Three Ghost Stories(三个鬼故事)

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Three Ghost Stories
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Three Ghost Stories
Charles Dickens
Three Ghost Stories
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THE SIGNAL-MAN
"Halloa! Below there!"
When he heard a voice thus calling to him, he was standing at the door
of his box, with a flag in his hand, furled round its short pole. One would
have thought, considering the nature of the ground, that he could not have
doubted from what quarter the voice came; but instead of looking up to
where I stood on the top of the steep cutting nearly over his head, he
turned himself about, and looked down the Line. There was something
remarkable in his manner of doing so, though I could not have said for my
life what. But I know it was remarkable enough to attract my notice, even
though his figure was foreshortened and shadowed, down in the deep
trench, and mine was high above him, so steeped in the glow of an angry
sunset, that I had shaded my eyes with my hand before I saw him at all.
"Halloa! Below!"
From looking down the Line, he turned himself about again, and,
raising his eyes, saw my figure high above him.
"Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?"
He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him
without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle question. Just
then there came a vague vibration in the earth and air, quickly changing
into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming rush that caused me to start back,
as though it had force to draw me down. When such vapour as rose to my
height from this rapid train had passed me, and was skimming away over
the landscape, I looked down again, and saw him refurling the flag he had
shown while the train went by.
I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to regard
me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag towards a
point on my level, some two or three hundred yards distant. I called down
to him, "All right!" and made for that point. There, by dint of looking
closely about me, I found a rough zigzag descending path notched out,
which I followed.
The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was
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made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I went
down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give me time to
recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with which he had pointed
out the path.
When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him
again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by which
the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were waiting for me to
appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and that left elbow rested on his
right hand, crossed over his breast. His attitude was one of such
expectation and watchfulness that I stopped a moment, wondering at it.
I resumed my downward way, and stepping out upon the level of the
railroad, and drawing nearer to him, saw that he was a dark sallow man,
with a dark beard and rather heavy eyebrows. His post was in as solitary
and dismal a place as ever I saw. On either side, a dripping-wet wall of
jagged stone, excluding all view but a strip of sky; the perspective one
way only a crooked prolongation of this great dungeon; the shorter
perspective in the other direction terminating in a gloomy red light, and
the gloomier entrance to a black tunnel, in whose massive architecture
there was a barbarous, depressing, and forbidding air. So little sunlight
ever found its way to this spot, that it had an earthy, deadly smell; and so
much cold wind rushed through it, that it struck chill to me, as if I had left
the natural world.
Before he stirred, I was near enough to him to have touched him. Not
even then removing his eyes from mine, he stepped back one step, and
lifted his hand.
This was a lonesome post to occupy (I said), and it had riveted my
attention when I looked down from up yonder. A visitor was a rarity, I
should suppose; not an unwelcome rarity, I hoped? In me, he merely saw a
man who had been shut up within narrow limits all his life, and who, being
at last set free, had a newly-awakened interest in these great works. To
such purpose I spoke to him; but I am far from sure of the terms I used; for,
besides that I am not happy in opening any conversation, there was
something in the man that daunted me.
He directed a most curious look towards the red light near the tunnel's
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mouth, and looked all about it, as if something were missing from it, and
then looked it me.
That light was part of his charge? Was it not?
He answered in a low voice,--"Don't you know it is?"
The monstrous thought came into my mind, as I perused the fixed eyes
and the saturnine face, that this was a spirit, not a man. I have speculated
since, whether there may have been infection in his mind.
In my turn, I stepped back. But in making the action, I detected in his
eyes some latent fear of me. This put the monstrous thought to flight.
"You look at me," I said, forcing a smile, "as if you had a dread of
me."
"I was doubtful," he returned, "whether I had seen you before."
"Where?"
He pointed to the red light he had looked at.
"There?" I said.
Intently watchful of me, he replied (but without sound), "Yes."
"My good fellow, what should I do there? However, be that as it may, I
never was there, you may swear."
"I think I may," he rejoined. "Yes; I am sure I may."
His manner cleared, like my own. He replied to my remarks with
readiness, and in well-chosen words. Had he much to do there? Yes; that
was to say, he had enough responsibility to bear; but exactness and
watchfulness were what was required of him, and of actual work-- manual
labour--he had next to none. To change that signal, to trim those lights, and
to turn this iron handle now and then, was all he had to do under that head.
Regarding those many long and lonely hours of which I seemed to make
so much, he could only say that the routine of his life had shaped itself
into that form, and he had grown used to it. He had taught himself a
language down here,--if only to know it by sight, and to have formed his
own crude ideas of its pronunciation, could be called learning it. He had
also worked at fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra; but he was,
and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures. Was it necessary for him
when on duty always to remain in that channel of damp air, and could he
never rise into the sunshine from between those high stone walls? Why,
Three Ghost Stories
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that depended upon times and circumstances. Under some conditions there
would be less upon the Line than under others, and the same held good as
to certain hours of the day and night. In bright weather, he did choose
occasions for getting a little above these lower shadows; but, being at all
times liable to be called by his electric bell, and at such times listening for
it with redoubled anxiety, the relief was less than I would suppose.
He took me into his box, where there was a fire, a desk for an official
book in which he had to make certain entries, a telegraphic instrument
with its dial, face, and needles, and the little bell of which he had spoken.
On my trusting that he would excuse the remark that he had been well
educated, and (I hoped I might say without offence) perhaps educated
above that station, he observed that instances of slight incongruity in such
wise would rarely be found wanting among large bodies of men; that he
had heard it was so in workhouses, in the police force, even in that last
desperate resource, the army; and that he knew it was so, more or less, in
any great railway staff. He had been, when young (if I could believe it,
sitting in that hut,--he scarcely could), a student of natural philosophy, and
had attended lectures; but he had run wild, misused his opportunities, gone
down, and never risen again. He had no complaint to offer about that. He
had made his bed, and he lay upon it. It was far too late to make another.
All that I have here condensed he said in a quiet manner, with his
grave dark regards divided between me and the fire. He threw in the word,
"Sir," from time to time, and especially when he referred to his youth,--as
though to request me to understand that he claimed to be nothing but what
I found him. He was several times interrupted by the little bell, and had to
read off messages, and send replies. Once he had to stand without the door,
and display a flag as a train passed, and make some verbal communication
to the driver. In the discharge of his duties, I observed him to be
remarkably exact and vigilant, breaking off his discourse at a syllable, and
remaining silent until what he had to do was done.
In a word, I should have set this man down as one of the safest of men
to be employed in that capacity, but for the circumstance that while he was
speaking to me he twice broke off with a fallen colour, turned his face
towards the little bell when it did NOT ring, opened the door of the hut
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(which was kept shut to exclude the unhealthy damp), and looked out
towards the red light near the mouth of the tunnel. On both of those
occasions, he came back to the fire with the inexplicable air upon him
which I had remarked, without being able to define, when we were so far
asunder.
Said I, when I rose to leave him, "You almost make me think that I
have met with a contented man."
(I am afraid I must acknowledge that I said it to lead him on.)
"I believe I used to be so," he rejoined, in the low voice in which he
had first spoken; "but I am troubled, sir, I am troubled."
He would have recalled the words if he could. He had said them,
however, and I took them up quickly.
"With what? What is your trouble?"
"It is very difficult to impart, sir. It is very, very difficult to speak of. If
ever you make me another visit, I will try to tell you."
"But I expressly intend to make you another visit. Say, when shall it
be?"
"I go off early in the morning, and I shall be on again at ten to-
morrow night, sir."
"I will come at eleven."
He thanked me, and went out at the door with me. "I'll show my white
light, sir," he said, in his peculiar low voice, "till you have found the way
up. When you have found it, don't call out! And when you are at the top,
don't call out!"
His manner seemed to make the place strike colder to me, but I said no
more than, "Very well."
"And when you come down to-morrow night, don't call out! Let me
ask you a parting question. What made you cry, 'Halloa! Below there!' to-
night?"
"Heaven knows," said I. "I cried something to that effect--"
"Not to that effect, sir. Those were the very words. I know them well."
"Admit those were the very words. I said them, no doubt, because I
saw you below."
"For no other reason?"
Three Ghost Stories
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"What other reason could I possibly have?"
"You had no feeling that they were conveyed to you in any
supernatural way?"
"No."
He wished me good-night, and held up his light. I walked by the side
of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensation of a train
coming behind me) until I found the path. It was easier to mount than to
descend, and I got back to my inn without any adventure.
Punctual to my appointment, I placed my foot on the first notch of the
zigzag next night, as the distant clocks were striking eleven. He was
waiting for me at the bottom, with his white light on. "I have not called
out," I said, when we came close together; "may I speak now?" "By all
means, sir." "Good-night, then, and here's my hand." "Good-night, sir, and
here's mine." With that we walked side by side to his box, entered it,
closed the door, and sat down by the fire.
"I have made up my mind, sir," he began, bending forward as soon as
we were seated, and speaking in a tone but a little above a whisper, "that
you shall not have to ask me twice what troubles me. I took you for some
one else yesterday evening. That troubles me."
"That mistake?"
"No. That some one else."
"Who is it?"
"I don't know."
"Like me?"
"I don't know. I never saw the face. The left arm is across the face, and
the right arm is waved,--violently waved. This way."
I followed his action with my eyes, and it was the action of an arm
gesticulating, with the utmost passion and vehemence, "For God's sake,
clear the way!"
"One moonlight night," said the man, "I was sitting here, when I heard
a voice cry, 'Halloa! Below there!' I started up, looked from that door, and
saw this Some one else standing by the red light near the tunnel, waving as
I just now showed you. The voice seemed hoarse with shouting, and it
cried, 'Look out! Look out!' And then attain, 'Halloa! Below there! Look
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out!' I caught up my lamp, turned it on red, and ran towards the figure,
calling, 'What's wrong? What has happened? Where?' It stood just outside
the blackness of the tunnel. I advanced so close upon it that I wondered at
its keeping the sleeve across its eyes. I ran right up at it, and had my hand
stretched out to pull the sleeve away, when it was gone."
"Into the tunnel?" said I.
"No. I ran on into the tunnel, five hundred yards. I stopped, and held
my lamp above my head, and saw the figures of the measured distance,
and saw the wet stains stealing down the walls and trickling through the
arch. I ran out again faster than I had run in (for I had a mortal abhorrence
of the place upon me), and I looked all round the red light with my own
red light, and I went up the iron ladder to the gallery atop of it, and I came
down again, and ran back here. I telegraphed both ways, 'An alarm has
been given. Is anything wrong?' The answer came back, both ways, 'All
well.'"
Resisting the slow touch of a frozen finger tracing out my spine, I
showed him how that this figure must be a deception of his sense of sight;
and how that figures, originating in disease of the delicate nerves that
minister to the functions of the eye, were known to have often troubled
patients, some of whom had become conscious of the nature of their
affliction, and had even proved it by experiments upon themselves. "As to
an imaginary cry," said I, "do but listen for a moment to the wind in this
unnatural valley while we speak so low, and to the wild harp it makes of
the telegraph wires."
That was all very well, he returned, after we had sat listening for a
while, and he ought to know something of the wind and the wires,-- he
who so often passed long winter nights there, alone and watching. But he
would beg to remark that he had not finished.
I asked his pardon, and he slowly added these words, touching my arm,
-
"Within six hours after the Appearance, the memorable accident on
this Line happened, and within ten hours the dead and wounded were
brought along through the tunnel over the spot where the figure had
stood."
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A disagreeable shudder crept over me, but I did my best against it. It
was not to be denied, I rejoined, that this was a remarkable coincidence,
calculated deeply to impress his mind. But it was unquestionable that
remarkable coincidences did continually occur, and they must be taken
into account in dealing with such a subject. Though to be sure I must
admit, I added (for I thought I saw that he was going to bring the objection
to bear upon me), men of common sense did not allow much for
coincidences in making the ordinary calculations of life.
He again begged to remark that he had not finished.
I again begged his pardon for being betrayed into interruptions.
"This," he said, again laying his hand upon my arm, and glancing over
his shoulder with hollow eyes, "was just a year ago. Six or seven months
passed, and I had recovered from the surprise and shock, when one
morning, as the day was breaking, I, standing at the door, looked towards
the red light, and saw the spectre again." He stopped, with a fixed look at
me.
"Did it cry out?"
"No. It was silent."
"Did it wave its arm?"
"No. It leaned against the shaft of the light, with both hands before the
face. Like this."
Once more I followed his action with my eyes. It was an action of
mourning. I have seen such an attitude in stone figures on tombs.
"Did you go up to it?"
"I came in and sat down, partly to collect my thoughts, partly because
it had turned me faint. When I went to the door again, daylight was above
me, and the ghost was gone."
"But nothing followed? Nothing came of this?"
He touched me on the arm with his forefinger twice or thrice giving a
ghastly nod each time:-
"That very day, as a train came out of the tunnel, I noticed, at a
carriage window on my side, what looked like a confusion of hands and
heads, and something waved. I saw it just in time to signal the driver, Stop!
He shut off, and put his brake on, but the train drifted past here a hundred
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and fifty yards or more. I ran after it, and, as I went along, heard terrible
screams and cries. A beautiful young lady had died instantaneously in one
of the compartments, and was brought in here, and laid down on this floor
between us."
Involuntarily I pushed my chair back, as I looked from the boards at
which he pointed to himself.
"True, sir. True. Precisely as it happened, so I tell it you."
I could think of nothing to say, to any purpose, and my mouth was
very dry. The wind and the wires took up the story with a long lamenting
wail.
He resumed. "Now, sir, mark this, and judge how my mind is troubled.
The spectre came back a week ago. Ever since, it has been there, now and
again, by fits and starts."
"At the light?"
"At the Danger-light."
"What does it seem to do?"
He repeated, if possible with increased passion and vehemence, that
former gesticulation of, "For God's sake, clear the way!"
Then he went on. "I have no peace or rest for it. It calls to me, for
many minutes together, in an agonised manner, 'Below there! Look out!
Look out!' It stands waving to me. It rings my little bell--"
I caught at that. "Did it ring your bell yesterday evening when I was
here, and you went to the door?"
"Twice."
"Why, see," said I, "how your imagination misleads you. My eyes
were on the bell, and my ears were open to the bell, and if I am a living
man, it did NOT ring at those times. No, nor at any other time, except
when it was rung in the natural course of physical things by the station
communicating with you."
He shook his head. "I have never made a mistake as to that yet, sir. I
have never confused the spectre's ring with the man's. The ghost's ring is a
strange vibration in the bell that it derives from nothing else, and I have
not asserted that the bell stirs to the eye. I don't wonder that you failed to
hear it. But I heard it."
摘要:

ThreeGhostStories1ThreeGhostStoriesCharlesDickensThreeGhostStories2THESIGNAL-MAN"Halloa!Belowthere!"Whenheheardavoicethuscallingtohim,hewasstandingatthedoorofhisbox,withaflaginhishand,furledrounditsshortpole.Onewouldhavethought,consideringthenatureoftheground,thathecouldnothavedoubtedfromwhatquarter...

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