XV A SOUND IN A DREAM

 Marco slept peacefully for several hours. There was nothing to awaken² him during that time. But at the end of it, his sleep was penetrated³ by a definite sound. He had dreamed of hearing a voice at a distance, and, as he tried in his dream to hear what it said, a brief metallic⁴ ringing sound awakened⁵ him outright⁶. It was over by the time he was fully¹ conscious, and at once he realized that the voice of his dream had been a real one, and was speaking still. It was the Lovely Person's voice, and she was speaking rapidly, as if she were in the greatest haste. She was speaking through the door.

 

"You will have to search for it," was all he heard. "I have not a moment!" And, as he listened to her hurriedly departing feet, there came to him with their hastening echoes the words, "You are too good for the cellar. I like you!"

 

He sprang to the door and tried it, but it was still locked. The feet ran up the cellar steps and through the upper hall, and the front door closed with a bang. The two people had gone away, as they had threatened. The voice had been excited as well as hurried. Something had happened to frighten them, and they had left the house in great haste.

 

Marco turned and stood with his back against the door. The cat had awakened and she was gazing at him with her green eyes. She began to purr encouragingly. She really helped Marco to think. He was thinking with all his might and trying to remember.

 

"What did she come for? She came for something," he said to himself. "What did she say? I only heard part of it, because I was asleep. The voice in the dream was part of it. The part I heard was, 'You will have to search for it. I have not a moment.' And as she ran down the passage, she called back, 'You are too good for the cellar. I like you.'" He said the words over and over again and tried to recall exactly how they had sounded, and also to recall the voice which had seemed to be part of a dream but had been a real thing. Then he began to try his favorite experiment. As he often tried the experiment of commanding his mind to go to sleep, so he frequently experimented on commanding it to work for him—to help him to remember, to understand, and to argue about things clearly.

 

"Reason this out for me," he said to it now, quite naturally and calmly. "Show me what it means."

 

What did she come for? It was certain that she was in too great a hurry to be able, without a reason, to spare the time to come. What was the reason? She had said she liked him. Then she came because she liked him. If she liked him, she came to do something which was not unfriendly. The only good thing she could do for him was something which would help him to get out of the cellar. She had said twice that he was too good for the cellar. If he had been awake, he would have heard all she said and have understood what she wanted him to do or meant to do for him. He must not stop even to think of that. The first words he had heard—what had they been? They had been less clear to him than her last because he had heard them only as he was awakening⁷. But he thought he was sure that they had been, "You will have to search for it." Search for it. For what? He thought and thought. What must he search for?

 

He sat down on the floor of the cellar and held his head in his hands, pressing his eyes so hard that curious lights floated before them.

 

"Tell me! Tell me!" he said to that part of his being which the Buddhist⁸ anchorite had said held all knowledge and could tell a man everything if he called upon it in the right spirit.

 

And in a few minutes, he recalled something which seemed so much a part of his sleep that he had not been sure that he had not dreamed it. The ringing sound! He sprang up on his feet with a little gasping⁹ shout. The ringing sound! It had been the ring of metal, striking as it fell. Anything made of metal might have sounded like that. She had thrown something made of metal into the cellar. She had thrown it through the slit¹⁰ in the bricks near the door. She liked him, and said he was too good for his prison. She had thrown to him the only thing which could set him free. She had thrown him the KEY of the cellar!

 

For a few minutes the feelings which surged through him were so full of strong excitement that they set his brain in a whirl. He knew what his father would say—that would not do. If he was to think, he must hold himself still and not let even joy overcome him. The key was in the black little cellar, and he must find it in the dark. Even the woman who liked him enough to give him a chance of freedom knew that she must not open the door and let him out. There must be a delay. He would have to find the key himself, and it would be sure to take time. The chances were that they would be at a safe enough distance before he could get out.

 

"I will kneel down and crawl on my hands and knees," he said.

 

"I will crawl back and forth¹¹ and go over every inch of the floor with my hands until I find it. If I go over every inch, I shall find it."

 

So he kneeled down and began to crawl, and the cat watched him and purred.

 

"We shall get out, Puss-cat," he said to her. "I told you we should."

 

He crawled from the door to the wall at the side of the shelves, and then he crawled back again. The key might be quite a small one, and it was necessary that he should pass his hands over every inch, as he had said. The difficulty was to be sure, in the darkness, that he did not miss an inch. Sometimes he was not sure enough, and then he went over the ground again. He crawled backward and forward, and he crawled forward and backward. He crawled crosswise and lengthwise, he crawled diagonally, and he crawled round and round. But he did not find the key. If he had had only a little light, but he had none. He was so absorbed in his search that he did not know he had been engaged in it for several hours, and that it was the middle of the night. But at last he realized that he must stop for a rest, because his knees were beginning to feel bruised¹², and the skin of his hands was sore as a result of the rubbing on the flags. The cat and her kittens had gone to sleep and awakened again two or three times.

 

"But it is somewhere!" he said obstinately¹³. "It is inside the cellar. I heard something fall which was made of metal. That was the ringing sound which awakened me."

 

When he stood up, he found his body ached and he was very tired. He stretched himself and exercised his arms and legs.

 

"I wonder how long I have been crawling about," he thought. "But the key is in the cellar. It is in the cellar."

 

He sat down near the cat and her family, and, laying his arm on the shelf above her, rested his head on it. He began to think of another experiment.

 

"I am so tired, I believe I shall go to sleep again. 'Thought which Knows All'"—he was quoting something the hermit¹⁴ had said to Loristan in their midnight talk—"Thought which Knows All! Show me this little thing. Lead me to it when I awake."

 

And he did fall asleep, sound and fast.

 

 

He did not know that he slept all the rest of the night. But he did. When he awakened, it was daylight in the streets, and the milk-carts were beginning to jingle¹⁵ about, and the early postmen were knocking big double-knocks at front doors. The cat may have heard the milk-carts, but the actual fact was that she herself was hungry and wanted to go in search of food. Just as Marco lifted his head from his arm and sat up, she jumped down from her shelf and went to the door. She had expected to find it ajar as it had been before. When she found it shut, she scratched at it and was disturbed to find this of no use. Because she knew Marco was in the cellar, she felt she had a friend who would assist her, and she miauled appealingly.

 

This reminded Marco of the key.

 

"I will when I have found it," he said. "It is inside the cellar."

 

The cat miauled again, this time very anxiously indeed. The kittens heard her and began to squirm and squeak¹⁶ piteously.

 

"Lead me to this little thing," said Marco, as if speaking to Something in the darkness about him, and he got up.

 

He put his hand out toward the kittens, and it touched something lying not far from them. It must have been lying near his elbow all night while he slept.

 

It was the key! It had fallen upon the shelf, and not on the floor at all.

 

Marco picked it up and then stood still a moment. He made the sign of the cross.

 

Then he found his way to the door and fumbled¹⁷ until he found the keyhole and got the key into it. Then he turned it and pushed the door open—and the cat ran out into the passage before him.

 

1 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

2 awaken   

vi.醒，觉醒；vt.唤醒，使觉醒，唤起，激起

参考例句：

• Old people awaken early in the morning.老年人早晨醒得早。
• Please awaken me at six.请于六点叫醒我。

3 penetrated   

adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式

参考例句：

• The knife had penetrated his chest. 刀子刺入了他的胸膛。
• They penetrated into territory where no man had ever gone before. 他们已进入先前没人去过的地区。

4 metallic   

adj.金属的；金属制的；含金属的；产金属的；像金属的

参考例句：

• A sharp metallic note coming from the outside frightened me.外面传来尖锐铿锵的声音吓了我一跳。
• He picked up a metallic ring last night.昨夜他捡了一个金属戒指。

5 awakened   

v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到

参考例句：

• She awakened to the sound of birds singing. 她醒来听到鸟的叫声。
• The public has been awakened to the full horror of the situation. 公众完全意识到了这一状况的可怕程度。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 outright   

adv.坦率地；彻底地；立即；adj.无疑的；彻底的

参考例句：

• If you have a complaint you should tell me outright.如果你有不满意的事，你应该直率地对我说。
• You should persuade her to marry you outright.你应该彻底劝服她嫁给你。

7 awakening   

n.觉醒，醒悟 adj.觉醒中的；唤醒的

参考例句：

• the awakening of interest in the environment 对环境产生的兴趣
• People are gradually awakening to their rights. 人们正逐渐意识到自己的权利。

8 Buddhist   

adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒

参考例句：

• The old lady fell down in adoration before Buddhist images.那老太太在佛像面前顶礼膜拜。
• In the eye of the Buddhist,every worldly affair is vain.在佛教徒的眼里，人世上一切事情都是空的。

9 gasping   

adj. 气喘的, 痉挛的 动词gasp的现在分词

参考例句：

• He was gasping for breath. 他在喘气。
• "Did you need a drink?""Yes, I'm gasping!” “你要喝点什么吗？”“我巴不得能喝点！”

10 slit   

n.狭长的切口；裂缝；vt.切开，撕裂

参考例句：

• The coat has been slit in two places.这件外衣有两处裂开了。
• He began to slit open each envelope.他开始裁开每个信封。

11 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

12 bruised   

[医]青肿的，瘀紫的

参考例句：

• his bruised and bloodied nose 他沾满血的青肿的鼻子
• She had slipped and badly bruised her face. 她滑了一跤，摔得鼻青脸肿。

13 obstinately   

ad.固执地，顽固地

参考例句：

• He obstinately asserted that he had done the right thing. 他硬说他做得对。
• Unemployment figures are remaining obstinately high. 失业数字仍然顽固地居高不下。

14 hermit   

n.隐士，修道者；隐居

参考例句：

• He became a hermit after he was dismissed from office.他被解职后成了隐士。
• Chinese ancient landscape poetry was in natural connections with hermit culture.中国古代山水诗与隐士文化有着天然联系。

15 jingle   

n.叮当声，韵律简单的诗句；v.使叮当作响，叮当响，押韵

参考例句：

• The key fell on the ground with a jingle.钥匙叮当落地。
• The knives and forks set up their regular jingle.刀叉发出常有的叮当声。

16 squeak   

n.吱吱声，逃脱；v.（发出）吱吱叫，侥幸通过；（俚）告密

参考例句：

• I don't want to hear another squeak out of you!我不想再听到你出声！
• We won the game,but it was a narrow squeak.我们打赢了这场球赛，不过是侥幸取胜。

17 fumbled   

（笨拙地）摸索或处理（某事物）( fumble的过去式和过去分词 )； 乱摸，笨拙地弄； 使落下

参考例句：

• She fumbled in her pocket for a handkerchief. 她在她口袋里胡乱摸找手帕。
• He fumbled about in his pockets for the ticket. 他（瞎）摸着衣兜找票。