【有声英语文学名著】英国病人 13

He is watching her, waiting for her to say more, but there is nothing more about the English patient to be said.Maybe this is the way to come out of a war, he thinks. A burned man to care for, some sheets to wash in a fountain, a room painted like a garden.

“If you are staying,” she says, “we are going to need more food. I have planted vegetables, we have a sack of beans, but we need some chickens.” She is looking at Caravaggio, knowing his skills from the past, not quite saying it. 

 

“I lost my nerve,” he says. 

 

“I’ll come with you, then,” Hana offers. “We’ll do it together. You can teach me to steal, show me what to do.” 

 

“You don’t understand. I lost my nerve.” 

 

“Why?” 

“I was caught. They nearly chopped off my rucking hands.” 

At night sometimes, when the English patient is asleep or even after she has read alone outside his door for a while, she goes looking for Caravaggio. He will be in the garden lying along the stone rim¹ of the fountain looking up at stars, or she will come across him on a lower terrace. She is always made to feel that she is the one who has found him,this man who knows darkness, who when drunk used to claim he was brought up by a family of owls².Two of them on a promontory³, Florence and her lights in the distance.

“Were you a spy then?”  She asked him.

 

“Not quite.” 

 

He feels more comfortable, more disguised from her in the dark garden, 

“At times we were sent in to steal. Here I was, an Italian and a thief. They couldn’t believe their luck, they were falling over themselves to use me. There were about four or five of us. I did well for some time. 

1 rim   

n.(圆物的)边，轮缘；边界

参考例句：

• The water was even with the rim of the basin.盆里的水与盆边平齐了。
• She looked at him over the rim of her glass.她的目光越过玻璃杯的边沿看着他。

2 owls   

n.猫头鹰( owl的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• 'Clumsy fellows,'said I; 'they must still be drunk as owls.' “这些笨蛋，”我说，“他们大概还醉得像死猪一样。” 来自英汉文学 - 金银岛
• The great majority of barn owls are reared in captivity. 大多数仓鸮都是笼养的。 来自辞典例句

3 promontory   

n.海角；岬

参考例句：

• Genius is a promontory jutting out of the infinite.天才是茫茫大地突出的岬角。
• On the map that promontory looks like a nose,naughtily turned up.从地图上面，那个海角就像一只调皮地翘起来的鼻子。