是序言和第一章里的片段对比。斜体是原文，加粗是我试图突出重点。
序言
1. 国王十字车站里挤满了平民。“也叫非作战人员，瑞弗。在和平年代算是个体面的身份。”老家伙说完又补充道，“当然了，一九一四年九月之后，这个世界就再也没见过和平二字。”
King’s Cross crammed with what the O.B. called other people （原文斜体）: ‘Non-combatants, River. Perfectly honourable occupation in peacetime.’ He had a codicil. ‘We’ve not been at peace since September ’14.’
2. 这些人被称作“执行员”，因为他们能完美地执行任务。此时他们听从指挥，按兵不动。
The achievers—so called because they got the job done—were keeping well back, as per instructions.
3. 瑞弗将这份疑惑暂且搁置，留给未来的自己。
He stuffed the information away; a question to be asked later.
4. “请不要伤害我！”男子的头紧贴地板，声音含混不清，几把手枪正指着他的脑袋。
是目标，不是男子。瑞弗提醒自己：是目标。
Don’t hurt me!’ The boy’s voice was muffled: he had a faceful of floor, and guns pointing at his head.
Target, River reminded himself. Not boy. Target.
5. 这下好多了。虽然还是没人为他让道，但至少他们不再使劲把他往回推了。
That was better. No path opened, but people stopped pushing him back.
第一章：
6. 偶尔会有一个人影出现在华丽的金色衬线体后，看着窗外的景色，好像在看另一个世界；但是很快，他就会对眼前的一切失去兴趣，消失在昏暗的室内。
顶层的窗边就不会出现这样的景象，因为窗帘总是紧闭，什么都看不到。
Occasionally, from behind the serifed flamboyance of this long-redundant logo, a figure will appear, and regard the street below as if he’s looking at something else altogether. But whatever that is, it won’t hold his attention long. In a moment or two, he’ll be gone.
No such entertainment is promised by the uppermost storey, whose windows have blinds drawn over them.
7. 可能染上了毒瘾、酗酒成性，或者被卷入了丑闻，可能涉嫌背叛，积攒了太多仇怨和疑虑
for crimes of drugs and drunkenness and lechery; of politics and betrayal; of unhappiness and doubt;
8. 很快，这些想法也会消散，因为有关斯劳部门的一切都不会留在人们的脑海中，除了它的名字。
许多年前的一次闲聊决定了斯劳部门的命运：
兰姆被调职了。
他们把他送到哪儿了？那个地方很糟糕吗？
非常糟糕。
天哪，不会是斯劳吧？
还不如斯劳呢。
But this thought too will quickly fade, because few things associated with Slough House stick in the mind; its name alone having proved durable, born years ago, in a casual exchange between spooks: Lamb’s been banished.
Where’ve they sent him? Somewhere awful?
Bad as it gets.
God, not Slough?
Might as well be.
9. “这个玩笑开得真够缺德的。”杰克逊·兰姆说道。
‘A sense of humour can be a real bastard,’ Jackson Lamb said.
10. 兰姆倚在门框上，湿润的脸颊泛着光。运动后他总会这样，而爬楼梯也算是一种运动。不知他是如何做到这么悄无声息的，Lamb was leaning in the doorway, his cheeks glistening slightly as they tended to after exertion. Climbing stairs counted, though he’d not made a squeak on them.
11. “你是说，他称我们为纳粹吗？”
“当然，他当然觉得我们是纳粹。但我指的是你在希多的工位旁边翻垃圾。” ‘
You think he’s calling us Nazis?’
‘Well, yes. Obviously he’s calling us Nazis. But I meant you doing this on Sid’s half of the room.’
12. 所以他只能淋着暴雨，盯着记者的公寓。灯光在薄薄的窗帘后闪烁，一个人影出现又消失。好像里面那个三流记者正在纠结自己是不是被盯梢了。他在舒适干爽的室内，瑞弗则站在雨中，等着他把垃圾拿出来，好偷回去翻查。那个记者可能都知道。
午夜过后不久，瑞弗忽然想道：他可能真的知道。
So it was the slight overhang in the pouring rain. Worse than that, it was the flickering light behind the thin curtains of the journo’s street-level apartment; it was the way a shadow kept appearing behind them. As if the hack inside, dry as toast, was busting a gut at the thought of River in the rain, waiting for him to put his rubbish bag out so he could whip it away for covert study. As if the journo knew all this.
Not long after midnight, the thought occurred to River: maybe he did.
13. “早上好。”
“这什么鬼天气。”
“但您还是来了，很高兴又见到您，先生。”
‘Good morning.’
‘It’s a lousy morning.’
‘But it’s always good to see you, sir.’
14. 他不会刻意去想，但每天早晨他都会想起这些久远的回忆，持续至今。初出茅庐的记者从彼得伯勒开始，一路打拼到了伦敦。然后节奏加快，犯罪、政治，他一路高升，狂奔到四十八岁，坐稳了每周专栏的宝座。他负责两个专栏：周日和周三。还是《提问时间》的常驻嘉宾。从煽动者到政治评论家，他的职业道路比旁人更加曲折，但也让成功的果实变得更加甜美。如果能回到那时，他完全没意见。
That wasn’t so much a thought that occurred to him as an awareness that nudged him most mornings, round about now: cub reporter—ridiculous term—in Peterborough, then the inevitable shift to London, and the varied tempos of the major beats, crime and politics, before he ascended, aged forty-eight, to his due: the weekly column. Two, in fact. Sundays and Wednesdays. Regular appearances on Question Time. From firebrand to the acceptable face of dissent; an admittedly long trajectory in his case, but that made arrival all the sweeter. If he could have freeze-framed life back then, he’d have had little to complain about.
15. 每个月总有那么一天，杰克逊·兰姆来得比他还早。他会在清晨出现，巡视领地。你当然可以随便来，兰姆会说，但是这儿还是我的地盘，就算这栋楼塌了，也会发现我的骨头埋在最上面。
Once in a harvest moon, Jackson Lamb would arrive before Ho; random predawn appearances that were purely territorial. You can haunt this place all you like, Lamb was telling him. But when they pull down the walls and count the bones, it’ll be mine they find on top.
16. 察觉到她需要一些运气，所以应该也不是她。The chances of sensing her presence weren’t good. So it wasn’t her.
17. 路易莎·盖伊，每次看到她，她都像高压锅一样，耳朵里源源不断地冒出蒸汽
Louisa Guy, who Ho couldn’t look at without thinking of a pressure cooker, steam coming out of her ears
18. 有人嗑药，有人酗酒，有人闹出了桃色丑闻，有人涉嫌背叛——斯劳部门里充满了各种各样的秘密，何对这些全都一清二楚，除了两个人。
其中一个就是希多，楼上的人可能就是希多。
the crimes of drugs, drunkenness, lechery, politics and betrayal—Slough House was full of secrets, and Ho knew the size and depth of each and every one of them, excepting two.
Which brought him to Sid. It could be Sid up there.
19. 所以他也不喜欢希多。
That was probably the reason he didn’t like Sid.
20. 茶水间的通风很差，所以天花板上的墙皮很快就开始龟裂。
The kitchen was poorly ventilated, and plaster frequently flaked from the ceiling.
21. 他想不出卡特怀特这么早来上班的理由，但直觉是这么告诉他的。要下注的话，他就会赌现在楼上的人是卡特怀特。
There wasn’t a single reason he could think of why Cartwright might be here this time of the morning, but still: place your bets. Ho bet Cartwright. That’s who was upstairs right now.
22. 罗伯特·霍布顿相信自己的直觉，因为他是一名记者，就算他不再为报纸撰稿也无法撼动这个事实。他知道有一件事即将发生，正在每天的新闻中寻找与之相关的蛛丝马迹。
And Robert Hobden trusted his instincts. You didn’t stop being a journalist just because you were no longer in print. Especially when you knew you had a story, and were waiting for its fin to show above the waves of the everyday news.
23. 最后他终于想起来了，他忘记了要出门丢垃圾。
The thing left undone had been putting the rubbish out, but he’d remembered eventually.【是他已经把垃圾丢出去了】
24. 他小心翼翼地展开了被揉皱的便利贴，上面同样什么都没有，只有一些无关紧要的购物清单：鸡蛋、茶包、果汁、牙膏——也就是构成这袋垃圾的主要物品。
Even the Post-its, carefully uncrumpled, yielded nothing more than shopping lists: eggs, teabags, juice, toothpaste—the original ideas on which this mess was based.
25. 瑞弗并不知道他整天都干些什么，但他周围堆起来的可乐罐和比萨盒说明了一件事：他正在为自己建造一座堡垒。【好严肃啊】
how he spent the hours between was a mystery to River. Though the cola cans and pizza boxes surrounding his desk suggested he was building a fort.
26. 她给人的感觉就像《远大前程》里的老小姐郝微香，坚持要穿一辈子婚纱。瑞弗对婚纱并不了解，但在斯劳部门，就算是婚纱也会变成蜘蛛网裙。
Havisham would have suited her better. River didn’t know about wedding gowns, but she might as well have walked round draped in cobweb. 【她只是天天穿蕾丝裙，不是婚纱，但River因为不懂裙子所以会联想到总穿婚纱的Havisham】
27. 但这个地方的门实在太难打开了。按理说，门坏了不难修，但这毕竟是斯劳部门，不能随便让无关人员进入，也就没法请人来修。你必须先填一张报修单，申请财务审批，还要给总部认可的维修单位开具出入证明。聘用外部人士“理论上”是可行的，但是你要阐明每一笔支出的必要性，还要花一大笔钱做背景调查，所以这条路是行不通的。
This should have been an easy fix, but Slough House being what it was, you couldn’t have a carpenter drop round: you had to fill out a property maintenance form; make a revenue disbursement request; arrange a clearance pass for an approved handyman—outsourcing was ‘fiscally appropriate’, standing instructions explained, but the sums spent on background vetting put the lie to that.
28. 她对着杰克逊·兰姆的门大喊了一声，问他想不想喝茶，对面没有回音。
and asked Jackson Lamb’s shut door if it wanted tea. There was no answer.
29. 她总是戴着一顶帽子，从来不穿长裤，尤其是牛仔裤，甚至不穿短裙。她穿连衣裙，袖口往往有一圈蕾丝。
usually a hat; never jeans or trousers—nor even skirts, but always dresses, their sleeves lacy at the cuff.
30. 写好的报告会被送到摄政公园总部。凯瑟琳衷心地希望掌管数据库的人对待这些报告会比对待她的报修单更认真一些。
Her reports would be couriered over to Regent’s Park, where she hoped the Queens of the Database would pay it more attention than they paid her maintenance requests.
31. 于是他决定不再做这种徒劳的努力，转而说道：“翻垃圾弄脏的。”
兰姆意外地做了个鬼脸，吐出舌头，发出了不屑的“噗”声。
‘Dirty work,’ he said instead.
Unexpectedly, Lamb blew a raspberry.
32. “等一切尘埃落定的时候。”
“也就是？”
兰姆叹了一口气，并不想解答这种愚蠢的问题。“卡特怀特，你该庆幸自己面对的只是尘埃。要不是因为你的出身，要是没有你外公，你面对的就不是尘埃，而是冰川——融化的冰川。没有人会提到你，你会是一个遥远的记忆，偶尔才被想起。
‘When the dust settles.’
‘Which will be when?’
Lamb had sighed, grieving his role as answerer of stupid questions. ‘The only reason there’s dust is your connections, Cartwright. If not for grandad, we wouldn’t be discussing dust. We’d be talking glaciers. We’d be talking about when glaciers melt. Except we wouldn’t be talking at all, because you’d be a distant memory.
33. “惊恐发作。”兰姆说，“有三个人惊恐发作。”
‘Panic attacks,’ said Lamb. ‘There were three panic attacks.’
River nodded.
‘Not including yours,’ Lamb said.
And that had been the most significant conversation River had had with Jackson Lamb.
Until today. 【是我的电子版漏了这一段…？】
34. 有人都知道穆迪搞砸的事件：他让一个文职人员揣着大额英镑逃跑了。这绝非明智之举，更别提后来雪球越滚越大，结局惨不忍睹。
everyone knew Jed Moody’s screw-up: he’d let a desk-jockey clean his clock before making tracks with about a squillion quid. Not a great career move for a Dog—the Service’s internal security division—even without the subsequent messy ending.
35. 冷战也不全是坏事，知道吗？要想平息青春期的躁动，口头辩论总比拿刀捅人好。
The Cold War had its upside, you know. There’s something to be said for getting teenage disaffection out your system by carrying a card instead of a knife. 【指持有某种政治组织或政党的成员卡】