Chapter 7

There was yet another incident which would turn my head during that fateful journey. On passing through the Calle de Alcalá a man got on with his wife. He sat down next to me. He was a man who seemed affected¹ by some strong and recent emotion and I could even believe that, from time to time, he raised his handkerchief to his eyes to wipe away invisible tears which were no doubt being shed behind the dark green lenses of his unusual spectacles. After a short time he said in a low voice to the person I took to be his wife:

"They suspect that she was poisoned, there's no doubt about it. Don
Mateo's just told me. Poor woman!"

"How terrible! That's what I thought too," answered his wife.

"What else can you expect from such savages²?"

"I won't leave a stone unturned till I get to the bottom of this business."

I, who was all ears, also said in a low voice: "Yes, sir, she was poisoned. There's proof of it."

"What? You know? Did you know her too?" said the man with the green specs, turning towards me.

"Yes, sir. And I do not doubt that her death was a violent one, no matter how hard they try to make us believe it was food poisoning."

"I'm of the same opinion. What an excellent woman! But how do you know all this for a fact?"

"I know, I know," I replied, extremely pleased that this man at least did not think I was mad.

"You'll make a declaration to the court then, for the judge has already started to sum up."

"I'll be happy just to see these rascals³ get what's coming to them.
I'll make that declaration, yes, I will, sir."

My moral blindness had reached such a point that I ended up completely taken in by this event half dreamed, half read about, and believed it as I now believe I'm writing with a pen.

"Indeed I will, sir, for it is necessary to clear up this mystery so that the perpetrators of this crime can be punished. I will declare that she was poisoned by a cup of tea, the same as the young man."

"Did you hear that, Petronila?" said the bespectacled man to his wife.
"By a cup of tea."

"Yes, it surprises me," the lady answered. "What terrible things those monsters were capable of!"

"It's true, sir. With a cup of tea. The Countess was playing the piano."

"What countess?" the man asked, interrupting me. "The countess. The woman who was poisoned."

"The woman in question was no countess."

"Come off it. You too are one of those determined⁴ to hide the facts in this case."

"This was no countess or duchess, but simply the woman who did my laundry for me, the wife of the pointsman at Madrid North station."

"A laundress, eh?" I said roguishly. "You won't make me swallow that one."

The man and his wife looked at me quizzically and muttered some words to each other. From a gesture that I saw the woman make I understood that she had formed the deep conviction I was drunk. I opted⁵ not to argue and said nothing, content to despise such an irreverent supposition in silence as befits great souls. My anxiety knew no bounds. The Countess was not absent for a moment from my thoughts and she had started to interest me by reason of her sinister⁶ end as if all that had not been a morbid⁷ expression of my own impulse to fantasize, forged by successive visions and conversations. Finally, to understand to what extreme my madness carried me, I am going to relate the ultimate occurrence on this journey of mine. I shall say with what extravagance I put an end to the painful combat of my understanding caught in a battle with an army of shadows.

The tram was entering the calle de Serrano when I chanced to look through the window opposite where I was sitting into the street, weakly lit by street lights, and I saw a man go by. I shouted with surprise and foolishly exclaimed the following:

"There he goes. It's him, Mudarra, the principal author of so many crimes."

I ordered the tram to stop and alighted or rather jumped through the door, colliding with the feet and legs of the passengers. I descended⁸ to the street and ran after that man, shouting:

"Stop him! Stop him! Murderer!"

You can imagine what the effect of these words would have been in such a tranquil⁹ neighbourhood. The man in question, the same one I had seen in the tram that afternoon, was arrested. I, for my part, did not stop shouting:

"He's the one who prepared the poison for the Countess, the one who murdered the Countess."

There was a moment of indescribable confusion. He affirmed that I was mad, but we were both placed in police custody¹⁰. Afterwards I lost all notion of what was happening around me. I do not remember what I did that night in the place where they locked me up. The most vivid recollection that I have of such a strange event was to have awoken from the deep sleep I fell into, a veritable drunken stupor¹¹ morally produced, I know not how, by one of the passing phenomena¹² of alienation¹³ that science now studies with great care as one of the heralds¹⁴ of madness.

As you can surmise¹⁵ the event did not have consequences because the unsympathetic person I baptized with the name of Mudarra was an honourable¹⁶ grocer who had never in his life poisoned any countess. But for a long time afterwards I persisted in my self-deception and was wont¹⁷ to exclaim: "Poor countess. Whatever they say, I'll stick to my guns. No-one will persuade me that you did not end your days at the hand of your irate¹⁸ husband."

Months needed to pass for the shadows to return to the unknown place from whence they had come forth¹⁹ driving me mad and for reality to gain the ascendance in my head. I always laugh when I remember that journey and all the consideration I had lavished²⁰ beforehand on my dreamed-of victim I now devoted²¹ to—who do you think?—my travelling companion on that anguished²² expedition, the irascible English woman, whose foot I dislocated when I hastily left the tram to run after the alleged²³ butler.

The End

1 affected   

adj.不自然的，假装的

参考例句：

• She showed an affected interest in our subject.她假装对我们的课题感到兴趣。
• His manners are affected.他的态度不自然。

2 savages   

未开化的人，野蛮人( savage的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• There're some savages living in the forest. 森林里居住着一些野人。
• That's an island inhabited by savages. 那是一个野蛮人居住的岛屿。

3 rascals   

流氓( rascal的名词复数 )； 无赖； （开玩笑说法）淘气的人（尤指小孩）； 恶作剧的人

参考例句：

• "Oh, but I like rascals. "唔，不过我喜欢流氓。
• "They're all second-raters, black sheep, rascals. "他们都是二流人物，是流氓，是恶棍。

4 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

5 opted   

v.选择，挑选( opt的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• She was co-opted onto the board. 她获增选为董事会成员。
• After graduating she opted for a career in music. 毕业后她选择了从事音乐工作。

6 sinister   

adj.不吉利的，凶恶的，左边的

参考例句：

• There is something sinister at the back of that series of crimes.在这一系列罪行背后有险恶的阴谋。
• Their proposals are all worthless and designed out of sinister motives.他们的建议不仅一钱不值，而且包藏祸心。

7 morbid   

adj.病的；致病的；病态的；可怕的

参考例句：

• Some people have a morbid fascination with crime.一些人对犯罪有一种病态的痴迷。
• It's morbid to dwell on cemeteries and such like.不厌其烦地谈论墓地以及诸如此类的事是一种病态。

8 descended   

a.为...后裔的，出身于...的

参考例句：

• A mood of melancholy descended on us. 一种悲伤的情绪袭上我们的心头。
• The path descended the hill in a series of zigzags. 小路呈连续的之字形顺着山坡蜿蜒而下。

9 tranquil   

adj. 安静的, 宁静的, 稳定的, 不变的

参考例句：

• The boy disturbed the tranquil surface of the pond with a stick. 那男孩用棍子打破了平静的池面。
• The tranquil beauty of the village scenery is unique. 这乡村景色的宁静是绝无仅有的。

10 custody   

n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留

参考例句：

• He spent a week in custody on remand awaiting sentence.等候判决期间他被还押候审一个星期。
• He was taken into custody immediately after the robbery.抢劫案发生后，他立即被押了起来。

11 stupor   

v.昏迷；不省人事

参考例句：

• As the whisky took effect, he gradually fell into a drunken stupor.随着威士忌酒力发作，他逐渐醉得不省人事。
• The noise of someone banging at the door roused her from her stupor.梆梆的敲门声把她从昏迷中唤醒了。

12 phenomena   

n.现象

参考例句：

• Ade couldn't relate the phenomena with any theory he knew.艾德无法用他所知道的任何理论来解释这种现象。
• The object of these experiments was to find the connection,if any,between the two phenomena.这些实验的目的就是探索这两种现象之间的联系，如果存在着任何联系的话。

13 alienation   

n.疏远；离间；异化

参考例句：

• The new policy resulted in the alienation of many voters.新政策导致许多选民疏远了。
• As almost every conceivable contact between human beings gets automated,the alienation index goes up.随着人与人之间几乎一切能想到的接触方式的自动化，感情疏远指数在不断上升。

14 heralds   

n.使者( herald的名词复数 )；预报者；预兆；传令官v.预示( herald的第三人称单数 )；宣布（好或重要）

参考例句：

• The song of birds heralds the approach of spring. 百鸟齐鸣报春到。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• The wind sweeping through the tower heralds a rising storm in the mountain. 山雨欲来风满楼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

15 surmise   

v./n.猜想，推测

参考例句：

• It turned out that my surmise was correct.结果表明我的推测没有错。
• I surmise that he will take the job.我推测他会接受这份工作。

16 honourable   

adj.可敬的；荣誉的，光荣的

参考例句：

• I don't think I am worthy of such an honourable title.这样的光荣称号，我可担当不起。
• I hope to find an honourable way of settling difficulties.我希望设法找到一个体面的办法以摆脱困境。

17 wont   

adj.习惯于；v.习惯；n.习惯

参考例句：

• He was wont to say that children are lazy.他常常说小孩子们懒惰。
• It is his wont to get up early.早起是他的习惯。

18 irate   

adj.发怒的，生气

参考例句：

• The irate animal made for us,coming at a full jump.那头发怒的动物以最快的速度向我们冲过来。
• We have received some irate phone calls from customers.我们接到顾客打来的一些愤怒的电话

19 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。

20 lavished   

v.过分给予，滥施( lavish的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• I lavished all the warmth of my pent-up passion. 我把憋在心里那一股热烈的情感尽量地倾吐出来。 来自辞典例句
• An enormous amount of attention has been lavished on these problems. 在这些问题上，我们已经花费了大量的注意力。 来自辞典例句

21 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

22 anguished   

adj.极其痛苦的v.使极度痛苦(anguish的过去式)

参考例句：

• Desmond eyed her anguished face with sympathy. 看着她痛苦的脸，德斯蒙德觉得理解。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The loss of her husband anguished her deeply. 她丈夫的死亡使她悲痛万分。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

23 alleged   

a.被指控的，嫌疑的

参考例句：

• It was alleged that he had taken bribes while in office. 他被指称在任时收受贿赂。
• alleged irregularities in the election campaign 被指称竞选运动中的不正当行为