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海外头条总编审 王 在 军 （中国）
海外头条副编审 Wendy温迪（英国）
海 外 头 条总 编 火 凤 凰 （海外）
图片选自百度
英文诵读：龚如仲（美国）
中文诵读：琬 乔（中国）
The Plague
By Albert Camus
Page 18
The doctor accompanied him to the door.
“It's good of you to take it like that,” he said.
“Yes, yes, I understand,” Rambert repeated, with what seemed a hint of impatience in his voice. “Sorry to have troubled you.”
When shaking hands with him, Rieux suggested that if he was out for curious stories for his paper, he might say something about the extraordinary number of dead rats that were being found in the town just now.
“Ah!” Rambert exclaimed. “That certainly interests me.”
On his way out at five for another round of visits, the doctor passed on the stairway a stocky, youngish man, with a big, deeply furrowed face and bushy eyebrows. He had met him once or twice in the top-floor apartment, which was occupied by some male Spanish dancers. Puffing a cigarette, Jean Tarrou was gazing down at the convulsions of a rat dying on the step in front of him. He looked up, and his gray eyes remained fixed on the doctor for some moments; then, after wishing him good day, he remarked that it was rather odd, the way all these rats were coming out of their holes to die.
“Very odd,” Rieux agreed, “and it ends by getting on one's nerves.”
“In a way, doctor, only in a way. We've not seen anything of the sort before, that's all. Personally I find it interesting, yes, definitely interesting.”
Tarrou ran his fingers through his hair to brush it off his forehead, looked again at the rat, which had now stopped moving, then smiled toward Rieux.
“But really, doctor, it's the concierge's headache, isn't it?”
As it so happened, the concierge was the next person Rieux was leaning against the encountered. He was leaning against the wall beside the street door; he was looking tired and his normally rubicund face had lost its color.
"Yes, I know," old man told Rieux, who had informed him of latest casualty among the rats.” I keep finding 'em by twos and threes. But it’s the same thing in the other houses in the street.”
He seemed depressed and worried, and was scratching his neck absentmindedly. Rieux asked him how he felt. The concierge wouldn't go so far as to say he was feeling ill. Still he wasn't quite up to the mark. In his opinion it was just due to worry; these damned rats had given him "a shock, like." It would be a relief when they stopped coming out and dying all over the place.
Next morning-it was April 18-when the doctor was bringing back his mother from the station, he found M. Michel looking still more out of sorts. The stairway from the cellar to the attics was strewn with dead rats, ten or a dozen of them. The garbage cans of all the houses in the street were full of rats.
The doctor's mother took it quite calmly.
“It's like that sometimes,” she said vaguely. She was a small woman with silver hair and dark, gentle eyes. “I'm so glad to be with you again, Bernard," she added. "The rats can't change that, anyhow.”
He nodded. It was a fact that everything seemed easy when she was there.
However, he rang up the Municipal Office. He knew the man in charge of the department concerned with the extermination of vermin and he asked him if he'd heard about all the rats that were coming out to die in the open. Yes, Mercier knew all about it; in fact, fifty rats had been found in his offices, which were near the wharves. To tell the truth, he was rather perturbed; did the doctor think it meant anything serious? Rieux couldn't give a definite opinion, but he thought the sanitary service should take action of some kind.
《鼠疫》
作者：（法国）阿尔贝-加缪
第18页
医生送他到门口说： “谢谢您能这样看待问题。” 朗贝尔显得不耐烦地说： “好，我懂得，请原谅我打扰您。”
医生同他握手，告诉他此刻市内发现大量死老鼠，关于这件事，可能有不寻常的报道可写。 “哦广朗贝尔叫了起来，“这事我感兴趣。”
下午五时，医生正要为另一些病家出诊，在楼梯上同一个年纪还比较轻的人擦肩而过，此人外形厚实，肥头大耳，凹陷的脸上，横着两条浓密的眉毛。在住这幢楼房最高一层的那些西班牙舞蹈家的家里，他曾经见过这个人几次。这人名叫让·塔鲁，他站在梯级上，一本正经地吸着香烟，一边注视着脚旁一只快要死去的老鼠在作最后的抽搐。他抬起头来，灰色的眼睛冷静地盯住医生，向他打了一个招呼，接着说这些老鼠的出现是件奇怪的事情。
里厄说：“不错，可是这件事到头来会令人厌恶的。” “不全是这种看法，医生，只是从某一个方面看是这样。我们不过是从未见过类似的事罢了。但是我对这事感兴趣，不错，实在感兴趣。”
塔鲁用手向后掠了掠头发，重新观察那只老鼠，这会儿，它已不动了。他向里厄笑道：“总之，医生，这主要是看门人的事情。”
医生正好看见看门人在楼房前面，背靠着门口附近的墙上，他那平时充血的脸上显露出一副倦容。
里厄告诉看门人，又发现了死老鼠，老米歇尔说：“对，我知道，现在是三三两两地出现。不过在别的房子里情况也是这样。”
他神情沮丧，显得心事重重，漫不经心地用手擦着脖子。里厄问他身体怎样。当然，看门人不能说自己身体不好，他说只是觉得有些不舒服。根据他的看法，这是心理作用引起的。这些老鼠使他感到不安。要是不再看到老鼠，一切都会大大好转。
可是第二天早晨——那天是四月十八日，医生从车站接他母亲回来时发觉米歇尔的面颊下陷得更厉害了。从地窖到楼顶，楼梯上有十来只死老鼠。邻居们的垃圾桶里也装满了。医生的母亲知道了这事却不吃惊。她说：“这类事情是有的。”
她身材矮小，一头银发，一双黑眼睛显得很和善。她说：“贝尔纳，见到你我很高兴，这些老鼠一点也影响不了我的情绪。”
医生同意他母亲的话；真的，跟她在一起，什么事情总好像很容易解决似的。
但是，里厄仍然打了一个电话给市镇灭鼠所。他认识那里的所长，问他是否听到有大量老鼠死在露天这件事。梅西埃所长说他听说了，并且，在他那离开码头不远的所里就有人发现五十来只。不过，他不能肯定这情况是否严重。里厄也决定不了，但是他认为灭鼠所应该管一管。
【作者简介】龚如仲（Ralph)
中国对外经济贸易大学英语系毕业。曾任铁道部援建坦赞铁路工作组总部英语翻译，中国国际广播电台英语部播音员、记者，外贸部中国轻工业品进出口总公司驻美国公司总裁，澳大利亚利富集团驻美国公司总裁，外贸部中国基地总公司驻美国公司总裁，美国TA国际有限公司驻北京办事处首席代表
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