5 RIDDLES IN THE DARK

Chapter 5 RIDDLES IN THE DARK When Bilbo opened his eyes, he wondered if he had; for it was just as dark as with them shut. No one was anywhere near him. Just imagine his fright! He could hear nothing, see nothing, and he could feel nothing except the stone of the floor. Very slowly he got up and groped about on all fours, till he touched the wall of the tunnel; but neither up nor down it could he find anything: nothing at all, no sign of goblins, no sign of dwarves. His head was swimming, and he was far from certain even of the direction they had been going in when he had his fall. He guessed as well as he could, and crawled along for a good way, till suddenly his hand met what felt like a tiny ring of cold metal lying on the floor of the tunnel. It was a turning point in his career, but he did not know it.

第五章 黑暗中的谜语 比尔博睁开眼睛，都怀疑自己到底睁没睁——因为这里和闭眼时一样黑。 他身边半个人影都没有。 你想想他有多害怕！ 他什么都听不见，什么都看不见，除了脚下的石头，什么都摸不到。 他慢慢爬起身，四脚着地摸索着走，直到摸到隧道的墙，可不管往上还是往下，他什么都找不到——什么都没有，没有妖精的痕迹，也没有矮人的痕迹。 他晕晕乎乎，连自己摔倒时原本走的方向都完全搞不清。 他尽力猜了个方向爬了好长一段，突然，手碰到隧道地上一个冰凉金属做的小戒指。 这是他人生的转折点，可他当时对此一无所知。

He put the ring in his pocket almost without thinking; certainly it did not seem of any particular use at the moment. He did not go much further, but sat down on the cold floor and gave himself up to complete miserableness, for a long while. He thought of himself frying bacon and eggs in his own kitchen at home—for he could feel inside that it was high time for some meal or other; but that only made him miserabler. He could not think what to do; nor could he think what had happened; or why he had been left behind; or why, if he had been left behind, the goblins had not caught him; or even why his head was so sore. The truth was he had been lying quiet, out of sight and out of mind, in a very dark corner for a long while. After some time he felt for his pipe. It was not broken, and that was something. Then he felt for his pouch, and there was some tobacco in it, and that was something more. Then he felt for matches and he could not find any at all, and that shattered his hopes completely. Just as well for him, as he agreed when he came to his senses. Goodness knows what the striking of matches and the smell of tobacco would have brought on him out of dark holes in that

他几乎想都没想就把戒指塞进口袋，这玩意儿在眼下看着确实没什么特别用处。 他没再走多远，就坐在冰凉的地上，彻底陷入了难过，就这么坐了好久。 他想起自己在家厨房煎培根、煮鸡蛋的样子——他肚子早就饿了，可这回忆只让他更难受。 他想不出该做什么，也想不通出了什么事，想不通为什么自己被落下，想不通如果自己被落下，妖精为什么没抓他，甚至想不通为什么自己的头这么疼。 其实真相是，他一直安安静静躺在一个偏僻的黑角落里，早就被人忘了。 过了一会儿，他摸了摸自己的烟斗。 烟斗没碎，这已经是件值得高兴的事了。 接着他摸烟袋，里面还剩些烟草，这就更让人开心了。 然后他摸火柴，却一根都找不到，这下他的希望彻底碎了。 等他冷静下来想想，其实这样反而挺好。 天知道在这个地方，划火柴的光和烟草的味道会把什么东西从黑洞里引出来找他

horrible place. Still at the moment he felt very crushed. But in slapping all his pockets and feeling all round himself for matches his hand came on the hilt of his little sword—the little dagger that he got from the trolls, and that he had quite forgotten; nor fortunately had the goblins noticed it, as he wore it inside his breeches. Now he drew it out. It shone pale and dim before his eyes. "So it is an elvish blade, too," he thought; "and goblins are not very near, and yet not far enough." But somehow he was comforted. It was rather splendid to be wearing a blade made in Gondolin for the goblin-wars of which so many songs had sung; and also he had noticed that such weapons made a great impression on goblins that came upon them suddenly. "Go back?" he thought. "No good at all! Go sideways? Impossible! Go forward? Only thing to do! On we go!" So up he got, and trotted along with his little sword held in front of him and one hand feeling the wall, and his heart all of a patter and a pitter.

这个可怕的地方。 不过这时候他还是沮丧极了。 可就在他拍遍全身找火柴的时候，手碰到了小剑的剑柄——这是他从巨魔那儿得来的小匕首，他早就忘了，幸好妖精也没发现，因为他一直别在裤子里。 他把剑拔了出来。 剑在他眼前发出淡淡的微光。 “原来这也是精灵打造的宝剑呀，”他想，“妖精离得不算近，但也没远到哪儿去。” 可不知怎么的，他一下子安心多了。 能戴着一柄贡多林为妖精战争打造的宝剑，那么多歌曲都传唱过这段往事，这可太酷了；而且他也知道，这种武器能把突然撞见的妖精吓得够呛。 “回去吗？”他想。 一点用都没有！ 往侧边走？ 不可能！ 往前走？ 只能这么办！ 那就出发吧！ 于是他站起身，握着小宝剑走在前面，一只手摸着墙，心脏扑通狂跳，一步步往前挪。

Now certainly Bilbo was in what is called a tight place. But you must remember it was not quite so tight for him as it would have been for me or for you. Hobbits are not quite like ordinary people; and after all if their holes are nice cheery places and properly aired, quite different from the tunnels of the goblins, still they are more used to tunnelling than we are, and they do not easily lose their sense of direction underground—not when their heads have recovered from being bumped. Also they can move very quietly, and hide easily, and recover wonderfully from falls and bruises, and they have a fund of wisdom and wise sayings that men have mostly never heard or have forgotten long ago. I should not have liked to have been in Mr. Baggins' place, all the same. The tunnel seemed to have no end. All he knew was that it was still going down pretty steadily and keeping in the same direction in spite of a twist and a turn or two. There were passages leading off to the side every now and then, as he knew by the glimmer of his sword, or could feel with his hand on the wall. Of these he took no notice, except to hurry past for fear of goblins or half-imagined dark things coming out of them. On and on he went, and down and down; and

这下比尔博可真是陷入了绝境。 不过你得知道，他的处境其实没换成你我那么糟糕。 霍比特人和普通人可不一样；再说了，虽然霍比特人自己的洞穴舒服敞亮，和妖精的隧道完全不同，可他们比我们更习惯走地道，只要撞晕的脑袋缓过来，在地下根本不容易迷路。 而且他们走路轻，藏得好，摔撞之后恢复得也快，还有很多人类大多没听过、早就遗忘的智慧和俗语。 话虽这么说，我可一点都不想处在巴金斯先生的位置上。 这条隧道好像根本走不到头。 他只知道，哪怕拐了一两道弯，隧道还是一直稳稳向下延伸，方向基本没变。 时不时就有岔路往旁边伸出去，他借着剑的微光能看见，用手摸墙也能感觉到。 他根本没搭理这些岔路，只是赶紧快步走过，生怕妖精或是莫名冒出来的黑影怪物从里面钻出来。 他走呀走呀，一直往下走呀；而且

still he heard no sound of anything except the occasional whirr of a bat by his ears, which startled him at first, till it became too frequent to bother about. I do not know how long he kept on like this, hating to go on, not daring to stop, on, on, until he was tireder than tired. It seemed like all the way to tomorrow and over it to the days beyond. Suddenly without any warning he trotted splash into water! Ugh! it was icy cold. That pulled him up sharp and short. He did not know whether it was just a pool in the path, or the edge of an underground stream that crossed the passage, or the brink of a deep dark subterranean lake. The sword was hardly shining at all. He stopped, and he could hear, when he listened hard, drops drip-dripdripping from an unseen roof into the water below; but there seemed no other sort of sound. "So it is a pool or a lake, and not an underground river," he thought. Still he did not dare to wade out into the darkness. He could not swim; and he thought, too, of nasty slimy things, with big bulging blind eyes, wriggling in the water. There are strange things living in the pools and lakes in the hearts of mountains: fish whose fathers swam in, goodness only knows how many years ago, and never swam

可他还是什么声响都没听见，只偶尔有蝙蝠从耳边飞过，振出嗡嗡声。起初吓了他一跳，后来次数多了，他就懒得理会了。 没人知道他就这么走了多久，他不愿往前走，又不敢停下，只能走啊走，一直走到累得不能再累。 这条路长得像是要一直走到明天，还要延伸到明天之后的无数日子。 突然，毫无预兆地，他扑通一下踩进了水里！ 嚯！ 水冰冷刺骨。 这一下猛地把他刹住了。 他不知道这只是路上的水洼，还是横穿通道的地下溪流边缘，又或是幽深漆黑的地下湖岸边。 他的宝剑几乎一点儿光都不亮了。 他停住脚，仔细一听，能听见水珠从看不见的洞顶一滴一滴滴进下方水里，除此之外听不到任何别的声响。 “看来这是水洼或是湖泊，不是地下河，”他心想。 他还是不敢踏进这片黑暗的水里。 他不会游泳，而且他还想到水里有恶心黏滑的东西，长着鼓鼓的瞎眼睛，在水里扭来扭去。 大山心脏里的水洼湖泊住着各种奇怪的东西：有些鱼的祖先不知道多少年前游进来，就再也没游

out again, while their eyes grew bigger and bigger and bigger from trying to see in the blackness; also there are other things more slimy than fish. Even in the tunnels and caves the goblins have made for themselves there are other things living unbeknown to them that have sneaked in from outside to lie up in the dark. Some of these caves, too, go back in their beginnings to ages before the goblins, who only widened them and joined them up with passages, and the original owners are still there in odd corners, slinking and nosing about. Deep down here by the dark water lived old Gollum, a small slimy creature. I don't know where he came from, nor who or what he was. He was Gollum—as dark as darkness, except for two big round pale eyes in his thin face. He had a little boat, and he rowed about quite quietly on the lake; for lake it was, wide and deep and deadly cold. He paddled it with large feet dangling over the side, but never a ripple did he make. Not he. He was looking out of his pale lamp-like eyes for blind fish, which he grabbed with his long fingers as quick as thinking. He liked meat too. Goblin he thought good, when he could get it; but he took care they never found him out. He just throttled them from

出去，它们为了在黑暗里视物，眼睛长得越来越大；除此之外，还有比鱼更黏滑的东西住在这儿。 哪怕是哥布林自己挖的隧道和洞穴里，也有哥布林不知道的生物偷偷从外面溜进来，躲在黑暗里藏身。 这些洞穴有些早在哥布林出现之前就存在了，哥布林只是把它们拓宽、用通道连起来，最初的主人还待在偏僻的角落里，悄悄溜来溜去嗅着动静。 在这片深水暗处，住着老咕噜，一个小小的黏糊糊的怪物。 没人知道他从哪儿来，也不知道他是谁、是什么东西。 他黑得像黑暗本身，只有瘦瘦的脸上露着两只大大的圆圆的灰白色眼睛。 他有一艘小船，静悄悄地在湖上划来划去；这确实是个湖，又宽又深，冰冷刺骨。 他把大脚垂在船边划水，连一丝波纹都没弄出来。 他才不会弄出波纹呢。 他用那双像提灯一样苍白的眼睛找瞎鱼，一想的功夫就用长手指飞快把鱼抓住了。 他也喜欢吃肉。 能抓到哥布林的时候，他觉得哥布林味道很不错，但他十分小心，从来不让哥布林发现他。 他只会悄悄从