死亡约会03

Chapter 3,When Sarah had left the lounge, Dr Gerard sat where he was for some minutes. Then he strolled tothe table, picked up the latest number of Le Matin and strolled with it to a chair a few yards awayfrom the Boynton family. His curiosity was aroused.,He had at first been amused by the English girl’s interest in this American family, shrewdlydiagnosing that it was inspired by interest in one particular member of the family. But nowsomething out of the ordinary about this family party awakened ¹ in him the deeper, more impartialinterest of the scientist. He sensed that there was something here of definite psychological interest.,Very discreetly ², under the cover of his paper, he took stock of them. First the boy in whom thatattractive English girl took such a decided ³ interest. Yes, thought Gerard, definitely the type toappeal to her temperamentally. Sarah King had strength—she possessed ⁴ well-balanced nerves,cool wits and a resolute ⁵ will. Dr Gerard judged the young man to be sensitive, perceptive ⁶, diffidentand intensely suggestible. He noted ⁷ with a physician’s eye the obvious fact that the boy was at themoment in a state of high nervous tension. Dr Gerard wondered why. He was puzzled. Whyshould a young man whose physical health was obviously good, who was abroad ostensiblyenjoying himself, be in such a condition that nervous breakdown ⁸ was imminent ⁹?,The doctor turned his attention to the other members of the party. The girl with the chestnut ¹⁰ hairwas obviously Raymond’s sister. They were of the same racial type, small-boned, well-shaped,aristocratic looking. They had the same slender well-formed hands, the same clean line of jaw ¹¹, andthe same poise ¹² of the head on a long, slender neck. And the girl, too, was nervous…She madeslight involuntary nervous movements, her eyes were deeply shadowed underneath ¹³ and overbright. Her voice, when she spoke ¹⁴, was too quick and a shade breathless. She was watchful—alert—unable to relax.,‘And she is afraid, too,’ decided Dr Gerard. ‘Yes, she is afraid!’,‘We might go to Solomon’s Stables?’ ‘Would that be too much for Mother?’ ‘The Wailing ¹⁶ Wallin the morning?’ ‘The Temple, of course—the Mosque ¹⁷ of Omar they call it—I wonder why?’,‘Because it’s been made into a Moslem ¹⁸ mosque, of course, Lennox.’,Ordinary commonplace tourist’s talk. And yet, somehow, Dr Gerard felt a queer conviction thatthese overheard scraps of dialogue were all singularly unreal. They were a mask—a cover forsomething that surged and eddied ¹⁹ underneath—something too deep and formless for words…Again he shot a covert ²⁰ glance from behind the shelter of Le Matin.,Lennox? That was the elder brother. The same family likeness ²¹ could be traced, but there was adifference. Lennox was not so highly strung; he was, Gerard decided, of a less nervoustemperament. But about him, too, there seemed something odd. There was no sign of musculartension about him as there was about the other two. He sat relaxed, limp. Puzzling, searchingamong memories of patients he had seen sitting like that in hospital wards ²², Gerard thought:,‘He is exhausted ²³—yes, exhausted with suffering. That look in the eyes—the look you see in awounded dog or a sick horse—dumb bestial ²⁴ endurance…It is odd, that…Physically there seemsnothing wrong with him…Yet there is no doubt that lately he has been through much suffering—mental suffering—now he no longer suffers—he endures dumbly—waiting, I think, for the blow tofall…What blow? Am I fancying all this? No, the man is waiting for something, for the end tocome. So cancer patients lie and wait, thankful that an anodyne ²⁵ dulls the pain a little…’,The public has been awakened to the full horror of the situation. 公众完全意识到了这一状况的可怕程度。 来自《简明英汉词典》,He had only known the perennial widow, the discreetly expensive Frenchwoman. 他只知道她是个永远那么年轻的寡妇，一个很会讲排场的法国女人 。