纳尼亚传奇系列4：卡斯宾王子(中英双语典藏版)(txt+pdf+epub+mobi电子书下载)

作者：(英)C·S·刘易斯

出版社：天津人民出版社

格式: AZW3, DOCX, EPUB, MOBI, PDF, TXT

纳尼亚传奇系列4：卡斯宾王子(中英双语典藏版)试读：

译者序

经过两年多不懈的努力，“纳尼亚”系列经典的译文终于杀青了！这时，我既感到完成任务的轻松与喜悦，又隐隐感到一丝不舍。以前，也曾经读过“纳尼亚”系列，但那时是一目十行，不求甚解。翻译则不同，不仅要对作者的思想和时代背景有较深入的了解，而且要尽量将其语言风格表达出来。这大概就是翻译所谓的“神似”与“形似”吧。

C·S·刘易斯可以称得上是一代宗师，被誉为“最伟大的牛津人”。他博学多才，著述颇丰。有人说，“纳尼亚”系列是“儿童的圣经”。要想读懂这套传奇故事，我们就必须对作者的信仰历程有所了解。

刘易斯的父母都是虔诚的新教徒。刘易斯出生后不久，就在爱尔兰的教会受洗。由于青少年时期的叛逆，他曾一度远离了自己的信仰。后来，在《魔戒》的作者、好友托尔金和其他朋友的影响下， 32岁时他又回到了上帝的怀抱。回归信仰之后，刘易斯创作出了许多不朽的传世之作。

在“纳尼亚”的奇幻世界中，那位无所不在的狮子阿斯兰正是耶稣的化身。狮子是百兽之王，而圣经启示录则称耶稣为“犹大支派中的狮子”、“万王之王”。刘易斯藉着一系列的故事，轻松地阐释了上帝创造宇宙、魔鬼诱使人类犯罪、耶稣为罪人赎罪舍命、然后从死里复活等基督教教义。

刘易斯曾广泛涉猎欧洲的神话，因此“纳尼亚”系列经典中也出现了小矮人、半人马、潘恩、树精和狼人等形象。大师的想象力异常丰富，不受时空的限制，可谓天马行空，驰骛八极。套用刘勰的话来说，就是“思接千载，视通万里”。加上他的词汇量丰富，时常用诗一般的语言来描绘高山、峡谷、密林、瀑布和清泉等自然景观。因此，尽管译者自诩中英文功底都比较深厚，但不时也会感到“词穷”。有时，为了一句话、一个词，我会多方求教于英、美的朋友，真正体会到了译事之难。

在第一本《魔法师的外甥》中，作者展开想象的翅膀，带领我们“上天”，亲眼目睹了纳尼亚被创造的过程：随着狮子跌宕起伏的歌声，从土壤中接连冒出了树木、花草、动物和飞鸟。狮子赐给一部分动物和飞鸟说话的能力，使他们成为自己的“选民”。

除了“上天”，刘易斯还带着我们“入地”。在《银椅子》中，我们跟随作者来到了黑暗的地下王国，经历了一场惊心动魄的属灵争战。“七”在《圣经》中是一个完全的数字，因为上帝在七天中创造了宇宙万物。故此，“纳尼亚”系列经典一共有七册书。这个系列中人物众多，场景变幻莫测。在《“黎明”号的远航》中，卡斯宾王等在海上的历险和奇遇扣人心弦；在《马儿与少年》中，我们又体验到了异国情调和大漠风光。而《最后的决战》栩栩如生地描绘了善与恶两个阵营，恶神塔西和白女巫、绿女巫一样，都象征着魔鬼撒旦，它们都逃脱不了失败与灭亡的命运。

何光沪老师在《从岁首到年终》的序言中说过，同刘易斯交上一年的朋友，会使你变得更好。两年多来，与刘大师朝夕相处，虽然不敢说自己变得更好了，但在这个过程中的确获益匪浅，虽苦也甜。向和平2013年12月

Chapter 1 The Island岛国

Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy, and it has been told in another book called The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe how they had a remarkable adventure. They had opened the door of a magic wardrobe and found themselves in a quite different world from ours, and in that different world they had become Kings and Queens in a country called Narnia. While they were in Narnia they seemed to reign for years and years; but when they came back through the door and found themselves in England again, it all seemed to have taken no time at all. At any rate, no one noticed that they had ever been away, and they never told anyone except one very wise grown-up.

That had all happened a year ago, and now all four of them were sitting on a seat at a railway station with trunks and playboxes piled up round them. They were, in fact, on their way back to school. They had travelled together as far as this station, which was a junction; and here, in a few minutes, one train would arrive and take the girls away to one school, and in about half an hour another train would arrive and the boys would go off to another school. The first part of the journey, when they were all together, always seemed to be part of the holidays; but now when they would be saying goodbye and going different ways so soon, everyone felt that the holidays were really over and everyone felt their term-time feeling beginning again, and they were all rather gloomy and no one could think of anything to say. Lucy was going to boarding school for the first time.

It was an empty, sleepy, country station and there was hardly anyone on the platform except themselves. Suddenly Lucy gave a sharp little cry, like someone who has been stung by a wasp.

“What’s up, Lu?” said Edmund—and then suddenly broke off and made a noise like “Ow!”

“What on earth—” began Peter, and then he too suddenly changed what he had been going to say. Instead, he said, “Susan, let go! What are you doing? Where are you dragging me to?”

“I’m not touching you,” said Susan. “Someone is pulling me. Oh—oh—oh—stop it!”

Everyone noticed that all the others’ faces had gone very white.

“I felt just the same,” said Edmund in a breathless voice. “As if I were being dragged along. A most frightful pulling—ugh! It’s beginning again.”

“Me too,” said Lucy. “Oh, I can’t bear it.”

“Look sharp!” shouted Edmund. “All catch hands and keep together. This is magic—I can tell by the feeling. Quick!”

“Yes,” said Susan. “Hold hands. Oh, I do wish it would stop—oh!”

Next moment the luggage, the seat, the platform, and the station had completely vanished. The four children, holding hands and panting, found themselves standing in a woody place—such a woody place that branches were sticking into them and there was hardly room to move. They all rubbed their eyes and took a deep breath.

“Oh, Peter!” exclaimed Lucy. “Do you think we can possibly have got back to Narnia?”

“It might be anywhere,” said Peter. “I can’t see a yard in all these trees. Let’s try to get into the open—if there is any open.”

With some difficulty, and with some stings from nettles and pricks from thorns, they struggled out of the thicket. Then they had another surprise. Everything became much brighter, and after a few steps they found themselves at the edge of the wood, looking down on a sandy beach. A few yards away a very calm sea was falling on the sand with such tiny ripples that it made hardly any sound. There was no land in sight and no clouds in the sky. The sun was about where it ought to be at ten o’clock in the morning, and the sea was a dazzling blue. They stood sniffing in the sea-smell.

“By Jove!” said Peter. “This is good enough.”

Five minutes later everyone was barefooted and wading in the cool clear water.

“This is better than being in a stuffy train on the way back to Latin and French and Algebra!” said Edmund. And then for quite a long time there was no more talking, only splashing and looking for shrimps and crabs.

“All the same,” said Susan presently, “I suppose we’ll have to make some plans. We shall want something to eat before long.”

“We’ve got the sandwiches Mother gave us for the journey,” said Edmund. “At least I’ve got mine.”

“Not me,” said Lucy. “Mine were in my little bag.”

“So were mine,” said Susan.

“Mine are in my coat pocket, there on the beach,” said Peter. “That’ll be two lunches among four. This isn’t going to be such fun.”

“At present,” said Lucy, “I want something to drink more than something to eat.”

Everyone else now felt thirsty, as one usually is after wading in salt water under a hot sun.

“It’s like being shipwrecked,” remarked Edmund. “In the books they always find springs of clear, fresh water on the island. We’d better go and look for them.”

“Does that mean we have to go back into all that thick wood?” said Susan.

“Not a bit of it,” said Peter. “If there are streams they’re bound to come down to the sea, and if we walk along the beach we’re bound to come to them.”

They all now waded back and went first across the smooth, wet sand and then up to the dry, crumbly sand that sticks to one’s toes, and began putting on their shoes and socks. Edmund and Lucy wanted to leave them behind and do their exploring with bare feet, but Susan said this would be a mad thing to do. “We might never find them again,” she pointed out, “and we shall want them if we’re still here when night comes and it begins to be cold.”

When they were dressed again they set out along the shore with the sea on their left hand and the wood on their right. Except for an occasional seagull it was a very quiet place. The wood was so thick and tangled that they could hardly see into it at all; and nothing in it moved—not a bird, not even an insect.

Shells and seaweed and anemones, or tiny crabs in rock-pools, are all very well, but you soon get tired of them if you are thirsty. The children’s feet, after the change from the cool water, felt hot and heavy. Susan and Lucy had raincoats to carry. Edmund had put down his coat on the station seat just before the magic overtook them, and he and Peter took it in turns to carry Peter’s great-coat.

Presently the shore began to curve round to the right. About quarter of an hour later, after they had crossed a rocky ridge which ran out into a point, it made quite a sharp turn. Their backs were now to the part of the sea which had met them when they first came out of the wood, and now, looking ahead, they could see across the water another shore, thickly wooded like the one they were exploring.

“I wonder, is that an island or do we join on to it presently?” said Lucy.

“Don’t know,” said Peter and they all plodded on in silence.

The shore that they were walking on drew nearer and nearer to the opposite shore, and as they came round each promontory the children expected to find the place where the two joined. But in this they were disappointed. They came to some rocks which they had to climb and from the top they could see a fairway ahead and— “Oh, bother!” said Edmund, “it’s no good. We shan’t be able to get to those other woods at all. We’re on an island!”

It was true. At this point the channel between them and the opposite coast was only about thirty or forty yards wide; but they could now see that this was its narrowest place. After that, their own coast bent round to the right again and they could see open sea between it and the mainland. It was obvious that they had already come much more than halfway round the island.

“Look!” said Lucy suddenly. “What’s that?” She pointed to a long, silvery, snake-like thing that lay across the beach.

“A stream! A stream!” shouted the others, and, tired as they were, they lost no time in clattering down the rocks and racing to the fresh water. They knew that the stream would be better to drink farther up, away from the beach, so they went at once to the spot where it came out of the wood. The trees were as thick as ever, but the stream had made itself a deep course between high mossy banks so that by stooping you could follow it up in a sort of tunnel of leaves. They dropped on their knees by the first brown, dimply pool and drank and drank, and dipped their faces in the water, and then dipped their arms in up to the elbow.

“Now,” said Edmund, “what about those sandwiches?”

“Oh, hadn’t we better have them?” said Susan. “We may need them far worse later on.”

“I do wish,” said Lucy, “now that we’re not thirsty, we could go on feeling as not-hungry as we did when we were thirsty.”

“But what about those sandwiches?” repeated Edmund.” There’s no good saving them till they go bad. You’ve got to remember it’s a good deal hotter here than in England and we’ve been carrying them about in pockets for hours.” So they got out the two packets and divided them into four portions, and nobody had quite enough, but it was a great deal better than nothing. Then they talked about their plans for the next meal. Lucy wanted to go back to the sea and catch shrimps, until someone pointed out that they had no nets. Edmund said they must gather gulls’ eggs from the rocks, but when they came to think of it they couldn’t remember having seen any gulls’ eggs and wouldn’t be able to cook them if they found any. Peter thought to himself that unless they had some stroke of luck they would soon be glad to eat eggs raw, but he didn’t see any point in saying this out loud. Susan said it was a pity they had eaten the sandwiches so soon. One or two tempers very nearly got lost at this stage. Finally Edmund said:

“Look here. There’s only one thing to be done. We must explore the wood. Hermits and knights-errant and people like that always manage to live somehow if they’re in a forest. They find roots and berries and things.”

“What sort of roots?” asked Susan.

“I always thought it meant roots of trees,” said Lucy.

“Come on,” said Peter, “Ed is right. And we must try to do something. And it’ll be better than going out into the glare and the sun again.”

So they all got up and began to follow the stream. It was very hard work. They had to stoop under branches and climb over branches, and they blundered through great masses of stuff like rhododendrons and tore their clothes and got their feet wet in the stream; and still there was no noise at all except the noise of the stream and the noises they were making themselves. They were beginning to get very tired of it when they noticed a delicious smell, and then a flash of bright colour high above them at the top of the right bank.

“I say!” exclaimed Lucy. “I do believe that’s an apple tree.”

It was. They panted up the steep bank, forced their way through some brambles, and found themselves standing round an old tree that was heavy with large yellowish-golden apples as firm and juicy as you could wish to see.

“And this is not the only tree,” said Edmund with his mouth full of apple. “Look there—and there.”

“Why, there are dozens of them,” said Susan, throwing away the core of her first apple and picking her second. “This must have been an orchard—long, long ago, before the place went wild and the wood grew up.”

“Then this was once an inhabited island,” said Peter.

“And what’s that?” said Lucy, pointing ahead.

“By Jove, it’s a wall,” said Peter. “An old stone wall.”

Pressing their way between the laden branches they reached the wall. It was very old, and broken down in places, with moss and wallflowers growing on it, but it was higher than all but the tallest trees. And when they came quite close to it they found a great arch which must once have had a gate in it but was now almost filled up with the largest of all the apple trees. They had to break some of the branches to get past, and when they had done so they all blinked because the daylight became suddenly much brighter. They found themselves in a wide open place with walls all round it. In here there were no trees, only level grass and daisies, and ivy, and grey walls. It was a bright, secret, quiet place, and rather sad; and all four stepped out into the middle of it, glad to be able to straighten their backs and move their limbs freely.

中文阅读

从前有四个孩子，他们的名字是彼得、苏珊、埃德蒙和露西。我在另外一本叫做《狮子，女巫和魔衣柜》的书中讲述了他们非同寻常的历险故事。他们打开了魔衣柜的门，进入了一个与我们这个世界截然不同的世界。在那个世界里，他们成为了纳尼亚国的国王和女王，并且在那里统治了很多年。后来，他们再次经过那扇柜门，发现自己又回到了英国，所有的一切似乎都发生在短短的一瞬间。不管怎样，没有人注意到他们曾经离去。他们只将这个奇遇告诉了一位睿智的长者，其他的人都毫不知情。

那些事情发生在一年以前。此刻他们兄妹四人正坐在一个火车站的长椅上，身边堆放着行李箱和杂物盒。事实上，他们正在去往学校的路上。兄妹四人结伴同行，到这里就要分手了。因为这个车站是个中转站，再过几分钟，一列火车即将驶来，将女孩子们带往她们的学校。大约半个小时之后，另一辆火车又会到来，男孩子们将乘坐那辆火车前往另一所学校。前一半旅途，大家欢聚一堂，仿佛假期还没有到头。现在告别在即，马上就要各奔前程，每个人都感到，假期真的已经结束了，从此又该“上套”了。他们的心情相当郁闷，没有人知道该说些什么。而露西是第一次到寄宿学校去上学。

那是一个空空荡荡、令人昏昏欲睡的乡村车站，除了他们，站台上几乎空无一人。突然露西轻轻地惊叫了一声，就像是被马蜂蛰了一下。“怎么啦，露？”埃德蒙问道——他的话突然中断，发出了一个类似“噢！”的声音。“到底怎么——”彼得开口询问，但是他也突然改变了话题，转而说道，“苏珊，放开手！你在做什么？你想拖我去哪里呀？”“我没有碰你，”苏珊说，“有人正在拉我。啊－啊－啊－住手！”

每个人都注意到，另外三人的脸色变得异常苍白。“我也有同样的感觉，”埃德蒙上气不接下气地说，“好像我正在被人拖走。一种非常可怕的力量——啊！又开始了。”“我也是，”露西说，“哦，我顶不住啦。”“注意！”埃德蒙喊道，“大家手拉手，站在一起。这是魔法——通过感觉我能识别出来。快！”“是的，”苏珊说，“手拉紧。啊，我真希望它能够停下来——啊！”

转瞬之间，行李，座椅，站台以及火车站全都消失了。四个孩子发现自己站在一个密林之中，手拉着手，气喘吁吁——这里的树木非常茂密，有些枝条甚至戳到了他们身上，他们被卡在那里，几乎动弹不得。孩子们揉了揉眼睛，深深地吸了一口气。“啊，彼得！”露西惊叫道，“你觉得我们是不是又回到了纳尼亚？”“这里可能是任何一个地方，”彼得说，“有这么多树，我看不到一米以外的地方。让我们想办法找个空地——如果能够找到的话。”

他们忍受着荨麻的刺扎，荆棘划破了皮肤，费了好大的劲儿，才挣脱出灌木丛。这时，他们又一次感到惊奇，周围的一切都变得明亮起来。刚走出几步，他们便发现自己已经来到树林的边缘，向下俯视着一个沙滩。几米之外，是风平浪静的大海，纤细的浪花悄无声息地拍打着沙滩。他们目光所及，看不到陆地，只见海天一色，晴空万里。按照太阳的高度来推测，这时应该是上午十点钟左右。湛蓝的大海令人目眩。他们站在那里，深深地呼吸着大海的气息。“天哪！”彼得说，“这个地方可真不错。”

五分钟后，大家都光着脚丫，在凉爽清澈的海水中淌水嬉戏起来。“这可比乘坐闷热的火车返校去学拉丁文、法语和代数强多了！”埃德蒙说。过了好久，没有人再说一句话，只听见他们溅起的哗哗水声，孩子们都在忙着寻找虾与螃蟹。“不管怎么着，”过了一会儿，苏珊说，“我想，我们必须制定一些计划。很快我们就需要吃东西了。”“我们有妈妈给我们预备路上吃的三明治，”埃德蒙说，“起码我的还在这儿。”“我没有，”露西说，“我的放在小包里了。”“我的也是。”苏珊说。“我的放在了上衣口袋里，就在那边沙滩上。”彼得说，“那等于四个人分吃两份午餐。这可不怎么好玩。”“这会儿，”露西说，“我不太想吃东西，想喝点什么。”

其他人现在也感到口渴。顶着骄阳在咸咸的海水中戏耍过后，人们通常都会如此。“这就像书中所描述的，轮船失事后，”埃德蒙议论道，“人们总能在岛上发现清澈甘甜的泉水。我们最好也去找一下。”“那就是说，我们还要回到密林里去？”苏珊问道。“完全没有必要，”彼得说，“如果有溪流的话，它们一定会顺流而下，汇入大海。我们沿着海滩走，必然能够找到它们。”

于是，他们淌着水往回走，穿过平坦湿润的沙滩，走到干燥松软的沙土上，脚趾间沾满了沙子。两个大孩子穿上了鞋袜，埃德蒙和露西则想光着脚丫脚继续向前探索，苏珊说他们这么做太疯狂了。“我们也许再也找不到鞋袜，”她劝阻说，“如果我们待在这里的话，到了夜间温度会下降，那时候我们会需要鞋袜的。”

他们穿戴整齐后，就沿着海岸出发了。大海在他们的左边，树林在他们的右边。除了偶尔传来一只海鸥的叫声，这里一片阒然。树林茂密异常，树枝纠结在一起，他们几乎看不到里面的情景。而且他们也听不到树林里有什么动静——没有鸟啼，甚至没有昆虫的鸣叫。

贝壳、海草、海葵和礁石积水中的小螃蟹都很有趣，但若是口干舌燥，你很快就会感到厌倦。孩子们的脚，由凉爽的海水中出来之后，很快就感到火辣辣、沉甸甸的。苏珊和露西拿着各自的雨衣。被魔法劫持之前，埃德蒙刚好把自己的大衣放在了车站的椅子上。现在他和彼得轮流拿着彼得的大衣。

很快，海岸开始朝右边弯去。大约又过了十五分钟，他们翻过一道突出的石脊，转了一个很陡的弯，将一出树林就看到的那片大海抛到了身后。现在，隔水朝对岸望去，他们看到了茂密的树木，跟他们身边的树林相差无几。“我在想，那边是一座孤岛，还是很快就会跟这边的海岸相连接呢？”露西说。“不知道，”彼得回答。他们拖着沉重的步伐默默前行。

他们沿着海岸行走，离对岸越来越近。每绕过一个海角，孩子们都期盼着能看到两个海岸的连接处。可是他们的期望都落空了。他们遇到了一些拦路的礁石，只好翻越过去。在礁石顶上，他们可以看到很远的地方——“哦，见鬼！”埃德蒙说，“没有用。我们根本无法到达对面那些树林。我们是在一个岛上！”

一点不错。目前把他们与对岸隔开的海峡仅仅只有三四十米宽。他们看得出来，这里是两岸之间最狭窄的地方。再往前，他们这边的海岸又朝右弯了过来，可以看到前面辽阔的大海和远远的陆地。显然他们已经绕着海岛转了大半个圈子。“看！”露西突然叫道，“那是什么？”她指着一个横卧在海滩上像条银蛇一样细长的东西。“小溪！一条小溪！”其他人齐声嚷道。尽管早已疲惫不堪，他们还是噔噔噔地冲下礁石，朝着清澈的溪水奔去。他们知道，离海岸越远，溪水越好喝。于是，他们跑到了小溪刚刚流出树林的地方。此处的树木依旧是密不透风，但溪流冲出了一道深深的沟壑，两边的堤岸上长满了苔藓。他们弯下腰来，顺水而上，好像进到了一个由树叶构成的隧道里。看到第一个泛着波纹的褐色水潭，他们就跪在地上，痛痛快快地喝了起来，还把脸浸在水里，然后又把手臂泡在水中，一直浸到胳膊肘。“喂，”埃德蒙说，“那些三明治怎么办?”“哦，我们是不是先留着，”苏珊说，“以备不时之需。”“现在不渴了，我真希望，”露西说，“我们还能感到不饿，就像我们在干渴时的那种感觉。”“可是那些三明治怎么办？”埃德蒙再一次问道，“留着没用，会放坏的。你们要记得，这里可比英国热得多，我们把它们揣在口袋里，跑来跑去，已经好几个钟头了。”于是，他们把两块三明治拿出来，分成四份。尽管谁都没有吃饱，但总算是聊胜于无。接着，他们开始讨论下一顿饭该如何解决。露西想要回到海边去捉虾，有人指出来没有网。埃德蒙说，他们可以到礁石那儿找些海鸥蛋，但转念一想，好像不记得在那儿见到过海鸥蛋。再说即使找到了，也没有办法将它们煮熟。彼得心中暗想，除非时来运转，否则他们很快就会乐于吃生海鸥蛋了。但他认为，没有必要把这个想法说出来。苏珊说，很遗憾他们这么快就把三明治吃完了。说到这儿，他们中的一两个人还差点儿发了脾气。最后，埃德蒙说：“听着。我们只有一件事好做，那就是探索一下这个树林。隐士、游侠之类的人都能在森林中想办法生存下去。他们会找到些根茎和浆果等来充饥。”“什么根茎？”苏珊问道。“我一直认为说的是树根。”露西说。“来吧，”彼得说，“埃德说得对。我们必须试着做点儿什么。这总比出去再到毒日头下要好一些。”

他们站起身来，顺着小溪往前走。这是件非常吃力的事情。他们必须弓着身子，从树枝下钻过，或者爬过枝干。他们步履艰难地穿过一片片杜鹃花丛，不是挂破了衣服，就是在溪流中打湿了鞋子。除了溪水的潺潺声，以及他们自己所闹出的动静之外，周围万籁俱寂。正当他们感到筋疲力尽的时候，突然闻到了一股芳香的气味，紧接着，在他们的上方，即右岸的顶端，出现了一片鲜艳的色彩。“瞧！”露西喊道，“我相信那是一棵苹果树。”

的确是棵苹果树。他们喘息着爬上陡峭的右岸，挣扎着穿过荆棘丛，来到一棵老树跟前。那棵树上结满了金灿灿的大苹果，一个个正如你所期待的那样汁液饱满。“这不是唯一的一棵树，”埃德蒙嘴里塞满了苹果，说道，“看那边——还有那边。”“哎呀，有几十棵呢，”苏珊说着，随手扔掉刚吃完的第一个果核，又摘下第二个苹果，“过去这一定是个果园——在很久很久以前，后来这地方荒废了，丛林才长了出来。”“那么，这个岛屿曾经有人居住过。”彼得说。“那是什么？”露西用手指着前方，问道。“天哪，是一堵墙，”彼得说，“一堵古老的石墙。”

他们吃力地穿过结满果子的枝条，来到墙边。这堵墙非常古老，上面长满了青苔和桂竹香，有些地方已经坍塌。除开几棵最高大的树木，这堵墙高高地矗立在那里，傲视着周围的一切。他们走到墙的近旁，发现了一个高大的门拱，过去这里一定还有一扇大门，现在却被一棵最高的苹果树挡在门洞那里。他们折断了好些树枝，才进入门拱。突然，他们都在强烈的阳光下眨起眼睛来。他们发现自己来到了一个宽广开阔的地方，四面都有墙壁环绕着。这里没有树木，只有茵茵的绿草地、雏菊、青藤和灰色的墙壁，是一个明亮、隐秘、寂静而又有几分凄凉的地方。四个孩子迈步走到开阔地的中央，很高兴终于能够挺直腰板，自由地活动一下胳膊腿儿了。

Chapter 2 The Ancient Treasure House古代藏宝室

“This wasn’t a garden,” said Susan presently. “It was a castle and this must have been the courtyard.”

“I see what you mean,” said Peter. “Yes. That is the remains of a tower. And there is what used to be a flight of steps going up to the top of the walls. And look at those other steps—the broad, shallow ones—going up to that doorway. It must have been the door into the great hall.”

“Ages ago, by the look of it,” said Edmund.

“Yes, ages ago,” said Peter. “I wish we could find out who the people were that lived in this castle; and how long ago.”

“It gives me a queer feeling,” said Lucy.

“Does it, Lu?” said Peter, turning and looking hard at her. “Because it does the same to me. It is the queerest thing that has happened this queer day. I wonder where we are and what it all means?”

While they were talking they had crossed the courtyard and gone through the other doorway into what had once been the hall. This was now very like the courtyard, for the roof had long since disappeared and it was merely another space of grass and daisies, except that it was shorter and narrower and the walls were higher. Across the far end there was a kind of terrace about three feet higher than the rest.

“I wonder, was it really the hall?” said Susan. “What is that terrace kind of thing?”

“Why, you silly,” said Peter (who had become strangely excited),“don’t you see? That was the dais where the High Table was, where the King and the great lords sat. Anyone would think you had forgotten that we ourselves were once Kings and Queens and sat on a dais just like that, in our great hall.”

“In our castle of Cair Paravel,” continued Susan in a dreamy and rather sing-song voice, “at the mouth of the great river of Narnia. How could I forget?”

“How it all comes back!” said Lucy. “We could pretend we were in Cair Paravel now. This hall must have been very like the great hall we feasted in.”

“But unfortunately without the feast,” said Edmund. “It’s getting late, you know. Look how long the shadows are. And have you noticed that it isn’t so hot?”

“We shall need a camp-fire if we’ve got to spend the night here,”said Peter. “I’ve got matches. Let’s go and see if we can collect some dry wood.”

Everyone saw the sense of this, and for the next half-hour they were busy. The orchard through which they had first come into the ruins turned out not to be a good place for firewood. They tried the other side of the castle, passing out of the hall by a little side door into a maze of stony humps and hollows which must once have been passages and smaller rooms but was now all nettles and wild roses. Beyond this they found a wide gap in the castle wall and stepped through it into a wood of darker and bigger trees where they found dead branches and rotten wood and sticks and dry leaves and fir-cones in plenty. They went to and fro with bundles until they had a good pile on the dais. At the fifth journey they found the well, just outside the hall, hidden in weeds, but clean and fresh and deep when they had cleared these away. The remains of a stone pavement ran halfway round it. Then the girls went out to pick some more apples and the boys built the fire, on the dais and fairly close to the corner between two walls, which they thought would be the snuggest and warmest place. They had great difficulty in lighting it and used a lot of matches, but they succeeded in the end. Finally, all four sat down with their backs to the wall and their faces to the fire. They tried roasting some of the apples on the ends of sticks. But roast apples are not much good without sugar, and they are too hot to eat with your fingers till they are too cold to be worth eating. So they had to content themselves with raw apples, which, as Edmund said, made one realize that school suppers weren’t so bad after all— “I shouldn’t mind a good thick slice of bread and margarine this minute,”he added. But the spirit of adventure was rising in them all, and no one really wanted to be back at school.

Shortly after the last apple had been eaten, Susan went out to the well to get another drink. When she came back she was carrying something in her hand.

“Look,” she said in a rather choking kind of voice. “I found it by the well.” She handed it to Peter and sat down. The others thought she looked and sounded as if she might be going to cry. Edmund and Lucy eagerly bent forward to see what was in Peter’s hand—a little, bright thing that gleamed in the firelight.

“Well, I’m—I’m jiggered,” said Peter, and his voice also sounded queer. Then he handed it to the others.

All now saw what it was—a little chess-knight, ordinary in size but extraordinarily heavy because it was made of pure gold; and the eyes in the horse’s head were two tiny little rubies or rather one was, for the other had been knocked out.

“Why!” said Lucy, “it’s exactly like one of the golden chessmen we used to play with when we were Kings and Queens at Cair Paravel.”

“Cheer up, Su,” said Peter to his other sister.

“I can’t help it,” said Susan. “It brought back—oh, such lovely times. And I remembered playing chess with fauns and good giants, and the mer-people singing in the sea, and my beautiful horse—and—and—”

“Now,” said Peter in a quite different voice, “it’s about time we four started using our brains.”

“What about?” asked Edmund.

“Have none of you guessed where we are?” said Peter.

“Go on, go on,” said Lucy. “I’ve felt for hours that there was some wonderful mystery hanging over this place.”

“Fire ahead, Peter,” said Edmund. “We’re all listening.”

“We are in the ruins of Cair Paravel itself,” said Peter.

“But, I say,” replied Edmund. “I mean, how do you make that out? This place has been ruined for ages. Look at all those big trees growing right up to the gates. Look at the very stones. Anyone can see that nobody has lived here for hundreds of years.”

“I know,” said Peter. “That is the difficulty. But let’s leave that out for the moment. I want to take the points one by one. First point: this hall is exactly the same shape and size as the hall at Cair Paravel. Just picture a roof on this, and a coloured pavement instead of grass, and tapestries on the walls, and you get our royal banqueting hall.”

No one said anything.

“Second point,” continued Peter. “The castle well is exactly where our well was, a little to the south of the great hall; and it is exactly the same size and shape.”

Again there was no reply.

“Third point: Susan has just found one of our old chessmen - or something as like one of them as two peas.”

Still nobody answered.

“Fourth point. Don’t you remember—it was the very day before the ambassadors came from the King of Calormen—don’t you remember planting the orchard outside the north gate of Cair Paravel? The greatest of all the wood-people, Pomona herself, came to put good spells on it. It was those very decent little chaps the moles who did the actual digging. Can you have forgotten that funny old Lilygloves, the chief mole, leaning on his spade and saying, ‘Believe me, your Majesty, you’ll be glad of these fruit trees one day.’ And by Jove he was right.”

“I do! I do!” said Lucy, and clapped her hands.

“But look here, Peter,” said Edmund. “This must be all rot. To begin with, we didn’t plant the orchard slap up against the gate. We wouldn’t have been such fools.”

“No, of course not,” said Peter. “But it has grown up to the gate since.”

“And for another thing,” said Edmund, “Cair Paravel wasn’t on an island.”

“Yes, I’ve been wondering about that. But it was a what-do-you-callit, a peninsula. Jolly nearly an island. Couldn’t it have been made an island since our time? Somebody has dug a channel.”

“But half a moment!” said Edmund. “You keep on saying since our time. But it’s only a year ago since we came back from Narnia. And you want to make out that in one year castles have fallen down, and great forests have grown up, and little trees we saw planted ourselves have turned into a big old orchard, and goodness knows what else. It’s all impossible.”

“There’s one thing,” said Lucy. “If this is Cair Paravel there ought to be a door at this end of the dais. In fact we ought to be sitting with our backs against it at this moment. You know—the door that led down to the treasure chamber.”

“I suppose there isn’t a door,” said Peter, getting up.

The wall behind them was a mass of ivy.

“We can soon find out,” said Edmund, taking up one of the sticks that they had laid ready for putting on the fire. He began beating the ivied wall. Tap-tap went the stick against the stone, and again, taptap; and then, all at once, boomboom, with a quite different sound, a hollow, wooden sound.

“Great Scott!” said Edmund.

“We must clear this ivy away,” said Peter.

“Oh, do let’s leave it alone,” said Susan. “We can try it in the morning. If we’ve got to spend the night here I don’t want an open door at my back and a great big black hole that anything might come out of, besides the draught and the damp. And it’ll soon be dark.”

“Susan! How can you?” said Lucy with a reproachful glance. But both the boys were too much excited to take any notice of Susan’s advice. They worked at the ivy with their hands and with Peter’s pocket-knife till the knife broke. After that they used Edmund’s. Soon the whole place where they had been sitting was covered with ivy; and at last they had the door cleared.

“Locked, of course,” said Peter.

“But the wood’s all rotten,” said Edmund. “We can pull it to bits in no time, and it will make extra firewood. Come on.”

It took them longer than they expected and, before they had done, the great hall had grown dusky and the first star or two had come out overhead. Susan was not the only one who felt a slight shudder as the boys stood above the pile of splintered wood, rubbing the dirt off their hands and staring into the cold, dark opening they had made.

“Now for a torch,” said Peter.

“Oh, what is the good?” said Susan. “And as Edmund said—”

“I’m not saying it now,” Edmund interrupted. “I still don’t understand, but we can settle that later. I suppose you’re coming down, Peter?”

“We must,” said Peter. “Cheer up, Susan. It’s no good behaving like kids now that we are back in Narnia.

You’re a Queen here. And anyway no one could go to sleep with a mystery like this on their minds.”

They tried to use long sticks as torches but this was not a success. If you held them with the lighted end up they went out, and if you held them the other way they scorched your hand and the smoke got in your eyes. In the end they had to use Edmund’s electric torch; luckily it had been a birthday present less than a week ago and the battery was almost new. He went first, with the light. Then came Lucy, then Susan, and Peter brought up the rear.

“I’ve come to the top of the steps,” said Edmund.

“Count them,” said Peter.

“One—two—three,” said Edmund, as he went cautiously down, and so up to sixteen. “And this is the bottom,” he shouted back.

“Then it really must be Cair Paravel,” said Lucy. “There were sixteen.” Nothing more was said till all four were standing in a knot together at the foot of the stairway. Then Edmund flashed his torch slowly round.

“O—o—o—oh!!” said all the children at once.

For now all knew that it was indeed the ancient treasure chamber of Cair Paravel where they had once reigned as Kings and Queens of Narnia. There was a kind of path up the middle (as it might be in a greenhouse), and along each side at intervals stood rich suits of armour, like knights guarding the treasures. In between the suits of armour, and on each side of the path, were shelves covered with precious things—necklaces and arm rings and finger rings and golden bowls and dishes and long tusks of ivory, brooches and coronets and chains of gold, and heaps of unset stones lying piled anyhow as if they were marbles or potatoes—diamonds, rubies, carbuncles, emeralds, topazes, and amethysts. Under the shelves stood great chests of oak strengthened with iron bars and heavily padlocked. And it was bitterly cold, and so still that they could hear themselves breathing, and the treasures were so covered with dust that unless they had realized where they were and remembered most of the things, they would hardly have known they were treasures. There was something sad and a little frightening about the place, because it all seemed so forsaken and long ago. That was why nobody said anything for at least a minute.

Then, of course, they began walking about and picking things up to look at. It was like meeting very old friends. If you had been there you would have heard them saying things like, “Oh look! Our coronation rings—do you remember first wearing this? —Why, this is the little brooch we all thought was lost—I say, isn’t that the armour you wore in the great tournament in the Lone Islands? —do you remember the dwarf making that for me? —do you remember drinking out of that horn? —do you remember, do you remember?”

But suddenly Edmund said, “Look here. We mustn’t waste the battery: goodness knows how often we shall need it. Hadn’t we better take what we want and get out again?”

“We must take the gifts,” said Peter. For long ago at a Christmas in Narnia he and Susan and Lucy had been given certain presents which they valued more than their whole kingdom. Edmund had had no gift, because he was not with them at the time. (This was his own fault, and you can read about it in the other book.)

They all agreed with Peter and walked up the path to the wall at the far end of the treasure chamber, and there, sure enough, the gifts were still hanging. Lucy’s was the smallest for it was only a little bottle. But the bottle was made of diamond instead of glass, and it was still more than half full of the magical cordial which would heal almost every wound and every illness. Lucy said nothing and looked very solemn as she took her gift down from its place and slung the belt over her shoulder and once more felt the bottle at her side where it used to hang in the old days. Susan’s gift had been a bow and arrows and a horn. The bow was still there, and the ivory quiver, full of wellfeathered arrows, but— “Oh, Susan,” said Lucy “Where’s the horn?”

“Oh bother, bother, bother,” said Susan after she had thought for a moment “I remember now. I took it with me the last day of all, the day we went hunting the White Stag. It must have got lost when we blundered back into that other place—England, I mean.”

Edmund whistled. It was indeed a shattering loss; for this was an enchanted horn and, whenever you blew it, help was certain to come to you, wherever you were.

“Just the sort of thing that might come in handy in a place like this,” said Edmund.

“Never mind,” said Susan, “I’ve still got the bow.” And she took it.

“Won’t the string be perished, Su?” said Peter.

But whether by some magic in the air of the treasure chamber or not, the bow was still in working order. Archery and swimming were the things Susan was good at. In a moment she had bent the bow and then she gave one little pluck to the string. It twanged: a chirruping twang that vibrated through the whole room. And that one small noise brought back the old days to the children’s minds more than anything that had happened yet. All the battles and hunts and feasts came rushing into their heads together.

Then she unstrung the bow again and slung the quiver at her side.

Next, Peter took down his gift—the shield with the great red lion on it, and the royal sword. He blew, and rapped them on the floor, to get off the dust. He fitted the shield on his arm and slung the sword by his side. He was afraid at first that it might be rusty and stick to the sheath. But it was not so. With one swift motion he drew it and held it up, shining in the torchlight.

“It is my sword Rhindon,” he said; “with it I killed the Wolf.”There was a new tone in his voice, and the others all felt that he was really Peter the High King again. Then, after a little pause, everyone remembered that they must save the battery.

They climbed the stair again and made up a good fire and lay down close together for warmth. The ground was very hard and uncomfortable, but they fell asleep in the end.

中文阅读

他们一边交谈，一边穿过庭院，经过另一个门道，进入了以前的大厅。这里和庭院已经没有多少差别，屋顶早就不见了，到处长满了青草和雏菊。与庭院相比，不同之处在于其面积比较狭小，墙壁显得略高一些。在大厅的另一端有个平台之类的东西，比地面高出来大约有一米。“我怀疑，这里以前真的是个大厅吗？”苏珊说，“那个台子是做什么用的？”“哦，你可真笨，”彼得说（他莫名其妙地兴奋起来），“难道你没看出来？那是放置御案的平台，国王与大臣就在那上面就座。人们会以为，你已经忘记了我们自己曾经是国王与女王，曾经高坐在宫廷中类似的平台上。”“就在我们的凯尔帕拉维尔城堡，”苏珊用一种梦呓般的、如歌如述的声音继续说道，“在纳尼亚大河的河口。我怎么会忘记呢？”“但愿那一幕又会重新上演！”露西说，“我们可以装作是在凯尔帕拉维尔，这个大厅一定与我们宴乐的宫廷非常相似。”“不幸的是没有宴席，”埃德蒙说，“你们要知道，天色已晚。看看影子变得有多长了。你们没有注意到吗，温度已经没有那么高了。”“如果在这里过夜的话，我们需要一个篝火，”彼得说，“我带着火柴。我们出去看看，能不能捡到一些干柴。”

大家都觉得这话很有道理。在随后的半个小时，他们都忙活起来。在废墟前的果园里没有多少干树枝，他们就到城堡的另一边去寻找。由一个小偏门走出大厅，外面是迷宫般的石堆与空地，想必这些曾经是走廊与众多的小房间，现在却到处长满了荨麻与野玫瑰。再往前，他们在城堡的墙上发现了一个很宽的缺口。走出缺口，他们来到了一个长着高大深色树木的树林。在这里，他们拣到了一些枯枝、朽木、干树叶，以及大量的冷杉球果。他们将这些东西扎成捆，一趟趟搬运回去，最后，在那个平台上堆了一大堆柴火。搬运到第五趟时，他们在大厅外发现了一口被野草遮盖住的水井。将野草剔除之后，他们发现井很深，里面的井水清澈洁净。有一条残破的石头甬道呈半圆形环绕着这口井。两个女孩子去采了一些苹果，两个男孩子负责生火。他们选了平台上两堵墙之间的一个角落，认为这个地方最舒适暖和。他们费了好大的劲儿，划了许多根火柴，终于把火点着了。一切就绪之后，兄妹四人背对着墙，围着篝火坐下。他们试着把苹果穿在树枝上用火烤，但是没有糖，烤苹果的味道不怎么样。苹果刚烤好时太烫，无法用手去拿，等到凉下来，又不好吃了。他们只好将就着吃些生苹果。正如埃德蒙所说的，吃生苹果使人意识到，学校的晚餐还不太糟糕——“这会儿如果有一大块奶油面包就好了。”他补充道。但是他们的内心都充满了一种冒险精神，并没有人真的想回到学校里去。

吃完最后一个苹果之后，苏珊又去井边汲水。她回来时，手上拿着一件东西。“看，”她用一种哽咽的声音说，“我在井边找到的。”她把那个东西交给彼得，自己坐了下来。看她的样子，听她的声音，使人觉得她险些就要哭出声来。埃德蒙和露西急切地探过身子，想看看彼得手中到底拿了个什么——那是一个亮闪闪的小东西，在火光照耀下熠熠生辉。“哦，我——我真晕，”彼得说，他的声音听上去也怪怪的，随手将那个东西递给他们。

现在他们看清楚了——那是国际象棋中的一颗马的棋子，与普通棋子的大小相仿，但因为是纯金打造的，搁在手上沉甸甸的。马的眼睛是两块小小的红宝石——或者不如说是一块，因为另一块已经丢失了。“哎呀！”露西说，“这真像我们在凯尔帕拉维尔做王与女王时所用过的金棋子。”“振作起来，苏。”彼得给大妹妹鼓劲道。“我控制不住自己，”苏珊说，“它使我想起了——啊，多么美好的时光。我记得曾经和潘恩还有那些友好的巨人们下棋，水中仙子们在海中歌唱，我那匹漂亮的马儿——还有——还有——”“现在，”彼得用一种激动的语调说道，“我们四个该动脑筋好好地思考一番了。”“思考什么？”埃德蒙问道。“你们没有猜到我们是在什么地方吗？”彼得说。“快说，说下去，”露西催促道，“有好几个钟头了，我一直感到这个地方笼罩着某种奇妙的神秘。”“继续说，彼得，”埃德蒙说，“我们都在洗耳恭听。”“我们就在凯尔帕拉维尔的废墟之中。”彼得说。“可是，我要说，”埃德蒙回答道，“我的意思是，你是怎么看出来的？这个地方已经荒废了许多个世纪。看看那些长到门口的大树。看看这些石头。任何人都能看得出来，这里已经有几百年无人居住了。”“我知道，”彼得说，“那正是费解的地方。让我们暂时把那个放在一边。我想逐个谈一下我的理由。第一，这个大厅与凯尔帕拉维尔宫庭的形状和大小完全相同。只要想象这上面有个屋顶，将荒草换成五颜六色的小路，墙壁上装饰着挂毯，你就置身于我们的皇家御宴大厅了。”

没有一个人做声。“第二点，”彼得接着讲道，“这个城堡的水井与我们的水井位置完全重合，也是在大厅外偏南的地方，而且大小形状都一模一样。”

照样，谁都没有吭声。“第三点，苏珊刚发现了一颗我们用过的棋子——或者说跟我们的棋子完全相同的东西。”

众人还是不做声。“第四点，你们记得吗——就在卡罗门王的使节到来的前一天——难道你们忘记了在凯尔帕拉维尔北门外开辟的果园？树精中最伟大的果树女神波莫娜亲自到场，为其祝福。那些非常可敬的小家伙，鼹鼠们，挖掘了一个个树坑。难道你们忘记了滑稽的老理理格拉乌，鼹鼠的头领，拄着铁锹说：‘陛下，请相信我，有一天你们会为这些果树感到高兴。’天哪，它说的话应验了。”“我记得！我记得！”露西拍着双手嚷道。“可是听我说，彼得，”埃德蒙说，“你的话都是一些胡言乱语。首先，我们并没有将果树一直栽到大门口。我们不会蠢到这个地步。”“是的，当然不会，”彼得说，“是果树慢慢长到了门口。”“另外，”埃德蒙说，“凯尔帕拉维尔并不在一个小岛上。”“没错，我也一直在思考这件事。但那要看你如何称呼它，也许是半岛，差不多是个岛屿。没准儿在我们的时代之后，有人开凿了一个海峡，把它变为了一个海岛。”“等一下！”埃德蒙说，“你不断提到我们的时代。可是我们离开纳尼亚才刚刚一年，在一年之内，城堡坍塌，大森林长成，我们亲眼看着栽种的小树变成了古老的大果园，天知道还有别的什么。这一切都是不可能的。”“还有一件事，”露西说，“如果这是凯尔帕拉维尔，平台后边应该还有一扇门。事实上，此刻我们坐在这里，应该是背靠在那扇门上。你们知道——那扇门是通往藏宝室的。”“我想这里并没有一扇门。”彼得说着，站起身来。

他们身后的那堵墙上长满了藤蔓。“我们马上就可以一探究竟，”埃德蒙说着，拿起一根准备烧火用的木棍，开始敲打爬满青藤的墙壁。棍子打在石头上，发出啪啪的声响。他接着往前敲击，还是啪啪的声音。埃德蒙继续四下里敲击，忽然传来了咚咚声，与先前的声音大相径庭，那是一种空洞的、木头的低沉声响。“天哪！”埃德蒙惊叫道。“我们必须把这些藤蔓清除掉。”彼得说。“啊，先留着它们，”苏珊说，“我们明早再试也不迟。如果我们在这里过夜，我可不想在背后有一扇敞开着的门，一个大黑洞，除了穿堂风和潮气，说不定还有什么东西会从里面钻出来。再说天很快就要黑了。”“苏珊！你怎么能这样说话？”露西说着，用责备的目光瞥了她一眼。两个男孩子无比兴奋，根本就没有理睬苏珊的建议。他们用手拔藤蔓，又用彼得的小刀来割，不一会儿小刀就被弄断了。于是，他们又用埃德蒙的小刀。很快，刚才坐的那个地方就堆满了青藤。最后，他们总算把门给清理干净了。“门自然是锁着的，”彼得说。“木头早就糟了，”埃德蒙说，“我们一下子就能把它砸碎，还可以多一些柴火。来吧。”

他们花的时间比预想的要长，直到暮色苍茫，一两颗星星已在夜空中闪现，他们才把那扇门给弄开。一堆乱糟糟的木块散落在男孩子们的脚下，他们擦掉手上的泥巴，望着阴冷黑暗的门洞，不光是苏珊一个人打了个冷战。“眼下需要一个火把。”彼得说。“啊，有什么用处？”苏珊说，“正如埃德蒙所说——”“我这会儿不再说了，”埃德蒙打断了她，“我还是搞不懂，不过我们很快就会弄明白。彼得，我猜你是打算下去，对吧？”“我们必须下去，”彼得说，“苏珊，打起精神来。我们既然回到了纳尼亚，表现得象个孩子无济于事。你在这儿是个女王。不管怎么说，心里怀着一个未知的秘密，没有人能够睡得着觉。”

他们想用长木棍来做火把，但并没有成功。你若将点着的那一头朝上，火就会熄灭。如果将点着的那头朝下，火又会烧痛你的手，烟会熏着你的眼睛。到末了，他们只好使用埃德蒙的手电筒。幸好那是他几天前收到的生日礼物，电池差不多还是新的。他拿着手电筒，走在前边。露西跟在他的身后，接下去是苏珊，彼得担任后卫。“我已到了台阶的顶端。”埃德蒙说。“数一下，”彼得说。“一——二——三，”埃德蒙嘴里数着，一边小心翼翼地下台阶，他一直数到第十六级。“到底了。”他朝上面喊道。“看来这里真的是凯尔帕拉维尔，”露西说，“原来的台阶就是十六级。”谁都没有搭腔。最后大家全都走下台阶，挤成一团站在那里。埃德蒙用手电筒缓缓地照着四周。“哦——哦——哦——哦！”四个孩子一连声地叫道。

这时，他们全都看出来了，这里的确是凯尔帕拉维尔的藏宝室。作为纳尼亚的国王与女王，他们曾经在这个地方执掌王权。藏宝室中间有一个过道（就像暖房那样），两边每隔一段距离就立着一副华丽的铠甲，很像守卫财宝的骑士。在过道两边的铠甲之间，是一些摆放着珍宝的架子——项链、臂环、指环、金碗碟、长长的象牙、胸针、冠状头饰和金链子，一堆堆还未镶嵌的宝石摊在架子上，仿佛是些弹子或是土豆——有钻石、红宝石、红玉、绿宝石、黄宝石和紫晶。架子下面放着大橡木箱子，有铁条加固，严严实实地锁着。藏宝室里十分阴冷，宁静得他们都能够听到自己的呼吸声。珠宝上蒙着厚厚的灰尘，要不是认出了自己所在的地方，并回忆起了大部分珍宝，他们将很难辨别出那都是些什么东西。这地方充斥着一种凄凉而恐怖的氛围，整个儿显露出一种衰败和陈旧的景象。因此至少有一分钟，没有一个人讲话。

当然，随即他们开始走动起来，拿起一些东西来观看。这就像是与老友重逢。如果你也在场，就会听到他们在说着这样一些话，“啊，看！这是我们加冕时的环——你还记得我们第一次戴上的情景吗？——哎呀，这是我们以为丢了的小胸针——喂，那不是你在孤独岛马上比武时穿的铠甲吗？——你们还记得小矮人为我制作那件首饰吗？——你们记不记得我们曾经用那个角来喝酒？——你们记得吗，你们记得吗？”

突然，埃德蒙说：“注意。我们不能浪费电池。天知道我们还有多么次要用到它。我们是否最好拿上一些需要的东西，就出去呢？”“我们必须带上那些礼物。”彼得说。很久以前，在纳尼亚的一个圣诞节，他、苏珊还有露西都得到了一些礼物。他们将这些礼物看得比整个王国还要宝贵。埃德蒙没有得到礼物，因为当时他没有跟他们在一起。（这是他自己的过错，你在另一本书中可以读到前因后果。）

大家都赞同彼得的话，于是他们顺着过道，走到藏宝室最里面那一堵墙的跟前。果然，礼物还挂在墙上。露西的礼物最小，是一个小瓶子。但那瓶子不是用玻璃而是用钻石制成的，里面还有大半瓶神奇的药水。这药水几乎可以医治所有的创伤与疾病。露西默默地、神情庄重地取下自己的礼物，斜挎在肩上。她再一次感觉到，自己好像又回到了以往的岁月。苏珊的礼物是一张弓、一些箭和一只号角。弓还在原处，象牙箭筒里的翎毛箭还是满满的。但是——“哦，苏珊，”露西问，“号角在哪儿？”“啊，糟了，糟了，糟了，”苏珊想了一下，连声叫道，“我想起来了。最后一天，就是我们去捕猎白鹿的那一天，我还带在身边。一定是我们匆匆返回另一个地方时给弄丢了——我指的是返回英国。”

埃德蒙吹了声口哨。确实这是个重大的损失。因为那个号角非常神奇，无论是什么时候，无论在什么地方，只要你吹响号角，就能够得到帮助。“在这种地方，那个东西早晚都会派上用场的。”埃德蒙说。“没关系，”苏珊说，“我还有弓。”她把弓取了下来。“弓弦有没有朽坏，苏？”彼得问道。

不知是藏宝室的空气富有魔力还是怎么回事，弓依然保持着良好的状态。苏珊擅长射箭和游泳。她用力将弓拉满，轻轻弹了弹弓弦。弓弦嗵的响了一声，嗡嗡的声响使整个藏宝室的空气都震颤了起来。比起迄今所发生的一切，这个轻微的弓弦声更使得孩子们在脑海中浮想联翩，战斗、打猎、聚餐等场景纷至沓来。

然后，苏珊松开弓弦，把箭筒佩带在身上。

彼得也取下自己的礼物——画有红色巨狮的盾牌，和那把上乘宝剑。他吹了吹灰尘，又放在地板上轻轻拍打了一下，这才佩戴上宝剑，一只手拿着盾牌。起初，他还担心宝剑已生锈，害怕拔不出来。但出乎意外，他一下子就把宝剑拔出鞘来，高高举起，剑锋在手电筒的照射下发出一道寒光。“这是我的宝剑雷顿，”他说，“我曾用它杀死了狼怪。”他的声音平添了新的力量，其他三个人感到，他再次变成了真正的彼得大帝。又过了一小会儿，他们才想起必须要节约电池。

他们顺着台阶来到平台上，挑旺了火，躺下依偎在一起互相取暖。地面很硬，硌得人很不舒服，但最终他们还是进入了梦乡。

Chapter 3 The Dwarf矮人

The worst of sleeping out of doors is that you wake up so dreadfully early. And when you wake you have to get up because the ground is so hard that you are uncomfortable. And it makes matters worse if there is nothing but apples for breakfast and you have had nothing but apples for supper the night before. When Lucy had said—truly enough—that it was a glorious morning, there did not seem to be anything else nice to be said. Edmund said what everyone was feeling,“We’ve simply got to get off this island.”

When they had drunk from the well and splashed their faces they all went down the stream again to the shore and stared at the channel which divided them from the mainland.

“We’ll have to swim,” said Edmund.

“It would be all right for Su,” said Peter (Susan had won prizes for swimming at school). “But I don’t know about the rest of us.” By “the rest of us” he really meant Edmund who couldn’t yet do two lengths at the school baths, and Lucy, who could hardly swim at all.

“Anyway,” said Susan, “there may be currents. Father says it’s never wise to bathe in a place you don’t know.”

“But, Peter,” said Lucy, “look here. I know I can’t swim for nuts at home—in England, I mean. But couldn’t we all swim long ago—if it was long ago—when we were Kings and Queens in Narnia? We could ride then too, and do all sorts of things. Don’t you think—?”

“Ah, but we were sort of grown-up then,” said Peter.

“We reigned for years and years and learned to do things. Aren’t we just back at our proper ages again now?”

“Oh!” said Edmund in a voice which made everyone stop talking and listen to him.

“I’ve just seen it all,” he said.

“Seen what?” asked Peter.

“Why, the whole thing,” said Edmund. “You know what we were puzzling about last night, that it was only a year ago since we left Narnia but everything looks as if no one had lived in Cair Paravel for hundreds of years? Well, don’t you see? You know that, however long we seemed to have lived in Narnia, when we got back through the wardrobe it seemed to have taken no time at all?”

“Go on,” said Susan. “I think I’m beginning to understand.”

“And that means,” continued Edmund, “that, once you’re out of Narnia, you have no idea how Narnian time is going. Why shouldn’t hundreds of years have gone past in Narnia while only one year has passed for us in England?”

“By Jove, Ed,” said Peter. “I believe you’ve got it. In that sense it really was hundreds of years ago that we lived in Cair Paravel. And now we’re coming back to Narnia just as if we were Crusaders or Anglo-Saxons or Ancient Britons or someone coming back to modern England?”

“How excited they’ll be to see us—” began Lucy, but at the same moment everyone else said, “Hush!” or “Look!” For now something was happening.

There was a wooded point on the mainland a little to their right, and they all felt sure that just beyond that point must be the mouth of the river. And now, round that point there came into sight a boat. When it had cleared the point, it turned and began coming along the channel towards them. There were two people on board: one rowing, the other sitting in the stern and holding a bundle that twitched and moved as if it were alive. Both these people seemed to be soldiers. They had steel caps on their heads and light shirts of chain-mail. Their faces were bearded and hard. The children drew back from the beach into the wood and watched without moving a finger.

“This’ll do,” said the soldier in the stern when the boat had come about opposite to them.

“What about tying a stone to his feet, Corporal?” said the other, resting on his oars.

“Garn!” growled the other. “We don’t need that, and we haven’t brought one. He’ll drown sure enough without a stone, as long as we’ve tied the cords right.” With these words he rose and lifted his bundle. Peter now saw that it was really alive and was in fact a Dwarf, bound hand and foot but struggling as hard as he could. Next moment he heard a twang just beside his ear, and all at once the soldier threw up his arms, dropping the Dwarf into the bottom of the boat, and fell over into the water. He floundered away to the far bank and Peter knew that Susan’s arrow had struck his helmet. He turned and saw that she was very pale but was already fitting a second arrow to the string. But it was never used. As soon as he saw his companion fall, the other soldier, with a loud cry, jumped out of the boat on the far side, and he also floundered through the water (which was apparently just in his depth) and disappeared into the woods of the mainland.

“Quick! Before she drifts!” shouted Peter. He and Susan, fully dressed as they were, plunged in, and before the water was up to their shoulders their hands were on the side of the boat. In a few seconds they had hauled her to the bank and lifted the Dwarf out, and Edmund was busily engaged in cutting his bonds with the pocket knife. (Peter’s sword would have been sharper, but a sword is very inconvenient for this sort of work because you can’t hold it anywhere lower than the hilt.) When at last the Dwarf was free, he sat up, rubbed his arms and legs, and exclaimed:

“Well, whatever they say, you don’t feel like ghosts.”

Like most Dwarfs he was very stocky and deep-chested. He would have been about three feet high if he had been standing up, and an immense beard and whiskers of coarse red hair left little of his face to be seen except a beak-like nose and twinkling black eyes.

“Anyway,” he continued, “ghosts or not, you’ve saved my life and I’m extremely obliged to you.”

“But why should we be ghosts?” asked Lucy.

“I’ve been told all my life,” said the Dwarf, “that these woods along the shore were as full of ghosts as they were of trees. That’s what the story is. And that’s why, when they want to get rid of anyone, they usually bring him down here (like they were doing with me) and say they’ll leave him to the ghosts. But I always wondered if they didn’t really drown ’em or cut their throats. I never quite believed in the ghosts. But those two cowards you’ve just shot believed all right. They were more frightened of taking me to my death than I was of going!”

“Oh,” said Susan. “So that’s why they both ran away.”

“Eh? What’s that?” said the Dwarf.

“They got away,” said Edmund. “To the mainland.”

“I wasn’t shooting to kill, you know,” said Susan. She would not have liked anyone to think she could miss at such a short range.

“Hm,” said the Dwarf. “That’s not so good. That may mean trouble later on. Unless they hold their tongues for their own sake.”

“What were they going to drown you for?” asked Peter.

“Oh, I’m a dangerous criminal, I am,” said the Dwarf cheerfully. “But that’s a long story. Meantime, I was wondering if perhaps you were going to ask me to breakfast? You’ve no idea what an appetite it gives one, being executed.”

“There’s only apples,” said Lucy dolefully.

“Better than nothing, but not so good as fresh fish,” said the Dwarf.“It looks as if I’ll have to ask you to breakfast instead. I saw some fishing tackle in that boat. And anyway, we must take her round to the other side of the island. We don’t want anyone from the mainland coming down and seeing her.”

“I ought to have thought of that myself,” said Peter.

The four children and the Dwarf went down to the water’s edge, pushed off the boat with some difficulty, and scrambled aboard. The Dwarf at once took charge. The oars were of course too big for him to use, so Peter rowed and the Dwarf steered them north along the channel and presently eastward round the tip of the island. From here the children could see right up the river, and all the bays and headlands of the coast beyond it. They thought they could recognize bits of it, but the woods, which had grown up since their time, made everything look very different.

When they had come round into open sea on the east of the island, the Dwarf took to fishing. They had an excellent catch of pavenders, a beautiful rainbow-coloured fish which they all remembered eating in Cair Paravel in the old days. When they had caught enough they ran the boat up into a little creek and moored her to a tree. The Dwarf, who was a most capable person (and, indeed, though one meets bad Dwarfs, I never heard of a Dwarf who was a fool), cut the fish open, cleaned them, and said:

“Now, what we want next is some firewood.”

“We’ve got some up at the castle,” said Edmund.

The Dwarf gave a low whistle. “Beards and bedsteads!” he said. “So there really is a castle, after all?”

“It’s only a ruin,” said Lucy.

The Dwarf stared round at all four of them with a very curious expression on his face. “And who on earth—?” he began, but then broke off and said, “No matter. Breakfast first. But one thing before we go on. Can you lay your hand on your hearts and tell me I’m really alive? Are you sure I wasn’t drowned and we’re not all ghosts together?”

When they had all reassured him, the next question was how to carry the fish. They had nothing to string them on and no basket. They had to use Edmund’s hat in the end because no one else had a hat. He would have made much more fuss about this if he had not by now been so ravenously hungry.

At first the Dwarf did not seem very comfortable in the castle. He kept looking round and sniffing and saying, “H’m. Looks a bit spooky after all. Smells like ghosts, too.” But he cheered up when it came to lighting the fire and showing them how to roast the fresh pavenders in the embers. Eating hot fish with no forks, and one pocket knife between five people, is a messy business and there were several burnt fingers before the meal was ended; but, as it was now nine o’clock and they had been up since five, nobody minded the burns so much as you might have expected. When everyone had finished off with a drink from the well and an apple or so, the Dwarf produced a pipe about the size of his own arm, filled it, lit it, blew a great cloud of fragrant smoke, and said, “Now.”

“You tell us your story first,” said Peter. “And then we’ll tell you ours.”

“Well,” said the Dwarf, “as you’ve saved my life it is only fair you should have your own way. But I hardly know where to begin. First of all I’m a messenger of King Caspian’s.”

“Who’s he?” asked four voices all at once.

“Caspian the Tenth, King of Narnia, and long may he reign!”answered the Dwarf. “That is to say, he ought to be King of Narnia and we hope he will be. At present he is only King of us Old Narnians—”

“What do you mean by old Narnians, please?” asked Lucy.

“Why, that’s us,” said the Dwarf. “We’re a kind of rebellion, I suppose.”

“I see,” said Peter.” And Caspian is the chief Old Narnian.”

“Well, in a manner of speaking,” said the Dwarf, scratching his head.“But he’s really a New Narnian himself, a Telmarine, if you follow me.”

“I don’t,” said Edmund.

“It’s worse than the Wars of the Roses,” said Lucy.

“Oh dear,” said the Dwarf. “I’m doing this very badly. Look here: I think I’ll have to go right back to the beginning and tell you how Caspian grew up in his uncle’s court and how he comes to be on our side at all. But it’ll be a long story.”

“All the better,” said Lucy. “We love stories.”

So the Dwarf settled down and told his tale. I shall not give it to you in his words, putting in all the children’s questions and interruptions, because it would take too long and be confusing, and, even so, it would leave out some points that the children only heard later. But the gist of the story, as they knew it in the end, was as follows.

中文阅读

在外露宿的最大缺点是你醒得特别早。一旦醒来，你就必须起身，因为地面太硬，躺在那里很不舒服。更糟糕的是，你只有苹果作为早餐，而且前一天晚上，你的晚餐也是苹果。当露西说——她的话一点不错——这是一个美好的早晨时，几乎再也找不到别的什么好话可说了。埃德蒙道出了大家共同的心声：“我们必须离开这个岛。”

他们喝了些井水，洗了把脸，就顺着溪流再次来到海边，望着那个将他们与大陆分隔开来的海峡。“我们只好游过去了，”埃德蒙说。“对苏来说不成问题，”彼得说（苏珊在学校曾多次获得游泳奖牌），“但是我不知道剩下的三个怎么样。”所谓“剩下的三个”，他指的其实是埃德蒙和露西。埃德蒙连学校的游泳池都游不了一个来回，何况露西根本就不会游泳。“无论如何，”苏珊说，“海里也许有潜流。爸爸说过，在不熟悉的地方戏水是不明智的。”“可是，彼得，”露西说，“听我说。我知道在家时我根本不会游泳——我是说，在英国。但在很久以前，我们不是都会游泳吗——假如那是很久以前的事——就是我们在纳尼亚做王的时候？那时我们还会骑马，会做各种各样的事情。难道你不认为——？”“啊，那时我们差不多都是成年人，”彼得说，“我们统治了很多年，学会了各种事情。现在我们不是又回到自己的实际年龄了吗？”“噢！”埃德蒙的惊叹声使大家停止了谈话，侧耳听他发言。“我刚刚弄懂了这一切。”他说。“弄懂了什么？”彼得问道。“嘿，当然是整个事件，”埃德蒙说，“你们晓得，昨夜我们都困惑不解，我们离开纳尼亚仅仅只有一年，可凯尔帕拉维尔看起来好像已经有几百年荒无人烟。嗯，你们不明白吗？你们都知道，无论我们在纳尼亚待了多久，当我们经由衣柜返回英国时，那个世界的时间不是还在原地踏步吗？”“说下去，”苏珊说，“我想自己有点明白了。”“那意味着，”埃德蒙继续说道，“一旦离开纳尼亚，你就会对这里的时间毫无概念。为什么不可以在英国才过了一年，而在纳尼亚却已经过了几百年呢？”“天哪，埃德，”彼得说，“我相信你说的有理。在那个意义上，我们确实是在几百年前住在凯尔帕拉维尔的。现在我们重返纳尼亚，犹如十字军东征时的骑士，或是盎格鲁－撒克逊人，或者古不列颠人来到现代的英国！”“看到我们，他们将会多么兴奋啊——”露西刚说到这里，其他三人有的“嘘！”了一声，有的说，“看！”因为就在这个时刻，发生了一件事情。

海峡对面，正对着他们右边不远的一个地方，有一个长满树木的岬角。他们相信，河口一定位于这个岬角的另一边。就在这时，有一只小船从岬角的那一边划了过来，进入他们的视野。那只船绕过岬角，调转船头，开始穿越海峡，朝他们驶来。船上有两个人，一个人在划船，另一个坐在船尾，抱着一个胡乱扭动的东西，好像是个活物。这两人看样子是士兵。他们头戴钢盔，身穿轻型锁子甲，脸上长着大胡子，神情冷酷。孩子们赶紧从海滩退回到树林中，一动不动地观望着。“这里就可以，”坐在船尾的人说，这时船刚好对着孩子们。“在他脚上拴块石头怎么样，下士？”另一个人说着，停下了手中的双桨。“什么！”下士咆哮道，“不需要那样，我们没有带石头来。不用石头也能把他淹死，只要绳子捆紧就行了。”说着他站起身来，举起了手中的东西。这会儿彼得看清楚了，那的确是个活物，是个小矮人，尽管手脚都被捆着，他还在拼命挣扎。紧接着，彼得听到耳边嗖的一响，只见那个下士松开双臂，将矮人摔在了船舱里，自己则一头栽进水中。他在水里扑腾着朝对岸逃去。彼得知道，苏珊的箭只是射中了士兵的头盔。他转过身来，看见苏珊的脸色发白，可她还是将第二支箭搭在了弦上。这支箭并没有派上用场。一看到自己的同伴落水，另一个士兵大叫一声，从小船的另一边扑通跳入水中，同样胡乱拍打着水（显然水才到他的胸口），向对岸游去，很快消失在对岸的树林中。“快！别让船漂走了！”彼得喊道。他和苏珊穿着衣服就跳进了水里。水深还不到他们的肩膀，他们的手已经抓住了船舷。没用几秒钟，他们就把船拖上了岸，将矮人抬了出来。埃德蒙连忙用小刀割断他身上的绳索（彼得的剑更加锋利，但是做这种事情很不方便，因为除了剑柄你无法往下抓握）。最后，矮人终于摆脱了捆绑，坐起身来，揉了揉胳膊和腿，叫了起来：“噢，不管他们怎么说，你们看起来并不像鬼魂。”

像大多数矮人一样，他体格粗壮，胸脯宽厚。如果站直身子，他的身高大概只有一米左右。他脸上长着粗糙而浓密的红胡须，只露出像鸟嘴一样的尖鼻子，以及两只亮闪闪的黑眼睛。“不管怎么样，”他又说道，“是鬼魂也好，不是鬼魂也罢，你们救了我的命，我对你们无比感激。”“为什么说我们是鬼魂呢？”露西问道。“我从小就一直听人讲，”矮人答道，“在海岸的这些树林中，鬼魂的数量与树木相差无几。故事中是这么说的。这也正是为什么，如果他们想要除掉某人，就会把他带到这里来（就像他们处置我的方式一样），说是要把这个人交给鬼魂去了断。但是我常常怀疑，不知鬼魂是否真的会将这个人淹死，或者割断他的喉管？我并不太相信鬼魂，而你们刚才射中的那两个胆小鬼却信以为真。送我到这里来，他们比将要被处死的我更加胆战心惊。”“哦，”苏珊说，“怪不得他们俩都没命地跑了。”“嗯？怎么回事？”矮人问。“他们逃走了，”埃德蒙说，“逃回到大陆上去了。”“你要知道，我射箭并不是想杀死他们。”苏珊说。她不想让人以为她会在这么短的射程内射偏。“哼，”矮人道，“那可不妙，也许以后会有麻烦。除非他们为自己的安全着想，闭口不言。”“他们为什么想要淹死你呢？”彼得问。“噢，小人不才，是个危险的罪犯，”矮人愉快地说道，“但是说来话长。这会儿，我一心想的是，你们会不会请我吃早饭？你们想象不到，一个死刑犯的胃口总是好得出奇。”“这里只有苹果。”露西郁闷地说。“比什么都没有强，但还是不如新鲜的鱼，”矮人说，“看来我要请你们吃早餐了。我看见那条船里有些钓鱼用具。不管怎么说，我们必须把船划到岛的另一边去，以免被对面大陆上的人看见。”“我应当事先考虑到这一点。”彼得有些自责地说。

四个孩子和矮人来到海边，费了很大的劲儿才把船推到水里，然后争先恐后地爬到船上。矮人立刻开始发号施令。对他来说，桨实在太大了。于是彼得划船，矮人掌舵，小船顺着海峡朝北驶去。不一会儿，他们向东绕过了岛的一端。在这里，孩子们可以眺望到对面的那条大河，以及海岸上所有的海湾与岬角。他们原以为，自己能够看出纳尼亚往昔的一些蛛丝马迹，但是几百年来丛生的树林，使得一切都已经面目全非。

他们把船划到岛的东边，来到辽阔的大海上，矮人开始动手钓鱼。他们钓到了数量可观的鳟鱼，一种美丽的七彩鱼。他们记得，以前在凯尔帕拉维尔曾经吃过这种鱼。钓到了足够多的鱼之后，他们就把船划进一个小海湾，停靠在一棵树下。矮人是个特别能干的人（的确，你或许会碰到坏矮人，可我从未听说过有哪个矮人是个笨蛋），他剖开鱼肚子，清洗干净，说：“听着，我们下一步需要一些柴火。”“我们拣了一些，就在城堡里。”埃德蒙说。

矮人低低地吹了一声口哨。“胡须和床架！”他说，“真的有个城堡吗？”“已经变成一片废墟了。”露西说。

矮人脸上现出十分好奇的表情，逐个打量着他们兄妹四人。“到底是谁——？”刚说到这里，他又突然打住，说，“没什么。吃早饭要紧。但是我们要先做一件事。你们能否拍着胸脯告诉我，我真的还活着？你们确信，我没有淹死，我们大家都不是鬼魂？”

他们再次向他做出保证。下面的问题是怎么才能把鱼带走。他们既没有东西把鱼串起来，也没有篮子。到末了，他们只好借用埃德蒙的帽子，因为其他人都没戴帽子。埃德蒙如果不是饿得要命的话，肯定会对此大发牢骚。

在城堡废墟那里，矮人起初显得坐立不安。他东张西望，使劲儿用鼻子嗅着，说道：“嗯，看上去还是有点诡异，闻起来也有幽灵的气息。”等到篝火点燃，该教他们如何在炭火中烤新鲜的鳟鱼时，他才来了精神。没有叉子，他们五个人轮流着使用一把小刀。烫手的烤鱼吃起来还真不容易，饭还没吃完，几个人的手指已经被烫着了。他们从清晨五点起身，到现在九点钟了，早已是饥肠辘辘。因此没有人对烫伤十分在意。大家风卷残云般地把烤鱼吞下肚子，喝几口井水，再啃上个把苹果。矮人掏出一个有他胳膊粗细的大烟斗，装上烟叶，点着后吸了一口，喷出一大团好闻的烟雾，说道：“开讲吧。”“请你先给我们讲讲你的故事，”彼得说，“然后我们再给你讲我们的故事。”“好吧，”矮人说，“既然你们救了我的命，满足你们的要求是合乎情理的。可是我不知该从哪儿说起。首先，我是卡斯宾王的一个使者。”“他是谁？”四个声音齐声问道。“卡斯宾十世，纳尼亚的国王，祝他长治久安！”矮人答道，“也就是说，他应该成为纳尼亚的国王，我们也都希望他能够做王。目前他还只是我们老纳尼亚人的王——”“请问，你说的老纳尼亚人是什么意思？”露西问道。“呃，是指我们自己，”矮人说，“我猜想，我们是一些叛逆者。”“我明白了，”彼得说，“卡斯宾是老纳尼亚人的头领。”“哦，不妨这么说，”矮人说着，挠了挠头皮，“其实他本人是个新纳尼亚人，一个提尔玛人，如果你能明白我的意思。”“我不懂。”埃德蒙说。“简直比红白玫瑰战争还要复杂。”露西说。“天哪，”矮人说，“我解释得不够清楚。听着，我想我必须从头讲起，告诉你们卡斯宾如何在他叔父的皇宫里长大，又是如何站到了我们这一边。但是说来话长。”“那样更好，”露西说，“我们就爱听故事。”

于是，矮人静下心来，讲了下面这个故事。我不打算原原本本复述他的话，再说还有孩子们不时地提问和打岔，那样会显得过分冗长，使人困惑。即便如此，我还是要省略掉一些孩子们后来才知道的情节。要想知道那个故事的梗概，请听下回分解。

Chapter 4 The Dwarf Tells Of Prince Caspian矮人讲述卡斯宾王子的故事

Prince Caspian lived in a great castle in the centre of Narnia with his uncle, Miraz, the King of Narnia, and his aunt, who had red hair and was called Queen Prunaprismia. His father and mother were dead and the person whom Caspian loved best was his nurse, and though (being a prince) he had wonderful toys which would do almost anything but talk, he liked best the last hour of the day when the toys had all been put back in their cupboards and Nurse would tell him stories.

He did not care much for his uncle and aunt, but about twice a week his uncle would send for him and they would walk up and down together for half an hour on the terrace at the south side of the castle. One day, while they were doing this, the King said to him.

“Well, boy, we must soon teach you to ride and use a sword. You know that your aunt and I have no children, so it looks as if you might have to be King when I’m gone. How shall you like that, eh?”

“I don’t know, Uncle,” said Caspian.

“Don’t know, eh?” said Miraz. “Why, I should like to know what more anyone could wish for!”

“All the same, I do wish,” said Caspian.

“What do you wish?” asked the King.

“I wish—I wish—I wish I could have lived in the Old Days,” said Caspian. (He was only a very little boy at the time.)

Up till now King Miraz had been talking in the tiresome way that some grown-ups have, which makes it quite clear that they are not really interested in what you are saying, but now he suddenly gave Caspian a very sharp look.

“Eh? What’s that?” he said. “What old days do you mean?”

“Oh, don’t you know, Uncle?” said Caspian. “When everything was quite different. When all the animals could talk, and there were nice people who lived in the streams and the trees. Naiads and Dryads they were called. And there were Dwarfs. And there were lovely little Fauns in all the woods. They had feet like goats. And—”

“That’s all nonsense, for babies,” said the King sternly. “Only fit for babies, do you hear? You’re getting too old for that sort of stuff. At your age you ought to be thinking of battles and adventures, not fairy tales.”

“Oh, but there were battles and adventures in those days,” said Caspian. “Wonderful adventures. Once there was a White Witch and she made herself Queen of the whole country. And she made it so that it was always winter. And then two boys and two girls came from somewhere and so they killed the Witch and they were made Kings and Queens of Narnia, and their names were Peter and Susan and Edmund and Lucy. And so they reigned for ever so long and everyone had a lovely time, and it was all because of Aslan—”

“Who’s he?” said Miraz. And if Caspian had been a very little older, the tone of his uncle’s voice would have warned him that it would be wiser to shut up. But he babbled on:

“Oh, don’t you know?” he said. “Aslan is the great Lion who comes from over the sea.”

“Who has been telling you all this nonsense?” said the King in a voice of thunder. Caspian was frightened and said nothing.

“Your Royal Highness,” said King Miraz, letting go of Caspian’s hand, which he had been holding till now, “I insist upon being answered. Look me in the face. Who has been telling you this pack of lies?”

“N-Nurse,” faltered Caspian, and burst into tears.

“Stop that noise,” said his uncle, taking Caspian by the shoulders and giving him a shake. “Stop it. And never let me catch you talking—or thinking either—about all those silly stories again. There never were those Kings and Queens. How could there be two Kings at the same time? And there’s no such person as Aslan. And there are no such things as lions. And there never was a time when animals could talk. Do you hear?”

“Yes, Uncle,” sobbed Caspian.

“Then let’s have no more of it,” said the King. Then he called to one of the gentlemen-in-waiting who were standing at the far end of the terrace and said in a cold voice, “Conduct His Royal Highness to his apartments and send His Royal Highness’s nurse to me AT ONCE.”

Next day Caspian found what a terrible thing he had done, for Nurse had been sent away without even being allowed to say goodbye to him, and he was told he was to have a Tutor.

Caspian missed his nurse very much and shed many tears; and because he was so miserable, he thought about the old stories of Narnia far more than before. He dreamed of Dwarfs and Dryads every night and tried very hard to make the dogs and cats in the castle talk to him. But the dogs only wagged their tails and the cats only purred.

Caspian felt sure that he would hate the new Tutor, buy when the new Tutor arrived about a week later he turns out to be the sort of person it is almost impossible not to like. He was the smallest, and also the fattest, man Caspian had ever seen. He had a long, silvery, pointed beard which came down to his waist, and his face, which was brown and covered with wrinkles, looked very wise, very ugly, and very kind. His voice was grave and his eyes were merry so that, until you got to know him really well, it was hard to know when he was joking and when he was serious. His name was Doctor Cornelius.

Of all his lessons with Doctor Cornelius the one that Caspian liked best was History. Up till now, except for Nurse’s stories, he had known nothing about the History of Narnia, and he was very surprised to learn that the royal family were newcomers in the country.

“It was your Highness’s ancestor, Caspian the First,” said Doctor Cornelius, “who first conquered Narnia and made it his kingdom. It was he who brought all your nation into the country. You are not native Narnians at all. You are all Telmarines—that is, you all came from the Land of Telmar, far beyond the Western Mountains. That is why Caspian the First is called Caspian the Conqueror.”

“Please, Doctor,” asked Caspian one day, “who lived in Narnia before we all came here out of Telmar?”

“No men—or very few—lived in Narnia before the Telmarines took it,” said Doctor Cornelius.

“Then who did my great-great-grandcesters conquer?”

“Whom, not who, your Highness,” said Doctor Cornelius. “Perhaps it is time to turn from History to Grammar.”

“Oh please, not yet!” said Caspian.

“I mean, wasn’t there a battle? Why is he called Caspian the Conqueror if there was nobody to fight with him?”

“I said there were very few men in Narnia,” said the Doctor, looking at the little boy very strangely through his great spectacles.

For a moment Caspian was puzzled and then suddenly his heart gave a leap. “Do you mean,” he gasped, “that there were other things? Do you mean it was like in the stories? Were there—?”

“Hush!” said Doctor Cornelius, laying his head very close to Caspian’s. “Not a word more. Don’t you know your Nurse was sent away for telling you about Old Narnia? The King doesn’t like it. If he found me telling you secrets, you’d be whipped and I should have my head cut off.”

“But why?” asked Caspian.

“It is high time we turned to Grammar now,” said Doctor Cornelius in a loud voice. “Will your Royal Highness be pleased to open Pulverulentus Siccus at the fourth page of his Grammatical garden or the Arbour of Accidence pleasantlie open’d to Tender Wits?”

After that it was all nouns and verbs till lunchtime, but I don’t think Caspian learned much. He was too excited. He felt sure that Doctor Cornelius would not have said so much unless he meant to tell him more sooner or later.

In this he was not disappointed. A few days later his Tutor said,“Tonight I am going to give you a lesson in Astronomy. At dead of night two noble planets, Tarva and Alambil, will pass within one degree of each other. Such a conjunction has not occurred for two hundred years, and your Highness will not live to see it again. It will be best if you go to bed a little earlier than usual. When the time of the conjunction draws near I will come and wake you.”

This didn’t seem to have anything to do with Old Narnia, which was what Caspian really wanted to hear about, but getting up in the middle of the night is always interesting and he was moderately pleased. When he went to bed that night, he thought at first that he would not be able to sleep; but he soon dropped off and it seemed only a few minutes before he felt someone gently shaking him.

He sat up in bed and saw that the room was full of moonlight. Doctor Cornelius, muffled in a hooded robe and holding a small lamp in his hand, stood by the bedside. Caspian remembered at once what they were going to do. He got up and put on some clothes. Athough it was a summer night he felt colder than he had expected and was quite glad when the Doctor wrapped him in a robe like his own and gave him a pair of warm, soft buskins for his feet. A moment later, both muffled so that they could hardly be seen in the dark corridors, and both shod so that they made almost no noise, master and pupil left the room.

Caspian followed the Doctor through many passages and up several staircases, and at last, through a little door in a turret, they came out upon the leads. On one side were the battlements, on the other a steep roof; below them, all shadowy and shimmery, the castle gardens; above them, stars and moon. Presently they came to another door which led into the great central tower of the whole castle: Doctor Cornelius unlocked it and they began to climb the dark winding stair of the tower. Caspian was becoming excited; he had never been allowed up this stair before.

It was long and steep, but when they came out on the roof of the tower and Caspian had got his breath, he felt that it had been well worth it. Away on his right he could see, rather indistinctly, the Western Mountains. On his left was the gleam of the Great River, and everything was so quiet that he could hear the sound of the waterfall at Beaversdam, a mile away. There was no difficulty in picking out the two stars they had come to see. They hung rather low in the southern sky, almost as bright as two little moons and very close together.

“Are they going to have a collision?” he asked in an awestruck voice.

“Nay, dear Prince,” said the Doctor (and he too spoke in a whisper).“The great lords of the upper sky know the steps of their dance too well for that. Look well upon them. Their meeting is fortunate and means some great good for the sad realm of Narnia. Tarva, the Lord of Victory, salutes Alambil, the Lady of Peace. They are just coming to their nearest.”

“It’s a pity that tree gets in the way,” said Caspian. “We’d really see better from the West Tower, though it is not so high.”

Doctor Cornelius said nothing for about two minutes, but stood still with his eyes fixed on Tarva and Alambil. Then he drew a deep breath and turned to Caspian.

“There,” he said. “You have seen what no man now alive has seen, nor will see again. And you are right. We should have seen it even better from the smaller tower. I brought you here for another reason.”

Caspian looked up at him, but the Doctor’s hood concealed most of his face.

“The virtue of this tower,” said Doctor Cornelius, “is that we have six empty rooms beneath us, and a long stair, and the door at the bottom of the stair is locked. We cannot be overheard.”

“Are you going to tell me what you wouldn’t tell me the other day?”said Caspian.

“I am,” said the Doctor. “But remember. You and I must never talk about these things except here—on the very top of the Great Tower.”

“No. That’s a promise,” said Caspian. “But do go on, please.”

“Listen,” said the Doctor. “All you have heard about Old Narnia is true. It is not the land of Men. It is the country of Aslan, the country of the Waking Trees and Visible Naiads, of Fauns and Satyrs, of Dwarfs and Giants, of the gods and the Centaurs, of Talking Beasts. It was against these that the first Caspian fought. It is you Telmarines who silenced the beasts and the trees and the fountains, and who killed and drove away the Dwarfs and Fauns, and are now trying to cover up even the memory of them. The King does not allow them to be spoken of.”

“Oh, I do wish we hadn’t,” said Caspian. “And I am glad it was all true, even if it is all over.”

“Many of your race wish that in secret,” said Doctor Cornelius.

“But, Doctor,” said Caspian, “why do you say my race? After all, I suppose you’re a Telmarine too.”

“Am I?” said the Doctor.

“Well, you’re a Man anyway,” said Caspian.

“Am I?” repeated the Doctor in a deeper voice, at the same moment throwing back his hood so that Caspian could see his face clearly in the moonlight.

All at once Caspian realized the truth and felt that he ought to have realized it long before. Doctor Cornelius was so small, and so fat, and had such a very long beard. Two thoughts came into his head at the same moment. One was a thought of terror— “He’s not a real man, not a man at all, he’s a Dwarf, and he’s brought me up here to kill me.”The other was sheer delight— “There are real Dwarfs still, and I’ve seen one at last.”

“So you’ve guessed it in the end,” said Doctor Cornelius. “Or guessed it nearly right. I’m not a pure Dwarf. I have human blood in me too. Many Dwarfs escaped in the great battles and lived on, shaving their beards and wearing high-heeled shoes and pretending to be men. They have mixed with your Telmarines. I am one of those, only a half-Dwarf, and if any of my kindred, the true Dwarfs, are still alive anywhere in the world, doubtless they would despise me and call me a traitor. But never in all these years have we forgotten our own people and all the other happy creatures of Narnia, and the long-lost days of freedom.”

“I’m—I’m sorry, Doctor,” said Caspian. “It wasn’t my fault, you know.”

“I am not saying these things in blame of you, dear Prince,”answered the Doctor. “You may well ask why I say them at all. But I have two reasons. Firstly, because my old heart has carried these secret memories so long that it aches with them and would burst if I did not whisper them to you. But secondly, for this: that when you become King you may help us, for I know that you also, Telmarine though you are, love the Old Things.”

“I do, I do,” said Caspian. “But how can I help?”

“You can be kind to the poor remnants of the Dwarf people, like myself. You can gather learned magicians and try to find a way of awaking the trees once more. You can search through all the nooks and wild places of the land to see if any Fauns or Talking Beasts or Dwarfs are perhaps still alive in hiding.”

“Do you think there are any?” asked Caspian eagerly.

“I don’t know—I don’t know,” said the Doctor with a deep sigh.“Sometimes I am afraid there can’t be. I have been looking for traces of them all my life. Sometimes I have thought I heard a Dwarf-drum in the mountains. Sometimes at night, in the woods, I thought I had caught a glimpse of Fauns and Satyrs dancing a long way off; but when I came to the place, there was never anything there. I have often despaired; but something always happens to start me hoping again. I don’t know. But at least you can try to be a King like the High King Peter of old, and not like your uncle.”

“Then it’s true about the Kings and Queens too, and about the White Witch?” said Caspian.

“Certainly it is true,” said Cornelius. “Their reign was the Golden Age in Narnia and the land has never forgotten them.”

“Did they live in this castle, Doctor?”

“Nay, my dear,” said the old man. “This castle is a thing of yesterday. Your great-great-grand-father built it. But when the two sons of Adam and the two daughters of Eve were made Kings and Queens of Narnia by Aslan himself, they lived in the castle of Cair Paravel. No man alive has seen that blessed place and perhaps even the ruins of it have now vanished. But we believe it was far from here, down at the mouth of the Great River, on the very shore of the sea.”

“Ugh!” said Caspian with a shudder. “Do you mean in the Black Woods? Where all the—the—you know, the ghosts live?”

“Your Highness speaks as you have been taught,” said the Doctor.“But it is all lies. There are no ghosts there. That is a story invented by the Telmarines. Your Kings are in deadly fear of the sea because they can never quite forget that in all stories Aslan comes from over the sea. They don’t want to go near it and they don’t want anyone else to go near it. So they have let great woods grow up to cut their people off from the coast. But because they have quarrelled with the trees they are afraid of the woods. And because they are afraid of the woods they imagine that they are full of ghosts. And the Kings and great men, hating both the sea and the wood, partly believe these stories, and partly encourage them. They feel safer if no one in Narnia dares to go down to the coast and look out to sea-towards Aslan’s land and the morning and the eastern end of the world.”

There was a deep silence between them for a few minutes. Then Doctor Cornelius said, “Come. We have been here long enough. It is time to go down and to bed.”

“Must we?” said Caspian. “I’d like to go on talking about these things for hours and hours and hours.”

“Someone might begin looking for us, if we did that,” said Doctor Cornelius.

中文阅读

卡斯宾王子住在纳尼亚中部的一个巨大城堡里，与他的叔父，纳尼亚国王米拉兹，还有红头发的婶娘，被称为浦露娜普利斯米亚的王后住在一起。他的父母都已亡故。他最喜爱的人是他的保姆。尽管（身为王子）他拥有大量精巧奇妙的玩具，这些玩具除了不能讲话之外，几乎具备所有的功能，可是他最喜欢的还是每晚上床后的那段时间。当玩具都被收到柜橱中之后，保姆就会给他讲故事。

他对叔叔和婶娘并没有多少感情。每周大约两次，他的叔父会把他召来，同他一起在城堡南边的平台上散步，来回走上半个小时。一天，正在散步的时候，叔叔对他说道：“喂，孩子，很快我们就该教你如何骑马和击剑了。你知道，我跟你的婶娘没有后嗣，看起来，我驾崩之后，要由你来继承王位。你对此有何感想，嗯？”“我不知道，叔叔。”卡斯宾答道。“不知道，嗯？”米拉兹说，“那么，我倒想要知道，除此之外，一个人还能有什么更大的奢望！”“不过，我确实有个愿望，”卡斯宾说。“你希望得到什么？”国王问道。“我希望——我希望——我希望能够生活在过去的岁月。”卡斯宾说（当时他还年幼）。

直到那会儿，米拉兹王说的都是一些老生常谈，使人能清楚地意识到，他对谈话并不真正感兴趣，但此刻他突然用锐利的目光看了卡斯宾一眼。“嗯？你说什么？”他问道，“你指的是哪些过去的岁月？”“啊，叔叔，你不知道吗？”卡斯宾说，“那时一切都和现在大不相同。所有的动物都会说话，一些漂亮的人儿住在溪水里和树木中，她们是水中仙女和林中仙女。还有小矮人。在所有的树林中都有可爱的小潘恩，它们的脚像山羊蹄子。还有——”“这完全是一派胡言，是哄小孩子的！”国王严厉地打断了他的话，“只能哄吃奶的小孩子，你听见了吗？你已经过了那个阶段，不该再去听信那些胡言乱语。在你这个年纪，应该喜欢打仗和历险的故事，而不是天方夜谭。”“啊，在那些日子里，也有打仗和历险，”卡斯宾说，“一些奇妙的历险故事。从前有个白女巫，她自封为整个国家的女王。她施法术让纳尼亚永远都是冬天。后来不知从哪儿来了两个男孩子和两个女孩子，他们杀死了女巫，做了纳尼亚的国王和女王。他们的名字是彼得、苏珊、埃德蒙和露西。他们统治了很长时间，每个人都过上了美好的生活，这都是由于阿斯兰——”“他是谁？”米拉兹问。如果卡斯宾的年龄稍大一点儿，叔叔说话的语调会警示他，闭口不言是更加明智的行为。可是他还在说个不停。“啊，你难道不知道？”他说，“阿斯兰是从大海那边来的伟大狮王。”“是谁告诉你这些乱七八糟的东西？”国王的声音像是打了个炸雷。卡斯宾吓了一大跳，什么话也说不出来了。“王子殿下，”米拉兹王说着，甩开了他原本一直拉着的卡斯宾的手，“我命令你回答我。看着我的脸。是谁给你讲了这一大堆谎言？”“保——保姆。”卡斯宾结结巴巴地说着，突然放声大哭起来。“别哭丧了，”他的叔父说着，抓住他的两个肩膀使劲摇了摇，“住口。别再让我听见你说——连想也不能想——那些愚不可及的故事。从来就没有那些国王与女王。怎么同时会有两个国王呢？从来就没有阿斯兰这号人物。根本就没有狮子这种动物。也没有动物会说话的时代。你听见了吗？”“是的，叔叔。”卡斯宾抽噎着说。“那我们就再也别提这个了。”国王说。他叫来一名站在阳台另一端的侍从，冷冷地吩咐道，“送王子殿下回他的住所，召王子的保姆立刻来见我。”

第二天，卡斯宾才发现自己做了一件多么可怕的事情。他们甚至没有允许保姆与他告别，就把她遣送走了。他还获悉，自己即将有一位家庭教师。

卡斯宾非常想念他的保姆，流过许多的眼泪。由于他的痛苦，他比以前更加频繁地想起纳尼亚的古老传说。每一夜他都会梦到矮人和林中仙女们。白天他费尽心思，想让城堡里的狗和猫跟自己说话。可是狗只是摇摇尾巴，猫仅仅发出喵喵的叫声。

卡斯宾相信，自己不会喜欢那个新来的家庭教师。一个星期后，新老师到了。卡斯宾发现，新老师是个人见人爱的家伙，自己想不喜欢他都办不到。他是卡斯宾见到过的最矮胖的人，银色的长胡须垂到了肚子上。他那张褐色的脸上皱纹密布，看上去很是丑陋，却又透着睿智与善良。他的声音很严肃，可是他的眼睛却闪烁着快活的光芒。你若是跟他不太亲密的话，就很难分辨出他什么时候是在开玩笑，什么时候是认真的。人们称他为科尼利亚斯博士。

在他开设的所有课程中，卡斯宾最喜欢的是历史课。到目前为止，除了保姆的故事，他对纳尼亚的历史还是一无所知。他惊讶地了解到，皇族是后来才到纳尼亚来的。“殿下的祖先，卡斯宾一世，” 科尼利亚斯博士说，“最早征服了纳尼亚，使之成为自己的领地。是他将你们整个民族迁移到这个国家。你们并不是土生土长的纳尼亚人，而是提尔玛人——也就是说，你们来自提尔玛国，西山那边一个遥远的地方。这正是卡斯宾一世被称作征服者卡斯宾的原因。”“请问，博士，”一天，卡斯宾问道，“在我们从提尔玛来到这里之前，是谁住在纳尼亚呢？”“在提尔玛人占领纳尼亚之前，没有人——或者说很少的人——住在这个地方。”科尼利亚斯博士回答。“那么，我的先祖们征服的又是谁呢？”“殿下，这里你应该使用宾格的谁（whom），不能使用主格的谁（who），”科尼利亚斯博士说，“历史课就讲到这里，下面该上语法课了。”“啊，请先别下课，”卡斯宾说，“我想知道，是否曾经有过一场大战？如果没有人反抗的话，他怎么会被称为征服者呢？”“我跟你说过，当时纳尼亚的人寥寥无几。” 科尼利亚斯博士说着，透过他的大眼镜用一种怪怪的眼神看着小男孩。

一开始，卡斯宾感到十分困惑，随即他的心蓦地跳动了一下。“你是说，”他喘着粗气问道，“还有别的生物？你是说，正像故事中所讲的那样？当时还有——？”“嘘！” 科尼利亚斯博士说着，把头凑到卡斯宾的耳边，“什么都别再说了。你难道不知道，就是因为给你讲纳尼亚的故事，你的保姆才被赶走的？国王不喜欢人们议论这些事情。如果他发现我告诉你这些秘密，你会挨鞭子，而我则会掉脑袋。”“为什么呢？”卡斯宾又问。“现在该上语法课了。”科尼利亚斯博士又大声说道，“请殿下打开西克斯的《语法百花园——词形变化结构少儿趣味读物》，翻到第4页，好吗？”

直到吃午饭，博士讲的都是名词和动词。我想，卡斯宾并没有听进去多少。他实在太激动了。他相信，科尼利亚斯博士若不是打算有一天告诉他真相的话，是绝不会提到这些事情的。

科尼利亚斯博士果然没有令他失望。几天后，老师说：“今夜我准备给你上一堂天文课。夜半时分，有两颗辉煌的行星，塔发和阿兰比尔，将在仰角一度的范围内擦肩而过。这样的双星际会两百年一遇，殿下有生之年再也不会看到了。晚上你最好早点上床睡觉。快到双星际会的时候，我会来叫醒你的。”

这事看起来与古代纳尼亚毫无关系，古纳尼亚才是卡斯宾真正想要了解的。但半夜三更起床总是件有趣的事儿，他感到了适度的满足。那一晚上床时，他原以为自己会难以入眠，可是他很快就进入了梦乡。有人把他轻轻摇醒时，他觉得好像才刚睡了一小会儿。

他从床上坐起身来，看到室内充满了皎洁的月光。科尼利亚斯博士穿着件带帽子的长袍，手里拿着盏小油灯，站在他的床边。卡斯宾马上想起了他们要做的事情。他起床穿上衣服。尽管是夏夜，他还是意外地感到了丝丝的凉意。他很高兴，老师给他套上一件同样的长袍，让他穿上一双暖和而柔软的靴子。顷刻之间，两个人穿戴完毕。有了这身装束，走在黑暗的过道里，他们不容易被人发现。脚踩软底靴子，行走起来几乎悄无声息。就这样，师生二人离开了房间。

卡斯宾跟随博士穿过许多条游廊，爬了好几个楼梯，最后，他们穿过一座角楼的小门，来到一个屋顶平台上。平台的一边是城垛，另一边有倾斜的屋顶，下边是城堡花园，看上去影影绰绰，发着微光。仰望夜空，只见一轮明月和满天的繁星。转眼之间，他们来到高大的中心塔楼的门前。科尼利亚斯博士打开门，他们开始攀登塔楼里幽暗的螺旋阶梯。卡斯宾有点儿兴奋起来，以前从不被允许爬这个楼梯。

楼梯很长，台阶又很陡，爬到塔顶时，卡斯宾已经是上气不接下气，可是他觉得再累也值得。站在塔顶上，朝右边眺望，他可以隐约地望见西山。在他的左边，那条大河在月色下泛着银光，一切都显得那么宁静，他甚至可以听见一英里外河狸大坝的哗哗水声。他们毫不费力地找到了专门来观看的那两颗行星。它们像是两颗小月亮，低垂在南方的夜空中，彼此之间的距离非常近。“它们会不会发生碰撞？”他小声问道，心中对浩瀚的宇宙充满了敬畏。“不会，亲爱的王子，”博士答道（他也压低了声音），“高天之上的伟大神祇非常熟悉自己的舞步，绝不会出错的。仔细观看吧，双星际会是幸运的，对于悲哀的纳尼亚领土，这意味着时来运转。胜利之神塔发在向阿兰比尔——和平女神致敬。它们即将到达最接近的地点。”“遗憾的是那棵树挡住了视线，”卡斯宾说，“从西塔楼我们可以看得更清楚，虽说那里没有这么高。”

科尼利亚斯博士一声不吭，沉默了大约有两分钟。他静静地站在那里，全神贯注地望着塔发和阿兰比尔。俄而，他深深地吸了一口气，朝卡斯宾转过身来。“好了，”他说，“你已经看到了许多活着的人没有看到，也不可能再次看到的奇观。你说得对。从那座小塔楼上，我们能看得更清楚一些。我把你带到这里来，还有另外一个原因。”

卡斯宾抬头望着他，可是套头帽遮住了他的大半个脸。“这座塔楼的好处是，” 科尼利亚斯博士说，“在我们下面有六个空房间，还有一条长长的楼梯，而且楼梯底部的门是锁着的。我们不会被人窃听。”“你打算告诉我那天你不愿意讲的事吗？”卡斯宾问道。“是的，”博士说，“但要记住，你我只能在这里——在大塔楼的顶端，才能谈论这些事情。”“行。我保证做到，”卡斯宾说，“请你接着讲吧。”“听着，”博士说，“你所听到的关于纳尼亚古国的传闻都是真的。它不是人类的国度，而是阿斯兰的国度，是会行走的树木、能够显现的水中仙女、潘恩、萨特、矮人、巨人、神祇和半人马，以及会说话的动物们的国度。卡斯宾一世就是与它们交战的。是你们提尔玛人使得动物、树木和山泉不再说话，是你们杀害并驱逐了矮人和潘恩，现在又试图擦去一切与它们相关的记忆。国王绝不允许有人提起它们。”“啊，我真希望我们没有这样做，”卡斯宾说，“我很高兴这些都是真的，即使这一切都已经成为历史。”“你的族人中有许多在这样暗暗地希望。”科尼利亚斯博士说。“但是，博士，”卡斯宾说，“你为什么说我的族人？毕竟，你也是一个提尔玛人。”“我是吗？”博士问道。“好吧，你总是个人类吧。”卡斯宾说。“我是吗？”博士用更加低沉的声音再次问道，同时把头上的帽子往后一推，使卡斯宾能借着月光仔细端详他的面孔。

须臾之间，卡斯宾领悟到了事情的真相。其实，自己早就应该想到这一点了。科尼利亚斯博士那么矮小，那么肥胖，又长着那么长的胡须。卡斯宾的脑海中顿时浮现出两个不同的想法。一个是恐惧——“他并不是真正的人类，根本就不是人类，他是一个矮人，他把我带到这里来，是想杀死我。”另一个念头是纯粹的喜悦——“果然还有真正的矮人，我终于见到了活着的矮人。”“你到底还是猜出了真相，”科尼利亚斯博士说，“或者说你的猜测已经接近正确答案。我不是一个纯粹的矮人，我身上也有人类的血缘。在那场大战中，许多矮人逃脱了。苟活下来的矮人，刮去胡子，穿上高跟鞋，假装是人类，并且与你们提尔玛人通婚。我就是他们的后代，只有一半矮人的血统。如果我的近亲，那些真正的小矮人，还活在世上的某个地方，毫无疑问，他们会鄙视我，称我为叛徒。但是在以往的那些岁月里，我们从未忘记自己的亲人和纳尼亚快活的动物们，从未忘记早已失去的那些自由的时代。”“我很——我很抱歉，博士，”卡斯宾说，“你知道，这并不是我的过错。”“我说这些并不是要责备你，亲爱的王子，”博士答道，“你也许会问，我究竟为什么要讲这些事情。有两个原因：第一个原因，因为我衰老的心脏珍藏这些秘密的记忆实在太久了，憋得难受，如果不向你吐露出来，我的心会破裂的；第二个原因，我希望你一旦做了国王，就会帮助我们。因为我知道，虽然你是个提尔玛人，你却热爱古老的纳尼亚。”“是的，是的，”卡斯宾说，“可是我该怎样帮助你们呢？”“你可以善待那些像我这样残存下来的可怜的矮人。你可以召聚博学的魔法师，试着去寻找一种唤醒树木精灵的方法。你可以搜索国中所有的角落和荒凉的地方，看看是否还有潘恩、会说话的动物和矮人在那里藏身。”“你认为它们还活着吗?”卡斯宾急切地问道。“我不知道——我不知道，”博士深深地叹了一口气，答道，“有时，我担心它们是否能活到今天。我一生都在寻找它们的踪迹。有时候，我觉得听到了山中矮人的鼓声。有时在夜间，在树林中，我似乎远远瞥见了潘恩和萨特在跳舞；但是等我走到那个地方，却总是空空如也。我经常感到绝望。但总有一些迹象再次点燃我的希望。我不知道这些迹象是真是假。但至少你可以努力做个像古代彼得大帝那样的明君，而不要像你的叔叔那样。”“那么关于国王和女王的传说都是真的？还有白女巫的故事呢？”卡斯宾问道。“当然都是真的，”科尼利亚斯回答，“国王与女王的统治是纳尼亚的黄金时代，这块土地从未忘记他们。”“他们也住在这个城堡里吗，博士？”“不，亲爱的，”老人说道，“这个城堡是近代的建筑，是你的高祖父建造的。当阿斯兰封亚当的两个儿子和夏娃的两个女儿为纳尼亚君王之后，他们一直住在凯尔帕拉维尔城堡。当今活着的人没有谁见过那个蒙福的地方，说不定它早已荡然无存了。我们相信，那地方离这儿很远，就在大海的岸边，这条大河的入海口。”“啊！”卡斯宾打了个寒噤，说道，“你是说在黑树林那儿？你难道不晓得，那是所有的——那些——那些鬼魂出没之处？”“王子殿下只是在重复别人的话，”博士说，“这些都是谎言，是提尔玛人编造出来的。那里并没有鬼魂。因为你们的国王对大海怕得要死，他们无论如何也忘不了，在所有的故事里，阿斯兰都来自大海的那一边。他们不敢到海边去，也不想让别人接近大海。于是他们让密林生长出来，阻断人们到海边去的道路。由于他们与树精灵的前嫌，他们也害怕树林。恐惧使他们想象出树林中的各种鬼魂。国王与权贵们既恨恶大海，又憎恶树林，他们对这些故事半信半疑，并鼓励这些谣言的传播。如果在纳尼亚，没有人敢到海边，向着大海的对岸——向着阿斯兰的国度，也就是世界的东方和黎明——眺望的话，他们会稍微有点儿安全感。”

深沉的静默持续了好几分钟。科尼利亚斯博士又开口说道：“来吧。我们在这里待得太久了。该回去上床睡觉了。”“我们必须回去吗？”卡斯宾说，“我真想继续谈论这些事情，一连说上几个钟头。”“我们那样做的话，有人会来寻找我们的。”科尼利亚斯博士说。

Chapter 5 Caspian s Adventure In The Mountains卡斯宾山中历险

After this, Caspian and his Tutor had many more secret conversations on the top of the Great Tower, and at each conversation Caspian learned more about Old Narnia, so that thinking and dreaming about the old days, and longing that they might come back, filled nearly all his spare hours. But of course he had not many hours to spare, for now his education was beginning in earnest. He learned sword-fighting and riding, swimming and diving, how to shoot with the bow and play on the recorder and the theorbo, how to hunt the stag and cut him up when he was dead, besides Cosmography, Rhetoric, Heraldry, Versification, and of course History, with a little Law, Physic, Alchemy, and Astronomy. Of Magic he learned only the theory, for Doctor Cornelius said the practical part was not proper study for princes. “And I myself,” he added, “am only a very imperfect magician and can do only the smallest experiments.” Of Navigation (“Which is a noble and heroical art,” said the Doctor) he was taught nothing, because King Miraz disapproved of ships and the sea.

He also learned a great deal by using his own eyes and ears. As a little boy he had often wondered why he disliked his aunt, Queen Prunaprismia; he now saw that it was because she disliked him. He also began to see that Narnia was an unhappy country. The taxes were high and the laws were stern and Miraz was a cruel man.

After some years there came a time when the Queen seemed to be ill and there was a great deal of bustle and pother about her in the castle and doctors came and the courtiers whispered. This was in early summertime. And one night, while all this fuss was going on, Caspian was unexpectedly wakened by Doctor Cornelius after he had been only a few hours in bed.

“Are we going to do a little Astronomy, Doctor?” said Caspian.

“Hush!” said the Doctor. “Trust me and do exactly as I tell you. Put on all your clothes; you have a long journey before you.”

Caspian was very surprised, but he had learned to have confidence in his Tutor and he began doing what he was told at once. When he was dressed the Doctor said, “I have a wallet for you. We must go into the next room and fill it with victuals from your Highness’s supper table.”

“My gentlemen-in-waiting will be there,” said Caspian.

“They are fast asleep and will not wake,” said the Doctor. “I am a very minor magician but I can at least contrive a charmed sleep.”

They went into the antechamber and there, sure enough, the two gentlemen-in-waiting were, sprawling on chairs and snoring hard. Doctor Cornelius quickly cut up the remains of a cold chicken and some slices of venison and put them, with bread and an apple or so and a little flask of good wine, into the wallet which he then gave to Caspian. It fitted on by a strap over Caspian’s shoulder, like a satchel you would use for taking books to school.

“Have you your sword?” asked the Doctor.

“Yes,” said Caspian.

“Then put this mantle over all to hide the sword and the wallet. That’s right. And now we must go to the Great Tower and talk.”

When they had reached the top of the Tower (it was a cloudy night, not at all like the night when they had seen the conjunction of Tarva and Alambil) Doctor Cornelius said:

“Dear Prince, you must leave this castle at once and go to seek your fortune in the wide world. Your life is in danger here.”

“Why?” asked Caspian.

“Because you are the true King of Narnia: Caspian the Tenth, the true son and heir of Caspian the Ninth. Long life to your Majesty” —and suddenly, to Caspian’s great surprise, the little man dropped down on one knee and kissed his hand.

“What does it all mean? I don’t understand,” said Caspian.

“I wonder you have never asked me before,” said the Doctor, “why, being the son of King Caspian, you are not King Caspian yourself. Everyone except your Majesty knows that Miraz is a usurper. When he first began to rule he did not even pretend to be the King: he called himself Lord Protector. But then your royal mother died, the good Queen and the only Telmarine who was ever kind to me. And then, one by one, all the great lords, who had known your father, died or disappeared. Not by accident, either. Miraz weeded them out. Belisar and Uvilas were shot with arrows on a hunting party: by chance, it was pretended. All the great house of the Passarids he sent to fight giants on the northern frontier till one by one they fell. Arlian and Erimon and a dozen more he executed for treason on a false charge. The two brothers of Beaversdam he shut up as madmen. And finally he persuaded the seven noble lords, who alone among all the Telmarines did not fear the sea, to sail away and look for new lands beyond the Eastern Ocean and, as he intended, they never came back. And when there was no one left who could speak a word for you, then his flatterers (as he had instructed them) begged him to become King. And of course he did.”

“Do you mean he now wants to kill me too?” said Caspian.

“That is almost certain,” said Doctor Cornelius.

“But why now?” said Caspian. “I mean, why didn’t he do it long ago if he wanted to? And what harm have I done him?”

“He has changed his mind about you because of something that happened only two hours ago. The Queen has had a son.”

“I don’t see what that’s got to do with it,” said Caspian.

“Don’t see!” exclaimed the Doctor. “Have all my lessons in History and Politics taught you no more than that? Listen. As long as he had no children of his own, he was willing enough that you should be King after he died. He may not have cared much about you, but he would rather you should have the throne than a stranger. Now that he has a son of his own he will want his own son to be the next King. You are in the way. He’ll clear you out of the way.”

“Is he really as bad as that?” said Caspian. “Would he really murder me?”

“He murdered your Father,” said Doctor Cornelius.

Caspian felt very queer and said nothing.

“I can tell you the whole story,” said the Doctor. “But not now. There is no time. You must fly at once.”

“You’ll come with me?” said Caspian.

“I dare not,” said the Doctor. “It would make your danger greater. Two are more easily tracked than one. Dear Prince, dear King Caspian, you must be very brave. You must go alone and at once. Try to get across the southern border to the court of King Nain of Archenland. He will be good to you.”

“Shall I never see you again?” said Caspian in a quavering voice.

“I hope so, dear King,” said the Doctor. “What friend have I in the wide world except your Majesty? And I have a little magic. But in the meantime, speed is everything. Here are two gifts before you go. This is a little purse of gold-alas, all the treasure in this castle should be your own by rights. And here is something far better.”

He put in Caspian’s hands something which he could hardly see but which he knew by the feel to be a horn.

“That,” said Doctor Cornelius, “is the greatest and most sacred treasure of Narnia. Many terrors I endured, many spells did I utter, to find it, when I was still young. It is the magic horn of Queen Susan herself which she left behind her when she vanished from Narnia at the end of the Golden Age. It is said that whoever blows it shall have strange help—no one can say how strange. It may have the power to call Queen Lucy and King Edmund and Queen Susan and High King Peter back from the past, and they will set all to rights. It may be that it will call up Asian himself. Take it, King Caspian: but do not use it except at your greatest need. And now, haste, haste, haste. The little door at the very bottom of the Tower, the door into the garden, is unlocked. There we must part.”

“Can I get my horse Destrier?” said Caspian.

“He is already saddled and waiting for you just at the corner of the orchard.”

During the long climb down the winding staircase Cornelius whispered many more words of direction and advice. Caspian’s heart was sinking, but he tried to take it all in. Then came the fresh air in the garden, a fervent handclasp with the Doctor, a run across the lawn, a welcoming whinny from Destrier, and so King Caspian the Tenth left the castle of his fathers. Looking back, he saw fireworks going up to celebrate the birth of the new prince.

All night he rode southward, choosing by-ways and bridle paths through woods as long as he was in country that he knew; but afterwards he kept to the high road. Destrier was as excited as his master at this unusual journey, and Caspian, though tears had come into his eyes at saying goodbye to Doctor Cornelius, felt brave and, in a way, happy, to think that he was King Caspian riding to seek adventures, with his sword on his left hip and Queen Susan’s magic horn on his right. But when day came, with a sprinkle of rain, and he looked about him and saw on every side unknown woods, wild heaths, and blue mountains, he thought how large and strange the world was and felt frightened and small.

As soon as it was full daylight he left the road and found an open grassy place amid a wood where he could rest. He took off Destrier’s bridle and let him graze, ate some cold chicken and drank a little wine, and presently fell asleep. It was late afternoon when he awoke. He ate a morsel and continued his journey, still southward, by many unfrequented lanes. He was now in a land of hills, going up and down, but always more up than down. From every ridge he could see the mountains growing bigger and blacker ahead. As the evening closed in, he was riding their lower slopes. The wind rose. Soon rain fell in torrents. Destrier became uneasy; there was thunder in the air. And now they entered a dark and seemingly endless pine forest, and all the stories Caspian had ever heard of trees being unfriendly to Man crowded into his mind. He remembered that he was, after all, a Telmarine, one of the race who cut down trees wherever they could and were at war with all wild things; and though he himself might be unlike other Telmarines, the trees could not be expected to know this.

Nor did they. The wind became a tempest, the woods roared and creaked all round them. There came a crash. A tree fell right across the road just behind him. “Quiet, Destrier, quiet!” said Caspian, patting his horse’s neck; but he was trembling himself and knew that he had escaped death by an inch. Lightning flashed and a great crack of thunder seemed to break the sky in two just overhead. Destrier bolted in good earnest. Caspian was a good rider, but he had not the strength to hold him back. He kept his seat, but he knew that his life hung by a thread during the wild career that followed. Tree after tree rose up before them in the dusk and was only just avoided. Then, almost too suddenly to hurt (and yet it did hurt him too) something struck Caspian on the forehead and he knew no more.

When he came to himself he was lying in a firelit place with bruised limbs and a bad headache. Low voices were speaking close at hand.

“And now,” said one, “before it wakes up we must decide what to do with it.”

“Kill it,” said another. “We can’t let it live. It would betray us.”

“We ought to have killed it at once, or else let it alone,” said a third voice. “We can’t kill it now. Not after we’ve taken it in and bandaged its head and all. It would be murdering a guest.”

“Gentlemen,” said Caspian in a feeble voice, “whatever you do to me, I hope you will be kind to my poor horse.”

“Your horse had taken flight long before we found you,” said the first voice—a curiously husky, earthy voice, as Caspian now noticed.

“Now don’t let it talk you round with its pretty words,” said the second voice. “I still say—”

“Horns and halibuts!” exclaimed the third voice. “Of course we’re not going to murder it. For shame, Nikabrik. What do you say, Trufflehunter? What shall we do with it?”

“I shall give it a drink,” said the first voice, presumably Trufflehunter’s. A dark shape approached the bed. Caspian felt an arm slipped gently under his shoulders—if it was exactly an arm. The shape somehow seemed wrong. The face that bent towards him seemed wrong too. He got the impression that it was very hairy and very long nosed, and there were odd white patches on each side of it. “It’s a mask of some sort,” thought Caspian. “Or perhaps I’m in a fever and imagining it all.” A cupful of something sweet and hot was set to his lips and he drank. At that moment one of the others poked the fire. A blaze sprang up and Caspian almost screamed with the shock as the sudden light revealed the face that was looking into his own. It was not a man’s face but a badger’s, though larger and friendlier and more intelligent than the face of any badger he had seen before. And it had certainly been talking. He saw, too, that he was on a bed of heather, in a cave. By the fire sat two little bearded men, so much wilder and shorter and hairier and thicker than Doctor Cornelius that he knew them at once for real Dwarfs, ancient Dwarfs with not a drop of human blood in their veins. And Caspian knew that he had found the Old Narnians at last. Then his head began to swim again.

In the next few days he learned to know them by names. The Badger was called Trufflehunter; he was the oldest and kindest of the three. The Dwarf who had wanted to kill Caspian was a sour Black Dwarf (that is, his hair and beard were black, and thick and hard like horsehair). His name was Nikabrik. The other Dwarf was a Red Dwarf with hair rather like a Fox’s and he was called Trumpkin.

“And now,” said Nikabrik on the first evening when Caspian was well enough to sit up and talk, “we still have to decide what to do with this Human. You two think you’ve done it a great kindess by not letting me kill it. But I suppose the upshot is that we have to keep it a prisoner for life. I’m certainly not going to let it go alive—to go back to its own kind and betray us all.”

“Bulbs and bolsters. Nikabrik!” said Trumpkin. “Why need you talk so unhandsomely? It isn’t the creature’s fault that it bashed its head against a tree outside our hole. And I don’t think it looks like a traitor.”

“I say,” said Caspian, “you haven’t yet found out whether I want to go back. I don’t. I want to stay with you—if you’ll let me. I’ve been looking for people like you all my life.”

“That’s a likely story,” growled Nikabrik. “You’re a Telmarine and a Human, aren’t you? Of course you want to go back to your own kind.”

“Well, even if I did, I couldn’t,” said Caspian. “I was flying for my life when I had my accident. The King wants to kill me. If you’d killed me, you’d have done the very thing to please him.”

“Well now,” said Trufflehunter, “you don’t say so!”

“Eh?” said Trumpkin. “What’s that? What have you been doing, Human, to fall foul of Miraz at your age?”

“He’s my uncle,” began Caspian, when Nikabrik jumped up with his hand on his dagger.

“There you are!” he cried. “Not only a Telmarine but close kin and heir to our greatest enemy. Are you still mad enough to let this creature live?” He would have stabbed Caspian then and there, if the Badger and Trumpkin had not got in the way and forced him back to his seat and held him down.

“Now, once and for all, Nikabrik,” said Trumpkin. “Will you contain yourself, or must Trufflehunter and I sit on your head?”

Nikabrik sulkily promised to behave, and the other two asked Caspian to tell his whole story. When he had done so there was a moment’s silence.

“This is the queerest thing I ever heard,” said Trumpkin.

“I don’t like it,” said Nikabrik. “I didn’t know there were stories about us still told among the Humans. The less they know about us the better. That old nurse, now. She’d better have held her tongue. And it’s all mixed up with that Tutor: a renegade Dwarf. I hate ’em. I hate’em worse than the Humans. You mark my words—no good will come of it.

“Don’t you go talking about things you don’t understand, Nikabrik,”said Trufflehunter. “You Dwarfs are as forgetful and changeable as the Humans themselves. I’m a beast, I am, and a Badger what’s more. We don’t change. We hold on. I say great good will come of it. This is the true King of Narnia we’ve got here: a true King, coming back to true Narnia. And we beasts remember, even if Dwarfs forget, that Narnia was never right except when a son of Adam was King.”

“Whistles and whirligigs, Trufflehunter!” said Trumpkin. “You don’t mean you want to give the country to Humans?”

“I said nothing about that,” answered the Badger. “It’s not Men’s country (who should know that better than me?) but it’s a country for a man to be King of. We badgers have long enough memories to know that. Why, bless us all, wasn’t the High King Peter a Man?”

“Do you believe all those old stories?” asked Trumpkin.

“I tell you, we don’t change, we beasts,” said Trufflehunter. “We don’t forget. I believe in the High King Peter and the rest that reigned at Cair Paravel, as firmly as I believe in Aslan himself.”

“As firmly as that, I dare say,” said Trumpkin. “But who believes in Aslan nowadays?”

“I do,” said Caspian. “And if I hadn’t believed in him before, I would now. Back there among the Humans the people who laughed at Aslan would have laughed at stories about Talking Beasts and Dwarfs. Sometimes I did wonder if there really was such a person as Aslan; but then sometimes I wondered if there were really people like you. Yet there you are.”

“That’s right,” said Trufflehunter. “You’re right, King Caspian. And as long as you will be true to Old Narnia you shall be my King, whatever they say. Long life to your Majesty.”

“You make me sick, Badger,” growled Nikabrik. “The High King Peter and the rest may have been Men, but they were a different sort of men. This is one of the cursed Telmarines. He has hunted beasts for sport. Haven’t you, now?” he added, rounding suddenly on Caspian.

“Well, to tell you the truth, I have,” said Caspian. “But they weren’t Talking Beasts.”

“It’s all the same thing,” said Nikabrik.

“No, no, no,” said Trufflehunter. “You know it isn’t. You know very well that the beasts in Narnia nowadays are different and are no more than the poor dumb, witless creatures you’d find in Calormen or Telmar. They’re smaller too. They’re far more different from us than the half-Dwarfs are from you.”

There was a great deal more talk, but it all ended with the agreement that Caspian should stay and even the promise that, as soon as he was able to go out, he should be taken to see what Trumpkin called “the Others”; for apparently in these wild parts all sorts of creatures from the Old Days of Narnia still lived on in hiding.

中文阅读

打那儿以后，卡斯宾又跟老师在塔楼顶上有过多次密谈。每次谈话都使他对古老的纳尼亚有了更深的了解。于是，对往昔岁月的怀念与梦想，以及对那些美好日子的向往，几乎占据了他全部的空余时间。当然他也没有太多的闲暇，因为他已经开始接受正规教育。除了宇宙学、修辞学、纹章学 、格律、历史、法律、物理、炼金术和天文学之外，他还要学习剑术、骑马、游泳、潜水，以及如何射箭，吹竖笛，弹琵琶，如何捕猎牡鹿，猎杀后如何切割开来。至于魔法，他仅仅学了理论部分，因为科尼利亚斯博士说实用部分不适合王子们学习。“我本人，”他补充道，“是个很蹩脚的魔法师，只能做些微不足道的实验。”关于航海学（“这是一门高贵而又富于英雄气概的艺术，”博士说），老师什么都没有教，因为米拉兹王不允许提起轮船与大海。

通过用心观察和仔细聆听，王子还学到了许多人生的道理。年幼时，他就常常感到奇怪，自己为什么不喜欢婶娘浦露娜普利斯米亚王后。现在他明白了，那是因为她不喜欢他的缘故。他也开始明白，纳尼亚并不是一片乐土，百姓忍受着苛捐杂税和严刑峻法，因为米拉兹是一个残酷无情的暴君。

时光荏苒，几年又过去了。这一段时间，王后好像生了病，因此城堡里平添了许多的忙碌与喧嚣。医生们跑前跑后，大臣们交头接耳，议论纷纷。转眼到了初夏时节。一天夜里，当众人还在忙乱的时候，卡斯宾已经上床睡了几个钟头，突然他被科尼利亚斯博士给叫醒了。“我们要去观察天象吗，博士？”卡斯宾问道。“嘘！”博士说，“请相信我，并严格按照我说的去做。把衣服穿好，你要走很远一段路程。”

卡斯宾颇感惊讶，但是他对自己的老师非常信任，于是就按照老师的吩咐立刻行动起来。等他穿戴整齐，博士说：“我为你准备了一个旅行袋。我们这就去隔壁房间，从殿下的餐桌上拿些食物，把袋子装满。”“我的侍从们守在那里。”卡斯宾说。“他们正在呼呼大睡，不会醒来的，”博士说，“我这个魔法师虽然拙劣，但至少还能施展魔法催人入眠。”

他们到前厅一看，果然，两个侍从摊开手脚睡在椅子上，鼾声如雷。科尼利亚斯博士赶紧收起剩下的冷鸡肉，切下几片鹿肉，又拿了一些面包、一个苹果、一小瓶优质葡萄酒，把这些放进旅行袋里，然后递给卡斯宾。卡斯宾将袋子斜挎在肩膀上，就像是上学背书包的样子。“你的宝剑带了吗？”博士问。“带了。”卡斯宾说。“披上这件斗篷，遮盖住宝剑和旅行袋。就是这样。现在我们要到大塔楼顶上讲一件事情。”

等他们爬到塔楼顶端（那夜多云，跟他们观看双星际会的夜晚完全无法相提并论），科尼利亚斯博士说：“亲爱的王子，你必须马上离开这个城堡，到广阔的世界去碰碰运气。你留在这里会有生命危险。”“为什么？”卡斯宾问道。“因为你是纳尼亚真正的国王，卡斯宾十世，卡斯宾九世的亲生儿子与继承人。国王万岁！”——突然，出乎卡斯宾的意料之外，矮人单膝跪下，吻了吻他的手。“你这是什么意思？我不明白。”卡斯宾说。“我感到奇怪，以前你从未问过我，”博士说，“作为前国王卡斯宾九世的儿子，你自己怎么不是卡斯宾王？除了陛下，人人皆知米拉兹是个篡位者。他刚开始统治时，还没敢自立为王。他称自己为摄政大臣。后来你的皇娘去世了。她可是位贤德的皇后，是唯一善待我的提尔玛人。紧接着，一个又一个忠于你父王的大臣，不是死去，就是失踪。他们的死因很离奇，是被米拉兹给干掉的。比利沙和犹维拉斯是在围猎时中箭身亡，据说是意外事件，但那只是借口而已。巴萨里德这个名门的后人们，都被他派到北部边境去与巨人作战，接二连三全部阵亡。阿里恩和艾力蒙以及另外的十多个人，被他捏造罪名，以叛国罪将他们处以极刑。河狸坝的两兄弟被他关在了疯人院里。最后，他说服了提尔玛人中不惧怕大海的七大臣出海远航，到东海彼岸去寻找新大陆。正如他所预期的，他们再也没有回来。当朝廷中没人敢帮你说话的时候，那些溜须拍马者（遵照他的指示）纷纷劝进。当然，他就趁机南面称王了。”“你是说，他现在想要杀我吗？”卡斯宾问。“差不多是板上钉钉了。”科尼利亚斯博士说。“为什么要等到现在呢？”卡斯宾又问，“我的意思是，如果他想杀我，为何不早点儿下手？我又怎么妨害到他啦？”“两个小时前发生的一件事，改变了他对你的想法。王后生下了一个儿子。”“我看不出这两者之间有什么关系。”卡斯宾说。“看不出来！”博士大叫起来，“我给你上了那么多历史课和政治课，你居然什么都没有学会？听着，只要他还没有亲生儿子，他就愿意死后让你接续他做王。也许他并不怎么喜欢你，可他还是宁愿让你，而不是让一个外人，来继承王位。现在他有了儿子，就想让自己的亲生骨肉来继承王位。你挡住了他的道，所以他要清除掉你这块绊脚石。”“他真的有那么坏吗？”卡斯宾问，“他当真要谋害我？”“他谋害了你的父亲。”科尼利亚斯博士说。

卡斯宾感到非常诧异，但却没有做声。“我可以把整个故事从头到尾都告诉你，”博士说，“但不是这会儿。没有时间了。你必须立刻逃走。”“你跟我一起走吗？”卡斯宾说。“我不敢这样做，”博士说，“那样会增加你的危险。两个人比一个人更容易被发现。亲爱的王子，亲爱的卡斯宾王，你一定要勇敢。你必须独自逃离，马上就动身。你要设法越过南部边界，去阿陳兰国纳音国王的宫廷。他会友好地接待你的。”“我再也见不到你了吗？”卡斯宾颤抖着声音问道。“我希望还能见到你，亲爱的国王，”博士说，“在这个广袤的世界上，除了陛下，我哪里还有什么朋友？再说我还懂一点魔法。但在眼下，速度就是一切。离开之前，我还有两件礼物要送给你：这是一小袋金币——唉，按理说，这个城堡中的一切财富都是你的；第二件礼物要比黄金更加宝贵。”

说到这里，他把一件东西放到卡斯宾的手中。尽管看不清楚，卡斯宾凭着感觉知道那是一只号角。“这个，”博士说，“是纳尼亚最神圣伟大的宝贝。为了寻找它，我年轻时曾忍受过各种恐怖，念了很多的符咒。这是苏珊女王的神奇号角。在黄金时代终结之际，当她从纳尼亚消失之前留下来的。据说，只要吹响号角，就可以得到奇异的帮助——没有人知道到底是怎么一回事。也许号角能把露西女王、埃德蒙王、苏珊女王和彼得大帝从过去召唤回来，重整乾坤。说不定还能够将阿斯兰本人呼唤回来。拿着，卡斯宾王，不到万不得已，不要用它。现在，赶快离开，要快，再快一点儿。这座塔楼底层通往花园的的小门已经打开了。我们必须在那儿分手。”“我能带上我的马迪斯特里尔吗？”卡斯宾说。“马已经备好了鞍子，正在果园的角落里等着你呢。”

他们沿着盘旋楼梯走下来，科尼利亚斯一边走，一边悄声告诉他一些忠告与建议。卡斯宾的心情越来越沉重，可他还是尽量把这些话都牢记在心。最后，他们呼吸到了花园清新的空气，王子与博士紧紧地握手道别。卡斯宾跑过草坪，马儿迪斯特利尔快活地嘶鸣了一声，表示欢迎。就这样，卡斯宾十世离开了他先辈的城堡。他依依不舍地回首望去，看见空中燃放起耀眼的焰火，人们在那里庆祝新王子的诞生。

他纵马向南奔驰了整整一夜。在他所熟悉的区域，他选择走小路和林间的驿道。后来，他干脆就在大路上驰骋起来。对于这次不同寻常的旅程，马儿迪斯特利尔和主人一样兴奋。与科尼利亚斯博士道别时，卡斯宾的热泪不禁夺眶而出。此刻，他转念一想，自己是卡斯宾王，左边佩着宝剑，右边背着苏珊女王的神奇号角，如今正骑马出去历险。想到这里，他不由得感到自己很勇敢，还感到了几分幸福。天慢慢亮了，下了一阵毛毛细雨。他四面环顾，目光所及之处，都是未知的树林、野生的石南和青灰色的群山。他想，世界是如此的浩大，又是这般的陌生，顿时他又感到了自己的渺小，心中惶恐起来。

很快，天色大亮，他离开大路，在树林中找了片开阔的草地，准备在此小憩一下。他取下迪斯特利尔的马嚼子，让马儿自由自在地吃草。他自己啃了几块冷鸡肉，喝了一点儿葡萄酒，不一会儿就昏昏入睡了。等他醒来时，已经是暮色苍茫。他吃了点儿食物，就又上路了。沿着人迹罕至的小路，他继续向南跋涉。不久，他来到一个丘陵地带，开始不停地翻山越岭，但总的来说，他是在持续地往上攀登。每登上一道山脊，他都能看到，前面的山越来越雄伟，颜色越来越浓重。到夜幕降临时，他还没有上到半山坡。起风了，紧跟着是倾盆大雨，隆隆雷声。迪斯特利尔变得狂躁不安起来。这时，他骑马走进一座幽暗的、看起来无边无际的松树林。卡斯宾听说过的那些树木对人类不友好的故事，一下子全都涌上他的心头。他没有忘记，自己毕竟是一个提尔玛人，是那个乱砍滥杀、与一切野生动植物为敌的民族中的一员。虽说他跟别的提尔玛人不同，但你无法期待树木了解这一点。

它们的确不了解。风狂雨骤，树林在他们周围咆哮，发出吱吱嘎嘎的声音。突然咔嚓一声，一棵大树横倒在他身后的路上。“安静，迪斯特利尔，安静！”卡斯宾说着，拍了拍马的脖子。其实他自己也吓得浑身颤抖，他知道自己刚才与死神擦肩而过。这时，黑夜划过一道闪电，轰隆一声炸雷，似乎要把头顶上的天空撕为两半。迪斯特利尔受了惊吓，像一匹脱缰的野马狂奔起来。卡斯宾是个好骑手，但却没有力量控制住它。他竭力坐稳，他明白在这种失控状态下，自己实在是命悬一线。在幽冥中，一棵棵树木迎面扑来，又在身边一掠而过。突然，有个东西以迅雷不及掩耳之势击打在卡斯宾的前额上，由于速度太快，他几乎没有感觉到疼痛（尽管伤势不轻），就失去了知觉。

醒来时，他发现自己躺在一个火光照亮的地方，四肢上满是伤痕，头痛欲裂，身旁传来低低的谈话声。“这工夫，”一个声音说，“趁他还没苏醒，我们必须决定如何处置他。”“把他杀了。”另一个声音说，“我们不能让他活下去。他会出卖我们的。”“我们本应该当即把他干掉，或者将他留在那里听其自然，”第三个声音说，“可是我们把他抬了进来，给他包扎了头上的伤口，并精心加以护理，所以现在就不能伤害他了。那将是谋杀一位客人。”“先生们，”卡斯宾用微弱的声音说道，“不管你们怎么对待我，希望你们能善待我可怜的马儿。”“在我们发现你之前，你的马早就跑没影儿了。”第一个声音回答——卡斯宾这才注意到，这个声音沙哑而低沉，听上去有点怪怪的。“甭让他的好听话把你给说服了，”第二个声音说，“我坚持——”“号角和大比目鱼！”第三个声音嚷道，“当然我们不能杀害他。真可耻，尼克布里克。你的意见呢，特路弗汉特？我们应该怎么对待他？”“我要让他喝点东西。”第一个声音说，猜得出来是特路弗汉特的声音。一个黑色的身影走到床前，卡斯宾感到一只手臂轻轻地伸到自己的肩膀之下——如果可以准确地称之为手臂的话。那个手臂的形状似乎有点不对劲儿。就连朝他凑过来的脸看起来也不太正常。在他的眼中，那张脸毛烘烘的，鼻子很长，两颊上长着一些奇怪的白色斑点。“这大概是一种面具，”卡斯宾心想，“没准儿我发烧昏了头，出现了幻觉。”一杯温暖香甜的饮料送到他的嘴边，他咕咚咕咚喝了起来。就在这时，有人挑旺了篝火。卡斯宾这一惊非同小可，险些惊叫起来。在火光的映照下，他发现，注视着自己的并不是一个人，而是一只獾！只是这只獾要比他以前见过的獾个头更大，更加友好，看上去也更聪明。可以肯定这只獾会说话。他还发现，自己是在一个洞穴里，躺在一张用石南铺的床上。在火堆边上，坐着两个长着胡须的小人儿，比科尼利亚斯博士更矮、更壮、更加粗野，毛发也更加浓密。他一眼就认出来，他们是真正的小矮人，古代传说中的小矮人，他们的血管里没有掺杂一滴人类的血液。卡斯宾知道，自己终于找到了古老的纳尼亚人。就在这时，他感到一阵天旋地转，又晕厥了过去。

在接下来的几天，他逐渐与他们熟识了。獾的名字叫特路弗汉特，它年纪最大、也最善良。想要杀死卡斯宾的是一个乖戾的黑矮人（也就是说，他的头发胡子都是黑的，又粗又硬，就像马鬃一样）。他的名字叫尼克布里克。另外一个是红矮人，他的须发都是火红色的，就像狐狸毛一样。他名叫特伦普金。“听着，”就在卡斯宾能够坐起来谈话的那个晚上，尼克布里克说，“我们还是要商量一下，怎么处置这个人类。你们两个不许我杀他，自以为做了件天大的好事。但我认为，其结果就是我们必须把他终身监禁。我绝不允许他活着离开——回到他的族人中间，把我们大家都给卖了。”[1]“圆球和枕头，尼克布里克!”特伦普金说，“你说话怎么这么难听？在我们的洞外，这个人的脑袋撞到一棵树上，这不是他的过错。我可不觉得他像一个密探。”“喂，”卡斯宾开口说道，“你们还没有弄明白，我是不是想要回去。我根本不想回去。我想跟你们待在一起——如果你们许可的话。我长这么大，一直都在寻找像你们这样的人。”“说的比唱的还好听，”尼克布里克吼叫道，“你是个提尔玛人，是人类中的一分子，难道不对吗？你肯定想回到你的族人中间去。”“好吧，即使我想，我也做不到，”卡斯宾说，“我是在逃命时撞到树上的。国王想要杀我。如果你们杀死我，正好遂了他的心愿。”“嗯，怎么，”特路弗汉特说，“是真的吗？”“嘿？”特伦普金说，“怎么啦？你做了什么事儿，人类，年纪轻轻就冒犯了米拉兹？”“他是我的叔父。”卡斯宾刚说到这儿，尼克布里克就手持匕首跳了起来。

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