领略原汁原味汉英对照经典名作
巴斯科维尔猎犬
      Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearthrug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before. It was a fine, thick piece of wood, bulbous-headed, of the sort which is known as a “Penang lawyer.” Just under the head was a broad silver band, nearly an inch across. “To James Mortimer, M.R.C.S., from his friends of the C.C.H.,” was engraved upon it, with the date “1884.” It was just such a stick as the old-fashioned family practitioner used to carry—dignified, solid, and reassuring.
      “Well, Watson, what do you make of it?”
      Holmes was sitting with his back to me, and I had given him no sign of my occupation.
      “How did you know what I was doing? I believe you have eyes in the back of your head.”
      “I have, at least, a well-polished, silver-plated coffee-pot in front of me,” said he. “But, tell me, Watson, what do you make of our visitor’s stick? Since we have been so unfortunate as to miss him and have no notion of his errand, this accidental souvenir becomes of importance. Let me hear you reconstruct the man by an examination of it.”
      “I think,” said I, following as far as I could the methods of my companion, “that Dr. Mortimer is a successful, elderly medical man, well-esteemed, since those who know him give him this mark of their appreciation.”
      “Good!” said Holmes. “Excellent!”
      “I think also that the probability is in favour of his being a country practitioner who does a great deal of his visiting on foot.”
      “Why so?”
      “Because this stick, though originally a very handsome one, has been so knocked about that I can hardly imagine a town practitioner carrying it. The thick-iron ferrule is worn down, so it is evident that he has done a great amount of walking with it.”
      “Perfectly sound!” said Holmes.
     “And then again, there is the ‘friends of the C.C.H.’ I should guess that to be the Something Hunt, the local hunt to whose members he has possibly given some surgical assistance, and which has made him a small presentation in return.”
“Really, Watson, you excel yourself,” said Holmes, pushing back his chair and lighting a cigarette. “I am bound to say that in all the accounts which you have been so good as to give of my own small achievements you have habitually underrated your own abilities. It may be that you are not yourself luminous, but you are a conductor of light. Some people without possessing
      genius have a remarkable power of stimulating it. I confess, my dear fellow, that I am very much in your debt.”
He had never said as much before, and I must admit that his words gave me keen pleasure, for I had often been piqued by his indifference to my admiration and to the attempts which I had made to give publicity to his methods. I was proud, too, to think that I had so far mastered his system as to apply it in a way which earned his approval. He now took the stick from my hands and examined it for a few minutes with his naked eyes. Then with an expression of interest he laid down his cigarette, and carrying the cane to the window, he looked over it again with a convex lens.
      “Interesting, though elementary,” said he as he returned to his favourite corner of the settee. “There are certainly one or two indications upon the stick. It gives us the basis for several deductions.”
      “Has anything escaped me?” I asked with some selfimportance.“I trust that there is nothing of consequence which I have overlooked?”
      “I am afraid, my dear Watson, that most of your conclusions were erroneous. When I said that you stimulated me I meant, to be frank, that in noting your fallacies I was occasionally guided towards the truth. Not that you are entirely wrong in this instance. The man is certainly a country practitioner. And he walks a good deal.”
      “Then I was right.”
      “To that extent.”
      “But that was all.”
      “No, no, my dear Watson, not all—by no means all. I would suggest, for example, that a presentation to a doctor is more likely to come from a hospital than from a hunt, and that when
the initials ‘C.C.’ are placed before that hospital the words ‘Charing Cross’ very naturally suggest themselves.”
      “You may be right.”
      “The probability lies in that direction. And if we take this as a working hypothesis we have a fresh basis from which to start our construction of this unknown visitor.”
      “Well, then, supposing that ‘C.C.H.’ does stand for ‘Charing Cross Hospital,’ what further inferences may we draw?”
      “Do none suggest themselves? You know my methods. Apply them!”
      “I can only think of the obvious conclusion that the man has practised in town before going to the country.”
      “I think that we might venture a little farther than this. Look at it in this light. On what occasion would it be most probable that such a presentation would be made? When would his friends unite to give him a pledge of their good will? Obviously at the moment when Dr. Mortimer withdrew from the service of the hospital in order to start in practice for himself. We know there has been a presentation. We believe there has been a change from a town hospital to a country practice. Is it, then, stretching our inference too far to say that the presentation was on the occasion of the change?”
      “It certainly seems probable.”
      “Now, you will observe that he could not have been on the staff of the hospital, since only a man well-established in a London practice could hold such a position, and such a one would not drift into the country. What was he, then? If he was in the hospital and yet not on the staff he could only have been a house-surgeon or a house-physician—little more than a senior student. And he left five years ago—the date is on the stick. So your grave, middle-aged family practitioner vanishes into thin air, my dear Watson, and there emerges a young fellow under thirty, amiable, unambitious, absentminded, and the possessor of a favourite dog, which I should describe roughly as being larger than a terrier and smaller than a mastiff.”
      I laughed incredulously as Sherlock Holmes leaned back in his settee and blew little wavering rings of smoke up to the ceiling.
      “As to the latter part, I have no means of checking you,” said I, “but at least it is not difficult to find out a few particulars about the man’s age and professional career.” From my small medical shelf I took down the Medical Directory and turned up the name. There were several Mortimers, but only one who could be our visitor. I read his record aloud.


中文翻译
       歇洛克•福尔摩斯先生还在桌子跟前用早餐，因为他通常都起得相当晚，除非是赶上了一种不在少数的例外情况，那就是彻夜不眠。我站在壁炉跟前的小毯子上，拿起了昨晚的访客落下的手杖。这是一根做工精细的沉重木杖，带有圆头，正是人们常说的“槟榔讼棍”。紧靠圆头下方的位置有一圈将近一英寸宽的银箍，上面刻着“皇家外科医师学会会员詹姆斯•莫蒂默惠存，C. C. H. 友人敬赠”，日期则是“1884”。老派的家庭诊所医生往往喜欢使用这种手杖，因为它庄重威严、分量十足、令人心安。
       “喂，华生，这东西你怎么看呢？”
      福尔摩斯是背对我坐着的，而我摆弄手杖的时候并没有弄出任何动静。
      “你怎么知道我在做什么？我看你是脑后长了眼睛吧。”
      “我脑后虽然没长眼睛，面前却有一只精光锃亮的镀银咖啡壶，”他说道，“好了，华生，说说看，咱们这位客人的手杖给了你一些什么提示呢？不巧的是咱们没跟他见上面，没能了解到他的来意，既然如此，这个意外落下的纪念品就显得格外重要。你好好看看这根手杖，把手杖主人的情况说给我听听吧。”
      “按我看，”我一边说，一边尽量模仿我室友的方法，“既然莫蒂默医生的友人用这么一根手杖向他致敬，他应该是医学界的一位成功人士，年纪不小、名望很高。”
      “很好！”福尔摩斯说道，“好极了！”
      “我还觉得，他很可能是一名乡村医生，出诊的时候经常都是步行。”
      “为什么呢？”
      “原因在于，这根手杖虽然十分精致，上面却留下了许多磕碰的痕迹，城里的医生肯定不愿意拿着它到处走。手杖末端的加厚铁箍也磨损得非常厉害，主人显然是经常带着它走路。”
      “很有道理！”福尔摩斯说道。
     “还有啊，手杖上刻着‘C. C. H. 友人’字样，这个‘C. C. H.’的意思多半是‘某某狩猎俱乐部’ 。他兴许是给当地某个狩猎俱乐部的会员治过伤，俱乐部就用这根手杖作为小小的谢礼。”
      “说实在的，华生，你真是让我刮目相看，”福尔摩斯说道，把椅子往后挪了挪，点上了一支香烟。“我不得不指出，在费心记述我那些小小成就的时候，你总是习惯性地低估你自个儿的本领。
      你也许并不是发光体，可你是光的导体。有些人本身没有天才，激发天才的本领却十分可观。坦白说，亲爱的伙计，我确实欠了你很大的恩情。”
      他从来没有给过我如此称誉，经常都对我的衷心赞美无动于衷，对我宣传他那些方法的努力嗤之以鼻，致使我深感颜面伤损，所以我必须承认，听到他这些话的时候，我真是喜不自禁。与此同时，我还觉得非常自豪，因为我感到自己已经对他的方法颇有心得，不但能够实际运用，甚至能够赢得他的赞赏。接下来，他从我手里拿过手杖，仔仔细细地看了几分钟，然后就露出一副很感兴趣的神情，放下香烟，把手杖拿到窗边，用放大镜看了起来。
      “简单归简单，多少也有点儿意思，”他坐回了长椅上他最喜欢的那个角落，如是说道，“这根手杖确实给出了那么一两点提示，咱们可以据此得出几个推论。”
      “有什么我看漏了的地方吗？”我问话的口气多少有点儿自鸣得意，“依我看，我应该没有漏掉什么重要的细节吧？”
      “恐怕我不得不说，亲爱的华生，你的大多数结论都是错的。
刚才我说你激发了我，意思说白了就是，我偶尔可以通过发现你的错误来找到正确的方向。当然喽，这次你也不能说是全错。这个人确实是一名乡村医生，确实也经常走路。”
      “那我就说对了啊。”
      “只有这两点是对的。”
      “全部的情况也只有这两点啊。”
       “不，不是，亲爱的华生，不是全部——绝对不是全部。举个例子吧，让我来说的话，我倒是觉得，当医生的人不大可能从什么狩猎俱乐部收到礼物，礼物多半是来自一家医院，‘ C. C.’这两个字母既然摆在‘医院’的前头，显然就是‘Charing Cross’的缩写。”
      “也许你是对的。”
      “多半是对的。好了，这个推测没错的话，咱们就有了一个全新的出发点，可以据此演绎这位神秘访客的其他情况。”
      “好吧，假设‘C. C. H.’确实代表‘查令十字医院’的话，咱们又能演绎出什么情况呢？”
      “就没有什么让你觉得一目了然的情况吗？我的方法你是知道的，用啊！”“我能想出来的只有那个十分明显的结论，也就是说，下乡之前，这个人曾经在城里行医。”
      “我倒是觉得，咱们可以大着胆子往前捋一捋。咱们不妨从这个方面来想，人家送他这么一件礼物，最应景的场合是什么呢？碰上什么样的情形，他那些朋友才会凑钱送他一件表示友情的纪念品呢？显然是在莫蒂默医生离开医院自己创业的时候。咱们知道朋友们送了这么一件礼物，又推测到他经历过一次从城镇医院到乡村诊所的转变，在此基础之上，说礼物是在转变来临的时候送的，有什么特别牵强的地方吗？”
      “听起来确实很有可能。”
      “好了，你应该看得出来，他不会是医院的正式医师，原因在于，能拥有这种身份的都是在伦敦很有名望的医生，这样的医生也就不会往乡下跑了。如此说来，他会是什么身份呢。既然他待在医院里，又不是医院正式聘任的医生，那他就只能是一名见习外科医生或者是见习内科医生，地位比高年级医科学生高不了多少。
      除此之外，他离开医院不过是五年之前的事情，日期就刻在手杖上呢。这么一看，亲爱的华生，你那个严肃稳重、人到中年的家庭诊所医生立刻化为乌有，取而代之的是一个不到三十岁的小伙子，他随和可亲、淡泊名利、丢三落四，还养着一只心爱的狗儿，大致说来，他的狗儿应该比犬大，同时又比獒犬小。”
      我不以为然地笑了笑，歇洛克•福尔摩斯则靠回椅背，喷出一个个小小的烟圈，袅袅地升向天花板。
“你刚才说的后面几点，我没有办法检验，”我说道，“不过，再怎么说，这个人的年龄和专业履历之类的细节并不是什么特别难查的东西。”我那个小书架上摆的都是些医学书籍，于是我把那本医生名录拿了下来，翻到了“莫蒂默”这个姓氏。名录里有好几个姓莫蒂默的人，其中却只有一个跟我们的访客对得上。我把这个人的介绍念了出来。