第38章 天堂花園 The Garden of Paradise(第2/27 頁)

why did Adam eat the forbidden fruit?” thought the king’s son: “if I had been there it would never have happened, and there would have been no sin in the world.”

天堂花園佔據了他所有的思緒，直到他十七歲。

the garden of paradise occupied all his thoughts till he reached his seventeenth year.

一天，他獨自在樹林裡散步，這是他最大的樂趣，這時夜幕降臨了。

one day he was walking alone in the wood, which was his greatest pleasure, when evening came on.

烏雲聚集，大雨傾盆而下，彷彿天空是一個噴水口；四周一片漆黑，就像午夜的井底一樣；有時他在光滑的草地上滑倒，或者被從多石的地面凸出來的石頭絆倒。

the clouds gathered, and the rain poured down as if the sky had been a waterspout; and it was as dark as the bottom of a well at midnight; sometimes he slipped over the smooth grass, or fell over stones that projected out of the rocky ground.

一切都溼漉漉的，可憐的王子身上沒有一根乾的線頭。

Every thing was dripping with moisture, and the poor prince had not a dry thread about him.

最後他不得不爬過巨大的石塊，厚厚的苔蘚中湧出泉水。

he was obliged at last to climb over great blocks of stone, with water spurting from the thick moss.

他開始感到非常虛弱，這時他聽到一種非常奇特的呼嘯聲，看到面前有一個大山洞，洞裡閃耀著光芒。

he began to feel quite faint, when he heard a most singular rushing noise, and saw before him a large cave, from which came a blaze of light.

在山洞中央，一堆巨大的火在燃燒，一隻高貴的雄鹿，長著分岔的鹿角，被放在兩根松樹樹幹之間的烤肉叉上。

In the middle of the cave an immense fire was burning, and a noble stag, with its branching horns, was placed on a spit between the trunks of two pine-trees.

它在火前慢慢轉動著，一個年老的女人坐在旁邊，她高大強壯，就像一個喬裝打扮的男人，不