百万英镑

Part Two: An Unusual Bet

The two old gentlemen were brothers. For several days, they argued about a very strange subject. They decided to end their argument with a bet,as the English usually do. The following was the subject of the bet.

The Bank of England issued two banknotes of a million pounds each for a public transaction with a foreign country. England used one banknote and the other remained in the bank. At this point, Brother A said to Brother B,"If an honest and intelligent stranger arrives in London without a friend and without money, except for the ￡1,000,000 banknote, he will starve to death ."

Brother B answered, "No! I don't agree."

Brother A said, "If he goes to the bank or anywhere else to change this big note, the police will put him in prison. Everyone will think he stole it."

They continued arguing for days, until Brother B said, "I'll bet ￡20,000 that the stranger will live for thirty days with the banknote and not go to prison."

Brother A accepted the bet. He went to the bank and bought the ￡1,000,000 banknote. After, he returned home and prepared a letter. Then the two brothers sat by the window and waited for the right man for the bet.

They saw a lot of honest faces go by, but they were not intelligent enough.

Several faces were intelligent, but they were not honest. A lot of faces were honest and intelligent, but they were not poor enough. Other faces were honest, intelligent and poor, but they were not strangers.

When they saw me from the window, they thought I was the right man. They asked me questions, and soon they knew my story.

Finally, they told me I was the right man for the bet. I asked them to explain the bet. One of the gentlemen gave me an envelope. I wanted to open it, but he said, "No, don't open it now. Wait until you are in your hotel room. Then read it very carefully."

I was confused and I wanted to discuss the subject with them. But they didn't. I felt hurt because I was the subject of a joke.

When I left their house, I looked for the pear on the street. It was gone. I was quite angry with those two gentlemen.

Far from their house, I opened the envelope. I saw that there was money inside! I didn't stop to read their letter.

I ran to the nearest eating place. I ate and ate and ate. At last, I took out the envelope with the money, to pay for my meal. I looked at the banknote and almost fainted. It was a banknote worth five million dollars!

I was speechless. I stared at the banknote. The two gentlemen had made a big mistake.

They probably wanted to give me a one-pound banknote.

I saw the owner of the eating place staring at the banknote, too. We were both surprised. I did not know what to do or say, so I simply give him the note and said, "Give me the change, please."

The owner apologized a thousand times. ''I'm very sorry, but I can't change this banknote, sir."

"I don't have any other money. Please change this note." The owner then said, "You can pay for this food whenever you want, sir. I understand that you are a very rich gentleman. You like playing jokes on people by dressing like a poor man. You can come here and eat all you want, whenever you want. You can pay me when you want."

Part Three: The Letter When I left the eating place, I hurried to the house of the two gentlemen.

I wanted to correct the mistake they had made. I was very nervous.

When I arrived, the same servant opened the door. I asked for the two gentlemen.

"They are gone," the servant said.

"Gone? Gone where?"

"Oh, on a journey."

"But, where did they go?"

"To the Continent, I think."

"The Continent?"

"Yes, sir."

"When will they return?"

"In a month."

"A month! Oh, this is awful! How can I talk to them? It's extremely important."

"I can't help you. I don't know where they are, sir."

"Then I must see a member of the family."

"All the family are away. They're in Egypt and India, I think."

"Before leaving, the two gentlemen made an enormous mistake. They will certainly return home tonight. Tell them that I came here to correct the mistake. I will return tomorrow."

"I'll tell them if I see them. But I won't see them! Sir, you must not worry because everything is all right. They will be here on time, and they will see you then. Good-bye."

I was confused. My head was in a fog . I did not understand what the servant told me. The letter I remembered the letter! This is what it said:You are an intelligent and honest man. You are also poor and a stranger.

In this envelope you will find some money. It is yours only for 30 days. At the end of 30 days, return to this house, I have a bet on you. If I win this bet, you can have any job with any salary that you want.

There were no signature, no address, no date on the letter. How strange! I didn't know what to think. I went to a park, sat down and thought about what to do. After an hour, I reached the decision that follows.

The two old gentlemen are playing a game that I don't understand. They are betting on me. (But, at that time, I didn't know anything about the details of the bet.)

If I go to the Bank of England to return the banknote, the bank will ask me lots of questions. If I tell the truth, no one will believe me. They will put me in an asylum. If I tell a lie, the police will put me in prison. I can't even give it to anyone, because no honest person will want it.

I can do only one thing: I must keep the bill for a whole month. And, I must not lose it. If I help the old man to win his bet, he will give me the job I want. The idea of an important job with a big salary made me happy. With this exciting idea in mind, I began walking down the streets of London.

 恐怖故事

The Black Cat

Chapter One

I do not think people will believe my story. But I am not mad, and I am not dreaming. Tomorrow I will die and I want to make a confession . The events which I am going to describe here have terrified me, have tortured me, have destroyed me. To me they seemed horrible and supernatural, but perhaps somebody who is calmer and more rational will find a logical explanation. This is my story.

I was a very kind and gentle child who loved animals. As I grew up this love for animals became greater. This is easy to understand: it is difficult to trust people, but you can always trust a faithful dog.

I married when I was young and my wife liked animals too. We had birds,

gold-fish, a dog, rabbits, a small monkey, and a cat. This cat was quite large,

beautiful, completely black and extremely intelligent. In fact, my wife sometimes said that our cat was probably a witch in disguise. She was not really serious about this, and I mention it now only because by chance I remember it. Pluto — this was the cat's name — was my favorite pet and playmate. He followed me everywhere.

Unfortunately, I became a victim of alcohol. I drank more and more. Of course, my personality changed. I became moody and irritable with my wife and pets. At the beginning, though, I respected Pluto and never hurt him. But one night I returned home very intoxicated . I thought that Pluto was avoiding me. I held him violently and in his fright the cat bit my hand. I became furious. I was possessed by a demon . I caught the cat again. Then I

took a pocket-knife from my pocket, opened it and cut out his eye! I blush, I burn while I now write these facts. The next day I felt horror for my action,but I continued to drink, and wine made me forget the horrible thing I had done.

The cat got better. The empty eye socket I was frightening, but the cat was no longer in pain. He went about the house as usual, but, obviously , he ran away from me in terror. At first I was sorry about this, but soon it made me angry. And then came the spirit of PERVERSENESS. Philosophy does not talk about this spirit, but it is a fundamental part of the human heart. We have all done stupid or terrible things simply because we know that we should not do them. This, then, is PERVERSENESS.

This spirit of perverseness, I say, destroyed me because one day I decided to kill poor Pluto. With tears in my eyes and sadness in my heart I put a noose around his neck and hanged him from a tree. I hanged Pluto only because I knew he loved me, only because he had never hurt me, only because I knew that God would never pardon me for the crime.

Chapter Two

The night of this crime there was a fire in my house. My wife, my servant and I just managed to escape . My entire wealth was destroyed in the fire and I lost all hope. I do not want to say that there is a connection between my crime and the fire. I only want to record the facts of my story.

The day after the fire I went to visit the ruins of my house. Only one wall remained, and around this wall was a group of people. They were saying things like "strange!", "singular!". I went closer and saw a strange bas-relief on the wall, the figure of a gigantic cat. The image was extremely accurate.

There was a rope about the animal's neck.

When I first saw the image of the cat I was terrified, but I thought about it and found a good explanation. I had hung the cat in the garden next to my house. When the fire began, this garden was filled up with people.

Somebody probably threw the cat into my bedroom window in order to wake me. The other walls of the house fell in and pressed the body of the cat against this wall. The great heat of the fire and a chemical reaction then made the image.

Although I had a logical explanation, that bas-relief made a great impression on my imagination. For months I could not escape the phantasm of the cat. I even tried to find another cat to substitute it. Then,

one night in a bar, I saw a black object on top of some hogsheads of rum.

I looked closer. It was a large black cat. It was almost identical to Pluto except it had an indistinct white area on its breast . I caressed the cat and it immediately got up and purred. It was happy. This was the animal I was looking for. I asked the bartender if I could buy it. He said that it was not his. I continued to caress the cat and when I left the bar, the cat followed me home.

My wife liked this cat very much. But I began to dislike it. I had thought that I would be happier with a new cat. Instead, the affection of the cat only disgusted me. And slowly this disgust became hatred. I avoided it because I felt some shame for killing Pluto and I did not want to hurt it too. In addition,

this cat, just like Pluto, had only one eye.

However, the more I hated this cat, the more it followed me. It is difficult to explain how terrible this was. When I sat down it would jump on my legs and cover me with horrible caresses. When I got up to walk it was between my legs and I would almost fall. This made me so angry that I wanted to kill it, but I was stopped - not by the memory of my first crime - but by absolute dread of the beast.

This dread was not exactly a dread of physical evil, but I do not know how to define it. I am almost ashamed to admit — as I wait here in my prison cell — that my terror was caused by something incredibly insubstantial. My wife had often talked about the indistinct white patch on the cat’s breast,the only difference between him and Pluto. But this indistinct white patch gradually became distinct. I tried to ignore what I saw. I said to myself that it was just my imagination. But this distinct image was the real reason why I did not dare hurt the beast. It was an image that I feared. It was the image of the GALLOWS

! That terrible instrument of Horror and of Crime—of Agony and of death!

Chapter Three

Oh how I suffered! You cannot imagine. I had killed a brute beast, and now another brute beast was destroying me. Day or night I could not rest.

During the day the creature never left me alone, and at night I woke up hourly from terrible dreams with that thing on my face. It was a living nightmare always there in my heart.

All my good thoughts had gone. Evil thoughts filled my brain. I began to hate all things and all mankind . My wife, I am sorry to say, suffered the most.

One day we had to go down into the cellar . The cat went between my legs. I almost fell. I became furious. I grabbed an axe and tried to kill the animal, but my wife blocked my arm.

This made me even more furious and I lifted the axe again and buried it in her brain. She fell dead immediately, without a groan.

I had murdered her. Now I had to eliminate the body. There were many possibilities. I could cut the body into little pieces and then burn them, or I

could bury it.

Finally, I decided to put it inside the wall of the cellar. There was a projection in the wall. I pulled out the bricks body in there and then I carefully put back the bricks. Nobody could see the difference. It was perfect.

Then I went to look for the cat to kill it too. But the beast had escaped. I did not see it that night. I was finally free of its torment and that night I slept tranquilly , even if I had just killed my wife.

The second and the third day passed. The monster did not return. My happiness was supreme. The police came and searched the house, but, of course, they found nothing. I would be happy forever!

Then on the fourth day the police came again. They told me to come with them while they searched the house. They went down into the cellar again and found nothing. I was so happy that I wanted to say something. I wanted to show that I was really not guilty.

"Gentlemen," I finally said, "I am glad that you have no more suspicions.

Oh, by the bye, isn't this a well constructed house. (Now I can't really remember what I said.) In fact, I think it's an excellently well constructed house. These walls — are you going, gentlemen? — are really solid."

Then in that moment I hit the walls with my cane .

May God protect me! The noise of my cane was answered by a voice from the tomb ! At first, the voice was difficult to hear. It was like a child crying.

Then it became louder and louder. One long, loud, and continuous scream,completely inhuman that came directly from hell!

For a moment the police and I did not move. But then they easily opened the wall. There inside was the standing corpse , already greatly decayed and covered with blood. On the corpse's head, with its red mouth open and one eye, was the beast, the beast that had made me murder my wife. And now that monster had given me to the hangman . I had walled the monster up within the tomb!