TO keep along the edge of the gorge was not so easy as it had looked. Before they had gone many yards they were confronted with young fir woods growing on the very edge, and after they had tried to go through these, stooping and pushing for about ten minutes, they realised that, in there, it would take them an hour to do half a mile. So they came back and out again and decided to go round the fir wood. This took them much farther to their right than they wanted to go, far out of sight of the cliffs and out of sound of the river, till they began to be afraid they had lost it altogether. Nobody knew the time, but it was getting to the hottest part of the day.
When they were able at last to go back to the edge of the gorge (nearly a mile below the point from which they had started) they found the cliffs on their side of it a good deal lower and more broken. Soon they found a way down into the gorge and continued the journey at the river’s edge. But first they had a rest and a long drink. No one was talking any more about breakfast, or even dinner, with Caspian.
They may have been wise to stick to the Rush instead of going along the top. It kept them sure of their direction: and ever since the fir wood they had all been afraid of being forced too far out of their course and losing themselves in the wood. It was an old and pathless forest, and you could not keep anything like a straight course in it. Patches of hopeless brambles, fallen trees, boggy places and dense undergrowth would be always getting in your way. But the gorge of the Rush was not at all a nice place for travelling either. I mean, it was not a nice place for people in a hurry. For an afternoon’s ramble ending in a picnic tea it would have been delightful. It had everything you could want on an occasion of that sort—rumbling waterfalls, silver cascades, deep, amber-coloured pools, mossy rocks, and deep moss on the banks in which you could sink over your ankles, every kind of fern, jewel-like dragon flies, sometimes a hawk overhead and once (Peter and Trumpkin both thought) an eagle. But of course what the children and the Dwarf wanted to see as soon as possible was the Great River below them, and Beruna, and the way to Aslan’s How.
As they went on, the Rush began to fall more and more steeply. Their journey became more and more of a climb and less and less of a walk—in places even a dangerous climb over slippery rock with a nasty drop into dark chasms, and the river roaring angrily at the bottom.
You may be sure they watched the cliffs on their left eagerly for any sign of a break or any place where they could climb them; but those cliffs remained cruel. It was maddening, because everyone knew that if once they were out of the gorge on that side, they would have only a smooth slope and a fairly short walk to Caspian’s headquarters.
The boys and the Dwarf were now in favor of lighting a fire and cooking their bear-meat. Susan didn’t want this; she only wanted, as she said, “to get on and finish it and get out of these beastly woods”. Lucy was far too tired and miserable to have any opinion about anything. But as there was no dry wood to be had, it mattered very little what anyone thought. The boys began to wonder if raw meat was really as nasty as they had always been told. Trumpkin assured them it was.
Of course, if the children had attempted a journey like this a few days ago in England, they would have been worn out. I think I have explained before how Narnia was altering them. Even Lucy was by now, so to speak, only one-third of a little girl going to boarding school for the first time, and two-thirds of Queen Lucy of Narnia.
The river gorge had just made a bend and the whole view spread out beneath them. They could see open country stretching before them to the horizon and, between it and them, the broad silver ribbon of the Great River. They could see the specially broad and shallow place which had once been the Fords of Beruna but was now spanned by a long, many-arched bridge. There was a little town at the far end of it.
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11
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“天啊,”埃德蒙说,“我们就在小镇那里打了贝鲁纳战役!”
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11
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“By Jove,” said Edmund. “We fought the Battle of Beruna just where that town is!”
This cheered the boys more than anything. You can’t help feeling stronger when you look at a place where you won a glorious victory not to mention a kingdom, hundreds of years ago. Peter and Edmund were soon so busy talking about the battle that they forgot their sore feet and the heavy drag of their mail shirts on their shoulders. The Dwarf was interested too.
They were all getting on at a quicker pace now. The going became easier. Though there were still sheer cliffs on their left, the ground was becoming lower on their right. Soon it was no longer a gorge at all, only a valley. There were no more waterfalls and presently they were in fairly thick woods again.
Then—all at once—whizz, and a sound rather like the stroke of a woodpecker. The children were still wondering where (ages ago) they had heard a sound just like that and why they disliked it so, when Trumpkin shouted, “Down,” at the same moment forcing Lucy (who happened to be next to him) flat down into the bracken. Peter, who had been looking up to see if he could spot a squirrel, had seen what it was—a long cruel arrow had sunk into a tree trunk just above his head. As he pulled Susan down and dropped himself, another came rasping over his shoulder and struck the ground at his side.
They turned and wriggled along uphill, under the bracken amid clouds of horribly buzzing flies. Arrows whizzed round them. One struck Susan’s helmet with a sharp ping and glanced off. They crawled quicker. Sweat poured off them. Then they ran, stooping nearly double. The boys held their swords in their hands for fear they would trip them up.
It was heart-breaking work—all uphill again, back over the ground they had already travelled. When they felt that they really couldn’t run any more, even to save their lives, they all dropped down in the damp moss beside a waterfall and behind a big boulder, panting. They were surprised to see how high they had already got.
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18
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他们凝神倾听,没有听到追踪的声响。
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18
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They listened intently and heard no sound of pursuit.
(1) Bottles and battledores:直译为“瓶子和板羽球球板”,这两个英文单词押头韵,不作字面义解,用作感叹词。
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19
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“So that’s all right,” said Trumpkin, drawing a deep breath. “They’re not searching the wood. Only sentries, I expect. But it means that Miraz has an outpost down there. Bottles and battledores! though, it was a near thing.”
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20
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“把大家带上这条路,我真该掴自己的脑袋。”彼得说。
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20
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“I ought to have my head smacked for bringing us this way at all,” said Peter.
“On the contrary, your Majesty,” said the Dwarf. “For one thing it wasn’t you, it was your royal brother, King Edmund, who first suggested going by Glasswater.”
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22
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“恐怕D.L.F.说对了。”埃德蒙说,出状况以来他的确把这点给忘掉了。
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“I’m afraid the D.L.F.’s right,” said Edmund, who had quite honestly forgotten this ever since things began going wrong.
“And for another,” continued Trumpkin, “if we’d gone my way, we’d have walked straight into that new outpost, most likely; or at least had just the same trouble avoiding it. I think this Glasswater route has turned out for the best.”
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24
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“因祸得福。”苏珊说。
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“A blessing in disguise,” said Susan.
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“这祸可够大的!”埃德蒙说。
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“Some disguise!” said Edmund.
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26
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“我想我们现在只能沿着峡谷往上走。”露西说。
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“I suppose we’ll have to go right up the gorge again now,” said Lucy.
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“露,你真是个好人,”彼得说,“你本可以说‘早该听我的’,可你没有。上路吧。”
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“Lu, you’re a hero,” said Peter. “That’s the nearest you’ve got today to saying I told you so. Let’s get on.”
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28
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“等我们进入树林,”特鲁普金说,“不管你们说什么,我都要生火做晚餐。不过得先离开这里。”
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28
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“And as soon as we’re well up into the forest,” said Trumpkin, “whatever anyone says, I’m going to light a fire and cook supper. But we must get well away from here.”
There is no need to describe how they toiled back up the gorge. It was pretty hard work, but oddly enough everyone felt more cheerful. They were getting their second wind; and the word supper had had a wonderful effect.
They reached the fir wood which had caused them so much trouble while it was still daylight, and bivouacked in a hollow just above it. It was tedious gathering the fire wood; but it was grand when the fire blazed up and they began producing the damp and smeary parcels of bear-meat which would have been so very unattractive to anyone who had spent the day indoors. The Dwarf had splendid ideas about cookery. Each apple (they still had a few of these) was wrapped up in bear-meat—as if it was to be apple dumpling with meat instead of pastry, only much thicker— and spiked on a sharp stick and then roasted. And the juice of the apple worked all through the meat, like apple sauce with roast pork. Bear that has lived too much on other animals is not very nice, but bear that has had plenty of honey and fruit is excellent, and this turned out to be that sort of bear. It was a truly glorious meal. And, of course, no washing up—only lying back and watching the smoke from Trumpkin’s pipe and stretching one’s tired legs and chatting. Everyone felt quite hopeful now about finding King Caspian tomorrow and defeating Miraz in a few days. It may not have been sensible of them to feel like this, but they did.
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很快,他们一个接一个地睡着了。
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31
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They dropped off to sleep one by one, but all pretty quickly.
Lucy woke out of the deepest sleep you can imagine, with the feeling that the voice she liked best in the world had been calling her name. She thought at first it was her father’s voice, but that did not seem quite right. Then she thought it was Peter’s voice, but that did not seem to fit either. She did not want to get up; not because she was still tired—on the contrary she was wonderfully rested and all the aches had gone from her bones—but because she felt so extremely happy and comfortable. She was looking straight up at the Narnian moon, which is larger than ours, and at the starry sky, for the place where they had bivouacked was comparatively open.
“Lucy,” came the call again, neither her father’s voice nor Peter’s. She sat up, trembling with excitement but not with fear. The moon was so bright that the whole forest landscape around her was almost as clear as day, though it looked wilder. Behind her was the fir wood; away to her right the jagged cliff-tops on the far side of the gorge; straight ahead, open grass to where a glade of trees began about a bow-shot away. Lucy looked very hard at the trees of that glade.
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34
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“哎呀,我确信他们在移动,”她自言自语,“他们在走动。”
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“Why, I do believe they’re moving,” she said to her self. “They’re walking about.”
She got up, her heart beating wildly, and walked towards them. There was certainly a noise in the glade, a noise such as trees make in a high wind, though there was no wind tonight. Yet it was not exactly an ordinary tree-noise either. Lucy felt there was a tune in it, but she could not catch the tune any more than she had been able to catch the words when the trees had so nearly talked to her the night before. But there was, at least, a lilt; she felt her own feet wanting to dance as she got nearer. And now there was no doubt that the trees were really moving—moving in and out through one another as if in a complicated country dance. (“And I suppose,” thought Lucy, “when trees dance, it must be a very, very country dance indeed.”) She was almost among them now.
The first tree she looked at seemed at first glance to be not a tree at all but a huge man with a shaggy beard and great bushes of hair. She was not frightened: she had seen such things before. But when she looked again he was only a tree, though he was still moving. You couldn’t see whether he had feet or roots, of course, because when trees move they don’t walk on the surface of the earth; they wade in it as we do in water. The same thing happened with every tree she looked at. At one moment they seemed to be the friendly, lovely giant and giantess forms which the tree-people put on when some good magic has called them into full life: next moment they all looked like trees again. But when they looked like trees, it was like strangely human trees, and when they looked like people, it was like strangely branchy and leafy people—and all the time that queer lilting, rustling, cool, merry noise.
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37
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“他们就要苏醒了,但还不完全。”露西说道。她清楚自己是完全清醒的,比谁都清醒。
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37
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“They are almost awake, not quite,” said Lucy. She knew she herself was wide awake, wider than anyone usually is.
She went fearlessly in among them, dancing herself as, she leaped this way and that to avoid being run into by these huge partners. But she was only half interested in them. She wanted to get beyond them to something else; it was from beyond them that the dear voice had called.
She soon got through them (half wondering whether she had been using her arms to push branches aside, or to take hands in a Great Chain with big dancers who stooped to reach her) for they were really a ring of trees round a central open place. She stepped out from among their shifting confusion of lovely lights and shadows.
A circle of grass, smooth as a lawn, met her eyes, with dark trees dancing all round it. And then—oh joy! For he was there: the huge Lion, shining white in the moonlight, with his huge black shadow underneath him.
But for the movement of his tail he might have been a stone lion, but Lucy never thought of that. She never stopped to think whether he was a friendly lion or not. She rushed to him. She felt her heart would burst if she lost a moment. And the next thing she knew was that she was kissing him and putting her arms as far round his neck as she could and burying her face in the beautiful rich silkiness of his mane.
The great beast rolled over on his side so that Lucy fell, half sitting and half lying between his front paws. He bent forward and just touched her nose with his tongue. His warm breath came all round her. She gazed up into the large wise face.
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44
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“欢迎,孩子。”他说。
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44
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“Welcome, child,” he said.
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45
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“阿斯兰,”露西说,“你变得更高大了。”
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45
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“Aslan,” said Lucy, “you’re bigger.”
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46
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“那是因为你岁数增长了,小家伙。”他回答。
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“That is because you are older, little one,” answered he.
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47
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“难道不是因为你也年长了吗?”
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47
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“Not because you are?”
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48
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“我不会老。但你每长大一岁,就会发现我变得更高大。”
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48
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“I am not. But every year you grow, you will find me bigger.”
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49
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她一度太高兴了,不愿说话。但阿斯兰开了口。
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49
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For a time she was so happy that she did not want to speak. But Aslan spoke.
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50
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“露西,”他说,“我们不能长时间在这儿躺着。你现在有事要做,今天浪费了很多时间。”
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50
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“Lucy,” he said, “we must not lie here for long. You have work in hand, and much time has been lost today.”
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51
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“是的,很遗憾。”露西说,“我明明见到你了。他们不肯相信我。他们都那么……”
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51
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“Yes, wasn’t it a shame?” said Lucy. “I saw you all right. They wouldn’t believe me. They’re all so—”
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52
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阿斯兰的身体深处传来一声极低沉的吼声。
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From somewhere deep inside Aslan’s body there came the faintest suggestion of a growl.
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53
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“对不起,”露西多少明白他的情绪,“我并不想说别人的坏话。可怎么说那不是我的错,不是吗?”
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53
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“I’m sorry,” said Lucy, who understood some of his moods. “I didn’t mean to start slanging the others. But it wasn’t my fault anyway, was it?”
“Oh, Aslan,” said Lucy. “You don’t mean it was? How could I—I couldn’t have left the others and come up to you alone, how could I? Don’t look at me like that... oh well, I suppose I could. Yes, and it wouldn’t have been alone, I know, not if I was with you. But what would have been the good?”
“But anyone can find out what will happen,” said Aslan. “If you go back to the others now, and wake them up; and tell them you have seen me again; and that you must all get up at once and follow me—what will happen? There is only one way of finding out.”
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61
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“你想要我这么做?”露西吃惊地说。
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61
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“Do you mean that is what you want me to do?” gasped Lucy.
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“是的,小家伙。”阿斯兰说。
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“Yes, little one,” said Aslan.
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“其他人能看得见你吗?”露西询问。
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63
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“Will the others see you too?” asked Lucy.
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64
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“开始肯定看不见,”阿斯兰说,“后面会看见,那要视情形而定。”
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64
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“Certainly not at first,” said Aslan. “Later on, it depends.”
“Oh dear, oh dear,” said Lucy. “And I was so pleased at finding you again. And I thought you’d let me stay. And I thought you’d come roaring in and frighten all the enemies away—like last time. And now everything is going to be horrid.”
Lucy buried her head in his mane to hide from his face. But there have been magic in his mane. She could feel lion-strength going into . Quite suddenly she sat up.
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70
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“对不起,阿斯兰,”她说,“我现在准备好了。”
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70
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“I’m sorry, Aslan,” she said. “I’m ready now.”
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71
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“你现在有了狮子的力量,”阿斯兰说,“纳尼亚将要复兴。来吧。我们得抓紧时间。”
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71
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“Now you are a lioness,” said Aslan. “And now all Narnia will be renewed. But come. We have no time to lose.”
He got up and walked with stately, noiseless paces back to the belt of dancing trees through which she had just come: and Lucy went with him, laying a rather tremulous hand on his mane. The trees parted to let them through and for one second assumed their human forms completely. Lucy had a glimpse of tall and lovely wood-gods and wood-goddesses all bowing to the Lion; next moment they were trees again, but still bowing, with such graceful sweeps of branch and trunk that their bowing was itself a kind of dance.
“Now, child,” said Aslan, when they had left the trees behind them, “I will wait here. Go and wake the others and tell them to follow. If they will not, then you at least must follow me alone.”
It is a terrible thing to have to wake four people, all older than yourself and all very tired, for the purpose of telling them something they probably won’t believe and making them do something they certainly won’t like. “I mustn’t think about it, I must just do it,” thought Lucy.
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75
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她先走向彼得,摇晃他。“彼得,”她在他耳边低语,“醒来。快。阿斯兰来了。他说我们得马上跟他走。”
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75
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She went to Peter first and shook him. “Peter,” she whispered in his ear, “wake up. Quick. Aslan is here. He says we’ve got to follow him at once.”
“Certainly, Lu. Whatever you like,” said Peter unexpectedly. This was encouraging, but as Peter instantly rolled round and went to sleep again it wasn’t much use.
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77
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下一个是苏珊。苏珊确实醒了过来,但只是用她那很令人讨厌的大人腔说:“你在做梦吧,露西。接着睡吧。”
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77
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Then she tried Susan. Susan did really wake up, but only to say in her most annoying grown-up voice, “You’ve been dreaming, Lucy. Go to sleep again.”
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78
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下一个她去对付埃德蒙。费了很大劲儿才把他给弄醒,不过她终于成功了,他是真醒了,坐了起来。
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78
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She tackled Edmund next. It was very difficult to wake him, but when at last she had done it he was really awake and sat up.
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79
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“嗯?”他不高兴地说,“你说什么呢?”
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79
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“Eh?” he said in a grumpy voice. “What are you talking about?”
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80
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她又说了一遍。这是最难做的部分之一,因为她每讲一次,可信度就降低一次。
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80
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She said it all over again. This was one of the worst parts of her job, for each time she said it, it sounded less convincing.
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81
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“阿斯兰!”埃德蒙说,跳了起来,“好哇!在哪儿呢?”
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81
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“Aslan!” said Edmund, jumping up. “Hurray! Where?”
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82
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露西转身对着一个方向,她能看见狮王正等在那里,他那耐心的眼睛注视着她。“那里。”她手指着那里。
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82
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Lucy turned back to where she could see the Lion waiting, his patient eyes fixed upon her. “There,” she said, pointing.
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83
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“哪有?”埃德蒙又问。
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83
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“Where?” asked Edmund again.
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84
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“那里。那里。你看不到吗?就在树的这一头。”
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84
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“There. There. Don’t you see? Just this side of the trees.”
Edmund stared hard for a while and then said, “No. There’s nothing there. You’ve got dazzled and muddled with the moonlight. One does, you know. I thought I saw something for a moment myself. It’s only an optical what-do-you-call-it.”
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86
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“我一直都能看见他,”露西说,“他正看着我们呢。”
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86
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“I can see him all the time,” said Lucy. “He’s looking straight at us.”
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87
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“那为什么我看不见他?”
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87
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“Then why can’t I see him?”
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88
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“他说过你可能看不到。”
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88
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“He said you mightn’t be able to.”
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89
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“为什么?”
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89
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“Why?”
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90
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“不清楚。他就是那么说的。”
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90
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“I don’t know. That’s what he said.”
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91
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“唉,真麻烦,”埃德蒙说,“我真希望你不要有幻视的毛病。不过,我觉得还是叫醒其他人吧。”
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91
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“Oh, bother it all,” said Edmund. “I do wish you wouldn’t keep on seeing things. But I suppose we’ll have to wake the others.”