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The Englishman was sitting on a bench in a structure that smelled of animals, sweat, and dust; it was part warehouse, part corral.
英国人坐在一座充斥着灰尘、汗臭和牲口气味的房子里。这样的房子根本称不上是货栈，充其量只是个牲口棚。
I never thought I'd end up in a place like this, he thought, as he leafed through the pages of a chemical journal. Ten years at the university, and here I am in a corral.
想不到我这辈子竟沦落到这种地方，他边翻阅着一本化学杂志，边在心中这样想道，十年寒窗竟把我引进了一个牲口棚。
But he had to move on. He believed in omens.
但是他必须继续走下去，必须相信预兆。
All his life and all his studies were aimed at finding the one true language of the universe.
他将全部生命、所有研究都投入到寻找宇宙唯一的语言中去了。
First he had studied Esperanto, then the world's religions, and now it was alchemy.
他先是对世界语产生了兴趣，然后是宗教，最后是炼金术。
He knew how to speak Esperanto, he understood all the major religions well, but he wasn't yet an alchemist.
他会讲世界语，对各种宗教了如指掌，但还没有成为炼金术士。
He had unraveled the truths behind important questions, but his studies had taken him to a point beyond which he could not seem to go.
他已经解读了一些关键的东西，这是事实。但是，他的研究遇到了瓶颈，无法再向前推进。
He had tried in vain to establish a relationship with an alchemist.
他曾试图与某个炼金术士取得联系，结果白费力气。
But the alchemists were strange people, who thought only about themselves, and almost always refused to help him.
炼金术士都是些古里古怪的人，他们总考虑自己，向来都拒绝帮助别人。
Who knows, maybe they had failed to discover the secret of the Master Work—the Philosopher's Stone—and for this reason kept their knowledge to themselves.
谁知道怎么回事，他们也许并未发现炼金术的秘密，即点金石，所以才三缄其口。
He had already spent much of the fortune left to him by his father, fruitlessly seeking the Philosopher's Stone.
为寻找点金石，英国人已经白白耗费了父亲留给他的部分家产。
He had spent enormous amounts of time at the great libraries of the world, and had purchased all the rarest and most important volumes on alchemy.
他曾经是世界上最好的图书馆的常客，购买了有关炼金术的所有最重要和最罕见的著作。
In one he had read that, many years ago, a famous Arabian alchemist had visited Europe.
在其中一部著作中他发现，很多年以前，有一位著名的阿拉伯炼金术士访问过欧洲。
It was said that he was more than two hundred years old, and that he had discovered the Philosopher's Stone and the Elixir of Life.
据说他当时已经两百多岁了，声称已经发现了点金石和长生不老液。
The Englishman had been profoundly impressed by the story.
英国人被这个故事打动了。
But he would never have thought it more than just a myth, had not a friend of his—returning from an archaeological expedition in the desert—told him about an Arab that was possessed of exceptional powers.
不过，要不是他的一位朋友从沙漠考古回来对他说了一番话，这个故事充其量只是个传说而已。他的朋友告诉他，有一位阿拉伯人具有特异功能。
