萨基/Saki
萨基（Saki，1870-1916），原名赫克托·休·芒罗，英国著名的幽默小说家。曾加入缅甸武装警卫队，后作为记者，走遍俄罗斯、波兰和巴黎。丰富的阅历和卓越的艺术才华为他的创造打下坚实的基础。他的作品结构严谨，构思巧妙，结局出人意料。《黄昏》《敞开的窗户》等皆为世界名篇，被各国多种短篇小说选本采用。
“My aunt will be down presently, Mr. Nuttel,”said a very self-possessed young lady of fifteen;“in the meantime you must try and put up with me.”
Framton Nuttel endeavored to say the correct something which should duly flatter the niece of the moment without unduly discounting the aunt that was to come. Privately he doubted more than ever whether these formal visits on a succession of total strangers would do much toward helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
“I know how it will be,”his sister had said when he was preparing to migrate to this rural retreat;“you will bury yourself down there and not speak to a living soul, and your nerves will be worse than ever from moping. I shall just give you letters of introduction to all the people I know there. Some of them, as far as I can remember, were quite nice.”
Framton wondered whether Mrs. Sappleton, the lady to whom he was presenting one of the letters of introduction, came into the nice division.
“Do you know many of the people round here?”asked the niece, when she judged that they had had sufficient silent communion.
“Hardly a soul,”said Framton.“My sister was staying here, at the rectory, you know, some four years ago, and she gave me letters of introduction to some of the people here.”
He made the last statement in a tone of distinct regret.
“Then you know practically nothing about my aunt?”pursued the self-possessed young lady.
“Only her name and address,”admitted the caller. He was wondering whether Mrs. Sappleton was in the married or widowed state. An un definable something about the room seemed to suggest masculine habitation.
“Her great tragedy happened just three years ago,”said the child;“that would be since your sister’s time.”
“Her tragedy?”asked Framton;somehow, in this restful country spot, tragedies seemed out of place.
“You may wonder why we keep that window wide open on an October afternoon,”said the niece, indicating a large French window that opened onto a lawn.
“It is quite warm for the time of the year,”said Framton,“but has that window got anything to do with the tragedy?”
“Out through that window, three years ago toaday, her husband and her two young brothers went off for their day’s shooting. They never came back. In crossing the moor to their favorite snipe-shooting ground, they were all three engulfed in a treacherous piece of bog. It had been that dreadful wet summer, you know, and places that were safe in other years gave way suddenly without warning. Their bodies were never recovered. That was the dreadful part of it.”
Here the child’s voice lost its self-possessed note and became falteringly human.
“Poor aunt always thinks that they will come back someday, they and the little brown spaniel that was lost with them, and walk in at that window just as they used to do. That is why the window is kept open every evening till it is quite dusk. Poor dear aunt, she has often told me how they went out, her husband with his white waterproof coat over his arm, and Ronnie, her youngest brother, singing,‘Bertie, why do you bound?’as he always did to tease her, because she said it got on her nerves. Do you know, sometimes on still, quiet evenings like this, I almost get a creepy feeling that they will all walk in through that window.”
She broke off with a little shudder. It was a relief to Framton when the aunt bustled into the room with a whirl of apologies for being late in making her appearance.
“I hope Vera has been amusing you.”she said.
“She has been very interesting,”said Framton.
“I hope you don’t mind the open window,”said Mrs. Sappleton briskly;“my husband and brothers will be home directly from shooting, and they always come in this way. They’ve been out for snipe in the marshes today, so they’ll make a fine mess over my poor carpets. So like you menfolk, isn’t it?”
She rattled on cheerfully about the shooting and the scarcity of birds and the prospects for duck in the winter. To Framton, it was all purely horrible. He made a desperate but only partially successful effort to turn the talk onto a less ghastly topic;he was conscious that his hostess was giving him only a fragment of her attention, and her eyes were constantly straying past him to the open window and the lawn beyond. It was certainly an unfortunate coincidence that he should have paid his visit on this tragic anniversary.
“The doctors agree in ordering me complete rest, an absence of mental excitement, and avoidance of anything in the nature of violent physical exercise,”announced Framton, who labored under the tolerably widespread delusion that total strangers and chance acquaintances are hungry for the least detail of one’s ailments and infirmities, their cause and cure.
“On the matter of diet they are not so much in agreement,”he continued.
“No?”said Mrs. Sappleton, in a voice which only replaced a yawn at the last moment.
Then she suddenly brightened into alert attention-but not to what Framton was saying.
“Here they are at last!”she cried.“Just in time for tea, and don’t they look as if they were muddy up to the eyes!”
Framton shivered slightly and turned toward the niece with a look intended to convey sympathetic comprehension. The child was staring out through the open window with dazed horror in her eyes. In a chill shock of nameless fear Framton swung round in his seat and looked in the same direction.
In the deepening twilight three figures were walking across the lawn toward the window;they all carried guns under their arms, and one of them was additionally burdened with a white coat hung over his shoulders. A tired brown spaniel kept close at their heels. Noiselessly they neared the house, and then a hoarse young voice chanted out of the dusk:“I said, Bertie, why do you bound?”
Framton grabbed wildly at his stick and hat;the hall door, the gravel drive, and the front gate were dimly noted stages in his headlong retreat. A cyclist coming along the road had to run into the hedge to avoid imminent collision.
“Here we are, my dear,”said the bearer of the white mackintosh, coming in through the window,“fairly muddy, but most of it’s dry. Who was that who bolted out as we came up?”
“A most extraordinary man, a Mr. Nuttel,”said Mrs. Sappleton;“could only talk about his illnesses and dashed off without a word of goodbye or apology when you arrived. One would think he had seen a ghost.”
“I expect it was the spaniel,”said the niece calmly;“he told me he had a horror of dogs. He was once hunted into a cemetery somewhere on the banks of the Ganges by a pack of pariah dogs and had to spend the night in a newly dug grave with the creatures snarling and grinning and foaming just above him. Enough to make anyone lose their nerve.”
“努特尔先生，我婶婶很快就回来了，到时候您对我可得多包涵点。”一个颇自负的十五岁小姑娘说道。
弗兰顿·努特尔尽力说了几句奉承的话，恭维一下这位侄女和那位很快就回家的婶婶。私底下，他越来越怀疑，对这么一大群毫不相识的人作正式的拜访，对他的正在治疗的神经病究竟有何益处？
那段时间，当他准备搬到乡下的时候，姐姐曾经对他说：“我能想象出你到了乡下会是什么样子。你将整天闷在家里，不与周围的人打交道，如果你总是这个样子，你的病情会越来越严重。我写一封信，介绍一下我那里认识的人，你带着信过去，以备不时之需。我记得他们当中，不少人还是挺热情的、挺善良的。”
弗兰顿此时在纳闷：这位萨伯莱顿夫人——就是他拿着姐姐给的介绍信正在拜访的这位女主人——是不是也在“好人”之列？
“你是不是认识许多这里的人？”那个小侄女问道，她觉得他们在沉默得太久了，于是想打破沉默。
“基本上没一个认识的，”弗兰顿回答道，“你知道，大概在四年前，我姐姐在邻近的教区长家里住过一段时间。于是，她写了几封介绍信让我带着，想让我和这里的人认识认识。”
他说最后一句话的时候，流露出一种遗憾的口气。
“这么说，您其实对我婶婶毫不知晓？”那个自负的少女接着问道。
“我只知道她的名字和地址。”弗兰顿诚实地回答说。他不知道萨伯莱顿的丈夫是否健在，但屋子里有一种说不出来的东西使他觉得夫人不可能是个寡妇。
“三年前，她遭遇了非常悲惨的事情。”女孩说着，“那个时候，您的姐姐已经搬走了，所以，她对这些情况一无所知。”
“遭遇悲剧？”弗兰顿不解地问道。不知什么原因，反正在这个幽寂僻静的小乡村里听到“悲剧”一词，简直不可思议。
“您可能困惑，为什么在寒冷的十月天气里，我们还在下午敞开着窗户？”那个小侄女手指向一扇面向草坪的巨大落地玻璃窗。
“是啊，这个时节，天气已经有点凉意了，”弗兰顿说，“但是，这扇窗户跟你婶婶的悲剧有什么关系呢？”
“三年前的今天，她丈夫和她的两个弟弟从这扇窗户前走过去打猎。可是他们再也没有回来。通往他们最喜欢的水鹭狩猎场的必经之路有一片沼泽地，当他们穿越这片沼泽地时，三个人都被一片险恶的泥沼吞没了。您知道吗，在那个阴雨连绵的可恶夏天，林子里原来安全的道路神不知鬼不觉地陷进了泥沼，没有任何警告的标志。时至今日，他们三个人的尸体还没有找到呢，真是太可怕了！”
讲到这里的时候，姑娘的声音不再像原来那么平静沉着了，变得支唔起来：
“可怜的婶婶一直认为他们有一天会回来，期待着他们三个人和那条棕色的长耳小狗——它和他们一起失踪了——像以往那样，从这扇窗户面前走过，回到家里。这就是为什么每天傍晚开着窗户直到天黑的原因。可怜的婶婶，一直以来，她总是对我讲起他们是怎样走出去的，丈夫的胳膊上搭着一件白色的雨衣，她最小的弟弟隆尼，嘴里哼着那支歌——‘噢，伯特利，你为何蹦蹦跳跳的？’他总是唱这首歌逗弄她，因为婶婶说过，这支歌令她心神不安。你知道吗？有时候，比如说像现在寂静的傍晚，一想到他们随时会从那扇窗户走进来，我就浑身起鸡皮疙瘩。”
她停止了说话，轻轻地打了个冷颤。那位婶婶回到家里了，弗兰顿终于松了一口气。婶婶一边匆匆忙忙地走进屋子，一边连声道歉让客人久等了。
萨伯莱顿夫人说：“我希望维拉（女孩的名字）没有冷落您。”
弗兰顿答道：“没有，她是个很有趣的孩子。”
萨伯莱顿夫人轻快地说：“我希望您不介意打开这扇窗户，我丈夫和兄弟们外出打猎马上就要回来了，他们总是从窗前这条路穿过。他们今天去沼泽地那边打猎了，所以他们又要把我可怜的地毯搞得一塌糊涂。男人们总是这样，不是吗？”
她兴致勃勃地唠叨起打猎的事情，比如说冬天没有多少鸟，只好指望那些野鸭等等。对弗兰顿来说，这简直太可怕了。他作了一番巨大努力，竭力把话题转到不那么恐怖的事情上。但他马上明白，女主人对其他话题一点也不感兴趣，她的眼光不时地从他身上转移到那扇敞开的窗户和外面的草坪上。在这个充满悲剧的周日来访，简直是一个不幸的巧合！太不合时宜了！
“医生们都认为我应该好好休息，避免精神过度兴奋和激烈的体育运动，”弗兰顿煞有介事地说。像许多人一样，他也以为陌生人或偶然相识者会对他的疾病的每一个细节、发病原因以及医疗过程等方面会大感兴趣。
“但在如何节食方面，他们的意见就出现分歧了，”他继续说着。
“是吗？”萨伯莱顿夫人说完打了个哈欠。
突然，她的眼睛一亮，顿时容光焕发——但是，她的这种变化并非为弗兰顿的故事所吸引。
“他们终于回来了！”她喊道，“又是在喝午茶的时候，太准时了。您看看，他们浑身是泥巴，连眼睛也脏兮兮的，跟抹了泥似的！”
弗兰顿轻轻地颤抖起来，他转头去看她的侄女，眼睛里含着祈求、同情、理解的神色。可是，那个小姑娘两眼盯着窗外，眼睛里也充满了恐惧。弗兰顿在座椅里不安地扭动，朝她目光的方向望去。于是，一阵莫名的冰冷恐怖感攫住了他。
朦胧暮色中，三个人影越过草坪向窗户走来，胳膊下面夹着猎枪，其中的一个人在肩膀上搭挂着一件白色雨衣，一只疲乏的棕色长耳小狗紧跟在他们脚边，他们不声不响地走近房子。随后，有个青年人扯着嘶哑的嗓子在黄昏里唱道：“噢，伯特利，你为何蹦蹦跳跳的？”
弗兰顿像疯了似的抓起手杖和帽子，急急忙忙、慌不择路地从厅门、便道和大门逃出去。一个过路的骑着自行车的人为了避免撞到他，一下子撞到路旁的绿篱上了。
“亲爱的，我们回来了，”那个带着白雨衣的男人走近窗户，对着妻子说道，“全身都脏死了，简直像陷到泥沼里一样，不过还好，大部分都干了。刚才冲出去的那个人是谁呀？”
“一个很奇怪的人，名叫努特尔先生，”萨伯莱顿夫人回答说，“他只会讲些关于他神经病的事，看见你们回来后，他一句‘再见’也没说，就一溜烟跑掉了，人家还以为他见了鬼呢！”
“我猜都是因为这条小狗，”小姑娘平静地说，“他曾告诉我他很怕狗。他在印度恒河边时，有一回被一对野狗追赶到公墓地，只好跳进一口新挖的墓穴里过了一夜。那两只野狗在他头上疯狂地吠叫，呲着牙，冒着唾沫。谁碰上这样的事都会被吓掉魂的，难怪得了精神病。”
词汇笔记
nerve[n?v]n.神经；勇气，胆量
He never got up enough nerve to meet me.
他从没有足够的胆量来见我。
migrate['ma?,ɡret]v.迁移，移往；移动；随季节而移居；使移居；使移植
Some birds migrate to find warmer places.
一些鸟迁徙寻找暖和的地方。
masculine['m?skj?l?n]adj.男子气概的
His suit was the acme of masculine elegance.
他这套西装尽显男性优雅风度。
scarcity['sk?rs?ti]n.不足，缺乏；稀少；萧条
The scarcity of fruit was caused by the drought.
水果缺乏是由干旱引起的。
小试身手
我记得他们当中，不少人还是挺热情的、挺善良的。
我只知道她的名字和地址。
她停止了说话，轻轻地打了个冷颤。
Framton Nuttel endeavored to say the correct something which should duly flatter……
endeavor to：争做
……do much toward helping the nerve cure which he was supposed to be undergoing.
be supposed to：应该，被期望