A Study in Scarlet — Chapter 5 in French
By Arthur Conan Doyle
Our morning's exertions had been too much for my weak health, and I was tired out in the afternoon. After Holmes' departure for the concert, I lay down upon the sofa and endeavoured to get a couple of hours' sleep. Ce fut en vain. It was a useless attempt. My mind had been too much excited by all that had occurred, and the strangest fancies and surmises crowded into it. Chaque fois que je fermais les yeux, je revoyais ce cadavre avec sa tête de gorille, ses membres tordus. Every time that I closed my eyes I saw before me the distorted baboon-like countenance of the murdered man. So sinister was the impression which that face had produced upon me that I found it difficult to feel anything but gratitude for him who had removed its owner from the world. Certainement, si jamais mortel a porté inscrits sur son visage tous les stigmates du vice dans ce qu'il a de plus repoussant, c'était bien le sieur Enoch J. Drebber, de Cleveland. If ever human features bespoke vice of the most malignant type, they were certainly those of Enoch J. Drebber, of Cleveland. Still I recognized that justice must be done, and that the depravity of the victim was no condonement in the eyes of the law.
The more I thought of it the more extraordinary did my companion's hypothesis, that the man had been poisoned, appear. I remembered how he had sniffed his lips, and had no doubt that he had detected something which had given rise to the idea. Et puis, si ce n'était pas du poison, qu'est-ce qui avait causé la mort de l'homme, attendu qu'il n'y avait ni blessure ni trace d'étranglement ? Then, again, if not poison, what had caused the man's death, since there was neither wound nor marks of strangulation? But on the other hand, whose blood was that which lay so thickly upon the floor? Il n'y avait aucun signe de lutte, et la victime ne portait aucune arme avec laquelle elle aurait pu blesser un adversaire. There were no signs of a struggle, nor had the victim any weapon with which he might have wounded an antagonist. As long as all these questions were unsolved, I felt that sleep would be no easy matter, either for Holmes or myself. Son calme et son air d'assurance me convainquirent qu'il avait déjà formé une théorie qui rendait compte de tous les faits, encore que je fusse incapable d'en deviner un seul mot. His quiet, self-confident manner convinced me that he had already formed a theory which explained all the facts, though what it was I could not for an instant conjecture.
He was very late in returning—so late that I knew that the concert could not have detained him all the time. Le dîner était sur la table avant qu'il parût. Dinner was on the table before he appeared.
"It was magnificent," he said, as he took his seat. « Vous souvenez-vous de ce que Darwin dit sur la musique ? "Do you remember what Darwin says about music? Il prétend que la faculté de la produire et d'en jouir existait dans l'espèce humaine bien avant que la parole eût été acquise. He claims that the power of producing and appreciating it existed among the human race long before the power of speech was arrived at. Perhaps that is why we are so subtly influenced by it. Il y a dans nos âmes de vagues souvenirs de ces siècles brumeux où le monde était encore dans son enfance. There are vague memories in our souls of those misty centuries when the world was in its childhood."