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At first, it looked so defeated: Its head buried between its front paws and its body curled up on a ledge 20 feet above a street in downtown St. Paul.
起初，它看上去悲观失落，脑袋埋在前爪和身体之间，蜷缩在圣保罗市中心街头一个20英尺高（约合6米）的窗沿上。
But this was a raccoon, after all — part of a deceptive and unpredictable family of nocturnal mammals whose panda-like looks lull humans into forgetting they can carry multiple diseases. Nonetheless, three maintenance workers shortly before noon on Tuesday thought they could rouse the raccoon from its stupor and offered it a ladder to climb down from the ledge.
但它毕竟是一只浣熊，属于一个充满欺骗性而难以预测的夜行哺乳动物种类，它们熊猫般的外表骗住了人类，让人忘了它们可能携带多种病菌。尽管如此，在周二中午之前不久，三个维修工觉得他们可以让这只浣熊从恍惚中清醒过来，还给它预备了一个从窗沿上爬下来的梯子。
It was the start of a mesmerizing escape — captivating people in Minnesota and then nationwide on Twitter.
一场引人入胜的逃生就这样开始了——它打动了明尼苏达州人，然后是全国的Twitter网民。
The raccoon, clearly not ready to give up and not a fan of ladders, jolted from the recess of the building, dug its long fingernails into the tan exterior and scurried over to another side. It started to climb and climb and climb.
这只浣熊显然还不准备放弃，而且也不大喜欢梯子，它从大厦凹进去的地方一跃而出，长长的指甲抓着大厦棕褐色的外墙，匆匆转向另一侧，开始不断往上爬，爬啊爬。
Raccoons are skilled climbers with strong claws and will rapidly scurry up trees to escape danger. By rotating their hind feet, they can descend from trees headfirst, according to the book “Adirondack Mammals.”
浣熊极为擅长攀登，它们的爪子很有力，能迅速爬上树，逃离危险。《阿迪朗达克哺乳动物》(Adirondack Mammals)一书中写道，它们还可以轮流摆动后足，头朝下地从树上爬下来。
The St. Paul raccoon scaled the two-story building with ease. But there was a bigger challenge ahead: the UBS Plaza, a 25-story office tower and St. Paul’s 15th-tallest building. Within minutes, the raccoon had ascended five stories.
圣保罗的这只浣熊轻松爬上这座两层建筑。但是，前方还有一个更大的挑战：瑞银广场大厦(UBS Plaza)，这座25层的办公楼是圣保罗排名第15的高层建筑。几分钟内，浣熊已经爬上了五层。
About 10 minutes later, the raccoon was pressed against the 12th floor, now a mere dark spot between two windows more than 100 feet above the street. Then the raccoon reached the 15th floor and then the 20th.
大约10分钟后，浣熊的身体紧贴在12层的位置，成了街道上方100多英尺高（约合30米）的两扇窗户之间的一个黑点。然后，浣熊到达了15楼，然后是20楼。
While it’s normal for raccoons to climb 20 or 30 feet, scaling a large building is very unusual, said Russell L. Burke, a biology professor at Hofstra University.
虽然浣熊爬上二三十英尺的高度是正常的，但爬上大型建筑物非常罕见，霍夫斯特拉大学(Hofstra University)生物学教授拉塞尔·L·伯克(Russell L. Burke)说。
Gawkers flooded the streets below UBS Plaza. Some brought binoculars. A girl clutched a raccoon stuffed animal. A marquee on Minnesota Public Radio’s building across the street flashed the breaking news: “St. Paul’s downtown raccoon reaches new heights.”
围观者涌向瑞银广场周围的街道。有人还带上了双筒望远镜。一个女孩手里抓着一只浣熊毛绒动物。街对面明尼苏达州公共广播电台大楼的电子屏上闪现出突发新闻：“圣保罗市中心的浣熊爬到新高度。”
Inside the tower, employees pressed their faces against the windows hoping to catch a glimpse of it. On the 23rd floor of UBS Plaza, Sheila Donnelly-Coyne, a partner at Paige J. Donnelly, a St. Paul law firm, huddled with her co-workers and started to chronicle the raccoon’s journey.
大厦内部，员工们把脸贴在窗户上，希望能看它一眼。在瑞银广场23层，圣保罗律师事务所佩奇·J·唐纳利(Paige J. Donnelly)的合伙人谢拉·唐纳利-科因(Sheila Donnelly-Coyne)和同事们挤在一起，开始记录这只浣熊的旅程。
Their thoughts raced. Who will rescue it? Will it fall?
他们脑海里转过各种念头。谁来救救它？它会掉下去吗？
It showed up around 3 p.m. and started pacing on a thin window ledge outside Ms. Donnelly-Coyne’s office. “He just seemed sweet and cute and very mellow,” she said in an interview on Wednesday.
它在下午3点左右出现，在唐纳利-科因的办公室外一个窄窄的窗沿上踱步。“他又乖又甜又可爱，”她在周三接受采访时说。
Breaking out a window or sending down window cleaners would have been too risky, Ms. Donnelly-Coyne said, so officials baited live traps with cat food and placed them on the roof. They hoped the smell would lure the animal up another two floors.
唐纳利-科因说，打破窗户或是让窗户清洁工去救它太冒险了，所以大厦管理人员把装了猫粮的诱捕器放在屋顶上，希望这种气味能引诱它爬完剩下两层。
Ms. Donnelly-Coyne stayed in the office until 9 p.m., taking breaks from her work to check on the raccoon. When she left, she said, the animal was curled up sleeping. “All they could do was put enough stinky food up there to encourage him to go up the last two floors,” she said. “We were all kind of worried he might be too tired to do so but thankfully the little guy kept going.”
唐纳利-科因一直呆在办公室直到晚上9点，其间不时地放下手头的工作去查看浣熊。她说，当她离开时，这头动物蜷缩着身体睡着了。“他们能做的就是把大量散发气味的食物放在那里，鼓励他再爬两层，”她说。“我们都担心他可能太累了，幸好这个小家伙还在继续前进。”
The raccoon awoke around 10:30 p.m. and apparently had a change of heart. It started to descend, down to the 18th floor and then the 17th, before stopping on another ledge.
晚上10点半左右，浣熊醒来了，它显然改了主意，开始往下爬，一直爬到18楼，然后来到17楼，接着停在另一个窗沿上。
A photographer at Minnesota Public Radio zoomed in and saw the raccoon peering over the ledge. Maybe it saw the cheering crowd below. Maybe it thought the descent was too far. Either way, around 2 a.m. on Wednesday, it began another climb.
明尼苏达州公共广播电台的一名摄影师拉近了镜头，看到浣熊正在窗沿上往下看。也许它看到了下面欢呼的人群。也许它觉得往下爬太远了。不管怎样，周三凌晨两点左右，它再次开始往上爬。
It surpassed the 18th floor and then 19th and kept going and going. Around 2:45 a.m., according to Mr. Nelson, it scaled the top and hopped onto the roof. It also found the cat food inside the trap.
它爬过了18楼，然后是19楼，接着继续前进。根据纳尔逊(Nelson)的说法，大约凌晨2点45分，它爬到了顶层，跳上屋顶，还发现了诱捕笼里的猫食。
Wildlife Management Services, the company that set the traps, retrieved the raccoon on Wednesday morning, said Laurie Brickley, a spokeswoman for the city’s Department of Safety and Inspections.
圣保罗市安全和检查部发言人劳丽·布里克利(Laurie Brickley)说，设置诱捕装置的野生动物管理服务公司(Wildlife Management Services)于周三早上接回了浣熊。
The raccoon was a female about 2 years old, Ms. Brickley said. “She was a little skinny but in good shape,” she added.
布里克利说，这头浣熊是雌性，大约两岁左右。“她有点瘦，但状况良好，”她补充说。
By the time the team reached the animal, it was “incredibly tired,” and had eaten all that was in the live trap and had drank a lot of water, Ms. Brickley said.
布里克利说，当团队来到它身边时，它“非常疲倦”，吃掉了诱捕笼中的所有东西，并且喝了很多水。
When asked where the raccoon had been released, Ms. Brickley declined to answer, saying only that it had been sent into the wild. “This raccoon needs peace and quiet right now,” she said.
当被问到浣熊被释放的位置时，布里克利拒绝回答，只说它已被送到野外。 “这头浣熊现在需要平静安宁，”她说。
