06 The Meeting

The Meeting Now that the Manager had gone, I was not particularly alarmed. What better than to be imprisoned in a room full of these splendid ladies? If I ever got talking to them, I might even suggest that they come and do a bit of cruelty-to-children preventing at my school. We could certainly use them there. In they came, talking their heads off. They began milling round and choosing their seats, and there was a whole lot of stuff like, 'Come and sit next to me, Millie dear,' and 'Oh, hel-lo, Beatrice! I haven't seen you since the last meeting! What an adorable dress you have on!' I decided to stay where I was and let them get on with their meeting while I got on with my mouse-training, but I watched them for a while longer through the crack in the screen, waiting for them to settle down. How many were there? I guessed about two hundred. The back rows filled

经理走了以后，我并没有特别惊慌。 还有什么比被囚禁在一间满是这些漂亮女士的房间里更好的呢? 如果我有机会和他们交谈，我甚至会建议他们来我的学校做一些防止虐待儿童的活动。 我们当然可以在那里使用它们。 他们走了进来，滔滔不绝地说个不停。 他们开始转来转去，选择座位，其中有一大堆诸如“过来坐在我旁边，亲爱的米莉”和“哦，你好，比阿特丽斯!”上次见面后我就没见过你!你穿的裙子真漂亮!”我决定呆在原地不动，让他们继续开会，而我继续训练老鼠，但我透过屏幕的裂缝多看了一会儿，等他们安静下来。 有多少人?我猜大概有200个。 后排座无虚席

up first. They all seemed to want to sit as far back from the platform as possible. There was a lady wearing a tiny green hat in the middle of the back row who kept scratching the nape of her neck. She couldn't leave it alone. It fascinated me the way her fingers kept scratching away at the hair on the back of her neck. Had she known somebody was watching her from behind, I'm sure she would have been embarrassed. I wondered if she had dandruff. All of a sudden, I noticed that the lady next to her was doing the same thing! And the next one! And the next! The whole lot of them were doing it. They were all scratching away like mad at the hair on the backs of their necks! Did they have fleas in their hair? More likely it was nits. A boy at school called Ashton had had nits in his hair last term and the matron had made him dip his whole head in turpentine. It killed the nits

第一。他们似乎都想坐得离站台越远越好。 后排中间有一位戴着绿色小帽的女士，她一直在抓挠自己的后颈。 她不能不管它。 她的手指不停地抓着她脖子后面的头发，这让我着迷。 如果她知道有人在后面盯着她，我肯定她会很尴尬的。 我想知道她是否有头皮屑。 突然，我注意到她旁边的女士也在做同样的事情!下一个!下一个!他们所有人都这么做。 他们都像疯了一样搔着脖子后面的头发!他们的头发里有跳蚤吗? 更可能是虱子。上学期，学校里有个叫阿什顿的男孩头发上长了虱子，护士长让他把整个头浸在松节油里。 它杀死了虱子

all right, but it nearly killed Ashton as well. Half the skin came away from his scalp. I began to be fascinated by these hair-scratching ladies. It is always funny when you catch someone doing something coarse and she thinks no one is looking. Nose-picking, for example, or scratching her bottom. Hair-scratching is very nearly as unattractive, especially if it goes on and on. I decided it had to be nits. Then the most astonishing thing happened. I saw one lady pushing her fingers up underneath the hair on her head, and the hair, the entire head of hair, lifted upwards all in one piece, and the

好吧，但它差点也杀了阿什顿。 他头皮上的皮掉了一半。 我开始被这些抓头发的女人迷住了。 当你发现某人在做一些粗俗的事情，而她认为没有人在看时，这总是很有趣的。 比如挖鼻孔，或者抓屁股。 抓挠头发几乎是不吸引人的，尤其是如果它一直持续下去。 我决定一定是虱子。 然后最令人吃惊的事情发生了。 我看到一位女士把手指伸到头发下面，然后头发，整头的头发，整块地向上翘起，然后

hand slid underneath the hair and went on scratching! She was wearing a wig! She was also wearing gloves! I glanced swiftly around at the rest of the now seated audience. Every one of them was wearing gloves! My blood turned to ice. I began to shake all over. I glanced frantically behind me for a back door to escape through. There wasn't one. Should I leap out from behind the screen and make a dash for the double-doors? Those double-doors were already closed and I could see a woman standing in front of them. She was bending forward and fixing some sort of a metal chain round the two door-handles. Keep still, I told myself. No one has seen you yet. There's no reason in the world why they should come and look behind the screen. But one false move, one cough, one sneeze, one noseblow, one little sound of any sort and it won't be just one witch that gets you. It'll be two hundred!

手滑到头发下面，继续抓!她戴着假发!她还戴着手套!我迅速扫视了一下其他已经就座的听众。 他们每个人都戴着手套!我的血液都凝固了。 我开始浑身发抖。 我疯狂地瞥了一眼身后，想找个后门逃出去。 没有。我应该从屏风后面跳出来，冲向那扇双开门吗? 那些双门已经关上了，我可以看到一个女人站在门前。 她正俯身向前，在两个门把手上固定一条类似金属链的东西。 保持安静，我告诉自己。 还没人见过你。世界上没有任何理由让他们过来看屏幕后面。 但是一个错误的举动，一个咳嗽，一个喷嚏，一个擤鼻涕，任何一种轻微的声音，就不会只有一个女巫得到你。 是200 !

At that point, I think I fainted. The whole thing was altogether too much for a small boy to cope with. But I don't believe I was out for more than a few seconds, and when I came to, I was lying on the carpet and I was still, thank heavens, behind the screen. There was absolute silence all around me. Rather shakily, I got to my knees and peered once again through the crack in the screen.

在那一刻，我想我晕倒了。 整件事对一个小男孩来说实在是太大了。 但我相信我昏迷的时间不超过几秒钟，当我醒来时，我躺在地毯上，谢天谢地，我还在屏幕后面。 我周围一片寂静。 我战战兢兢地跪了下来，再次从屏幕的裂缝里往外看。