日本动画大师宫崎骏新作《借东西的小人阿莉埃蒂》即将在2010年上映，故事情节即是根据这个儿童文学作品《The Borrowers》改编。共20章，译自英文版。由于水平有限，错误肯定很多，望指正。等译完了再和中文版比较一下，全面修改。

书名：（中译名：地板下的小人、借东西的地下小人）

作者：Mary Norton（英）

{dy}章

梅太太住在凯特父母在伦敦宅子里，她拥有两个房间，我猜，她是他们的远亲。她的卧室在一楼，起居室是另外一间房，通常被称为“早餐屋”。此时的早餐屋，正是清晨时分，阳光温柔地洒在桌上的土司和果子酱上，不过到了晚上，这光亮就会逐渐消弱，凝聚成一片奇异的银色，这就是黄昏时的景色。本来在这个时候会有一种悲哀的气氛，但对于小孩凯特来说，她恰恰喜欢那样。她趁着下午茶的间隙偷偷溜进梅太太的房间，梅太太会教她编织技术。

梅太太很老了，身体关节都很不灵活，她虽不是严苛的人，但她很内心却坚实。凯特从不敢跟梅太太撒野，不会在她面前衣冠不整，也不会乱耍任性，所以梅太太也乐意教她一些编织以外的事情，比如怎么样把毛线卷成球形，怎么样规划织补衣物，怎样清理抽屉和放置物品等等一系列持家常识。

“孩子，你在干嘛呢？”有{yt}凯特坐在椅垫上发愣，梅太太问道，“你该不会走神了吧，为啥老不说话？”

“哦，没有，”凯特拉了一下鞋扣说，“我不知道钩针放哪去了。”他们正在做毛纺方形床被，还剩下三十个要做。“我记得我是放在这儿了，”她着急地说，“我就把它放在书架的下面，就在我的床边。”

“在书架下？”梅太太说，“靠近地板么？”

“是的，但是我在地板上找过了，地毯下面也没有。羊毛线都还在这儿，就是我刚才放的地方。”

“哦亲爱的，”梅太太平静地答道：“该不会‘他们’也在这儿吧。”

“他们？”凯特不解。

“就是借东西的小人儿，”淡淡的火光中，梅太太微微一笑。

凯特觉得有些害怕了。“他们是那些人么？”她想了一会问道。

“哪些人？”

“就是那些，另外的一些人，他们也住在这里，然后会拿走一些东西？”

梅太太停下手中的活计，问：“你相信吗？”

“我也不清楚，”凯特说，用力拉着自己的鞋扣。“本来是不相信的。但有时候，我又觉得很有可能。”

“为什么你觉得有可能？”梅太太问。

“因为老有东西莫名其妙不见了。比如，别针之类的。工厂一直都在生产别针，然后每天都会有人买别针回家，但不知怎么了，每当在你需要用的时候，老是找不到它。它们都到哪去了？现在？针也是”，她继续说道，“我妈妈买的针加起来差不多有好几百个了，但都在这家里消失了。”

“恩，都消失了。”梅表示同意。

“另外还有其他一些我们买过的东西。一次又一次的买。比如铅笔啊，箱子啊，图章啊，还有xx、别针、顶针之类的好多东西…”

“还有大头针，”梅补充，“还有吸水纸。”

“是的，吸水纸，”凯特说，“但没有大头针吧？”

“那你就错了。”梅太太说，她继续开始工作：“偷走大头针是有缘由的。”

凯特紧盯着梅太太问：“什么理由？”

“有两个。其一，大头针是个很有力的武器，”梅太太突然笑起来，“不过我们说这些太无聊了，这都不一定是真的。”

“但请继续讲吧，”凯特问，“告诉我你知道有大头钉的，难道你曾经见过他们拿走？”

梅太太瞥了眼凯特，“恩，是的。”

“我不是说大头钉，你曾经见过那个借东西的小人儿？”凯特急切地问道。

梅太太深吸了一口气，说道：“没有，我没有见过他们。”

“但是一定有人见过的，”凯特不依不饶：“你一定是知道的，我看得出来！”

“嘘！”梅太太说，“不要太大声了。”她低头凝视着凯特那充满好奇的脸，接着她笑了一下，把视线移开，讲道：“我有一个弟弟……”

凯特跪在坐垫上接话道：“然后他曾经见过那小人儿！”

“我也不知道，”梅太太摇摇头，她把床被放在膝盖上摊平，“他是个爱开玩笑的人。他曾经对我姐姐和我讲了很多不可思议的事情，{zh1}他被人杀死了。”梅轻轻地讲道，“好多年前，他在西北边界上当上校，他死后被人称为英雄…”

“他是你{wy}的弟弟么？”

“是的，他是我们的小弟弟。我想那就是为什么——”她回想了一会儿，笑了笑：“对，那就是为什么他老跟我们说一些怪事。他嫉妒我们，我猜，是因为我们大一些，能读更多的故事。他想要在我们面前留下深刻印象，想让我们吃惊。”梅望着那团火光，“可能因为我们从小在印度长大，经常听到见到一些神秘的，想魔法一般的奇迹事件，所以我们相信他能看到一些我们不能看到的东西。有时候也知道他在耍弄我们，但有时候却不那么确定…”她向前倾了一下，把散乱的灰尘扫进火炉中，之后擦擦手，重新望着火焰。“弟弟并不是那种很强壮的小男孩，他{dy}次从印度回来的时候，就得了风湿热。他休学了整整一学期，{zh1}被送到乡下大姑妈的家里疗养。之后我曾去那看过，那是一栋很诡异很古老的宅子…”梅把刷子挂在铜制挂钩上，用手怕擦了擦手上的灰尘，然后继续开始缝纫。“{zh0}点上灯”，她说。

“别停，”凯特伸头过来乞求道，“请讲下去吧，告诉我——”

“但我已经告诉你了。”

“没有啊，那件旧房子并不是他看见的那东西，他看见的是…？”

梅太太笑起来：“他在哪看到的小人儿？对，这就是他曾告诉我们的…他让我们相信的…要补充的是，似乎他不仅仅见过那些小人，还很了解他们，他成了他们生活中的一部分，事实上，你可以说他也变成了一个借东西的地下小人儿…”

“天呐，我想知道。请回忆一下，从头跟我讲讲！”

“我确实都记得。”梅太太说，“真是够奇怪的，我对这件事的印象比其他真实发生过的事情还要深刻，或许这就是一件真实的事。我也不确定。是这样的，在回印度的路上，我和弟弟住在一个船舱，姐姐则和我们的家庭教师住在一间。这是一个很炎热的夜晚，热得我们都没法睡着，所以我弟弟就跟我讲了好久，在那个地方发生的事，复述了那些对话，再一遍遍地跟我讲了他们是怎么样的，他们在干嘛等等…”

“他们？他们是谁？”

“霍米莉，波德还有小阿丽艾迪，那些小人儿。”

“波德？”

“是的，甚至这些名字都不准确。他们认为他们自己有不同于人类的名字，当然你可以统称他们为‘借东西的小人儿’。他们所有的东西都是借来的，没有一样真正属于自己的东西。除了这些，我弟弟还说，他们很神经质也很自负，觉得自己拥有了整个世界。”

“什么意思呢？”

“他们认为人类仅仅是创造了一个用奴隶去工作、让他们利用的社会。至少，这是他们相互之间说的。但我弟弟却说，在私底下，他们其实是很害怕人类的。他认为正是因为他们害怕，才长得这么小。一代比一代长得小，越发难以发现。在远古时代，在英格兰的一些地区，似乎我们的祖先就曾公开谈论过这些小人儿。”

“恩，”凯特说，“我明白了。”

“现在，我猜，”梅太太放慢语速讲道，“如果他们还存在，那你只能在很古老很寂静的房子里找到他们，那些房子坐落在深山之中，人们生活在那里。了解人类的日常活动就是他们的安全措施。他们必须知道每一个房间的用途以及何时会被用到。如若住在那的人很随便，或是有蛮横无理的小孩儿，或有宠物这样的家庭成员，那他们都不会在那住太久。”

“那幢很特别的老宅，当然就成为了小人们理想的聚居地。尽管他们当中还是有人担心一些无谓的琐事。索菲姑妈二十年前在打猎的时候出了意外，所以一直都卧床不起，剩下的人就只有厨师戴维太太，一个园丁，偶尔有女仆来。我的弟弟在得了湿热病之后也是在床上躺了很久，所以在他来的{dy}周，小人儿甚至都不知道他的存在。”

“弟弟睡在一个老旧的育儿室内，另一边是一个教室。当时教室里堆满了被单和一些废弃物，一个被打碎了的锁线装订机，一个写字台，一个裁缝的模型，一个桌台，另外还有几把椅子，一台被孩子们弹坏的钢琴。索菲的孩子们长大后，要不结婚，要不病死，或者离开了。育儿室延展出去就是教室，我弟弟躺在床上就能看到教室火炉上方的墙壁上挂着的滑铁卢战役油画。角落里有一个玻璃门柜橱，架子上放着一套雅致老旧的茶具。晚上，如果教室的门是开着的，他能借着光线一直看到走廊尽头。每天傍晚他都会看到戴维太太端着一盘饼干和玻璃杯到索菲姑妈那去，在路上她会停下来把煤油灯调暗，直到它发出蓝色的火焰。我弟弟看着她跺步走过走廊，下楼，直到她消失在楼梯扶手之间。”

“走廊下面，在大厅处，有一个大钟，夜晚能听见那钟整点敲击的声音。那是一台有摆的落地大座钟，已经非常古老了。”莱顿巴扎德的福瑞斯先生每个月都会来这里上发条，以前是他父亲来，最早是他曾叔父来。已经八十年了，他们说，这座钟从来没有停过，它到底走了多久，没人知道，不过肯定比八十年还要久。最神奇的就是，它从来没被移动过，紧贴着壁板安置着，基座是一圈干净的石台，我弟弟说，上面放着一些玫瑰花。

“然后呢，在座钟的下面，有一个洞…”

原文：

Chapter One

Mrs. May lived in two rooms in Kate's parents' house in London; she was, I think, some kind of relation. Her bedroom was on the first floor, and her sitting room was a room which, as part of the house, was called "the breakfast-room." Now breakfast-rooms are all right in the morning when the sun streams in on the toast and marmalade, but by afternoon they seem to vanish a little and to fill with a strange silvery light, their own twilight; there is a kind of sadness in them then, but as a child it was a sadness Kate liked. She would creep in to Mrs. May just before tea-time and Mrs. May would teach her to crochet.
 Mrs. May was old, her joints were stiff, and she was-not strict exactly, but she had that inner certainty which does instead. Kate was never "wild" with Mrs. May, nor untidy, nor self-willed; and Mrs. May taught her many things besides crochet: how to wind wool into an egg-shaped ball; how to run-and-fell and plan a darn; how to tidy a drawer and to lay, like a blessing, above the contents, a sheet of rustling tissue against the dust.
 "Where's your work, child?" asked Mrs. May one day, when Kate sat hunched and silent upon the hassock. "You mustn't sit there dreaming. Have you lost your tongue?"
 "No," said Kate, pulling at her shoe button, "I've lost the crochet hook." They were making a bed-quilt-in woolen squares: there were thirty still to do. "I know where I put it," she went on hastily; "I put it on the bottom shelf of the bookcase just beside my bed."
 "On the bottom shelf?" repeated Mrs. May, her own heedle flicking steadily in the firelight. "Near the floor?"
 "Yes," said Kate, "but I looked on the floor. Under the rug. Everywhere. The wool was still there though. Just where I'd left it."
 "Oh dear," exclaimed Mrs. May lightly, "don't say they're in this house too!"
 "That what are?" asked Kate.
 "The Borrowers," said Mrs. May, and in the half light she seemed to smile.
 Kate stared a little fearfully. "Are there such things?" she asked after a moment.
 "As what?"
 "As people, other people, living in a house who . . . borrow things?"
 Mrs. May laid down her work. "What do you think?" she asked.
 "I don't know," Kate said, pulling hard at her shoe button. "There can't be. And yet"-she raised her head-"and yet sometimes I think there must be."
 "Why do you think there must be?" asked Mrs. May.
 "Because of all the things that disappear. Safety pins, for instance. Factories go on making safety pins, and every day people go on buying safety pins and yet, somehow, there never is a safety pin just when you want one. Where are they all? Now, at this minute? Where do they go to? Take needles," she went on. "All the needles my mother ever bought-there must be hundreds-can't just be lying about this house."
 "Not lying about the house, no," agreed Mrs. May.
 "And all the other things we keep on buying. Again and again and again. Like pencils and match boxes and sealing-wax and hairpins and drawing pins and thimbles-"
 "And hat pins," put in Mrs. May, "and blotting paper."
 "Yes, blotting paper," agreed Kate, "but not hat pins."
 "That's where you're wrong," said Mrs. May, and she picked up her work again. "There was a reason for hat pins."
 Kate stared. "A reason?" she repeated. "I mean-what kind of a reason?"
 "Well, there were two reasons really. A hat pin is a very useful weapon and"-Mrs. May laughed suddenly- "but it all sounds such nonsense and"-she hesitated-"it was so very long ago!"
 "But tell me," said Kate, "tell me how you know about the hat pin. Did you ever see one?"
 Mrs. May threw her a startled glance. "Well, yes-" she began.
 "Not a hat pin," exclaimed Kate impatiently, "a-what-ever-you-called-them-a Borrower? "
 Mrs. May drew a sharp breath. "No," she said quickly, "I never saw one."
 "But someone else saw one," cried Kate, "and you know about it. I can see you do!"
 "Hush," said Mrs. May, "no need to shout!" She gazed downwards at the upturned face and then she smiled and her eyes slid away into distance. "I had a brother-" she began uncertainly.
 Kate knelt upon the hassock. "And he saw them!"
 "I don't know," said Mrs. May, shaking her head, "I just don't know!" She smoothed out her work upon her knee. "He was such a tease. He told us so many things-my sister and me-impossible things. He was killed," she added gently, "many years ago now, on the North-West Frontier. He became colonel of his regiment. He died what they call 'a hero's death' . . ."
 "Was he your only brother?"
 "Yes, and he was our little brother. I think that was why"-she thought for a moment, still smiling to herself- "yes, why he told us such impossible stories, such strange imaginings. He was jealous, I think, because we were older -and because we could read better. He wanted to impress us; he wanted, perhaps, to shock us. And yet"-she looked into the fire-"there was something about him-perhaps because we were brought up in India among mystery and magic and legend-something that made us think that he saw things that other people could not see; sometimes we'd know he was teasing, but at other times-well, we were not so sure. . . ." She leaned forward and, in her tidy way, brushed a fan of loose ashes under the grate, then, brush in hand, she stared again at the fire. "He wasn't a very strong little boy: the first time he came home from India he got rheumatic fever. He missed a whole term at school and was sent away to the country to get over it. To the house of a great-aunt. Later I went there myself. It was a strange old house. . . ." She hung up the brush on its brass hook and, dusting her hands on her handkerchief, she picked up her work. "Better light the lamp," she said.
 "Not yet," begged Kate, leaning forward. "Please go on. Please tell me-"
 "But I've told you."
 "No, you haven't. This old house-wasn't that where he saw - he saw . . . ?"
 Mrs. May laughed. "Where he saw the Borrowers? Yes, that's what he told us ... what he'd have us believe. And, what's more, it seems that he didn't just see them but that he got to know them very well; that he became part of their lives, as it were; in fact, you might almost say that he became a borrower himself. . . ."
 "Oh, do tell me. Please. Try to remember. Right from the very beginning!"
 "But I do remember," said Mrs. May. "Oddly enough I remember it better than many real things which have happened. Perhaps it was a real thing. I just don't know. You see, on the way back to India my brother and I had to share a cabin-my sister used to sleep with our governess -and, on those very hot nights, often we couldn't sleep; and my brother would talk for hours and hours, going over old ground, repeating conversations, telling me details again and again-wondering how they were and what they were doing and-"
 "They? Who were they-exactly?"
 "Homily, Pod, and little Arrietty."
 "Pod?"
 "Yes, even their names were never quite right. They imagined they had their own names-quite different from human names-but with half an ear you could tell they were borrowed. Even Uncle Hendreary's and Eggletina's. Everything they had was borrowed; they had nothing of their own at all. Nothing. In spite of this, my brother said, they were touchy and conceited, and thought they owned the world."
 "How do you mean?"
 "They thought human beings were just invented to do the dirty work-great slaves put there for them to use. At least, that's what they told each other. But my brother said that, underneath, he thought they were frightened. It was because they were frightened, he thought, that they had grown so small. Each generation had become smaller and smaller, and more and more hidden. In the olden days, it seems, and in some parts of England, our ancestors talked quite openly about the 'little people.'"
 "Yes," said Kate, "I know."
 "Nowadays, I suppose," Mrs. May went on slowly, "if they exist at all, you would only find them in houses which are old and quiet and deep in the country-and where the human beings live to a routine. Routine is their safeguard. They must know which rooms are to be used and when. They do not stay long where there are careless people, or unruly children, or certain household pets.
 "This particular old house, of course, was ideal-although as far as some of them were concerned, a trifle cold and empty. Great-Aunt Sophy was bedridden, through a hunting accident some twenty years before, and as for other human beings there was only Mrs. Driver the cook, Crampfurl the gardener, and, at rare intervals, an odd housemaid or such. My brother, too, when he went there after rheumatic fever, had to spend long hours in bed, and for those first weeks it seems the Borrowers did not know of his existence.
 "He slept in the old night-nursery, beyond the schoolroom. The schoolroom, at that time, was sheeted and shrouded and filled with junk-odd trunks, a broken sewing-machine, a desk, a dressmaker's dummy, a table, some chairs, and a disused pianola-as the children who had used it, Great-Aunt Sophy's children, had long since grown up, married, died, or gone away. The night-nursery opened out of the schoolroom and, from his bed, my brother could see the oil painting of the battle of Waterloo which hung above the schoolroom fireplace and, on the wall, a corner cupboard with glass doors in which was set out, on hooks and shelves, a doll's tea-service-very delicate and old. At night, if the schoolroom door was open, he had a view down the lighted passage which led to the head of the stairs, and it would comfort him to see, each evening at dusk, Mrs. Driver appear at the head of the stairs and cross the passage carrying a tray for Aunt Sophy with Bath Oliver biscuits and the tall, cut-glass decanter of Fine Old Pale Madeira. On her way out Mrs. Driver would pause and lower the gas jet in the passage to a dim, blue flame, and then he would watch her as she stumped away downstairs, sinking slowly out of sight between the banisters.
 "Under this passage, in the hall below, there was a clock, and through the night he would hear it strike the hours. It was a grandfather clock and very old. Mr. Frith of Leighton Buzzard came each month to wind it, as his father had come before him and his great-uncle before that. For eighty years, they said (and to Mr. Frith's certain knowledge), it had not stopped and, as far as anyone could tell, for as many years before that. The great thing was-that it must never be moved. It stood against the wainscot, and the stone flags around it had been washed so often that a little platform, my brother said, rose up inside.
 "And, under this clock, below the wainscot, there was a hole. . . ."