There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying,“She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance; but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner-something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were-she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”

“What does Bessie say I have done?”I asked.

“Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner. Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.”

A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement.

Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.

I returned to my book—Bewick's History of British Birds: the letterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of“the solitary rocks and promontories”by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape-

“Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls,

Boils round the naked, melancholy isles

Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge

Pours in among the stormy Hebrides.”

Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with“the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space, —that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold.”Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children's brains, but strangely impressive. The words in these introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking. I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard, with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the hour of eventide.

The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine phantoms.

The fiend pinning down the thief's pack behind him, I passed over quickly: it was an object of terror.

So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows.

Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it, and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads;or(as at a later period I discovered)from the pages of Pamela,and Henry,Earl of Moreland.

With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The breakfast-room door opened.

“Boh! Madam Mope!”cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he found the room apparently empty.

“Where the dickens is she!”he continued.“Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to his sisters) Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rain-bad animal!”

“It is well I drew the curtain,”thought I; and I wished fervently he might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once-

“She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack.”

And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged forth by the said Jack.

“What do you want?”I asked, with awkward diffidence.

“Say,‘What do you want, Master Reed?’”was the answer.“I want you to come here;”and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.

John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month or two,“on account of his delicate health.”Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from home; but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John's sallowness was owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining after home.

John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day,but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his inflictions; the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back.

Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair.

“That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since,”said he,“and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!”

Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult.

“What were you doing behind the curtain?”he asked.

“I was reading.”

“Show the book.”

I returned to the window and fetched it thence.

“You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama's expense. Now, I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they are mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows.”

I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its climax;other feelings succeeded.

“Wicked and cruel boy!”I said.“You are like a murderer-you are like a slave-driver-you are like the Roman emperors!”

I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome, and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, etc. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never thought thus to have declared aloud.

“What! what!”he cried.“Did she say that to me? Did you hear her, Eliza and Georgiana? Won't I tell mama? but first—”

He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations for the time predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic sort. I don't very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me“Rat! Rat!”and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted: I heard the words-

“Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!”

“Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!”

Then Mrs. Reed subjoined-

“Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.”Four hands were immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs.

那天，散步是不可能了。其實，早晨我們一直在落盡樹葉的灌木林中漫步了一個小時；但是，從午飯時起（沒有客人來訪時，里德太太吃飯早），凜冽的冬風就刮了起來，隨之而來的是昏暗的陰云和徹骨的苦雨，所以現在不可能再到戶外活動了。

我對此感到高興。我從不喜歡長時間散步，尤其是在寒冷的下午。我覺得，陰冷的黃昏回家十分可怕，手指和腳趾被凍僵不說，還要受到保姆貝茜斥責，挺讓人傷心的，加上自己覺得體質不如里德家的伊萊扎、約翰和喬治亞娜，也自慚形穢。

剛才說到的伊萊扎、約翰和喬治亞娜此刻都在客廳里，簇擁在他們媽媽的身邊：她斜倚在爐邊的沙發上，寶貝們圍在她的四周（此時沒有爭吵也沒有哭叫），看上去幸福美滿。而我呢，她恩準我不用跟他們在一起，并說很遺憾，不得不讓我在遠處待著。不過，要是她沒有聽到貝茜說，并能親眼發現，我在盡心盡力、認認真真地養成一種比較友善天真的性情，培養更為迷人輕快的舉止——可以說是更輕松、更率直、更自然——她當真不讓我享受那些只打算送給滿足快樂的小孩子的特權。

“貝茜說我做過什么？”我問。

“簡，我不喜歡挑剔或發問的人，況且，小孩子這樣跟大人頂嘴真討厭。找個地方坐下，不會和顏悅色說話，就保持沉默。”

早餐室鄰接客廳，我溜了進去。那兒有一個書架。我小心翼翼地挑選帶有插圖的，很快就給自己找了一本書。我爬上窗臺，蜷縮雙腳，像土耳其人那樣盤腿而坐，然后把波紋毛呢紅窗簾拉得幾乎合在一起，就像被放在加倍隱蔽的神龕上一樣。

猩紅色窗幔的皺褶擋住了我右側的視線；左側是光亮的玻璃窗，這使我既免受十一月陰沉天氣的影響，又不跟外界隔開。在翻動書頁時，我不時地端詳那個冬日下午的景色。只見遠處是一片白蒙蒙的云霧，近處是一塊濕漉漉的草地和被暴風雨摧殘的灌木叢，同時一陣持久悲愴的強風將連綿不斷的大雨狂掃而過。

我又看起了書——那是比威克的《英國鳥類史》：一般來說，我對其中的文字幾乎不喜歡；不過，有幾頁導言，盡管我是孩子，我也不能當成空頁翻過。這些導言寫到了海鳥的棲息地，寫到了只有海鳥棲居的“那些孤立的巖石與海岬”，寫到了從最南端的林德斯內斯角或岬角到北部海岬，布滿了小島的挪威海岸——

那兒北冰洋掀起的滾滾巨渦，

在極地最遠端的凄荒小島周圍咆哮

大西洋的洶涌波濤

涌入了澎湃的赫布里底群島。

還有的我也不能不看就翻過去，那就是書里提到的拉普蘭、西伯利亞、斯匹次卑爾根群島、新地島、冰島和格陵蘭荒涼的海岸、“北極區廣闊的地帶，以及那些沉悶的荒涼地區——那個雪霜的儲存庫，世紀連綿的寒冬積聚的堅冰，像阿爾卑斯山的層層高地一樣光滑明亮，包圍著地極，把與日俱增的極度嚴寒集中在一處。”我對這些慘白的地域有自己的看法，模模糊糊，朦朦朧朧，就像孩子們似是而非的念頭浮現在腦海里一樣，但留下的印象卻異常深刻。導言中的這幾頁文字跟后面的小插圖連在一起，使獨立在巨浪滾滾的大海中的巖石、擱淺在荒涼海岸上的破船和透過云帶俯視著沉船的慘白冷月產生了意義。我說不清是什么情緒彌漫在孤寂的教堂墓地，題有碑文的墓碑、大門、兩棵樹、低低的地平線、破敗的圍墻，以及一輪初升的新月，都表明是黃昏時分。

兩艘輪船停泊在沉睡的海面上，我以為它們是海上幽靈。

魔鬼從后面按住了小偷的背包，樣子非常可怕，我很快翻了過去。

同樣可怕的是那個頭上長角的黑色怪物，獨坐在巖石上面，遠眺著一群人圍著絞架。

每幅畫都講了一個故事，盡管我理解力欠缺，情感還不完善，它們往往顯得神秘莫測，但永遠都趣味盎然，就像冬天的夜晚貝茜碰巧心情不錯時講述的故事一樣有趣。這時，貝茜會把熨衣架搬到保育室的壁爐邊，讓我們圍坐在四周。她一邊熨里德太太的蕾絲褶邊，把睡帽邊沿燙出褶裥，一邊讓我們迫不及待地傾聽她講的一段段愛情和冒險故事，這些故事都取自古老的童話和其他的民歌，或者（我后來發現）取自《帕梅拉》和《莫蘭伯爵亨利》。

比威克的書放在我的膝蓋上，我很快樂，至少是自得其樂。我只是擔心有人打擾，但打擾來得太快了。早餐室的門打開了。

“噓！憂郁小姐！”約翰·里德的聲音喊道，隨后，他暫停下來，發現房間里顯然沒人。

“她到底在哪兒！”他繼續說道，“麗齊！喬琪！（喊著他的姐妹）瓊不在這兒。告訴媽媽，她跑到了外面的雨地里——壞家伙！”

“幸好我拉上了窗簾，”我暗想，熱切希望他不會發現我的藏身處；約翰·里德自己不會發現，他眼睛不尖，頭腦也不靈；但是，伊萊扎剛把頭伸進門里，就立刻說道——

“她自然是在窗臺上，杰克。”

我馬上走出來，因為一想到會被杰克拽出來，我就渾身顫抖。

“你想要什么？”我尷尬難堪缺乏自信地問道。

“要說‘你想要什么，里德少爺？'”這就是回答。“我要你過來這兒。”說著，他坐在一把扶手椅上，打了個手勢，示意我走近，站在他的面前。

約翰·里德是一個十四歲的男生，比我大四歲，因為我才十歲。論年齡，他高大結實，但皮膚暗黑，病懨懨的；面容寬闊，五官粗獷，四肢笨重，手腳寬大。他習慣狼吞虎咽，這使他脾氣暴躁，目光暗淡模糊，臉頰松弛。他現在本該在學校里，他的媽媽卻把他領回家住了一兩個月，“因為他身體虛弱”。老師邁爾斯先生斷言，要是家里少送些蛋糕和糖果，他就會過得很好；但是，母親的心卻討厭這樣苛刻的看法，倒傾向于一種更禮貌的想法，就是約翰因為過于用功，也許還因為想家，所以才膚色灰黃。

約翰對他的母親和姐妹們沒有多少感情，對我也極其反感。他欺侮我，懲罰我，不是一星期兩三次，也不是一天一兩次，而是持續不斷：我每一根神經都怕他，他走近時，我身子骨里的每一小塊肌肉都會收縮。有時我會被他嚇得六神無主，因為無論是他的威脅還是懲罰，我都投訴無門。仆人們不愿意站在我這邊得罪他們的少爺，里德太太對這件事則裝聾作啞：她的兒子打我罵我，她從來都熟視無睹、充耳不聞，盡管他不時地當著她的面這樣做，而在她的背后更是頻繁。

我對約翰順從慣了，就走到他的椅邊。他用了大約三分鐘，在不損壞舌根的情況下，盡可能沖我伸出舌頭。我知道他會很快動手，我一邊害怕挨打，一邊若有所思地望著這個馬上要動手者的可惡丑態。我不知道他是不是看出了我的心思，因為他二話沒說，突然狠狠地打了我一拳。我踉蹌了一下，從他的椅邊倒退了一兩步，才站穩了腳跟。

“誰讓你剛才無禮回答媽媽，”他說，“誰讓你偷偷躲在窗簾后面，誰讓你兩分鐘前眼里露出那種樣子，你這耗子！”

我習慣了約翰·里德的辱罵，從來不想去回應；我關心的是怎樣去忍受辱罵之后肯定跟來的毆打。

“你剛才在窗簾后面干什么？”他問。

“我在看書。”

“把書拿出來。”

我回到窗邊，從那兒取出那本書。

“你無權拿我們的書；媽媽說，你是一個靠別人生活的人；你沒錢；你的父親什么也沒有給你留下；你應該去要飯，不應該跟像我們這樣體面人家的孩子一起住在這兒，跟我們吃一樣的飯，穿我們的媽媽掏錢買的衣服。現在，你竟敢翻找我的書架，我要教訓你，因為這些書都是我的；整個房子都是我的，要么過幾年就是我的了。去，站在門邊，別擋著鏡子和窗戶。”

我這樣做了，起先不知道他是什么意圖；但是，當看到他舉起那本書，懸在那兒，站起來要向我用力扔過來時，我驚叫了一聲，本能地跳開，但跳得不夠快，書被猛地扔過來，砸中了我，我摔倒了，頭撞在門上，磕破了一道口，傷口在流血，鉆心的疼。我的恐懼已經超過了極限，其他的種種情緒隨之而來。

“你這殘忍的壞小子！”我說，“你就像殺人犯——你就像是奴隸監工——你就像羅馬皇帝！”

我曾經讀過戈德史密斯的《羅馬史》，并對尼祿、卡利古拉等人形成了自己的看法。同時，我默默地作過類比，但從來沒有想到會這樣大聲說出來。

“什么！什么！”他吼道，“她竟敢對我這樣說話？伊萊扎、喬治亞娜，你們聽到她的話了吧？我能不告訴媽媽嗎？但首先——”

他一頭撲向我。我感到他抓住了我的頭發和肩膀，他已經跟一個孤注一擲的人肉搏起來。我看他真是暴君、殺人犯。我感覺有一兩滴血從頭上順著脖子流下來。這些感覺一時間壓倒了恐懼，我拼命抵擋他。我不大清楚自己的雙手都干了什么，但他一邊叫我“耗子！耗子！”一邊大聲吼叫。幫手就在他的身邊，伊萊扎和喬治亞娜跑去叫已經上樓的里德太太，她現在趕到了現場，后面跟著貝茜和女仆阿博特。我們被拉了開來。我聽她們說道——

“哎呀！哎呀！發這么大火，竟敢對約翰少爺發這么大的火！”

“誰見過發這么大火的！”

隨后，里德太太補充道——

“把她帶去紅屋，把她鎖在里面。”馬上就有四只手抓住我，把我拖上了樓。