蜡像馆惊魂（The Horror in the Museum）第二部分
作者：H. P. Lovecraft
译者：九四白灵
本文仅是个人翻译，与同行交流和制作我自己的有声书为主，如果有什么不对的欢迎指出。
The tension came to a head later in September. Jones had casually dropped into the museum one afternoon, and was wandering through the dim corridors whose horrors were now so familiar, when he heard a very peculiar sound from the general direction of Rogers’ workroom. Others heard it, too, and started nervously as the echoes reverberated through the great vaulted basement. The three attendants exchanged odd glances; and one of them, a dark, taciturn, foreign-looking fellow who always served Rogers as a repairer and assistant designer, smiled in a way which seemed to puzzle his colleagues and which grated very harshly on some facet of Jones’s sensibilities. It was the yelp or scream of a dog, and was such a sound as could be made only under conditions of the utmost fright and agony combined. Its stark, anguished frenzy was appalling to hear, and in this setting of grotesque abnormality it held a double hideousness. Jones remembered that no dogs were allowed in the museum.
在9月下旬，这段紧张的关系达到了终点。一天下午，琼斯偶然间来到了蜡像馆，在昏暗的走廊里闲逛，这时他听到从大致是罗杰斯工作室的方向传来一种奇怪的声音。其他人也听到了，当回声在拱形的地下室里回荡时他们感到紧张。而三个侍者互换了一下古怪的眼色，其中有个肤色黝黑，沉默寡言，像个外国人的常给罗杰斯当修理工和设计师助理的侍者。他露出了似乎使他的同事们都感到困惑的微笑，而这同时也在某种程度上强烈地刺激琼斯的情绪。那是狗的尖声嗥叫，那是只有在极度恐惧和痛苦的情况下才能发出这样的声音。它那赤裸裸而痛苦狂乱的声音听来叫人不寒而栗，在这种荒诞畸怪的环境中，它更加使人感到恐惧悚然。琼斯想起这（蜡像馆）不允许犬类进入。
He was about to go to the door leading into the workroom, when the dark attendant stopped him with a word and a gesture. Mr. Rogers, the man said in a soft, somewhat accented voice at once apologetic and vaguely sardonic, was out, and there were standing orders to admit no one to the workroom during his absence. As for that yelp, it was undoubtedly something out in the courtyard behind the museum. This neighbourhood was full of stray mongrels, and their fights were sometimes shockingly noisy. There were no dogs in any part of the museum. But if Mr. Jones wished to see Mr. Rogers he might find him just before closing-time.
他正要走向通向工作室的门口，这时，黑皮肤的侍者用一个词和一个手势拦住了他。“罗杰斯先生出去了，”那人用一种柔和的、带点口音的声音说道，那话语既带着歉意，又带着几分讥讽，“他不在的时候禁止任何人进入他的工作室。至于那声尖叫无疑是蜡像馆后面院子里的什么东西。这一带到处都是杂种的流浪狗，它们打架的声音有时大得惊人。而蜡像馆内的任何地方都没有狗。但是，如果琼斯先生想见见罗杰斯先生的话，可以在闭馆前找到他。”
After this Jones climbed the old stone steps to the street outside and examined the squalid neighbourhood curiously. The leaning, decrepit buildings—once dwellings but now largely shops and warehouses—were very ancient indeed. Some of them were of a gabled type seeming to go back to Tudor times, and a faint miasmatic stench hung subtly about the whole region. Beside the dingy house whose basement held the museum was a low archway pierced by a dark cobbled alley, and this Jones entered in a vague wish to find the courtyard behind the workroom and settle the affair of the dog more comfortably in his mind. The courtyard was dim in the late afternoon light, hemmed in by rear walls even uglier and more intangibly menacing than the crumbling street facades of the evil old houses. Not a dog was in sight, and Jones wondered how the aftermath of such a frantic turmoil could have completely vanished so soon.
此后，琼斯爬上古老的石阶，来到外面的街道上，好奇地打量着这片肮脏的居民区。那些倾斜的、破旧的建筑物非常古老，（它们）曾经是住所·，而现在大部分是商店和仓库。其中一些是似乎可以追溯到都铎时代的山墙式住所，一股淡淡而微妙的恶臭在整个街上弥漫。在地下室开设蜡像馆的屋子是一幢肮脏的房子，在它旁边有一个低矮的拱门，一条黑暗的鹅卵石小路从拱门中间通过。琼斯怀着一种模糊的心愿走了进去，希冀能够找到工作室后面的院子，以便在心内确定（那只）狗的事情。那庭院在傍晚的阳光下显得暗淡无光，被后墙包裹着，比那些破旧的老房子的摇摇欲坠的街道外墙更加丑陋，且更充斥着无形的威胁意思（味）。（他）没有看到一只狗，琼斯想知道那场疯狂的骚动怎么会这么快地消失的无影无踪。
Despite the assistant’s statement that no dog had been in the museum, Jones glanced nervously at the three small windows of the basement workroom—narrow, horizontal rectangles close to the grass-grown pavement, with grimy panes that stared repulsively and incuriously like the eyes of dead fish. To their left a worn flight of steps led to an opaque and heavily bolted door. Some impulse urged him to crouch low on the damp, broken cobblestones and peer in, on the chance that the thick green shades, worked by long cords that hung down to a reachable level, might not be drawn. The outer surfaces were thick with dirt, but as he rubbed them with his handkerchief he saw there was no obscuring curtain in the way of his vision.
尽管那侍者说过没有狗进入过蜡像馆，琼斯还是紧张地瞥了一眼地下工作室的三个小窗户——狭窄的、水平的长方形窗户贴靠着杂草丛生的人行道，脏兮兮的窗户玻璃就像死鱼的眼睛一样恶心而怪异地盯着他。在它们的左边，有一段破旧的台阶通向一扇闩得很严的不透明的大门。某种冲动促使他在潮湿的、破碎的鹅卵石地上蹲下身子，往里窥探，因为那被长绳放下到适合的高度的绿色窗帘可能并没有被放下来。而外面的地面上铺满了厚厚的灰尘，但他用手帕擦拭了（灰尘）之后，他发现他的视线并没有被任何窗帘遮蔽。
So shadowed was the cellar from the inside that not much could be made out, but the grotesque working paraphernalia now and then loomed up spectrally as Jones tried each of the windows in turn. It seemed evident at first that no one was within; yet when he peered through the extreme right-hand window—the one nearest the entrance alley—he saw a glow of light at the farther end of the apartment which made him pause in bewilderment. There was no reason why any light should be there. It was an inner side of the room, and he could not recall any gas or electric fixture near that point. Another look defined the glow as a large vertical rectangle, and a thought occurred to him. It was in that direction that he had always noticed the heavy plank door with the abnormally large padlock—the door which was never opened, and above which was crudely smeared that hideous cryptic symbol from the fragmentary records of forbidden elder magic. It must be open now—and there was a light inside. All his former speculations as to where that door led, and as to what lay behind it, were now renewed with trebly disquieting force.
往地窖里看进去，由于光线昏暗，几乎看不出什么东西来，但琼斯轮番尝试着打开每扇窗户时，那些奇形怪状的工作用具就在光线中不时地映入他的眼帘。起初的窥视（看出）这里面显然是没有人的， 然而，当他从最右边的一扇窗户，（也就是）最靠近入口小巷的那扇窗户往里看时，他看到房间的另一头有一束亮光，这使他惶惑（bewilderment）地停了下来。没有理由那个地方会有光亮。这是房间的内侧，他想不出附近有什么煤气或电器装置（发光）。那之后的观察中他确定那光亮来自一个巨大的直角矩形光源，于是他想到了什么。他总是在那个方向看到那扇沉重的木板门，上面挂着一个大得出奇的挂锁。那扇门从来都没有被打开过，且上面涂着从零碎断续的古老的魔法记载中找到的可怕的神秘符号。现在它一定被打开了，那里面有光亮。他先前对那扇门通向哪里，门后面有什么东西的种种猜测，现在又携令人不安的力量重新出现了。
Jones wandered aimlessly around the dismal locality till close to six o’clock, when he returned to the museum to make the call on Rogers. He could hardly tell why he wished so especially to see the man just then, but there must have been some subconscious misgivings about that terribly unplaceable canine scream of the afternoon, and about the glow of light in that disturbing and usually unopened inner doorway with the heavy padlock. The attendants were leaving as he arrived, and he thought that Orabona—the dark foreign-looking assistant—eyed him with something like sly, repressed amusement. He did not relish that look—even though he had seen the fellow turn it on his employer many times.
琼斯在这凄凉的地方漫无目的地徘徊到将近下午六点钟时，他才回到蜡像馆去拜访罗杰斯。他自己也说不清自己为什么特别想在这个时候见到这个人，但是，出于下午那可怕的、不可名处的犬吠声，也出于那通常没有打开的、挂着沉重挂锁的内门里闪烁的灯光，他在某种潜意识下有些担忧。当他到达的时候，侍者们正要离开，他觉得奥拉贝纳（Orabona），那个黑皮肤的外国人模样的助手带着一种狡黠，压抑而有趣的神情望着他。他不喜欢那种表情——尽管他曾见过这个家伙多次对他的老板发脾气。
The vaulted exhibition room was ghoulish in its desertion, but he strode quickly through it and rapped at the door of the office and workroom. Response was slow in coming, though there were footsteps inside. Finally, in response to a second knock, the lock rattled, and the ancient six-panelled portal creaked reluctantly open to reveal the slouching, feverish-eyed form of George Rogers. From the first it was clear that the showman was in an unusual mood. There was a curious mixture of reluctance and actual gloating in his welcome, and his talk at once veered to extravagances of the most hideous and incredible sort.
拱形的展览室在诸人离开的时候显得惊悚恐怖，但他快步地走了进去，敲了敲办公室和工作室的门。回应来得很慢，尽管里面传来了脚步声。最后，作为对第二次敲门声响的回应，门锁哐当地响了起来，古老的六嵌板门扉吱吱嘎嘎地勉强打开了一点，露出了无精打采、红着眼睛的乔治·罗杰斯（George Rogers）。从一开始之后，这位馆主（原文表演者）明显处于异常的情绪之中。在他的欢迎声中伴随着一种古怪的混合着不情愿和得意洋洋的情绪，而他的谈话内容也立刻转向了最可怕和难以置信的那一类（故事或事件）之中。
Surviving elder gods—nameless sacrifices—the other than artificial nature of some of the alcove horrors—all the usual boasts, but uttered in a tone of peculiarly increasing confidence. Obviously, Jones reflected, the poor fellow’s madness was gaining on him. From time to time Rogers would send furtive glances toward the heavy, padlocked inner door at the end of the room, or toward a piece of coarse burlap on the floor not far from it, beneath which some small object appeared to be lying. Jones grew more nervous as the moments passed, and began to feel as hesitant about mentioning the afternoon’s oddities as he had formerly been anxious to do so.
幸存下来的古老神祇——无可言明的牺牲——壁龛里的某些恐怖的塑像上非人为的特质——以及那些老旧的吹嘘，只是（这次）说话的口气越来越自信。很显然，琼斯意识到这个可怜的家伙已经发疯了。罗杰斯不时会偷偷地瞥向房间尽头那扇被锁上了锁的沉重的内门，或者朝不远处地板上的一块粗糙厚麻布瞟一眼，在那粗麻布的下面似乎躺着一个较小的东西。随着时间的流逝，琼斯变得越来越紧张，他开始觉得，跟以前一样，他也不愿意提起下午发生的怪事。
Rogers’ sepulchrally resonant bass almost cracked under the excitement of his fevered rambling.
罗杰斯那阴森、厚重的低音几乎被他漫谈时的狂热所刺激得沙哑起来了。
“Do you remember,” he shouted, “what I told you about that ruined city in Indo-China where the Tcho-Tchos lived? You had to admit I’d been there when you saw the photographs, even if you did think I made that oblong swimmer in darkness out of wax. If you’d seen it writhing in the underground pools as I did. . . .
“你还记得，”他喊道，“我跟你说过的关于印度支那那里丘丘人（Tcho-Tchos）所住的废墟城市的事吗？当你看到照片的时候，你必须承认我在那里（拍照现场），即使你认为是我用蜡在黑暗中创造了那个长方形的游泳者。如果你像我一样看到它在地下水池里翻滚……”
“Well, this is bigger still. I never told you about this, because I wanted to work out the later parts before making any claim. When you see the snapshots you’ll know the geography couldn’t have been faked, and I fancy I have another way of proving that It isn’t any waxed concoction of mine. You’ve never seen it, for the experiments wouldn’t let me keep It on exhibition.”
“嗯，这个更大。我从来没有告诉过你这件事，因为我想在放出风声（或做出声明）之前把之后的部分弄清楚。当你看到那些照片的时候，你就会知道地理（特征）不会是伪造的，我想我有另一种方法来证明它不是我涂过的蜡的混合制品。而你从未见过它，因为实验不允许我把它展出。”
The showman glanced queerly at the padlocked door.
蜡像馆馆主奇怪地瞥了一眼带挂锁的门。
“It all comes from that long ritual in the eighth Pnakotic fragment. When I got it figured out I saw it could have only one meaning. There were things in the north before the land of Lomar—before mankind existed—and this was one of them. It took us all the way to Alaska, and up the Noatak from Fort Morton, but the thing was there as we knew it would be. Great Cyclopean ruins, acres of them. There was less left than we had hoped for, but after three million years what could one expect? And weren’t the Esquimau legends all in the right direction? We couldn’t get one of the beggars to go with us, and had to sledge all the way back to Nome for Americans. Orabona was no good up in that climate—it made him sullen and hateful.
“这一切都来自于记在《纳克特断章群（Pnakotic fragments）【1】》第8章中的那个漫长的仪式。当我弄明白了（仪式）之后，我发现它只有一个意义。在洛马大陆出现之前，在人类出现之前，北方就有了些东西，而这就是其中之一。它把我们一路带到了阿拉斯加，从莫顿堡进入了诺阿塔克河，但正如我们所知道的那样它就在那里。巨大的独眼巨人（Cyclopean）的废墟，有好几英亩大小。（虽然）残留的（事物）比我们希望的要少，但是在三百万年后，我们还能期望什么呢？爱斯基摩人的传说不是都说对了吗？我们连一个同行的乞丐都没有，只好一路乘着雪橇回诺姆去见美国人。奥拉贝纳（Orabona）在那种气候中一点也不好——它使他郁郁寡欢，充满憎恶。
“I’ll tell you later how we found It. When we got the ice blasted out of the pylons of the central ruin the stairway was just as we knew it would be. Some carvings still there, and it was no trouble keeping the Yankees from following us in. Orabona shivered like a leaf—you’d never think it from the damned insolent way he struts around here. He knew enough of the Elder Lore to be properly afraid. The eternal light was gone, but our torches shewed enough. We saw the bones of others who had been before us—aeons ago, when the climate was warm. Some of these bones were of things you couldn’t even imagine. At the third level down we found the ivory throne the fragments said so much about—and I may as well tell you it wasn’t empty.
“我待会会告诉你我们是怎么找到它的。当冰从中央废墟的塔桥上炸开的时候楼梯就在我们预料的位置。那儿还有一些雕刻，我们没费什么劲就把美国佬留在了外面（原文是没有和我们一起进去）。奥拉贝纳（Orabona）像树叶一样颤抖着——你绝对想不到他所表现出的那神气十足的样子。他对古老知识的了解多到让他感到害怕。永恒的光芒消失了，但我们的火把已经足够照亮了。我们看到了在我们之前来过的人的骨头，那是很久之前的事了，那个（遗骨留存的）时代气候温暖。这些遗骨中有些你根本无法想象的东西。在第三层时我们找到了断章群（fragments）中说了很多次的象牙王座——我可以告诉你那王座不是空的。
注释：
【1】一本初始由伟大种族伊斯（Great Race of Yith）撰写的书，这里只是断章或译为抄本
