Passer le texte de l’article
Nell stood at the Broad Street pump with an empty jug and would not fill it . It was 1854 , cholera had taken hold in Soho , and she wanted the handle off before another morning . The guardians had sent a man to do it . He was still holding the tool against his coat , as if a pump were a thing you could argue with until it became safe . " If I take this off and the deaths go on , I will have closed a pump and proved nothing , " he said . " Half the street is blaming the air . I want a reason I can say aloud . " " You have it on that paper , " Nell said . " The doctor has not been asking what the air smelled like . He has been asking where people drew water . John Snow was saying cholera could travel in water before this street panicked , and the list fits that account better than the smell does . The households near this pump who drink from it are on the page . So are a few who live farther off and still sent for this water . Foul air hangs over the whole neighborhood . It does not choose the families who prefer this pump . " He looked down the street , not at her . Windows were shut . A cart had already taken one family out , and another was packing in a doorway . The new attacks had been easing , which made the job harder , not easier . A neat man could wait for the outbreak to fade and then take credit , or he could wait and call the handle irrelevant . " People will say I stopped it , " he said . " Then do not give them that sentence , " Nell said . " The street was already thinning . Taking the handle off will not be a pure test , and it will not be a miracle . It is still the practical decision that matches who fell ill . Leave the boast at home . Take the handle off so the next person who comes with a jug does not drink what that list is pointing at . " He worked the handle loose . It came away warm from the day's sun , an ordinary piece of iron , nothing that looked like a proof . Nell hooked her empty jug on her wrist . She did not bend to the pump , and she did not let him tell the boy at the corner that the parish had ended the outbreak . She started toward the farther pump , and the handle stayed in his hand .
Continuez à lire avec les traductions Créez un compte gratuit : 7 jours de Pro, puis 20 traductions de mots par jour ou une formule payante.
