狄更斯雙語小說:《董貝父子》第55章Part6
He drank a quantity of wine after dinner, in vain. No such artificial means would bring sleep to his eyes. His thoughts, more incoherent, dragged him more unmercifully after them - as if a wretch, condemned to such expiation, were drawn at the heels of wild horses. No oblivion, and no rest.
How long he sat, drinking and brooding, and being dragged in imagination hither and thither, no one could have told less correctly than he. But he knew that he had been sitting a long time by candle-light, when he started up and listened, in a sudden terror.
For now, indeed, it was no fancy. The ground shook, the house rattled, the fierce impetuous rush was in the air! He felt it come up, and go darting by; and even when he had hurried to the window, and saw what it was, he stood, shrinking from it, as if it were not safe to look.
A curse upon the fiery devil, thundering along so smoothly, tracked through the distant valley by a glare of light and lurid smoke, and gone! He felt as if he had been plucked out of its path, and saved from being torn asunder. It made him shrink and shudder even now, when its faintest hum was hushed, and when the lines of iron road he could trace in the moonlight, running to a point, were as empty and as silent as a desert.
Unable to rest, and irresistibly attracted - or he thought so - to this road, he went out, and lounged on the brink of it, marking the way the train had gone, by the yet smoking cinders that were lying in its track. After a lounge of some half hour in the direction by which it had disappeared, he turned and walked the other way - still keeping to the brink of the road - past the inn garden, and a long way down; looking curiously at the bridges, signals, lamps, and wondering when another Devil would come by.
A trembling of the ground, and quick vibration in his ears; a distant shriek; a dull light advancing, quickly changed to two red eyes, and a fierce fire, dropping glowing coals; an irresistible bearing on of a great roaring and dilating mass; a high wind, and a rattle - another come and gone, and he holding to a gate, as if to save himself!
He waited for another, and for another. He walked back to his former point, and back again to that, and still, through the wearisome vision of his journey, looked for these approaching monsters. He loitered about the station, waiting until one should stay to call there; and when one did, and was detached for water, he stood parallel with it, watching its heavy wheels and brazen front, and thinking what a cruel power and might it had. Ugh! To see the great wheels slowly turning, and to think of being run down and crushed!
Disordered with wine and want of rest - that want which nothing, although he was so weary, would appease - these ideas and objects assumed a diseased importance in his thoughts. When he went back to his room, which was not until near midnight, they still haunted him, and he sat listening for the coming of another.
So in his bed, whither he repaired with no hope of sleep. He still lay listening; and when he felt the trembling and vibration, got up and went to the window, to watch (as he could from its position) the dull light changing to the two red eyes, and the fierce fire dropping glowing coals, and the rush of the giant as it fled past, and the track of glare and smoke along the valley. Then he would glance in the direction by which he intended to depart at sunrise, as there was no rest for him there; and would lie down again, to be troubled by the vision of his journey, and the old monotony of bells and wheels and horses' feet, until another came. This lasted all night. So far from resuming the mastery of himself, he seemed, if possible, to lose it more and more, as the night crept on. When the dawn appeared, he was still tormented with thinking, still postponing thought until he should be in a better state; the past, present, and future all floated confusedly before him, and he had lost all power of looking steadily at any one of them.
他沒有回答；而只是從他原先躺著的沙發上欠起身來坐著，每隻胳膊都支靠在一隻腳的膝蓋上，並凝視著地面。他不能把注意力繼續集中一分鐘。它隨意地轉來轉去，但片刻也不能消失在睡眠中。
他吃完晚飯以後，喝了好多酒，但也無濟於事。這種人為的方法不能使他閤眼睡去。他的思想比先前更不連貫，更無情地把他拖來拖去，彷彿一位苦命的人被判定要這樣來贖罪，被髮狂的馬拖著跑一樣。沒有忘卻，沒有休息。
他坐在那裡，喝著，沉思著，被胡思亂想拖來拖去，究竟有多久，誰也不能比他回答得更不準確。但是當他突然跳了起來，並細聽著的時候，他知道他已經在燭光旁邊坐了好久。
因為現在，這確實不是幻想。地面震動了，房屋發出了格格的響聲，那猛烈的、迅疾的、像死神一樣的飛行就在空中！他覺得它臨近了，又疾馳而過；甚至當他急忙跑到窗前，並看見那是什麼的時候，他又往回退縮，站著不動，彷彿去看是不安全似的。
真該咒罵一聲，這火一般的魔鬼！它發出了轟隆轟隆的響聲，十分平穩地向前駛去，穿過了遙遠的河谷，留下了耀眼的亮光與火紅的煙塵，然後消失不見了！他覺得彷彿他已被拉出它行進的道路，倖免被它撕得粉碎似的。甚至現在，當最輕微的聲響都已完全沉寂，他在月光中所能望見的整條鐵路線已像沙漠一般安靜無人的時候，這種感覺還使得他畏縮和打顫。
他不能休息，並不可抗拒地被吸引到這條路上（也許是他覺得這樣），於是就走出屋子，在這條路的旁邊漫步，同時根據落在軌道上、仍然在冒煙的煤屑來察看火車跑過的道路。他沿著火車消失不見的方向漫步了半個鐘頭光景之後，轉過身來，朝著相反的方向走--依舊緊挨著鐵路的旁邊--，經過小旅館的花園，又繼續走了長長的一段路；他一邊走一邊好奇地看著橋樑、訊號燈、路燈，心裡想，什麼時候另一個魔鬼會從這裡跑過去呢？
地面在震動；他的耳朵中感覺到迅速的顫動；遠方傳來了尖銳的響聲；暗淡的燈光正在向前移來，很快轉變為兩隻紅紅的眼睛；強烈的火焰掉落著灼熱的煤屑；不可阻擋的巨大的吼叫聲愈來愈響；一陣勁風吹刮過來了，一陣轟隆轟隆的響聲傳過來了--另一列火車來了，又走了；他抓住門，彷彿要救住自己似的！
他等待著另一列火車，然後又等待著另一列火車。他沿著鐵路又走回到原先的地點。然後走回來以後又回到那裡，並且通過他這次路途中令人疲倦的夢幻，依舊在等待著這些前來的怪物。他在車站上閒逛，等待著有一列火車會在這裡停下來；有一列火車果真在這裡停下來了，機車和後面的車廂脫鉤以後開去上水，這時候他面對著它站在那裡，注視著它的笨重的輪子和銅製的頭部，心想它具有多麼殘酷的能量與威力哪！看看這些巨大的輪子慢慢地轉動，想想你被它們壓到身上，壓得粉碎的情景吧！
由於喝了酒以後引起的身心失調和缺乏休息--雖然他疲乏不堪，但卻無法滿足這種需要--，這些念頭和這些事物在他的思想中病態地佔據了很大的分量。當他回到自己房間裡的時候--這已將近午夜了--，它們依舊反覆出現在他的心頭，他就坐在那裡聽著是不是又有一列火車開來。
當他在床上躺下，沒有希望入睡的時候，也還是這種情況。他仍舊躺著聽；當他感覺到搖晃和震動的時候，他從床上起來，走到視窗，觀看（他從那裡是看得到的）那暗淡的燈光轉變成兩隻紅紅的眼睛，強烈的火焰掉落著灼熱的煤屑；巨大的怪物飛快地賓士過去，長長的一道煙霧瀰漫在山谷上空。因為他在這裡得不到休息，他打算在日出以後離開這裡，於是他就朝著他前去的方向觀望；然後他又重新躺下來，讓他在旅途中的夢幻，讓那些單調的鈴鐺聲、車輪聲和馬蹄聲來困擾他，直到另一列火車開來為止。這種情況持續了整整一夜。他不但不能恢復自制力，相反的，隨著夜間時光的流逝，他愈來愈失去了它（如果還可能失去的話）。當黎明來臨時，他仍然被各種胡思亂想所折磨，仍然把他的思想暫時擱置起來，直到他的情況好轉以後再說；過去、現在和將來，全都混亂地浮現在他眼前，他完全失去了沉著對待它們當中任何一個的能力。
