愛麗斯夢游仙境

Chapter Two: The Pool of Tears

'Curiouser and curiouser. I'm growing again,' cries Alice, who is forgetting how to speak English correctly. She is very big; her head is is hitting the ceiling. 'Now I can take the key on the table,' Alice thinks. She takes the little golden key and runs to the door. Unfortunately Alice can't go into the garden. She is too big.

She sits down and starts to cry again. Her tears are so big that they make a big pool.

'What a silly girl,' she says to herself,' to cry like this. A big girl like you.

Stop crying!' Alice tells herself but she can't stop.

A short time later she hears something. There is someone running towards her. It is the White rabbit. He looks very elegant . He has white gloves in one hand and a fan in his other hand.

'Oh! The Duchess, the Duchess! She'll be angry because I'm late,' the Rabbit is saying to himself.

Alice asks the Rabbit for help in a timid voice: 'If you please, sir…'

The White Rabbit jumps. When he sees Alice, he is so frightened that he drops his fan and his gloves. He runs away down the ball very, very fast.

Alice picks up the gloves and the fan. It is very hot in the ball so she starts to fan herself. She feels more confused: 'Oh dear, dear! How strange are things today! I was myself yesterday, but things are not the same today. If I'm not me, who am I?'

Just then she looks at her hands and there it is: the Rabbit's glove.

Alice is wearing it. 'I'm growing small again,' she thinks.

She tries to open the door but it is locked. The key is on the table and Alice is too small to take it.

Alice is growing smaller.

Suddenly ... SPLASH... she falls into a lot of water.

'I'm in the sea,' she thinks.

It is not the sea. It is the pool of Alice's tears.

'Why have I cried so much?' Alice is not alone in the water. A mouse is splashing near her. Alice is very tired of swimming in the pool so she asks the Mouse, 'Do you know the way out of this pool?'

The Mouse doesn't answer.

'Perhaps he doesn't speak English,' thinks Alice.

'Is it a French mouse?' Alice wonders, so she tries with some words from her French grammar book.

'Ou est ma chatte? ' The Mouse jumps out of the water. He is very frightened. 'Oh sorry,' says Alice, 'you don't like cats.'

'Don't like cats ... Of course I don't like cats! I'm a mouse!' answers the Mouse.

'Of course not, but I think you'll like Dinah. She is very good. She catches all the mice! Oh, sorry, sorry. We won't talk about her any more,' says Alice.

'No, we won't!' says the Mouse, 'my family hates cats!'

Alice wants to talk about something else. She asks the Mouse: 'Do you like dogs?'

The Mouse doesn't answer so Alice goes on: 'There's a nice dog near our house. He likes playing with children. He lives on a farm and is very good at catching m ... oh, sorry!'

The Mouse is very angry. He goes out of the water. Alice follows him.

In the pool there are other strange animals: a duck, a dodo, a parrot and a small eagle.

Alice has some company at last!

化身博士

Part Three: The Carew Murder Case?

One year passed. Then a terrible murder happened in London. The murder shocked people because it was very violent , and because the victim was an important man. Soon everybody was talking about it.

A young servant girl described what had happened. She lived in a house near the river. She had gone to bed at about eleven o'clock one night. She could not sleep, and she had got out of bed. She sat near the window for a long time. She saw an old man who was walking along the street. The old man had white hair. She also saw another, small man, walking towards the old man. When the two men met, the old man said something to the small man. He seemed to be asking a question. The girl could not hear the words he spoke, but she said that he spoke very politely . Then the girl recognised the small man. It was Mr Hyde. She knew him because he sometimes came to the house where she worked, to speak to her employer .

Mr Hyde was carrying a heavy stick in his hand. He did not answer the old man's question. Suddenly he lifted his stick above his head, and began to hit the old man with it. He hit him again and again, and the old man fell to the ground. Then Mr Hyde attacked him where he lay on the ground. The girl was horrified at the violence of the attack, and she fainted .

It was two o'clock in the morning when the girl woke up from her faint.

She called the police immediately. The murderer had gone, but the old man was lying in the street. The police found a piece of the murderer's stick in the street next to the old man's body. When they searched the body, they also found the old man's wallet and papers, and a letter.

The letter was addressed to Mr Utterson, the lawyer.

The police came to Mr Utterson's house the next morning.

He became very serious when they told him about the murder.

'I want to see the body,' he said. 'I can say nothing until I have seen the body.'

Mr Utterson went to the police station. The police had carried the body there.

'Yes,' said Mr Utterson, 'I recognise this man. It is Sir Danvers Carew, the Member of Parliament. '

'Sir Danvers Carew!' the policeman said. 'Is it possible?' He looked at Mr Utterson. 'This murder will be famous,' he said.

'Perhaps you can help us to catch the man, Mr Utterson?'

The policeman then told Mr Utterson what the girl had seen. Mr Utterson was unhappy when he heard the name of Hyde. He asked to look at the piece of the murderer's stick. He recognised it immediately.

'This Mr Hyde,' he asked the policeman, 'does the girl say that he was a small man?'

'She says that he is a small, ugly man,' the policeman said.

'Come with me,' Mr Utterson said, 'I'll take you to Mr Hyde's house. I know where he lives.'

Mr Utterson and the policeman went to the part of the city where Mr Hyde lived. It was a dirty, poor part of the city.

They knocked on the door of Mr Hyde's house. An old woman with an evil face opened the door. She told them that Mr Hyde was out. She explained that Mr Hyde had come in very late the night before. Then he had gone out again.

'We want to search his rooms,' the lawyer said. 'This man is Inspector Newcomen of Scotland Yard.'

'What has Mr Hyde done?' the old woman asked. 'Why are the police looking for him?'

The old woman showed the two men Mr Hyde's rooms.

They were comfortable rooms, with elegant furniture and pictures. The rooms were untidy, however. They found clothes on the floor, and part of Mr Hyde's stick behind the door.

There was also part of a cheque-book in the fire-place.

Someone had tried to burn it. Mr Utterson and the inspector went to the bank. They discovered that Mr Hyde's bank account contained thousands of pounds.

'We will find him, sir,' the inspector told Mr Utterson. 'He cannot escape the police. We have the evidence we need. We can prove that he is the murderer. We have his stick, and we know where his bank is. We will wait for him to go to the bank. We will put up pictures of him all over the city.'

It was not easy to find pictures of Mr Hyde. He had no family, and he had no friends. There was no photograph of him anywhere. The people who had seen him could not describe him.

Everybody agreed that he was small and ugly —but no one could describe him accurately .

It was late in the afternoon when Mr Utterson arrived at Dr Jekyll's house.

The servant Poole took the lawyer through the main part of the house to the laboratory. It was the first time that Mr Utterson had been to Dr Jekyll's laboratory. He looked at the scientific apparatus with curiosity.

'Have you heard the terrible news?' he asked his friend.

Dr Jekyll looked very unhappy.

'Yes,' he said, 'everybody is talking about this murder.'

'Listen to me,' said the lawyer slowly. 'Carew was my client. You are also my client. I want to understand exactly what has happened. Are you hiding Mr Hyde?'

'I will never see Hyde again!' the doctor cried. 'I promise you, my friend, I have finished with that man. But he does not need my help. He has gone,

and no one will find him.'

'You seem very certain,' Mr Utterson said.

'I am certain,' Dr Jekyll told him. 'No one will see Hyde again. But there is something else. I need your advice. I have received a letter, and I don't know what to do with it. Will you advise me?'

'Show me this letter,' the lawyer said.

Dr Jekyll gave the lawyer a letter. It was written by Edward Hyde. In his letter Mr Hyde thanked Dr Jekyll for his friendship. He said that he was sorry for what he had done, and that he was going away.

'Where is the envelope ?' asked Mr Utterson.

'I burnt the envelope,' Dr Jekyll told him, 'but the letter was not posted.

Someone came to the house and left it here.'

'I shall think about the letter,' Mr Utterson said. 'One other thing. Was it Mr Hyde who made you write the will?'

Dr Jekyll looked at his friend. He said nothing, but he nodded his head .

'I thought it was him!' the lawyer cried. 'He planned to murder you. He wanted your money.'

When he was leaving the house, Mr Utterson spoke to Poole for a moment.

'Someone came with a letter for Dr Jekyll today,' he said.

'What did the man look like?'

'No one came with a letter, sir,' the servant told him.

'Then the letter arrived at the laboratory, and not at the house,' Mr Utterson thought. 'That is why Poole did not see the person who left it.'

That evening Mr Utterson sat with Mr Guest, his head-clerk and friend.

'This murder of Sir Danvers Carew is very sad,' the lawyer said.

'It is, indeed,' Mr Guest agreed. 'It is terrible. The man who killed him must be mad.'

'You are an expert on crime and detection ,' Mr Utterson said.

'I have a letter from Mr Hyde. Please look at it, and tell me about the writer of the letter. Do you think he is really mad?'

Mr Utterson took out Mr Hyde's letter, and passed it to Mr Guest.

Mr Guest studied the letter for a few minutes. Then he said, 'Well, sir, the writer of this letter is not mad. But his writing is strange. I know this writing,

I am sure I do.'

Mr Guest picked up a letter from Dr Jekyll. He put it next to the letter 'I thought so!' he cried. 'The same man wrote these two letters —I am sure of it.'

'I don't think we should talk about this to anyone,' Mr Utterson said.

'No, sir,' Mr Guest agreed. 'I understand.'

When he was alone again, Mr Utterson put the letter from Mr Hyde into his safe . He was very unhappy.

'Henry Jekyll forged a letter for a murderer!' he thought.

'What have you done, my old friend? And why are you protecting Hyde?'