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如果你对英美文学感兴趣，那一定会听说过F. Scott Fitzgerald （F·司各特·菲茨杰拉德，1896—1940）。这位著名的小说家和编剧，被誉为“美国二十世纪最杰出的作家之一”，最著名的代表作是《了不起的盖茨比》（The Great Gatsby，1925）——此小说的电影版也将于今年12月上映，由好莱坞大帅哥Leonardo DiCaprio主演，势必又再掀起一股“菲茨杰拉德热”。
虽然菲茨杰拉德以长篇小说著称，但真正为其带来可观收入及大众认同和喜爱的却是短篇小说。他的短篇小说娱乐性强，情节曲折紧凑，词藻精准华丽，风格机智诙谐，且常伴有欧亨利式的出人意料的结尾，十分令人着迷。本期我们选取的这篇《Thank You for the Light》是菲茨杰拉德生前并未发表过的作品，也是一篇比较能展示其写作风格的佳作，希望能带给大家愉快的阅读体验！
在堪萨斯城，憋了一整天烟瘾的汉森女士最终决定到香火鼎盛的天主教堂里借火，以解焦虑，最终得到圣母帮助，借火成功。当然现实中这种事情是无法发生的，而对于一个失去丈夫而独自打拼出一片商业版图的寡妇，这烟瘾仿佛象征着某种情愫，而圣母终究并不会轻易现身，也预示着在堪萨斯城的汉森已身心俱疲，她一直在期待着什么，而她期待的却只在梦中降临。
菲茨杰拉德在这个故事中塑造了又一个令人耳目一新的女性形象，她独立、勇敢，也会偶尔脆弱。全文温润地释放着难以理解的悲伤，像是秋天第一泡云南的滇红，渐近地释出一抹抹的甘甜哀怨。大家一起来品一品吧！
Mrs. Hanson was a pretty, somewhat 1)faded woman of forty, who sold corsets and 2)girdles, travelling out of Chicago. For many years her territory had swung around through Toledo, Lima, Springfield, Columbus, Indianapolis, and Fort Wayne, and her transfer to the Iowa-Kansas-Missouri district was a promotion, for her firm was more strongly 3)entrenched west of the Ohio.
Eastward, she had known her 4)clientele 5)chattily and had often been offered a drink or a cigarette in the buyer’s office after business was concluded. But she soon found that in her new district things were different. Not only was she never asked if she would like to smoke but several times her own 6)inquiry as to whether anyone would mind was answered half apologetically with “It’s not that I mind, but it has a bad influence on the employees.”
“Oh, of course, I understand.”
Smoking meant a lot to her sometimes. She worked very hard and it had some ability to rest and relax her psychologically. She was a widow and she had no close relatives to write to in the evenings, and more than one moving picture a week hurt her eyes, so smoking had come to be an important 7)punctuation mark in the long sentence of a day on the road.
The last week of her first trip on the new 8)circuit found her in Kansas City. It was mid-August and she felt somewhat lonely among all her new contacts, so she was delighted to find at the outer desk of one firm a woman she had known in Chicago. She sat down before having herself announced and in the course of the conversation found out a little about the man she was going to see.
“Will he mind if I smoke?”
“What? My God, yes!”her friend said. “He’s given money to support the law against it.”
“Oh. Well, I’m grateful for the advice—more than grateful.”
“You better watch it everywhere around here,”her friend said. “Especially with the men over fifty. The ones who weren’t in the war. A man told me that nobody who was in the war would ever 9)object to anyone smoking.” But at her very next stop Mrs. Hanson ran into the exception. He seemed a pleasant young man but his eyes fixed with so much fascination on the cigarette that she was 10)tapping on her 11)thumbnail that she put it away. She was rewarded when he asked her to lunch and during the hour she obtained a considerable order.
Afterward, he insisted on driving her to her next appointment, though she had intended to spot a hotel 12)in the vicinity and take a few puffs in the washroom.
It was one of those days full of waiting—everyone was busy, was late, and it seemed that when the clients did appear they were the sort of 13)hatchet-faced men who did not like other people’s 14)self-indulgence, or they were women willingly or unwillingly 15)committed to the ideas of these men.
She hadn’t smoked since breakfast and she suddenly realized that that was why she felt a vague dissatisfaction at the end of each call, no matter how successful it had been in a business way.
She would say, “We think we cover a different field. It’s all 16)rubber and 17)canvas, of course, but we do manage to put them together in a different way. A thirty-per-cent increase in national advertising in one year tells its own story.”
And to herself she was thinking, If I could just get three puffs I could sell old-fashioned 18)whalebone.
She had one more store to visit now but her appointment was not for half an hour. That was just time to go to her hotel but, as there was no taxi in sight, she walked along the street, thinking, Perhaps I ought to give up cigarettes. I’m getting to be a 19)drug fiend.
Before her, she saw the Catholic cathedral. It seemed very tall, and suddenly she had an inspiration: if so much 20)incense had gone up in the spires to God, a little smoke in the 21)vestibule would make no difference. How could the Good Lord care if a tired woman took a few puffs in the vestibule?
Nevertheless, though she was not a Catholic, the thought 22)offended her. Was it so important that she have her cigarette, when it might offend a lot of other people, too? Still. He wouldn’t mind, she thought persistently. In His days, they hadn’t even discovered tobacco…
She went into the church; the vestibule was dark, and she felt for a match in the bag she carried but there weren’t any.
I’ll go and get a light from one of their candles, she thought.
The darkness of the 23)nave was broken only by a splash of light in one corner. She walked up the aisle toward the white 24)blur, and found that it was not made by candles and, in any case, it was about to go out—an old man was on the point of 25)extinguishing a last oil lamp. “These are 26)votive offerings,” he said. “We put them out at night. We think it means more to the people who give them to save them for next day than it would to keep them burning all night.”
“I see.”
He 27)struck out the last one. There was no light left in the cathedral now, save an electric 28)chandelier high overhead and the ever-burning lamp in front of the Sacrament.
“Good night,”the 29)sexton said.
“Good night.”
“I guess you came here to pray.”
“Yes, I did.”
He went out into the 30)sacristy. Mrs. Hanson knelt down and prayed.
It had been a long time since she had prayed. She scarcely knew what to pray for, so she prayed for her employer, and for the clients in Des Moines and Kansas City. When she had finished praying, she knelt up. An image of the Madonna gazed down upon her from a 31)niche, six feet above her head.
Vaguely she regarded it. Then she got up from her knees and sank back wearily in the corner of the pew. In her imagination, the Virgin came down, like in the play “The Miracle,” and took her place and sold corsets and girdles for her and was tired, just as she was. Then for a few minutes Mrs. Hanson must have slept.
She awoke at the realization that something had changed, and gradually she perceived that there was a familiar scent that was not incense in the air and that her fingers smarted. Then she realized that the cigarette she held in her hand was alight—was burning.
Still too 32)drowsy to think, she took a puff to keep the flame alive. Then she looked up at the Madonna’s vague niche in the half-darkness.
“Thank you for the light,” she said.
That didn’t seem quite enough, so she got down on her knees, the smoke twisting up from the cigarette between her fingers.
“Thank you very much for the light,” she said.
汉森女士已到不惑之年，漂亮的容颜嵌着些许岁月流逝的痕迹，她常离开芝加哥出差，兜售紧身内衣和束腰带。多年以来，她的“商业版图”已延至国内外：托莱多、利马、斯普林菲尔德、哥伦布、印第安纳波利斯以及韦恩堡。往爱荷华州、堪萨斯州以及密苏里州等（美国中部）地区的转移是一个提升，因为她的公司早已在西俄亥俄州根深蒂固。
以往在东部，她可以通过闲谈认识客户，在买家的办公室里，每每交易完成之后，客户都会向她递上一杯酒或一根烟。但在新地区，她很快发现情况有所不同。不仅没有人问她是否想抽烟，而且当她好几次主动询问是否有人介意她抽烟的时候，别人还会带着几分歉意说：“不是我介意与否的关系，而是抽烟会给员工带来不好的影响。”
“哦，当然，我明白。”
有时，抽烟对她来说意义重大。她工作十分辛苦，抽烟能让她心理上得到舒缓和放松。丈夫离世，她孤身一人，夜深时，她也没有至亲可以写信一诉衷肠，一周去几次电影院打发时间又伤眼。于是，抽烟便成为她漫漫一日长路上重要的休止符。
上星期，她在新地区的业务巡回第一站是堪萨斯城。时值八月中旬，在新业务工作中她感到几分孤独，所以当她发现一家公司的女前台是她在芝加哥早已相识的人时，她相当高兴。于是，她坐下，打了招呼，然后在谈话的过程中了解了一下她将要会面的客人。 “他会介意我抽烟吗？”
“什么？天啊，当然介意！”她的这位朋友说道，“他可是花了钱支持通过禁烟令的。”
“原来如此。这样，我很感谢你的建议——可不仅仅是感谢那么简单。”
“在这儿你最好留心，”她的朋友说，“特别是那些年过五十，从未参战的男人。有人告诉我，打过仗的人就不会反对抽烟了。”
但恰恰在汉森女士与下一站客户会面时，她遇到了例外。这是一位看上去讨喜的年轻男子，当她轻弹夹在指间的香烟时，他目不转睛地盯着那香烟，她只好把香烟移开。她得到了“犒赏”，他邀请她一同午餐，在午餐时间，她得到了一笔相当大的订单。
之后，他坚持要开车送她到下一个会客地点，尽管她原本准备在附近订家酒店，在洗手间先好好抽上两口烟。
那些日子充斥着等待——每个人都很忙，都迟到，似乎就算客户到了，他们也都是些脸型瘦削、不喜他人放纵任性的男人，或是些甘愿或就算不情不愿也只得服从这些男人意见的女人。
有那么一天，她从早餐后就一直没能抽上一根烟，她突然意识到这就是为何每打完一通电话都会有那么一丝莫名的不满溢上心头的原因——无论那生意谈得有多好。
她会说：“我们认为我们开辟了另一片天地。当然，不就是橡胶和帆布罢了，但我们用不同的方式把这些东西组合在一起。每年在全国广告的投入以30%的数字增长，这足以证明太多。”
对她自己而言，她在想，如果能让我抽上三口烟，老式的鲸鱼骨，我也能把它卖出去。
她还有一间店铺要拜访，而离她的约定时间还有半小时。这正是回酒店的最佳时候，但眼前一部出租车都没有，于是她沿着大街走回去，想着：也许我应该戒烟，我都要成为“瘾君子”了。
在她眼前，矗立着一间天主教教堂。教堂雄伟高耸，突然，她灵感浮现：如果上帝面前香火缭绕，那么教堂走廊那点小烟火又何足挂齿？上帝哪会在意一个疲倦的女人在教堂的前厅抽上几口烟？
然而，尽管她不是一个天主教徒，但这个想法还是让她感到不安。抽烟真的这么重要吗，连冒犯到许多其他人也在所不惜？但是，祂不会介意的，她坚持这样想。在祂的那年代，人们还没发掘烟草呢……
她走进教堂里，前厅黑漆漆的，她摸索着袋子里的火柴，但是一根也没有找到。
我要去向那些蜡烛借个火，她想。
仅仅角落里的一束光，便划破了教堂中殿的黑暗。她沿着侧廊向那团模糊不清的白光走去，然后发现那并不是烛光。无论如何，这束光快要消失——一位老人正准备把最后一盏油灯熄灭。
“这些是献纳神灵的供品，”他说。“我们会在晚上把它们拿出来。我们想，把它们献出的人们更愿意省着用，以备明日之需，而不是让它们通宵燃尽。”
“我明白了。”
他把最后一盏灯也灭了。此刻，除了头顶上的那盏导电枝形吊灯以及告解台前永不熄灭的灯，教堂再没有其他光源了。
“晚安，”教堂司事说。
“晚安。”
“我估计你是来这里祈祷的。”
“是的。”
他往圣器储藏室走去。汉森女士跪下，开始祈祷。
她已经好久没有祈祷了。她甚至不知道她要祈祷什么，于是她为她的老板祈祷，为在得梅因和堪萨斯城的客户祈祷。当她祈祷完毕要撑膝站起时，她头顶六尺处的壁龛中的圣母像正凝视着她。
她茫然地注视着圣母像。然后她撑膝站起，在教堂座位的一隅疲劳地瘫坐下来。她想象着圣母玛利亚下凡，附上她的身体，就像戏剧《奇迹》里的那样，为她兜售女士内衣和束腰带紧身衣，然后疲惫不堪，正如她那样。就在那几分钟里，汉森女士肯定睡着了。
当她发觉有些许不对劲的时候，她醒了，然后她渐渐察觉有股不同于焚香的熟悉气味弥漫在空气中，她的手指感觉刺痛。这时，她才意识到她手里一直拿着的香烟是燃着的——一直烧着。
此刻她还是昏昏沉沉的，无法思考，她吸了一口烟，让它继续燃着。然后她抬头，在半明半暗之中看着壁龛里模糊的圣母玛利亚像。
“感谢您借火给我，”她说。
这似乎还不够，于是她跪下，一股烟从她手指间的香烟袅袅升起。
“非常感谢您借火给我，”她说道。
虽然菲茨杰拉德以长篇小说著称，但真正为其带来可观收入及大众认同和喜爱的却是短篇小说。他的短篇小说娱乐性强，情节曲折紧凑，词藻精准华丽，风格机智诙谐，且常伴有欧亨利式的出人意料的结尾，十分令人着迷。本期我们选取的这篇《Thank You for the Light》是菲茨杰拉德生前并未发表过的作品，也是一篇比较能展示其写作风格的佳作，希望能带给大家愉快的阅读体验！
在堪萨斯城，憋了一整天烟瘾的汉森女士最终决定到香火鼎盛的天主教堂里借火，以解焦虑，最终得到圣母帮助，借火成功。当然现实中这种事情是无法发生的，而对于一个失去丈夫而独自打拼出一片商业版图的寡妇，这烟瘾仿佛象征着某种情愫，而圣母终究并不会轻易现身，也预示着在堪萨斯城的汉森已身心俱疲，她一直在期待着什么，而她期待的却只在梦中降临。
菲茨杰拉德在这个故事中塑造了又一个令人耳目一新的女性形象，她独立、勇敢，也会偶尔脆弱。全文温润地释放着难以理解的悲伤，像是秋天第一泡云南的滇红，渐近地释出一抹抹的甘甜哀怨。大家一起来品一品吧！
Mrs. Hanson was a pretty, somewhat 1)faded woman of forty, who sold corsets and 2)girdles, travelling out of Chicago. For many years her territory had swung around through Toledo, Lima, Springfield, Columbus, Indianapolis, and Fort Wayne, and her transfer to the Iowa-Kansas-Missouri district was a promotion, for her firm was more strongly 3)entrenched west of the Ohio.
Eastward, she had known her 4)clientele 5)chattily and had often been offered a drink or a cigarette in the buyer’s office after business was concluded. But she soon found that in her new district things were different. Not only was she never asked if she would like to smoke but several times her own 6)inquiry as to whether anyone would mind was answered half apologetically with “It’s not that I mind, but it has a bad influence on the employees.”
“Oh, of course, I understand.”
Smoking meant a lot to her sometimes. She worked very hard and it had some ability to rest and relax her psychologically. She was a widow and she had no close relatives to write to in the evenings, and more than one moving picture a week hurt her eyes, so smoking had come to be an important 7)punctuation mark in the long sentence of a day on the road.
The last week of her first trip on the new 8)circuit found her in Kansas City. It was mid-August and she felt somewhat lonely among all her new contacts, so she was delighted to find at the outer desk of one firm a woman she had known in Chicago. She sat down before having herself announced and in the course of the conversation found out a little about the man she was going to see.
“Will he mind if I smoke?”
“What? My God, yes!”her friend said. “He’s given money to support the law against it.”
“Oh. Well, I’m grateful for the advice—more than grateful.”
“You better watch it everywhere around here,”her friend said. “Especially with the men over fifty. The ones who weren’t in the war. A man told me that nobody who was in the war would ever 9)object to anyone smoking.” But at her very next stop Mrs. Hanson ran into the exception. He seemed a pleasant young man but his eyes fixed with so much fascination on the cigarette that she was 10)tapping on her 11)thumbnail that she put it away. She was rewarded when he asked her to lunch and during the hour she obtained a considerable order.
Afterward, he insisted on driving her to her next appointment, though she had intended to spot a hotel 12)in the vicinity and take a few puffs in the washroom.
It was one of those days full of waiting—everyone was busy, was late, and it seemed that when the clients did appear they were the sort of 13)hatchet-faced men who did not like other people’s 14)self-indulgence, or they were women willingly or unwillingly 15)committed to the ideas of these men.
She hadn’t smoked since breakfast and she suddenly realized that that was why she felt a vague dissatisfaction at the end of each call, no matter how successful it had been in a business way.
She would say, “We think we cover a different field. It’s all 16)rubber and 17)canvas, of course, but we do manage to put them together in a different way. A thirty-per-cent increase in national advertising in one year tells its own story.”
And to herself she was thinking, If I could just get three puffs I could sell old-fashioned 18)whalebone.
She had one more store to visit now but her appointment was not for half an hour. That was just time to go to her hotel but, as there was no taxi in sight, she walked along the street, thinking, Perhaps I ought to give up cigarettes. I’m getting to be a 19)drug fiend.
Before her, she saw the Catholic cathedral. It seemed very tall, and suddenly she had an inspiration: if so much 20)incense had gone up in the spires to God, a little smoke in the 21)vestibule would make no difference. How could the Good Lord care if a tired woman took a few puffs in the vestibule?
Nevertheless, though she was not a Catholic, the thought 22)offended her. Was it so important that she have her cigarette, when it might offend a lot of other people, too? Still. He wouldn’t mind, she thought persistently. In His days, they hadn’t even discovered tobacco…
She went into the church; the vestibule was dark, and she felt for a match in the bag she carried but there weren’t any.
I’ll go and get a light from one of their candles, she thought.
The darkness of the 23)nave was broken only by a splash of light in one corner. She walked up the aisle toward the white 24)blur, and found that it was not made by candles and, in any case, it was about to go out—an old man was on the point of 25)extinguishing a last oil lamp. “These are 26)votive offerings,” he said. “We put them out at night. We think it means more to the people who give them to save them for next day than it would to keep them burning all night.”
“I see.”
He 27)struck out the last one. There was no light left in the cathedral now, save an electric 28)chandelier high overhead and the ever-burning lamp in front of the Sacrament.
“Good night,”the 29)sexton said.
“Good night.”
“I guess you came here to pray.”
“Yes, I did.”
He went out into the 30)sacristy. Mrs. Hanson knelt down and prayed.
It had been a long time since she had prayed. She scarcely knew what to pray for, so she prayed for her employer, and for the clients in Des Moines and Kansas City. When she had finished praying, she knelt up. An image of the Madonna gazed down upon her from a 31)niche, six feet above her head.
Vaguely she regarded it. Then she got up from her knees and sank back wearily in the corner of the pew. In her imagination, the Virgin came down, like in the play “The Miracle,” and took her place and sold corsets and girdles for her and was tired, just as she was. Then for a few minutes Mrs. Hanson must have slept.
She awoke at the realization that something had changed, and gradually she perceived that there was a familiar scent that was not incense in the air and that her fingers smarted. Then she realized that the cigarette she held in her hand was alight—was burning.
Still too 32)drowsy to think, she took a puff to keep the flame alive. Then she looked up at the Madonna’s vague niche in the half-darkness.
“Thank you for the light,” she said.
That didn’t seem quite enough, so she got down on her knees, the smoke twisting up from the cigarette between her fingers.
“Thank you very much for the light,” she said.
汉森女士已到不惑之年，漂亮的容颜嵌着些许岁月流逝的痕迹，她常离开芝加哥出差，兜售紧身内衣和束腰带。多年以来，她的“商业版图”已延至国内外：托莱多、利马、斯普林菲尔德、哥伦布、印第安纳波利斯以及韦恩堡。往爱荷华州、堪萨斯州以及密苏里州等（美国中部）地区的转移是一个提升，因为她的公司早已在西俄亥俄州根深蒂固。
以往在东部，她可以通过闲谈认识客户，在买家的办公室里，每每交易完成之后，客户都会向她递上一杯酒或一根烟。但在新地区，她很快发现情况有所不同。不仅没有人问她是否想抽烟，而且当她好几次主动询问是否有人介意她抽烟的时候，别人还会带着几分歉意说：“不是我介意与否的关系，而是抽烟会给员工带来不好的影响。”
“哦，当然，我明白。”
有时，抽烟对她来说意义重大。她工作十分辛苦，抽烟能让她心理上得到舒缓和放松。丈夫离世，她孤身一人，夜深时，她也没有至亲可以写信一诉衷肠，一周去几次电影院打发时间又伤眼。于是，抽烟便成为她漫漫一日长路上重要的休止符。
上星期，她在新地区的业务巡回第一站是堪萨斯城。时值八月中旬，在新业务工作中她感到几分孤独，所以当她发现一家公司的女前台是她在芝加哥早已相识的人时，她相当高兴。于是，她坐下，打了招呼，然后在谈话的过程中了解了一下她将要会面的客人。 “他会介意我抽烟吗？”
“什么？天啊，当然介意！”她的这位朋友说道，“他可是花了钱支持通过禁烟令的。”
“原来如此。这样，我很感谢你的建议——可不仅仅是感谢那么简单。”
“在这儿你最好留心，”她的朋友说，“特别是那些年过五十，从未参战的男人。有人告诉我，打过仗的人就不会反对抽烟了。”
但恰恰在汉森女士与下一站客户会面时，她遇到了例外。这是一位看上去讨喜的年轻男子，当她轻弹夹在指间的香烟时，他目不转睛地盯着那香烟，她只好把香烟移开。她得到了“犒赏”，他邀请她一同午餐，在午餐时间，她得到了一笔相当大的订单。
之后，他坚持要开车送她到下一个会客地点，尽管她原本准备在附近订家酒店，在洗手间先好好抽上两口烟。
那些日子充斥着等待——每个人都很忙，都迟到，似乎就算客户到了，他们也都是些脸型瘦削、不喜他人放纵任性的男人，或是些甘愿或就算不情不愿也只得服从这些男人意见的女人。
有那么一天，她从早餐后就一直没能抽上一根烟，她突然意识到这就是为何每打完一通电话都会有那么一丝莫名的不满溢上心头的原因——无论那生意谈得有多好。
她会说：“我们认为我们开辟了另一片天地。当然，不就是橡胶和帆布罢了，但我们用不同的方式把这些东西组合在一起。每年在全国广告的投入以30%的数字增长，这足以证明太多。”
对她自己而言，她在想，如果能让我抽上三口烟，老式的鲸鱼骨，我也能把它卖出去。
她还有一间店铺要拜访，而离她的约定时间还有半小时。这正是回酒店的最佳时候，但眼前一部出租车都没有，于是她沿着大街走回去，想着：也许我应该戒烟，我都要成为“瘾君子”了。
在她眼前，矗立着一间天主教教堂。教堂雄伟高耸，突然，她灵感浮现：如果上帝面前香火缭绕，那么教堂走廊那点小烟火又何足挂齿？上帝哪会在意一个疲倦的女人在教堂的前厅抽上几口烟？
然而，尽管她不是一个天主教徒，但这个想法还是让她感到不安。抽烟真的这么重要吗，连冒犯到许多其他人也在所不惜？但是，祂不会介意的，她坚持这样想。在祂的那年代，人们还没发掘烟草呢……
她走进教堂里，前厅黑漆漆的，她摸索着袋子里的火柴，但是一根也没有找到。
我要去向那些蜡烛借个火，她想。
仅仅角落里的一束光，便划破了教堂中殿的黑暗。她沿着侧廊向那团模糊不清的白光走去，然后发现那并不是烛光。无论如何，这束光快要消失——一位老人正准备把最后一盏油灯熄灭。
“这些是献纳神灵的供品，”他说。“我们会在晚上把它们拿出来。我们想，把它们献出的人们更愿意省着用，以备明日之需，而不是让它们通宵燃尽。”
“我明白了。”
他把最后一盏灯也灭了。此刻，除了头顶上的那盏导电枝形吊灯以及告解台前永不熄灭的灯，教堂再没有其他光源了。
“晚安，”教堂司事说。
“晚安。”
“我估计你是来这里祈祷的。”
“是的。”
他往圣器储藏室走去。汉森女士跪下，开始祈祷。
她已经好久没有祈祷了。她甚至不知道她要祈祷什么，于是她为她的老板祈祷，为在得梅因和堪萨斯城的客户祈祷。当她祈祷完毕要撑膝站起时，她头顶六尺处的壁龛中的圣母像正凝视着她。
她茫然地注视着圣母像。然后她撑膝站起，在教堂座位的一隅疲劳地瘫坐下来。她想象着圣母玛利亚下凡，附上她的身体，就像戏剧《奇迹》里的那样，为她兜售女士内衣和束腰带紧身衣，然后疲惫不堪，正如她那样。就在那几分钟里，汉森女士肯定睡着了。
当她发觉有些许不对劲的时候，她醒了，然后她渐渐察觉有股不同于焚香的熟悉气味弥漫在空气中，她的手指感觉刺痛。这时，她才意识到她手里一直拿着的香烟是燃着的——一直烧着。
此刻她还是昏昏沉沉的，无法思考，她吸了一口烟，让它继续燃着。然后她抬头，在半明半暗之中看着壁龛里模糊的圣母玛利亚像。
“感谢您借火给我，”她说。
这似乎还不够，于是她跪下，一股烟从她手指间的香烟袅袅升起。
“非常感谢您借火给我，”她说道。