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时间：2023-10-05 08:35:56 来源：浏览：

小说：小伙家中频频发生怪事，每天早晨信箱里都会出现一份早饭？

"How blest my lot, in these sweet fields assign'd

“我何其幸运，来到这些上帝赐予的甜美的田野，

Where Peace and Leisure soothe the tuneful mind.”

在这里，宁静和闲适抚慰了和谐的心灵。”

Scott, of Amwell, Moral Eclogues 1773.

——安威尔的斯科特《道德的牧歌》（1773）

Happiness

幸福

Cricketers on village greens, hay-makers in the evening sunshine, small boats that sail before the wind—all these create in me the illusion of Happiness, as if a land of cloudless pleasure, a piece of the old Golden World, were hidden, not (as poets have fancied) in far seas or beyond inaccessible mountains, but here close at hand, if one could find it, in some undiscovered valley. Certain grassy lanes seem to lead through the copses thither; the wild pigeons talk of it behind the woods.

在乡村的草地上打打板球，在傍晚的余晖下翻晒干草，迎着风浪泛一叶扁舟——所有这些都让我有幸福的幻觉，仿佛没有阴云覆盖的快乐之地，古老金色世界的一角，并非（诗人们幻想的那样）隐藏在遥远的海上或者难以企及的山巅，而就在我们伸手可及的地方，在某个无人涉足的山谷，等待我们去发现。某些青草掩映下的小路似乎穿过灌木丛通向那里；野鸽子在树林后谈论着它。

To-Day

今日

I woke this morning out of dreams into what we call Reality, into the daylight, the furniture of my familiar bedroom—in fact into the well- known, often-discussed, but, to my mind, as yet unexplained Universe.

今晨我自梦中醒来，回到我们所谓的现实中，回到晨光中，看到熟悉的卧房里的家具——实际上我回到的是这个尽人皆知、众人常谈的宇宙，但是在我看来，还没人能解释清楚它到底是什么。

Then I, who came out of Eternity and seem to be on my way thither, got up and spent the day as I usually spend it. I read, I pottered, I complained, and took exercise; and I sat punctually down to eat the cooked meals that appeared at regular intervals.

然后我—来自永恒似乎也终将归于永恒—起床，与往常无二般地度过一日。我读书，闲逛，抱怨，锻炼；每隔一定时间，我就准时坐在饭桌前享用准备好的饭食。

The Afternoon Post

午后的邮件

The village Post Office, with its clock and letter-box, its postmistress lost in the heartless seductions of the Aristocracy and tales of coroneted woe, and the sallow-faced grocer watching from his window opposite, is the scene of a daily crisis in my life, when every afternoon I walk there through the country lanes and ask that well-read young lady for my letters. I always expect good news and cheques; and then, of course, there is the magical Fortune which is coming, and word of it may reach me any day. What it is, this strange Felicity, or whence it shall arrive, I have no notion; but I hurry down in the morning to find the news on the breakfast table, open telegrams in delighted panic, and cry "Here it comes!" when in the night-silence I hear wheels approaching along the road. So, happy in the hope of Happiness, and not greatly concerned with any other interest or ambition, I live on in my quiet, ordered house; and so I shall live perhaps until the end. Is it merely the last great summons and revelation for which I am waiting?

乡村的邮局里，挂着的钟表和邮箱，沉湎于贵族的无情诱拐和王子的悲苦故事中的女邮政局长，以及从对面的窗户里向外张望的脸色腊黄的杂货商，构成了我每日生活中最恐慌的画面。每天下午我穿过乡间小路走到邮局，问那位博学的年轻女士要我的信。我总是希望有好消息和支票寄来；当然，还有即将来临的奇妙的幸福，关于它的信息任何一天都可能传到我这儿来。它会是什么，这份奇特的幸福，或者它从哪里来，我一无所知；但是每天早上我都冲下楼去寻找早餐桌上的消息，愉快又紧张地打开电报，晚上万籁俱寂的时候听到沿街驶来的车轮声，便大叫“它来了！”就这样，我因对幸福怀有希望而快乐，不把别的利益或野心放在心上，继续住在我那安静整洁的家里；也许就这样一直住到生命的尽头。我等待的是否只是上帝最后的伟大召唤和启示呢？

The Busy Bees

忙碌的蜜蜂

Sitting for hours idle in the shade of an apple tree, near the garden- hives, and under the aerial thoroughfares of those honey-merchants,—sometimes when the noonday heat is loud with their minute industry, or when they fall in crowds out of the late sun to their night-long labours,—I have sought instruction from the Bees, and tried to appropriate to myself the old industrious lesson.

无所事事地坐在苹果树阴下好几个小时，旁边是花园里的蜂房，那些贩蜜者在我头顶上方的空气通道里飞舞，——有时看到它们在正午的热气中为那小生意吵吵嚷嚷地奔忙，或者在余晖退去时仍然成群结队地彻夜劳动，——我一直试图从蜜蜂身上学到那关于勤劳的古老教义。

And yet, hang it all, who by rights should be the teacher and who the learners? For those peevish, over-toiled, utilitarian insects, was there no lesson to be derived from the spectacle of Me? Gazing out at me with myriad eyes from their joyless factories, might they not learn at last—could I not finally teach them—a wiser and more generous-hearted way to improve the shining hours?

但是，管它呢，谁就一定是老师，谁就一定是学生？那些性格暴躁、操劳过度、急功近利的昆虫们难道就不能从奇妙的我身上学点儿东西吗？从它们了无生趣的工厂里用复眼盯着我，难道这些蜜蜂最后也学不会——我最后也教不会它们——以一种更明智、更放松的方式来更好地度过这美好的时光吗？

The Wheat

小麦

The Vicar, whom I met once or twice in my walks about the fields, told me that he was glad that I was taking an interest in farming. Only my feeling about wheat, he said, puzzled him.

我在田边散步时遇到过牧师先生一两次，他说他很高兴我对农业感兴趣，只是我对小麦的感觉让他不解。

Now the feeling in regard to wheat which I had not been able to make clear to the Vicar, was simply one of amazement. Walking one day into a field that I had watched yellowing beyond the trees, I was dazzled by the glow and great expanse of gold. I bathed myself in the intense yellow under the intense blue sky; how it dimmed the oak trees and copses and all the rest of the English landscape! I had not remembered the glory of the Wheat; nor imagined in my reading that in a country so far from the Sun, there could be anything so rich, so prodigal, so reckless, as this opulence of ruddy gold, bursting out from the cracked earth as from some fiery vein beneath. I remembered how for thousands of years Wheat had been the staple of wealth, the hoarded wealth of famous cities and empires; I thought of the processes of corn-growing, the white oxen ploughing, the great barns, the winnowing fans, the mills with the splash of their wheels, or arms slow-turning in the wind; of cornfields at harvest-time, with shocks and sheaves in the glow of sunset, or under the sickle moon; what beauty it brought into the northern landscape, the antique, passionate, Biblical beauty of the South!

我没能向牧师先生解释清楚，其实这种对小麦的感觉只是一种惊叹而已。树林那边有一片麦田，我亲眼看着那里的庄稼逐渐成熟。有一天我走了进去，那广袤无垠的金色光芒让我目眩神迷。我沐浴在蔚蓝的天空下金灿灿的麦田中；在它面前，橡树林、灌木丛以及英格兰其他所有美景全都黯然失色！我从不记得小麦有如此的光辉；也从没在书中看到过在离太阳如此遥远的国度，竟然会有如此浓烈、蓬勃、无畏的事物，好像这从地缝里喷射出的丰饶的红彤彤的金色是从地表下炙热的大地脉络里喷涌而出一般。我记得几千年来小麦一直是财富的主要形式，著名的城市和王国都囤积了大量的小麦；我想到种植小麦的过程，耕地的白牛、大谷仓、扬谷风扇、还有磨坊，里面有溅着水花的轮子、在风的吹动下缓缓转动的摇杆；我想到收获时节的麦田，日落的余晖中，或一轮弯月下，那一捆捆、一堆堆的小麦。它给北方的景色增添了怎样的美丽，又给南方带去了多少古朴、热情而又圣洁的美景啊！

The Coming Of Fate

命运的来临

When I seek out the sources of my thoughts, I find they had their beginning in fragile Chance; were born of little moments that shine for me curiously in the past. Slight the impulse that made me take this turning at the cross-roads, trivial and fortuitous the meeting, and light as gossamer the thread that first knit me to my friend. These are full of wonder; more mysterious are the moments that must have brushed me with their wings and passed me by: when Fate beckoned and I did not see it, when new Life trembled for a second on the threshold; but the word was not spoken, the hand was not held out, and the Might-have-been shivered and vanished, dim as a dream, into the waste realms of non-existence.

我追寻自己思想的源泉，发现它们始于脆弱易逝的机缘巧合，源于我生命过往中闪耀着奇异光芒的瞬间。左右我在十字路口向左转还是向右转的是小小的冲动，相遇是小小的偶然，第一次将我和我的朋友牵引到一起的是轻如蛛网的细线。一切都充满了神奇；而更神秘的是那些用翅膀触碰到我、与我擦身而过的瞬间：当命运向我招手，我却没有看到，当新生活在门前短暂驻足，我却一无所知；但是话没说出口，手没伸出去，这些可能性一闪即逝，如梦境般模糊不清，终究化为乌有。

So I never lose a sense of the whimsical and perilous charm of daily life, with its meetings and words and accidents. Why, to-day, perhaps, or next week, I may hear a voice, and, packing up my Gladstone bag, follow it to the ends of the world.

所以我从未停止去体会日常生活那反复无常、充满危险的魅力，以及其中的种种邂逅、言谈和意外。也许就在今天，或者下星期，我会听到一个声音，然后就收拾好我的格莱斯顿旅行包，追随它到天涯海角。

My Speech

我的演讲

"Ladies and Gentlemen," I began—

“女士们先生们，”我开始演讲——

The Vicar was in the chair; Mrs. La Mountain and her daughters sat facing us; and in the little schoolroom, with its maps and large Scripture prints, its blackboard with the day's sums still visible on it, were assembled the labourers of the village, the old family coachman and his wife, the one-eyed postman, and the gardeners and boys from the Hall. Having culled from the newspapers a few phrases, I had composed a speech which I delivered with a spirit and eloquence surprising even to myself. The Vicar cried "Hear, Hear!" the Vicar's wife pounded her umbrella with such emphasis, and the villagers cheered so heartily, that my heart was warmed. I began to feel the meaning of my own words; I beamed on the audience, felt that they were all my brothers, all wished well to the Republic; and it seemed to me an occasion to divulge my real ideas and hopes for the Commonwealth.

牧师先生坐在椅子上；拉蒙坦夫人和她的女儿们坐在我们对面；这个小教室的墙上挂着地图和大幅的圣经篇章，黑板上还能看见当天的算术题。大家齐聚一堂，村里的工人们、年迈的马车夫和他的妻子、独眼的邮递员、寄宿学校的园丁和男学生们。我从报纸上摘抄了几句话，写了一篇演讲稿，现在我如此激昂、口若悬河地宣讲出来，震惊了在场的每一个人，甚至把我自己都给震住了。牧师先生大声叫着“听啊，听啊！”他的妻子用伞如此用力敲击着地面，村民们如此衷心地喝彩，让我心里升起一股暖意。我开始感觉到了我自己的话语的意义；我朝听众微笑着，觉得他们都是我的兄弟，都愿共和国拥有美好的未来；我觉得似乎在这里我可以吐露我自己对联邦的真实看法和希望。

Brushing therefore to one side, and indeed quite forgetting my safe principles, I began to refashion and new-model the State. Most existing institutions were soon abolished; and then, on their ruins, I proceeded to build up the bright walls and palaces of the City within me—the City I had read of in Plato. With enthusiasm, and, I flatter myself, with eloquence, I described it all—the Warriors, that race of golden youth bred from the State-ordered embraces of the brave and fair; those philosophic Guardians, who, being ever accustomed to the highest and most extensive views, and thence contracting an habitual greatness, possessed the truest fortitude, looking down indeed with a kind of disregard on human life and death. And then, declaring that the pattern of this City was laid up in Heaven, I sat down, amid the cheers of the uncomprehending little audience.

我忘乎所以了，把安全原则完全抛诸脑后，我开始重塑我们的国家。大多数现有的机构不久即被废止；然后在它们的废墟上，我建立起我心目中的城市那明亮围墙和宫殿—我在柏拉图的书中读到的城市。我带着巨大的热情，以我自以为是的口才，滔滔不绝地把它全部描述出来—那些战士们，那群正值黄金年华的青年们是由国家选中的勇士和美女交欢诞下的；那些精通哲学的卫国者们，身居高位，视野广阔，因此养成了一种惯常的伟大气质，他们的意志无比坚毅，居高临下而对人类的生死漠然处之。然后我宣称这座城市的格局是在天堂里构建好的。听众已所剩无几且一头雾水，在他们的欢呼声中我坐了下来。

And afterward, in my rides about the country, when I saw on walls and the doors of barns, among advertisements of sales, or regulations about birds' eggs or the movements of swine, little weather-beaten, old-looking notices on which it was stated that I would address the meeting, I remembered how the walls and towers of the City I built up in that little schoolroom had shone with no heavenly light in the eyes of the Vicar's party.

在那之后，我在乡间骑马时，曾在那些贴在墙上和谷仓门上的促销广告、对鸟蛋的规定、迁移猪的告示中间，看到有几张经过风吹日晒、看起来破旧不堪的小告示，上面写着我将在会上发言。这时，我就会想起我在那间小教室里搭建起的城市的围墙和塔楼在牧师先生等众人的眼中又是怎样丝毫没有闪耀出天堂般的光芒。

Stonehenge1

巨石阵

There they sit for ever around the horizon of my mind, that Stonehenge circle of elderly disapproving Faces—Faces of the Uncles, and Schoolmasters and the Tutors who frowned on my youth.

他们一直端坐在我心的地平线上，围成一个巨石阵,长辈们带着不赞同表情的脸——叔父辈们的、校长们的、老师们的脸，他们都对着年轻的我皱眉头。

In the bright centre and sunlight I leap, I caper, I dance my dance; but when I look up, I see they are not deceived. For nothing ever placates them, nothing ever moves to a look of approval that ring of bleak, old, contemptuous Faces.

在巨石阵光明的中央，在阳光下，我蹦跳，我雀跃，我舞蹈；但当我抬起头，却看到他们并没有受骗。从来没什么能够平息他们的怒气，从来没什么能让他们阴郁苍老、充满不屑的脸上露出赞许的表情。

My Portrait

我的画像

But after all I am no amoeba, no mere sack and stomach; I am capable of discourse, can ride a bicycle, look up trains in Bradshaw, in fact I am and calmly boast myself a Human Being—that Masterpiece of Nature, and noblest fruit of time—I am a rational, polite, meat-eating Man.

但我毕竟不是一条变形虫，只有一个皮囊和一个胃；我能够交谈、会骑自行车、查列车时刻表；实际上我是、并能够厚着脸皮吹嘘我是人类—即自然的杰作，时光最高贵的果实—我是一个有理性、有礼貌、食肉的人。

What stellar collisions and conflagrations, what floods and slaughters and enormous efforts has it not cost the Universe to make me—of what astral periods and cosmic processes am I not the crown, the wonder?

怎样的星体相撞和漫天大火，怎样的洪水泛滥和杀戮，宇宙付出了多么巨大的努力才造就了我—我难道不是星体运行和宇宙过程中的王者和奇迹吗？

Where, then, is the Esplanade or world-dominating Terrace for my sublime Statue; the landscape of palaces and triumphal arches for the background or my Portrait; stairs of marble, flung against the sunset, not too narrow and ignoble for me to pause with ample gesture on their balus-traded flights?

那么，我伟大的雕像应该安放在哪里的海滨广场或者主宰世界的阶地上；哪里的宫殿和凯旋门的景色能作我画像的背景；哪里的大理石台阶向着日出的地方延伸，且足够宽敞高贵，能让我靠着围栏尽情伸展四肢，舒服地休息？

Complex Questions

复杂的问题

The Age, the Vicar would remark, was a serious one; Englishmen were met face to face with complex questions. But the questions that had an interest for me at that time, would no doubt have seemed to the Vicar, many of them, old and imaginary. I was too often occupied, I am afraid, with the complexities of my own thoughts; their odd travels and changes; their way of peopling English forests with wood- nymphs, or transforming English orchards—seen perhaps at dawn or in the late sunshine—into Hesperian gardens. Sometimes it was merely names that filled my mind: "Magalat, Galgalat, Saraim," I syllabled to myself; were these the names of the Magi of the East2; or Atos, Satos, Paratoras? What were the names of the nymphs Actaeon3 surprised bathing with Diana? The names of the hounds that hunted to his death that rash intruder; Ladon, Harpyia, Laelaps, Oresitrophos, as some call them; or, as they are given in other authentic books, Boreas, Omelampus, Agreus, Aretusa, Gorgo?

这个时代，牧师先生总是这样评价，形势严峻；英国人正面对着许多复杂的问题。但是许多当时吸引我的问题，在牧师先生看来无疑都是些老生常谈、天马行空的念头。恐怕我太过频繁地陷入自己复杂的想法中；这些想法古怪地发展和变化着；它们怎么想象出英格兰的森林中住着森林仙子，或者如何将英格兰果园—在破晓时，或夕阳中—变成西方之国的花园。有时我脑海中萦绕的不过是一些名字：“玛格拉特、格尔拉特、萨拉依姆，”我暗自念着这几个名字；东方三博士的名字是这样的吗，还是爱托斯、萨托斯、帕拉托拉斯？那些与戴安娜一起沐浴时受到亚克托安惊吓的仙女们叫什么名字？那些追捕亚克托安并最终杀死这个鲁莽的闯入者的猎犬们都叫什么名字？有人叫它们拉冬、哈耳庇厄、雷拉普斯、奥瑞思特洛弗斯；还是，像其他可靠的书籍上写的：玻瑞阿斯、奥莫拉姆普斯、阿格柔斯、阿瑞图撒、戈尔格斯？

Silvia Doria

西尔维娅·多里亚

Beyond the blue hills, within riding distance, there is a country of parks and beeches, with views of the faded, far-off sea. I remember in one of my rides coming on the place which was the scene of the pretty, old-fashioned story of Silvia Doria. Through the gates, with fine gate-posts, on which heraldic beasts, fierce and fastidious, were upholding coroneted shields, I could see, at the end of the avenue, the faéade of the House, with its stone pilasters, and its balustrade on the steep roof.

越过青色群山，骑马能够到达一个满是花园和山毛榉的国度，那里能看到遥远的海消失在天际。我记得一次骑马到那里，看到西尔维娅.多里亚那个美丽古老的故事里的景色。大门两边立着华美的门柱，上面的纹章图像绘着举着贵族盾牌的野兽，凶猛、难以取悦。透过大门我能看到，在大道的尽头，有一幢房子正对着我，房子有石头壁柱，陡峭的屋顶上有栏杆。

More than one hundred years ago, in that Park, with its Italianized house, and level gardens adorned with statues and garden temples, there lived, they say, an old Lord with his two handsome sons. The old Lord had never ceased mourning for his Lady, though she had died a good many years before; there were no neighbours he visited, and few strangers came inside the great Park walls. One day in Spring, however, just when the apple trees had burst into blossom, the gilded gates were thrown open, and a London chariot with prancing horses drove up the Avenue. And in the chariot, smiling and gay, and indeed very beautiful in her dress of yellow silk, and her great Spanish hat with drooping feathers, sat Silvia Doria, come on a visit to her cousin, the old Lord.

这座公园中坐落着一幢意大利风格的房子，还有平整的花园，里面点缀着许多雕像和庭园式寺庙。据说一百多年前，那里住着一位老勋爵和他的两个英俊的儿子。老勋爵的妻子早已过世，但他一直伤心不已；他从不拜访邻居，也极少有陌生人走进这座华美花园的围墙之内。然而，春季里的一天，在苹果花怒放的时节，那扇镀金的大门被推开了，腾跃的大马拉着一辆伦敦的马车沿着大道驶来。马车里坐着一位女子，正愉快地微笑着，她身穿黄色丝绸裙，头戴一顶宽大的西班牙帽，上面垂下几根羽毛，美丽非凡。这就是西尔维娅·多里亚，她来拜访他的表哥—老勋爵。

It was her father who had sent her—that he might be more free, some said, to pursue his own wicked courses,—while others declared that he intended her to marry the old Lord's eldest son.

是她父亲派她来的—有人说这样他就能更自由地进行他那些卑鄙的勾当—也有人说他想让女儿嫁给老勋爵的大儿子。

However this might be, Silvia Doria came like the Spring, like the sunlight, into the lonely place. Even the old Lord felt himself curiously happy when he heard her voice singing about the house; as for Henry and Francis, it was heaven for them just to walk by her side down the garden alleys.

不管他的企图是什么，西尔维娅像春天一样，似阳光一般，来到这个孤独的地方。就连老勋爵，只要一听到她悦耳的声音在房子里响起，也感到莫名的快乐；至于亨利和弗朗西斯，只要与她并肩走在花园小径上，就犹如身在天堂了。

And Silvia Doria, though hitherto she had been but cold toward the London gallants who had courted her, found, little by little, that her heart was not untouched.

虽然迄今为止，西尔维娅一直对伦敦那些向她大献殷勤的追求者不理不睬；但是在这里，她发现自己的心渐渐地不再无动于衷。

But, in spite of her father, and her own girlish love of gold and rank, it was not for Henry that she cared, not for the old Lord, but for Francis, the younger son. Did Francis know of this? They were secretly lovers, the old scandal reported; and the scandal, it may be, had reached her father's ears.

尽管她的父亲热衷于追名逐利，她自己也对金钱和地位有种少女虚荣的喜爱，她的心上人却不是亨利，也不是老勋爵，而是小儿子弗朗西斯。弗朗西斯知道她的心意吗？丑闻传开了，他们是秘密的爱人。这个丑闻可能传到了她父亲的耳朵里。

For one day a coach with foaming horses, and the wicked face of an old man at its window, galloped up the avenue; and soon afterwards, when the coach drove away, Silvia Doria was sitting by the old man's side, sobbing bitterly.

有一天一辆马车沿大道疾驰而来，车前的马匹口吐白沫，窗口露出一张邪恶的老脸；不久马车驶走了，而车厢里那个老头的旁边，坐着西尔维娅，她痛苦地抽泣着。

And after she had gone, a long time, many of the eighteenth-century years went by without change. And then Henry, the elder son, was killed in hunting; and the old Lord dying a few years later, the titles and the great house and all the land and gold came to Francis, the younger son. But after his father's death he was but seldom there; having, as it seemed, no love for the place, and living for the most part abroad and alone, for he never married.

在她离开很久以后，18世纪里的许多岁月逐渐逝去，但是一切都没有变化。后来，大儿子亨利在打猎时丧生了；几年后老勋爵也死了，小儿子弗朗西斯继承了爵位、这所大房子还有所有的土地和财产。但是他父亲死后，弗朗西斯就很少呆在那幢房子里，好像对那个地方完全没有感情。他大多数时间住在国外，独自一人，一直没有结婚。

And again, many years went by. The trees grew taller and darker about the house; the yew hedges, unclipped now, hung their branches over the shadowy paths; ivy almost smothered the statues; and the plaster fell away in great patches from the discoloured garden temples.

又过去了许多年，房子周围的树木愈发高大，郁郁葱葱；无人修剪的紫杉树篱的枝叶已经遮住了小路；常春藤几乎要把那些雕像闷死；大片大片的石膏从花园里那些褪色的寺庙墙壁上剥落。

But at last one day a chariot drove up to the gates; a footman pulled at the crazy bell, telling the gate-keeper that his mistress wished to visit the Park. So the gates creaked open, the chariot glittered up the avenue to the deserted place; and a lady stepped out, went into the garden, and walked among its moss-grown paths and statues. As the chariot drove out again, "Tell your Lord," the lady said, smiling, to the lodge-keeper, "that Silvia Doria came back."

但是最终有一天，一辆马车驶到大门前，一个男仆摇动着那摇摇欲坠的门铃，告诉看门人他的女主人想要看看这个花园。大门吱吱嘎嘎地开了，马车沿着大道驶向那被废弃了的地方，大道上顿时闪耀出金色的光芒。一位女士下了车，走进花园，走过长满苔藓的小径和雕像。当马车驶离时，这位女士微笑着对看门人说：“告诉勋爵，西尔维娅.多里亚回来过。”

Bligh House

布莱的房子

To the West, in riding past the walls of Bligh, I remembered an incident in the well-known siege of that house, during the Civil Wars: How, among Waller's invading Roundhead troops, there happened to be a young scholar, a poet, and lover of the Muses, fighting for the cause, as he thought, of ancient Freedom, who, one day, when the siege was being more hotly urged, pressing forward and climbing a wall, suddenly found himself in a quiet garden by the house. And here, for a time forgetting, as it would seem, the battle, and heedless of the bullets that now and then flew past him like peevish wasps, the young Officer stayed, gathering roses—old-fashioned damask roses, streaked with red and white—which, for the sake of a Court Beauty, there besieged with her father, he carried to the house; falling, however, struck by a chance bullet, or shot perhaps by one of his own party. A few of the young Officer's verses, written in the stilted fashion of the time, and almost unreadable now, have been preserved. The lady's portrait hangs in the white drawing-room at Bligh; a simpering, faded figure, with ringlets and drop-pearls, and a dress of amber-coloured silk.

我骑马西行经过布莱的围墙，想起内战期间，在对那所房子的那次著名围攻中发生的一件事：沃勒的圆颅党军队里有一个年轻的学者，他是诗人，热爱给予诗人灵感的缪斯女神，他认为自己是为了古老的自由而战。围攻愈发激烈，战事愈发紧张，有一天，他快步向前，爬上了墙，忽然发现自己身处房子旁边一座安静的花园里。在这里，他仿佛一时间忘记了战争，全然不顾那些像狂躁的黄蜂一样不时与他擦身而过的子弹。这位年轻的军官停留下来，采摘蔷薇花—老式的大马士革蔷薇，红白相间—想献给一位和她父亲一起被围困的宫廷美人。他拿着花走向房子，然而中途却倒下了，他不巧被流弹击中了，也许是被自己的人射杀了。这位年轻军官的一些诗句被保存下来了，不过那是以当时矫饰的风格写成的，现在的人几乎已经读不懂了。那位女士的画像挂在布莱白色的客厅里。画像已经褪色，画中傻傻笑着的人儿留着卷发，戴着长形珍珠首饰，穿着一件琥珀色的丝绸裙。

The Stars

星星

Battling my way homeward one dark night against the wind and rain, a sudden gust, stronger than the others, drove me back into the shelter of a tree. But soon the Western sky broke open; the illumination of the Stars poured down from behind the dispersing clouds.

一个黑夜，我顶着风雨跌跌撞撞地往家赶，突然一阵狂风袭来，比之前的风势都要强劲，我只好退回到一棵树下躲避。但是不久西方的天空裂开了，群星的光芒自逐渐散去的乌云后倾泻而出。

I was astonished at their brightness, to see how they filled the night with their lustre. So I went my way accompanied by them; Arcturus followed me, and becoming entangled in a leafy tree, shone by glimpses, and then emerged triumphant, Lord of the Western sky. Moving along the road in my waterproof and goloshes, my thoughts were among the Constellations. I too was one of the Princes of the starry Universe; in me also there was something that blazed, that glittered.

看到它们的璀璨，看到它们的光芒映亮了黑夜，我赞叹不已。在星辉的陪伴下，我再度启程。大角星跟随着我，不知怎的跟一棵大树茂密的枝叶纠缠在一起，断断续续地在枝叶的缝隙中探出头来，最后终于以胜利者的姿态出现，它是西方天空中的王者。我继续赶路，身体裹在雨衣和雨鞋里，思绪却停留在星座上。我也是星光灿烂的宇宙中的一位王子，我的身上也有东西在发光，在闪烁。

In Church

教堂礼拜

"For the Pen," said the Vicar, and in the sententious pause which followed I felt that I would offer any gifts of gold to avert or postpone the solemn, inevitable, and yet, as it seemed to me, perfectly appalling statement that "the Pen is mightier than the Sword."

“说到笔，”牧师先生说，接下来是警示般的停顿，这时我情愿献上任何黄金的礼物，只要能够阻止或推迟他说出那庄严的、不可避免的、在我看来完全耸人听闻的声明：“笔比剑更有力。”

Parsons

教区牧师

All the same I like Parsons; they think nobly of the Universe, and believe in Souls and Eternal Happiness. And some of them, I am told, believe in Angels—that there are Angels who guide our footsteps, and flit to and fro unseen on errands in the air about us.

我一直喜欢教区牧师；他们视宇宙为高尚的，信仰灵魂和永恒的幸福。据说他们中一些人还相信天使——有天使指引我们的脚步，他们不为肉眼所见，在我们身边的空中飞来飞去，忙忙碌碌。

The Sound Of A Voice

嗓音

As the thoughtful Baronet talked, as his voice went on sawing in my ears, all the light of desire, and of the sun, faded from the Earth; I saw the vast landscape of the world, dim, as in an eclipse; its populations eating their bread with tears, its rich men sitting listless in their palaces, and aged Kings crying "Vanity, Vanity, all is Vanity!" lugubriously from their thrones.

当深思熟虑的准男爵开口说话，当他拉锯一样的声音不断摧残着我的耳朵，所有渴望的光辉、太阳的光芒都从地球上退去；我看到辽阔的世界，暗淡无光，如同日食降临；地球的子民就着泪水吞咽着面包，富人无精打采地坐在宫殿中，年迈的国王们在宝座上大喊着：“浮华，浮华，万事皆浮华！”

What Happens

发生的事情

"Yes," said Sir Thomas, speaking of a modern novel, "it certainly does seem strange; but the novelist was right. Such things do happen."

“是的，”托马斯爵士谈到一本现代小说，“的确，小说情节看起来好像很奇怪；但是作者没错。这种事情确实会发生。”

"But, my dear Sir," I burst out, in the rudest manner, "think what life is—just think what really happens! Why people suddenly swell up and turn dark purple; they hang themselves on meat-hooks; they are drowned in horse ponds, are run over by butchers' carts, and are burnt alive—cooked like mutton chops!”

“但是，我亲爱的爵士，”我很粗鲁无礼地脱口而出，“想想生活是什么样子吧——只要想想什么会真的发生！人们怎么会突然肿胀起来，变成深紫色；他们怎么会把自己挂在挂肉的钩子上；怎么会淹死在马池里，被屠夫的货车碾过，然后被活活烧死——像羊排骨一样被煮熟！”

Luton4

卢顿

In a field of that distant, half-neglected farm, I found an avenue of great elms leading to nothing. But I could see where the wheat- bearing earth had been levelled into a terrace; and in one corner there were broken, overgrown, gateposts, almost hid among great straggling trees of box.

那片遥远的农场几近荒废。在那儿的一片田野里，我发现一条林阴大道，两边长满高大的榆树，不知通往何方。但我能看到种植小麦的土地变成了平坦的梯田；一个角落里躺着破碎的门柱，上面爬满植物，几棵零零落落的高大的黄杨几乎把它完全遮住。

This, then, was the place I had come to see. Here had stood the great house or palace, with its terraces, and gardens, and artificial waters; this field had once been the favourite resort of Eighteenth-century Fashion; the Duchesses and Beauties had driven hither in their gilt coaches, and the Beaux and Wits of that golden time of English Society. And although the house had long since vanished, and the plough had gone over its pleasant places, yet for a moment I seemed to see this fine company under the green and gold of that great avenue; seemed to hear the gossip of their uncharitable voices as they passed on into the shadows.

这就是我要来看的地方。这里曾经耸立着宏伟的房子或宫殿，周围建有露台、花园、人造池塘；这片田野曾经是18世纪风靡一时的度假胜地；公爵夫人和如云的美女们乘着镀金马车来到这里，同行的还有英国社会黄金时代的花花公子和智慧之士。虽然房子早已被夷为平地，耕犁也耕过了这片可爱的土地，但是一瞬间我仿佛看到那群妙人儿徜徉在这条大道的绿色和金色之下；仿佛听到他们用苛刻的声音窃窃私语着，一直走到阴影里。

A Precaution

预防

The folio gave at length philosophic consolations for all the misadventures said by the author to be inseparable from human existence—Poverty, Shipwrecks, Plagues, Famines, Flights of Locusts, Love-Deceptions, Inundations.

这本书的作者认为所有的不幸都是与人类的存在不可分离的—贫穷、海难、瘟疫、饥荒、蝗灾、爱情欺骗和洪水；他充分地以哲学的观点来安慰读者。

Against these antique Disasters I armed my soul; and I thought it as well to prepare myself against the calamity called "Cornutation," or by other less learned names.

我武装起自己的灵魂，对抗这些古老的灾难；也想到要准备好去应对被称作“妻子出轨”或者其他有着更生僻的名字的灾难。

How Philosophy taught that after all it was but a pain founded on conceit, a blow that hurt not; the reply of the Cynic philosopher to one who reproached him, "Is it my fault or hers?" how Nevisanus advises the sufferer to ask himself if he have not offended; Jerome declares it impossible to prevent; how few or none are safe, and the inhabitants of some countries, especially parts of Africa, consider it the usual and natural thing, how Caesar, Pompey, Augustus, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Marcus Aurelius5, and many other great Kings and Princes had all worn Actaeon's badge; and how Philip6 turned it to a jest, Pertinax the Emperor made no reckoning of it; Erasmus declared it was best winked at, there being no remedy but patience, Dies dolorem minuit; Time, Age must mend it; and how, according to the authorities, bars, bolts, oaken doors, and towers of brass, are all in vain. "She is a woman," as the old Pedant wrote to a fellow Philosopher....

哲学教导我们，这终究不过是由自负引起的痛苦，一记不会造成创伤的重击；犬儒主义哲学家这样回答别人的谴责：“错的是我还是她？”奈威萨那斯建议受苦者扪心自问有没有犯过错；哲罗姆宣称这是无法阻止的；极少有人或者根本没人是安全的，某些国家，尤其是非洲某些地区的人们认为这是很正常、自然的事情；恺撒、庞贝、奥古斯都、阿伽门农、梅内莱厄斯、马可.奥勒利乌斯，以及许多其他伟大的国王和王子都戴着阿克特翁的标志；腓力把这变成一个笑话，罗马皇帝佩蒂纳克斯根本没考虑到它；伊拉斯谟说最好假装没看见它，除了耐心等待没有补救方法，像午夜那样黑暗阴森的日子；时间、岁月会修好它；权威观点认为，铁窗、门闩、橡木门还有铜塔，统统没用。“她是个女人。”正像这位年迈的空谈家在写给一位哲学同行的信中所说……

The Great Work

伟大的作品

Sitting, pen in hand, alone in the stillness of the library, with flies droning behind the sunny blinds, I considered in my thoughts what should be the subject of my great Work. Should I complain against the mutability of Fortune, and impugn Fate and the Stars; or should I reprehend the never- satisfied heart of querulous Man, drawing elegant contrasts between the unsullied snow of mountains, the serene shining of the planets, and our hot, feverish lives and foolish repinings? Or should I confine myself to denouncing, like Juvenal7 or Jeremiah8, contemporary Vices, crying "Fie!" on the Age with Hamlet, sternly unmasking its hypocrisies, and riddling through and through its too-comfortable Optimisms?

我手里握着笔，独自一人坐在安静的图书馆里，苍蝇在洒满阳光的百叶窗外嗡嗡作响。我在心中考虑应该以什么作为我伟大作品的主题。我应该抱怨命运的无常，抨击造化和星辰？应该谴责易怒的人类永不知足的心，用山间无暇的白雪、行星平和的光辉来优雅地反衬人类炙烈的生活和心中愚蠢的埋怨？应该像尤维纳利斯和耶利米一样，仅仅抨击当下的恶行，随着哈姆雷特一起向着时代大叫一声“咄！”，无情地揭下它虚伪的面具，彻底戳穿它过于舒适的乐观主义？

Or with Job9, should I question the Universe, and puzzle my sad brains about Life—the meaning of Life on this apple-shaped Planet?

或者我应该与约伯一起质疑这个宇宙，苦思冥想在这个苹果状的星球上生活的意义？

My Mission

我的使命

But when in modern books, reviews, and thoughtful magazines I read about the Needs of the Age, its Complex Questions, its Dismays, Doubts, and Spiritual Agonies, I feel an impulse to go out and comfort that bewildered Epoch, to wipe away its tears, still its cries, and speak edifying words of Consolation to it.

当我在现代书籍、评论和有深度的杂志上读到关于这个时代的需求、它的复杂问题、它的沮丧、怀疑和精神上的苦闷时，我感到一股冲动，想要到外面去抚慰这个晕头转向的时代，擦去它的泪水，止住它的喊叫，对它说些有益的话来劝慰它。

The Birds

鸟

But how can one toil at the great task with this hurry and tumult of birds just outside the open window? I hear the Thrush, and the Blackbird, that romantic liar; then the delicate cadence, the wiry descending scale of the Willow-wren, or the Blackcap's stave of mellow music. All these are familiar;—but what is that unknown voice, that thrilling note? I hurry out; the voice flees and I follow; and when I return and sit down again to my task, the Yellow-hammer trills his sleepy song in the noonday heat; the drone of the Greenfinch lulls me into dreamy meditations. Then suddenly from his tree-trunks and forest recesses comes the Green Woodpecker, and mocks at me with an impudent voice full of liberty and laughter.

敞开的窗户外面鸟儿啁啾鸣啼，让我怎能埋头于这项重大的工作？我听到了画眉，还有黑鸟那个浪漫的骗子的叫声；然后是柳莺唱出的婉转旋律，那尖细的下行音阶，或者黑顶莺柔曼的小调。所有这些都很熟悉；——但是那个不知名的声音，那个颤抖的音符是什么？我快步走出去；这声音在逃走，我跟随着它；当我回到房间，重新坐下开始工作，黄在闷热的正午颤抖地唱着昏昏欲睡的歌；金翅鸟低沉枯燥的歌声引我陷入如梦般的冥想。然后突然从树干和树林里的栖息地传来绿色啄木鸟的声音，他用饱含自由和笑声的粗鲁音调嘲笑我。

Why should all the birds of the air conspire against me? My concern is with our own sad Species, with lapsed and erroneous Humanity; not with that inconsiderate, wandering, feather-headed race.

为什么空中所有的飞鸟都要密谋与我作对？我所关心的是我们这个悲伤物种自身，以及堕落错误的人性，而不是那个不顾及别人的、流浪的、头上长羽毛的愚蠢种族。

High Life

高级生活

Although that immense Country House was empty and for sale, and I had got an order to view it, I needed all my courage to walk through the lordly gates, and up the avenue, and then to ring the door-bell. And when I was ushered in, and the shutters were removed to let the daylight into those vast apartments, I sneaked through them, cursing the dishonest curiosity which had brought me into a place where I had no business. But I was treated with such deference, and so plainly regarded as a possible purchaser, that I soon began to believe in the opulence imputed to me. From all the novels describing the mysterious and glittering life of the Great which I had read (and I have read thousands), there came to me the vision of my own existence in this palace. I filled those vast halls with the shine of jewels and stir of voices; I saw a vision of ladies sweeping in their tiaras down the splendid stairs.

虽然那所乡间豪宅已经空了，正在出售，而且我已拿到许可证去看它，但是我还是需要鼓起我所有的勇气才能走进那扇宏伟的大门，沿着大道走到门口，然后按响门铃。我被引进门内，百叶窗收拢起来，好让阳光照进那些大房间，我悄悄地走过它们，咒骂着不诚实的好奇心，是它把我带到这个与我无关的地方。但是我受到如此礼遇，他们显然认为我可能会买下这里，我于是很快就开始相信强加在我身上的这种财富。我从读过的所有描述有钱人神秘光彩的生活的小说中（我读了上千本），幻想自己在这个宫殿中的生活。我让那些宽敞的大厅堆满闪亮的珠宝，充满喧嚣的声响；我看到女士们戴着头冠，曳地长裙擦过华丽的台阶。

But my Soul, in her swell of pride, soon outgrew these paltry limits. Oh no! Never could I box up and house under that roof the Pomp, the Ostentation of which I was capable.

但是我的灵魂，随着骄傲的膨胀，很快超过了那微不足道的界限。哦不！我绝对不能住到那个奢华的别墅里，我会大肆炫耀的。

Then for one thing there was stabling for only forty horses; and this, of course, as I told them, would never do.

于是我借机推托说，有一件事我无法接受，这里的马厩只能养四十匹马；这一点，当然，就像我告诉他们的，绝对不行。

Empty Shells

空壳

They lie like empty sea-shells on the shores of Time, the old worlds which the spirit of man once built for his habitation, and then abandoned. Those little earth-centred, heaven-encrusted universes of the Greeks and Hebrews seem quaint enough to us, who have formed, thought by thought from within, the immense modern Cosmos in which we live—the great Creation of granite, planned in such immeasurable proportions, and moved by so pitiless a mechanism, that it sometimes appals even its own creators. The rush of the great rotating Sun daunts us; to think to the distance of the fixed stars cracks our brains.

它们像空的贝壳一样躺在时间的海滩上。人类的精神曾经为了自己的居所建造了这些古老的世界，然后又把它们抛弃。希腊人和希伯来人心中那些以地球为中心、苍穹为外壳的小宇宙，在我们看来相当古怪有趣。我们经过不断思索，构造出我们居于其中的这个无边无际的现代宇宙体系——这个巨大的花岗岩构成的物体，按照无法衡量的比例构建出来，由如此无情的机制驱动，它有时甚至吓到它的创造者们。巨大太阳的快速旋转震慑住我们；计算恒星间距离的问题令我们绞尽脑汁。

But if the ephemeral Being who has imagined these eternal spheres and spaces must dwell almost as an alien in their icy vastness, yet what a splendour lights up for him and dazzles in those great halls! Anything less limitless would be now a prison; and he even dares to think beyond their boundaries, to surmise that he may one day outgrow this Mausoleum, and cast from him the material Creation as an integument too narrow for his insolent Mind.

但若想象出这些永恒领域和空间的那些朝生暮死的生命不得不像外星人一样生活在这片冰冻的广阔天地之中，那么在那些宏伟的大厅里会有怎样辉煌的景象为他展开，发出炫目的光芒！任何稍有界限的东西现在都将变成监牢；他甚至敢于越过自己的界限去思考，妄想有一天他会膨胀到这个陵墓之外，并丢弃这个物质产物，因为它不足以容纳他桀骜不驯的头脑。

At The Window

窗前

But then I drew up the curtain and looked out of the window. Yes, there it still was, the old External World, still apparently quite unaware of its own non-existence. I felt helpless, small-boyish before it: I couldn't pooh-pooh it away.

但随后我拉开窗帘，看向窗外。是的，外面还是，那个古老的外在世界，显然它还是没怎么意识到自己并不存在。我在它面前像小男孩一样无助：我没法发出嘘声把它赶走。

How It Happened

这是如何发生的

This vision or blur bubbled up, the Buddhists believe, from some unaccountable agitation beneath the eternal serene of Nirvana; but the naked Thinkers of the Ganges look upon it as optical allusion of Brahma's10, when he slipped up and grew giddy a moment, and put his foot, so to speak, into this Misapprehension.

佛教徒们相信，这幅模糊的景象，是从隐藏在永恒平和的涅磐之下的某种无法解释的焦虑中冒出来的；但是恒河河畔赤身裸体的思想者们把它看作梵天视觉上的暗示：当梵天脚下一滑，感到一阵晕眩，他的一只脚，可以说就这样踏入了这片误解之中。

But we in the West believe that God created the world in the pure caprice of his superabundant omnipotence; that he clapped his hands when he finished it, and declared that it was very good, and just what he wanted.

但是身处西方的我们相信，上帝纯粹是一时兴起才用他无所不能的力量创造了这个世界；完工时他拍拍手，宣布这样很好，就是他想要的样子。

Vertigo

晕眩

No! I don't like it; I can't approve of it; I have always thought it most regrettable that serious and ethical Thinkers like ourselves should go scuttling through space in this undignified manner. Is it seemly that I, at my age, should be hurled with my books of reference, and bed- clothes, and hot-water bottle, across the sky at the unthinkable rate of nineteen miles a second? As I say, I don't at all like it. This universe of astronomical whirligigs makes me a little giddy.

不！我不喜欢；我不认可；我一直认为，像我们这样严肃又有道德感的思想者竟然这样有失体面地在空间之中匆忙奔跑，是一件非常遗憾的事情。到了这样的年纪，我竟然跟我的参考书、被褥和热水瓶一起，以每秒19英里的不可思议的速度被扔过天际？正如我所说的，我一点都不喜欢它。这个似巨大陀螺般旋转的宇宙让我有点头晕脑胀。

That God should spend His eternity—which might be so much better employed—in spinning countless Solar Systems, and skylarking, like a great child, with tops and teetotums—is not this a serious scandal? I wonder what all our circumgyrating Monotheists really do think of it?

上帝竟然把他不朽的时间花在让无数个太阳系保持旋转上，他本来该做些更有意义的事情。但他却嬉笑着，像个大孩子般，手里拿着各色陀螺玩具—这难道不是个严重的丑闻吗？我想知道我们所有旋转着的一神论者们对此到底作何感想？

The Evil Eye

邪恶的眼睛

Drawn by the unfelt wind in my little sail over the shallow estuary, I lay in my boat, lost in the dream of mere existence. The cool water glided through my trailing fingers; and leaning over, I watched the sands that slid beneath me, the weeds that languidly swayed with the boat's motion. I was the cool water, I was the gliding sand and the swaying weed, I was the sea and sky and sun, I was the whole vast Universe.

微弱到感觉不出的风带着我的小船驶过河口的浅水，我躺在船上，陷入关于纯粹的存在的梦境。冰凉的河水穿过我垂下的手指；我俯下身，看着沙子在身下滑过，水草随着小船的晃动而无力地摇摆。我是冰凉的河水，我是滑动的沙子和摇摆的水草，我是大海、天空、太阳，我是整个广阔的宇宙。

Suddenly between my eyes and the sandy bottom a mirrored face looked up at me, floating on the smooth film of water over which I glided. At one look from that too familiar, and yet how sinister and goblin a face, my immeasurable soul collapsed like a wrecked balloon; I shrank sadly back into my named personality, and sat there, shabby, hot, and very much bored with myself in my little boat.

突然在我的眼睛和布满沙子的河底之间，一张脸的倒影向上看着我，漂浮在我滑过的那片没有波纹的水面上。那张不怀好意、恶鬼般的一张脸，我再熟悉不过了；他只朝我看了一眼，我那深不可测的灵魂就像一只被扎破的气球般土崩瓦解。我伤心地缩回我那被确定的人格中，坐在我的小船上，邋遢、燥热、对自己非常不耐烦。

Dissatisfaction

不满足

For one thing I hate spiders: I hate most kinds of insects. Their cold intelligence, their stereotyped, unremitting industry repel me. And I am not altogether happy about the future of the human race. When I think of the earth's refrigeration, and the ultimate collapse of our Solar System, I have grave misgivings. And all the books I have read and Forgotten—the thought that my mind is really nothing but an empty sieve—often this, too, disconcerts Me.

我厌恶蜘蛛，就一个原因：我厌恶大多数昆虫。它们冷冰冰的智力，它们老套的、孜孜不倦的劳作让我恶心。而我对人类的未来也不乐观。当我想到地球的冷冻、太阳系的最终崩溃，心中便充满了沉重的忧虑。所有我读过又忘掉的书——想到我的头脑真的像筛子一样空空如也——这也常常让我心烦意乱。

Self-Control

自控

Still I am not a pessimist, nor misanthrope, nor grumbler; I bear it all, the burden of Public Affairs, the immensity of Space, the brevity of Life, and the thought of the all-swallowing Grave;—all this I put up with without impatience. I accept the common lot. And if now and then for a moment it seems too much; if I get my feet wet, or have to wait too long for tea, and my soul in these wanes of the moon cries out in French C'est fini! I always answer Pazienza! In Italian—abbia la santa Pazienza!

但我也不是悲观主义者，不厌世，也不牢骚满腹；我忍受一切，公共事务的负担、空间的无限、生命的短暂、以及对吞噬一切的坟墓的想象；—所有这一切我都忍受下来，没有不耐烦。我接受这些普通的琐事。如果有时超过了我忍受的限度；如果我的双脚被打湿，或者等待很长时间茶还没上，我的灵魂就会在这些月缺之夜用法语呼喊“完了！”我总是用意大利语回答：“忍耐!——要忍耐！”

A Fancy

幻想

More than once, too, I have pleased myself with the notion that somewhere there is good Company which will like this small uncontemporaneous Book—these Thoughts (if I may call them so) dipped up from that phantasmagoria or phosphorescence which, by some unexplained process of combustion, flickers over the large lump of gray soft matter in the bowl of my skull.

另外，不止一次，我想到某些地方有我的知己会喜欢这本非同时代的小书，就会高兴起来。这些思想（如果我可以这样叫它们）提炼自一连串的幻想，或者来自某种无法解释的燃烧过程中产生的荧光。它们在我头骨里那一大团柔软的灰色物质上闪烁。

They

他们

Their taste is exquisite; They live in Palladian houses, in a world of ivory and precious china, of old brickwork and stone pilasters. In white drawing- rooms I see Them, or on blue, bird-haunted lawns. They talk pleasantly of me, and Their eyes watch me. From the diminished, ridiculous picture of myself which the glass of the world gives me, I turn for comfort, for happiness to my image in the kindly mirror of those eyes.

他们品味高雅；他们住在帕拉弟奥风格的房子里，一个有着象牙和珍贵瓷器、古老的砌砖和石头壁柱的世界。我在白色的客厅里或者常有鸟儿飞落的蓝色草坪上见到他们。他们愉快地谈到我，眼睛看着我。我不再看这个世界映照出的那个被贬低的、可笑的自我，为了舒适、为了幸福，我转向那些亲切的眼睛中映出的我的形象。

Who are They? Where, in what paradise or palace, shall I ever find Them? I may walk all the streets, ring all the door-bells of the World, but I shall never find Them. Yet nothing has value for me save in the crown of Their approval; for Their coming—which will never be—I build and plant, and for Them alone I secretly write this Book, which They will never read.

他们是谁？在哪里，在什么样的天堂或宫殿里我能找到他们？可能我走过世界上所有的街道，按响所有的门铃，也永远找不到他们。但是对我有价值的只有他们赞许的王冠；为了他们的到来——这永远也不会发生——我建造、种植，只是为了他们，我悄悄写出这本书，然而他们永远都不会读到。

In The Pulpit

布道坛上

The Vicar had certain literary tastes; in his youth he had written an "Ode to the Moon"; and he would speak of the difficulty he found in composing his sermons, week after week.

牧师先生对文学有一定的品味；青春年少时，他写过一首《月亮颂》；而且周复一周，他总是提到撰写布道辞时的困难。

Now I felt that if I composed and preached sermons, I would by no means confine myself to the Vicar's threadbare subjects—I would preach the wrath of God, and sound the Last Trump in the ears of my Hell- doomed congregation, cracking the heavens and dissolving the earth with the thunders and eclipses of the great Day of Judgement. Then I might refresh them with high and incomprehensible doctrines, beyond the reach of Reason—Predestination, Election, Reprobation, the Co-existences and Co-eternities of the undemonstrable Triad. And with what a holy vehemence would I exclaim and cry out against all forms of doctrinal Error—all the execrable hypotheses of the great Heresiarchs! Then there would be many ancient, learned and out of the way Iniquities to denounce, and splendid, neglected Virtues to inculcate—Apostolic Poverty, and Virginity, that precious jewel, that fair garland, so prized in Heaven, but so rare, it is said, on earth.

我觉得如果要我撰写布道辞并传道，我绝不会受限于牧师先生那些陈腐的主题——我要讲上帝的愤怒，在我那些注定下地狱的听众耳边吹响最后审判日的号声，用伟大的审判日的雷电和月食摧毁天堂，消融土地。然后我会向他们灌输理性解释不了的高深难懂的教义，让他们精神一振—宿命论、上帝选择而获永生、天罚、无法证明的三位一体的共同存在、共同不朽。我要怎样虔诚而热烈地大声疾呼，反对教义所有形式的错误——所有对伟大的异教首领的可憎的假定！然后会公开指责许多古老的、学究的、错误的邪恶，还会反复教诲那些美好的、被忽视的美德——比如使徒般的贫穷、贞洁，那珍贵的宝石，美丽的花环，天堂里如此珍视的品质，据说在人间却难得一见。

For in the range of creeds and morals it is the highest peaks that shine for me with a certain splendour: Ah! It's towards those radiant Alps, that, if I were a Clergyman, I would lead my flocks to pasture.

因为这是教义和道德范畴内的巅峰，在我心中闪耀着特殊的光彩：啊！如果我是一个牧师，我会带领我的羊群到那明亮的阿尔卑斯山上去放牧。

Caravans

商队

Always over the horizon of the Sahara move those soundless caravans of camels, swaying with their padded feet across the desert, till in the remoteness of my mind they fade away, and vanish.

在撒哈拉的地平线上总有骆驼商队在无声无息地行进，骆驼拖着长着肉垫的脚缓慢地穿越沙漠，直到我思绪的尽头，渐行渐远，终于消失不见。

Human Ends

人类的目标

I really was impressed, as we paced up and down the avenue, by the Vicar's words, and weighty, weighed advice. He spoke of the various professions; mentioned contemporaries of his own who had achieved success: how one had a Seat in Parliament, would be given a Seat in the Cabinet when his party next came in; another was a Bishop with a seat in the House of Lords; a third was a Barrister who was soon, it was said, to be raised to the Bench.

当我们在大道上走来走去时，我对牧师先生斟酌后提出的重要建议，印象深刻。他谈到各种各样的职业；提到他获得成功的同辈：有一个人在议院获得了席位，还将在他的政党竞选成功后加入内阁；另一个人是位主教，在上议院拥有席位；还有一个人是高级律师，据说不久会得到提升，成为法官。

But in spite of my good intentions, my real wish to find, before it is too late, some career or other for myself (and the question is getting serious), I am far too much at the mercy of ludicrous images, Front Seats, Episcopal, Judicial, Parliamentary Benches—were all the ends then, I asked myself, of serious, middle-aged ambition only things to sit on?

但是尽管我有美好的愿望，真的希望趁着还来得及，为我自己找到一个这样或那样的职业（这个问题变得严肃起来了），我却受那些荒谬的形象影响太深。前座议席、主教、法官、议员——难道这就是，我问我自己，中年人真心想要实现的雄心壮志的全部内容吗？

Where?

在哪里？

I, who move and breathe and place one foot before the other, who watch the Moon wax and wane, and put off answering my letters, where shall I find the Bliss which dreams and blackbirds' voices promise, of which the waves whisper, and hand-organs in streets near Paddington11 faintly sing?

我，运动、呼吸、把一只脚放到另一只脚前面，观察月亮盈亏，拖延着不写回信。我到哪里去找那种幸福，那种梦境和画眉歌声中许诺的，波涛轻声诉说的，帕丁顿附近街上手风琴轻柔地演奏出的幸福？

Does it dwell in some island of the South Seas, or far oasis among deserts and gaunt mountains; or only in those immortal gardens pictured by Chinese poets beyond the great, cold palaces of the Moon?

它是在南太平洋的某个岛屿上，还是在沙漠和荒山中遥远的绿洲上；又或只在中国诗人描绘的、那宏伟而又冷清的月宫之外那些不朽的花园里？

Lord Arden

阿登勋爵

"If I were Lord Arden," said the Vicar, "I would shut up that great House; it's too big—what can a young unmarried man...?”

“如果我是阿登勋爵，”牧师先生说，“我要关闭那所大房子；它太大了——一个年轻的单身汉要它做什么……?"

"If I were Lord Arden," said the Vicar's wife (and Mrs. La Mountain's tone showed how much she disapproved of that young nobleman), "if I were Lord Arden, I would live there, and do my duty to my tenants and neighbours."

“如果我是阿登勋爵，”牧师先生的妻子说（而且从拉蒙坦夫人的声调就能听出她有多看不惯那位年轻的贵族），“如果我是阿登勋爵，我会住在那儿，为我的佃户和邻居尽些义务。”

"If I were Lord Arden," I said; but then it flashed vividly into my mind, suppose I really were this Sardanapalian12 young Lord? I quite forgot to whom I was talking; the Moralist within ceased to function; my memory was full with the names of people who had been famous for their enormous pleasures; who had filled their palaces with guilty revels, and built Pyramids, Obelisks, and half-acre Tombs, to soothe their Pride. My mind kindled at the thought of these Audacities. "If I were Lord Arden!" I shouted....

“如果我是阿登勋爵，”我说；但是就在那时，我头脑里突然清晰地闪过一个念头，假设我真的是这位身为萨丹纳帕路斯后裔的年轻勋爵？我差不多忘了自己在和谁说话；我内心的道德学家罢工了；我的记忆中充满了那些因寻欢作乐而臭名昭著的名字；他们的宫殿中充斥着罪恶的享乐，他们修建金字塔、方尖碑和占地半英亩的坟墓，以平抚自己的骄傲。想到这些厚颜无耻的人我就怒火中烧。“如果我是阿登勋爵！”我喊道……

The Starry Heaven

星光璀璨的天空

"But what are they really? What do they say they are?" The small young lady asked me. We were looking up at the Stars, which were quivering that night in splendid hierarchies above the lawns and trees.

“但是它们到底是什么？人们说它们是什么？”这位瘦小的年轻女士问我。我们正抬头看着满天星斗，它们笼罩着草坪和树木，在夜里微微瑟缩。

So I tried to explain some of the views that have been held about the stars. How people first of all had thought them mere candles set in the sky, to guide their own footsteps when the Sun was gone; till wise men, sitting on the Chaldean plains13, and watching them with aged eyes, became impressed with the solemn view that those still and shining lights were the executioners of God's decrees, and irresistible instruments of His Wrath; and that they moved fatally among their celestial Houses to ordain and set out the fortunes and misfortunes of each race of newborn mortals. And so it was believed that every man or woman had, from the cradle, fighting for or against him or her, some great Star, Formalhaut, perhaps, Aldebaran, Altair: while great Heroes and Princes were more splendidly attended, and marched out to their forgotten battles with troops and armies of heavenly Constellations.

我尝试向她解释一些人们持有的关于星的说法。人们最初不过是把它们当作插在天空中的蜡烛，在太阳落山后指引他们的脚步。后来智者坐在迦勒底平原上，用饱经风霜的双眼观察星辰，震惊并庄严地指出，那些寂静的闪烁的光是上帝旨意的执行者，是上帝盛怒不可抵挡的工具；它们在天上的居所之间按照命定的轨迹运行，规定和安排每个种族新生的个体的幸与不幸。所以那时人们相信，每个男人或女人，从襁褓时起，就有某颗伟大的星星，支持或者阻碍他或她，可能是南鱼座，也可能是雄牛座、牵牛星。而伟大的英雄和王子则与更辉煌的星有关，他们带领着天上的星座军队出兵，去进行那些已被世人遗忘的战斗。

But this noble old view was not believed in now, the Stars were no longer regarded as malignant or beneficent Powers; and I explained how most serious people thought that somewhere—though just where they could not say—above the vault of Sky, was to be found the final home of earnest men and women, where, as a reward for their right views and conduct, they were to rejoice forever, wearing those diamonds of the starry night arranged in glorious crowns. This notion, however, had been disputed by Poets and Lovers: it was Love, according to these young astronomers, that moved the Sun and other Stars; the Constellations being heavenly palaces, where people who had adored each other were to meet and live always together after Death.

但是现在人们已经不再相信这个古老而高贵的观点了；人们不再把星看作恶意或善意的力量。我解释道，很多严肃的人认为在苍穹之上某个地方—虽然他们说不出这个地方到底在哪里—会找到真诚的男人和女人的最终归宿。在那里，作为对他们正确观点和行为的奖赏，他们会戴着华丽的皇冠，上面镶嵌着夜空中星光璀璨的钻石，永远幸福快乐。然而，这个说法受到诗人们和爱侣们的质疑：这些年轻的天文学家认为，是爱情驱动着太阳和其他星球；星座是天上的宫殿，相互倾心的人死后会在那里相遇并永远生活在一起。

Then I spoke of the modern immensity of the unimaginable Skies. But suddenly the vast meaning of my words rushed into my mind; I felt myself dwindling, falling through the blue. And yet, in that pause of acquiescence in the universal scheme of things there thrilled through me no chill of death or nothingness, but the taste and joy of this Earth, this orchard-plot of earth, floating unknown, and very far away with her Moon and her meadows.

然后我谈到现代对广袤无垠的无法想象的天空的看法。但是突然之间我话语中那广阔的意义冲入脑海；我感到自己逐渐缩小，从这片碧蓝中坠落。然而，顺从宇宙对万物的安排，在那个时刻，我没有感到对死亡和虚无的恐惧，只有对这个世界的感受和喜悦，这个果园般的地球，不知飘向哪里，带着她的月球和草地逐渐远离。

My Map

我的地图

The "Known World" I called the map, which I amused myself making for the children's schoolroom. It included France, England, Italy, Greece, and all the old shores of the Mediterranean; but the rest I ; marked "Unknown" sketching into the East the doubtful realms of Ninus14 and Semiramis15; changing back Germany into the Hyrcinian Forest; and drawing pictures of the supposed inhabitants of these unexploited regions, Dog-Apes, Satyrs, Cannibals and Misanthropes, Cimmerians16 involved in darkness, Amazons, and Headless Men. And all around the Map I coiled the coils, and curled the curling waves of the great Sea Oceanus, with the bursting cheeks of the four Winds, blowing from the four hinges of the World.

作为消遣，我给儿童教室绘制地图，我把它叫做“已知的世界”。地图上有法国、英国、意大利、希腊，以及地中海的所有古老海岸；但是其他部分我都标上了“未知”；这样一路勾勒到东方，进入尼努斯和塞米勒米斯可疑的领地；再回到德国，进入赫卡尼亚森林；我还画了未开发地区的假想的居民：半狗半猿、半人半兽、食人族、厌世者、黑暗中的辛梅里安族、亚马孙女战士和无头人。我在地图四周画上螺旋线，代表着在来自世界四方的四种风的狂烈吹拂下，大海奥西纳斯掀起的滚滚巨浪。

The Full Moon

满月

And then one night, low above the trees, we saw the great, amorous, unabashed face of the full Moon. It was an exhibition that made me blush, feel that I had no right to be there. "After all these millions of years, she ought to be ashamed of herself!" I cried.

一天晚上，我们看到满月多情的、毫不羞怯的面庞低悬在树梢上。这个景象让我脸红，觉得我没有权利呆在那里。“经过了数百万年，她该为自己感到羞愧！”我叫道。

The Snob

洋洋自得

As I paced in fine company on that terrace, I felt chosen, exempt, and curiously happy. There was glamour in the air, a something in the special flavour of that moment that was like the consciousness of Salvation, or the smell of ripe peaches on a sunny wall.

我与称心的同伴在露台上漫步时，感觉自己是上帝的选民，受到优待，一种奇异的喜悦油然而生。空气中飘荡着一种魅力，那一刻有种特别的味道，这其中有种东西像是救赎的意识，又像是洒满阳光的墙头上成熟的桃子的清香。

I know what you're going to call me, Reader; but I am not to be bullied by words. And, after all, why not let oneself be dazzled and enchanted? Are not illusions pleasant, and is this a world in which Romance hangs, so to speak, on every tree?

读者们，我知道你们要怎么叫我；但是我不会因为你们的评价而退却。说到底，何不让自己目眩神迷呢？幻想不令人愉快吗？在这个世界上，浪漫难道不是挂在每棵树的枝头吗？

And how about your own life? Is that, then, so full of golden visions?

你自己的生活又如何呢？是否也充满了美好的景象？

Companions

伙伴

Dearest, prettiest, and sweetest of my retinue, who gather with delicate industry bits of silk and down from the bleak world to make the soft nest of my fatuous repose; who ever whisper honeyed words in my ear, or trip before me holding up deceiving mirrors—is it Hope, or is it not rather Vanity, that I love the best?

我最亲爱、最漂亮、最甜美的随从，你细心而勤劳地收集片片丝绸，从寒冷阴郁的世界赶来，为昏睡的我铺设舒适的栖息之所；你在我耳边甜言蜜语，或是举着骗人的镜子轻快地从我面前走过——我最爱的到底是希望，还是虚荣呢？

Desires

欲望

These exquisite and absurd fancies of mine—little curiosities, and greedinesses, and impulses to kiss and touch and snatch, and all the vanities and artless desires that nest and sing in my heart like birds in a bush—all these, we are now told, are an inheritance from our pre-human past, and were hatched long ago in very ancient swamps and forests. But what of that? I like to share in the dumb delights of birds and animals, to feel my life drawing its sap from roots deep in the soil of Nature. I am proud of those bright-eyed, furry, four-footed or scaly progenitors, and not at all ashamed of my cousins, the Apes and Peacocks and streaked Tigers.

我的这些细腻可笑的幻想——一点好奇，一点贪婪，一点想要亲吻、触碰、抢夺的冲动，还有像灌木丛中的鸟儿一样在我心中筑巢和歌唱的所有虚荣和不加掩饰的欲望——所有这些，我们现在被告知，是从人类出现之前的过去继承来的，是很久以前在远古的沼泽和森林中孵化出来的。但是这又怎么样呢?我喜欢分享飞禽走兽无言的快乐，感受我的生活从深植在自然的土壤的根部吸取汁液。我为那些眼睛明亮、皮毛覆身、四脚的或者披着鳞片的祖先骄傲，完全不为我的表亲——猿猴、孔雀和身披斑纹的老虎感到羞耻。

Edification

提升自我

"I must really improve my mind," I tell myself, and once more begin to patch and repair that crazy structure. So I toil and toil on at the vain task of edification, though the wind tears off the tiles, the floors give way, the ceilings fall, strange birds build untidy nests in the rafters, and owls hoot and laugh in the tumbling chimneys.

“我真的必须改进我的头脑，”我告诉自己，并且再次开始修补那个疯狂的结构。所以我一直埋头工作，致力于这项徒劳的提升自我的任务，不去管狂风掀起瓦片，地面塌陷，房顶坍塌，奇怪的鸟在屋椽上筑起杂乱的窝，猫头鹰在歪斜的烟囱里尖叫大笑。

The Rose

玫瑰

The old lady had always been proud of the great rose-tree in her garden, and was fond of telling how it had grown from a cutting she had brought years before from Italy when she was first married. She and her husband had been travelling back in their carriage from Naples (it was before the time of railways), and on a bad piece of road south of Sienna they had broken down, and had been forced to pass the night in a little house by the roadside. The accommodation was wretched of course; she had spent a sleepless night, and rising early had stood, wrapped up, at her window, with the cool air blowing on her face, to watch the dawn. She could still, after all these years, remember the blue mountains with the bright moon above them, and how a far-off town on one of the peaks had gradually grown whiter and whiter, till the moon faded, the mountains were touched with the pink of the rising sun, and suddenly the town was lit as by an illumination, one window after another catching and reflecting the sun's beams, till at last the whole little city twinkled and sparkled up in the sky like a nest of stars.

那位老妇人总是为她花园里的玫瑰树感到骄傲，而且总喜欢讲它是怎样从剪下的一条小枝长成现在的样子，那是多年前她刚结婚时从意大利带回来的。那时她和她的丈夫乘马车从那不勒斯（那是在有火车之前）回英国，在锡耶纳南边的一条颠簸的小路上马车坏了，他们只好在路边的一间小房子里过夜。住宿条件当然很恶劣；她一夜没合眼，早早起床，披上衣服站在窗边看着破晓的景色，凉爽的微风吹拂着她的脸颊。这么多年过去了，她仍然记得那皎洁的月亮悬在青山之上，远处山峰上的一座小镇逐渐变得越来越白，直到月亮完全隐去，山峰被初升的太阳抹上一抹粉红；突然一束亮光照亮了村庄，一扇又一扇窗户捕捉到、反射出太阳的光芒，直到最后整个小城在空中闪烁，像是星星的巢穴。

Finding they would have to wait while their carriage was being repaired, they had driven that morning, in a local conveyance, up to the city on the mountain, where they had been told they would find better quarters; and there they had stayed two or three days. It was one of the miniature Italian cities with a high church, a pretentious piazza, a few narrow streets and little palaces, perched, all compact and complete, on the top of a mountain, within an enclosure of walls hardly larger than an English kitchen garden. But it was full of life and noise, echoing all day and all night with the sounds of feet and voices.

他们发现要等马车修好了才能重新上路，于是那天早晨，他们乘坐当地的公共马车去了那座山上的小城，别人告诉他们那里的住宿条件要好些。他们在那儿呆了两三天。这是意大利许多小城里的一座。这座小城有高耸的教堂、一个名不副实的广场、几条狭窄的街道、几座小城堡，紧凑而又完整地坐落在山顶上，周围是一圈围墙，整个空间比一个英国的菜园大不了多少。但是这里生机勃勃、熙熙攘攘，日日夜夜回响着人们的脚步声和说话声。

The Café of the simple inn where they stayed was the meeting-place of the notabilities of the little city; the Sindaco, the avvocato, the doctor, and a few others; and among them they noticed a beautiful, slim, talkative old man, with bright black eyes and snow-white hair—tall and straight and still with the figure of a youth, although the waiter told them with pride that the Conte was molto vecchio—would in fact be eighty in the following year. He was the last of his family, the waiter added—they had once been great and rich people—but he had no descendants; in fact the waiter mentioned with complacency, as if it were a story on which the locality prided itself, that the Conte had been unfortunate in love, and had never married.

他们投宿在一家简陋的客栈，那里的咖啡厅是这座小城里身份重要的人物聚会的地方；市长、高级律师、医生，还有其他一些人；他们注意到当中有一位英俊、清瘦、健谈的老人，眼睛又黑又亮，头发雪白——身材高大挺拔，还保持着年轻人的样子，而侍者骄傲地告诉他们伯爵年纪很大了——实际上明年就八十岁了。他是他们家族的最后一个人，侍者又说——他们曾经是地位显赫的家族，非常富有——但是他没有子嗣；实际上，这位侍者很得意地提到，伯爵的爱情之路相当坎坷，终身未婚，好像当地人很为这个故事感到骄傲。

The old gentleman, however, seemed cheerful enough; and it was plain that he took an interest in the strangers, and wished to make their acquaintance. This was soon effected by the friendly waiter; and after a little talk the old man invited them to visit his villa and garden which were just outside the walls of the town. So the next afternoon, when the sun began to descend, and they saw in glimpses through doorways and windows blue shadows spreading over the brown mountains, they went to pay their visit. It was not much of a place, a small, modernized, stucco villa, with a hot pebbly garden, and in it a stone basin with torpid gold fish, and a statue of Diana and her hounds against the wall. But what gave a glory to it was a gigantic rose-tree which clambered over the house, almost smothering the windows, and filling the air with the perfume of its sweetness. Yes, it was a fine rose, the Conte said proudly when they praised it, and he would tell the signora about it. And as they sat there, drinking the wine he offered them, he alluded with the cheerful indifference of old age to his love affair, as though he took for granted that they had heard of it already.

然而，这位老绅士看起来很开心；很明显，他对这对陌生人产生了兴趣，希望能够结识他们。那位友好的侍者马上为他们做了引见；他们聊了一会儿，老人邀请他们参观他就在小镇城墙外的别墅和花园。于是，第二天下午，当太阳开始落山，他们透过门窗瞥见青色的阴影逐渐覆盖了棕色的山峰时，他们就出发去往老人的家了。老人的家地方不大，是一幢现代风格的灰泥小别墅，有一座铺满砾石的花园，热气腾腾的花园里面，石头水池里养着几条懒洋洋的金鱼，靠墙立着戴安娜和她的猎犬的雕像。但是赋予这里光彩的是一棵巨大的玫瑰树，它爬到了屋顶上，几乎完全挡住了窗户，空气里弥漫着玫瑰甜美的香气。是的，这棵玫瑰树很不错，他们称赞它时伯爵骄傲地说，而且他还要告诉夫人关于这棵树的故事。当他们坐下来品尝伯爵提供的葡萄酒时，他以老者惯有的毫不在乎的愉快口吻略微提及了他的恋爱经历，好像理所当然地认为他们已经听说过这个故事了。

"The lady lived across the valley there beyond that hill. I was a young man then, for it was many years ago. I used to ride over to see her, it was a long way, but I rode fast, for young men, as no doubt the signora knows, are impatient. But the lady was not kind, she would keep me waiting, oh, for hours; and one day when I had waited very long I grew very angry, and as I walked up and down in the garden where she had told me she would see me, I broke one of her roses, broke a branch from it; and when I saw what I had done, I hid it inside my coat—so—; and when I came home I planted it, and the signora sees how it has grown. If the signora admires it, I must give her a cutting to plant also in her garden; I am told the English have beautiful gardens that are green, and not burnt with the sun like ours.”

“那位女士住在那座山背后峡谷的另一边。我那时很年轻，因为那是许多年以前了。我曾经骑马翻山去看她；路途漫长，但我骑得飞快，因为年轻人，这点夫人肯定知道，没什么耐心。但是那位女士对我很冷淡，她常常让我一等就是几个小时。一天，她告诉我她在花园见我，但我等了很久她也没出现，于是我大为光火。我在花园里走来走去，折断了一朵玫瑰，折下了一个枝条，当我看到自己做了什么时，就把它藏在了大衣里；我回到家后，把它种了起来。夫人看到它长成什么样了。如果夫人喜欢，我一定要给她剪一根枝条，让她种在自己的花园里。我听说英国人有美丽的绿色花园，而不像我们这儿的被太阳烤焦了。”

The next day, when their mended carriage had come up to fetch them, and they were just starting to drive away from the inn, the Conte's old servant appeared with the rose-cutting neatly wrapped up, and the compliments and wishes for a buon viaggio from her master. The town collected to see them depart, and the children ran after their carriage through the gate of the little city. They heard a rush of feet behind them for a few moments, but soon they were far down toward the valley; the little town with all its noise and life was high above them on its mountain peak.

转天，马车修好了，来接他们回去。当他们正要离开旅店时，伯爵的老仆人带着一枝整齐包好的玫瑰枝条来到旅店，代他的主人祝他们一路顺风。镇上的人聚在一起为他们送行，孩子跟在马车后面跑，一直把他们送出小城的大门。好一会儿，他们还能听到车后的脚步声，但是不久马车就向着峡谷驶出了很远；那座充满着喧嚣声和生命力的小城高耸在他们头上的山巅。

She had planted the rose at home, where it had grown and flourished in a wonderful manner; and every June the great mass of leaves and shoots still broke out into a passionate splendour of scent and crimson colour, as if in its root and fibres there still burnt the anger and thwarted desire of that Italian lover. Of course, said the old lady (who had outlived sixty generations of these roses), the old Conte must have died long ago; she had forgotten his name, and had even forgotten the name of the mountain city that she had stayed in, after first seeing it twinkling at dawn in the sky, like a nest of stars.

她把那株玫瑰枝种在家里，它枝繁叶茂、生机勃勃；每年六月，繁茂的树叶和枝芽生发出来，散发出浓烈的香气，绽开深红的花朵，仿佛它的根茎依然燃烧着那位意大利情人的愤怒和未能实现的渴望。当然，这位老妇人说（这些玫瑰已经伴她度过了六十个春秋），老伯爵肯定过世很久了；她忘了他的名字，忘了她住过的那个小山城的名字，第一次见到它是在黎明时分，它在天空中闪烁，像是星星的巢穴。

Tu Quoque Fontium—

你是另一个源头—

Just to sit in the Sun, to bask like an animal in its heat—this is one of my country recreations. And often I reflect what a thing after all it is, still to be alive and sitting here, above all the buried people of the world, in the kind and famous sunshine.

坐在阳光里，像一只动物一样接受着太阳高温的炙烤——这是我在乡间的一种消遣。这时我总是反思：世上这么多人已归于尘土，而我还能活着坐在这里，还能享受这和煦的、极好的阳光，这是多么美好的事啊。

Beyond the orchard there is a place where the stream, hurrying out from under a bridge, makes for itself a quiet pool. A beech-tree upholds its green light over the blue water; and there, when I have grown weary of the Sun, the great glaring undiscriminating Sun, I can shade myself and read my book. And listening to this water's pretty voices I invent for it exquisite epithets, calling it Silver-Clean or Moss-Margined or Nymph-Frequented, and idly promise to place it among the learned fountains and pools of the world, making of it a cool green thought for English exiles in the glare of Eastern deserts.

果园的那一边有一条小溪，溪水急匆匆地从桥下流过，汇成了一个安静的水潭。潭边山毛榉树的绿色身影映在碧蓝的池水中；当我厌倦了太阳，这个伟大的、闪耀的、对万物一视同仁的太阳，我可以退到树阴下，读一本书。我听着溪水美妙的歌声，为它起了各种别致的名字：银色小清泉、苔藓镶边儿溪、小仙女出没地；还随口许下诺言，要让它在世界闻名的喷泉和水潭中占有一席之地，让它成为被放逐到阳光灼射下的东方沙漠中的英国人心中一抹清凉的绿色。

The Spider

蜘蛛

What shall I compare it to, this fantastic thing I call my Mind? To a waste-paper basket, to a sieve choked with sediment, or to a barrel full of floating froth and refuse?

我要将它比作什么呢，这个我称之为我的头脑的奇妙的东西？把它比作废纸篓、被渣滓堵塞的筛子，还是漂浮着泡沫和废物的木桶？

No, what it is really most like is a spider's web, insecurely hung on leaves and twigs, quivering in every wind, and sprinkled with dewdrops and dead flies. And at its geometric centre, pondering for ever the Problem of Existence, sits motionless and spider-like the uncanny Soul.

不，它其实最像一张蜘蛛网，岌岌可危地挂在枝叶上，风一吹过就会颤抖，上面沾着露珠和死苍蝇。在它的几何中心，一动不动地坐着蜘蛛般神秘的灵魂，永远思考着存在的问题。

The Age

时代

Again, as the train drew out of the station, the old gentleman pulled out of his pocket his great shining watch; and for the fifth, or as it seemed to me, the five hundredth, time, he said (we were in the carriage alone together), "To the minute, to the very minute! It's a marvellous thing, the railway; a wonderful age!"

当火车再次驶出车站，这位老绅士从口袋里掏出他闪闪发亮的怀表；然后第五次，在我看来是第五百次，说道（当时车厢里只有我们两个人）：“一秒不差，一秒都不差！火车真是个了不起的东西；多么神奇的时代！”

Now I had been long annoyed by the old gentleman's smiling face, platitudes, and piles of newspapers; I had no love for the Age, and Satan put it into my heart to denounce it.

那位老绅士微笑的脸、不断重复的话、还有一大堆报纸都让我感到厌烦；我并不热爱这个时代，在魔鬼的驱使下我开口批驳。

"Allow me to tell you," I said, "that I consider it a wretched, an ignoble age. Where's the greatness of Life, where's dignity, leisure, stateliness; where's Art and Eloquence? Where are your great scholars, statesmen? Let me ask you, Sir," I cried, glaring at him, "where's your Gibbon17, your Burke18 or Chatham19?”

“请允许我告诉你，”我说，“我认为这是一个不幸的、可耻的时代。生命伟大在哪里？尊严、安逸、威严在哪里？艺术和雄辩呢？你们伟大的学者和政治家呢？请问你，先生，”我对他怒目而视，叫道，“你们的吉本、伯克和查塔姆在哪里？”

(1)巨石阵，英国南部索尔兹伯里附近的一处史前巨石建筑遗址。

(2)东方三博士，由东方来朝见初生耶稣的三贤人。

(3)亚克托安，希腊神话中的猎人，因偷看狩猎女神戴安娜洗澡被变为牡鹿，最后被自己的狗群撕成碎片。

(4)卢顿，英格兰东部城镇。

(5)恺撒和庞贝是古罗马统帅、政治家；奥古斯都是罗马帝国第一代皇帝；阿伽门农是古希腊迈锡尼的国王，特洛伊战争中希腊联军的统帅；梅内莱厄斯是古希腊斯巴达的国王；马可·奥勒利乌斯是古罗马皇帝。

(6)腓力，《圣经》中的人物，耶稣十二使徒之一。

(7)尤维纳利斯，古罗马讽刺诗人。

(8)耶利米，《圣经》中人物，希伯来先知。

(9)约伯，《圣经》中人物，几经磨难，仍坚信上帝。

(10)梵天，印度教中的创造神。

(11)帕丁顿,位于伦敦西区的一个区。