Page 11 - 血字的研究·四签名(外研社双语读库) (福尔摩斯探案全集)

jetty, with my health irretrievably ruined, but with
permission from a paternal government to spend the next

nine months in attempting to improve it.

伤痛让我看起来很憔悴，我经受的长期劳顿令我虚弱不堪，于是
我与一大批伤员一起，被转移到了位于白沙瓦的后方医院。在这里，

我的健康状况有所好转，已经康复到能在病房中稍稍走动，甚至还能
在阳台上晒晒太阳，但这时，我又病倒了，染上了我们印度属地的那

种倒霉病症——肠热病。有好几个月我的生命已无挽救的希望，当我
终于苏醒过来进入恢复期的时候，我的身体十分虚弱、消瘦，因此医

生会诊后决定一天也不许耽搁，立即将我送回英国。于是，我被送上
运兵船“奥龙特斯号”回国，一个月以后在朴次茅斯码头登岸，而我的

健康已经彻底损毁，无法恢复，但是好心的政府给了我九个月的假期

让我尽量恢复健康。

I had neither kith nor kin in England, and was therefore
as free as air—or as free as an income of eleven shillings

and sixpence a day will permit a man to be. Under such
circumstances, I naturally gravitated to London, that great
cesspool into which all the loungers and idlers of the Empire
are irresistibly drained. There I stayed for some time at a
private hotel in the Strand, leading a comfortless,

meaningless existence, and spending such money as I had,
considerably more freely than I ought. So alarming did the
state of my finances become, that I soon realized that I

must either leave the metropolis and rusticate somewhere
in the country, or that I must make a complete alteration in
my style of living. Choosing the latter alternative, I began by
making up my mind to leave the hotel, and to take up my
quarters in some less pretentious and less expensive

domicile.

我在英国没有亲友，所以像空气一样自由自在——或者说像一个
每天收入十一先令六便士的人一样自由自在。这种情况下，我很自然

地被吸引到伦敦这个大污水池里去了，这个国家所有游民、懒汉也都

无可避免地被吸引到这里来。我在伦敦斯特兰大道的一家私人旅馆住