狄更斯小说改编系列 狄更斯双语小说:《董贝父子》第23章Part 2

狄更斯双语小说:《董贝父子》第23章Part 2  

The spell upon it was more wasting than the spell that used to set enchanted houses sleeping once upon a time
but left their waking freshness unimpaired. The passive desolation of disuse was everywhere silently manifest about it. Within doors
curtains
drooping heavily
lost their old folds and shapes
and hung like cumbrous palls. Hecatombs of furniture
still piled and covered up
shrunk like imprisoned and fotten men
and changed insensibly. Mirrors were dim as with the breath of years. Patterns of carpets faded and became perplexed and faint
like the memory of those years' trifling incidents. Boards
starting at unwonted footsteps
creaked and shook.

+Keys rusted in the locks of doors. Damp started on the walls
and as the stains came out
the pictures seemed to go in and secrete themselves. Mildew and mould began to lurk in closets. Fungus trees grew in corners of the cellars. Dust accumulated
nobody knew whence nor how; spiders
moths
and grubs were heard of every day. An exploratory blackbeetle now and then was found immovable upon the stairs
or in an upper room
as wondering how he got there. Rats began to squeak and scuffle in the night time
through dark galleries they mined behind the panelling.

The dreary magnificence of the state rooms
seen imperfectly by the doubtful light admitted through closed shutters
would have answered well enough for an enchanted abode. Such as the tarnished paws of gilded lions
stealthily put out from beneath their wrappers; the marble lineaments of busts on pedestals
fearfully revealing themselves through veils; the clocks that never told the time
or
if wound up by any chance
told it wrong
and struck unearthly numbers
which are not upon the dial; the accidental tinklings among the pendant lustres
more startling than alarm-bells; the softened sounds and laggard air that made their way among these objects
and a phantom crowd of others
shrouded and hooded
and made spectral of shape.

But
besides
there was the great staircase
where the lord of the place so rarely set his foot
and by which his little child had gone up to Heaven. There were other staircases and passages where no one went for weeks together; there were o closed rooms associated with dead members of the family
and with whispered recollections of them; and to all the house but Florence
there was a gentle figure moving through the solitude and gloom
that gave to every lifeless thing a touch of present human interest and wonder.