《魔法師的外甥》第7期:開錯的門(3)

Although there was not really the least chance of anyone overhearing them, he leaned forward and almost whispered as he said:
"The Atlantean box contained something that had been brought from another world when our world was only just beginning."
"What?" asked Digory, who was now interested in spite of himself.
"Only dust," said Uncle Andrew. "Fine, dry dust. Nothing much to look at. Not much to show for a lifetime of toil, you might say. Ah, but when I looked at that dust (I took jolly good care not to touch it) and thought that every grain had once been in another world - I don't mean another planet, you know; they're part of our world and you could get to them if you went far enough - but a really Other World - another Nature another universe - somewhere you would never reach even if you travelled through the space of this universe for ever and ever - a world that could be reached only by Magic - well!" Here Uncle Andrew rubbed his hands till his knuckles cracked like fireworks.
"I knew," he went on, "that if only you could get it into the right form, that dust would draw you back to the place it had come from. But the difficulty was to get it into the right form. My earlier experiments were all failures. I tried them on guinea-pigs. Some of them only died. Some exploded like little bombs -"
"It was a jolly cruel thing to do," said Digory who had once had a guinea-pig of his own.
"How you do keep getting off the point!" said Uncle Andrew. "That's what the creatures were for. I'd bought them myself. Let me see - where was I? Ah yes. At last I succeeded in making the rings: the yellow rings. But now a new difficulty arose. I was pretty sure, now, that a yellow ring would send any creature that touched it into the Other Pace. But what would be the good of that if I couldn't get them back to tell me what they had found there?"
"And what about them?" said Digory. "A nice mess they'd be in if they couldn't get back!"
"You will keep on looking at everything from the wrong point of view," said Uncle Andrew with a look of impatience. "Can't you understand that the thing is a great experiment? The whole point of sending anyone into the Other Place is that I want to find out what it's like."
"Well why didn't you go yourself then?"
Digory had hardly ever seen anyone so surprised and offended as his Uncle did at this simple question. "Me? Me?" he exclaimed. "The boy must be mad! A man at my time of life, and in my state of health, to risk the shock and the dangers of being flung suddenly into a different universe? I never heard anything so preposterous in my life! Do you realize what you're saying? Think what Another World means - you might meet anything anything."
"And I suppose you've sent Polly into it then," said Digory. His cheeks were flaming with anger now. "And all I can say," he added, "even if you are my Uncle - is that you've behaved like a coward, sending a girl to a place you're afraid to go to yourself."

①由公元前十七世紀左右在小亞細亞及敘利亞建立的強大古國，後被亞述人征服。
②傳說中的島嶼．據說位於大西洋直布羅陀海映以西，後沉於海底。
“阿特蘭蒂斯盒子甲裝着來自另一個世界的東西，那時，我們的份界才混沌初開。”
”什麼。”迪格雷問，他這下不由自主地有了興趣。“只是土，”安德各舅舅說，“細膩、純淨、乾燥的土。沒什麼好看的，你可能會說，辛苦一輩子就得到這些土，實在不值得。然而，當我看着這些士時（我儘量小心，不去碰它），我想，每一粒土都來自另一世界——我不是說另一星球，你知道，而是我們這個星球的一部分，你走得夠遠就能到達——但的確是另一個世界——另一種大自然——另一個字宙——你即使在這個宇宙的空間不停地走下去也無法到達——是隻能鄭魔法纔去得了的世界——啊！”說到這裏，安德魯舅舅把手關節弄得木柴似的劈啪作響。
“我明白，”他繼續道，”如果找到正確的方法，這些土就會把你帶往它的世界。但正確方法卻很難找。我以前的試驗全失敗了。我用豚鼠來做試驗，有些死了，有些像小炸彈一樣爆炸了……”
“實在是太殘酷了。”迪格雷說，因爲他以前養過一隻豚鼠。
“你爲什麼總要打岔！”安德魯舅舅說，“這些動物就是用來做試驗的。我自己買的。我想想——說到哪兒了？啊對了，最後，我成功地做好了戒指：黃戒指。但現在，新的困難又來了。我敢肯定黃戒指可以將任何接觸到它的動物送到另一世界。但如果我不能讓它們回來向我彙報那邊的情形，又有什麼用呢？”
“它們怎麼辦呢？”迪格雷說，“要是它們沒法兒回來就會陷入困境！”
“你總是從錯誤的角度看問題，”安德各舅匆不耐煩地說，“難道你不明白這是項偉大的試驗嗎？我把任何動物送入另一世界都是爲了瞭解那兒是個什麼地方。”
“你爲什麼不自己去？”
迪格雷從未見過誰像他的舅舅聽到這個簡單問題時那麼驚訝，那麼生氣。“我？我嗚？”他大聲說，“這孩子一定是瘋了！我這把年紀，這種身體，要是突然被拋到另一個世界，能經受得仕那種震動和危險嗎，我這輩子還沒聽說過如此荒謬的事情！你知道你在說什麼嗎？想一想，另一個世界意味着什麼——你可能會遇到任何事——任何事。”
“我猜你一定把波莉送到那兒去了。”迪格雷說。他氣得滿臉緣紅。他接着說，“就算你是我舅舅，我也要說，你簡直像個膽小鬼，把一個女孩送到你自己都不敢去的地方。”