培根修道士和黄铜头像（6）（2/2）
《泰西故事30篇》作者：李汉昭 2017-04-10 17:32
the room. The brazen head lay on the floor, shattered into a thousand pieces.
“Miles! Miles!” cried the distracted friar.
The serving man slowly raised himself on his knees and groaned.
“Did the head speak?” asked the master. “Tell me quickly.” “Yes, master, he did speak,” muttered Miles, shaking with terror. “But he said nothing worth remembering.”
“What did he say?”
“Why, at first he said, ‘Time is,’ and as that is a secret which everybody knows, I urged him to say more. Presently he spoke up again and said, ‘Time was’; and then, before I could run and call you, he roared out, ‘Time is past,’ and fell over against me with such a crash as to knock my senses out of me.”
“Oh, wretched fool!” cried Friar Bacon, angrily pushing the man from the room. “Leave my sight! your foolishness has caused the wreck of all my hopes. The labor of seven years is lost. Had I been wakened, I would have set machinery in motion to prevent this ruin; and the brazen head would have told me how to do most wonderful things. It would have told me how to build a wall around England and make her the strongest of all nations. It would have told me—But now, all is lost. I will make no more experiments; I will burn my books; I will close my study. The rest of my life shall be spent, like that of any other monk, in the quiet cell of a monastery; and when I die my poor name will be forgotten.”
“Miles! Miles!” cried the distracted friar.
The serving man slowly raised himself on his knees and groaned.
“Did the head speak?” asked the master. “Tell me quickly.” “Yes, master, he did speak,” muttered Miles, shaking with terror. “But he said nothing worth remembering.”
“What did he say?”
“Why, at first he said, ‘Time is,’ and as that is a secret which everybody knows, I urged him to say more. Presently he spoke up again and said, ‘Time was’; and then, before I could run and call you, he roared out, ‘Time is past,’ and fell over against me with such a crash as to knock my senses out of me.”
“Oh, wretched fool!” cried Friar Bacon, angrily pushing the man from the room. “Leave my sight! your foolishness has caused the wreck of all my hopes. The labor of seven years is lost. Had I been wakened, I would have set machinery in motion to prevent this ruin; and the brazen head would have told me how to do most wonderful things. It would have told me how to build a wall around England and make her the strongest of all nations. It would have told me—But now, all is lost. I will make no more experiments; I will burn my books; I will close my study. The rest of my life shall be spent, like that of any other monk, in the quiet cell of a monastery; and when I die my poor name will be forgotten.”