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"What was that?" People cried from one end of town to another. They stared at each other, puzzled, troubled. Were the gods fighting in heaven?
“那是什么？”从城的这头到城的那头，人们叫喊着，他们面面相觑，迷惑不解而又万分恐慌。难道众神在天上打架了？
"Look!" somebody shouted. "Look at Vesuvius!"
“快看！”有人喊道，“看维苏威山！”
Thousands of eyes turned upward. Thousands of arms pointed. A black cloud was rising from the shattered summit of the mountain. Higher and higher it rose. Like the trunk of a tree, it rose in the air, branching out as it climbed.
成千双眼睛向上看去，成千只胳膊向上指着。一股黑色的烟云从炸开的山顶升起，越升越高。黑云不断上升，而且就像树干上的树枝一样，分成几股向四周扩散。
Minutes passed. The sound of the explosion died away, but it still reverberated in everyone's ears. The cloud over Vesuvius continued to rise, black as night, higher and higher. A strange rain began to fall on Pompeii—a rain of stones. The stones were light. They were pumice stones, consisting mostly of air bubbles. These poured down as though there had been a sudden cloudburst. The pumice stones did little damage.
几分钟过去了，爆炸声渐渐消失，但这声音仍在每个人的耳中回响。维苏威山上空的烟云继续越升越高，黑得跟深夜一样。此时庞贝上空开始下起一场特别的雨——石雨。这是浮石，主要由气泡构成。石头很轻，但却像是一场倾盆大雨。浮石几乎没有造成什么破坏。
"What is happening?" Pompeiians asked one another. They rushed to the temples—the Temple of Jupiter, the Temple of Apollo, the Temple of Isis. Priests tried to calm the citizens. The sky was dark. An hour went by and darkness still shrouded everything. All was confusion. The people of Pompeii now knew that doom was at hand. Their fears were redoubled when a tremendous rain of hot ash began to fall. The wooden roofs of some of the houses began to catch fire as the heat of the ash reached them. Other buildings were collapsing under the weight of the pumice stones.
“出了什么事？”庞贝人你问我，我问你。他们跑到庙里——朱庇特主神庙、阿波罗太阳神 庙、伊西斯生育女神庙。祭司们尽力让市民冷静下来。天空漆黑一片，一个小时过去了，黑暗仍然笼罩着一切。到处都是乱哄哄的。此刻庞贝人知道他们的末日就要到了。当滚烫的火山灰像密集的雨点一样开始降落时，他们的恐惧开始加剧。落到木质屋顶上的火山灰的巨大热量使得有些房子着了火，还有些建筑物在大量浮石的重压下纷纷倒塌。
