Leaving as I did Coalmont around four in the afternoon (by Route X -- I do not remember the number), I might have made Ramsdale by dawn had not a short-cut tempted me. I had to get onto Highway Y. My map showed quite blandly that just beyond Woodbine, which I reached at nightfall, I could leave paved X and reach paved Y by means of a transverse dirt road. It was only some forty miles long according to my map. Otherwise I would have to follow X for another hundred miles and then use leisurely looping Z to get to Y and my destination. However, the short-cut in question got worse and worse, bumpier and bumpier, muddier and muddier, and when I attempted to turn back after some ten miles of purblind, tortuous and tortoise-slow progress, my old and weak Melmoth got stuck in deep clay. All was dark and muggy, and hopeless. My headlights hung over a broad ditch full of water. The surrounding country, if any, was a black wilderness. I sought to extricate myself but my rear wheels only whined in slosh and anguish. Cursing my plight, I took off my fancy clothes, changed into slacks, pulled on the bullet-riddled sweater, and waded four miles back to a roadside farm. It started to rain on the way but I had not the strength to go back for a mackintosh. Such incidents have convinced me that my heart is basically sound despite recent diagnoses. Around midnight, a wrecker dragged my car out. I navigated back to Highway X and traveled on. Utter weariness overtook me an hour later, in an anonymous little town.
下午四点左右我离开了科尔蒙特（经X公路——公路号我不记得了）。如果我没受一条近路的诱惑，黎明前我就能到达拉姆斯代尔了。我必须先驶到Y公路上去。黄昏时，我到了伍德拜因；地图上清清楚楚地标明，过了伍德拜因，我就可以离开X铺石公路，经过一条横向的土路，转到Y铺石公路上去。从地图上看，这条土路大约只有四十英里。要不然我就只得顺着X公路再往前行一百英里，然后经过曲折婉蜒的Z公路，才能到Y公路和我的目的地。然而谈到的这条捷径越来越难行，越来越凹凸不平，越来越泥泞不堪。摸索着，磕磕绊绊乌龟般缓慢爬行了大约十英里后，我试图调转车往回开，这时，我那辆老旧不堪的梅尔莫斯又陷进泥泞里了。四周那股漆黑，那般闷热，又是那般今人绝望。车头灯低低地俯视着一条宽阔的水沟，水满极了。周围如果有阔地，也一定是一片黑沉沉的荒野。我耗尽力气想拯救自已，可两只后轮是在稀泥里悲哀地长鸣了九声。我一边咒骂这苦境，一边脱下华贵的衣衫，换上一条宽松裤，套上那件满是弹孔的毛衣，艰难地往回倒开了四英里，可我没有一点力气、再回去取雨衣。这些事使我确信，我的心脏基本上还是健康的，尽管最近的几次诊断结果均不太理想。午夜，一期救险车把我的车拖了出来。我于是又开回到X公路上，继续前行。一小时后，到了一个无名小镇，这时，我已筋疲力尽。
The rain had been cancelled miles before. It was a black warm night, somewhere in Appalachia. Now and then cars passed me, red tail-lights receding, white headlights advancing, but the town was dead. Nobody strolled and laughed on the sidewalks as relaxing burghers would in sweet, mellow, rotting Europe. I was alone to enjoy the innocent night and my terrible thoughts.
雨已停了一会儿了。那是个漆黑、温热的夜，是在阿巴拉契亚的某个地方。不时有车从旁边驶过，红红的尾灯渐渐远去，白亮的头灯渐渐逼近，只是小镇却死一般沉寂。没有人在人行道上遛达、笑闹，不象那些悠闲的公民在亲切、温和又腐败的欧洲那样。我独享这单纯的夜和我的奇思怪想。
I pulled up at the curb and in darkness drank deep from a friendly flask.
我把车停在路边，黑暗里，抓起那只老朋友似的酒瓶，大口大口喝起来。
A wire receptacle on the curb was very particular about acceptable contents: Sweepings. Paper. No Garbage. Sherry-red letters of light marked a Camera Shop. A large thermometer with the name of a laxative quietly dwelt on the front of a drugstore. Rubinov's Jewelry Company had a display of artificial diamonds reflected in a red mirror. A lighted green clock swam in the linenish depths of Jiffy Jeff Laundry. On the other side of the street a garage said in its sleep -- genuflexion lubricity; and corrected itself to Gulflex Lubrication. An airplane, also gemmed by Rubinov, passed, droning, in the velvet heavens. How many small dead-of-night towns I had seen! This was not yet the last.
路边，一个废电线收容箱里的东西真是很特别：污物、废纸，没有垃圾。雪利酒般红通通的字母标出的是一家“照相器材商店”。一个巨大的温度计上刻着一种轻泻剂的名称，高居在一家医药商店的门顶上。鲁比诺夫的珠宝公司陈列了许多人造钻石，只用一面红色玻璃镜反射出来。一只绿光闪烁的钟悬在“吉费。杰夫洗在店”里，在亚麻色的深渊里来回摆动。街道的另一边，一个汽车修理厂在梦中说——跪拜平滑；然后又改说，盖尔弗雷克斯的润滑。一架飞机，同样装饰着鲁比诺夫的宝石，在天鹅绒殷的天堂上空飞过，留下嗡嗡的响声。这样夜色苍茫的小镇，我不知已见识过多少！而这个仍不是最后一个。
Let me dally a little, he is as good as destroyed. Some way further across the street, neon lights flickered twice slower than my heart: the outline of a restaurant sign, a large coffee-pot, kept bursting, every full second or so, into emerald life, and every time it went out, pink letters saying Fine Foods relayed it, but the pot could still be made out as a latent shadow teasing the eye before its next emerald resurrection. We made shadowgraphs. This furtive burg was not far from The Enchanted Hunters. I was weeping again, drunk on the impossible past.
让我放松一下吧，他实际上已等于被我杀了。街对面远处，霓虹灯以比我心跳慢两倍的速度眨着眼：那是一家餐馆的招牌，图案是一把巨大的咖啡壶，差不多每隔一秒钟它就突然现一下它艳绿色的面目，而每次显现完，紧接着就出现粉红色的字母：“美味食品”。但咖啡壶在下一次露面之前，它那个嘲弄人眼睛的潜伏阴影仍然清晰可辨。我们在演皮影戏。这个鬼影幢幢的城镇离“着魔猎人旅店不远。我又藩了泪，沉浸在无可挽回的过去中。