福尔摩斯-魔鬼之足 The Devil's Foot

The Devil's Foot,The Adventure of the Devil's Foot,Arthur Conan Doyle,In recording ² from time to time some of the curious experiences and interesting recollections which I associate with my long and intimate friendship with Mr. Sherlock Holmes, I have continually been faced by difficulties caused by his own aversion to publicity ⁴. To his sombre and cynical ⁵ spirit all popular applause was always abhorrent ⁶, and nothing amused him more at the end of a successful case than to hand over the actual exposure to some orthodox official, and to listen with a mocking smile to the general chorus of misplaced congratulation. It was indeed this attitude upon the part of my friend and certainly not any lack of interesting material which has caused me of late years to lay very few of my records before the public. My participation ⁷ in some if his adventures was always a privilege which entailed ⁸ discretion ⁹ and reticence ¹⁰ upon me.,It was, then, with considerable surprise that I received a telegram from Homes last Tuesday—he has never been known to write where a telegram would serve—in the following terms:,Why not tell them of the Cornish horror—strangest case I have handled.,It was, then, in the spring of the year 1897 that Holmes's iron constitution showed some symptoms of giving way in the face of constant hard work of a most exacting ¹² kind, aggravated ¹³, perhaps, by occasional indiscretions of his own. In March of that year Dr. Moore Agar, of Harley Street, whose dramatic introduction to Holmes I may some day recount, gave positive injunctions that the famous private agent lay aside all his cases and surrender himself to complete rest if he wished to avert ¹⁵ an absolute breakdown ¹⁶. The state of his health was not a matter in which he himself took the faintest interest, for his mental detachment was absolute, but he was induced at last, on the threat of being permanently ¹⁷ disqualified from work, to give himself a complete change of scene and air. Thus it was that in the early spring of that year we found ourselves together in a small cottage near Poldhu Bay, at the further extremity ¹⁸ of the Cornish peninsula.,It was a singular spot, and one peculiarly well suited to the grim humour of my patient. From the windows of our little whitewashed ¹⁹ house, which stood high upon a grassy ²⁰ headland, we looked down upon the whole sinister ²¹ semicircle of Mounts Bay, that old death trap of sailing vessels ²², with its fringe of black cliffs and surge-swept reefs on which innumerable seamen ²³ have met their end. With a northerly breeze it lies placid ²⁴ and sheltered, inviting ²⁵ the storm-tossed craft to tack ²⁶ into it for rest and protection.,Then come the sudden swirl ²⁷ round of the wind, the blistering ²⁸ gale ²⁹ from the south-west, the dragging anchor, the lee shore, and the last battle in the creaming breakers. The wise mariner ³⁰ stands far out from that evil place.,On the land side our surroundings were as sombre as on the sea. It was a country of rolling moors ³¹, lonely and dun-colored, with an occasional church tower to mark the site of some old-world village. In every direction upon these moors there were traces of some vanished race which had passed utterly ³⁴ away, and left as it sole record strange monuments of stone, irregular mounds ³⁵ which contained the burned ashes of the dead, and curious earthworks which hinted at prehistoric ³⁶ strife ³⁷. The glamour ³⁸ and mystery of the place, with its sinister atmosphere of forgotten nations, appealed to the imagination of my friend, and he spent much of his time in long walks and solitary ³⁹ meditations ⁴⁰ upon the moor ¹⁴. The ancient Cornish language had also arrested his attention, and he had, I remember, conceived the idea that it was akin ⁴¹ to the Chaldean, and had been largely derived ⁴² from the Phoenician traders in tin. He had received a consignment ⁴³ of books upon philology ⁴⁴ and was settling down to develop this thesis when suddenly, to my sorrow and to his unfeigned delight, we found ourselves, even in that land of dreams, plunged ⁴⁵ into a problem at our very doors which was more intense, more engrossing ⁴⁶, and infinitely ⁴⁷ more mysterious than any of those which had driven us from London. Our simple life and peaceful, healthy routine were violently interrupted, and we were precipitated ⁴⁸ into the midst of a series of events which caused the utmost excitement not only in Cornwall but throughout the whole west of England. Many of my readers may retain some recollection of what was called at the time “The Cornish Horror,” though a most imperfect account of the matter reached the London press. Now, after thirteen years, I will give the true details of this inconceivable affair to the public.,I have said that scattered ⁵⁰ towers marked the villages which dotted this part of Cornwall. The nearest of these was the hamlet of Tredannick Wollas, where the cottages of a couple of hundred inhabitants clustered round an ancient, moss-grown church. The vicar of the parish, Mr. Roundhay, was something of an archaeologist, and as such Holmes had made his acquaintance. He was a middle-aged ⁵¹ man, portly and affable, with a considerable fund of local lore ³². At his invitation we had taken tea at the vicarage and had come to know, also, Mr. Mortimer Tregennis, an independent gentleman, who increased the clergyman's scanty ⁵² resources by taking rooms in his large, straggling house. The vicar, being a bachelor, was glad to come to such an arrangement, though he had little in common with his lodger ⁵³, who was a thin, dark, spectacled man, with a stoop which gave the impression of actual, physical deformity. I remember that during our short visit we found the vicar garrulous ⁵⁴, but his lodger strangely reticent ⁵⁵, a sad-faced, introspective man, sitting with averted ⁵⁶ eyes, brooding apparently ⁵⁷ upon his own affairs.,The advent of the Euro will redefine Europe.欧元的出现将重新定义欧洲
。,How long will the recording of the song take?录下这首歌得花多少时间？