Part 4 Book 8 Chapter 5 Things of the Night

After the departure of the ruffians, the Rue Plumet resumed its tranquil, nocturnal aspect. That which had just taken place in this street would not have astonished a forest. The lofty trees, the copses, the heaths, the branches rudely interlaced, the tall grass, exist in a sombre manner; the savage swar ming there catches glimpses of sudden apparitions of the invisible; that which is below man distinguishes, through the mists, that which is beyond man; and the things of which we living beings are ignorant there meet face to face in the night. Nature, bristling and wild, takes alarm at certain approaches in which she fancies that she feels the supernatural. The forces of the gloom know each other, and are strangely balanced by each other. Teeth and claws fear what they cannot grasp. Blood-drinking bestiality, voracious appetites, hunger in search of prey, the armed instincts of nails and jaws which have for source and aim the belly, glare and smell out uneasily the impassive spectral forms straying beneath a shroud, erect in its vague and shuddering robe, and which seem to them to live with a dead and terrible life. These brutalities, which are only matter, entertain a confused fear of having to deal with the immense obscurity condensed into an unknown being. A black figure barring the way stops the wild beast short. That which emerges from the cemetery intimidates and disconcerts that which emerges from the cave; the ferocious fear the sinister; wolves recoil when they encounter a ghoul.

匪徒们走了以后，卜吕梅街便恢复了它平静的夜间景色。

刚才在这条街上发生的事，如果发生在森林里，森林决不至于吃惊。那些大树，那些丛林，那些灌木，那些相互纠结的树枝，高深的草丛，形成一种幽晦的环境，荒野中蠕蠕攒动的生物在那里瞥见无形者的突然出现，在人之下者在那里透过一层迷雾，看见了在人之上者，我们生人所不知道的种种东西，夜间在那里会集。鬣毛直竖的野兽，在某种超自然力逼近时，感到惊愕失措。黑暗中的各种力量彼此相识，并且在它们之间，有着神秘的平衡。喝血的兽性，号饥觅食的饕餮，有爪有牙专为饱肚子而生存的本能，惊惊惶惶地望着嗅着那个在殓尸布下披着颤抖的宽大殓衣徘徊或伫立着的无表情的鬼脸，这些鬼脸看来好象在过一种可怕的阴间生活似的。这些纯物质的暴力似乎不敢和那种由广大的黑暗所凝聚而成的未知的实体打交道。一张拦住去路的黑脸断然制止那凶残的野兽。从坟墓里出来的使从洞窟里出来的感到胆怯和张皇失措，凶猛的怕阴险的，狼群在遇到吃尸鬼时退缩了。