纽约时报 居家隔离闹鬼?好恐怖!(3)

Or did they?

万一他们有时间呢？

Janie Cowan believes she's been haunted since college.

珍妮·考恩认为大学时期她就开始被鬼魂缠身了。

The ghost she calls Matthew (a "good, biblical name" chosen in the hopes it would keep him on his best behavior, explained Mrs. Cowan, who is 26)

被她称之为“马修”的鬼魂(26岁的考恩夫人解释说，之所以选这个“好听又出自圣经的名字”是希望能让那个鬼守规矩一点)

has historically made his presence known in her Nashville home through the sounds of someone running up and down the staircase at night.

到访过她纳什维尔的家，它会在夜里发出上下楼梯一样的声音。

The noises are "not like a house settling, or like our cat walking around,"

那个声音“既不像房屋下沉的声音也不像我们的猫走动的声音，”

said her husband, Will Cowan, a 31-year-old accountant.

现年31岁，从事会计工作的威尔·考恩先生说道。

"It's very clearly out to get attention."

“很明显，那个声音就是为了引起注意发出的。”

Around the same time the couple began to self-isolate in March, Mr. Cowan started to use their guest bathroom

3月份这对夫妻开始居家隔离的时候，

so that his wife, a home health nurse who has been picking up more night shifts during the pandemic,

为了做家庭护士，疫情以来经常上夜班的妻子不用被自己早起洗漱的声音吵醒，

could sleep in without the sounds of his morning routine disturbing her.

考恩先生便开始用家里的客卫洗漱。

He has found that Matthew, who both spouses¹ agree prefers Mrs. Cowan, doesn't seem to appreciate these changes.

换了客卫后他发现，马修似乎并不太乐意接受这一改变，尽管考恩夫妇两人一致认为，马修更喜欢考恩夫人。

On three separate occasions, while showering in the guest bath,

就在他用客卫洗澡的时候，

Mr. Cowan has been unexpectedly blasted with cold water.

考恩先生有足足三次被冷不丁地用冷水浇了个透心凉。

But it wasn't just a quirk² of the plumbing³:

问题是不仅水管出了怪事：

Every time, he said, he reached out to find that the hot-water nozzle had been turned off.

而且，每次他伸手去摸热水喷嘴，每次都发现喷嘴已经被关上了。

Madison Hill, 24, is riding out the pandemic with her boyfriend in her apartment in Florence, Italy.

另一边，24岁的麦迪逊·希尔正和男友在意大利佛罗伦萨的公寓里躲疫情。

Ms.Hill, a writer and teacher originally from Charlotte, N.C.,

来自北卡罗来纳州夏洛特市的希尔女士是一名作家，还是一名老师，

had always had her suspicions about her home, particularly the bathroom.

她一直怀疑她家，尤其是她家卫生间有古怪。

There was the sense that someone was watching her, doors slamming, towels inexplicably⁴ on the floor.

她总感觉有人在看她，有人在摔门，毛巾也被莫名其妙地扔到了地板上。

A few weeks into quarantine, she woke up to find something on her nightstand that did not belong there.

隔离几周后的一天，醒来时她又发现床头柜上多了点儿原本并未放在那里的东西。

It was a camera lens, one she'd brought from the United States but lost when she moved in.

那是一个镜头，是她从美国带来的，但她刚搬进公寓时就已经弄丢了。

She had long given up on ever finding it.

她早就放弃找到的希望了。

But here it was.

但它竟又自己冒出了。

1 spouses   

n.配偶，夫或妻( spouse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Jobs are available for spouses on campus and in the community. 校园里和社区里有配偶可做的工作。 来自辞典例句
• An astonishing number of spouses-most particularly in the upper-income brackets-have no close notion of their husbands'paychecks. 相当大一部分妇女——特别在高收入阶层——并不很了解他们丈夫的薪金。 来自辞典例句

2 quirk   

n.奇事，巧合；古怪的举动

参考例句：

• He had a strange quirk of addressing his wife as Mrs Smith.他很怪，把自己的妻子称作史密斯夫人。
• The most annoying quirk of his is wearing a cap all the time.他最令人感到厌恶的怪癖就是无论何时都戴著帽子。

3 plumbing   

n.水管装置；水暖工的工作；管道工程v.用铅锤测量（plumb的现在分词）；探究

参考例句：

• She spent her life plumbing the mysteries of the human psyche. 她毕生探索人类心灵的奥秘。
• They're going to have to put in new plumbing. 他们将需要安装新的水管。 来自《简明英汉词典》

4 inexplicably   

adv.无法说明地，难以理解地，令人难以理解的是

参考例句：

• Inexplicably, Mary said she loved John. 真是不可思议，玛丽说她爱约翰。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Inexplicably, she never turned up. 令人不解的是，她从未露面。 来自辞典例句