When I got up this morning the world was a chilled hollow of dead white and faint blues. The light that came through the windows was very queer, and it contrived to make the familiar business of splashing and shaving and brushing and dressing very queer too. Then the sun came out, and by the time I had sat down to breakfast it was shining bravely and flushing the snow with delicate pinks.The dining-room window had been transformed into a lovely Japanese print. The little plum-tree outside, with the faintly flushed snow lining its boughs and artfully disposed along its trunk, stood in full sunlight. An hour or two later everything was a cold glitter of white and blue. The little Japanese prints had all vanished.I looked out of my study window, over the garden, the meadow, to the low hills beyond, and the ground was one long glare, the sky was steely, and all the trees so many black and sinister shapes. There was indeed something curiously sinister about the whole prospect. It was as if our kindly country-side, closed to the very heart of England, had been turned into a cruel steppe. At any moment, it seemed, a body of horsemen might be seen breaking out from the black copse, so many instruments of tyranny, and shots might be heard and some distant patch of snow be reddened. It was that kind of landscape.

早上起来，我发现整个世界简直成了一座冰冷的空洞，颜色死白缥青。光线透过窗户照射进来颇呈异状，它设法让连泼洒、修面、刷牙、穿衣等这些日常举动也都带上一点儿异状。不一会儿太阳出来了，在我吃早餐的时候，艳美的阳光把白雪映得粉嫩。餐室的窗户已被幻变为一幅迷人的日本花布。窗外幼小的梅树一株，站在充足的阳光下，枝头覆着微微泛红的白雪，枝干风致绝佳。一两个小时之后，一切都化成寒光一片，白里透青。周围世界再次完全改变，刚才的日本印花布等已经不复存在。我探头窗外，向书房前面的花园、草地以及更远的低丘眺望，但觉大地光晶耀目，不可逼视，高天寒气凛冽，色作铁青，周围的一切树木也都呈现阴森恐怖之状。真的，周围的整个景象的确有一种难以名状的恐怖气氛。仿佛我们这块近在京畿的可爱郊原竟霎时变成一片严酷的旷野。仿佛随时随刻都能瞥见一批批武夫作为暴政的工具从那黑魈的丛林背后跃马杀出，都能听到枪杀之声，而远处一片土地上白雪遂被染作殷红。

 

 

1.queer adj.奇怪的；同性恋的；不舒服的；心智不平衡的

2.contrive vi．谋划；设法做到

3.splash vt.溅，泼；用……使液体飞溅

4.bravely adv.勇敢地；华丽地

5.bough n．大树枝

6.vanish vt.使不见，使消失

7.steppe n．大草原，[地理]干草原（特指西伯利亚一带没有树木的大草原）

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