03 How to Recognize a Witch

How to Recognize a Witch The next evening, after my grandmother had given me my bath, she took me once again into the living-room for another story. 'Tonight,' the old woman said, 'I am going to tell you how to recognize a witch when you see one.' 'Can you always be sure?' I asked. 'No,' she said, 'you can't. And that's the trouble. But you can make a pretty good guess.' She was dropping cigar ash all over her lap, and I hoped she wasn't going to catch on fire before she'd told me how to recognize a witch. 'In the first place,' she said, 'a REAL WITCH is certain always to be wearing gloves when you meet her.' 'Surely not always,' I said. 'What about in the summer when it's hot?'

第二天晚上，奶奶给我洗完澡后，又把我带到客厅去听另一个故事。 “今晚，”老妇人说，“我要告诉你怎样在看到女巫时认出她来。“你总能有把握吗?”我问。 “不，”她说，“你不能。 这就是问题所在。不过你可以猜得很准。”她把雪茄烟灰撒了一地，我希望她在告诉我如何认出女巫之前不会着火。 “首先，”她说，“一个真正的女巫在你见到她的时候肯定总是戴着手套的。“当然不总是这样，”我说。 “夏天天气热的时候呢?”

'Even in the summer,' my grandmother said. 'She has to. Do you want to know why?' 'Why?' I said. 'Because she doesn't have finger-nails. Instead of finger-nails, she has thin curvy claws, like a cat, and she wears the gloves to hide them. Mind you, lots of very respectable women wear gloves, especially in winter, so this doesn't help you very much.' 'Mamma used to wear gloves,' I said. 'Not in the house,' my grandmother said. 'Witches wear gloves even in the house. They only take them off when they go to bed.' 'How do you know all this, Grandmamma?' 'Don't interrupt,' she said. 'Just take it all in. The second thing to remember is that a REAL WITCH is always bald.' 'Bald?' I said. 'Bald as a boiled egg,' my grandmother said. I was shocked. There was something indecent about a bald woman. 'Why are they bald,

“即使在夏天，”祖母说。 “她必须这么做。你想知道为什么吗?“为什么?”我说。 “因为她没有指甲。 她没有指甲，而是像猫一样有细而弯曲的爪子，她戴着手套来隐藏它们。 请注意，许多非常有名望的女性都戴手套，尤其是在冬天，所以这对你没有多大帮助。“妈妈过去常戴手套，”我说。 “不在家里，”祖母说。 “女巫即使在家里也戴手套。 他们只有在睡觉的时候才会脱下来。“你是怎么知道这些的，奶奶?”“别插嘴，”她说。 “把这些都吸收进去。第二件要记住的事情是，真正的女巫总是秃顶的。“秃头吗?”我说。 “秃得像个煮鸡蛋，”我祖母说。 我很震惊。一个秃顶的女人有点不雅。 “他们为什么秃顶?”

Grandmamma?' 'Don't ask me why,' she snapped. 'But you can take it from me that not a single hair grows on a witch's head.' 'How horrid!' 'Disgusting,' my grandmother said. 'If she's bald, she'll be easy to spot,' I said. 'Not at all,' my grandmother said. 'A REAL WITCH always wears a wig to hide her baldness. She wears a first-class wig. And it is almost impossible to tell a really first-class wig from ordinary hair unless you give it a pull to see if it comes off.' 'Then that's what I'll have to do,' I said. 'Don't be foolish,' my grandmother said. 'You can't go round pulling at the hair of every lady you meet, even if she is wearing gloves. Just you try it and see what happens.' 'So that doesn't help much either,' I said. 'None of these things is any good on its own,' my grandmother said. 'It's only when you put

奶奶吗?“别问我为什么，”她厉声说。 “但是你可以向我保证，女巫的头上连一根头发也长不出来。“太可怕了!”“真恶心，”我祖母说。 “如果她秃顶了，很容易被认出来，”我说。 “一点也不，”我祖母说。 “一个真正的女巫总是戴着假发来掩盖她的秃顶。 她戴着一流的假发。 而且几乎不可能分辨出真正一流的假发和普通的头发，除非你把它扯下来看看它是否脱落。“那我就只好这么做了，”我说。 “别傻了，”祖母说。 “你不能到处去扯你遇到的每一位女士的头发，即使她戴着手套。 你试试，看看会发生什么。“所以这也没有多大帮助，”我说。 “这些东西单独都没有用，”我祖母说。 “只有当你把

them all together that they begin to make a little sense. Mind you,' my grandmother went on, 'these wigs do cause a rather serious problem for witches.' 'What problem, Grandmamma?' 'They make the scalp itch most terribly,' she said. 'You see, when an actress wears a wig, or if you or I were to wear a wig, we would be putting it on over our own hair, but a witch has to put it straight on to her naked scalp. And the underneath of a wig is always very rough and scratchy. It sets up a frightful itch on the bald skin. It causes nasty sores on the head. Wig-rash, the witches call it. And it doesn't half itch.' 'What other things must I look for to recognize a witch?' I asked. 'Look for the nose-holes,' my grandmother said. 'Witches have slightly larger nose-holes than ordinary people. The rim of each nose-hole is pink and curvy, like the rim of a certain kind of seashell.'

把它们放在一起，它们就开始有点意义了。 “请注意，”祖母接着说，“这些假发确实给女巫带来了相当严重的问题。“什么问题，奶奶?”“它们使头皮痒得厉害，”她说。 “你看，当一个女演员戴假发时，或者如果你或我戴假发，我们会把它戴在自己的头发上，但女巫必须直接戴在她裸露的头皮上。 而且假发的下面总是很粗糙。 它会让秃顶的皮肤发痒。 它会导致头部出现严重的溃疡。 女巫们管它叫假发疹 而且一点都不痒。“要认出一个女巫，我还需要注意什么?”我问。 “找那些鼻子洞，”祖母说。 “女巫的鼻洞比普通人稍大一些。 每个鼻孔的边缘都是粉红色的，弯曲的，就像某种贝壳的边缘。”

'Why do they have such big nose-holes?' I asked. 'For smelling with,' my grandmother said. 'A REAL WITCH has the most amazing powers of smell. She can actually smell out a child who is standing on the other side of the street on a pitch-black night.' 'She couldn't smell me,' I said. 'I've just had a bath.' 'Oh yes she could,' my grandmother said. 'The cleaner you happen to be, the more smelly you are to a witch.' 'That can't be true,' I said. An absolutely clean child gives off the most ghastly stench to a witch,' my grandmother said. 'The dirtier you are, the less you smell.' 'But that doesn't make sense, Grandmamma.' 'Oh yes it does,' my grandmother said. 'It isn't the dirt that the witch is smelling. It is you. The smell that drives a witch mad actually comes right out of your own skin. It comes oozing out of your skin in waves, and these waves, stink-waves the

“它们为什么有这么大的鼻子洞?”我问。 “用来闻的，”我祖母说。 “一个真正的女巫有最惊人的嗅觉能力。 在漆黑的夜晚，她甚至能闻出站在街对面的孩子。“她闻不到我，”我说。 “我刚洗完澡。“哦，她会的，”我祖母说。 “你越干净，对女巫来说就越臭。“那不可能是真的，”我说。 “一个绝对干净的孩子对女巫来说散发出最可怕的臭味，”我祖母说。 “你越脏，你身上的气味就越少。“但这说不通啊，奶奶。”“哦，是的，”我祖母说。 “女巫闻到的不是泥土。 是你。让女巫发疯的气味实际上就来自你自己的皮肤。 它一波一波地从你的皮肤里渗出来，这些一波一波的臭气

witches call them, go floating through the air and hit the witch right smack in her nostrils. They send her reeling.' 'Now wait a minute, Grandmamma…' 'Don't interrupt,' she said. 'The point is this. When you haven't washed for a week and your skin is all covered over with dirt, then quite obviously the stink-waves cannot come oozing out nearly so strongly.' 'I shall never have a bath again,' I said. 'Just don't have one too often,' my grandmother said. 'Once a month is quite enough for a sensible child.' It was at moments like these that I loved my grandmother more than ever. 'Grandmamma,' I said, 'if it's a dark night, how can a witch smell the difference between a child and a grown-up?' 'Because grown-ups don't give out stinkwaves,' she said. 'Only children do that.' 'But I don't really give out stink-waves, do I?' I said. 'I'm not giving them out at this very moment,

女巫叫它们，它们会在空中飘浮，正好打在女巫的鼻孔上。 他们让她晕头转向。“等一下，奶奶……”“别插嘴，”她说。 “问题是这样的。当你一个星期没有洗澡，你的皮肤上都是污垢时，很明显，臭气不会那么强烈地渗出来。“我再也不洗澡了，”我说。 祖母说:“只是不要太频繁。” "对一个懂事的孩子来说，一个月一次就够了。"在这样的时刻，我比以往任何时候都更爱我的祖母。 “奶奶，”我说，“如果是黑夜，女巫怎么能分辨出孩子和大人呢?”她说:“因为大人不会发出臭气。” “只有孩子才会那样做。“但我并没有真的发出臭波，对吧?”我说。 “我不会在这个时候给他们，