15 Little Ellis and the boil

Little Ellis and the boil During my third term at St Peter's, I got flu and was put to bed in the Sick Room, where the dreaded Matron reigned supreme. In the next bed to mine was a seven-year-old boy called Ellis, whom I liked a lot. Ellis was there because he had an immense and angry-looking boil on the inside of his thigh. I saw it. It was as big as a plum and about the same colour. One morning, in came the doctor to examine us, and sailing along beside him was the Matron. Her mountainous bosom was enclosed in a starched white envelope, and because of this she somehow reminded me of a painting I had once seen of a four-masted schooner in full canvas running before the wind.

在圣彼得医院的第三个学期里，我得了流感，被安排在病房的病床上，可怕的护士长在那里发号施令。 睡在我隔壁的是一个叫埃利斯的七岁男孩，我很喜欢他。 埃利斯在那里是因为他的大腿内侧有一个巨大的、看起来很生气的疖子。 我看到了。它和李子一样大，颜色也差不多。 一天早晨，医生来给我们检查，护士长在他旁边航行着。 她那群山般的胸脯被一个浆过的白色信封包裹着，正因为如此，她不知怎地使我想起了我曾经看到过的一幅画，画的是一艘挂满帆布的四桅纵帆船在风中疾驶。

'What's his temperature today?' the doctor asked, pointing at me. 'Just over a hundred, doctor,' the Matron told him. 'He's been up here long enough,' the doctor said. 'Send him back to school tomorrow.' Then he turned to Ellis. 'Take off your pyjama trousers,' he said. He was a very small doctor, with steel-rimmed spectacles and a bald head. He frightened the life out of me. Ellis removed his pyjama trousers. The doctor bent forward and looked at the boil. 'Hmmm,' he said. 'That's a nasty one, isn't it? We're going to have to do something about that, aren't we, Ellis?' 'What are you going to do?' Ellis asked, trembling. 'Nothing for you to worry about,' the doctor said. 'Just lie back and take no notice of me.'

“他今天的体温是多少?”医生指着我问。 “刚过一百，医生。”护士长告诉他。 “他在这儿待得够久了，”医生说。 “明天送他回学校。”然后他转向埃利斯。 “脱下你的睡裤，”他说。 他是个身材矮小的医生，戴着一副钢框眼镜，秃顶。 他把我吓死了。 埃利斯脱下他的睡裤。 医生俯身看了看疖子。 “嗯，”他说。“这是一个令人讨厌的问题，不是吗?” 我们得做点什么了，对吧，埃利斯?“你打算怎么办?”艾利斯颤抖着问道。 “没什么好担心的，”医生说。 “躺回去，别理我。”

Little Ellis lay back with his head on the pillow. The doctor had put his bag on the floor at the end of Ellis's bed, and now he knelt down on the floor and opened the bag. Ellis, even when he lifted his head from the pillow, couldn't see what the doctor was doing there. He was hidden by the end of the bed. But I saw everything. I saw him take out a sort of scalpel which had a long steel handle and a small pointed blade. He crouched below the end of Ellis's bed, holding the scalpel in his right hand. 'Give me a large towel, Matron,' he said. The Matron handed him a towel.

小埃利斯把头靠在枕头上。 医生把他的包放在埃利斯床尾的地板上，现在他跪在地上，打开包。 埃利斯即使从枕头上抬起头来，也看不清医生在做什么。 他藏在床尾处。 但我看到了一切。我看见他拿出一把有长钢柄和尖头小刀片的手术刀。 他蹲在艾利斯的床尾下面，右手拿着手术刀。 “给我一条大毛巾，护士长，”他说。 护士长递给他一条毛巾。

Still crouching low and hidden from little Ellis's view by the end of the bed, the doctor unfolded the towel and spread it over the palm of his left hand. In his right hand he held the scalpel. Ellis was frightened and suspicious. He started raising himself up on his elbows to get a better look. 'Lie down, Ellis,' the doctor said, and even as he spoke, he bounced up from the end of the bed like a jack-in-the-box and flung the outspread towel straight into Ellis's face. Almost in the same second, he thrust his right arm forward and plunged the point of the scalpel deep into the centre of the enormous boil. He gave the blade a quick twist and then withdrew it again before the wretched boy had had time to disentangle his head from the towel. Ellis screamed. He never saw the scalpel going in and he never saw it coming out, but he felt it all right and he screamed like a stuck pig. I can see him now struggling to get the towel off his head, and when he emerged the tears were streaming down his cheeks and his huge brown eyes were

医生仍然低蹲在床尾，躲在小埃利斯看不见的地方，他打开毛巾，把它铺在他的左手手掌上。 他右手拿着手术刀。 埃利斯既害怕又怀疑。 他开始用胳膊肘撑起身子，以便看得更清楚。 “躺下，埃利斯。”医生说。他一边说，一边从床尾跳了起来，像个玩偶盒里的玩偶，把摊开的毛巾直接扔到埃利斯的脸上。 几乎就在同一秒钟，他伸出右臂，把手术刀的尖端深深扎进了那个巨大的疖子的中心。 他迅速地拧了一下刀刃，然后又抽出来，这个可怜的男孩还没来得及把他的头从毛巾上解开。 埃利斯尖叫。他从没见过手术刀插进，也没见过手术刀拔出来，但他感觉很好，就像被卡住的猪一样尖叫起来。 我现在还能看到他挣扎着把头上的毛巾拿下来，当他出来的时候，泪水顺着脸颊流下来，他那双棕色的大眼睛

staring at the doctor with a look of utter and total outrage. 'Don't make such a fuss about nothing,' the Matron said. 'Put a dressing on it, Matron,' the doctor said, 'with plenty of mag sulph paste.' And he marched out of the room. I couldn't really blame the doctor. I thought he handled things rather cleverly. Pain was something we were expected to endure. Anaesthetics and pain-killing injections were not much used in those days. Dentists, in particular, never bothered with them. But I doubt very much if you would entirely happy today if a doctor threw a towel in your face and jumped on you with a knife.

带着一种完全愤怒的表情盯着医生。 “别大惊小怪的，”护士长说。 “给它敷上绷带，护士长，”医生说，“用大量硫酸镁膏。”他大步走出了房间。 我真的不能责怪医生。 我认为他处理事情相当巧妙。 痛苦是我们必须忍受的。 在那个时代，麻醉药和止痛注射剂的使用并不多。 尤其是牙医，他们从不为此烦恼。 但我非常怀疑，如果一个医生把毛巾扔到你脸上，拿着刀跳到你身上，你今天是否会完全开心。