasn’t much good with animals.

至少车子比马强。对克鲁利来说，内燃机是一个天赐…一种神来…一笔飞来横财。当初他因公出差时，所骑的马都是那种双眼冒火、四蹄爆金星的黑色大家伙。那是恶魔必备的交通工具。但克鲁利老是从马上摔下来。他向来不擅长应付动物。

A heavy bass beat began to thump through the Bentley as they sped past Heathrow.

宾利车从希思罗机场旁边疾驰而过，沉重的贝斯音开始轰鸣。

“You won’t enjoy it,” sighed Crowley. “It’s been in the car for more than a fortnight.”

“你不会喜欢的。”克鲁利叹道，“这盘带子已经在车里放了超过两个礼拜。”

It is said that the Devil has all the best tunes.

有人说恶魔拥有全部顶级音乐。

“It’s Tchaikovsky’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’,” said Crowley, closing his eyes as they went through Slough.

“柴可夫斯基的《又一场惨败》。”克鲁利闭上眼，车子迅速穿过斯劳区。

Aziraphale’s brow furrowed.

亚茨拉菲尔皱起眉头。

“I don’t recognize this,” he said. “What is it?”

“我怎么没听过这个？”他说，“这是什么？”

To while away the time as they crossed the sleeping Chilterns, they also listened to William Byrd’s “We Are the Champions” and Beethoven’s “I Want To Break Free.” Neither were as good as Vaughan Williams’s “Fat-Bottomed Girls.”

等他们经过沉睡中的白金汉郡奇尔特恩斯大学时，两人已经听过了威廉·伯德的《我们是冠军》和贝多芬的《我要自由》。这两首歌都不如英国作曲家沃恩·威廉姆斯的《大屁股女孩》好听。[2]【注：[2]以上都是皇后乐队的歌曲，克鲁利说过在车里放上两周，所有磁带都会变成皇后乐队精选集。】

The Oxfordshire plain stretched out to the west, with a scattering of lights to mark the slumbering villages where honest yeomen were settling down to sleep after a long day’s editorial direction, financial consulting, or software engineering.

牛津郡平原向西延伸，星星点点的灯光勾勒出沉睡中的村镇。辛勤的农民们经过整整一天的社论指导、财政顾问或是软件编程工作后，都已恬然安睡。

Up here on the hill a few glow-worms were lighting up.

小山上有几只萤火虫兀自散发着冷光。

The surveyor’s theodolite is one of the more direful symbols of the twentieth century. Set up anywhere in open countryside, it says: there will come Road Widening, yea, and two-thousand-home estates in keeping with the Essential Character of the Village. Executive Developments will be manifest.

测量员的经纬仪是二十世纪的恐怖标志物之一。只要把它竖在广阔乡村的任何地方，就等于在说：这里将进行道路拓宽工程，没错，还有沿袭“小镇传统特色”的两千所私人宅院。开发计划一目了然。

This is broadly true. But Heaven has the best choreographers.

这话大体正确。但天堂有最棒的舞蹈设计。

But not even the most conscientious surveyor surveys at midnight, and yet here the thing was, tripod legs deep in the turf. Not many theodolites have a hazel twig strapped to the top, either, or crystal pendulums hanging from them and Celtic runes carved into the legs.

就连责任心最强的测量员也不会在午夜工作。可事实就摆在这儿，三角架深深戳在草地里。当然，没有几台经纬仪上会绑着榛树嫩枝，也多半没有水晶钟摆和刻在架子腿上的凯尔特符文。

The soft breeze flapped the cloak of the slim figure who was adjusting the knobs of the thing. It was quite a heavy cloak, sensibly waterproof, with a warm lining.

这个苗条身影正在调整装置上的球形把手，斗篷在微风中飘摆。这是件很厚重的斗篷，明显可以防雨，还加上了保暖内衬。

The young woman’s name was Anathema Device. She was not astonishingly beautiful. All her features, considered individually, were extremely pretty, but the entirety of her face gave the impression that it had been put together hurriedly from stock without reference to any plan. Probably the most suitable word is “attractive,” although people who knew what it meant and could spell it might add “vivacious,” although there is something very Fifties about “vivacious,” so perhaps they wouldn’t.

这位年轻女子是安娜丝玛·仪祁。她算不上美得惊艳绝伦。她所有部位分别来看都相当漂亮，但整个面部给人一种没有参照说明书，就直接从库房里提出部件，匆忙组装在一起的印象。也许最合适她的形容词是“妩媚”，但知道这个词的意思也知道该怎么写的人可能会在前面加上“生机勃勃”四个字。当然了，“生机勃勃”感觉特别五十年代，所以也许他们不加。

Most books on witchcraft will tell you that witches work naked. This is because most books on witchcraft are written by men.

大多数有关巫术的书籍都会告诉你女巫们工作时赤身裸体。这是因为大多数有关巫术的书籍，都是由男人撰写的。

This was an entirely different kind of muttering.

眼下是种截然不同的嘀咕。

She sighted through the glass and made another adjustment.

安娜丝玛从目镜里看了看，又做了点调整。

Young women should not go alone on dark nights, even in Oxfordshire. But any prowling maniac would have had more than his work cut out if he had accosted Anathema Device. She was a witch, after all. And precisely because she was a witch, and therefore sensible, she put little faith in protective amulets and spells; she saved it all for a foot-long bread knife which she kept in her belt.

年轻女子不应该深夜独自外出，就算是在牛津郡也不行。但任何鬼鬼祟祟在夜间游逛的变态如果敢跟安娜丝玛·仪祁搭讪，后果将不堪设想。毕竟她是个女巫。而且正因为她是女巫，所以头脑特别清醒，完全不相信护身符和防御性魔法之类的玩意儿。她更相信一英尺长的面包刀，这家伙就别在她的腰带上。

She muttered under her breath.

她小声嘀咕着什么。

She picked up a folded Ordinance Survey map and held it in the torchlight. Then she produced a transparent ruler and a pencil and carefully drew a line across the map. It intersected another pencil line.

她拿起一卷官方测绘图，摊在手电筒前，接着掏出一根透明塑料直尺和一支铅笔，小心翼翼地在图上画了条线，与另一条直线交叉。

“Darksome night/And shining Moon,” muttered Anathema, “East by South/By West by southwest… west-southwest… got you…”

“幽暗的夜晚…闪烁的月亮…”安娜丝玛嘀咕道，“东偏北…西偏西南…西西南…搞定…”

Surveyors often mutter under their breath. They mutter things like “Soon have a relief road through here faster than you can say Jack Robinson,” or “That’s three point five meters, give or take a gnat’s whisker.”

测量员们经常小声嘀咕。他们会嘀咕“一眨眼的工夫这里就会出现一条辅路”，或是“三点五米，误差不超过一条蚊子腿”之类的话。

She smiled, not because anything was particularly amusing, but because a tricky job had been done well.

安娜丝玛笑了笑，不是因为看到什么特别有意思的东西，而是因为漂漂亮亮地完成了一件棘手工作。

It was a very ancient bike, with a frame apparently made of drainpipes. It had been built long before the invention of the three-speed gear, and possibly only just after the invention of the wheel.

这是辆特别古老的自行车，骨架显然是用排水管做成的。它诞生于三变速装置的发明之前，可能紧跟在轮子的发明之后。

But it was nearly all downhill to the village. Hair streaming in the wind, cloak ballooning behind her like a sheet anchor, she let the twowheeled juggernaut accelerate ponderously through the warm air. At least there wasn’t any traffic at this time of night.

从这里到镇上几乎是一路下坡。她的头发随风起舞，大衣在身后飘扬，就好像是个备用锚。她任由这辆笨重的两轮神车加速穿过温暖的晚风。至少夜里这个时候，路上不会有别人。

“Eleven years ago!”

“十一年前！”

“Well, we flashed by so quickly. Anyway, I thought you’d been here before.”

“哦，咱们开得那么快，只是一闪而过。再说，你原来不是来过吗？”

The Bentley’s engine went pink, pink as it cooled. Crowley’s temper, on the other hand, was heating up.

伴随着一阵砰砰声，宾利车的引擎冷却下来。另一方面，克鲁利的脾气却在升温。

Then she collapsed the strange theodolite, strapped it onto the back of a sit-up-and-beg black bicycle leaning against the hedge, made sure the Book was in the basket, and wheeled everything out to the misty lane.

她收起那台古怪的经纬仪，把它绑到靠在篱笆上的一辆老式黑色自行车的后架上，确认“大书”就放在车筐里，然后将车推上薄雾弥漫的小路。

“You said you saw it signposted,” he said.

“你刚才说你看见路标了。”他说。

Aziraphale blinked, lowered his hands, and gingerly opened the door.

亚茨拉菲尔眨眨眼，放下双手，小心翼翼地打开车门。

There was a whirr, a scream, and a chink. The car stopped.

先是“嗖”的一声，然后是“啊”的一声，最后是“咣”的一声。车子停住了。

“Slow down a moment.”

“暂时开慢点。”

“No I haven’t,” said Crowley. “Someone’s hit me.”

“我没有。”克鲁利说，“是什么人撞到我了。”

“You’ve hit someone,” he said.

“你撞到什么人了。”他说。

Aziraphale stared at him.

亚茨拉菲尔盯着他。

The Bentley slowed again.

宾利车放慢了速度。

“Perhaps we should ask someone,” said Aziraphale.

“也许应该找个人问问。”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“Odd,” muttered the angel, “I keep getting these flashes of, of…”

“奇怪。”天使嘟囔道，“我老是感觉到转瞬即逝的，呃…”

Crowley hurled the map onto the back seat and started the engine again.

克鲁利把地图扔到后座，再次发动引擎。

“What?”

“什么？”

He raised his hands to his temples.

他抬起手按住太阳穴。

“Love,” he said. “Someone really loves this place.”

“爱。”天使说，“有人特别爱这地方。”

“Do you mean like –” Crowley began.

“你是说好像…”克鲁利开口道。

“Pardon?”

“抱歉，我没听清？”

He jerked the car into gear and roared out into the beech-hung lane.

他一挂挡，汽车怒吼着驶上山毛榉林间的小路。

“There seems to be this great sense of love. I can’t put it any better than that. Especially not to you.”

“这里似乎有种强烈的爱意。我没法解释得更清楚了。特别是跟你。”

“Oh, yes,” said Crowley. “We’ll stop and ask the first person we see walking along a-a track in the middle of the night, shall we?”

“哦，对。”克鲁利说，“我们可以停下来，跟遇到的头一个沿这条小…这条车辙散步的仲夏夜行人打听，是吧？”

“What? What?” said Crowley.

“什么？什么？”克鲁利说。

“There’s something odd about this area,” said Aziraphale. “Can’t you feel it?”

“这地方有点奇怪。”亚茨拉菲尔说，“你感觉不到吗？”

“Doing a spot of astronomy, were we?” said Aziraphale, setting the bike upright. Various things clattered out of its front basket. He pointed to the battered theodolite.

“在研究天文学，是吗？”亚茨拉菲尔说着把自行车扶起来。前车筐里的各种零碎撒了一地。天使指了指摔坏的经纬仪。

“You didn’t have any lights,” she began.

“你们没开灯。”女孩说。

From the ditch beside them someone said, “How the hell did you do that?”

一个声音从他们旁边的沟里传了出来。“我的天，你是怎么弄的？”

“Nor did you,” said Crowley guiltily. “Fair’s fair.”

“你也没开。”克鲁利内疚地说，“彼此彼此。”

“Uh.” Now the voice sounded muzzy. “I think I hit my head on something…”

“啊。”那个声音晕晕乎乎地说，“我想我是撞到头了…”

“Up you get, young lady,” said the angel, hauling Anathema out of the bracken. “No bones broken.” It was a statement, not a hope; there had been a minor fracture, but Aziraphale couldn’t resist an opportunity to do good.

“起来吧，小姑娘。”天使说着把安娜丝玛从羊齿草间拉了起来。“没骨折。”这是个声明，而非愿望。本有一道小小的骨裂，但亚茨拉菲尔无法抵御任何行善的机会。

Crowley glared at a long metallic streak on the Bentley’s glossy paintwork and a dimple in the bumper. The dimple popped back into shape. The paint healed.

宾利车充满光泽的表面有一道长长的划痕，保险杠也凹了进去。克鲁利瞪了它们一眼。凹痕恢复原状，划痕消失无踪。

“Let there be light,” said Aziraphale. A pale blue glow filled the lane.

亚茨拉菲尔说：“要有光。”于是小路上就有了苍白的蓝光。

They got out. Behind the Bentley a bicycle lay in the road, its front wheel bent into a creditable Mobius shape, its back wheel clicking ominously to a standstill.

他们走下车。宾利车后方的道路上躺着一辆自行车，它的前轮扭成了不可思议的默比乌斯圈形，后轮转了一阵，最终丧气地停了下来。

“Do what?” said Aziraphale guiltily.

“弄什么？”亚茨拉菲尔内疚地说。

The light vanished.

光芒消失了。

“I’m sorry?” said Aziraphale.

“抱歉，你说什么？”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“Only I’m sure Phaeton never had a pump.”

“但我确定老马车上从来没有打气筒。”

“It’s just down the hill,” she said. “This is my bike, isn’t it?”

“就在山下。”她说，“这是我的车，对吗？”

“But there’s a place for one,” he said, helplessly. “Two little hooks.”

“但正好有个放气筒的地方。”他无助地说，“两个小挂钩。”

Anathema was still staring at her bicycle. She was almost certain that it hadn’t had a little saddlebag with a puncture repair kit when she set out.

安娜丝玛还盯着那辆自行车。她几乎可以肯定自己出门时，车上没有装着整套修理工具的小鞍袋。

“No,” said Anathema, “I mean, yes. And look what you’ve done to poor old Phaeton.”

“不。”安娜丝玛说，“我是说，对。看看你对这辆老马车干了什么。”

“Well, since that’s all sorted out,” said Crowley, “perhaps it’d be best if we just all got on our, er. Er. You wouldn’t happen to know the way to Lower Tadfield, would you?”

“哦，既然一切都搞定了。”克鲁利说，“也许我们都应该上路。呃，你不会刚巧知道去下塔德菲尔德的路吧？”

She stared at it.

安娜丝玛盯着它。

“Oh, certainly,” said Aziraphale, wondering if he’d overdone things.

“哦，当然。”亚茨拉菲尔琢磨着自己是不是做过头了。

“Amazingly resilient, these old machines,” said the angel brightly, handing it to her. The front wheel gleamed in the moonlight, as perfectly round as one of the Circles of Hell.

“这些老物件，复原能力超强。”天使高兴地把车还给女孩。前轮在月光下闪闪发亮，圆得好像地狱九环中的一环。

“My bicycle. It’s bent all to –“

“我的自行车。它都弯成了…”

“Just down the hill, you said?” said Crowley, nudging the angel.

“就在山下，你是说？”克鲁利捅捅天使。

The angel looked guilty again.

天使又显出内疚的神色。

“Your one might not. This one does. We have got other things to do, you know.” Crowley glared at the new luggage rack. It had tartan straps.

“你这人不能。我这人可以。咱们还有事要做，记得吗？”克鲁利瞪着崭新的行李架。那上面有格子呢绑绳。

The bicycle lifted itself up and tied itself firmly in place. Then Crowley got in.

自行车自己飞上去，牢牢绑好。克鲁利坐进驾驶席。

“My bike didn’t have lights, either. Well, it did, but they’re the sort you put those double batteries in and they went moldy and I took them off,” said Anathema. She glared at Crowley. “I have a bread knife, you know,” she said. “Somewhere.”

“我的车也没灯。哦，有过，但是那种要放两节电池的，而且还会发霉，所以我给卸了。”安娜丝玛说，她看了一眼克鲁利，“知道吗，我有一把面包刀，放在…某个地方。”

“Except the luggage rack,” said Aziraphale.

“除了行李架。”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“I think perhaps I must have knocked my head,” said the girl.

“我想我肯定是撞到了头。”女孩说。

“We’d offer to give you a lift, of course,” said Crowley quickly, “but there’s nowhere for the bike.”

“当然，我们很乐意带你一程。”克鲁利说，“可惜没有放自行车的地方。”

“One does not,” he said to Crowley, “pass by on the other side.”

“见人有难。”他对克鲁利说，“一个人不能袖手旁观。”

“Where do you live, my dear?” Aziraphale oozed.

“你住哪儿，亲爱的小姐？”亚茨拉菲尔柔声问道。

The angel scrambled the spilled contents of the bike’s basket into the back seat and helped the stunned girl in after them.

天使把车筐里散落的东西都扔到后座，将头晕脑涨的女孩也扶了进去。

Aziraphale looked shocked at the implication.

亚茨拉菲尔被话语间的暗示吓了一跳。

“Madam, I assure you –“

“小姐，我向你保证…”

“The Bentley hasn’t — Oh. Huh.”

“宾利车没有…哦，啊。”

“And gears,” said Anathema. “My bike didn’t have gears. I’m sure my bike didn’t have gears.”

“还有变速器。”安娜丝玛说，“我的车没有变速器。我敢保证这辆车没有变速器。”

“I’m sorry, I just got carried away,” hissed Aziraphale.

“抱歉，我只是有点忘形。”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“Tartan straps?”

“格子呢捆绳？”

Crowley switched on the lights. He didn’t need them to see by, but they made the other humans on the road less nervous. Then he put the car into gear and drove sedately down the hill. The road came out from under the trees and, after a few hundred yards, reached the outskirts of a middlesized village.

克鲁利点亮车灯。他不需要光亮，但车灯可以让路上其他行人放松一些。他发动汽车，稳稳向山下驶去。这条路穿行在树林之间，开了几百码后，来到一个中型村镇边缘。

“Oh lord, heal this bike,” he whispered sarcastically.

“哦，主啊，快把那车治好。”他低声讽刺道。

“Divine planning,” muttered Crowley under his breath.

“神圣计划。”克鲁利低声说道。

It had a familiar feel to it. It had been eleven years, but this place definitely rang a distant bell.

这里有种熟悉的感觉。尽管已经过了十一年，但这地方还是拨动了他心里的那根弦。

Crowley leaned across to the angel.

克鲁利探身靠近天使。

Anathema shrugged. “Don’t think so,” she said. “The only large place is Tadfield Manor. I don’t know what goes on there.”

安娜丝玛耸耸肩。“我想没有。”她说，“这附近唯一的大型建筑是塔德菲尔德庄园。我不知道那儿是干什么的。”

“Is there a hospital around here?” he said. “Run by nuns?”

“这附近有家医院吗？”克鲁利说，“由修女们管理的？”

“Tartan is stylish.”

“格子呢很时髦。”

Crowley growled. On those occasions when the angel managed to get his mind into the twentieth century, it always gravitated to 1950.

克鲁利呻吟一声。每当天使设法把思路调整到二十世纪时，它总会停留在五十年代。

She was quite sure neither of the two men had gone around to the back of the car, but the bike was unstrapped and leaning against the gate.

她很确定那两个人都没绕到车后面来，但自行车已经被解下，靠在大门旁。

“You can drop me off here,” said Anathema, from the back seat.

“你们可以把我放在这儿。”坐在后座的安娜丝玛说。

There was definitely something very weird about them, she decided.

他们绝对有点问题，安娜丝玛心想。

“Our pleasure,” beamed the angel. As soon as the car had stopped he had the back door open and was bowing like an aged retainer welcoming the young massa back to the old plantation.

“荣幸之至。”天使微笑着说。车子一停，他就打开后门，腰弯得好像欢迎小主人回到种植园的老仆人。

Aziraphale bowed again. “So glad to have been of assistance,” he said.

亚茨拉菲尔又鞠了个躬。“很高兴能帮您的忙。”他说。

“Thank you,” said Anathema, icily.

“谢谢。”安娜丝玛冷冷地说。

Anathema gathered her things together and stepped out as haughtily as possible.

安娜丝玛把东西收好，尽可能趾高气扬地走下车。

Ah. Well, that explained it. She had been perfectly safe after all.

啊。天使，这就对了。说到底，这一路上她还是挺安全的。

“Can we get on?” said Crowley. “Goodnight, miss. Get in, angel.”

“咱们可以走了吗？”克鲁利说，“晚安，小姐。上来，天使。”

She watched the car disappear toward the center of the village, and wheeled the bike up the path to the cottage. She hadn’t bothered to lock it. She was sure that Agnes would have mentioned it if she was going to be burgled, she was always very good at personal things like that.

安娜丝玛看着汽车消失在市镇中心的方向，随后骑上车回到小屋。她没锁车。安娜丝玛相信如果车子会丢，那艾格尼丝肯定要在书中提到。她特别擅长预言此类琐事。

She’d rented the cottage furnished, which meant that the actual furniture was the special sort you find in these circumstances and had probably been left out for the dustmen by the local War on Want shop. It didn’t matter. She didn’t expect to be here long.

女孩租下了这间带家具的小屋。也就是说这些家具正是你会在这种情况下见到的旧货，而且很可能是本地慈善募捐组织的工作人员挑剩下的。但是无所谓。反正她也不准备在这儿待多久。

She spread her maps and things out on the ancient table under the kitchen’s solitary light bulb.

安娜丝玛把地图和其他东西放在厨房唯一的灯泡下的旧桌子上。

What had she learned? Nothing much, she decided. Probably IT was at the north end of the village, but she’d suspected that anyway. If you got too close the signal swamped you; if you were too far away you couldn’t get an accurate fix.

她搞清了什么？不太多。它也许就在小镇北端，但安娜丝玛对此表示怀疑。如果你离得太近，信号就会将你淹没；如果离得太远，又无法进行准确定位。

If Agnes was right, she wouldn’t be anywherelong. Nor would anyone else.

如果艾格尼丝的预言正确，她无论在哪儿都不会待多久了。所有人都一样。

It was infuriating. The answer must be in the Book somewhere. The trouble was that in order to understand the Predictions you had to be able to think like a half-crazed, highly intelligent seventeenth-century witch with a mind like a crossword-puzzle dictionary. Other members of the family had said that Agnes made things obscure to conceal them from the understanding of outsiders; Anathema, who suspected she could occasionally think like Agnes, had privately decided that it was because Agnes was a bloody-minded old bitch with a mean sense of humor.

这真让人恼火。答案肯定在书中某处。问题是想要理解那些预言，你必须像疯疯癫癫的十七世纪高智商女巫一样思考，这种人的头脑就跟纵横填字谜一样混乱。家里其他人都说艾格尼丝把预言写得如此晦涩，是为了不让外人看懂。但安娜丝玛不这么看，她偶尔感觉自己的思路可以跟艾格尼丝合拍，并私下认为原因在于艾格尼丝是个幽默感很怪、喜欢唱反调的老混球。

“A feeling like, oh, like the opposite of the feeling you’re having when you say things like ‘this feels spooky,'” said Aziraphale. “That’s what I mean.”

“这种感觉就像是，哦，就和你说‘感觉毛骨悚然’时的感觉完全相反。”亚茨拉菲尔说，“我就是这个意思。”

Anathema stared in horror at the things on the table. The maps. The homemade divinatory theodolite. The thermos that had contained hot Bovril. The torch.

安娜丝玛恐惧地注视着桌上的东西。地图。自制占卜经纬仪。盛牛肉汁的热水瓶。手电筒。

The rectangle of empty air where the Prophecies should have been.

以及应该放预言书的方方正正的空间。

She’d not even —

她甚至不…

But that was ridiculous! One of the things Agnes was always very specific about was what happened to the book.

但这太荒唐了！艾格尼丝总是详加叙述的内容之一，就是和预言书有关的事儿。

She snatched up the torch and ran from the house.

安娜丝玛抓起手电筒，跑出小屋。

She’d lost it.

她把书丢了。

She didn’t have the book.

她找不到书了。

“I never say things like ‘this feels spooky,”‘ said Crowley. “I’m all for spooky.”

“我从来不说‘感觉毛骨悚然’。”克鲁利说，“我的工作就是让人感觉毛骨悚然。”

“Nope. Can’t sense a thing,” said Crowley with forced jolliness. “You’re just over-sensitive.”

“没有。什么都感觉不到。”克鲁利强颜欢笑，“你过于敏感了。”

“It’s my job,” said Aziraphale. “Angels can’t be over-sensitive.”

“这是我的工作。”亚茨拉菲尔说，“天使不可能‘过于’敏感。”

“I expect people round here like living here and you’re just picking it up.”

“我估计附近的人喜欢住在这儿，你正好接收到这种情绪。”

“Never picked up anything like this in London,” said Aziraphale.

“我从没在伦敦发现过这种情绪。”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“A cherishedfeel,” said Aziraphale desperately.

“一种关爱的感觉。”亚茨拉菲尔绝望地说。

“Nonsense. Nuns are up and about at all hours,” said Crowley. “It’s probably Compline, unless that’s a slimming aid.”

“胡扯。修女们每时每刻都在工作。”克鲁利说，“现在大概是晚祷时间，除非那是种保健食品[3]。”【注：[3]晚祷Compline和著名保健食品品牌Complan字形相似。】

The Bentley’s headlights lit up the groves of overgrown rhododendrons that lined the drive. The tires crunched over gravel.

宾利车的头灯照亮了车道两旁的杜鹃花丛。轮胎吱吱嘎嘎碾过沙石路。

“It’s a bit early in the morning to be calling on nuns,” said Aziraphale doubtfully.

“现在去拜访修女们，有点太早了吧。”亚茨拉菲尔犹豫地说。

“There you are, then. Proves my point,” said Crowley. “And this is the place. I remember the stone lions on the gateposts.”

“这就对了。足以证明我的观点。”克鲁利说，“就是这地方。我记得门柱上的石狮子。”

“Oh, cheap, very cheap,” said the angel. “There’s really no need for that sort of thing.”

“哦，恶毒，太恶毒了。”天使说，“真没必要说这种话。”

“You’ve lost me there.”

“你把我搞糊涂了。”

“Don’t get defensive. I told you, these were some of ours. Black nuns. We needed a hospital close to the air base, you see.”

“别吵了。我不是跟你说过，这是我们的地盘吗？黑修女。你知道，我们需要一家靠近空军基地的医院。”

“You don’t think American diplomats’ wives usually give birth in little religious hospitals in the middle of nowhere, do you? It all had to seem to happen naturally. There’s an air base at Lower Tadfield, she went there for the opening, things started to happen, base hospital not ready, our man there said, ‘There’s a place just down the road,’ and there we were. Rather good organization.”

“你不会以为美国外交官的妻子们，通常都在不知什么地方的修会小医院里生孩子吧？必须让一切显得自然。下塔德菲尔德有一处空军基地，她到那里参加开营仪式，孩子要生了，基地医院还没做好准备，我们在那儿的人说，‘沿这条路走有家医院’，就这么搞定了。相当严密的计划。”

“But it nearly worked,” snapped Crowley, feeling he should stick up for the old firm.

“但这计划几乎成功了。”克鲁利觉得有必要为自己人辩护，所以反驳道。

Crowley considered this. “Nah,” he said, at last. “For my money, it was just average incompetence. Hey –“

克鲁利想了想。“不。”他最终说，“在我看来，只是因为司空见惯的窝囊废罢了。嗨…”

He whistled under his breath.

他轻轻吹了声口哨。

“Except for one or two minor details,” said Aziraphale smugly.

“除了一两个小细节。”亚茨拉菲尔得意地说。

“You see, evil always contains the seeds of its own destruction,” said the angel. “It is ultimately negative, and therefore encompasses its downfall even at its moments of apparent triumph. No matter how grandiose, how well-planned, how apparently foolproof an evil plan, the inherent sinfulness will by definition rebound upon its instigators. No matter how apparently successful it may seem upon the way, at the end it will wreck itself. It will founder upon the rocks of iniquity and sink headfirst to vanish without trace into the seas of oblivion.”

“你看，邪恶总是暗藏自我毁灭的种子。”天使说，“它的本质是消极的，因此即便在看似成功的时候也会包含失败的祸根。不管一个邪恶计划多么宏大、多么周详、多么简单易行，它内在的罪恶意志也会反噬其主。无论这个计划表面上多么成功，到最后也会毁了自己。它将从罪孽的岩石上跌落，大头朝下消失在遗忘的海洋。”

The graveled forecourt in front of the manor was crowded with cars, and they weren’t nun cars. The Bentley was if anything outclassed. A lot of the cars had GT or Turbo in their names and phone aerials on their roofs. They were nearly all less than a year old.

大宅前铺满沙石的院落里挤满了轿车，而且显然不是修女们会开的车。宾利和它们一比，就显得落伍了。许多车的名字里都有GT或是Turbo字样，车顶上还竖着电话天线。它们车龄几乎都不到一年。

“Or you’ve got the wrong place.”

“也许咱们找错了地方。”

“This can’t be right,” said Aziraphale.

“不太对劲。”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“Perhaps they’ve gone private?” said Crowley.

“也许她们搞成私营企业了？”克鲁利说。

Crowley’s hands itched. Aziraphale healed bicycles and broken bones; he longed to steal a few radios, let down some tires, that sort of thing. He resisted it.

克鲁利手心发痒。亚茨拉菲尔会忍不住治好骨裂，修理自行车；而他则有偷几台收音机、戳破几个轮胎的冲动。但恶魔忍住了。

“Well, well,” he said. “In my day nuns were packed four to a Morris Traveller.”

“好吧，好吧。”他说，“在我那年月，修女们会四个人挤在一辆莫里斯旅行车里。”

“It’s the right place, I tell you. Come on.”

“就是这地方，我跟你说。来吧。”

They got out of the car. Thirty seconds later someone shot both of them. With incredible accuracy.

他们下了车。三十秒后，有人向他们开枪射击。枪法准得出奇。

If there was one thing that Mary Hodges, formerly Loquacious, was good at, it was attempting to obey orders. She liked orders. They made the world a simpler place.

玛丽·霍奇，亦即当年的玛丽·饶舌，最擅长的就是服从命令。她喜欢命令。它们让世界变得简单。

What she wasn’t good at was change. She’d really liked the Chattering Order. She’d made friends for the first time. She’d had a room of her own for the first time. Of course, she knew that it was engaged in things which might, from certain viewpoints, be considered bad, but Mary Hodges had seen quite a lot of life in thirty years and had no illusions about what most of the human race had to do in order to make it from one week to the next. Besides, the food was good and you got to meet interesting people.

而她最不擅长的就是改变。她的确喜欢唠叨修会。她在那里第一次交到了朋友，也是第一次有自己的房间。当然，她知道修会跟一些，从某种观点来看，被视作邪恶的事情有关。但玛丽·霍奇在三十年中已经见过太多世态炎凉，早就对大多数人类为了讨生活所要做的事不抱任何幻想。另外，这里的食物也很好，还能遇到有趣的人。

She hadn’t gone. She’d rather liked the Manor and, she said, someone ought to stay and see it was properly repaired, because you couldn’t trust workmen these days unless you were on top of them the whole time, in a manner of speaking. This meant breaking her vows, but Mother Superior said this was all right, nothing to worry about, breaking vows was perfectly okay in a black sisterhood, and it would all be the same in a hundred years’ time or, rather, eleven years’ time, so if it gave her any pleasure here were the deeds and an address to forward any mail unless it came in long brown envelopes with windows in the front.

玛丽没走。她很喜欢这所大宅，而且她说应该有人留下来，确保它得到良好的修缮。因为如今这年月，如果你不时时刻刻盯着工人，他们就不会好好干活。这意味着背弃入会誓言，但院长说没关系，不用担心，对一名黑暗修女来说，背弃誓言是绝对正当的行为，而且百年之后，或者说，十一年之后，这些细节又有何差别。如果这能让她快乐的话，那么地契都在这儿。另外还有个地址，你可以把所有信件转发过去，除非是税务局寄来的棕色长信封。

Then something very strange had happened to her. Left alone in the rambling building, working from one of the few undamaged rooms, arguing with men with cigarette stubs behind their ears and plaster dust on their trousers and the kind of pocket calculator that comes up with a different answer if the sums involved are in used notes, she discovered something she never knew existed.

接着有些奇怪的变化发生在她身上。独自住在这栋纷乱的大宅里，工作在一个没被烧到的房间中，跟耳朵后边夹烟头、裤子上面粘白灰、带着一算开销总额就出错的计算器的工人们争吵，让玛丽发现了自己身上某些从未被人察觉的潜质。

The Order, such as was left of it, had moved after the fire. After all, their sole purpose in existing had been fulfilled. They went their separate ways.

火灾后，修会，或者说修会剩下的部分，搬出了这里。毕竟，她们存在的唯一目的已经完成。人们分道扬镳。

She found it quite easy to interpret builders’ estimates and do VAT calculations. She’d got some books from the library, and found finance to be both interesting and uncomplicated. She’d stopped reading the kind of women’s magazine that talks about romance and knitting and started reading the kind of women’s magazine that talks about orgasms, but apart from making a mental note to have one if ever the occasion presented itself she dismissed them as only romance and knitting in a new form. So she’d started reading the kind of magazine that talked about mergers.

她发现自己很容易理解施工人员的预算评估，也能进行增值税计算。她从图书馆借了些书，发现经济学很有意思，也不复杂。她不再读谈论罗曼史小说和编织的妇女杂志，改看讨论性高潮的妇女杂志。但除了在心里提醒自己如果有机会就尝试一下之外，她认为这东西只是换了个壳子的罗曼史小说和编织杂志，所以就扔到一边，开始读讨论企业合并的杂志。

She’d discovered, under layers of silliness and eagerness to please, Mary Hodges.

在愚蠢和热心的层层迷雾间，她发现了玛丽·霍奇。

After much thought, she’d bought a small home computer from an amused and condescending young dealer in Norton. After a crowded weekend, she took it back. Not, as he thought when she walked back into the shop, to have a plug put on it, but because it didn’t have a 387 coprocessor. That bit he understood — he was a dealer, after all, and could understand quite long words — but after that the conversation rapidly went downhill from his point of view. Mary Hodges produced yet more magazines. Most of them had the term “PC” somewhere in their title, and many of them had articles and reviews that she had circled carefully in red ink.

经过长时间考虑后，她决定买一台小型家用电脑。诺顿镇一个略感好奇的年轻经销商屈尊俯就地满足了她这个愿望。经过一个繁忙的周末，玛丽把电脑搬了回去。她走进店铺时，那个经销商以为是机器上某个插头没插牢。但他搞错了，玛丽这次来，是因为这台电脑里没有387协处理器。他当然明白这一点，毕竟他是个经销商，可以理解这些莫名其妙的名词。但在这场谈判中，他很快就落了下风。玛丽·霍奇又订了不少杂志。大部分标题上都带有“电脑”字样，其中很多文章和评论她都用红笔仔细圈了出来。

It had turned out to be an overwhelming success, because Mary Hodges realized early in her new career as Herself that management training didn’t have to mean sitting people down in front of unreliable slide projectors. Firms expected far more than that these days.

这是一次空前成功，因为玛丽·霍奇在“做自己”这个崭新的职业生涯中，很快就意识到管理培训不一定是让人们枯坐在不可靠的幻灯片投影仪前。如今这年月，商业公司们有更高的期望。

The ads went out the following week.

广告在第二周刊登出来了。

It was while leafing through a magazine one day that she learned that, around the country, there was an apparently insatiable demand for commodious buildings in spacious grounds run by people who understood the needs of the business community. The following day she went out and ordered some stationery in the name of the Tadfield Manor Conference and Management Training Center, reasoning that by the time it had been printed she’d know all that was necessary to know about running such places.

一天她在翻阅杂志时发现，国内公司迫切需要建筑在开阔场地上的宽敞大宅，当然还要有理解商业公司需求的经营者。第二天，她出门以“塔德菲尔德庄园会议及管理培训中心”的名义订了些信纸，心想等它们印出来时，自己应该已经掌握运营这种企业所需的知识了。

She read about New Women. She hadn’t ever realized that she’d been an Old Woman, but after some thought she decided that titles like that were all one with the romance and the knitting and the orgasms, and the really important thing to be was yourself, just as hard as you could. She’d always been inclined to dress in black and white. All she needed to do was raise the hemlines, raise the heels, and leave off the wimple.

玛丽还读《新女性》。她过去一直不知道自己是个旧女性，但经过一些思考，玛丽认为这种标题跟罗曼史、编织和性高潮是一路货色，最重要的是做你自己，而且要竭尽全力。她向来喜欢穿黑白服饰。现在只需要拉高裙边、加高鞋跟、摘掉头巾。

She provided it.

她满足了这种期望。

Crowley felt dampness suffusing his own shirt.

克鲁利感觉自己的衬衫已经湿透了。

“Yes, but do you normally bleed blue?” said Crowley.

“对，但你平时不都流蓝血吗？”克鲁利说。

He looked at his hand in disbelief.

他不可思议地看着自己的手。

This was ridiculous. The last thing he needed now was to be killed. It would require all sorts of explanations. They didn’t hand out new bodies just like that; they always wanted to know what you’d done with the old one. It was like trying to get a new pen from a particularly bloody-minded stationery department.

这太荒唐了。他现在最不想要的就是被杀死。这要费很多口舌。那帮家伙不会随随便便把新躯体交给你，他们老是想知道你把旧的那具怎么着了。这就像是从一个特别蛮不讲理的办公用品管理员手里领一杆新钢笔。

Aziraphale’s eyes opened. His right hand patted his chest. He sat up. He went through the same crude forensic self-examination as Crowley.

亚茨拉菲尔睁开眼睛，用右手拍拍胸口，坐起身来。他跟克鲁利一样进行了简单的自检工作。

Gingerly, he tasted a finger.

克鲁利小心翼翼地舔了舔手指。

Then he crawled over to Aziraphale and checked the angel’s shirt. If the stain on it was blood, something had gone very wrong with biology.

接着他爬到亚茨拉菲尔身边，检查了一下天使的衬衫。如果这上面的污渍是血，那生物学一定是出了大问题。

“Oo, that stung,” moaned the fallen angel. “Got me right under the ribs.”

“哦，好疼。”倒下的天使呻吟道，“正好打在我的肋骨下面。”

Crowley sank down with his back against a statue. Aziraphale had already toppled backward into a rhododendron bush, a dark stain spreading across his coat.

克鲁利蹲下身，背靠在一座雕像后面。亚茨拉菲尔已经仰面倒进一片杜鹃花丛，深色暗斑浸染在他的外衣上。

Demons have to be able to see in the dark. And he could see that his hand was yellow. He was bleeding yellow.

恶魔必须有夜视能力。所以他可以看到自己的手是黄的。他的血是黄的。

“Paint?” he said.

“颜料？”他说。

“What’re they playing at?” said Aziraphale.

“他们在玩什么？”亚茨拉菲尔说。

Crowley nodded.

克鲁利点点头。

It was a game. It was tremendous fun. Nigel Tompkins, Assistant Head (Purchasing), squirmed through the undergrowth, his mind aflame with some of the more memorable scenes of some of the better Clint Eastwood movies. And to think he’d believed that management training was going to be boring, too…

这是场游戏。非常有趣的游戏。采购部副主任奈杰尔·汤普金斯在草丛中匍匐前进，脑子里闪现着克林特·伊斯特伍德那些西部片和警匪片里的精彩场面。本来他以为管理培训会无聊得要命…

There had been a lecture, but it had been about the paint guns and all the things you should never do with them, and Tompkins had looked at the fresh young faces of his rival trainees as, to a man, they resolved to do them all if there was half a chance of getting away with it. If people told you business was a jungle and then put a gun in your hand, then it was pretty obvious to Tompkins that they weren’t expecting you to simply aim for the shirt; what it was all about was the corporate head hanging over your fireplace.

确实有人讲了堂课，不过讲的是这些颜料枪，以及你绝不能用它们去做的各种事项。汤普金斯注视着对手们年轻的脸庞。那帮人全都下定决心，只要有半点儿可能就把上述禁令都试一个遍。如果有人对你说生意场是片丛林，然后往你手里塞把枪，那么汤普金斯觉得很明显，他们希望你做的不只是简简单单地瞄准衬衫。这个游戏的目的就是把公司主管的脑袋挂在你家火炉上。

“I don’t know,” said Crowley, “but I think it’s called silly buggers.” His tone suggested that he could play, too. And do it better.

“我不知道。”克鲁利说，“但我想这种游戏叫作傻瓜蛋。”这种语气暗示出他也会玩，而且玩得更好。

Of course, some girl with a clipboard from Personnel had told them that the courses they were going on were just to establish leadership potential, group cooperation, initiative, and so on. The trainees had tried to avoid one another’s faces.

当然，某个拿笔记板的人事部女孩跟他们说了，这些训练旨在培养领导力潜能、团队合作精神、主观能动性，等等等等。学员们都试图避开彼此的目光。

Anyway, it was rumored that someone over in United Consolidated had done his promotion prospects a considerable amount of good by the anonymous application of a high-speed earful of paint to an immediate superior, causing the latter to complain of little ringing noises in important meetings and eventually to be replaced on medical grounds.

更何况有谣言说，联合统一公司有个人偷偷朝自己的直属上司开枪，给他灌了一耳朵颜料，为自己的升职前景扫清了障碍。后者因为在一系列重要会议上抱怨耳鸣，最终因身体原因被撤换。

And there were his fellow trainees — fellow sperms, to switch metaphors, all struggling forward in the knowledge that there could only ever be one Chairman of Industrial Holdings (Holdings) PLC, and that the job would probably go to the biggest prick.

而且他这头的学员——打个比方来说，就是他这头的精子们，都在竭尽全力奋勇向前。所有人都知道工业控股（控股）上市公司只能有一名主席，而这份工作也许会落在最可恶的讨厌鬼头上。

It had worked quite well so far. The white-water canoeing had taken care of Johnstone (punctured eardrum) and the mountain climbing in Wales had done for Whittaker (groin strain).

到目前为止，进展顺利。独木舟漂流解决了约翰斯顿（耳膜穿孔），威尔士攀岩活动料理了惠蒂尔（腹股沟拉伤）。

Tompkins thumbed another paint pellet into the gun and muttered business mantras to himself. Do Unto Others Before They Do Unto You. Kill or Be Killed. Either Shit or Get Out of the Kitchen. Survival of the Fittest. Make My Day.

汤普金斯又往枪里塞了一枚颜料弹，低声吟唱着商场战歌。“在别人干掉你之前干掉他们。”“你死我活。”“占着茅坑要拉屎。”“适者生存。”“一切为了自己。”

“Okay, douchebags, grab some sk — ohnoooeeeeee…”

“好了，窝囊废们，给我…哦哦啊啊啊啊…”

He crawled a little nearer to the figures by the statue. They didn’t seem to have noticed him.

他又朝雕像下那两个人影爬近了一点。他们似乎没注意到他。

Where one of the figures had been there was something dreadful. He blacked out.

其中一个人影变成了某种可怕的东西。他昏了过去。

When the available cover ran out, he took a deep breath and leapt to his feet.

当可利用的掩体最终用光后，他深吸口气，跳起身。

Crowley restored himself to his favorite shape.

克鲁利恢复到自己最喜欢的形态。

“I hate having to do that,” he murmured. “I’m always afraid I’ll forget how to change back. And it can ruin a good suit.”

“我讨厌这样做。”他嘟囔道，“我总是担心会忘记如何变回来。而且这样做还会毁掉一身好衣服。”

“Miracle it away,” said Crowley, scanning the undergrowth for any more management trainees.

“用神迹把它搞掉。”克鲁利扫视周围的草丛，寻找其他管理培训学员的踪迹。

“I mean, just look at it,” he said. “I’ll never get the stain out.”

“我是说，你看看。”他说，“我永远别想把颜料洗掉。”

“I think the maggots were a bit over the top, myself,” said Aziraphale, but without much rancor. Angels had certain moral standards to maintain and so, unlike Crowley, he preferred to buy his clothes rather than wish them into being from raw firmament. And the shirt had been quite expensive.

“我个人觉得，你那样子有点过火了。”亚茨拉菲尔说，但他的口气也没表现出有多不满。天使需要尊重一些道德规范，所以跟克鲁利不同，他习惯去买衣服，而不是无中生有把它们变出来。这件衬衣可是很贵的。

“Yes, but I’ll always know the stain was there. You know. Deep down, I mean,” said the angel. He picked up the gun and turned it over in his hands. “I’ve never seen one of these before,” he said.

“对，但我会始终记得那里有块污渍。你知道，我是说，在内心深处。”天使说。他捡起枪，拿在手里掂了掂。“我以前从没见过这种东西。”他说。

“I thought your side disapproved of guns,” said Crowley. He took the gun from the angel’s plump hand and sighted along the stubby barrel.

“我还以为你们不赞同使用枪支。”克鲁利说。他从天使手中接过枪，看了看短粗的枪管。

There was a pinging noise, and the statue beside them lost an ear.

“砰”的一声，他们身边的雕像少了个耳朵。

“Yeah?” Crowley snaked a hand over the metal. “That’s all right, then. Come on.”

“哦？”克鲁利摸了摸枪管，“那就没问题了。跟我来。”

“Let’s not hang around,” said Crowley. “He wasn’t alone.”

“别在这儿磨蹭。”克鲁利说，“不止他一个人。”

“This is a very odd gun, you know. Very strange.”

“这把枪很怪。特别怪。”

“Current thinking favors them,” said Aziraphale. “They lend weight to moral argument. In the right hands, of course.”

“现任领导层看重它们。”亚茨拉菲尔说，“它们有助于加强道德规范。当然，是在有资格的人手中。”

Something like a hotel reception desk now occupied one end of the hall. It had a quietly competent look. Aziraphale gazed at the board on an aluminum easel beside it.

很像旅馆前台的东西盘踞在走廊尽头，看上去有模有样。亚茨拉菲尔瞟了眼旁边一个铝架上放着的黑板。

The front door of the Manor was unlocked. The pair of them walked through unheeded. Some plump young men in army fatigues spattered with paint were drinking cocoa out of mugs in what had once been the sisters’ refectory, and one or two of them gave them a cheery wave.

大宅的正门没锁。两人走了进去，根本没人注意。几个体态丰硕的年轻人穿着染了颜料的作战服，正在曾是修道院餐厅的房间里喝可可。有两个人还高兴地冲他们挥了挥手。

He dropped the gun onto the recumbent form of Tompkins and marched away across the damp lawn.

他把枪扔到瘫在地上的汤普金斯身上，快步走过潮湿的草坪。

“Wrong time, then.”

“那就是搞错了时间。”

In little plastic letters let into the black fabric of the board were the words: August 20–21: United Holdings [Holdings] PLC Initiative Combat Course.

嵌入黑色板材的小塑料字写道：8月20~21：联合控股（控股）上市公司初级战斗训练。

Meanwhile Crowley had picked up a pamphlet from the desk. It showed glossy pictures of the Manor, with special references to its Jacuzzis and indoor heated swimming pool, and on the back was the sort of map that conference centers always have, which makes use of a careful misscaling to suggest that it is handy for every motorway exit in the nation while carefully leaving out the labyrinth of country lanes that in fact surrounds it for miles on every side.

与此同时，克鲁利从桌上拿起一个小册子。那上面有大宅富丽堂皇的照片，特别提及了它的水流按摩浴缸和室内温水游泳池。封底还有张各类会议中心都会有的地图，特意采用一些错误比例尺，显示出从许多高速路出口都可以方便到达这里，同时刻意省略了方圆数英里内迷宫般的乡间小路。

“Wrong place?” said Aziraphale.

“搞错地方了？”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“Yes.” Crowley leafed through the booklet, in the hope of any clue. Perhaps it was too much to hope that the Chattering Order would still be here. After all, they’d done their bit. He hissed softly. Probably they’d gone to darkest America or somewhere, to convert the Christians, but he read on anyway. Sometimes this sort of leaflet had a little historical bit, because the kind of companies that hired places like this for a weekend of Interactive Personnel Analysis or A Conference on the Strategic Marketing Dynamic liked to feel that they were strategically interacting in the very building — give or take a couple of complete rebuildings, a civil war, and two major fires — that some Elizabethan financier had endowed as a plague hospital.

“对。”克鲁利翻阅着小册子，希望找到一点线索。也许期盼唠叨修会还在这里有点过于天真。毕竟她们已经完成了自己的工作。他轻轻发出嘶声。也许她们已经去美洲内陆或是别的什么地方，转化那里的基督徒了，但克鲁利还是读了下去。有时这种小册子会包含一些历史记录，因为周末租用这地方召开“战略性市场动态会议”或“互动式职员分析”的公司，希望感觉自己举行战略性互动会议的地点，正是伊丽莎白时期金融家们捐资建设的瘟疫病院——只要忽略掉几次彻底重建、一场内战和两次大火。

“No.”

“没有。”

There was a burst of firing from the grounds. Not the snap and zing of pellets, but the full-throated crackle of aerodynamically shaped bits of lead traveling extremely fast.

楼下突然响起一记枪声。不是颜料子弹的嗖嗖声，而是符合空气动力学的铅弹头进行极速飞行时发出的高亢爆响。

“Who’s winning?” he said chummily. “Young Evanson of Forward Planning caught me a right zinger on the elbow, you know.”

“谁赢了？”他熟络地说，“前瞻计划部的小埃文斯给我胳膊肘上来了一下。”

A plump man wearing desert camouflage and holding a polystyrene cup of coffee wandered up to them.

一个穿沙漠迷彩服的胖男人朝他们走来，手里举着盛满咖啡的一次性杯子。

“We’re all going to lose,” said Crowley absently.

“我们都要输了。”克鲁利心不在焉地说。

The redundant warriors stared one on another. A further burst took out a rather ugly Victorian stained glass window beside the door and stitched a row of holes in the plaster by Crowley’s head.

丰满的战士们面面相觑。又是一阵爆响，门边一扇相当难看的维多利亚式彩色玻璃窗应声而碎，克鲁利脑袋旁边的灰泥墙上也出现了一溜小洞。

There was an answering stutter.

然后是一阵结结巴巴的答话声。

Aziraphale grabbed his arm.

亚茨拉菲尔抓住他的胳膊。

“What the hell is it?” he said.

“见鬼，怎么回事？”

Not that he was actually expecting a sentence like “until eleven years ago the Manor was used as a convent by an order of Satanic nuns who weren’t in fact all that good at it, really,” but you never knew.

他倒不指望看到“十一年前，这所大宅还是一处撒旦教会的女修道院，虽说这里的修女们对邪恶计划并不特别在行”，但谁知道呢？

Crowley smiled like a snake.

克鲁利笑得像条蛇。

Nigel Tompkins had come to with a mild headache and a vaguely empty space in his recent memory. He was not to know that the human brain, when faced with a sight too terrible to contemplate, is remarkably good at scabbing it over with forced forgetfulness, so he put it down to a pellet strike on the head.

奈杰尔·汤普金斯醒来时隐约有点头疼，近期记忆出现了一块空白。他不知道人类的大脑面对过于恐怖无法思及的场面时，特别擅长用强迫性健忘症把它刮去。所以汤普金斯认为自己应该是被颜料弹打中了头。

The assistant Head of Wages turned a haggard face toward him.

薪资部副主任转过憔悴的面庞。

A shot pinged off the wall above him.

一颗子弹打在他头顶的墙壁上。

“I always said you couldn’t trust those people from Purchasing,” said the Deputy Financial Manager. “The bastards.”

“我一直跟你们说不要相信采购部的人。”财务副经理说，“这些杂种。”

The contingent from Financial Planning were lying flat on their faces in what had once been the haha, although they weren’t very amused.

财政计划小队趴在曾是花园边界矮墙的地方，心中不胜惶恐。

He was vaguely aware that his gun was somewhat heavier, but in his mildly bemused state he did not realize why until some time after he’d pointed it at trainee manager Norman Wethered from Internal Audit and pulled the trigger.

汤普金斯隐隐感觉手中的枪变重了，但昏沉沉的精神状态让他忽略了这个细节，直到他把枪口对准内部审计处的受训学员诺曼·韦瑟德，并扣动扳机。

He crawled hurriedly over to the little group clustered around the fallen Wethered.

他慌忙爬向自己的小队，几个人围在倒下的韦瑟德身边。

“But you’ve turned him loose on all those unprotected people!” said Aziraphale.

“但你不能任其对这些手无寸铁的平民开枪！”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“I don’t see why you’re so shocked,” said Crowley. “He wanted a real gun. Every desire in his head was for a real gun.”

“我不明白你干吗这么吃惊。”克鲁利说，“他想要一把真枪。他脑袋里想的全是真枪。”

“How does it look?” he said.

“怎么样？”他说。

“Oh, no,” said Crowley. “Not exactly. Fair’s fair.”

“哦，不。”克鲁利说，“你说得不对。他们彼此彼此。”

“Pretty bad,” he said. “The bullet went through nearly all of them. Access, Barclaycard, Diners — the lot.”

“很糟。”他说，“子弹几乎穿透了。门卡、巴克莱信用卡、饭卡——几乎全部。”

He looked down at his own gun. Through the mists of rage and bewilderment he saw that it was bigger and blacker than it had been when it was issued to him. It felt heavier, too.

他看着自己的枪。透过狂怒和迷茫的雾霭，他觉得这枪比发到手里时更大更黑，感觉也更重。

“Why’d they do it?” said a wages officer.

“他们干吗要这样？”一名薪资部职员说。

“It was only the American Express Gold that stopped it,” said Wethered.

“只有美国运通金卡挡住了它。”韦瑟德说。

They looked in mute horror at the spectacle of a credit card wallet with a bullet hole nearly all the way through it.

他们目瞪口呆地看着几乎完全穿透信用卡钱包的弹孔。

The armies of paranoia marched behind his eyes.

妄想的大军在他脑袋里集结。

The head of Internal Audit opened his mouth to say something reasonable, and didn’t. Everyone had a point where they crack, and his had just been hit with a spoon. Twenty years in the job. He’d wanted to be a graphic designer but the careers master hadn’t heard of that. Twenty years of double-checking Form BF 18. Twenty years of cranking the bloody hand calculator, when even the people in Forward Planning had computers. And now for reasons unknown, but possibly to do with reorganization and a desire to do away with all the expense of early retirement, they were shooting at him with bullets.

内部审计主任张开嘴，想说些合情合理的解释，但没说出来。每人都有个爆发点，而那根压折骆驼背的稻草刚刚落在他身上。这工作他已经干了二十年。他想成为美术设计师，但就业辅导员没听说过这种工作。二十年来不断核查BF18表格。二十年来不断摇动那台手摇计算器，而且就连前瞻计划部的人都有电脑了。现在出于某种未知的理由——但很可能是跟公司改组和节省提前退休金开销有关——他们用真枪朝他射击。

“What’d I do? What’d I do?” said Crowley, pushing open doors at random.

“我干什么了？我干什么了？”克鲁利随意推开几扇房门。

Nigel Tompkins spat a cluster of rhododendron leaves out of his mouth.

奈杰尔·汤普金斯从嘴里啐出一口杜鹃花。

“The way I see it,” said Crowley, “no one has to pull the trigger.” He gave Aziraphale a bright and brittle grin.

“在我看来。”克鲁利说，“谁也没强迫他们扣动扳机。”他冲亚茨拉菲尔露出灿烂而冰冷的笑容。

Jonathan Parker, Purchasing Section, was wriggling through the bushes when one of them put an arm around his neck.

采购部的乔纳森·帕克在树丛中蜿蜒前进，突然一丛灌木用胳膊卡住了他的脖子。

“Well, that’s just it, isn’t it? They’re doing it themselves. It’s what they really want to do. I just assisted them. Think of it as a microcosm of the universe. Free will for everyone. Ineffable, right?”

“哦，就这事儿？都是他们自己干的。这才是他们想要的。我只是帮了一把。你应该把这里看作宇宙微缩标本。每个人都有自由意志。不可言喻，不是吗？”

Oh. So that was their game. Well, someone had to win.

哦。他们想玩这种游戏。好吧，总要有人获胜。

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s have a look around while everyone’s busy.”

“来吧。”他说，“趁所有人都在忙，咱们四处瞧瞧。”

“That was a pretty low trick,” said Aziraphale, as they strolled along the empty corridors.

“这把戏太下作了。”亚茨拉菲尔说道。两人走在一条空空荡荡的过道里。

“Okay, guys,” he said, “let’s get the bastards!”

“好了，小伙子们。”他说，“干掉那些狗杂种！”

Bullets streaked across the night.

子弹在夜空飞舞。

“Down there it’s company law,” he hissed, through mud-encrusted features, “but up here it’s me…”

“在家有公司规定。”他透过泥土覆盖的面孔，嘶声说道，“但在这儿只有我…”

He looked at his men.

他看着自己的人马。

“There are people out there shooting one another!”

“下面的人正在互相射击！”

He aimed it at a bush nearby and watched a stream of bullets blow the bush into oblivion.

他用枪瞄准附近的一片灌木，看到一串子弹把树丛轰至虚无。

Aziraphale relaxed. “You know, Crowley,” he said, beaming, “I’ve always said that, deep down inside, you’re really quite a –“

亚茨拉菲尔放松下来。“你知道，克鲁利。”他笑着说，“我总是说，在内心深处，你是个特别…”

“All right, all right,” Crowley snapped. “Tell the whole blessed world, why don’t you?”

“行了，行了。”克鲁利截住他，“你干吗不把这话告诉整个该…该活的世界？”

“Oh, all right,” said Crowley wretchedly. “No one’s actually going to get killed. They’re all going to have miraculous escapes. It wouldn’t be any fun otherwise.”

“哦，好吧。”克鲁利惨兮兮地说，“不会有人被杀的。他们都会奇迹般地幸存。真是一点意思也没有。”

After a while, loose alliances began to emerge. Most of the financial departments found they had interests in common, settled their differences, and ganged up on Forward Planning.

不久后，松散的联盟开始建立。大部分财务部门的人发现他们有着共同利益，所以决定搁置分歧，共通对抗前瞻计划部。

Aziraphale glared.

亚茨拉菲尔瞪着他。

When the first police car arrived, sixteen bullets from a variety of directions had hit it in the radiator before it had got halfway up the drive. Two more took out its radio antenna, but they were too late, too late.

第一辆警车到达时，刚开过一半车道，就被来自不同方向的十六枚子弹击中水箱。又有两枚打掉了无线电天线，但它们太晚了，太晚了。

Mary Hodges was just putting down the phone when Crowley opened her office door.

克鲁利推开办公室大门时，玛丽·霍奇刚刚放下电话。

“It must be terrorists,” she snapped. “Or poachers.” She peered at the pair of them. “You are the police, aren’t you?” she said.

“肯定是恐怖分子。”她厉声说道，“或是盗猎者。”她凝视着两位来客，继续说，“你们是警察，对吗？”

Crowley saw her eyes begin to widen.

克鲁利看到她的眼睛正在瞪大。

“Yes,” said Mary.

“是的。”玛丽说。

“Well. Since you put it like that…” said the angel slowly.

“哦。既然你都这么说了…”天使缓缓说道。

“Were you a nun here eleven years ago?” he said.

“你十一年前是个修女吗？”他说。

Like all demons, he had a good memory for faces, even after ten years, the loss of a wimple, and the addition of some rather severe makeup. He snapped his fingers. She settled back in her chair, her face becoming a blank and amiable mask.

跟所有恶魔一样，他对人脸的记忆力很强，就算事隔十年，少了头巾，多了很浓的化妆也一样。他打了个响指。玛丽跌坐在椅子上，脸上挂出和蔼茫然的面具。

“Your name then was Sister Talkative. Or something.”

“你当时叫健谈修女，或者别的什么。”

“Good”– Crowley glanced at his watch –“morning, ma’am,” he said, in a sing-song voice. “We’re just a couple of supernatural entities and we were just wondering if you might help us with the whereabouts of the notorious Son of Satan.” He smiled coldly at the angel. “I’ll wake her up again, shall I? And you can say it.”

克鲁利看了看表。“早上好，夫人。”他用单调的嗓音说，“我们只是两个超自然存在，只想请您帮我们寻找一下声名狼藉的撒旦之子的下落。”他冲天使露出冷冷的笑容，“要我把她弄醒，然后由你来问吗？”

“There!” said Crowley to Aziraphale. “See? I knew I wasn’t wrong.”

“哈！”克鲁利对亚茨拉菲尔说，“看见了吗？我就知道没搞错。”

“Sometimes the old ways are best,” said Crowley. He turned to the impassive woman.

“有时老法子最管用。”克鲁利说。他转头面对木愣愣的女子。

“Luck of the devil,” muttered the angel.

“见鬼的幸运。”天使嘟囔道。

“Loquacious,” said Mary Hodges in a hollow voice.

“饶舌。”玛丽·霍奇用空洞的声音说。

“There was no need for that,” said Aziraphale.

“没必要这样做。”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“Is there any possibility that the switch could have gone wrong in some way?”

“有没有可能调包时出了错？”

“Oh.”

“哦。”

Crowley thought for a bit. “You must have had records,” he said. “There are always records. Everyone has records these days.” He glanced proudly at Aziraphale. “It was one of my better ideas.”

克鲁利想了想。“你们肯定有档案记录。”他说，“总会有档案吧。这年头所有人都有档案。”他骄傲地瞥了亚茨拉菲尔一眼，“这是我的好点子之一。”

“And do you recall an incident involving the switching of newborn babies?” said Crowley.

“你还记得一桩调包新生儿的事吗？”克鲁利说。

“Please tell me.”

“请告诉我。”

“I do not know.”

“我不知道。”

“And where are they?” said Aziraphale sweetly.

“那么档案在哪儿？”亚茨拉菲尔和蔼地说。

“Do you recall any details about the other child?” said Aziraphale.

“你还记得另一个孩子的任何细节吗？”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“And he was very sweet,” said Mary Hodges wistfully.

“而且他特别可人儿。”玛丽·霍奇沉思着说。

Crowley groaned and threw his hands in the air. “That was Hastur, probably,” he said. “It’s his style. Can you believe those guys? I bet he thought he was being really clever.”

克鲁利呻吟一声，猛地挥了挥手。“可能是哈斯塔干的。”他说，“这是他的风格。是不是难以置信？我打赌他还自以为干得很漂亮。”

Mary Hodges hesitated. When she did speak, it was as though memories that had been scabbed over were being disturbed for the first time in years.

玛丽·霍奇迟疑片刻。当她开口时，感觉就像已经结好疮疤的记忆，多年来头一次被人捅到。

“There was a fire just after the birth.”

“孩子出生后，这里发生了一场火灾。”

“Yes.”

“是的。”

“He had lovely little toesie-wosies.”

“他有可爱的小脚趾头。”

“Yes,” she said.

“是的。”她说。

“Oh, yes,” said Mary Hodges.

“哦，是的。”玛丽·霍奇说。

“In thirty seconds you will wake up,” said Aziraphale, to the entranced ex-nun. “And you will have had a lovely dream about whatever you like best, and –“

“再过三十秒钟，你就会醒来。”亚茨拉菲尔对着魔的前修女说，“你会梦到自己最喜欢的事情，而且…”

“Get a move on,” he said. “We’re going to be knee-deep in police at any moment and I will of course be morally obliged to assist them in their enquiries.” He thought for a moment. “Perhaps she can remember if there were any other women giving birth that night, and –“

“该走了。”他说，“我们随时可能被警察缠住。我当然会遵守道德律令，协助他们进行调查。”他想了想，“也许她还记得那天晚上这里有没有其他人在生孩子，而且…”

There was the sound of a siren outside, abruptly broken off as a bullet hit it. Aziraphale nudged Crowley.

外面传来一阵警笛声，但突然被子弹打断了。亚茨拉菲尔捅捅克鲁利。

“Any more miracles and we’ll really start getting noticed by Up There,” said Aziraphale. “If you really want Gabriel or someone wondering why forty policemen have gone to sleep –“

“再搞点神迹，我们就会被上界注意到。”亚茨拉菲尔说，“如果你真想让加百列或是别的家伙揣摩为什么四十个警察会睡着…”

No one noticed them leaving. The police were too busy herding in forty adrenaline-drunk, fighting-mad management trainees. Three police vans had gouged tracks in the lawn, and Aziraphale made Crowley back up for the first of the ambulances, but then the Bentley swished into the night. Behind them the summerhouse and gazebo were already ablaze.

没人注意他俩离开。警察们正忙着把四十名肾上腺素分泌旺盛、陷入战斗狂热状态的管理学员赶到一起。三辆警车在草坪上留下条条车辙，亚茨拉菲尔叫克鲁利让过第一辆救护车，接着宾利嗖的一下消失在夜幕中。在他们身后，大宅旁的凉亭和露台已经闪出火光。

There was the sound of running feet downstairs.

楼下传来一阵跑步声。

“Stop them,” said Crowley. “We need more time!”

“阻止他们。”克鲁利说，“我们需要时间！”

“Okay,” said Crowley. “That’s it. That’s it. It was worth a try. Let’s get out of here.”

“哦。”克鲁利说，“打住，打住。值得一试。赶快离开这里。”

“Yes, yes, fine,” sighed Crowley. “Now can we go?”

“对，对，很好。”克鲁利叹道，“咱们可以走了吗？”

“Occult forces?”

“超自然力？”

“Whatever,” snapped Crowley, too worried to argue.

“随你怎么说。”克鲁利现在忧心忡忡，已经懒得争吵。

“You think?” said Crowley, trying to hit a hedgehog and missing. “Bookings will double, you mark my words. If she plays her cards right, sorts out the waivers, ties up all the legal bits. Initiative training with real guns? They’ll form queues.”

“你这么想？”克鲁利试图撞上一只刺猬，但却错过了，“预约会加倍，你记住我的话。只要她打对牌，搞到免责证明，再料理好所有法律细节。用真枪进行积极性培训？人们会排起长队。”

“I’m not occult,” said Aziraphale. “Angels aren’t occult. We’re ethereal.”

“我可不是超自然力。”亚茨拉菲尔说，“天使不是超自然力。我们是神圣超自然力。”

“I said. Because it’s my job.”

“我说过了。因为这是我的工作。”

Crowley shrugged. “Search me,” he said. “How much experience do you think I’ve got in these matters? Armageddon only happens once, you know. They don’t let you go around again until you get it right.”

克鲁利耸耸肩。“天知道。”他说，“你觉得我在这方面有多少经验？你知道，世界末日大决战只发生一次。它们不会让你从头再来，直到处理好每个细节。”

“Is there some other way of locating him?”

“有其他办法可以找到他吗？”

“You and me,” explained Crowley.

“你和我。”克鲁利说。

They drove in silence for a while. Then Aziraphale said, “You’d think he’d show up, wouldn’t you? You’d think we could detect him in some way.”

两人都没说话。过了会儿，天使说：“你觉得他会出现，对吗？你觉得咱们能通过某种方式找到他吧。”

“He won’t show up. Not to us. Protective camouflage. He won’t even know it, but his powers will keep him hidden from prying occult forces.”

“他不会出现。不会出现在咱们眼前。保护性伪装。他可能都没有察觉，但他的本能会让他避开超自然力的窥探。”

“Why are you always so cynical?”

“你为何总是这么愤世嫉俗？”

“We’ve really left that poor woman in a dreadful situation,” said the angel.

“咱们已经让那个可怜女人，陷入如此悲惨的境地。”天使说。

“Or ours,” said Aziraphale. “Although ours are freedom fighters, of course.”

“也不是我们的。”亚茨拉菲尔说，“当然我们的是自由战士。”

“Asteroid strike?” said Aziraphale. “Quite the fashion these days, I understand. Strike into the Indian Ocean, great big cloud of dust and vapor, goodbye all higher life forms.”

“小行星撞击？”亚茨拉菲尔说，“我听说这个理论如今很时髦。撞在印度洋里，尘埃和水蒸气遮天蔽日。所有高等生物都得说拜拜。”

“Doesn’t bear thinking about it, does it,” said Aziraphale gloomily.

“简直想都不敢想，不是吗？”亚茨拉菲尔沮丧地说。

“Wow,” said Crowley, taking care to exceed the speed limit. Every little bit helped.

“哦。”克鲁利很用心地把车速保持在最高时速之上。每个细节都会有所帮助的。

“I’ll tell you what,” said Crowley, scorching rubber on the Tadfield bypass. “Cards on the table time. I’ll tell you ours if you tell me yours.”

“我跟你说。”克鲁利继续加速，胶皮轮胎几乎在塔德菲尔德小路上燃烧，“该摊牌了。如果你告诉我你们的人，我就告诉你我们的。”

“Not one of ours,” said Crowley.

“不会是我们的。”克鲁利说。

“All the higher life forms scythed away, just like that.”

“所有高等生物一扫而光，就是这么回事。”

“It all seems so peaceful,” he said. “How do you think it will happen?”

“此时此刻世界如此和平。”他说，“你觉得会怎么开头？”

They stared at the road.

他们盯着前路。

The angel stared out at the rushing hedgerows.

天使盯着匆匆逃开的刺猬们。

“That was nasty.”

“你嘴也太毒了。”

“Maybe some terrorist –?” Aziraphale began.

“也许某些恐怖分子？”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“Sorry. Couldn’t resist it.”

“抱歉。我忍不住。”

“Well, thermonuclear extinction has always been very popular. Although I must say the big boys are being quite polite to each other at the moment.”

“嗯，热核毁灭理论一直很流行。但我必须说现在那些男孩子们对彼此都很客气。”

“Terrible.”

“可怕。”

“Nothing but dust and fundamentalists.”

“只剩下尘埃和原教旨主义者。”

“You don’t need sleep. I don’t need sleep. Evil never sleeps, and Virtue is ever-vigilant.”

“你不需要睡觉。我不需要睡觉。邪恶永不休息。正义时刻警惕。”

“But you’re a demon.”

“但你是个恶魔。”

“But I don’t think any of ours have any big plans afoot,” said Aziraphale. “Just minor acts of ter — political protest,” he corrected.

“但我不认为我们的人手里有什么大计划。”亚茨拉菲尔说，“也就是些小规模恐…政治抗议活动。”他更正说。

“Yes, but a demon of my word, I should hope.”

“对，但却是守信用的恶魔，希望如此。”

“See?” said Crowley. “It’s just like I’ve always said. They’re cunning buggers, humans. You can’t trust them an inch.”

“看见了吗？”克鲁利说，“我早就说过了吧。人类都是些狡诈的杂种。你绝不能相信他们。”

“Try and get some sleep.”

“试着补补觉。”

Aziraphale named five political leaders. Crowley named six. Three names appeared on both lists.

亚茨拉菲尔说出五个政治领袖的名字。克鲁利说了六个。有三个名字重合。

Aziraphale didn’t rise to it. “What are we going to do now?”

亚茨拉菲尔没理他。“咱们现在怎么办？”

“Evil in general, maybe. This specific part of it has got into the habit of getting its head down occasionally.” He stared into the headlights. The time would come soon enough when sleep would be right out of the question. When those Below found out that he, personally, had lost the Antichrist, they’d probably dig out all those reports he’d done on the Spanish Inquisition and try them out on him, one at a time and then all together.

“普通意义上的邪恶也许是这样。但具体到我这部分，已经养成了时不时把脑袋放在枕头上的习惯。”他看着头灯的灯光。用不了多久，就没有睡觉的机会了。等到下边发现他亲手把敌基督搞丢了，那帮人会挖出他调查西班牙宗教审判所时撰写的所有报告，用来好好款待他，一次一件，然后是一起招呼。

“Oh, no. You first.”

“哦，不。你先说。”

“All right. You first.”

“好吧。你先说。”

“Ah,” said Crowley bitterly. “You mean none of this cheap, massproduced murder? Just personal service, every bullet individually fired by skilled craftsmen?”

“啊。”克鲁利刻薄地说，“你是说他们都不是廉价的大规模谋杀犯？只提供个人服务，每颗子弹都由经验丰富的手艺人发射？”

“Of course, we might be able to get a human to find him,” said Aziraphale thoughtfully.

“当然，咱们可以找个人类去寻找他。”亚茨拉菲尔思考着说。

He rummaged in the glove compartment, fumbled a tape at random, and slotted it into the player. A little music would…

他在杂物箱里随便翻出一盘磁带，塞进录音机。皇后乐队的歌声传了出来…

… Bee-elzebub has a devil put aside for me, for me…

“…别西卜给我留了个恶魔，为我…”

“For me,” murmured Crowley. His expression went blank for a moment. Then he gave a strangled scream and wrenched at the on-off knob.

“是为我。”克鲁利嘟囔道。他面无表情地愣了一会儿，随即发出窒息的尖叫，猛地把音响关掉。

“It wouldn’t work. He’s the Antichrist! He’s got this… sort of automatic defense, hasn’t he? Even if he doesn’t know it. It won’t even let people suspect him. Not yet. Not till it’s ready. Suspicion will slide off him like, like… whatever it is water slides off of,” he finished lamely.

“没用。他是敌基督！他有…那种自动防御能力，不是吗？即便他自己并不知道。这种能力不会让人类对他产生怀疑。在时机成熟之前还不会。怀疑会从他身边滑过，就像，就像…水会从什么东西身边滑过。”他模棱两可地说。

“What?” said Crowley, distractedly.

“什么？”克鲁利心不在焉地说。

“Humans are good at finding other humans. They’ve been doing it for thousands of years. And the child is human. As well as… you know. He would be hidden from us, but other humans might be able to… oh, sense him, perhaps. Or spot things we wouldn’t think of.”

“人类擅长寻找其他人类。他们干这行已经数千年了。那孩子是个人。而且…你知道。他会躲避咱们，但其他人类也许可以…哦，感觉到他。或是发现咱们想不到的事情。”

“Got any better ideas? Got one single better idea?” said Aziraphale.

“有什么更好的主意吗？有半个更好的点子吗？”亚茨拉菲尔说。

“What could they do that we couldn’t do?”

“他们能做什么咱们不能做的？”

“I have a — a certain network of agents,” said Aziraphale, after a while. “Spread across the country. A disciplined force. I could set them searching.”

“我有一些…一些情报网。”过了会儿，亚茨拉菲尔说，“散布在全国各地。一支纪律严明的队伍。我可以让他们展开搜索。”

“We’d better alert them. Do you think they ought to work together?”

“咱们最好给他们提个醒。你觉得应该让他们协同合作吗？”

“I, er, have something similar,” Crowley admitted. “You know how it is, you never know when they might come in handy…”

“我，呃，也有类似的组织。”克鲁利承认说，“你明白是怎么回事，你永远不知道什么时候能让他们派上用场…”

“Right, then. It could work. Don’t tell me you haven’t got any front organizations you could use. I know I have. We could see if they can pick up the trail.”

“那么好吧。也许管用。别跟我说你手头没有可以利用的前线组织。反正我有。咱们可以看看他们能找到什么蛛丝马迹。”

“No.”

“没有。”

“Okay. Okay. But it hasn’t got a snowball’s chance in Hell. Believe me, I know. But I can’t think of anything better.” Crowley turned onto the motorway and headed for London.

“好吧。好吧。但这机会大得就像地狱里的雪球。相信我，我很清楚。但我实在想不出更好的办法。”克鲁利把车开上高速公路，驶向伦敦。

“Well, for a start, they wouldn’t get people to shoot one another, they wouldn’t hypnotize respectable women, they –“

“嗯，首先，他们不会让人们互相射击，他们不会催眠可敬的女性，他们…”

Crowley shook his head.

克鲁利摇摇头。

“I don’t think that would be a good idea,” he said. “They’re not very sophisticated, politically speaking.”

“我不觉得这是个好主意。”他说，“以政治用语来说，他们还不够成熟老练。”

“Then we’ll each contact our own people and see what they can manage.”

“那咱们就各自联络人手，看看他们能干些什么。”

“That’s what water slides off!”

“水会从鸭子身边滑过！”

They drove back through the dawn, while the cassette player played J. S. Bach’s Mass in B Minor, vocals by F. Mercury.

车子在晨光中继续前行，音响里演奏着J.S。巴赫的《b小调弥撒》，演唱者当然还是皇后乐队的弗雷迪·墨丘利。

“What’s this?” said Aziraphale, holding up a brown oblong.

“这是什么？”亚茨拉菲尔举起一个棕色长方形物体说。

“Ducks!” he shouted.

“鸭子！”他喊道。

Crowley liked the city in the early morning. Its population consisted almost entirely of people who had proper jobs to do and real reasons for being there, as opposed to the unnecessary millions who trailed in after 8 A. M., and the streets were more or less quiet. There were double yellow no-parking lines in the narrow road outside Aziraphale’s bookshop, but they obediently rolled back on themselves when the Bentley pulled in to the curb.

克鲁利喜欢黎明的城市。此时的市民基本都有正当工作和留在此地的恰当理由，与八点后涌进城来的数百万多余人口截然相反。而且现在街上多少算得上安静。亚茨拉菲尔书店门前的窄路上画着禁止停车的双黄线，宾利车靠到路边时，黄线们恭顺地向后退去。

“Got to be worth a try, I suppose,” said Crowley. “It’s not as if I haven’t got lots of other work to do, God knows.”

“我想应该值得一试。”克鲁利说，“上帝啊，就好像我手头的工作还不够多似的。”

His forehead creased for a moment, and then he slapped the steering wheel triumphantly.

他突然一扬眉，兴高采烈地一巴掌拍在方向盘上。

“What?”

“什么？”

“Just drive the car, please,” he said wearily.

“开你的车吧，谢谢。”他疲倦地说。

“Well, okay,” he said, as Aziraphale got his coat from the back seat. “We’ll keep in touch. Okay?”

“嗯，好吧。”亚茨拉菲尔从后座拿外衣时，恶魔说，“咱们保持联系。好吗？”

Aziraphale took a deep breath.

亚茨拉菲尔深吸口气。

Crowley squinted at it. “A book?” he said. “Not mine.”

克鲁利斜眼看着它。“一本书？”他说，“不是我的。”

Aziraphale turned a few of the yellowed pages. Tiny bibliophilic bells rang in the back of his mind.

亚茨拉菲尔翻了翻泛黄的书页。藏书家的小小警钟在他脑海鸣响。

“Look, I’m in enough trouble as it is, I don’t want it to get about that I go around returning people’s property to them,” said Crowley.

“听着，我的麻烦已经够多了，没时间到处瞎逛，归还别人的财物。”克鲁利说。

“Yes, yes, certainly,” said the angel. He fumbled for his keys, dropped them on the pavement, picked them up, dropped them again, and hurried to the shop door.

“是的，是的，当然。”天使说。他翻出钥匙，失手掉在便道上，捡起来，又掉了一次，随后快步走向大门。

Aziraphale reached the title page. It was probably a good job. Crowley couldn’t see his expression.

亚茨拉菲尔把书翻到标题页。他竭尽全力才没让克鲁利看出自己的表情变化。

“I suppose you could always send it to the post office there,” said Crowley, “if you really feel you must. Address it to the mad woman with the bicycle. Never trust a woman who gives funny names to means of transport –“

“我想你可以把它寄到当地邮局。”恶魔说，“如果你真觉得有必要的话。收信人就写骑自行车的疯女人。永远不要相信给交通工具起怪名字的女人…”

“It must have belonged to that young lady,” he said slowly. “We ought to have got her address.”

“肯定是那位年轻女士的。”他慢慢说道，“咱们应该问清她的地址。”

“We’ll be in touch then, shall we?” Crowley called after him.

“咱们保持联系，好吗？”克鲁利冲他的背影喊道。

Aziraphale paused in the act of turning the key.

正在拧钥匙的亚茨拉菲尔愣了一下。

“What?” he said. “Oh. Oh. Yes. Fine. Jolly good.” And he slammed the door.

“什么？”他说，“哦，哦。对。好的。绝对没问题。”他说完就关上了房门。

“Right,” mumbled Crowley, suddenly feeling very alone.

“好。”克鲁利喃喃自语道。他突然觉得特别孤独。

Torchlight flicked in the lanes.

手电筒的光芒在小路间跃动。

The trouble with trying to find a brown-covered book among brown leaves and brown water at the bottom of a ditch of brown earth in the brown, well, grayish light of dawn, was that you couldn’t.

如果你想在棕色土沟底的棕色落叶和棕色水流间寻找一本棕色封皮书籍，而且又时值棕…好吧，灰蒙蒙的黎明，那么麻烦就在于，你找不到。

It didn’t.

但事实与此相反。

It wasn’t there.

它不在这儿。

She could feel generations of Agnes Nutter’s descendants laughing at her.

她几乎可以感到艾格尼丝·风子的代代后人都在嘲笑自己。

Which meant, as she had feared all along, that it was probably in the back of a car belonging to two consenting cycle repairmen.

这就意味着，像她一直担心的那样，书多半是落在那两个修自行车的宾利车后座上了。

Anathema tried every method of search she could think of. There was the methodical quartering of the ground. There was the slapdash poking at the bracken by the roadside. There was the nonchalant sidling up to it and looking out of the side of her eye. She even tried the one which every romantic nerve in her body insisted should work, which consisted of theatrically giving up, sitting down, and letting her glance fall naturally on a patch of earth which, if she had been in any decent narrative, should have contained the book.

安娜丝玛试过了她能想到的所有方法。比如有系统地将地面分成若干等份；比如匆匆忙忙拨拉路边的草丛；比如漫不经心地蹭过去，用余光寻找。她甚至尝试了体内每根浪漫神经都坚持说肯定管用的那个方法：戏剧性地装作放弃，坐下来，让视线自然而然落在一片地面。如果换成其他正派作者，肯定会让书出现在那里。

Aziraphale, like many Soho merchants who specialized in hard-to-find books for the discerning connoisseur, had a back room, but what was in there was far more esoteric than anything normally found inside a shrink-wrapped bag for the Customer Who Knows What He Wants.

和很多为鉴赏家寻找珍本图书的个体书商一样，亚茨拉菲尔有一间库房。不过这间库房里存放的物品，远比任何冲动型消费者购买的热缩包装袋里的东西诡异得多。

The only hope was that they wouldn’t know what it was they’d got.

唯一的希望是，他们不知道这本书是什么东西。

Even if those two were honest enough to want to return it, they’d hardly go to all the trouble of finding a cottage they’d barely seen in the dark.

就算那两位为人正派，想把书还回来，他们也不太可能劳神费力去寻找一个曾在黑夜中隐约看到的小屋。

And every one was signed.

而且每本都有签名。

He was particularly proud of his books of prophecy.

天使特别为自己的预言书藏品自豪。

First editions, usually.

几乎都是第一版。

He’d got Robert Nixon, [A sixteenth-century half-wit, not related to any U. S. president.] and Martha the Gypsy, and Ignatius Sybilla, and Old Ottwell Binns. Nostradamus had signed, “To myne olde friend Azerafel, with Beste wishes’; Mother Shipton had spilled drink on his copy; and in a climate-controlled cabinet in one corner was the original scroll in the shaky handwriting of St. John the Divine of Patmos, whose “Revelation” had been the all-time best seller. Aziraphale had found him a nice chap, if a bit too fond of odd mushrooms.

他有罗伯特·尼克松（一个十六世纪傻瓜，跟任何美国总统都没关系），有吉卜赛人马撒，有女巫伊格内修斯，有老奥托维尔·宾斯。诺查丹玛斯给他的赠言是“给我的老朋友亚茨拉菲尔，致以最美好的祝福”；谢顿大妈在他的书上洒了饮料；角落里有个温控储藏柜，里面放着帕特莫斯岛圣约翰用颤颤巍巍的字体写成的原稿，他的《启示录》是一本空前绝后的畅销书。亚茨拉菲尔觉得圣约翰是个很不错的小伙子，就是有点太喜欢怪蘑菇了。

The Nife and Accurate Prophefies of Agnes Nutter

艾格尼丝·风子的精良准确预言书

His hands hardly shook at all as he laid it down on a bench, pulled on a pair of surgical rubber gloves, and opened it reverentially. Aziraphale was an angel, but he also worshiped books.

天使把书放在一张长椅上，双手几乎没有颤抖。随后他戴上一双外科橡胶手套，敬畏地把书翻开。亚茨拉菲尔是个天使，但他也敬拜书籍。

What the collection did not have was a copy of The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, and Aziraphale walked into the room holding it as a keen philatelist might hold a Mauritius Blue that had just turned up on a postcard from his aunt.

这些藏品中缺少的是《艾格尼丝·风子的精良准确预言书》。此刻亚茨拉菲尔正捧着它走进房间，就像一名资深集邮家捧着刚刚在姑妈寄来的明信片上发现的珍稀邮品“蓝色毛里求斯”。

Being a Certaine and Prefice Hiftory from the Prefent Day Unto the Endinge of this World.

完美记述从现代到世界末日的人类历史

He’d never even seen a copy before, but he’d heard about it. Everyone in the trade, which considering it was a highly specialized trade meant about a dozen people, had heard of it. Its existence was a sort of vacuum around which all sorts of strange stories had been orbiting for hundreds of years. Aziraphale realized he wasn’t sure if you could orbit a vacuum, and didn’t care; The Nice and Accurate Prophecies made the Hitler Diaries look like, well, a bunch of forgeries.

他以前从没见过这本书，但早就听说过。这行里所有人都听说过。当然，考虑到这是个极为特殊的收藏门类，所以“这行”大概也就指十几个人。它的存在就像一个黑洞，各种离奇的故事绕着它转了好几百年。亚茨拉菲尔不清楚你能不能绕着一个黑洞旋转，但他不在乎。《希特勒日记》跟《精良准确预言书》比起来就像是，哦，一堆赝品。[4]【注：[4]德国《斯特恩》杂志曾在二十世纪八十年代中期刊登出一系列希特勒日记，最终被证明是伪造品。】

The title page said:

标题页上写道：

In slightly smaller type:

略小的字体写道：

She was not well known, except where it counted. Get half a dozen war correspondents together in an airport bar, and the conversation will, like a compass orienting to North, swing around to Murchison of The New York Times, to Van Home of Newsweek, to Anforth of I. T. N. News. The war correspondents’ War Correspondents.

她的名气不太大，除非是在某些小圈子里。随便找半打聚在某个机场酒吧里的战地记者，你就会发现他们的话题，就像罗盘始终指向北方那样，总会围绕在《纽约时报》的莫其森、《新闻周刊》的范霍姆和独立电视新闻网的安弗斯身上。他们是战地记者中的战地记者。

Well. More or less.

嗯，事实差得也不是太远。

In smaller type but in capitals:

略小但却是加重黑体的字体写道：

The prophecies were numbered, and there were more than four thousand of them.

预言都编了号，全书超过四千条。

In a different type:

另一种字体写道：

Containing therein Many Diuerse Wonders and precepts for the Wife

包含众多奇闻逸事及智慧箴言

In slightly larger type:

略大的字体写道：

“Steady, steady,” Aziraphale muttered to himself. He went into the little kitchenette and made himself some cocoa and took some deep breaths.

“稳住，稳住。”亚茨拉菲尔对自己说。他走进小厨房，泡了杯可可，又做了几次深呼吸。

In slightly desperate italics:

有点声嘶力竭的斜体字写道：

The red-haired woman in the corner of the hotel bar was the most successful war correspondent in the world. She now had a passport in the name of Carmine Zuigiber; and she went where the wars were.

坐在旅馆酒吧一角的红发女子，是全世界最成功的战地记者。她现在护照上的名字是卡麦恩·朱伊季勃。哪儿打仗，她去哪儿。

CONCERNING THE STRANGE TIMES AHEADE

记述未来奇异时代

Then he came back and read a prophecy at random.

他走回来，随便读了一条。

‘Reminifent of Noftradamus at hif beft’

“媲美诺查丹玛斯的传世名作。”

Forty minutes later, the cocoa was still untouched.

四十分钟后，可可还是原封未动。

In larger type once more:

又是略大的字体：

— Ursula Shipton

——厄休拉·谢顿

Actually she went where the wars weren’t. She’d already been where the wars were.

实际上应该说，她去战争没去过的地方。她到达的时候，战争也就来临。

More complete than ever yet before publifhed

比出版过的所有书籍更加全面

And events of a Wonderful Nature

以及神奇自然界中的各种趣闻

But when Murchison, and Van Home, and Anforth ran into each other in a burnt-out tin shack in Beirut, or Afghanistan, or the Sudan, after they’d admired each other’s scars and had downed a few, they would exchange awed anecdotes of “Red” Zuigiber, from the National World Weekly.

但如果莫其森、范霍姆和安弗斯聚在贝鲁特、阿富汗或者苏丹某个残破的小铁皮棚里，等他们赞美过彼此的伤疤，灌下几口烈酒后，就会开始充满敬畏地交换起《国民世界周刊》记者卡麦恩·朱伊季勃的奇闻逸事。

Actually the National World Weekly did know just what it had got: it had a War Correspondent. It just didn’t know why, or what to do with one now it had her.

实际上，《国民世界周刊》知道自己有什么：它有个一流战地记者。它只是不知道为什么，以及该拿她怎么办。

A typical National World Weekly would tell the world how Jesus’ face was seen on a Big Mac bun bought by someone from Des Moines, with an artist’s impression of the bun; how Elvis Presley was recently sighted working in a Burger Lord in Des Moines; how listening to Elvis records cured a Des Moines housewife’s cancer; how the spate of werewolves infesting the Midwest are the offspring of noble pioneer women raped by Bigfoot; and that Elvis was taken by Space Aliens in 1976 because he was too good for this world. [Remarkably, one of these stories is indeed true.]

一份典型的《国民世界周刊》会告诉整个世界，有人在艾奥瓦州首府得梅因市买的巨无霸汉堡上看到了耶稣的脸，再配上画家绘制的汉堡想象图；或是有人最近目击猫王在得梅因市一家汉堡王里打工；或是一位得梅因市家庭主妇听猫王的音乐治好了癌症；或是最近在中西部地区大肆繁衍的狼人是一位高贵的拓荒者妇女被大脚野人强奸产下的后代；以及猫王是在1976年被太空人劫持的，因为他对这个世界来说好得过分了。（值得一提的是，其中一个故事的确是真的。）

“That dumb rag,” Murchison would say, “it doesn’t goddamn know what it’s goddamn got.”

“那份烂小报。”莫其森会说，“都他妈不知道自己他妈的有什么宝贝。”

So they paid Red Zuigiber a great deal of money to go and find wars, and ignored the bulging, badly typed envelopes she sent them occasionally from around the globe to justify her — generally fairly reasonable — expense claims.

所以他们拿出很多钱让朱伊季勃去寻找战争，同时不去理睬她为了证明自己——通常来说相当合理——的经费需求，时而从全球各地寄回来的皱皱巴巴、字迹难看的信封。

Q: You’re the Secretary of the United Nations, then?

问：那么您就是联合国秘书长了？

That was the National World Weekly. They sold four million copies a week, and they needed a War Correspondent like they needed an exclusive interview with the General Secretary of the United Nations. [The interview was done in 1983 and went as follows:

这就是《国民世界周刊》。他们每周卖出四百万份。他们需要一位战地记者，就像他们需要对联合国秘书长进行一次独家专访。（那次专访是在1983年进行的，过程如下：

Q: Ever sighted Elvis?

问：见过猫王吗？）

A: Si.

答：对。

Occasionally they would hand one of her stories over to a rewrite man to fix up. (“Jesus appeared to nine-year-old Manuel Gonzalez during a pitched battle on the Rio Concorsa, and told him to go home because his mother worried about him. ‘I knew it was Jesus,’ said the brave little child, ‘because he looked like he did when his picture miraculously appeared on my sandwich box.”‘)

他们偶尔会把她的一篇稿子交给别人修改重写。（里奥·康克萨市一场激战中，耶稣显身在九岁的曼纽尔·冈萨雷斯面前，告诉他赶快回家，他妈妈在替他担心。“我知道那是耶稣。”这位勇敢的少年说，“因为他不可思议地出现在我的三明治盒子上时，看起来就是那副样子。”）

They felt justified in this because, as they saw it, she really wasn’t a very good war correspondent although she was undoubtedly the most attractive, which counted for a lot on the National World Weekly. Her war reports were always about a bunch of guys shooting at each other, with no real understanding of the wider political ramifications, and, more importantly, no Human Interest.

他们觉得这很正常，因为在他们看来，尽管朱伊季勃无疑很有魅力——在《国民世界周刊》这很重要，但的确不是个优秀的战地记者。她的稿子总是一群家伙互相射击，从不深入探讨事件背后的政治分歧，而且更重要的是，没有“人情味儿”。

She had been right. Journalism suited her.

她没搞错。新闻业适合她。

Murchison, and Van Home, and Anforth didn’t care about this. All they knew was that whenever a war broke out, Ms. Zuigiber was there first. Practically before.

莫其森、范霍姆和安弗斯不在乎这些。他们只知道一旦有战争爆发，朱伊季勃小姐总是第一个赶到。几乎可以说是提前到场。

Ms. Zuigiber just smiled and bought another round of drinks for everybody, on the National World Weekly. And watched the fights break out around her. And smiled.

朱伊季勃小姐只会笑着请所有人再喝一杯，记在《国民世界周刊》账上。然后她就看着人们在她周围打架。始终保持微笑。

She was on a small Mediterranean island which made its money from the tourist trade, and that in itself was odd. Red looked to be the kind of woman who, if she took a holiday on any island smaller than Australia, would be doing so because she was friends with the man who owned it. And had you told any islander a month before that war was coming, he would have laughed at you and tried to sell you a raffiawork wine holder or a picture of the bay done in seashells; that was then.

她来到一座地中海小岛。这里的经济主要仰仗旅游收入，其实也没多少。像朱伊季勃这样的女子，如果到某个比澳大利亚小的岛屿度假，那是因为她是岛主的朋友。如果你一个月前告诉这里的任何一个岛民战争即将爆发，他都会哈哈大笑，然后向你推销椰壳红酒架，或是画在贝壳上的海港地图。那是当时。

Mostly the National World Weekly left her alone, and carefully filed her stories in the rubbish bin.

通常《国民世界周刊》都不管她，并且将她的稿件小心归档进垃圾桶。

Even so, everyone needs a holiday, and Red Zuigiber was on her first in eleven years.

即便如此，可谁都需要假期，“猩红”朱伊季勃正在享受十一年来第一个假期。

“How does she do it?” they would ask each other incredulously. “How the hell does she do it?” And their eyes would meet, and silently say: if she was a car she’d be made by Ferrari, she’s the kind of woman you’d expect to see as the beautiful consort to the corrupt generalissimo of a collapsing Third World country, and she hangs around with guys like us. We’re the lucky guys, right?

“她是怎么办到的？”他们会迷惑地彼此询问，“她到底是怎么做到的？”他们的目光交汇时，会无言地诉说：如果她是辆车，那肯定是法拉利出品。你总会在行将倾覆的第三世界国家军事独裁者身边看到风华绝代的美丽伴侣，她就像这种女子。可她现在跟咱们混在一起。这是咱们的福气，对吗？

Now a deep religio-political divide, concerning which of four small mainland countries they weren’t actually a part of, had split the country into three factions, destroyed the statue of Santa Maria in the town square, and done for the tourist trade.

一场激烈的宗教政治分歧突然爆发，牵扯到其实跟小岛毫无关系的四个内陆小国。这场纷争已经将岛民划分为三个党派，毁掉了市镇广场中的圣母玛利亚塑像，也结束了旅游经济。

This was now.

这是现在。

Red Zuigiber sat in the bar of the Hotel de Palomar del Sol, drinking what passed for a cocktail. In one corner a tired pianist played, and a waiter in a toupee crooned into a microphone:

“猩红”朱伊季勃正坐在帕洛马太阳酒店的酒吧里，喝着大概是鸡尾酒的饮料。角落里有个疲倦的钢琴家正在演奏，一名戴假发的侍者冲麦克风低声吟唱着《西班牙斗牛士汤米》的主题歌《小白牛》：

LITTLE WHITE BOOOL

小白牛

AAAAAAAAAAAvery — sad — because — e — was

他他他他他很难过，因为他是

“AAAAAAAAAAAonce — pon — a — time — dere — was

很很很很很久以前这里有头

LITTLE WHITE BOOL…”

小白牛…

A man threw himself through the window, a knife between his teeth, a Kalashnikov automatic rifle in one hand, a grenade in the other.

一个人突然破窗而入，嘴里叼着匕首，右手端着卡拉什尼科夫冲锋枪，左手拿着颗手雷。

“I glaim gis oteg id der gaing og der –” he paused. He took the knife out of his mouth and began again. “I claim this hotel in the name of the pro-Turkish Liberation Faction!”

“我以辛土耳席治肉岗的梦义…”他顿了顿，把刀子从嘴里拿出来重新说，“我以亲土耳其自由党的名义宣布占领这座酒店！”

The last two holidaymakers remaining on the island [Mr. and Mrs. Thomas Threlfall, of 9, The Elms, Paignton. They always maintained that one of the nice things about going on holiday was not having to read the newspapers or listen to the news, just getting away from it all really. And due to a tummy bug contracted by Mr. Threlfall, and Mrs. Threlfall rather overdoing it in the sun their first day, this was their first time out of their hotel room for a week and a half.] climbed underneath their table. Red unconcernedly withdrew the maraschino cherry from her drink, put it to her scarlet lips, and sucked it slowly off its stick in a way that made several men in the room break into a cold sweat.

岛上最后两名游客爬进桌子底下。（英国佩根顿镇榆树街9号的托马斯·斯瑞夫先生及夫人。他们素来认为度假的乐趣之一就是不用读书看报听新闻，彻底远离这些凡尘俗事。由于斯瑞夫先生突然胃病发作，而斯瑞夫太太在抵达的头一天就晒多了太阳，所以今天是他们两位十天来第一次走出酒店房间。）朱伊季勃满不在乎地从杯子里拿出酒浸樱桃，放到深红色的嘴唇间，慢慢从牙签上嘬下来。这个动作让在场的几个男人突然冒出一身冷汗。

The pianist stood up, reached into his piano, and pulled out a vintage sub-machine gun. “This hotel has already been claimed by the proGreek Territorial Brigade!” he screamed. “Make one false move, and I shoot out your living daylight!”

钢琴家站起身，从钢琴里掏出一挺老式半自动冲锋枪。“这座酒店已经被亲希腊本土防卫旅占领了！”他高叫道，“只要踏错一步，我就让你见不到明天的太阳！”

There was a motion at the door. A huge, black-bearded individual with a golden smile and a genuine antique Gatling gun stood there, with a cohort of equally huge although less impressively armed men behind him.

门口突然人影一闪。一个留黑胡子的大块头出现在那里，他有金灿灿的微笑和一挺加特林机枪，后面还跟着一群同样高大，但样貌比较平凡的武装人员。

“This strategically important hotel, for years a symbol of the fascist imperialist Turko-Greek running dog tourist trade, is now the property of the Italo-Maltese Freedom Fighters!” he boomed affably. “Now we kill everybody!”

“这座极具战略重要性的酒店，多年来一直是土耳其—希腊法西斯帝国主义者进行旅游贸易的象征，如今它是意大利—马耳他自由战士的财产了！”他笑容可掬地大声说道，“现在我们要杀死所有人！”

“Rubbish!” said the pianist. “Is not strategically important. Just has extremely well-stocked wine cellar!”

“胡扯！”钢琴家说，“这里没什么战略重要性。只有窖藏特别丰富的葡萄酒酒窖！”

“He’s right, Pedro,” said the man with the Kalashnikov, “That’s why my lot wanted it. Il General Ernesto de Montoya said to me, he said, Fernando, the war’ll be over by Saturday, and the lads’ll be wanting a good time. Pop down to the Hotel de Palomar del Sol and claim it as booty, will you?”

“他说得对，彼得。”手持卡拉什尼科夫冲锋枪的人说，“这就是我们这方要它的原因。欧内斯特·德·蒙托亚将军对我说，费南多，战争周六就会结束，小伙子们需要快活一下。去一趟帕洛马太阳酒店，把它变成咱们的战利品，好吗？”

“Ha!” said Fernando. “You might as well say that just because Little Diego’s house has a view of the decadent capitalist topless private beach, that it’s strategically important!”

“哈！”费南多说，“你还不如说小迭戈的房子也有战略重要性，因为那里可以俯瞰颓废资本主义者的无上装私人海滩！”

There was silence.

一片寂静。

In the silence was a faint, silken rasping. Red had uncrossed her legs.

寂静中传来一阵丝绒摩擦的轻响。朱伊季勃把跷起来的腿放下。

The bearded man turned red. “Is bloddy important strategically, Fernando Chianti! I drew big map of the island and is right in the middle, which makes it pretty bloddy strategically important, I can tell you.”

黑胡子脸涨得通红。“绝对有他妈的战略重要性，费南多·基安蒂！我画了幅岛屿大地图，这酒店在正中间，这让它特别有他妈的战略重要性，我跟你说。”

The pianist blushed a deep red. “Our lot got that this morning,” he admitted.

钢琴家脸色羞红。“我们的人今天上午把那里占领了。”他承认说。

“Well, it’s a lot more strategically important than this hotel anyway,” he finished.

“嗯，总之那里比这座酒店更具战略重要性。”他总结道。

Pedro coughed, ominously. “The next person who says anything. Anything at all. Is dead.” He grinned. Hefted his gun. “Right. Now everyone against far wall.”

彼得咳嗽一声。“下一个说话的人，不管是什么话，都要死。”他狞笑着举起机枪，“好了。现在所有人趴在对面墙上。”

The pianist’s Adam’s apple bobbed up and down. “Well, it’s pretty strategically important,” he managed, trying to ignore the woman on the bar stool. “I mean, if someone landed a submarine on it, you’d want to be somewhere you could see it all.”

钢琴家的喉结上下一动。“哦，那里极具战略重要性。”他试图忽略吧台前坐着的女子，“我是说，如果有人想在那里停靠潜水艇，你总得找个能看到它的地方吧。”

Silence.

寂静。

There was some shuffling among the cohort in the doorway. They seemed to be doing their best to stand firm, but they were being inexorably edged out of the way by the muttering, which had begun to resolve itself into audible phrases. “Don’t mind me, gents, what a night, eh? Three times round the island, nearly didn’t find the place, someone doesn’t believe in signposts, eh? Still, found it in the end, had to stop and ask four times, finally asked at the post office, they always know at the post office, had to draw me a map though, got it here somewhere…”

门口的人群一阵忙乱。他们似乎想尽力站稳脚跟，但却被嘟囔声无情地推到一边。那声音已经变成勉强可以听清的话语。“不用管我，先生们，今晚可真够呛。绕着岛转了三圈，差点儿没找到这地方，有人就是不相信路标，嗯？好歹是找到了，不得不停车问了四次，最后在邮局问着了。邮局的人总会知道的，但他们不得不给我画了张地图，总算到了…”

Sliding serenely past the men with guns, like a pike through a trout pond, came a small, bespectacled man in a blue uniform, carrying a long, thin, brown paper-wrapped parcel, tied with string. His sole concession to the climate were his open-toed brown plastic sandals, although the green woolen socks he wore underneath them showed his deep and natural distrust of foreign weather.

一个戴眼镜的小个子男人镇定自若地从武装人员中间穿过，仿佛扎进鲑鱼池塘的一柄长矛。他身穿蓝色制服，拿着一个又长又细的棕色纸包，包裹上系着细绳。他对此地气候唯一的妥协是棕色露趾塑料凉鞋，但脚上的绿色毛纺袜还是显示出他对外国天气发自本能的猜忌。

Nobody moved. They weren’t listening to him any more. They were listening to a low, indistinct murmuring from the hallway behind him, quiet and monotonous.

谁都没动。所有人都没留意他的话，而是在倾听他身后走廊里隐约传来的单调低沉的抱怨声。

He had a peaked cap on, with International Express written on it in large white letters.

他头戴鸭舌帽，上面有很大的白色字样：“国际速递”。

The little man looked around the room, scanning the faces, and then looking back down at his clipboard; then he walked straight over to Red, still sitting on her bar stool. “Package for you, miss,” he said.

小个子男人环视四周，检视着一张张面孔，又低头看了看笔记板，然后径直走向还坐在吧凳上的朱伊季勃。“您的包裹，小姐。”他说。

Red took it, and began to untie the string.

朱伊季勃接过包裹，正要解开细绳。

The International Express man coughed discreetly and presented the journalist with a well-thumbed receipt pad and a yellow plastic ballpoint pen attached to the clipboard by a piece of string. “You have to sign for it, miss. Just there. Print your full name over here, signature down there.”

国际速递的人谨慎地咳嗽一声，递给记者一张皱巴巴的收条，以及一杆用绳子系在笔记板上的黄色塑料圆珠笔。“您得签收一下，小姐。把您的全名用印刷体写在这儿，然后在那儿签名。”

He was unarmed, but no one touched him. No one even pointed a gun at him. They just stared.

他没带武器，但也没人碰他。甚至没人把枪口指向他。人们只是盯着。

“Of course.” Red signed the receipt pad, illegibly, then printed her name. The name she wrote was not Carmine Zuigiber. It was a much shorter name.

“好的。”朱伊季勃龙飞凤舞地在收条上签了字，然后用印刷体写好姓名。她签的不是卡麦恩·朱伊季勃，而是个很短的名字。

The man thanked her kindly, and made his way out, muttering lovely place you’ve got here, gents, always meant to come out here on holiday, sorry to trouble you, excuse me, sir… And he passed out of their lives as serenely as he had come.

男人礼貌地谢过她，转身向外走去，嘴里还念叨着你们这地方多可爱啊，先生们，我假期老想到这儿来，抱歉叨扰您，借过，先生…他跟来时一样，镇定自若地从他们的世界中离去。

She finished the drink, hefted the sword over one shoulder, and looked around at the puzzled factions, who now encircled her completely. “Sorry to run out on you, chaps,” she said. “Would love to stay and get to know you better.”

她喝光残酒，把剑扛在肩上，环视三派人马迷惑的表情。这些人把她团团围住。“抱歉，失陪了，伙计们。”朱伊季勃说，“真希望能留下来，跟你们认识一下。”

She examined it. It was a very straightforward sword, long and sharp; it looked both old and unused; and it had nothing ornamental or impressive about it. This was no magical sword, no mystic weapon of power and might. It was very obviously a sword created to slice, chop, cut, preferably kill, but, failing that, irreparably maim, a very large number of people indeed. It had an indefinable aura of hatred and menace.

她上下检查一番。这是柄很普通的剑，又长又利；看起来相当古老，但又似乎从未用过；没有任何装饰，也不漂亮；不是魔法剑，不具备任何神秘力量。它显然是一柄用来切、砍、削的长剑，特别适合杀死——如果未能成功，至少也是致残——数目庞大的人群。从上到下都散发着不可名状的恨意和威胁。

Red finished opening the parcel. People began to edge around to get a better look. Inside the package was a large sword.

朱伊季勃打开包裹。人们都在往前挤，想要看个清楚。包裹里是一柄长剑。

Red clasped the hilt in her exquisitely manicured right hand, and held it up to eye level. The blade glinted.

朱伊季勃用精心保养的右手握住剑柄，举到与双眼平齐。剑锋闪着寒光。

“Awwwright!” she said, stepping down from the stool. “Finally.”

“好得很！”她说着从吧凳上站起身，“终于到时候了。”

The men in the room suddenly realized that they didn’t want to know her better. She was beautiful, but she was beautiful in the way a forest fire was beautiful: something to be admired from a distance, not up close.

屋子里的人突然意识到自己不想认识她。她很美，但这种美就像山林大火，可远观不可亵玩。

She licked a spatter of blood — someone else’s — from the back of her hand with a scarlet, cat-like tongue. Then she smiled.

她用猫咪似的深红色舌头，舔掉手背上的一点血迹——别人的血迹，然后露出微笑。

“This wouldn’t of happened if we’d of gone to Torremolinos like we usually do,” said one of them, plaintively.

“如果咱们和往常一样去西班牙的托雷莫里诺斯，就不会遇到这种事了。”其中一人忧心忡忡地说。

They encircled her completely.

他们把她围得水泄不通。

And then it was over.

接着一切都结束了。

And she walked out of the bar, her heels clicking on the tiles like the tapping of distant hammers.

她走出酒吧，鞋跟敲打在瓷砖上发出咚咚声响，仿佛遥远的战鼓。

There were a number of guns in that room, and slowly, tremblingly, they were focused on her chest, and her back, and head.

酒吧里有不少枪，它们都慢慢地、颤颤巍巍地瞄准了朱伊季勃的前胸、后背和脑袋。

Red shrugged. She began to walk forward.

朱伊季勃耸耸肩，开始向前走。

Carmine Zuigiber turned and stared at the bodies surrounding her as if she hadn’t the faintest idea of how they came to be there.

卡麦恩·朱伊季勃转身看了看周围的尸体，似乎完全不明白他们怎么会变成这样。

And she held her sword, and she smiled like a knife.

她举起长剑，笑得像一把刀。

The two holidaymakers climbed out from under the table and surveyed the carnage.

两名度假者从桌子底下爬出来，环视着周围的战场。

Everybody else nodded.

所有人都点点头。

“Don’t move!” croaked Pedro.

“别动！”彼得挤出一句话。

Every finger on every trigger tightened, almost of its own accord. Lead and the smell of cordite filled the air. Red’s cocktail glass smashed in her hand. The room’s remaining mirrors exploded in lethal shards. Part of the ceiling fell down.

每个扳机上的每根手指，几乎同时扣下。到处都是铅弹和无烟火药味。朱伊季勃的鸡尾酒杯在她掌中破碎。屋子里剩下的镜子都被炸成致命的碎片。部分天花板掉了下来。

“That settles it, then. Next year we go to Brighton,” said Mrs. Threlfall, completely missing the significance of what had just happened.

“那就这么定了。明年咱们去布莱顿度假。”斯瑞夫太太说。她完全没意识到刚才那一幕的重要性。

“Foreigners,” sighed the other. “They’re just not like us, Patricia.”

“外国人。”另一个人说，“就是跟咱们不一样，帕特里夏。”

It meant there wouldn’t be any next year.

它意味着不会再有明年。

It rather lowered the odds on there being any next week to speak of.

说起来，它甚至降低了下周存在的可能性。