小说《雷蒙斯尼奇的不幸历险》英文原版

   "It’s a nice day," Violet said finally, making conversation. Sunny made a noise that sounded like an angry bird, and Klaus picked her up and held her.
   "Yes, it is a nice day," Mr. Poe said absently, staring out at the empty beach. "I'm afraid I have some very bad news for you children."
The three Baudelaire siblings looked at him. Violet, with some embarrassment, felt the stone in her left hand and was glad she had not thrown it at Mr. Poe.
   "Your parents," Mr. Poe said, "have perished in a terrible fire."
   The children didn't say anything.
   "They perished," Mr. Poe said, "in a fire that destroyed the entire house. I'm very, very sorry to tell you this, my dears."
   Violet took her eyes off Mr. Poe and stared out at the ocean. Mr. Poe had never called the Baudelaire children "my dears" before. She understood the words he was saying but thought he must be joking, playing a terrible joke on her and her brother and sister.
   "'Perished,'" Mr. Poe said, "means 'killed.'"
   "We know what the word 'perished' means," Klaus said, crossly. He did know what the word "perished" meant, but he was still having trouble understanding exactly what it was that Mr. Poe had said. It seemed to him that Mr. Poe must somehow have misspoken.
   "The fire department arrived, of course," Mr. Poe said, "but they were too late. The entire house was engulfed in fire. It burned to the ground. "
   Klaus pictured all the books in the library, going up in flames. Now he'd never read all of them.
   Mr. Poe coughed several times into his handkerchief before continuing. "I was sent to retrieve you here, and to take you to my home, where you’ll stay for some time while we figure things out. I am the executor of your parents' estate. That means I will be handling their enormous fortune and figuring out where you children will go. When Violet comes of age, the fortune will be yours, but the bank will take charge of it until you are old enough."
   Although he said he was the executor, Violet felt like Mr. Poe was the executioner. He had simply walked down the beach to them and changed their lives forever.
   "Come with me," Mr. Poe said, and held out his hand. In order to take it, Violet had to drop the stone she was holding. Klaus took Violet's other hand, and Sunny took Klaus's other hand, and in that manner the three Baudelaire children — the Baudelaire orphans, now — were led away from the beach and from their previous lives.


   "Well, it was nice to meet you," Violet said to Justice Strauss.
   "Yes," said Justice Strauss, gesturing to her flowerpot. "Perhaps one day you could come over and help me with my gardening."
   "That would be very pleasant," Violet said, very sadly. It would, of course, be very pleasant to help Justice Strauss with her gardening, but Violet could not help thinking that it would be far more pleasant to live in Justice Strauss's house, instead of Count Olaf's. What kind of a man, Violet wondered, would carve an image of an eye into his front door?
   Mr. Poe tipped his hat to Justice Strauss, who smiled at the children and disappeared into her lovely house. Klaus stepped forward and knocked on Count Olaf's door, his knuckles rapping right in the middle of the carved eye. There was a pause, and then the door creaked open and the children saw Count Olaf for the first time.
   "Hello, hello, hello," Count Olaf said in a wheezy whisper. He was very tall and very thin, dressed in a gray suit that had many dark stains on it. His face was unshaven, and rather than two eyebrows, like most human beings have, he had just one long one. His eyes were very, very shiny, which made him look both hungry and angry. "Hello, my children. Please step into your new home, and wipe your feet outside so no mud gets indoors."
   As they stepped into the house, Mr. Poe behind them, the Baudelaire orphans realized what a ridiculous thing Count Olaf had just said. The room in which they found themselves was the dirtiest they had ever seen, and a little bit of mud from outdoors wouldn't have made a bit of difference. Even by the dim light of the one bare light-bulb that hung from the ceiling, the three children could see that everything in this room was filthy, from the stuffed head of a lion which was nailed to the wall to the bowl of apple cores which sat on a small wooden table. Klaus willed himself not to cry as he looked around.
   "This room looks like it needs a little work," Mr. Poe said, peering around in the gloom.
   "I realize that my humble home isn't as fancy as the Baudelaire mansion," Count Olaf said, "but perhaps with a bit of your money we could fix it up a little nicer."
   Mr. Poe's eyes widened in surprise, and his coughs echoed in the dark room before he spoke. "The Baudelaire fortune," he said sternly, "will not be used for such matters. In fact, it will not be used at all, until Violet is of age."
   Count Olaf turned to Mr. Poe with a glint in his eye like an angry dog. For a moment Violet thought he was going to strike Mr. Poe across the face. But then he swallowed — the children could see his Adam's apple喉结bob in his skinny throat — and shrugged his patchy shoulders.
   "All right then," he said. "It's the same to me. Thank you very much, Mr. Poe, for bringing them here. Children, I will now show you to your room."
   "Good-bye, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny," Me. Poe said, stepping back through the front door. "I hope you will be very happy here. I will continue to see you occasionally, and you can always contact me at the bank if you have any questions."
   "But we don't even know where the bank is," Klaus said.
   "I have a map of the city," Count Olaf said. "Good-bye, Mr. Poe."
   He leaned forward to shut the door, and the Baudelaire orphans were too overcome with despair to get a last glimpse of Mr. Poe. They now wished they could all stay at the Poe household, even though it smelled. Rather than looking at the door, then, the orphans looked down, and saw that although Count Olaf was wearing shoes, he wasn't wearing any socks. They could see, in the space of pale skin between his tattered trouser cuff and his black shoe, that Count Olaf had an image of an eye tattooed on his ankle, matching the eye on his front door. They wondered how many other eyes were in Count Olaf's house, and whether, for the rest of their lives, they would always feel as though Count Olaf were watching them even when he wasn't nearby.

   One morning his note read, "My theater troupe (traveling band of performers) will be coming for dinner before tonight's performance. Have dinner ready for all ten of them by the time they arrive at seven o'clock. Buy the food, prepare it, set the table, serve dinner, clean up afterwards, and stay out of our way." Below that there was the usual eye, and underneath the note was a small sum of money for the groceries.
   Violet and Klaus read the note as they ate their breakfast, which was a gray and lumpy oatmeal Count Olaf left for them each morning in a large pot on the stove. Then they looked at each other in dismay.
   "None of us knows how to cook," Klaus said.
   "That's true," Violet said. "I knew how to repair those windows, and how to clean the chimney, because those sorts of things interest me. But I don't know how to cook anything except toast."
   "And sometimes you burn the toast," Klaus said, and they smiled. They were both remembering a time when the two of them got up early to make a special breakfast for their parents. Violet had burned the toast, and their parents, smelling smoke, had run downstairs to see what the matter was. When they saw Violet and Klaus, looking forlornly at pieces of pitch-black toast, they laughed and laughed, and then made pancakes for the whole family.
   "I wish they were here," Violet said. She did not have to explain she was talking about their parents. "They would never let us stay in this dreadful place."
   "If they were here," Klaus said, his voice rising as he got more and more upset, "we would not be with Count Olaf in the first place. I hate it here, Violet! I hate this house! I hate our room! I hate having to do all these chores, and I hate Count Olaf!"
   "I hate it too," Violet said, and Klaus looked at his older sister with relief. Sometimes, just saying that you hate something, and having someone agree with you, can make you feel better about a terrible situation. "I hate everything about our lives right now, Klaus," she said, "but we have to keep our chin up." This was an expression the children's father had used, and it meant "try to stay cheerful."
   "You're right," Klaus said. "But it is very difficult to keep one's chin up when Count Olaf keeps shoving it down."
   "Jook!" Sunny shrieked, banging on the table with her oatmeal spoon. Violet and Klaus were jerked out of their conversation and looked once again at Count Olaf's note.
   "Perhaps we could find a cookbook, and read about how to cook," Klaus said. "It shouldn't be that difficult to make a simple meal."
   Violet and Klaus spent several minutes opening and shutting Count Olaf's kitchen cupboards, but there weren't any cookbooks to be found.
   "I can't say I'm surprised," Violet said. "We haven't found any books in this house at all."
   "I know," Klaus said miserably. "I miss reading very much. We must go out and look for a library sometime soon."


   "But not today," Violet said. "Today we have to cook for ten people."
   At that moment there was a knock on the front door. Violet and Klaus looked at one another nervously.
   "Who in the world would want to visit Count Olaf?" Violet wondered out loud.
   "Maybe somebody wants to visit us," Klaus said, without much hope. In the time since the Baudelaire parents' death, most of the Baudelaire orphans' friends had fallen by the wayside, an expression which here means "they stopped calling, writing, and stopping by to see any of the Baudelaires, making them very lonely." You and I, of course, would never do this to any of our grieving acquaintances, but it is a sad truth in life that when someone has lost a loved one, friends sometimes avoid the person, just when the presence of friends is most needed.
   Violet, Klaus, and Sunny walked slowly to the front door and peered through the peephole, which was in the shape of an eye. They were delighted to see Justice Strauss peering back at them, and opened the door.
   "Justice Strauss!" Violet cried. "How lovely to see you." She was about to add, "Do come in," but then she realized that Justice Strauss would probably not want to venture into the dim and dirty room.
   "Please forgive me for not stopping by sooner," Justice Strauss said, as the Baudelaires stood awkwardly in the doorway. "I wanted to see how you children were settling in, but I had a very difficult case in the High Court and it was taking up much of my time."
   "What sort of case was it?" Klaus asked. Having been deprived of reading, he was hungry for new information.
   "I can't really discuss it," Justice Strauss said, "because it's official business. But I can tell you it concerns a poisonous plant and illegal use of someone's credit card."
   "Yeeka!" Sunny shrieked, which appeared to mean "How interesting!" although of course there is no way that Sunny could understand what was being said.
   Justice Strauss looked down at Sunny and laughed. "Yeeka indeed," she said, and reached down to pat the child on the head. Sunny took Justice Strauss's hand and bit it, gently.
   "That means she likes you," Violet explained.
   "She bites very, very hard if she doesn't like you, or if you want to give her a bath."
   "I see," Justice Strauss said. "Now then, how are you children getting on? Is there anything you desire?"
   The children looked at one another, thinking of all the things they desired. Another bed, for example. A proper crib for Sunny. Curtains for the window in their room. A closet instead of a cardboard box. But what they desired most of all, of course, was not to be associated with Count Olaf in any way whatsoever. What they desired most was to be with their parents again, in their true home, but that, of course, was impossible. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny all looked down at the floor unhappily as they considered the question. Finally, Klaus spoke.


   "Could we perhaps borrow a cookbook?" he said. "Count Olaf has instructed us to make dinner for his theater troupe tonight, and we can't find a cookbook in the house."
   "Goodness," Justice Strauss said. "Cooking dinner for an entire theater troupe seems like a lot to ask of children."
   "Count Olaf gives us a lot of responsibility," Violet said. What she wanted to say was, "Count Olaf is an evil man," but she was well mannered.
   "Well, why don't you come next door to my house," Justice Strauss said, "and find a cookbook that pleases you?"
   The youngsters agreed, and followed Justice Strauss out the door and over to her well-kept house. She led them through an elegant hallway smelling of flowers into an enormous room, and when they saw what was inside, they nearly fainted from delight, Klaus especially.
   The room was a library. Not a public library, but a private library; that is, a large collection of books belonging to Justice Strauss. There were shelves and shelves of them, on every wall from the floor to the ceiling, and separate shelves and shelves of them in the middle of the room. The only place there weren't books was in one comer, where there were some large, comfortable-looking chairs and a wooden table with lamps hanging over them, perfect for reading. Although it was not as big as their parents' library, it was as cozy, and the Baudelaire children were thrilled.
   "My word!" Violet said. "This is a wonderful library!"
   "Thank you very much," Justice Strauss said. "I've been collecting books for years, and I'm very proud of my collection. As long as you keep them in good condition, you are welcome to use any of my books, at any time. Now, the cook-books are over here on the eastern wall. Shall we have a look at them?"
   "Yes," Violet said, "and then, if you don't mind, I should love to look at any of your books concerning mechanical engineering. Inventing things is a great interest of mine."
   "And I would like to look at books on wolves," Klaus said. "Recently I have been fascinated by the subject of wild animals of North America."
   "Book!" Sunny shrieked, which meant "Please don't forget to pick out a picture book for me."
   Justice Strauss smiled. "It is a pleasure to see young people interested in books," she said. "But first I think we'd better find a good recipe, don't you?"
   The children agreed, and for thirty minutes or so they perused several cookbooks that Justice Strauss recommended. To tell you the truth, the three orphans were so excited to be out of Count Olaf's house, and in this pleasant library, that they were a little distracted and unable to concentrate on cooking. But finally Klaus found a dish that sounded delicious, and easy to make.
   "Listen to this," he said. "'Puttanesca.' It's an Italian sauce for pasta. All we need to do is sauté (food that is lightly fried in butter or fat) olives, capers, anchovies, garlic, chopped parsley, and tomatoes together in a pot, and prepare spaghetti to go with it."
   "That sounds easy," Violet agreed, and the Baudelaire orphans looked at one another. Perhaps, with the kind Justice Strauss and her library right next door, the children could prepare pleasant lives for themselves as easily as making puttanesca sauce for Count Olaf.


   Just as they were placing the pudding in the refrigerator to cool, Violet, Klaus, and Sunny heard a loud, booming sound as the front door was flung open, and I'm sure I don't have to tell you who was home.
   "Orphans?" Count Olaf called out in his scratchy (producing a grating sound) voice. "Where are you, orphans?"
   "In the kitchen, Count Olaf," Klaus called.
   "We're just finishing dinner."
   "You'd better be," Count Olaf said, and strode into the kitchen. He gazed at all three Baudelaire children with his shiny, shiny eyes. "My troupe is right behind me and they are very hungry. Where is the roast beef?"
   "We didn't make roast beef," Violet said. "We made puttanesca sauce."
   "What?" Count Olaf asked. "No roast beef?"
   "You didn't tell us you wanted roast beef," Klaus said.
   Count Olaf slid toward the children so that he looked even taller than he was. His eyes grew even brighter, and his one eyebrow raised in anger. "In agreeing to adopt you," he said, "I have become your father, and as your father I am not someone to be trifled with. I demand that you serve roast beef to myself and my guests. "
   "We don't have any!" Violet cried. "We made puttanesca sauce!"
   "No! No! No!" Sunny shouted.
   Count Olaf looked down at Sunny, who had spoken so suddenly. With an inhuman (cruel, savage, not human) roar he picked her up in one scraggly hand and raised her so she was staring at him in the eye. Needless to say, Sunny was very frightened and began crying immediately, too scared to even try to bite the hand that held her.
   "Put her down immediately, you beast!" Klaus shouted. He jumped up, trying to rescue Sunny from the grasp of the Count, but he was holding her too high to reach. Count Olaf looked down at Klaus and smiled a terrible, toothy grin, raising the wailing Sunny up even higher in the air. He seemed about to drop her to the floor when there was a large burst of laughter in the next room.
   "Olaf! Where's Olaf?" voices called out.
   Count Olaf paused, still holding the wailing Sunny up in the air, as members of his theater troupe walked into the kitchen. Soon they were crowding the room — an assortment of strange-looking characters of all shapes and sizes. There was a bald man with a very long nose, dressed in a long black robe. There were two women who had bright white powder all over their faces, making them look like ghosts. Behind the women was a man with very long and skinny arms, at the end of which were two hooks instead of hands. There was a person who was extremely fat, and who looked like neither a man nor a woman. And behind this person, standing in the doorway, were an assortment of people the children could not see but who promised to be just as frightening.
   "Here you are, Olaf," said one of the white faced women. "What in the world are you doing?"
   "I'm just disciplining these orphans," Count Olaf said. "I asked them to make dinner, and all they have made is some disgusting sauce."


   "You can't go easy on children," the man with the hook-hands said. "They must be taught to obey their elders."
   The tall, bald man peered at the youngsters. "Are these," he said to Count Olaf, "those wealthy children you were telling me about?"
   "Yes," Count Olaf said. "They are so awful I can scarcely stand to touch them." With that, he lowered Sunny, who was still wailing, to the floor. Violet and Klaus breathed a sigh of relief that he had not dropped her from that great height.
   "I don't blame you," said someone in the doorway.
   Count Olaf rubbed his hands together as if he had been holding something revolting instead of an infant. "Well, enough talk," he said. "I suppose we will eat their dinner, even though it is all wrong. Everyone, follow me to the dining room and I will pour us some wine. Perhaps by the time these brats serve us, we will be too drunk to care if it is roast beef or not."
   "Hurrah!" cried several members of the troupe, and they marched through the kitchen, following Count Olaf into the dining room.
   Nobody paid a bit of attention to the children, except for the bald man, who stopped and stared Violet in the eye.
   "You're a pretty one," he said, taking her face in his rough hands. "If I were you I would try not to anger Count Olaf, or he might wreck that pretty little face of yours." Violet shuddered, and the bald man gave a high-pitched giggle and left the room.
   The Baudelaire children, alone in the kitchen, found themselves breathing heavily, as if they had just run a long distance. Sunny continued to wail, and Klaus found that his eyes were wet with tears as well. Only Violet didn't cry, but merely trembled with fear and revulsion, a word which here means "an unpleasant mixture of horror and disgust." For several moments None of them could speak.
   "This is terrible, terrible," Klaus said finally. "Violet, what can we do?"
   "I don't know," she said "I'm afraid."
   "Me too," Klaus said.
   "Hux!" Sunny said, as she stopped crying.
   "Let's have some dinner!" someone shouted from the dining room, and the theater troupe began pounding on the table in strict rhythm, which is an exceedingly rude thing to do.
   "We'd better serve the puttanesca," Klaus said, "or who knows what Count Olaf will do to us."
   Violet thought of what the bald man had said, about wrecking her face, and nodded. The two of them looked at the pot of bubbling sauce, which had seemed so cozy while they were making it and now looked like a vat (large container) of blood. Then, leaving Sunny behind in the kitchen, they walked into the dining room, Klaus carrying a bowl of the interestingly shaped noodles and Violet carrying the pot of puttanesca sauce and a large ladle with which to serve it. The theater troupe was talking and cackling, drinking again and again from their wine cups and paying no attention to the Baudelaire orphans as they circled the table serving everyone dinner. Violet's right hand ached from holding the heavy ladle. She thought of switching to her left hand, but because she was right-handed she was afraid she might spill the sauce with her left hand, which could enrage Count Olaf again. She stared miserably at Olaf's plate of food and found herself wishing she had bought poison at the market and put it in the puttanesca sauce. Finally, they were through serving, and Klaus and Violet slipped back into the kitchen. They listened to the wild, rough laughter of Count Olaf and his theater troupe, and they picked at (eat slowly, eat very little) their own portions of food, too miserable to eat. Before long, Olaf's friends were pounding on the table in strict rhythm again, and the orphans went out to the dining room to clear the table, and then again to serve the chocolate pudding. By now it was obvious that Count Olaf and his associates had drunk a great deal of wine, and they slouched at the table and spoke much less. Finally, they roused (wake up) themselves, and trooped back through the kitchen, scarcely glancing at the children on their way out of the house. Count Olaf looked around the room, which was filled with dirty dishes.


   "Because you haven't cleaned up yet," he said to the orphans, "I suppose you can be excused from attending tonight's performance. But after cleaning up, you are to go straight to your beds."
   Klaus had been glaring at the floor, trying to hide how upset he was. But at this he could not remain silent. "You mean our bed!" he shouted. "You have only provided us with one bed!"
   Members of the theater troupe stopped in their tracks at this outburst, and glanced from Klaus to Count Olaf to see what would happen next. Count Olaf raised his one eyebrow, and his eyes shone bright, but he spoke calmly.
   "If you would like another bed," he said, "tomorrow you may go into town and purchase one.”
   "You know perfectly well we haven't any money," Klaus said.
   "Of course you do," Count Olaf said, and his voice began to get a little louder. "You are the inheritors of an enormous fortune."
   "That money," Klaus said, remembering what Mr. Poe said, "is not to be used until Violet is of age."
   Count Olaf's face grew very red. For a moment he said nothing. Then, in one sudden movement, he reached down and struck Klaus across the face. Klaus fell to the floor, his face inches from the eye tattooed on Olaf's ankle. His glasses leaped from his face and skittered (move rapidly over a surface) into a comer. His left cheek, where Olaf had struck him, felt as if it were on fire. The theater troupe laughed, and a few of them applauded as if Count Olaf had done something very brave instead of something despicable.
   "Come on, friends," Count Olaf said to his comrades. "We'll be late for our own performance.”
   "If I know you, Olaf," said the man with the hook-hands, "you'll figure out a way to get at that Baudelaire money."
   "We'll see," Count Olaf said, but his eyes were shining bright as if he already had an idea. There was another loud boom as the front door shut behind Count Olaf and his terrible friends, and the Baudelaire children were alone in the kitchen. Violet knelt at Klaus's side, giving him a hug to try to make him feel better. Sunny crawled over to his glasses, picked them up, and brought them to him. Klaus began to sob, not so much from the pain but from rage at the terrible situation they were in. Violet and Sunny cried with him, and they continued weeping as they washed the dishes, and as they blew out the candles in the dining room, and as they changed out of their clothes and lay down to go to sleep, Klaus in the bed, Violet on the floor, Sunny on her little cushion of curtains. The moonlight shone through the window, and if anyone had looked into the Baudelaire orphans' bedroom, they would have seen three children crying quietly all night long.

Chapter Five
   Unless you have been very, very lucky, you have undoubtedly experienced events in your life that have made you cry. So unless you have been very, very lucky, you know that a good, long session of weeping can often make you feel better, even if your circumstances have not changed one bit. So it was with the Baudelaire orphans. Having cried all night, they rose the next morning feeling as if a weight were off their shoulders. The three children knew, of course, that they were still in a terrible situation, but they thought they might do something to make it better.
   The morning's note from Count Olaf ordered them to chop firewood in the backyard, and as Violet and Klaus swung the axe down over each log to break it into smaller pieces, they discussed possible plans of action, while Sunny chewed meditatively on a small piece of wood.
   "Clearly," Klaus said, fingering the ugly bruise on his face where Olaf had struck him, "we cannot stay here any longer. I would rather take my chances on the streets than live in this terrible place."
   "But who knows what misfortunes would befall us on the streets?" Violet pointed out "At least here we have a roof over our heads."
   "I wish our parents' money could be used now, instead of when you come of age," Klaus said. "Then we could buy a castle and live in it, with armed guards patrolling the outside to keep out Count Olaf and his troupe."
   "And I could have a large inventing studio," Violet said wistfully. She swung the axe down and split a log neatly in two. "Filled with gears and pulleys and wires and an elaborate computer system."
   "And I could have a large library," Klaus said, "as comfortable as Justice Strauss's, but more enormous."
   "Gibbo!" Sunny shrieked, which appeared to mean "And I could have lots of things to bite.”
   "But in the meantime," Violet said, "we have to do something about our predicament."
   "Perhaps Justice Strauss could adopt us," Klaus said. "She said we were always welcome in her home."
   "But she meant for a visit, or to use her library," Violet pointed out "She didn't mean to live."
   "Perhaps if we explained our situation to her, she would agree to adopt us," Klaus said hopefully, but when Violet looked at him she saw that he knew it was of no use. Adoption is an enormous decision, and not likely to happen impulsively. I'm sure you, in your life, have occasionally wished to be raised by different people than the ones who are raising you, but knew in your heart that the chances of this were very slim.
   "I think we should go see Mr. Poe," Violet said. "He told us when he dropped us here that we could contact him at the bank if we had any questions."
   "We don't really have a question," Klaus said.
   "We have a complaint." He was thinking of Mr. Poe walking toward them at Briny Beach, with his terrible message. Even though the fire was of course not Mr. Poe's fault, Klaus was reluctant to see Mr. Poe because he was afraid of getting more bad news.


   "I can't think of anyone else to contact," Violet said. "Mr. Poe is in charge of our affairs, and I'm sure if he knew how horrid Count Olaf is, he would take us right out of here."
   Klaus pictured Mr. Poe arriving in his car and putting the Baudelaire orphans inside, to go somewhere else, and felt a stirring of hope. Anywhere would be better than here. "Okay," he said. "Let's get this firewood all chopped and we'll go to the bank."
   Invigorated by their plan, the Baudelaire orphans swung their axes at an amazing speed, and soon enough they were done chopping firewood and ready to go to the bank. They remembered Count Olaf saying he had a map of the city, and they looked thoroughly for it, but they couldn't find any trace of a map, and decided it must be in the tower, where they were forbidden to go. So, without directions of any sort, the Baudelaire children set off for the city's banking district in hopes of finding Mr. Poe.
   After walking through the meat district, the flower district, and the sculpture district, the three children arrived at the banking district, pausing to take a refreshing sip of water at the Fountain of Victorious Finance. The banking district consisted of several wide streets with large marble buildings on each side of them, all banks. They went first to Trustworthy Bank, and then to Faithful Savings and Loan, and then to Subservient Financial Services, each time inquiring for Mr. Poe. Finally, a receptionist at Subservient said she knew that Mr. Poe worked down the street, at Mulctuary Money Management. The building was square and rather plain-looking, though once inside, the three orphans were intimidated by the hustle and bustle of the people as they raced around the large, echoey room. Finally, they asked a uniformed guard whether they had arrived at the right place to speak to Mr. Poe, and he led them into a large office with many file cabinets and no windows.
   "Why, hello," said Mr. Poe, in a puzzled tone of voice. He was sitting at a desk covered in typed papers that looked important and boring. Surrounding a small framed photograph of his wife and his two beastly sons were three telephones with flashing lights. "Please come in."
   "Thank you," said Klaus, shaking Mr. Poe's hand. The Baudelaire youngsters sat down in three large and comfortable chairs.
   Mr. Poe opened his mouth to speak, but had to cough into a handkerchief before he could begin.
   "I'm very busy today," he said, finally. "So I don't have too much time to chat. Next time you should call ahead of time when you plan on being in the neighborhood, and I will put some time aside to take you to lunch."
   "That would be very pleasant," Violet said, "and we're sorry we didn't contact you before we stopped by, but we find ourselves in an urgent situation."
   "Count Olaf is a madman," Klaus said, getting right to the point. "We cannot stay with him.”
   "He struck Klaus across the face. See his bruise?" Violet said, but just as she said it, one of the telephones rang, in a loud, unpleasant wail. "Excuse me," Mr. Poe said, and picked up the phone. "Poe here," he said into the receiver. "What? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. No. Yes. Thank you." He hung up the phone and looked at the Baudelaires as if he had forgotten they were there.


   "What shall we do next?" Klaus asked sadly. Violet stared up at the sky. She wished she could invent something that could take them out of there. "It's getting a bit late," she said. "We might as well just go back and think of something else tomorrow. Perhaps we can stop and see Justice Strauss."
   "But you said she wouldn't help us," Klaus said.
   "Not for help," Violet said, "for books."
   It is very useful, when one is young, to learn the difference between "literally" and "figuratively." If something happens literally, it actually happens; if something happens figuratively, it feels like it's happening. If you are literally jumping for joy, for instance, it means you are leaping in the air because you are very happy. If you are figuratively jumping for joy, it means you are so happy that you could jump for joy, but are saving your energy for other matters. The Baudelaire orphans walked back to Count Olaf's neighborhood and stopped at the home of Justice Strauss, who welcomed them inside and let them choose books from the library. Violet chose several about mechanical inventions, Klaus chose several about wolves, and Sunny found a book with many pictures of teeth inside. They then went to their room and crowded together on the one bed, reading intently and happily. Figuratively, they escaped from Count Olaf and their miserable existence. They did not literally escape, because they were still in his house and vulnerable to Olaf's evil in loco parentis ways. But by immersing themselves in their favorite reading topics, they felt far away from their predicament, as if they had escaped. In the situation of the orphans, figuratively escaping was not enough, of course, but at the end of a tiring and hopeless day, it would have to do. Violet, Klaus, and Sunny read their books and, in the back of their minds, hoped that soon their figurative escape would eventually turn into a literal one.

   "Therefore, to make you feel a little more at home here, I would like to have you participate in my next play. Perhaps if you took part in the work I do, you would be less likely to run off complaining to Mr. Poe."
   "In what way would we participate?" Violet asked. She was thinking of all the chores they already did for Count Olaf, and was not in the mood to do more.
   "Well," Count Olaf said, his eyes shining brightly, "the play is called The Marvelous Marriage, and it is written by the great playwright Al Funcoot. We will give only one performance, on this Friday night. It is about a man who is very brave and intelligent, played by me. In the finale [f?'n?l?] (final section of a performance), he marries the young, beautiful woman he loves, in front of a crowd of cheering people. You, Klaus, and you, Sunny, will play some of the cheering people in the crowd. "
   "But we're shorter than most adults," Klaus said. "Won't that look strange to the audience?"
   "You will be playing two midgets who attend the wedding," Olaf said patiently.
   "And what will I do?" Violet asked. "I am very handy with tools, so perhaps I could help you build the set."
   "Build the set? Heavens, no," Count Olaf said. "A pretty girl like you shouldn't be working backstage."
   "But I'd like to," Violet said.
   Count Olaf's one eyebrow raised slightly, and the Baudelaire orphans recognized this sign of his anger. But then the eyebrow went down again as he forced himself to remain calm. "But I have such an important role for you onstage," he said. "You are going to play the young woman I marry."
   Violet felt her oatmeal and raspberries shift around in her stomach as if she had just caught the flu. It was bad enough having Count Olaf acting in loco parentis and announcing himself as their father, but to consider this man her husband, even for the purposes of a play, was even more dreadful.
   "It's a very important role," he continued, his mouth curling up into an unconvincing smile, "although you have no lines other than 'I do,' which you will say when Justice Strauss asks you if you will have me."
   "Justice Strauss?" Violet said. "What does she have to do with it?"
   "She has agreed to play the part of the judge," Count Olaf said. Behind him, one of the eyes painted on the kitchen walls closely watched over each of the Baudelaire children. "I asked Justice Strauss to participate because I wanted to be neighborly, as well as fatherly."
   "Count Olaf," Violet said, and then stopped herself. She wanted to argue her way out of playing his bride, but she didn't want to make him angry. "Father," she said, "I'm not sure I'm talented enough to perform professionally. I would hate to disgrace your good name and the name of Al Funcoot. Plus I'll be very busy in the next few weeks working on my inventions — and learning how to prepare roast beef," she added quickly, remembering how he had behaved about dinner.


   Count Olaf reached out one of his spidery hands and stroked Violet on the chin, looking deep into her eyes. "You will, " he said, "participate in this theatrical performance. I would prefer it if you would participate voluntarily, but as I believe Mr. Poe explained to you, I can order you to participate and you must obey. " Olaf's sharp and dirty fingernails gently scratched on Violet's chin, and she shivered. The room was very, very quiet as Olaf finally let go, and stood up and left without a word. The Baudelaire children listened to his heavy footsteps go up the stairs to the tower they were forbidden to enter.
   "Well," Klaus said hesitantly, "I guess it won't hurt to be in the play. It seems to be very important to him, and we want to keep on his good side."
   "But he must be up to something," Violet said.
   "You don't think those berries were poisoned, do you?" Klaus asked worriedly.
   "No," Violet said. "Olaf is after the fortune we will inherit. Killing us would do him no good."
   "But what good does it do him to have us be in his stupid play?"
   "I don't know," Violet admitted miserably. She stood up and started washing out the oatmeal bowls.
   "I wish we knew something more about inheritance law," Klaus said. "I'll bet Count Olaf has cooked up some plan to get our money, but I don't know what it could be."
   "I guess we could ask Mr. Poe about it," Violet said doubtfully, as Klaus stood beside her and dried the dishes. "He knows all those Latin legal phrases."
   "But Mr. Poe would probably call Count Olaf again, and then he'd know we were on to him," Klaus pointed out "Maybe we should try to talk to Justice Strauss. She's a judge, so she must know all about the law."
   "But she's also Olaf's neighbor," Violet replied, "and she might tell him that we had asked.”
   Klaus took his glasses off, which he often did when he was thinking hard. "How could we find out about the law without Olaf's knowledge?"
   "Book!" Sunny shouted suddenly. She probably meant something like "Would somebody please wipe my face?" but it made Violet and Klaus look at each other. Book. They were both thinking the same thing: Surely Justice Strauss would have a book on inheritance law.
   "Count Olaf didn't leave us any chores to do," Violet said, "so I suppose we are free to visit Justice Strauss and her library."
   Klaus smiled. "Yes indeed," he said. "And you know, today I don't think I'll choose a book on wolves."
   "Nor I," Violet said, "on mechanical engineering. I think I'd like to read about inheritance law."
   "Well, let's go," Klaus said. "Justice Strauss said we could come over soon, and we don't want to be standoffish.”
   At the mention of the word that Count Olaf had used so ridiculously, the Baudelaire orphans all laughed, even Sunny, who of course did not have a very big vocabulary. Swiftly they put away the clean oatmeal bowls in the kitchen cupboards, which watched them with painted eyes. Then the three young people ran next door. Friday, the day of the performance, was only a few days off, and the children wanted to figure out Count Olaf's plan as quickly as possible.


Chapter Seven
   There are many, many types of books in the world, which makes good sense, because there are many, many types of people, and everybody wants to read something different. For instance, people who hate stories in which terrible things happen to small children should put this book down immediately. But one type of book that practically no one likes to read is a book about the law. Books about the law are notorious for being very long, very dull, and very difficult to read. This is one reason many lawyers make heaps of money. The money is an incentive — the word "incentive" here means "an offered reward to persuade you to do something you don't want to do" — to read long, dull, and difficult books.
   The Baudelaire children had a slightly different incentive for reading these books, of course. Their incentive was not heaps of money, but preventing Count Olaf from doing something horrible to them in order to get heaps of money. But even with this incentive, getting through the law books in Justice Strauss's private library was a very, very, very hard task.
   "Goodness," Justice Strauss said, when she came into the library and saw what they were reading. She had let them in the house but immediately went into the backyard to do her gardening, leaving the Baudelaire orphans alone in her glorious library. "I thought you were interested in mechanical engineering, animals of North America, and teeth. Are you sure you want to read those enormous law books? Even I don't like reading them, and I work in law."
   "Yes," Violet lied, "I find them very interesting, Justice Strauss."
   "So do I," Klaus said. "Violet and I are considering a career in law, so we are fascinated by these books."
   "Well," Justice Strauss said, "Sunny can't possibly be interested. Maybe she'd like to come help me with the gardening."
   "Wipi!" Sunny shrieked, which meant "I'd much prefer gardening to sitting around watching my siblings struggle through law books."
   "Well, make sure she doesn't eat any dirt," Klaus said, bringing Sunny over to the judge.
   "Of course," said Justice Strauss. "We wouldn't want her to be sick for the big performance."
   Violet and Klaus exchanged a look. "Are you excited about the play?" Violet asked hesitantly.
   Justice Strauss's face lit up. "Oh yes," she said. "I've always wanted to perform onstage, ever since I was a little girl. And now Count Olaf has given me the opportunity to live my lifelong dream. Aren't you thrilled to be a part of the theater?"
   "I guess so," Violet said.
   "Of course you are," Judge Strauss said, stars in her eyes and Sunny in her hands. She left the library and Klaus and Violet looked at each other and sighed.
   "She's stagestruck (obsessed with the desire to become an actor)," Klaus said. "She won't believe that Count Olaf is up to something, no matter what."
   "She wouldn't help us anyway," Violet pointed out glumly. "She's a judge, and she'd just start babbling about in loco parentis like Mr. Poe."