Back in the room I wrote the boy's temperature down and made a note of the time to give the various capsules.
我回到房里,记下孩子的体温,并记下各种胶囊的服用时间。
“Do you want me to read to you?”
“要不要让我读点书给你听?”
“All right. If you want to, “ said the boy. “His face was very white and there were dark areas under his eyes. He lay still in the bed and seemed very detached from what was going on.
“好的,如果你想读的话,”孩子说。他的脸色十分苍白,有着黑眼圈。他躺在床上一动不动,对周围发生的一切漠然置之。
I read aloud from Howard Pyle's Book of pirates; but I could see he was not following what I was reading.
我朗读霍华德·派尔的《海盗故事》,但我看得出他并不在听。
“How do you feel, Schatz?” I asked him.
“你感觉怎么样,宝贝?”我问他。
“Just the same, so far,” he said.
“到目前为止,还是老样子,”他说。
I sat at the foot of the bed and read to myself while I waited for it to be time to give another capsule. It would have been natural for him to go to sleep, but when I looked up he was looking at the foot of the bed, looking very strangely.
我坐在床脚自个儿看书,等着到时间再给他服一粒药丸。
按理,他本该睡着了。然而,当我抬头看时,他却双眼盯着床脚,神情异常。
“Why don't you try to sleep? I'll wake you up for the medicine.”
“你为什么不睡一会儿呢?到吃药时,我会叫醒你的。”
“I'd rather stay awake.”
“我宁愿醒着。”
After a while he said to me, “You don't have to stay in here with me, Papa, if it bothers you.”
过了一会儿,他对我说:“你不必呆在这里陪我,爸爸,要是这事令你烦恼的话。”
“It doesn't bother me.”
“没有什么可烦恼的。”
“No, I mean you don't have to stay if it's going to bother you.”
“不,我是说,要是这事终将给你带来烦恼的话,你就不必呆在这里。”
I though perhaps he was a little lightheaded and after giving him the prescribed capsules at eleven o'clock I went out for a while. It was a bright, cold day, the ground covered with a sleet that had frozen so that it seemed as if all the bare trees, the bushes, the cut brush and all the grass and the bare ground had been varnished with ice, I took the young Irish setter for a walk up the road and along a frozen creek, but it was difficult to stand or walk on the glassy surface and the red dog slipped and slithered and I fell twice, hard, once dropping my gun and having it slide away over the ice.
我想,或许他有点儿神志不清了。11点钟,照规定给他服药后,我便出去了一会儿。那是个晴朗而又寒冷的日子,地上覆盖着一层已结成冰的冻雨,就像那光秃秃的树木,那灌木丛,那砍下的树枝,以及所有的草坪和空地都用冰漆过似的。我带着我那条幼小的爱尔兰猎犬,沿着大路和一条冰冻的小溪散步。但在这玻璃般平滑的地面上站立和行走是很困难的。红毛狗一路上连跌带滑,我自己也摔倒了两次,都是挺重的。一次猎枪也摔丢了,在冰上滑出去老远。