大多数古老的宅子里都会有些幽灵。有时会是个安静、善良的幽灵;有时候则是个闹哄哄的家伙,总是不停地摔门,咯啷咯啷地晃着锁链。 Most grand old houses have a family ghost of some kind. Sometimes it is a quiet and kindly ghost, and sometimes it is a noisy one, always banging doors and crashing about in chains. 坎特维尔古堡的幽灵就属于闹哄哄的那种,吵得一家大小全都睡不好觉。于是坎特维尔勋爵把房子卖给了奥蒂斯先生。这位可是美国人,一点儿也不怕什么幽灵。实际上,奥蒂斯夫妇和他们的孩子们——华盛顿、漂亮的弗吉尼娅、加上那对淘气的双胞胎兄弟——非常乐意住在一所有幽灵的宅子里。 The ghost at Canterville Chase is one of the noisy kind, and the family can’t get any sleep at night. So Lord Canterville sells the house to Mr Hiram B. Otis, who is an American and not at all worried about ghosts. In fact, Mr and Mrs Otis and their children Washington, pretty Virginia, and the twins, two noisy little boys are very happy to live in a house with a ghost. 但是幽灵可不乐意。他的职责就是吓唬人,而奥蒂斯一家对他那些拿手的把戏一点儿也不害怕。他们的头发没有被吓白,他们没有被吓得逃跑,他们也没有被吓晕——甚至连叫也不叫一声。还有,奥蒂斯家的那对双胞胎知道的把戏,竟比可怜的幽灵还多…… But the ghost is not happy. His job is to frighten people, and the Otis family aren’t frightened by any of his best tricks. Their hair doesn’t turn white, they don’t run away in terror, they don’t faint — they don’t even scream! And the Otis twins know more tricks than the poor ghost will ever know...
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接下来的五天幽灵都待在自己的房间里。他疲惫极了,感觉也不好。他决定不再去书房的地板上染血迹。
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For the next five days the ghost stayed in his room. He was very tired, and he didn’t feel well. He decided to stop putting the bloodstain on the library floor.
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“奥蒂斯一家不想要它,”他想,“所以他们不会拥有它!”
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The Otis family don’t want it,’ he thought, ’so they’re not going to have it!’
Ghostly appearances were different, of course. It was his job to appear in the passage once a week, and to ’Oooooh!’ and ’Aaaaagh!’ from the great window on the stairs on the first and third Wednesday in every month.
So for the next three Saturdays, as usual, he walked along the passages between midnight and three o’clock. But he didn’t want anybody to see or hear him. He took off his shoes and walked as quietly as he could. He wore a large black coat, and was careful to use Tammany’s Sun Oil on his chains. At first he didn’t want to, but one evening, while the family was at dinner, he went into Mr Otis’s bedroom and took the bottle. After a time, he saw that the oil was really very useful.
But the twins still went on with their tricks. They put things in his way in dark corners, and he fell over them. They put butter on the top stair, and one night his feet went from under him and he went crashing down the stairs to the bottom. This made him very angry, and he decided to visit the boys the next night, as the famous ’Duke with No Head’, and frighten them half to death.
He spent three hours getting ready, and was very pleased with how he looked. At a quarter past one he walked through the wall and moved silently through the passages to the twins’ bedroom.
The door was open a little way. Pushing it hard, the ghost walked into the room — and a heavy jug of water fell right down on him. At the same time, he heard the twins laughing in their beds.
The ghost — wet from top to bottom — turned and ran from the room. He did not stop until he was back in his room. The next day he was ill with a bad cold.
After this, the ghost stopped trying to frighten the American family. He walked silently round the passages in soft shoes, carrying an old gun, and tried to stay away from everyone.
The last of the tricks happened on the 19th of September. That night the ghost was wearing one of his favourite shrouds, and he decided to walk down to the library. He wanted to see what was left of the bloodstain. He was on his way there when two shapes jumped out of a dark corner of the passage and shouted ’BOO!’ in his ear.
The ghost was very frightened, of course, and ran to the stairs. But Washington Otis was waiting for him there, with a big garden-syringe. There were enemies on all sides! ’Aaaagh!’ the ghost cried, then turned quickly and disappeared into the fireplace, which, luckily for him, was not lit. When at last he got back to his room, he was terribly dirty, with black all over his favourite shroud, and very unhappy.
After this, nobody saw him again at night. The twins waited to play tricks on him three or four times. They put nutshells all along the passages, which made walking around difficult for everyone in the house, but the ghost did not appear.
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“哎呀,他都不乐意出来了。”双胞胎说。
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Oh dear, he’s too unhappy to come out,’ they said.
Mr Otis began work again on his book. Mrs Otis gave a number of big ’American parties’ for the English people who lived near them. The boys played in the house and garden, and Virginia went horse-riding with the young Duke of Cheshire. He was staying at Canterville Chase for the last week of his holidays.
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奥蒂斯先生给坎特维尔勋爵去了一封信说:“我们觉得那个幽灵已经离开了。”
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Mr Otis wrote a letter to Lord Canterville and said: ’We think that the ghost has gone away.’
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坎特维尔勋爵回信说:“我真高兴听到这消息!”
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And Lord Canterville wrote back: ’I am happy to hear it!’
But Mr Otis was wrong. The ghost was still in the house. It is true that he was ill, but he was not yet ready to stop his ghostly work. The young Duke of Cheshire was staying in the house, and the ghost knew the Duke’s family well. He once appeared before the brother of the Duke’s grandfather as the Horseman of Death. The poor man’s hair turned white in one night, and for the rest of his life he could only say the words, ’Turn out the light, turn out the light.’ Now the ghost wanted to do the Horseman of Death for the young Duke too.
He got everything ready, but in the end he never left his room. He was too frightened of the twins to go out, and the young Duke slept happily in his bed, thinking of pretty Virginia.