夏夜惊魂 (上集)
The fact that Henry Armstrong was buried did not seem to him to prove that he was dead: he had always been a hard man to convince. That he really was buried, the testimony of his senses compelled him to admit. His posture - flat upon his back, with his hands crossed upon his stomach and tied with something that he easily broke without profitably altering the situation - the strict confinement of his entire person, the black darkness and profound silence, made a body of evidence impossible to controvert and he accepted it without cavil.
亨利·阿姆斯特朗已经入葬了，但对他本人来讲，这个事实似乎并不能证明他已经死了：他永远都是一个杠头。不过他就是死了，他已没有感觉的事实使他不得不相信他死了。他的姿势（身体平躺，双手交错放在肚子上，手腕被什么东西绑着，而他是不需调整最佳姿势就可以轻松挣断这个东西的）、他被牢牢禁锢着的身体、漆黑的夜色和悚然的寂静，这一切都是无可辩驳的证据，他只能无可奈何地接受。
But dead – no, he was only very, very ill. He had, withal, the invalid''s apathy and did not greatly concern himself about the uncommon fate that had been allotted to him. No philosopher was he - just a plain, commonplace person gifted, for the time being, with a pathological indifference: the organ that he feared consequences with was torpid. So, with no particular apprehension for his immediate future, he fell asleep and all was peace with Henry Armstrong.
但死亡——不，他只是病得非常、非常厉害。此外，他和所有病人一样的冷漠，并不是非常关心自己不同寻常的命运。他不是一个哲学家——他只是一名普通的常人，只不过暂时持有一种病态的冷漠心理罢了。他用来考虑可怕后果的器官已经迟钝了。所以，在还没有搞清他即将遇到什么情况的状态下，他就睡着了，对于亨利·阿姆斯特朗来说，一切都是在平和中进行的。
But something was going on overhead. It was a dark summer night, shot through with infrequent shimmers of lightning silently firing a cloud lying low in the west and portending a storm. These brief, stammering illuminations brought out with ghastly distinctness the monuments and headstones of the cemetery and seemed to set them dancing. It was not a night in which any credible witness was likely to be straying about a cemetery, so the three men who were there, digging into the grave of Henry Armstrong, felt reasonably secure.
但天空却出现了一些变化。异乎寻常的闪电屡屡划破这个漆黑的夏夜， 然而这一切却悄无声息，只是点亮了西方的低云，看来一场暴风雨即将来临。短暂而又断断续续的光亮照亮了墓碑和墓石，气氛可怖，而墓碑和墓石在闪电照耀下更加凌乱不堪。一个正直可信的人是不会在这样的一个夜晚里在墓地里游荡的，所以，理所当然，正在那里挖掘亨利·阿姆斯特朗墓的三个人是不会感到有所顾忌的。
Two of them were young students from a medical college a few miles away; the third was a gigantic negro known as Jess. For many years Jess had been employed about the cemetery as a man-of-all-work and it was his favorite pleasantry that he knew ''every soul in the place''. From the nature of what he was now doing it was inferable that the place was not so populous as its register may have shown it to be.
其中的两人是附近一所医学院的年轻学生；另外一个人叫杰斯，是一个体形彪悍的黑人。多年来，杰斯一直都受雇处理所有的墓地杂务，所以他喜欢开玩笑说，他认识“这个地方的每一个人”。从他现在正在干的勾当的性质就可以看出，这个地方的亡者不会像登记簿上记录的那么多。
Outside the wall, at the part of the grounds farthest from the public road, were a horse and a light wagon, waiting.
墙外，在公用道路旁最远处的一块空地上，有一架小型马车在等候着...... <未完待续>
作 者：安布雷斯•比尔斯
