Azeril对《Three Act Tragedy (Hercule Poirot Mysteries (Paperback))》的笔记(1)

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Az.: 比较古典风的推理. 不止对悲剧形式的借用 对演员心态的挖掘方面 也有侧重展现. 最初 故事由几个业余侦探的问讯 现场和推理展开. 中场部分波洛才再次入局. 案件方面 和牙医谋杀案一样 起因都与重婚问题有关 个中情节也是乔装演绎 故布疑阵. 主角的光环.「伟大的演员不会在离开舞台后就停止表演.」变戏法的套路. 三种心智 戏剧化的 浪漫化的 和理性的. 重现罪案的雪利酒会. 罕见动机 带妆彩排. 少女的英雄情节 不是恒久爱情的坚实基石. 
◆  1
>> “A man who dramatises himself is sometimes misjudged,” pointed out Mr. Satterthwaite. “One does not take his sincerities seriously.”
>> “That events come to people - not people to events. Why do some people have exciting lives and other people dull ones? Because of their surroundings? Not at all. One man may travel to the ends of the earth and nothing will happen to him. There will be a massacre a week before he arrives, and an earthquake the day after he leaves, and the boat that he nearly took will be shipwrecked. And another man may live at Balham and travel to the City everyday, and things will happen to him. He will be mixed up with blackmailing gangs and beautiful girls and motor bandits. There are people with a tendency to shipwrecks - even if they go on a boat on an ornamental lake something will happen to it. In the same way men like your Hercule Poirot don’t have to look for crime - it comes to them.”
◆  2
>> “My dear, it wasn’t possible. I mean, things either are possible or they’re not. This wasn’t. It was simply penetrating.”
That was the new word just now - everything was “penetrating”.
◆  3
>> How can we tell the secrets of the human mind? 
>> “Yes, with your talk of crime this morning. You said this man, Hercule Poirot, was a kind of stormy petrel, that where he went crimes followed. No sooner does he arrive than we have a suspiciously sudden death. Of course my thoughts fly to murder at once.”
>> But to the observant Mr. Satterthwaite it seemed as though Sir Charles hankered slightly after the part he was not, after all, to play.
◆  4
>> “Of more than twice her years,
Seam’d with an ancient swordcut on the cheek,
And bruised and bronzed, she lifted up her eyes
And loved him, with that love which was her doom.”
>> Young people, I feel, should see plenty of people and places - especially people. Otherwise - well, propinquity is sometimes a dangerous thing.
>> “It might be safer so. If you do that, at least you know where you are. At that age a man’s follies and sins are definitely behind him; they are not - still to come ... ”
◆  5
>> He felt a sudden pity for his host. At the age of fifty-two, Charles Cartwright, the gay debonair breaker of hearts, had fallen in love. And, as he himself realised, his case was doomed to disappointment. Youth turns to youth.
>> “Girls don’t wear their hearts on their sleeves,” thought Mr. Satterthwaite. “Egg makes a great parade of her feeling for Sir Charles. She wouldn’t if it really meant anything. Young Manders is the one.”
>> “In the heart of the desert or the heart of the crowd - what does it matter? The inmost core of man is solitary - alone. I have always been - a lonely soul ... ”
◆  6
>> He admired her resource and her driving power, and stifled that slightly Victorian side of his nature which disapproved of a member of the fairer sex taking the initiative in affairs of the heart.
>> “Oh, so you noticed that?”
“Assuredly I noticed. I have the heart very susceptible to lovers - you too, I think. And la jeunesse, it is always touching.”
>> See you, as a boy I was poor. There were many of us. We had to get on in the world. I entered the Police Force. I worked hard. Slowly I rose in that Force. I began to make a name for myself. I made a name for myself. I began to acquire an international reputation. At last, I was due to retire. There came the War. I was injured. I came, a sad and weary refugee, to England. A kind lady gave me hospitality. She died - not naturally; no, she was killed. Eh bien, I set my wits to work. I employed my little grey cells. I discovered her murderer. I found that I was not yet finished. No, indeed, my powers were stronger than ever. Then began my second career, that of a private inquiry agent in England. I have solved many fascinating and baffling problems. Ah, monsieur, I have lived! The psychology of human nature, it is wonderful. I grew rich. Some day, I said to myself, I will have all the money I need. I will realise all my dreams.”
>> “A knowledge of human nature - what a dangerous thing it can be.”
◆  12
>> “Perhaps,” said Sir Charles, “it was something that he didn’t know that he knew.”
>> “Jealousy never pays, my dear,” he said. “If you feel jealous, don’t show it. 
>> “Have patience,” counselled Mr. Satterthwaite. “Everything comes right in the end, you know.”
“I’m not patient,” said Egg. “I want to have things at once, or even quicker.”
◆  14
>> There doesn’t seem to be anything that warns girls against a certain type of man. Nothing in themselves, I mean. Their parents warn them, but that’s no good - one doesn’t believe. It seems dreadful to say so, but there is something attractive to a girl in being told anyone is a bad man. She thinks at once that her love will reform him.
>> “One knows so little. When one knows more, it is too late.”
>> “It wasn’t what I was brought up to believe,” she said apologetically. “I was taught that everyone knew the difference between right and wrong. But somehow - I don’t always think that is so.”
>> “The human mind is a great mystery,” said Mr. Satterthwaite gently. “As yet, we are going groping our way to understanding. Without acute mania it may nevertheless occur that certain natures lack what I should describe as braking power. If you or I were to say, ‘I hate someone - I wish he were dead,’ the idea would pass from our minds as soon as the words were uttered. The brakes would work automatically. But, in some people the idea, or obsession, holds. They see nothing but the immediate gratification of the idea formed.”
>> “Egg’s very impulsive, and once she has set her mind on a thing nothing will stop her. As I said before, I hate her mixing herself up in all this, but she won’t listen to me.”
>> ‘My dear boy, if you were to sweep away all the churches ever built or planned, you would still have to reckon with God.’
◆  15
>> “No, no, it is not good of me. It is the curiosity - and, yes, the hurt to my pride. I must repair my fault. My time - that is nothing - why voyage after all? The language may be different, but everywhere human nature is the same. But of course if I am not welcome, if you feel that I intrude - ”
◆  16
>> Sir Charles received these plaudits with becoming modesty - his own particular brand of modesty. He had not received compliments on his stage performances for many years without perfecting a manner of acknowledging them.
>> “But one cannot have a case as one would like to have it. One must take a case as it is. Just one little idea I should like to suggest. I suppose it is not possible that Stephen Babbington’s death was an accident - that the poison (if poison there was) was intended for Sir Bartholomew Strange, and that, the wrong man was killed.”
>> No, no, I am not making an accusation - quelle idée! But I want to be very sure of my facts. 
>> No. That is valuable. You know, but I do not. I see the facts unbiased by any preconceived notions.
>> My friend, do not ask me to do anything of an active nature. It is my lifelong conviction that any problem is best solved by thought.
◆  17
>> “No, no, you did not fail. You are a shrewd judge of human nature, my friend. I was suffering from ennui - I had - in the words of the child who was playing near us - ‘nothing to do.’ You came at the psychological moment. (And, talking of that, how much crime depends, too, on that psychological moment. The crime, the psychology, they go hand in hand.) But let us come back to our muttons. This is
a crime very intriguing - it puzzles me completely.”
>> “Ah, that, it leaps to the eye! I am of a very susceptible nature - I wish to assist a love affair - not to hinder it. You and I, my friend, must work together in this - to the honour and glory of Charles Cartwright; it is not so? When the case is solved - ”
“If - ” said Mr. Satterthwaite mildly.
“When! I do not permit myself to fail.”
“Never?” asked Mr. Satterthwaite searchingly.
>> “But you’re never failed altogether?”
The persistence of Mr. Satterthwaite was curiosity, pure and simple. He wondered ...
“Eh bien,” said Poirot. “Once. Long ago, in Belgium. We will not talk of it ... ”
>> An Englishman is usually modest about what he does well, sometimes pleased with himself over something he does badly; but a Latin has a truer appreciation of his own powers. If he is clever he sees no reason for concealing the fact.
>> “I should like to know,” said Mr. Satterthwaite, “it would interest me very much - just what do you yourself hope to get out of this business? Is it the excitement of the chase?”
Poirot shook his head.
“No - no - it is not that. Like the chien de chasse, I follow the scent, and I get excited, and once on the scent I cannot be called off it. All that is true. But there is more ... It is - how shall I put it? - a passion for getting at the truth. In all the world there is nothing so curious and so interesting and so beautiful as truth ... ”
>> “And a third phrase would express it better still. She is perhaps the person you would all prefer to have committed the crime.”
>> “Yes, yes, you have the secretive nature. You have your ideas, but you like keeping them to yourself. I have sympathy with you. I do the same myself ... ”
>> A great actor does not cease to act because he is not on the stage any more. 
>> “Précisément. You have shrewd judgment and observation, and you like keeping its results to yourself. Your opinions of people are your private collection. You do not display them for all the world to see.”
◆  20
>> How dull men are when they decide to settle down! They lose all their charm.
>> You can’t really shock a sweet mid-Victorian. They say so little, but always think the worst ... 
>> “I’m not at all sure that I’m not a little jealous of her ... We women are such cats, aren’t we? Scratch, scratch, miauw, miauw, purr, purr ... ”
>> “All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand - ”
◆  21
>> “The trouble is,” he went on, “most people are so indeterminate. There’s nothing about them to take hold of.”
>> “That’s quite all right, Sir Charles, I find people never recognise themselves.” She giggled. “Not if, as you said just now, one is really merciless.”
>> that we all have an exaggerated idea of our own personalities and don’t recognise the truth if it’s sufficiently brutally portrayed.
>> “You needn’t be afraid, Sir Charles. Women aren’t usually cruel to men - unless it’s some particular man - they’re only cruel to other women.”
◆  22
>> “Why does a dog go hunting?”
◆  23
>> An invalid knows everything. She hears everything and forgets nothing.
>> Quite the spider’s parlour, M. Poirot. And here all we poor little flies have walked in.
>> “It is, you see, the simple theory of the conjuring trick. The attention cannot be in two places at once. To do my conjuring trick I need the attention focused elsewhere. Well, there is a moment, a psychological moment. When Sir Charles falls - dead - every eye in the room is on his dead body. Everyone crowds forward to get near him, and no one, no one at all, looks at Hercule Poirot, and in that moment I exchange the glasses and no one sees ...
◆  24
>> “Probably hasn’t the faintest idea, but he’s got to keep up his professional reputation.”
◆  25
>> “What kind of mind have I?” demanded Sir Charles, slightly hurt.
“You have the actor’s mind, Sir Charles, creative, original, seeing always dramatic values. Mr. Satterthwaite, he has the playgoer’s mind, he observes the characters, he has the sense of atmosphere. But me, I have the prosaic mind. I see only the facts without any dramatic trappings or footlights.”
◆  26
>> “I do wish you happiness, mademoiselle. Not the brief happiness of youth, but the happiness that endures - the happiness that is built upon a rock.”
>> “You don’t think just madness - ?” suggested Egg.
“No, mademoiselle - not madness in the sense you mean. There is a reason. I must find that reason.”
>> “Mais oui - that explains everything. A curious motive - a very curious motive - such a motive as I have never come across before, and yet it is reasonable, and, given the circumstances, natural. Altogether a very curious case.”
◆  27
>> “To reconstruct the crime - that is the aim of the detective. To reconstruct a crime you must place one fact upon another just as you place one card on another in building a house of cards. And if the facts will not fit - if the card will not balance - well - you must start your house again, or else it will fall ...
>> “As I said the other day there are three different types of mind: There is the dramatic mind - the producer’s mind, which sees the effect of reality that can be produced by mechanical appliances - there is also the mind that reacts easily to dramatic appearances - and there is the young romantic mind - and finally, my friends, there is the prosaic mind - the mind that sees not blue sea and mimosa tree, but the painted backcloth of stage scenery.
>> One should always start an investigation with the simplest and most obvious theories. 
>> “But then, my friends, I was visited by a curious sensation. It seemed clear and logical enough that the person who had committed the crimes must have been a person who had been present on both occasions; in other words a person on that list of seven - but I had the feeling that that obviousness was an arranged obviousness. It was what any sane and logical person would be expected to think. I felt that I was, in fact, looking not at reality but at an artfully painted bit of scenery. A really clever criminal would have realised that anyone whose name was on that list would necessarily be suspect, and therefore he or she would arrange for it not to be there.
>> “Oh, yes, there is. A queer point - a very queer point. The only time I have come across such a motive for murder. The murder of Stephen Babbington was neither more nor less than a dress rehearsal.”
>> “He’ll escape,” said Mr. Satterthwaite.
Poirot shook his head.
“No, he will only choose his exit. The slow one before the eyes of the world, or the quick one off stage.”
>> Hero worship is a real and terrible danger to the young. Some day Egg will fall in love with a friend, and build her happiness upon rock.