VISITORS
I think I love society as much as most, and am ready enough to fasten myself like a bloodsucker for the time to any full-blooded man that comes in my way. I am naturally no hermit, but might possibly sit out the sturdiest frequenter of the bar-room, if my business called me thither.
我覺得我跟大多數人一樣喜歡交際，只要遇到血氣旺盛的人，我隨時會像水蛭那樣咬住不放。我並非生來就是隱士，若有必要，我可能會安坐在酒吧間，並且比屁股最沈的常客坐得還久。
I had three chairs in my hose; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society. When visitors cfame in larger and unexpected numbers there was but the third chair for them all, but they generally economized the room by standing up. It is surprising how many great men and women a small house will contain. I have had twenty-five or thirty souls, with their bodies, at once under my roof, and yet we often parted without being aware that we had come very near to one another. Many of our houses, both public and private, with their almost innumerable apartments, their huge halls and their cellars for the storage of wines and other munitions of peace, appear to me extravagantly large for their inhabitants. They are so vast and magnificent that the latter seem to be only vermin which infest them. I am surprised when the herald blows his summons before some Tremount or Astor or Middlesex House, to see come creeping out over the piazza for all inhabitants a ridiculous mouse, which soon again slinks into some hole in the pavement.
我的小屋有三把椅子：獨處用一把，朋友來用兩把，需要交際則全派上用場。當訪客很多或超過預期時，第三把椅子全歸他們了，不過他們常常為了節省空間而站著。小屋能盛那麼多男男女女真是讓人吃驚，曾有二十五或是三十個靈魂並軀體同時在屋裡，但告別時我們從未覺得太過擁擠。很多房子——不論是公房還是私宅——通常有幾乎難以數計的房間，宏大的廳堂，還有巨大的地窖，藏著酒類及和平時期的軍需品，它們高大寬敞、氣勢恢宏，跟裡面的人相比似乎大得太過誇張了，以至於人像是寄生其中的蟲子一樣。我曾目睹一個讓人愕然的場景：一次，正當侍者在什麼叫做Tremont或是Astor或是Middlesex的酒店前通知事情的時候，一隻滑稽的耗子溜出了供房客闊步的門廊，旋即在地上覓得一個窟窿後溜得無影無蹤。