回复：小说《雷蒙斯尼奇的不幸历险》英文原版

   "That's why we've got to find a legal reason to stop the performance," Klaus said firmly. "Have you found anything in your book yet?"
   "Nothing helpful," Violet said, glancing down at a piece of scrap paper on which she had been taking notes. "Fifty years ago there was a woman who left an enormous sum of money to her pet weasel, and none to her three sons. The three sons tried to prove that the woman was insane so the money would go to them."
   "What happened?" Klaus asked.
   "I think the weasel died," Violet replied, "but I'm not sure. I have to look up some of the words. "
   "I don't think it's going to help us anyway," Klaus said.
   "Maybe Count Olaf is trying to prove that we're insane, so he'd get the money," Violet said.
   "But why would making us be in The Marvelous Marriage prove we were insane?" Klaus asked.
   "I don't know," Violet admitted. "I'm stuck (puzzled, baffled). Have you found anything?"
   "Around the time of your weasel lady," Klaus said, flipping through the enormous book he had been reading, "a group of actors put on a production of Shakespeare's Macbeth, and none of them wore any clothing."
   Violet blushed. "You mean they were all naked, onstage?"
   "Only briefly," Klaus said, smiling. "The police came and shut down the production. I don't think that's very helpful, either. It was just pretty interesting to read about."
   Violet sighed. "Maybe Count Olaf isn't up to anything," she said. "I'm not interested in performing in his play, but perhaps we're all worked up about nothing. Maybe Count Olaf really is just trying to welcome us into the family."
   "How can you say that?" Klaus cried. "He struck me across the face."
   "But there's no way he can get hold of our fortune just by putting us in a play," Violet said. "My eyes are tired from reading these books, Klaus, and they aren't helping us. I'm going to go out and help Justice Strauss in the garden."
   Klaus watched his sister leave the library and felt a wave of hopelessness wash over him. The day of the performance was not far off, and he hadn't even figured out what Count Olaf was up to, let alone how to stop him. All his life, Klaus had believed that if you read enough books you could solve any problem, but now he wasn't so sure.
   "You there!" A voice coming from the doorway startled Klaus out of his thoughts. "Count Olaf sent me to look for you. You are to return to the house immediately."
   Klaus turned and saw one of the members of Count Olaf's theater troupe, the one with hooks for hands, standing in the doorway. "What are you doing in this musty old room, anyway?" he asked in his croak of a voice, walking over to where Klaus was sitting. Narrowing his beady eyes, he read the title of one of the books. "Inheritance Law and Its Implications?" he said sharply. "Why are you reading that?"
   "Why do you think I'm reading it?" Klaus said.


   "I'll tell you what I think." The man put one of his terrible hooks on Klaus's shoulder. "I think you should never be allowed inside this library again, at least until Friday. We don't want a little boy getting big ideas. Now, where is your sister and that hideous baby?"
   "In the garden," Klaus said, shrugging the hook off of his shoulder. "Why don't you go and get them?"
   The man leaned over until his face was just inches from Klaus's, so close that the man's features flickered into a blur. "Listen to me very carefully, little boy," he said, breathing out foul steam with every word. "The only reason Count Olaf hasn't torn you limb from limb is that he hasn't gotten hold of your money. He allows you to live while he works out his plans. But ask yourself this, you little bookworm: What reason will he have to keep you alive after he has your money? What do you think will happen to you then?"
   Klaus felt an icy chill go through him as the horrible man spoke. He had never been so terrified in all his life. He found that his arms and legs were shaking uncontrollably, as if he were having some sort of fit. His mouth was making strange sounds, like Sunny always did, as he struggled to find something to say. "Ah —" Klaus heard himself choke out. "Ah —"
   "When the time comes," the hook-handed man said smoothly, ignoring Klaus's noises, "I believe Count Olaf just might leave you to me. So if I were you, I’d start acting a little nicer." The man stood up again and put both his hooks in front of Klaus's face, letting the light from the reading lamps reflect off the wicked-looking devices. "Now, if you will excuse me, I have to fetch your poor orphan siblings."
   Klaus felt his body go limp as the hook-handed man left the room, and he wanted to sit there for a moment and catch his breath. But his mind wouldn't let him. This was his last moment in the library, and perhaps his last opportunity to foil (frustrate; prevent someone from succeeding) Count Olaf's plan. But what to do? Hearing the faint sounds of the hook-handed man talking to Justice Strauss in the garden, Klaus looked frantically around the library for something that could be helpful.
   Then, just as he heard the man's footsteps heading back his way, Klaus spied one book, and quickly grabbed it. He untucked his shirt and put the book inside, hastily retucking it just as the hook-handed man reentered the library, escorting Violet and carrying Sunny, who was trying without success to bite the man's hooks.
   "I'm ready to go," Klaus said quickly, and walked out the door before the man could get a good look at him. He walked quickly ahead of his siblings, hoping that nobody would notice the book-shaped lump in his shirt. Maybe, just maybe, the book Klaus was smuggling could save their lives.


Chapter Ten
   That night, Klaus was the Baudelaire orphan sleeping fitfully in the bed, and Violet was the Baudelaire orphan staying up, working by the light of the moon. All day, the two siblings had wandered around the house, doing the assigned chores and scarcely speaking to each other. Klaus was too tired and despondent to speak, and Violet was holed up (hide/shut oneself away) in the inventing area of her mind, too busy planning to talk. When night approached, Violet gathered up the curtains that had been Sunny's bed and brought them to the door of the tower stairs, where the enormous assistant of Count Olaf's, the one who looked like neither a man nor a woman, was standing guard. Violet asked whether she could bring the blankets to her sister, to make her more comfortable during the night. The enormous creature merely looked at Violet with its blank white eyes and shook its head, then dismissed her with a silent gesture.
   Violet knew, of course, that Sunny was too terrified to be comforted by a handful of draperies, but she hoped that she would be allowed a few moments to hold her and tell her that everything would turn out all right. Also, she wanted to do something known in the crime industry as "casing the joint." "Casing the joint 踩点" means observing a particular location in order to formulate a plan. For instance, if you are a bank robber — although I hope you aren't — you might go to the bank a few days before you planned to rob it. Perhaps wearing a disguise, you would look around the bank and observe security guards, cameras, and other obstacles, so you could plan how to avoid capture or death during your burglary.
   Violet, a law-abiding citizen, was not planning to rob a bank, but she was planning to rescue Sunny, and was hoping to catch a glimpse of the tower room in which her sister was being held prisoner, so as to make her plan more easily. But it appeared that she wasn't going to be able to case the joint after all. This made Violet nervous as she sat on the floor by the window, working on her invention as quietly as she could.
   Violet had very few materials with which to invent something, and she didn't want to wander around the house looking for more for fear of arousing the suspicions of Count Olaf and his troupe. But she had enough to build a rescuing device. Above the window was a sturdy metal rod from which the curtains had hung, and Violet took it down. Using one of the rocks Olaf had left in a pile in the corner, she broke the curtain rod into two pieces. She then bent each piece of the rod into several sharp angles, leaving tiny cuts on her hands as she did so. Then Violet took down the painting of the eye. On the back of the painting, as on the back of many paintings, was a small piece of wire to hang on the hook. She removed the wire and used it to connect the two pieces together. Violet had now made what looked like a large metal spider.
   She then went over to the cardboard box and took out the ugliest of the clothes that Mrs. Poe had purchased, the outfits the Baudelaire orphans would never wear no matter how desperate they were. Working quickly and quietly, she began to tear these into long, narrow strips, and to tie these strips together. Among Violet's many useful skills was a vast knowledge of different types of knots. The particular knot she was using was called the Devil's Tongue. A group of female Finnish pirates invented it back in the fifteenth century, and named it the Devil's Tongue because it twisted this way and that, in a most complicated and eerie way. The Devil's Tongue was a very useful knot, and when Violet tied the cloth strips together, end to end, it formed a sort of rope. As she worked, she remembered something her parents had said to her when Klaus was born, and again when they brought Sunny home from the hospital. "You are the eldest Baudelaire child," they had said, kindly but firmly. "And as the eldest, it will always be your responsibility to look after your younger siblings. Promise us that you will always watch out for them and make sure they don't get into trouble." Violet remembered her promise, and thought of Klaus, whose bruised face still looked sore, and Sunny, dangling from the top of the tower like a flag, and began working faster. Even though Count Olaf was of course the cause of all this misery, Violet felt as if she had broken her promise to her parents, and vowed to make it right.


Chapter Eleven
   "How pleasant that you could join us," the hook-handed man said in a sickly sweet voice. Violet immediately tried to scurry back down the rope, but Count Olaf's assistant was too quick for her. In one movement he hoisted her into the tower room and, with a flick of his hook, sent her rescue device clanging to the ground. Now Violet was as trapped as her sister. "I'm so glad you're here," the hook-handed man said. "I was just thinking how much I wanted to see your pretty face. Have a seat."
   "What are you going to do with me?" Violet asked.
   "I said have a seat!" the hook-handed man snarled, and pushed her into a chair.

@铫杳

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