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(单词翻译:双击或拖选)
Burckhardt loosened his tie and ordered another Frosty-Flip from the waiter. If only they wouldn't keep the Crystal Cafe so hot! The new paint job—searing reds and blinding yellows—was bad enough, but someone seemed to have the delusion1 that this was January instead of June; the place was a good ten degrees warmer than outside.
He swallowed the Frosty-Flip in two gulps2. It had a kind of peculiar3 flavor, he thought, but not bad. It certainly cooled you off, just as the waiter had promised. He reminded himself to pick up a carton of them on the way home; Mary might like them. She was always interested in something new.
He stood up awkwardly as the girl came across the restaurant toward him. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen in Tylerton. Chin-height, honey-blonde hair and a figure that—well, it was all hers. There was no doubt in the world that the dress that clung to her was the only thing she wore. He felt as if he were blushing as she greeted him.
"Mr. Burckhardt." The voice was like distant tomtoms. "It's wonderful of you to let me see you, after this morning."
He cleared his throat. "Not at all. Won't you sit down, Miss—"
"April Horn," she murmured, sitting down—beside him, not where he had pointed4 on the other side of the table. "Call me April, won't you?"
She was wearing some kind of perfume, Burckhardt noted5 with what little of his mind was functioning at all. It didn't seem fair that she should be using perfume as well as everything else. He came to with a start and realized that the waiter was leaving with an order for filets mignon for two.
"Hey!" he objected.
"Please, Mr. Burckhardt." Her shoulder was against his, her face was turned to him, her breath was warm, her expression was tender and solicitous6. "This is all on the Feckle Corporation. Please let them—it's the least they can do."
"I put the price of the meal into your pocket," she whispered conspiratorially8. "Please do that for me, won't you? I mean I'd appreciate it if you'd pay the waiter—I'm old-fashioned about things like that."
She smiled meltingly, then became mock-businesslike. "But you must take the money," she insisted. "Why, you're letting Feckle off lightly if you do! You could sue them for every nickel they've got, disturbing your sleep like that."
With a dizzy feeling, as though he had just seen someone make a rabbit disappear into a top hat, he said, "Why, it really wasn't so bad, uh, April. A little noisy, maybe, but—"
"Oh, Mr. Burckhardt!" The blue eyes were wide and admiring. "I knew you'd understand. It's just that—well, it's such a wonderful freezer that some of the outside men get carried away, so to speak. As soon as the main office found out about what happened, they sent representatives around to every house on the block to apologize. Your wife told us where we could phone you—and I'm so very pleased that you were willing to let me have lunch with you, so that I could apologize, too. Because truly, Mr. Burckhardt, it is a fine freezer.
"I shouldn't tell you this, but—" the blue eyes were shyly lowered—"I'd do almost anything for Feckle Freezers. It's more than a job to me." She looked up. She was enchanting9. "I bet you think I'm silly, don't you?"
Burckhardt coughed. "Well, I—"
"Oh, you don't want to be unkind!" She shook her head. "No, don't pretend. You think it's silly. But really, Mr. Burckhardt, you wouldn't think so if you knew more about the Feckle. Let me show you this little booklet—"
Burckhardt got back from lunch a full hour late. It wasn't only the girl who delayed him. There had been a curious interview with a little man named Swanson, whom he barely knew, who had stopped him with desperate urgency on the street—and then left him cold.
But it didn't matter much. Mr. Barth, for the first time since Burckhardt had worked there, was out for the day—leaving Burckhardt stuck with the quarterly tax returns.
What did matter, though, was that somehow he had signed a purchase order for a twelve-cubic-foot Feckle Freezer, upright model, self-defrosting, list price $625, with a ten per cent "courtesy" discount—"Because of that horridaffair this morning, Mr. Burckhardt," she had said.
And he wasn't sure how he could explain it to his wife.
He needn't have worried. As he walked in the front door, his wife said almost immediately, "I wonder if we can't afford a new freezer, dear. There was a man here to apologize about that noise and—well, we got to talking and—"
She had signed a purchase order, too.
It had been the damnedest day, Burckhardt thought later, on his way up to bed. But the day wasn't done with him yet. At the head of the stairs, the weakened spring in the electric light switch refused to click at all. He snapped it back and forth10 angrily and, of course, succeeded in jarring the tumbler out of its pins. The wires shorted and every light in the house went out.
"Damn!" said Guy Burckhardt.
Burckhardt shook his head. "You go back to bed. I'll be right along."
It wasn't so much that he cared about fixing the fuse, but he was too restless for sleep. He disconnected the bad switch with a screwdriver12, stumbled down into the black kitchen, found the flashlight and climbed gingerly down the cellar stairs. He located a spare fuse, pushed an empty trunk over to the fuse box to stand on and twisted out the old fuse.
When the new one was in, he heard the starting click and steady drone of the refrigerator in the kitchen overhead.
He headed back to the steps, and stopped.
Where the old trunk had been, the cellar floor gleamed oddly bright. He inspected it in the flashlight beam. It was metal!
"Son of a gun," said Guy Burckhardt. He shook his head unbelievingly. He peered closer, rubbed the edges of the metallic13 patch with his thumb and acquired an annoying cut—the edges were sharp.
The stained cement floor of the cellar was a thin shell. He found a hammer and cracked it off in a dozen spots—everywhere was metal.
The whole cellar was a copper14 box. Even the cement-brick walls were false fronts over a metal sheath!
Baffled, he attacked one of the foundation beams. That, at least, was real wood. The glass in the cellar windows was real glass.
He sucked his bleeding thumb and tried the base of the cellar stairs. Real wood. He chipped at the bricks under the oil burner. Real bricks. The retaining walls, the floor—they were faked.
It was as though someone had shored up the house with a frame of metal and then laboriously15 concealed16 the evidence.
The biggest surprise was the upside-down boat hull17 that blocked the rear half of the cellar, relic18 of a brief home workshop period that Burckhardt had gone through a couple of years before. From above, it looked perfectly19 normal. Inside, though, where there should have been thwarts20 and seats and lockers21, there was a mere22 tangle23 of braces24, rough and unfinished.
"But I built that!" Burckhardt exclaimed, forgetting his thumb. He leaned against the hull dizzily, trying to think this thing through. For reasons beyond his comprehension, someone had taken his boat and his cellar away, maybe his whole house, and replaced them with a clever mock-up of the real thing.
"That's crazy," he said to the empty cellar. He stared around in the light of the flash. He whispered, "What in the name of Heaven would anybody do that for?"
Reason refused an answer; there wasn't any reasonable answer. For long minutes, Burckhardt contemplated25 the uncertain picture of his own sanity26.
He peered under the boat again, hoping to reassure27 himself that it was a mistake, just his imagination. But the sloppy28, unfinished bracing29 was unchanged. He crawled under for a better look, feeling the rough wood incredulously. Utterly30 impossible!
He switched off the flashlight and started to wriggle31 out. But he didn't make it. In the moment between the command to his legs to move and the crawling out, he felt a sudden draining weariness flooding through him.
Consciousness went—not easily, but as though it were being taken away, and Guy Burckhardt was asleep.
III
On the morning of June 16th, Guy Burckhardt woke up in a cramped32 position huddled33 under the hull of the boat in his basement—and raced upstairs to find it was June 15th.
The first thing he had done was to make a frantic34, hasty inspection35 of the boat hull, the faked cellar floor, the imitation stone. They were all as he had remembered them—all completely unbelievable.
The kitchen was its placid36, unexciting self. The electric clock was purring soberly around the dial. Almost six o'clock, it said. His wife would be waking at any moment.
Burckhardt flung open the front door and stared out into the quiet street. The morning paper was tossed carelessly against the steps—and as he retrieved37 it, he noticed that this was the 15th day of June.
But that was impossible. Yesterday was the 15th of June. It was not a date one would forget—it was quarterly tax-return day.
He went back into the hall and picked up the telephone; he dialed for Weather Information, and got a well-modulated chant: "—and cooler, some showers. Barometric38 pressure thirty point zero four, rising ... United States Weather Bureau forecast for June 15th. Warm and sunny, with high around—"
He hung the phone up. June 15th.
"Holy heaven!" Burckhardt said prayerfully. Things were very odd indeed. He heard the ring of his wife's alarm and bounded up the stairs.
Mary Burckhardt was sitting upright in bed with the terrified, uncomprehending stare of someone just waking out of a nightmare.
"Oh!" she gasped39, as her husband came in the room. "Darling, I just had the most terrible dream! It was like an explosion and—"
"Again?" Burckhardt asked, not very sympathetically. "Mary, something's funny! I knew there was something wrong all day yesterday and—"
He went on to tell her about the copper box that was the cellar, and the odd mock-up someone had made of his boat. Mary looked astonished, then alarmed, then placatory40 and uneasy.
She said, "Dear, are you sure? Because I was cleaning that old trunk out just last week and I didn't notice anything."
"Positive!" said Guy Burckhardt. "I dragged it over to the wall to step on it to put a new fuse in after we blew the lights out and—"
"After we what?" Mary was looking more than merely alarmed.
"After we blew the lights out. You know, when the switch at the head of the stairs stuck. I went down to the cellar and—"
Mary sat up in bed. "Guy, the switch didn't stick. I turned out the lights myself last night."
Burckhardt glared at his wife. "Now I know you didn't! Come here and take a look!"
He stalked out to the landing and dramatically pointed to the bad switch, the one that he had unscrewed and left hanging the night before....
Only it wasn't. It was as it had always been. Unbelieving, Burckhardt pressed it and the lights sprang up in both halls.
Mary, looking pale and worried, left him to go down to the kitchen and start breakfast. Burckhardt stood staring at the switch for a long time. His mental processes were gone beyond the point of disbelief and shock; they simply were not functioning.
He shaved and dressed and ate his breakfast in a state of numb41 introspection. Mary didn't disturb him; she was apprehensive42 and soothing43. She kissed him good-by as he hurried out to the bus without another word.
Miss Mitkin, at the reception desk, greeted him with a yawn. "Morning," she said drowsily44. "Mr. Barth won't be in today."
Burckhardt started to say something, but checked himself. She would not know that Barth hadn't been in yesterday, either, because she was tearing a June 14th pad off her calendar to make way for the "new" June 15th sheet.
He staggered to his own desk and stared unseeingly at the morning's mail. It had not even been opened yet, but he knew that the Factory Distributors envelope contained an order for twenty thousand feet of the new acoustic45 tile, and the one from Finebeck & Sons was a complaint.
After a long while, he forced himself to open them. They were.
By lunchtime, driven by a desperate sense of urgency, Burckhardt made Miss Mitkin take her lunch hour first—the June-fifteenth-that-was-yesterday, he had gone first. She went, looking vaguely46 worried about his strained insistence47, but it made no difference to Burckhardt's mood.
The phone rang and Burckhardt picked it up abstractedly. "Contro Chemicals Downtown, Burckhardt speaking."
The voice said, "This is Swanson," and stopped.
Burckhardt waited expectantly, but that was all. He said, "Hello?"
Again the pause. Then Swanson asked in sad resignation, "Still nothing, eh?"
"Nothing what? Swanson, is there something you want? You came up to me yesterday and went through this routine. You—"
The voice crackled: "Burckhardt! Oh, my good heavens, you remember! Stay right there—I'll be down in half an hour!"
"What's this all about?"
"Never mind," the little man said exultantly48. "Tell you about it when I see you. Don't say any more over the phone—somebody may be listening. Just wait there. Say, hold on a minute. Will you be alone in the office?"
"Well, no. Miss Mitkin will probably—"
"Hell. Look, Burckhardt, where do you eat lunch? Is it good and noisy?"
"Why, I suppose so. The Crystal Cafe. It's just about a block—"
"I know where it is. Meet you in half an hour!" And the receiver clicked.
The Crystal Cafe was no longer painted red, but the temperature was still up. And they had added piped-in music interspersed49 with commercials. The advertisements were for Frosty-Flip, Marlin Cigarettes—"They're sanitized," the announcer purred—and something called Choco-Bite candy bars that Burckhardt couldn't remember ever having heard of before. But he heard more about them quickly enough.
While he was waiting for Swanson to show up, a girl in the cellophane skirt of a nightclub cigarette vendor50 came through the restaurant with a tray of tiny scarlet-wrapped candies.
"Choco-Bites are tangy," she was murmuring as she came close to his table. "Choco-Bites are tangier than tangy!"
Burckhardt, intent on watching for the strange little man who had phoned him, paid little attention. But as she scattered51 a handful of the confections over the table next to his, smiling at the occupants, he caught a glimpse of her and turned to stare.
"Why, Miss Horn!" he said.
The girl dropped her tray of candies.
Burckhardt rose, concerned over the girl. "Is something wrong?"
But she fled.
The manager of the restaurant was staring suspiciously at Burckhardt, who sank back in his seat and tried to look inconspicuous. He hadn't insulted the girl! Maybe she was just a very strictly52 reared young lady, he thought—in spite of the long bare legs under the cellophane skirt—and when he addressed her, she thought he was a masher.
Burckhardt looked up over the top of his menu, startled. In the seat across from him, the little man named Swanson was sitting, tensely poised55.
"Burckhardt!" the little man whispered again. "Let's get out of here! They're on to you now. If you want to stay alive, come on!"
There was no arguing with the man. Burckhardt gave the hovering56 manager a sick, apologetic smile and followed Swanson out. The little man seemed to know where he was going. In the street, he clutched Burckhardt by the elbow and hurried him off down the block.
"Did you see her?" he demanded. "That Horn woman, in the phone booth? She'll have them here in five minutes, believe me, so hurry it up!"
Although the street was full of people and cars, nobody was paying any attention to Burckhardt and Swanson. The air had a nip in it—more like October than June, Burckhardt thought, in spite of the weather bureau. And he felt like a fool, following this mad little man down the street, running away from some "them" toward—toward what? The little man might be crazy, but he was afraid. And the fear was infectious.
"In here!" panted the little man.
It was another restaurant—more of a bar, really, and a sort of second-rate place that Burckhardt had never patronized.
"Right straight through," Swanson whispered; and Burckhardt, like a biddable boy, side-stepped through the mass of tables to the far end of the restaurant.
It was "L"-shaped, with a front on two streets at right angles to each other. They came out on the side street, Swanson staring coldly back at the question-looking cashier, and crossed to the opposite sidewalk.
They were under the marquee of a movie theater. Swanson's expression began to relax.
"Lost them!" he crowed softly. "We're almost there."
He stepped up to the window and bought two tickets. Burckhardt trailed him in to the theater. It was a weekday matinee and the place was almost empty. From the screen came sounds of gunfire and horse's hoofs57. A solitary58 usher59, leaning against a bright brass60 rail, looked briefly61 at them and went back to staring boredly at the picture as Swanson led Burckhardt down a flight of carpeted marble steps.
They were in the lounge and it was empty. There was a door for men and one for ladies; and there was a third door, marked "MANAGER" in gold letters. Swanson listened at the door, and gently opened it and peered inside.
"Okay," he said, gesturing.
Burckhardt followed him through an empty office, to another door—a closet, probably, because it was unmarked.
But it was no closet. Swanson opened it warily62, looked inside, then motioned Burckhardt to follow.
It was a tunnel, metal-walled, brightly lit. Empty, it stretched vacantly away in both directions from them.
Burckhardt looked wondering around. One thing he knew and knew full well:
No such tunnel belonged under Tylerton.
点击
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1
delusion
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| n.谬见，欺骗，幻觉，迷惑 | |
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gulps
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| n.一大口（尤指液体）( gulp的名词复数 )v.狼吞虎咽地吃，吞咽( gulp的第三人称单数 )；大口地吸（气）；哽住 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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pointed
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| adj.尖的，直截了当的 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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solicitous
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| adj.热切的，挂念的 | |
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burrowing
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| v.挖掘（洞穴），挖洞( burrow的现在分词 )；翻寻 | |
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conspiratorially
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enchanting
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| a.讨人喜欢的 | |
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forth
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| adv.向前；向外，往外 | |
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shrugged
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| vt.耸肩（shrug的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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screwdriver
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| n.螺丝起子；伏特加橙汁鸡尾酒 | |
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metallic
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| adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的 | |
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copper
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| n.铜；铜币；铜器；adj.铜(制)的；(紫)铜色的 | |
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laboriously
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| adv.艰苦地；费力地；辛勤地；（文体等）佶屈聱牙地 | |
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concealed
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| a.隐藏的，隐蔽的 | |
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hull
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| n.船身；(果、实等的)外壳；vt.去(谷物等)壳 | |
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relic
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| n.神圣的遗物，遗迹，纪念物 | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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thwarts
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| 阻挠( thwart的第三人称单数 )； 使受挫折； 挫败； 横过 | |
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lockers
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| n.寄物柜( locker的名词复数 ) | |
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mere
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| adj.纯粹的；仅仅，只不过 | |
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tangle
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| n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱 | |
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braces
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| n.吊带，背带；托架( brace的名词复数 )；箍子；括弧；（儿童）牙箍v.支住( brace的第三人称单数 )；撑牢；使自己站稳；振作起来 | |
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contemplated
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| adj. 预期的 动词contemplate的过去分词形式 | |
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sanity
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| n.心智健全，神智正常，判断正确 | |
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reassure
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| v.使放心，使消除疑虑 | |
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sloppy
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| adj.邋遢的，不整洁的 | |
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bracing
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| adj.令人振奋的 | |
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utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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wriggle
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| v./n.蠕动，扭动；蜿蜒 | |
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cramped
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| a.狭窄的 | |
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huddled
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| 挤在一起（huddle的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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frantic
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| adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的 | |
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inspection
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| n.检查，审查，检阅 | |
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placid
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| adj.安静的，平和的 | |
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retrieved
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| v.取回( retrieve的过去式和过去分词 )；恢复；寻回；检索（储存的信息） | |
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barometric
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| 大气压力 | |
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gasped
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| v.喘气( gasp的过去式和过去分词 )；喘息；倒抽气；很想要 | |
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placatory
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| adj.安抚的，抚慰的 | |
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numb
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| adj.麻木的，失去感觉的；v.使麻木 | |
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apprehensive
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| adj.担心的，恐惧的，善于领会的 | |
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soothing
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| adj.慰藉的；使人宽心的；镇静的 | |
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drowsily
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| adv.睡地，懒洋洋地，昏昏欲睡地 | |
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acoustic
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| adj.听觉的，声音的；(乐器)原声的 | |
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vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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insistence
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| n.坚持；强调；坚决主张 | |
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exultantly
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| adv.狂欢地，欢欣鼓舞地 | |
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interspersed
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| adj.[医]散开的；点缀的v.intersperse的过去式和过去分词 | |
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vendor
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| n.卖主；小贩 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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scowled
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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poised
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| a.摆好姿势不动的 | |
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hovering
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| 鸟( hover的现在分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫 | |
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57
hoofs
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| n.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的名词复数 )v.（兽的）蹄，马蹄( hoof的第三人称单数 ) | |
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solitary
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| adj.孤独的，独立的，荒凉的；n.隐士 | |
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usher
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| n.带位员，招待员；vt.引导，护送；vi.做招待，担任引座员 | |
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60
brass
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| n.黄铜；黄铜器，铜管乐器 | |
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61
briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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62
warily
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| adv.留心地 | |
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63
slumped
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| 大幅度下降，暴跌( slump的过去式和过去分词 )； 沉重或突然地落下[倒下] | |
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