In the evening we had a dance. Cathy begged that he might be liberated then, as Isabella Linton had no partner: her entreaties were vain, and I was appointed to supply the deficiency. We got rid of all gloom in the excitement of the exercise, and our pleasure was increased by the arrival of the Gimmerton band, mustering fifteen strong: a trumpet, a trombone, clarionets, bassoons, French horns, and a bass viol, besides singers. They go the rounds of all the respectable houses, and receive contributions every Christmas, and we esteemed it a first-rate treat to hear them. After the usual carols had been sung, we set them to songs and glees. Mrs. Earnshaw loved the music, and so they gave us plenty.

晚上，我们举行了舞会。凯西请求把他放出来，因为伊莎贝拉·林顿没有舞伴，但是她的努力没有什么作用，而我则被叫去填补了那个空缺。劳作的郁闷被这个令人令人兴奋的消息驱散了，更让我们高兴的是 GIMMEERTON 乐队的到来，乐队有 15 之多，（乐器有）喇叭，长号，单簧管， 巴颂管，法国号，古提琴，还有一些歌手。他们在有钱人家巡回演出，每个圣诞节的时候都会受到捐款，而我们则认为看他们演出是至高的享受。在颂歌唱毕之后，我们让他们尽兴的演唱。因为恩肖太太喜欢这些音乐，所以他们唱了不少。

Catherine loved it too: but she said it sounded sweetest at the top of the steps, and she went up in the dark: I followed. They shut the house door below, never noting our absence, it was so full of people. She made no stay at the stairs'-head, but mounted farther, to the garret where Heathcliff was confined, and called him. He stubbornly declined answering for a while: she persevered, and finally persuaded him to hold communion with her through the boards. I let the poor things converse unmolested, till I supposed the songs were going to cease, and the singers to get some refreshment: then I clambered up the ladder to warn her. Instead of finding her outside, I heard her voice within. The little monkey had crept by the skylight of one garret, along the roof, into the skylight of the other, and it was with the utmost difficulty I could coax her out again. When she did come, Heathcliff came with her, and she insisted that I should take him into the kitchen, as my fellow-servant had gone to a neighbour's, to be removed from the sound of our 'devil's psalmody,' as it pleased him to call it. I told them I intended by no means to encourage their tricks: but as the prisoner had never broken his fast since yesterday's dinner, I would wink at his cheating Mr. Hindley that once. He went down: I set him a stool by the fire, and offered him a quantity of good things: but he was sick and could eat little, and my attempts to entertain him were thrown away. He leant his two elbows on his knees, and his chin on his hands and remained rapt in dumb meditation. On my inquiring the subject of his thoughts, he answered gravely - 'I'm trying to settle how I shall pay Hindley back. I don't care how long I wait, if I can only do it at last. I hope he will not die before I do!'

凯瑟琳也很喜欢，但是她说在楼梯顶上去听会更好听，于是她转身走进了黑暗中。我也跟着她出来了。楼下的们关着，而且到处都是人，所以也没有人发现我们的离开。她并没有在楼梯顶停下来，而是向更上面走去，走向关着希斯克利夫的阁楼，并叫他的名字。一开始，他倔强的不应声，但在她的一再坚持下，他终于隔着门板答应她。我没有去打扰这对可怜的小东西的谈话，直到我觉得音乐声渐渐停止，歌手中场休息，我才爬上楼去提醒她。但是门外根本没有人，我听见她的声音从门里传了出来。这只小猴子从一个阁楼的天窗爬了进去，严重房顶，爬进了另一个天窗。我费了九牛二虎之力才把她哄出来。当她出来时，她把希斯克利夫也带出来了。她坚持要我把他带到厨房去，因为我的助手已经去到邻居家去了，为的是远离“该死的”的颂歌，他喜欢这样说。我告诉他们，我根本不想帮他们耍这样的把戏，但是看在被关禁闭的人从昨天晚上到现在一直都在绝食的分上，这次对于他欺骗欣德利先生的事就睁只眼闭只眼了。但是他没有精神了，吃不下什么东西，我也没有心情再去逗他。他把双肘支在膝盖上，双手托着下巴，一言不发的想着什么。当我问及他在想什么时，他严肃的回答道，“我在想我该怎么报复欣德利。我不在乎我要等多长时间，如果我最终能做道的话。我希望他不要在我报复之前死掉。”

'For shame, Heathcliff!' said I. 'It is for God to punish wicked people; we should learn to forgive.'

“真丢脸，希斯克利夫！”我说，“惩罚坏人是主的事情，我们应该学着原谅别人。”

'No, God won't have the satisfaction that I shall,' he returned. 'I only wish I knew the best way! Let me alone, and I'll plan it out: while I'm thinking of that I don't feel pain.'

“不，主不会有我的那种满足感的，”他回答道，“我只想知道最好的办法。让我一个人呆在。我一定要想出来。我想这个的时候，我就感觉不道疼痛了。”

'But, Mr. Lockwood, I forget these tales cannot divert you. I'm annoyed how I should dream of chattering on at such a rate; and your gruel cold, and you nodding for bed! I could have told Heathcliff's history, all that you need hear, in half a dozen words.'

“但是，洛克伍德先生，我忘记了这些故事并不能让你舒服。和你在养唠叨真是令人讨厌，而且你粥也凉了，你也打瞌睡了。关于希斯克利夫，我本该几个只简单的说说你该知道的就够了。”

Thus interrupting herself, the housekeeper rose, and proceeded to lay aside her sewing; but I felt incapable of moving from the hearth, and I was very far from nodding. 'Sit still, Mrs. Dean,' I cried; 'do sit still another half-hour. You've done just right to tell the story leisurely. That is the method I like; and you must finish it in the same style. I am interested in every character you have mentioned, more or less.'

这样管家站了起来，中断了她的故事，准备放下她的针线活。但是我却没有力气走到壁炉那边，但我也还没有到打瞌睡的程度。“坐着别动，迪恩太太。”我喊道，“请再坐半个小时。你这样悠闲的讲故事的方法非常好，这是我喜欢的方式，而且你必须以这样的方式结束这个故事。我对你说到的每个人物都很感兴趣，或多或少是这样的。”

'The clock is on the stroke of eleven, sir.'

“钟已经敲了 11 下了，先生。”

'No matter - I'm not accustomed to go to bed in the long hours. One or two is early enough for a person who lies till ten.'

“不要紧的。我不习惯在床上躺很长时间。一两点对于一个早上睡到十点的人来说是早的了。”

'You shouldn't lie till ten. There's the very prime of the morning gone long before that time. A person who has not done one-half his day's work by ten o'clock, runs a chance of leaving the other half undone.'

“你不该睡到 10 点。早上最宝贵的时间在这之前就浪费了。一个人如果在早上 10 点之前没有把他一天的工作完成一半，就有可能今天的工作有一半完成不了。”

'Nevertheless, Mrs. Dean, resume your chair; because to-morrow I intend lengthening the night till afternoon. I prognosticate for myself an obstinate cold, at least.'

“尽管如此，迪恩太太，请你坐下。因为我明天决定睡到下午再起来。我断言我的感冒非常严重，肯定。”

'I hope not, sir. Well, you must allow me to leap over some three years; during that space Mrs. Earnshaw - '

“我希望不会，先生。那么，你得让我跳过三年左右，那期间，恩肖太太 … ”

'No, no, I'll allow nothing of the sort! Are you acquainted with the mood of mind in which, if you were seated alone, and the cat licking its kitten on the rug before you, you would watch the operation so intently that puss's neglect of one ear would put you seriously out of temper?'

“不，不，我不同意那样！你是否熟悉这样的心情，如果你一个人坐着，看着猫咪在你面前舔它的小猫咪，你看得非常得专注以致于猫咪漏掉了一只耳朵都会让你大动肝火。”

'A terribly lazy mood, I should say.'

“慵懒得可怕，我会这样说。”

'On the contrary, a tiresomely active one. It is mine, at present; and, therefore, continue minutely. I perceive that people in these regions acquire over people in towns the value that a spider in a dungeon does over a spider in a cottage, to their various occupants; and yet the deepened attraction is not entirely owing to the situation of the looker-on. They DO live more in earnest, more in themselves, and less in surface, change, and frivolous external things. I could fancy a love for life here almost possible; and I was a fixed unbeliever in any love of a year's standing. One state resembles setting a hungry man down to a single dish, on which he may concentrate his entire appetite and do it justice; the other, introducing him to a table laid out by French cooks: he can perhaps extract as much enjoyment from the whole; but each part is a mere atom in his regard and remembrance.'

“恰恰相反，是活跃的让人令人讨厌的活跃。现在，我的脑子就是这样的，因此，请你详细的讲下去吧。我发现这一带的人对和他们生活在不同地方的城里人的态度，就像是地牢里的蜘蛛对茅舍里的蜘蛛的态度一样。我如此感兴趣，并非是处于旁观的角度。因为他们的生活的确更热忱，更自我，不浮于表面，不善变和不易受外界干扰。我觉得在这里也许存在可持续一生的爱情，而我曾是一个不相信任何爱情可以持续一年以上的人。就好像给你一个饥饿的人一份饭，而他会细细品位，充分的享有这份饭；相反，如果你给他一桌子的法国大餐，他也许会从中挑选最好吃的，但是等他回想起来，每样都是那么微不足道。”

'Oh! here we are the same as anywhere else, when you get to know us,' observed Mrs. Dean, somewhat puzzled at my speech.

“啊 ! 当你了解我们后，你就知道我们和其他地方的人没有什么区别。”迪恩太太说道，看起来对我的话感到迷惑。

'Excuse me,' I responded; 'you, my good friend, are a striking evidence against that assertion. Excepting a few provincialisms of slight consequence, you have no marks of the manners which I am habituated to consider as peculiar to your class. I am sure you have thought a great deal more than the generality of servants think. You have been compelled to cultivate your reflective faculties for want of occasions for frittering your life away in silly trifles.'

“抱歉，”我回答道，“我的好朋友，你是对抗这种说法的鲜活例子。除了说话略带口音之外，你身上没有那些我习惯把人归到你这个阶层的特点。我想，比起普通的仆人而言，你肯定要有想法多了。你一直努力培养自己的思考能力，为了不一辈子为这些烦人的琐事而活。 ”

Mrs. Dean laughed.

迪恩太太大笑。

'I certainly esteem myself a steady, reasonable kind of body,' she said; 'not exactly from living among the hills and seeing one set of faces, and one series of actions, from year's end to year's end; but I have undergone sharp discipline, which has taught me wisdom; and then, I have read more than you would fancy, Mr. Lockwood. You could not open a book in this library that I have not looked into, and got something out of also: unless it be that range of Greek and Latin, and that of French; and those I know one from another: it is as much as you can expect of a poor man's daughter. However, if I am to follow my story in true gossip's fashion, I had better go on; and instead of leaping three years, I will be content to pass to the next summer - the summer of 1778, that is nearly twenty-three years ago.'

“我当然认为我自己是一个稳重，有理性的人，”她说道，“并不完全是为住在这山里，看着同样的脸，同样的事，一年又一年，而我经过非常严格的训练，这赋予了智慧。洛克伍德先生，你想不出来我读了多少书。在这书房里，你找不到一本我没有翻过的书，也不可能翻出来什么我没有见过的东西，除非是希腊文和拉丁文的东西，还又法文的东西；其他的我一本本的都看过了，你想象不到一个穷人的女儿会这么多。好了，如果我要继续用闲聊的方式讲这个故事的话，我看我的赶紧开始了。不从三年后开始，我觉得从第二年的夏天开始好了。那是 1778 年的夏天，大概 23 年以前的事情了。”