目 录 上一节 下一节 
布朗罗先生在屋子里踱来踱去，走了好一会儿，教区干事讲的事情显然搅得他心绪不宁，连格林维格先生也只得捺住性子，以免火上浇油。 At length he stopped, and rang the bell violently. 布朗罗光生终于停了下来，狠命地摇铃。 'Mrs. Bedwin,' said Mr. Brownlow, when the housekeeper appeared; 'that boy, Oliver, is an imposter.' “贝德温太太，”女管家刚露面，布朗罗先生就说道，“那个孩子，奥立弗，他是个骗子。” 'It can't be, sir. It cannot be,' said the old lady energetically. “不会的，先生，这不可能。”老太太坚信不疑。 'I tell you he is,' retorted the old gentleman. 'What do you mean by can't be? We have just heard a full account of him from his birth; and he has been a thorough-paced little villain, all his life.' “我说他是，”老绅士反驳道，“你那个不可能是什么意思？我们刚听人家把他出生以来的情况详详细细讲了一遍，他自始至终都是一个十足的小坏蛋。” 
“反正我不信，先生，”老太太毫不退让，“决不信。” 'You old women never believe anything but quack-doctors, and lying story-books,' growled Mr. Grimwig. 'I knew it all along. Why didn't you take my advise in the beginning; you would if he hadn't had a fever, I suppose, eh? He was interesting, wasn't he? Interesting! Bah!' And Mr. Grimwig poked the fire with a flourish. “你们这些老太太就是什么也不信，只信江湖郎中和胡编的小说，”格林维格先生怒吼起来，“我早就知道了。你干吗一开始不接受我的忠告？如果他没患过热症的话，你恐怕就会接受了，是不是，呢？他怪可怜的，不是吗？可怜？呸！”格林维格先生说着拨了一下火，动作很俏皮。 'He was a dear, grateful, gentle child, sir,' retorted Mrs. Bedwin, indignantly. 'I know what children are, sir; and have done these forty years; and people who can't say the same, shouldn't say anything about them. That's my opinion!' “他是个好孩子，知道好歹，又斯文听话，先生，”贝德温太太愤愤不平地抗议道，“小孩子怎么样我心里有数，先生，这些事我有四十年的经验了，谁要是不能夸这个日，就别说他们长啊短的，我的意思就是这样。” This was a hard hit at Mr. Grimwig, who was a bachelor. As it extorted nothing from that gentleman but a smile, the old lady tossed her head, and smoothed down her apron preparatory to another speech, when she was stopped by Mr. Brownlow. 这是对至今还是单身的格林维格先生的沉重一击。一见那位绅士只是微微一笑，没别的反应，老太太把头往上一抬，拂了拂围裙，正打算再理论一番，却叫布朗罗先生止住了。 'Silence!' said the old gentleman, feigning an anger he was far from feeling. 'Never let me hear the boy's name again. I rang to tell you that. Never. Never, on any pretence, mind! You may leave the room, Mrs. Bedwin. Remember! I am in earnest.' “静一静。”布朗罗先生装出一副他自己丝毫也没觉察到的怒容，说道。“永远别再跟我提到那孩子的名字。我打铃就是要告诉你这一点。永远，绝不可以用任何借口提到他，你当心一点。你可以出去了，贝德温太太，记住。我是十分认真的。” 
那天夜里，布朗罗先生家里有好几颗心充满忧伤。 Oliver's heart sank within him, when he thought of his good friends; it was well for him that he could not know what they had heard, or it might have broken outright. 一想起自己那些好心的朋友，奥立弗的心顿时沉了下去。幸好他无从得知他们所听说的事，否则，他的一颗心也许已经碎了。 About noon next day, when the Dodger and Master Bates had gone out to pursue their customary avocations, Mr. Fagin took the opportunity of reading Oliver a long lecture on the crying sin of ingratitude; of which he clearly demonstrated he had been guilty, to no ordinary extent, in wilfully absenting himself from the society of his anxious friends; and, still more, in endeavouring to escape from them after so much trouble and expense had been incurred in his recovery. Mr. Fagin laid great stress on the fact of his having taken Oliver in, and cherished him, when, without his timely aid, he might have perished with hunger; and he related the dismal and affecting history of a young lad whom, in his philanthropy, he had succoured under parallel circumstances, but who, proving unworthy of his confidence and evincing a desire to communicate with the police, had unfortunately come to be hanged at the Old Bailey one morning. Mr. Fagin did not seek to conceal his share in the catastrophe, but lamented with tears in his eyes that the wrong-headed and treacherous behaviour of the young person in question, had rendered it necessary that he should become the victim of certain evidence for the crown: which, if it were not precisely true, was indispensably necessary for the safety of him (Mr. Fagin) and a few select friends. Mr. Fagin concluded by drawing a rather disagreeable picture of the discomforts of hanging; and, with great friendliness and politeness of manner, expressed his anxious hopes that he might never be obliged to submit Oliver Twist to that unpleasant operation. 第二天中午时分，机灵鬼和贝兹少爷外出干他们的老本行去了，费金先生借此机会向奥立弗发表了长篇演说，痛斥忘恩负义的滔天罪行。他清楚地表明，奥立弗的罪过非同小可，居然忍心抛下一帮时时记挂着他的朋友，再者说，大家惹来那么多的麻烦，花了那么大本钱，才把他找回来，他还一心想逃走。费金先生着重强调了他收留、厚待奥立弗这件事，当时如果没有他及时伸出援手，奥立弗可能已经饿死了。他讲述了某个小伙子的凄惨动人的经历，他出于恻隐之心，在类似的情形之下帮助了那个小伙子，可事实证明小伙子辜负了自己的信赖，妄图向警方通风报信，有天早晨，在“老城”①不幸被绞死。费金先生毫不讳言，自己与这起惨案有关，但却声泪俱下地悲叹说，由于前边谈到的那个年轻人执迷不悟、背信弃义的行为，旁人不得不向巡回刑事法庭举报，将他作为牺牲品--即便提供的并不都是真凭实据--为了他（费金先生）和不多几个密友的安全，这是势在必行的。费金先生描绘了一副令人相当厌恶的画面，说明绞刑具有种种难受之处，以此作为演说的结尾。他彬彬有礼、充满友情地表达了无数殷切的希望，除非迫不得已，他决不愿意让奥立弗遭受这种令人不愉快的处置。 Little Oliver's blood ran cold, as he listened to the Jew's words, and imperfectly comprehended the dark threats conveyed in them. That it was possible even for justice itself to confound the innocent with the guilty when they were in accidental companionship, he knew already; and that deeply-laid plans for the destruction of inconveniently knowing or over-communicative persons, had been really devised and carried out by the Jew on more occasions than one, he thought by no means unlikely, when he recollected the general nature of the altercations between that gentleman and Mr. Sikes: which seemed to bear reference to some foregone conspiracy of the kind. As he glanced timidly up, and met the Jew's searching look, he felt that his pale face and trembling limbs were neither unnoticed nor unrelished by that wary old gentleman. 小奥立弗听着老犹太的一席话，隐隐约约听出了其中流露的阴险狠毒的威胁，他的血凉了下来。他已经有了体验，当无辜与有罪偶然交织在一起的时候，连司法当局也很可能将其混为一谈。对于如何除掉知道得太多或者是过分藏不住话的家伙，老犹太早有深谋老算，这类计划他的确已经不止一次设计并且实施过了。奥立弗想起了这位绅士和赛克斯先生之间争吵的缘由，似乎就与以往的某一桩类似的阴谋有关。他怯生生地抬起头来，不想却碰上了老犹太锐利的目光，他意识到，这位谨慎的老绅士对自己苍白的面孔和索索发抖的四肢既不是视而不见，也不是毫无兴趣。 The Jew, smiling hideously, patted Oliver on the head, and said, that if he kept himself quiet, and applied himself to business, he saw they would be very good friends yet. Then, taking his hat, and covering himself with an old patched great-coat, he went out, and locked the room-door behind him. 老犹太令人作呕地微微一笑，在奥立弗头上拍了拍，说只要他自己不吵不闹，专心做事，他们照旧可以成为非常要好的朋友。说罢，他戴上帽子，裹了一件缀有补丁的大衣，随手锁上房门，出去了。 
就这样，整整一天，连同随后的好几天，从清早到半夜，奥立弗一个人影也见不到。在这段漫长的时光里，与他作伴的只有他自己的浮想。他怎么也忘不了那些好心的朋友，他们一定早就把自己看成另一种人了，这样的念头实在令人伤心。 After the lapse of a week or so, the Jew left the room-door unlocked; and he was at liberty to wander about the house. 约莫过了一个礼拜，老犹太不再锁门，他可以随意在房子里到处走了。 It was a very dirty place. The rooms upstairs had great high wooden chimney-pieces and large doors, with panelled walls and cornices to the ceiling; which, although they were black with neglect and dust, were ornamented in various ways. From all of these tokens Oliver concluded that a long time ago, before the old Jew was born, it had belonged to better people, and had perhaps been quite gay and handsome: dismal and dreary as it looked now. 这地方非常肮脏污秽。楼上的几个房间装有高大的木制壁炉架和大门，墙壁上镶有嵌板，壁带一直嵌到天花板。由于无人看管，这些东西积满了尘埃，已变得暗淡无光，但却装饰得千姿百态，各不相同。根据所有这些迹象，奥立弗断定，很久以前，在犹太老头还没生出来的时候，这房子属于一些境遇比较好的人，说不定曾一度金碧辉煌，尽管现在满目凄凉。 Spiders had built their webs in the angles of the walls and ceilings; and sometimes, when Oliver walked softly into a room, the mice would scamper across the floor, and run back terrified to their holes. With these exceptions, there was neither sight nor sound of any living thing; and often, when it grew dark, and he was tired of wandering from room to room, he would crouch in the corner of the passage by the street-door, to be as near living people as he could; and would remain there, listening and counting the hours, until the Jew or the boys returned. 在墙壁与天花板的犄角里，蜘蛛早已架好了网。有时候，奥立弗轻手轻脚走进一间屋子，会看见老鼠在地板上窜来窜去，惊慌不迭地跑回洞里。除此以外，房子里再也看不见、听不到任何有生命的东西的动静声响了。有好多次，当天色暗下来，他一个房间一个房间地游荡，累了便蜷缩到靠近大门的走廊角落里，盼着能尽量离有血有肉的人近一些，他呆在那儿，倾听着外边的声音，计算着时间，直到费金或是那几个少年回来。 In all the rooms, the mouldering shutters were fast closed: the bars which held them were screwed tight into the wood; the only light which was admitted, stealing its way through round holes at the top: which made the rooms more gloomy, and filled them with strange shadows. There was a back-garret window with rusty bars outside, which had no shutter; and out of this, Oliver often gazed with a melancholy face for hours together; but nothing was to be descried from it but a confused and crowded mass of housetops, blackened chimneys, and gable-ends. Sometimes, indeed, a grizzly head might be seen, peering over the parapet-wall of a distant house; but it was quickly withdrawn again; and as the window of Oliver's observatory was nailed down, and dimmed with the rain and smoke of years, it was as much as he could do to make out the forms of the different objects beyond, without making any attempt to be seen or heard,--which he had as much chance of being, as if he had lived inside the ball of St. Paul's Cathedral. 所有房间的窗板正一天天腐烂，全都关得密不透风，压窗板的横条用螺钉牢牢地钉在木槽里。仅有的光线从房顶上一个个圆孔中躲躲闪闪地溜下来，使屋子显得更加昏暗，布满奇形怪状的影子。顶楼开着一扇后窗，没有装窗板，上边的栅栏已经生锈。奥立弗经常满脸惆怅地往外张望，一看就是几个小时，可是除了参差不齐、密密层层的一大片屋顶，黑沉沉的烟囱和山墙的尖顶之外，什么东西也分辨不出。确实，偶尔也可以看到远处一所房子的屋顶矮墙上冒出一个头发蓬乱的脑袋，但一晃又很快消失了。奥立弗的了望窗是钉死了的，加上多年雨淋烟熏，往外看一片朦胧，他顶多能够把外边各种东西的形状区别开，至于想办法让别人看见他或者听到他的声音--这就好比他是呆在圣保罗大教堂的圆顶里边一样，根本谈不上。
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