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著作権の関係でファンのみの公開となります。 The others crowd them, Bowl-Man stumping from the corner on frostbitten feet. Blue-Eyes takes from his pocket the starved bodies of three small birds. He puts a bird, feathers and all, into the water until it is soft enough to rip off the skin. He licks the bloody birdskin, blood and feathers on his face, the men crowding around him. He flings the skin to them and they fall on it like dogs. He turns his blood-smeared face to the balcony, spits out a feather and speaks. "We have to eat or die." They put into the fire the Lecter family album and Mischa's paper toys, her castle, her paper dolls. Hannibal is standing on the hearth now, suddenly, no sense of descending, and then they are in the barn, where clothing was wadded in the straw, child's clothing strange to him and stiff with blood. The men crowded close, feeling his meat and Mischa's. |
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著作権の関係でファンのみの公開となります。 "Take her, she's going to die anyway. Come and play, come and play." Singing now, they take her. Ein Mannlein steht im Walde ganz still und stumm … He hangs on to Mischa's arm, the children dragged toward the door. He will not release his sister and Blue-Eyes slams the heavy barn door on his arm, the bone cracking, opens the door again and comes back to Hannibal swinging a stick of firewood, thud against his head, terrific blows falling on him, flashes of light behind his eyes, banging, Mischa calling "Anniba !" And the blows became First Monitor's stick banging on the bed frame and Hannibal screaming in his sleep, "Mischa! Mischa." "Shut up! Shut up! Get up you little fuck!" First Monitor ripped the bedclothing off the cot and threw it at him. Outside on the cold ground to the toolshed, prodded with the stick. |
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著作権の関係でファンのみの公開となります。 First Monitor followed him into the shed with a shove. The shed was hung with gardening tools, rope, a few carpenter's tools. First Monitor set his lantern on a keg and raised his stick. He held up his bandaged hand. "Time to pay for this." Hannibal seemed to cringe away, circling away from the light, feeling nothing he could name. First Monitor read fear and circled after him, drawn away from the light. First Monitor got a good crack on Hannibal's thigh. The boy was at the lantern now. Hannibal picked up a sickle and blew out the light. |
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著作権の関係でファンのみの公開となります。 He lay down on the floor in the darkness, gripping the sickle in both hands above his head, heard scrambling footfalls past him, swung the sickle hard through the black air, struck nothing, and heard the door close and the rattle of a chain. "The advantage of beating a mute is he can't tell on you," First Monitor said. He and Second Monitor were looking at a Delahaye parked in the gravel courtyard of the castle, a lovely example of French coachwork, horizon blue, with diplomatic flags on its front fenders, Soviet and GDR. The car was exotic in the way of pre-war French cars, voluptuous to eyes accustomed to square tanks and jeeps. First Monitor wanted to scratch ""fuck"" in the side of the car with his knife, but the driver was big and watchful. From the stable Hannibal saw the car arrive. He did not run to it. He watched his uncle go into the castle with a Soviet officer. Hannibal put his hand flat against Cesar's cheek. The long face turned to him, crunching oats. |
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著作権の関係でファンのみの公開となります。 The Soviet groom was taking good care of him. Hannibal rubbed the horse's neck and put his face close to the turning ear, but no sound came out of his mouth. He kissed the horse between the eyes. At the back of the hayloft, hanging in the space between double walls, were his father's binoculars. He hung them around his neck and crossed the beaten parade ground. Second Monitor was looking for him from the steps. Hannibal's few possessions were stuffed in a bag. WATCHING FROM HEADMASTER'S window, Robert Lecter saw his driver buy a small sausage and a piece of bread from the cook for a pack of cigarettes. Robert Lecter was actually Count Lecter now, with his brother presumed dead. |
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著作権の関係でファンのみの公開となります。 He was already accustomed to the title, having used it illegiti-mately for years. Headmaster did not count the money, but shoved it into a breast pocket, with a glance at Colonel Timka. "Count, eh, Comrade Lecter, I just want to tell you I saw two of your paintings at the Catherine Palace before the war, and there were some photos published in Gorn. I admire your work enormously." Count Lecter nodded. "Thank you, Headmaster. Hannibal's sister, what do you know?" "A baby picture is not much help," Headmaster said. "We're circulating it to the orphanages," Colonel Timka said. He wore the uniform of the Soviet Border Police and his steel-rimmed spectacles winked in concert with his steel dentition. "It takes time. There are so many." "And I must tell you, Comrade Lecter, the forest is full of … remains still unidentified," Headmaster added. |
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著作権の関係でファンのみの公開となります。 "Hannibal has never said a word?" Count Lecter said. "Not to me. Physically he is capable of speech he screams his sister's name in his sleep. Mischa. Mischa." Headmaster paused as he thought how to put it. "Comrade Lecter, I would be … careful with Hannibal until you know him better. It might be best if he did not play with other boys until he's settled. Someone always gets hurt." "He's not a bully?" "It's the bullies who get injured." Hannibal does not observe the pecking order. They're always bigger and he hurts them very quickly and sometimes severely. Hannibal can be dangerous to persons larger than himself. He's fine with the little ones. |
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著作権の関係でファンのみの公開となります。 Lets them tease him a little. Some of them think he's deaf as well as mute and say in front of him that he's crazy. He gives them his treats, on the rare occasions there are any treats." Colonel Timka looked at his watch. "We need to go. Shall I meet you in the car, Comrade Lecter?" Colonel Timka waited until Count Lecter was out of the room. He held out his hand. Headmaster sighed and handed over the money. With a wink of his spectacles and a flash of his teeth, Colonel Timka licked his thumb and began to count. |
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著作権の関係でファンのみの公開となります。 A SHOWER OF RAIN settled the dust as they covered the last miles to the chateau, wet gravel pinging underneath the muddy Delahaye, and the smell of herbs and turned earth blew through the car. Then the rain stopped and the evening light had an orange cast. The chateau was more graceful than grand in this strange orange light. The mullions in its many windows were curved like spiderwebs weighted with dew. To Hannibal, casting for omens, the curving loggia of the chateau unwound from the entrance like Huyghens' volute. Four draft horses, steaming after the rain, were hitched to a defunct German tank protruding from the foyer. Big horses like Cesar. Hannibal was glad to see them, hoped they were his totem. The tank was jacked up on rollers. Little by little the horses pulled it out of the entryway as though they were extracting a tooth, the driver leading the horses, their ears moving when he spoke to them. |
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著作権の関係でファンのみの公開となります。 "The Germans blew out the doorway with their cannon and backed the tank inside to get away from the airplanes," the count told Hannibal as the car came to a stop. He had become accustomed to speaking to the boy without a reply. "They left it here in the retreat. We couldn't move it, so we decorated the damned thing with window boxes and walked around it for five years. Now I can sell my `subversive' pictures again and we can pay to get it hauled away. Come, Hannibal." A houseman had watched for the car and he and the housekeeper came to meet the count with umbrellas if they should need them. A mastiff came with them. Hannibal liked his uncle for making the introductions in the driveway, courteously facing the staff, instead of rushing toward the house and talking over his shoulder. "This is my nephew, Hannibal. He's ours now and we're glad to have him. Madame Brigitte, my housekeeper. And Pascal, who's in charge of making things work." Madame Brigitte was once a good-looking up-stairs maid. She was a quick study and she read Hannibal by his bearing. The mastiff greeted the count with enthusiasm and reserved judgment on Hannibal. |