🔊 He felt that he was entering the water, and that he no longer had a pavement under his feet, but only mud.

他感到自己正没入水中,脚下不再是石板路,而只有淤泥。

🔊 It sometimes happens, that on certain shores of Bretagne or Scotland a man, either a traveller or a fisherman, while walking at low tide on the beach far from shore, suddenly notices that for several minutes past, he has been walking with some difficulty. The beach under foot is like pitch; his soles stick fast to it; it is no longer sand, it is birdlime. The strand is perfectly dry, but at every step that he takes, as soon as the foot is raised, the print is filled with water. The eye, however, has perceived no change; the immense beach is smooth and tranquil, all the sand has the same aspect, nothing distinguishes the soil that is solid from that which is not solid; the joyous little cloud of sand-lice continues to leap tumultuously under the feet of the passerby.

有时,在布列塔尼或苏格兰的某些海岸,一个人--无论是旅人还是渔夫--在退潮时远离海岸的沙滩上行走,会突然发觉,过去几分钟里,他走得很吃力。脚下的沙滩像沥青；鞋底牢牢粘住；那不再是沙,而是鸟胶。滩面看似干燥,但每走一步,脚一抬起,脚印里便渗出水来。然而,肉眼并未察觉任何变化；无垠的沙滩平滑而宁静,所有的沙看起来都一样,没有东西能区分坚实的土壤与松软的流沙；那些欢快的小沙蚤依然在行人脚下喧闹地跳跃。

🔊

pitch /pɪtʃ/

n. 沥青；柏油➕

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birdlime /ˈbɜːrdlaɪm/

n. 粘鸟胶；粘稠物质➕

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strand /strænd/

n. 海滩；海岸➕

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tumultuously /tjuːˈmʌltʃuəsli/

adv. 喧闹地；混乱地➕

🔊 The man pursues his way, he walks on, turns towards the land, endeavors to approach the shore. He is not uneasy. Uneasy about what? Only he is conscious that the heaviness of his feet seems to be increasing at every step that he takes. All at once he sinks in. He sinks in two or three inches. Decidedly, he is not on the right road; he halts to get his bearings. Suddenly he glances at his feet; his feet have disappeared. The sand has covered them. He draws his feet out of the sand, he tries to retrace his steps, he turns back, he sinks in more deeply than before. The sand is up to his ankles, he tears himself free from it and flings himself to the left, the sand reaches to mid-leg, he flings himself to the right, the sand comes up to his knees. Then, with indescribable terror, he recognizes the fact that he is caught in a quicksand, and that he has beneath him that frightful medium in which neither man can walk nor fish can swim. He flings away his burden, if he have one, he lightens himself, like a ship in distress; it is too late, the sand is above his knees.

那人继续前行,走着,转向陆地,试图靠近海岸。他并不慌张。慌张什么？只是他觉察到,每走一步,双脚似乎越来越沉重。突然,他陷了下去。陷了两三英寸。显然,他走错了路；他停下辨明方向。猛然间,他低头看脚--脚不见了。沙子淹没了它们。他把脚从沙中拔出,想原路返回,转身,却陷得更深了。沙子没到脚踝,他挣脱出来,向左冲去,沙子没过小腿；他向右冲去,沙子没过膝盖。于是,带着难以言喻的恐惧,他意识到自己陷入了流沙,身下是那可怕的中介--人不能行走,鱼不能游动。他扔掉身上的负担--如果有的话--轻装自己,如同遇险的船只；但为时已晚,沙子已没过膝盖。

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quicksand /ˈkwɪksænd/

n. 流沙➕

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indescribable /ˌɪndɪˈskraɪbəbl/

adj. 难以形容的➕

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endeavors /ɪnˈdevəz/

v. 努力；尽力➕

🔊 He shouts, he waves his hat, or his handkerchief, the sand continually gains on him; if the beach is deserted, if the land is too far away, if the bank of sand is too ill-famed, there is no hero in the neighborhood, all is over, he is condemned to be engulfed. He is condemned to that terrible interment, long, infallible, implacable, which it is impossible to either retard or hasten, which lasts for hours, which will not come to an end, which seizes you erect, free, in the flush of health, which drags you down by the feet, which, at every effort that you attempt, at every shout that you utter, draws you a little lower, which has the air of punishing you for your resistance by a redoubled grasp, which forces a man to return slowly to earth, while leaving him time to survey the horizon, the trees, the verdant country, the smoke of the villages on the plain, the sails of the ships on the sea, the birds which fly and sing, the sun and the sky. This engulfment is the sepulchre which assumes a tide, and which mounts from the depths of the earth towards a living man. Each minute is an inexorable layer-out of the dead. The wretched man tries to sit down, to lie down, to climb; every movement that he makes buries him deeper; he straightens himself up, he sinks; he feels that he is being swallowed up; he shrieks, implores, cries to the clouds, wrings his hands, grows desperate. Behold him in the sand up to his belly, the sand reaches to his breast, he is only a bust now. He uplifts his hands, utters furious groans, clenches his nails on the beach, tries to cling fast to that ashes, supports himself on his elbows in order to raise himself from that soft sheath, and sobs frantically; the sand mounts higher. The sand has reached his shoulders, the sand reaches to his throat; only his face is visible now. His mouth cries aloud, the sand fills it; silence. His eyes still gaze forth, the sand closes them, night. Then his brow decreases, a little hair quivers above the sand; a hand projects, pierces the surface of the beach, waves and disappears. Sinister obliteration of a man.

他呼喊,挥动帽子或手帕,沙子却不断涌上来；如果海滩空无一人,如果陆地太远,如果这片沙洲臭名昭著,如果附近没有英雄,那么一切都完了--他注定要被吞没。他注定要遭受那漫长、必然、无情的可怕埋葬,无法延缓也无法加速,持续数小时,永无止境,它将你直立、自由、健康地抓住,拽住你的双脚向下拉；你每挣扎一次,每喊叫一声,它就将你拽得更深一点,仿佛惩罚你的反抗而加倍抓紧；它迫使一个人缓慢地回归大地,同时留给他时间眺望地平线、树木、青翠的田野、平原上村庄的炊烟、海上的船帆、飞翔歌唱的鸟儿、太阳和天空。这种吞没是一座随着潮汐上升的坟墓,从大地深处向活人逼近。每一分钟都是无情的殓装。不幸的人试图坐下、躺下、往上爬；每一个动作都使他埋得更深；他挺直身子,沉得更深；他感到自己正被吞噬；他尖叫、恳求、向云层哭喊、绞着双手、绝望万分。瞧他,沙子已没到腹部,沙子升到胸口,如今只剩一个躯干。他举起双手,发出愤怒的呻吟,指甲扣进沙滩,试图抓住那灰烬,用胳膊肘撑起自己从这柔软的裹覆中挣脱,疯狂地抽泣；沙子越升越高。沙子已到肩膀,沙子升到喉咙；只有他的脸还露在外面。他的嘴大声呼喊,沙子灌进去,沉默。他的眼睛仍在凝视,沙子封住它们,黑暗。然后他的额头缩小,几根头发在沙面上颤抖；一只手伸出,刺破沙滩表面,挥动一下,消失不见。一个人就这样悲惨地被抹去。

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sepulchre /ˈseplkər/

n. 坟墓；墓穴➕

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inexorable /ɪnˈeksərəbl/

adj. 不可阻挡的；无情的➕

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layer-out /ˈleɪər aʊt/

n. 入殓者；准备殡葬的人➕

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obliteration /əˌblɪtəˈreɪʃn/

n. 消灭； obliteration➕

🔊 Sometimes a rider is engulfed with his horse; sometimes the carter is swallowed up with his cart; all founders in that strand. It is shipwreck elsewhere than in the water. It is the earth drowning a man. The earth, permeated with the ocean, becomes a pitfall. It presents itself in the guise of a plain, and it yawns like a wave. The abyss is subject to these treacheries.

有时骑手连同马匹一起被吞没；有时车夫连车一起被吞没；所有人都在那滩涂中覆灭。这是在水域之外的沉船。这是大地溺毙一个人。大地渗透了海洋,变成了陷阱。它以平原的面貌呈现,却像波浪一样张开大口。深渊就受这些背信弃义支配。

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shipwreck /ˈʃɪprek/

n. 海难；船只失事➕

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abyss /əˈbɪs/

n. 深渊；深不可测的地方➕

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treacheries /ˈtretʃəriz/

n. 背叛行为；诡计➕

🔊 This melancholy fate, always possible on certain sea beaches, was also possible, thirty years ago, in the sewers of Paris.

这种悲惨的命运,在某些海滩上总是可能发生,三十年前,在巴黎的下水道中也可能发生。

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melancholy /ˈmelənkəli/

adj. 忧郁的；悲伤的➕

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sewers /ˈsuːəz/

n. 下水道；污水管➕

🔊 Before the important works, undertaken in 1833, the subterranean drain of Paris was subject to these sudden slides.

在1833年进行的重要工程之前,巴黎的地下排水系统就经常发生这种突然塌陷。

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subterranean /ˌsʌbtəˈreɪniən/

adj. 地下的；隐秘的➕

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drain /dreɪn/

n. 排水管；排水系统➕

🔊 The water filtered into certain subjacent strata, which were particularly friable; the foot-way, which was of flagstones, as in the ancient sewers, or of cement on concrete, as in the new galleries, having no longer an underpinning, gave way. A fold in a flooring of this sort means a crack, means crumbling. The framework crumbled away for a certain length. This crevice, the hiatus of a gulf of mire, was called a fontis, in the special tongue. What is a fontis? It is the quicksands of the seashore suddenly encountered under the surface of the earth; it is the beach of Mont Saint-Michel in a sewer. The soaked soil is in a state of fusion, as it were; all its molecules are in suspension in soft medium; it is not earth and it is not water. The depth is sometimes very great. Nothing can be more formidable than such an encounter. If the water predominates, death is prompt, the man is swallowed up; if earth predominates, death is slow.

水渗入某些特别松散的底层；人行道--无论是古代下水道的石板路,还是新管廊的混凝土上铺水泥的路面--由于失去支撑,就会塌陷。这种地板上的褶皱意味着裂缝,意味着崩塌。框架沿一定长度碎裂。这道裂缝,泥潭深渊的缺口,在专门用语中被称为泥坑。什么是泥坑？它就是突然在地下表层遇到的沙滩流沙；是下水道中的圣米歇尔山海滩。浸泡的泥土仿佛处于熔化状态；所有分子都悬浮在软质介质中；它既不是土,也不是水。深度有时非常深。没有什么比遭遇这种情况更可怕的了。如果水占主导,死亡迅速,人会被吞没；如果土占主导,死亡缓慢。

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fontis /fɔ̃ˈtiːs/

n. （法语）地下流沙穴➕

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friable /ˈfraɪəbl/

adj. 易碎的；易破的➕

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subjacent /səbˈdʒeɪsnt/

adj. 直接在下面的；下层的➕

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strata /ˈstrɑːtə/

n. 地层；阶层（stratum的复数）➕

🔊 Can anyone picture to himself such a death? If being swallowed by the earth is terrible on the seashore, what is it in a cesspool? Instead of the open air, the broad daylight, the clear horizon, those vast sounds, those free clouds whence rains life, instead of those barks descried in the distance, of that hope under all sorts of forms, of probable passersby, of succor possible up to the very last moment--instead of all this, deafness, blindness, a black vault, the inside of a tomb already prepared, death in the mire beneath a cover! slow suffocation by filth, a stone box where asphyxia opens its claw in the mire and clutches you by the throat; fetidness mingled with the death-rattle; slime instead of the strand, sulfuretted hydrogen in place of the hurricane, dung in place of the ocean! And to shout, to gnash one's teeth, and to writhe, and to struggle, and to agonize, with that enormous city which knows nothing of it all, over one's head!

谁能想象这样一种死亡？如果被大地吞噬在海滩上是可怕的,那么在污水池里呢？没有露天、阳光、明亮的地平线、那些广阔的声音、那些带来生命的自由云朵--没有那些远处看到的船只、各种形式的希望、可能路过的行人、直到最后一刻都可能得到的救助--取而代之的是耳聋、眼盲、黑暗的穹顶、已准备好的坟墓内部、被盖子覆盖着的泥浆中的死亡！在污秽中缓慢窒息,一个石盒,窒息在泥浆中伸出爪子抓住你的喉咙；恶臭与临终喘息混合；污泥代替海滩,硫化氢代替飓风,粪便代替海洋！而你呼喊、咬牙切齿、翻滚、挣扎、痛苦,头顶上那座巨大的城市对此浑然不知！

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cesspool /ˈsespuːl/

n. 污水池；粪坑➕

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sulfuretted hydrogen /ˌsʌlfjəˈretɪd ˈhaɪdrədʒən/

n. 硫化氢➕

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asphyxia /æsˈfɪksiə/

n. 窒息➕

🔊 Inexpressible is the horror of dying thus! Death sometimes redeems his atrocity by a certain terrible dignity. On the funeral pile, in shipwreck, one can be great; in the flames as in the foam, a superb attitude is possible; one there becomes transfigured as one perishes. But not here. Death is filthy. It is humiliating to expire. The supreme floating visions are abject. Mud is synonymous with shame. It is petty, ugly, infamous. To die in a butt of Malvoisie, like Clarence, is permissible; in the ditch of a scavenger, like Escoubleau, is horrible. To struggle therein is hideous; at the same time that one is going through the death agony, one is floundering about. There are shadows enough for hell, and mire enough to render it nothing but a slough, and the dying man knows not whether he is on the point of becoming a spectre or a frog.

如此死去,恐怖难以言表！死亡有时通过某种可怕的高贵来抵消它的残暴。在火刑堆上,在沉船中,人可以伟大；在火焰中,在泡沫中,可以摆出庄严的姿态；人可以在毁灭中变形。但在这里不行。死亡是肮脏的。咽气是屈辱的。最后的漂浮幻象是卑贱的。泥浆是耻辱的同义词。它渺小、丑陋、可憎。像克拉伦斯那样死在马瓦西亚酒桶里,是可以接受的；像埃斯库布洛那样死在清粪沟里,则是可怕的。在其间挣扎是骇人的；在死亡痛苦的同时还在泥水中扑腾。有足够多的黑暗充当地狱,有足够多的泥浆使它不过是泥沼,垂死的人不知道自己即将变成幽灵还是青蛙。

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inexpressible /ˌɪnɪkˈspresəbl/

adj. 无法表达的；难以言表的➕

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funeral pile /ˈfjuːnərəl paɪl/

n. 火葬柴堆➕

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slough /slaʊ/

n. 泥沼；沼泽➕

🔊 Everywhere else the sepulchre is sinister; here it is deformed.

在其他地方,坟墓是阴森的；在这里,它是畸形的。

🔊

deformed /dɪˈfɔːrmd/

adj. 畸形的；变形的➕

🔊 The depth of the fontis varied, as well as their length and their density, according to the more or less bad quality of the subsoil. Sometimes a fontis was three or four feet deep, sometimes eight or ten; sometimes the bottom was unfathomable. Here the mire was almost solid, there almost liquid. In the Lunière fontis, it would have taken a man a day to disappear, while he would have been devoured in five minutes by the Philippeaux slough. The mire bears up more or less, according to its density. A child can escape where a man will perish. The first law of safety is to get rid of every sort of load. Every sewerman who felt the ground giving way beneath him began by flinging away his sack of tools, or his back-basket, or his hod.

泥坑的深度、长度和密度,根据底层土壤质量的优劣而各不相同。有时一个泥坑深三四英尺,有时八到十英尺；有时底部深不可测。这里的泥浆几乎是固体,那里几乎是液体。在吕尼埃泥坑,一个人需要一天时间才能消失,而在菲利波泥沼中,他五分钟内就会被吞噬。泥浆的支撑力根据密度不同而有差异。孩子可以逃脱的地方,成年人却会丧命。安全的第一法则就是扔掉所有负重。每个感觉到脚下地面下陷的下水道工人,首先都会扔掉他的工具袋、背篓或灰桶。

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unfathomable /ʌnˈfæðəməbl/

adj. 深不可测的；无法理解的➕

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devoured /dɪˈvaʊərd/

v. 吞食；毁灭➕

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back-basket /ˈbæk ˌbæskɪt/

n. 背篮；背上背的篮子➕

🔊 The fontis were due to different causes: the friability of the soil; some landslip at a depth beyond the reach of man; the violent summer rains; the incessant flooding of winter; long, drizzling showers. Sometimes the weight of the surrounding houses on a marly or sandy soil forced out the vaults of the subterranean galleries and caused them to bend aside, or it chanced that a flooring vault burst and split under this crushing thrust. In this manner, the heaping up of the Parthenon, obliterated, a century ago, a portion of the vaults of Saint-Geneviève hill. When a sewer was broken in under the pressure of the houses, the mischief was sometimes betrayed in the street above by a sort of space, like the teeth of a saw, between the paving-stones; this crevice was developed in an undulating line throughout the entire length of the cracked vault, and then, the evil being visible, the remedy could be promptly applied. It also frequently happened, that the interior ravages were not revealed by any external scar, and in that case, woe to the sewermen. When they entered without precaution into the sewer, they were liable to be lost. Ancient registers make mention of several scavengers who were buried in fontis in this manner. They give many names; among others, that of the sewerman who was swallowed up in a quagmire under the manhole of the Rue Carême-Prenant, a certain Blaise Poutrain; this Blaise Poutrain was the brother of Nicholas Poutrain, who was the last gravedigger of the cemetery called the Charnier des Innocents, in 1785, the epoch when that cemetery expired.

泥坑由不同原因造成:土壤的松散；人类触及不到的深层滑坡；夏季暴雨；冬季持续的洪水；绵绵细雨。有时,周围房屋的重量压在泥灰土或沙土上,迫使地下管廊的拱顶弯曲或倾斜,或者有时地板拱顶在这一挤压下破裂分裂。就这样,一个世纪前,帕台农神庙的堆积物抹去了圣热纳维耶芙山的部分拱顶。当水道被房屋压力压垮时,街面上有时会露出一条锯齿状的缝隙,像锯子齿一样,出现在铺路石之间；这条裂缝沿着开裂拱顶的整个长度蜿蜒发展；然后,由于恶果可见,补救措施可以迅速实施。但也经常发生这样的情况:内部破坏没有任何外部伤痕暴露出来,在这种情况下,下水道工人就遭殃了。当他们不加预防地进入下水道时,很容易丧命。古代文献提到几位清粪工就是这样被埋入泥坑的。文献中列出了许多名字；其中有一下水道工人,他在卡雷姆-普雷南路的人孔下陷入泥沼,名叫布莱斯·普特兰；这位布莱斯·普特兰是尼古拉·普特兰的兄弟,而尼古拉·普特兰是1785年那个墓园关闭时最后一位掘墓人,该墓园称为“无辜者墓地”。

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friability /ˌfraɪəˈbɪləti/

n. 易碎性；脆弱➕

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landslip /ˈlændslɪp/

n. 滑坡；塌方➕

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obliterated /əˈblɪtəreɪtɪd/

v. 抹去；消灭（obliterate的过去分词）➕

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Charnier des Innocents /ʃɑːrˈnjeɪ deɪ zɪnˈɔːsɑ̃/

n. 无辜者墓窖（巴黎历史上的墓地）➕

🔊 There was also that young and charming Vicomte d'Escoubleau, of whom we have just spoken, one of the heroes of the siege of Lérida, where they delivered the assault in silk stockings, with violins at their head. D'Escoubleau, surprised one night at his cousin's, the Duchesse de Sourdis', was drowned in a quagmire of the Beautreillis sewer, in which he had taken refuge in order to escape from the Duke. Madame de Sourdis, when informed of his death, demanded her smelling-bottle, and forgot to weep, through sniffling at her salts. In such cases, there is no love which holds fast; the sewer extinguishes it. Hero refuses to wash the body of Leander. Thisbe stops her nose in the presence of Pyramus and says: "Phew!"

还有那位我们刚刚提到的年轻英俊的埃斯库布洛子爵,他是莱里达围城战的英雄之一,当时他们穿着丝袜、在提琴的引导下发起冲锋。一天夜里,埃斯库布洛在表妹苏尔迪斯公爵夫人家被公爵撞见,他躲进博特雷伊下水道的泥沼中淹死。苏尔迪斯夫人得知他的死讯后,要来了她的嗅盐瓶,闻着嗅盐,忘记了哭泣。在这种情况下,没有什么爱情靠得住；下水道会熄灭了它。赫洛拒绝为勒安得耳清洗尸体。提斯柏在皮拉姆斯面前捂住鼻子说:“呸！”

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quagmire /ˈkwæɡmaɪər/

n. 沼泽；泥潭➕

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siege /siːdʒ/

n. 围困；包围➕

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assault /əˈsɔːlt/

n. 攻击；突袭➕

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refuge /ˈrefjuːdʒ/

n. 避难所；庇护➕

Book III. Mud but the Soul – Chapter five: In the Case of Sand as in That of Woman, There Is a Fineness Which Is Treacherous (第五章:沙与女人,细腻之处皆险诈)

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