Great Expectations — Chapter 57 in French
By Charles Dickens
Maintenant que je restais livré tout à fait à moi-même, j’annonçai mon intention de quitter l’appartement du Temple aussitôt que mon bail serait terminé, et en attendant, de le sous-louer. Now that I was left wholly to myself, I gave notice of my intention to quit the chambers in the Temple as soon as my tenancy could legally determine, and in the mean while to underlet them. Je mis aussitôt des écriteaux aux fenêtres, car j’étais endetté et je n’avais que très-peu d’argent. At once I put bills up in the windows; for, I was in debt, and had scarcely any money, and began to be seriously alarmed by the state of my affairs. Je commençais même sérieusement à m’alarmer de l’état de mes affaires, je devrais dire plutôt que j’aurais dû m’alarmer, si j’avais eu assez d’énergie et de calme dans l’esprit pour voir clairement la vérité au-delà de l’impression du moment, et cette impression était que je tombais sérieusement malade. I ought rather to write that I should have been alarmed if I had had energy and concentration enough to help me to the clear perception of any truth beyond the fact that I was falling very ill. La dernière secousse que j’avais éprouvée avait retardé la maladie, mais n’avait pu la chasser complètement. Je voyais qu’elle me revenait maintenant ; en dehors de cela, je ne savais pas grand’chose, et je ne m’en inquiétais même pas. The late stress upon me had enabled me to put off illness, but not to put it away; I knew that it was coming on me now, and I knew very little else, and was even careless as to that.
Un jour ou deux je restai étendu sur le sofa ou sur le plancher, n’importe où, selon qu’il m’arrivait de me laisser tomber, la tête lourde, les jambes affaiblies, sans idée et sans force. For a day or two, I lay on the sofa, or on the floor—anywhere, according as I happened to sink down—with a heavy head and aching limbs, and no purpose, and no power. Puis arriva une nuit qui me parut éternelle et peuplée d’inquiétudes et d’horreurs ; et quand le matin j’essayai de m’asseoir sur mon lit et de penser à mes rêves, je vis qu’il m’était impossible de le faire. Then there came, one night which appeared of great duration, and which teemed with anxiety and horror; and when in the morning I tried to sit up in my bed and think of it, I found I could not do so.
Avais-je été énervé d’une manière ou d’une autre, par les discours incohérents, le rire ou les gémissements de quelqu’un, et avais-je soupçonné en partie que ces sons venaient de moi-même ? Y avait-il eu une fournaise en fer placée dans un des coins noirs de la chambre, et une voix avait-elle crié sans cesse que miss Havisham y brûlait ? Whether I really had been down in Garden-court in the dead of the night, groping about for the boat that I supposed to be there, whether I had two or three times come to myself on the staircase with great terror, not knowing how I had got out of bed; whether I had found myself lighting the lamp, possessed by the idea that he was coming up the stairs, and that the lights were blown out; whether I had been inexpressibly harassed by the distracted talking, laughing, and groaning, of some one, and had half suspected those sounds to be of my own making; whether there had been a closed iron furnace in a dark corner of the room, and a voice had called out over and over again that Miss Havisham was consuming within it; these were things that I tried to settle with myself and get into some order, as I lay that morning on my bed. Mais il me semblait que la vapeur d’un four à chaux arrivait entre mes idées et moi et y mettait le désordre et la confusion ; c’est à travers cette vapeur qu’à la fin je vis deux hommes me regarder. But, the vapour of a limekiln would come between me and them, disordering them all, and it was through the vapour at last that I saw two men looking at me.
— Que voulez-vous ? "What do you want?" demandai-je en tressaillant ; je ne vous connais pas. I asked, starting; "I don't know you."