第75天
ChapterTen
The Family Begins to Starve
During the next two weeks, the weather turned very cold. First came the snow. It began very suddenly one morning just as Charlie Bucket was getting dressed for school. Standing by the window, he saw the huge flakes drifting slowly down out of an icy sky that was the colour of steel.
By evening, it lay four feet deep around the tiny house, and Mr Bucket had to dig a path from the front door to the road.
After the snow, there came a freezing gale that blew for days and days without stopping. And oh, how bitter cold it was! Everything that Charlie touched seemed to be made of ice, and each time he stepped outside the door, the wind was like a knife on his cheek.
Inside the house, little jets of freezing air came rushing in through the sides of the windows and under the doors, and there was no place to go to escape them. The four old ones lay silent and huddled in their bed, trying to keep the cold out of their bones. The excitement over the Golden Tickets had long since been forgotten. Nobody in the family gave a thought now to anything except the two vital problems of trying to keep warm and trying to get enough to eat.
There is something about very cold weather that gives one an enormous appetite. Most of us find ourselves beginning to crave rich steaming stews and hot apple pies and all kinds of delicious warming dishes; and because we are all a great deal luckier than we realize, we usually get what we want — or near enough. But Charlie Bucket never got what he wanted because the family couldn't afford it, and as the cold weather went on and on, he became ravenously and desperately hungry. Both bars of chocolate, the birthday one and the one Grandpa Joe had bought, had long since been nibbled away, and all he got now were those thin, cabbagy meals three times a day.
Then all at once, the meals became even thinner.
The reason for this was that the toothpaste factory, the place where Mr Bucket worked, suddenly went bust and had to close down. Quickly, Mr Bucket tried to get another job. But he had no luck. In the end, the only way in which he managed to earn a few pennies was by shovelling snow in the streets. But it wasn't enough to buy even a quarter of the food that seven people needed. The situation became desperate. Breakfast was a single slice of bread for each person now, and lunch was maybe half a boiled potato.
Slowly but surely, everybody in the house began to starve.
And every day, little Charlie Bucket, trudging through the snow on his way to school, would have to pass Mr Willy Wonka's giant chocolate factory. And every day, as he came near to it, he would lift his small pointed nose high in the air and sniff the wonderful sweet smell of melting chocolate. Sometimes, he would stand motionless outside the gates for several minutes on end, taking deep swallowing breaths as though he were trying to eat the smell itself. 'That child,' said Grandpa Joe, poking his head up from under the blanket one icy morning, 'that child has got to have more food. It doesn't matter about us. We're too old to bother with. But a growing boy! He can't go on like this! He's beginning to look like a skeleton!'
'What can one do?' murmured Grandma Josephine miserably. 'He refuses to take any of ours. I hear his mother tried to slip her own piece of bread on to his plate at breakfast this morning, but he wouldn't touch it. He made her take it back.'
'He's a fine little fellow,' said Grandpa George. 'He deserves better than this.'
第十章
一家人开始挨饿
接下来的两周里，天气变得奇冷。先是下起了雪。 那是一天早晨，查理·巴克特正在穿衣服准备上学去，突然就下起了雪。他站在窗边，看见寒冷的天空一片铁灰色，纷纷扬扬落下了大片大片的雪花。
到了傍晚，小屋四周积起了四英尺厚的雪，巴克特得从前门开出一条道来才能走到马路上去。大雪以后，一连好几天凛冽的大风刮个不停。啊，冷啊，刺骨地冷！查理碰到的每样东西似乎都是冰做的，一踏出家门，寒风就象一把锋利的刀子割着他的脸。
屋子里，一股股砭骨的冷风从窗缝和门底下钻进来，让人无处可躲。四位老人不出声地蜷缩在床上，似乎想把寒冷挤出他们的老骨头。没人再去想令人激动的金参观券了。家里每个人心心念念想着的只有两个最紧要的问题，那就是尽力得到温暖和设法获得足够的食物。
然而非常冷的天气会令人产生极强的食欲。大多数人都会发现自己开始特别想吃到热气腾腾的炖莱、热的苹果馅饼和各种热乎乎的美味佳肴；我们往往比自己意识到的更加幸运，通常总能得到向往的东西——或者说差不多能满足我们的需要。然而查理·巴克特从来得不到自己想要的东西，因为家里穷，买不起，而严寒一天天延续下去，他饿极了，他觉得从来没有这么饿过。那两块巧克力，生日得到的一块和乔爷爷给买的那块，早就一点点啃光了，如今他一日三餐吃的都是那种清汤寡水的卷心莱汤。
可突如其来，连这种汤也变得越来越稀淡了。
这是由于巴克特先生干活的那家牙膏厂突然破产，不得不关闭了。巴克特先生赶快再去找工作，可他运气不佳。到后来，他只有到街上去铲雪，才熊赚得几个便土。可这点钱还不够买七口之家每天所需食物的四分之一，情况变得越来越严重，简直到了走投无路的境地。现在每人的早饭只是一小片薄薄的面包，中午或许就是半个煮土豆。
慢慢地，然而却是明摆着的，这一家人开始挨饿了。
每天，小查理·巴克特拖着沉重的步子踏雪上学去，路上总会经过威利·旺卡先生庞大的巧克力工厂。每天当他接近厂门时，他就抬起头，用尖削的鼻子拼命嗅着那股融化巧克力的美妙味儿。有时他会一动不动地站在厂门口，一站就是几分钟，大口大口地吸进那股气味，似乎他想把气味也吃下去。
一个结冰的早晨，乔爷爷从毯子下伸出头来说道：“那孩子得多吃点东西，而我们是无关紧要的。我们老了，不必再为我们操心了。可他是个正在长身子骨的孩子啊！这样下去他受不了！他一点点地瘦得只剩一副骨头架子了！”
“可又有什么办法呢？”约瑟芬奶奶悲哀地喃喃道，“他不肯吃一点我们的食物。刚才吃早饭时，我听到他母亲想把自己那片面包放到他的盘子里，可他不肯去碰它。他要她拿回去。”
“他是个多好的小伙子呀，”乔治外公说，“他不该受到这种遭遇。”