Chapter 13.

---

 
Browner’s Statement I: Three Sisters

---

II. The Adventure of the Cardboard Box

---

“Have I anything
to say?

Yes, I have 
a deal to say.

I have to make
a clean breast ( 坦白)
of it all.”

---

“You can
hang me ( 吊死我),
or you can
leave me alone.

I don’t care
a plug ( 我一點也不在乎)
which you do.”

---

“I tell you
I’ve not shut an eye ( 沒闔過眼)
in sleep
since I did it,
and I don’t believe
I ever will again
until I get past
all waking ( 清醒狀態).”

---

“Sometimes
it’s his face,
but most generally
it’s hers.

I’m never
without one
or the other
before me.”

---

“He looks
frowning
and black-like ( 黑沉沉的),
but she has
a kind o’
surprise
upon her face.

Ay,
the white lamb ( 白小羊),
she might well
be surprised
when she read
death
on a face
that had seldom
looked anything
but love
upon her
before.”

---

“But it was
Sarah’s fault,
and may the curse ( 詛咒)
of a broken man
put a blight ( 枯萎／毀壞)
on her
and set the blood
rotting
in her veins ( 靜脈)!

It’s not
that I want
to clear myself ( 為自己開脫).

I know
that I went back
to drink,
like the beast
that I was.”

---

“But she
would have
forgiven me;
she would have stuck
as close to me
as a rope
to a block ( 滑輪上的繩索)
if that woman
had never
darkened our door ( 走進我們家).”

---

“For Sarah Cushing
loved me—
that’s the root
of the business ( 事情的根源)—
she loved me
until all her love
turned to
poisonous hate ( 劇毒般的仇恨)
when she knew
that I thought
more of my wife’s
footmark ( 足跡)
in the mud
than I did
of her whole body
and soul.”

---

“There were
three sisters
altogether ( 總共).

The old one
was just
a good woman,
the second
was a devil,
and the third
was an angel.”

---

“Sarah
was thirty-three,
and Mary
was twenty-nine
when I married.

We were
just as happy
as the day
was long
when we set up
house together,
and in all Liverpool
there was
no better woman
than my Mary.”

---

“And then
we asked Sarah
up for a week,
and the week
grew into a month,
and one thing
led to another,
until she was
just one
of ourselves.”

---

The  End