雙語小說連載:《董貝父子》第三章 Part 1

In which Mr Dombey, as a Man and a Father, is seen at the Head of the Home Department.

The funeral of the deceased lady having been 'performed to the entire satisfaction of the undertaker, as well as of the neighbourhood at large, which is generally disposed to be captious on such a point, and is prone to take offence at any omissions or short-comings in the ceremonies, the various members of Mr Dombey's household subsided into their several places in the domestic system. That small world, like the great one out of doors, had the capacity of easily forgetting its dead; and when the cook had said she was a quiet-tempered lady, and the house-keeper had said it was the common lot, and the butler had said who'd have thought it, and the housemaid had said she couldn't hardly believe it, and the footman had said it seemed exactly like a dream, they had quite worn the subject out, and began to think their mourning was wearing rusty too.

已故夫人的葬禮完成得使殯儀承辦人和鄰近的全體居民都完全稱心滿意（鄰近的居民們通常在這種場合是喜歡吹毛求疵的，對禮儀中的任何疏忽或缺點都會生氣見怪）；在這之後，董貝先生家裏的各個成員各自回到了他們在這個家庭體系中原先的地位中。這個小小的世界，就像戶外的大世界一樣，很容易把死去的人忘掉；當廚娘說了“她是一位性情安靜的夫人”，女管家說了“這是人人都難以逃脫的命運”，男管家說了“誰曾料想到會發生這件事呢？”女僕說了“她簡直不能相信這件事”，男僕說了“這似乎完全跟做夢一樣”之後，他們在這個話題上就沒有什麼可以再說的了，而且開始覺得他們的喪服也已經穿得褪色了。

On Richards, who was established upstairs in a state of honourable captivity, the dawn of her new life seemed to break cold and grey. Mr Dombey's house was a large one, on the shady side of a tall, dark, dreadfully genteel street in the region between Portland Place and Bryanstone Square.' It was a corner house, with great wide areas containing cellars frowned upon by barred windows, and leered at by crooked-eyed doors leading to dustbins. It was a house of dismal state, with a circular back to it, containing a whole suite of drawing-rooms looking upon a gravelled yard, where two gaunt trees, with blackened trunks and branches, rattled rather than rustled, their leaves were so smoked-dried. The summer sun was never on the street, but in the morning about breakfast-time, when it came with the water-carts and the old clothes men, and the people with geraniums, and the umbrella-mender, and the man who trilled the little bell of the Dutch clock as he went along. It was soon gone again to return no more that day; and the bands of music and the straggling Punch's shows going after it, left it a prey to the most dismal of organs, and white mice; with now and then a porcupine, to vary the entertainments; until the butlers whose families were dining out, began to stand at the house-doors in the twilight, and the lamp-lighter made his nightly failure in attempting to brighten up the street with gas.

理查茲以一種體面的被囚禁的狀態被安頓在樓上；對她來說，她的新生活的黎明是寒冷與灰暗的。董貝先生的公館是一棟宏偉的房屋，座落在一條陰暗的、非常優雅的街道的背陰的一面，這條街道位於波特蘭十字路口和布賴恩廣場之間的地區內，兩旁矗立着高大的房屋。這是一棟在街道拐角上的房子，裏面十分寬敞，其中還包括一些地窖，裝了鐵條的窗子向它們皺着眉頭，眼睛歪斜的、通向垃圾箱的門向它們斜眼瞅着。這是一棟陰暗沉悶的房屋，後背是圓形的，房屋裏有一整套客廳；客廳前面是一個鋪了石子的庭院，庭院裏有兩株乾枯的樹，樹幹和樹枝都已發黑，發出了格格的、而不是颯颯的響聲，因爲樹葉都已被煙燻枯了。夏天的太陽只有在上午吃早飯的時候才照射到這條街上，那時候運水車、賣舊衣的商人、賣天竺葵的小販、修雨傘的人、還有一邊走一邊使荷蘭鐘的小鈴兒發出叮噹叮噹響聲的人也隨着太陽來到這裏。太陽很快就消失，這一天不再回來；隨後而來的是樂隊和潘趣木偶戲①；在這之後，人們只能聽聽風琴的極爲沉悶的聲音和看看白耗子的表演——有時還有一隻豪豬來演雜技，以便變換一下娛樂的興趣；到了薄暮的時候，男管家們（他們家裏的人到外面吃晚飯去了）開始站在門口；點街燈的人試圖用煤氣來照亮這條街道，但每夜都沒有成功。

①潘趣（Punch）：英國木偶戲中的主角，他的背是駝的，鼻子很長，而且是鉤形的，他的妻子名叫朱迪（Judy），時常和他吵架。
註釋：dispose 1. v. 處理；配置；使適應；使有傾向 2. adj. 有......傾向的；打算做......的；有某種健康狀態的
例句：
1. The criminal disposed of the witness to the crime.
罪犯將他犯罪的目擊者殺死了。
2. She seemed well disposed towards us.
她看來對我們頗有好感。

It was as blank a house inside as outside. When the funeral was over, Mr Dombey ordered the furniture to be covered up perhaps to preserve it for the son with whom his plans were all associated and the rooms to be ungarnished, saving such as he retained for himself on the ground floor. Accordingly, mysterious shapes were made of tables and chairs, heaped together in the middle of rooms, and covered over with great winding-sheets. Bell-handles, window-blinds, and looking-glasses, being papered up in journals, daily and weekly, obtruded fragmentary accounts of deaths and dreadful murders. Every chandelier or lustre, muffled in holland, looked like a monstrous tear depending from the ceiling's eye. Odours, as from vaults and damp places, came out of the chimneys. The dead and buried lady was awful in a picture-frame of ghastly bandages. Every gust of wind that rose, brought eddying round the corner from the neighbouring mews, some fragments of the straw that had been strewn before the house when she was ill, mildewed remains of which were still cleaving to the neighbourhood: and these, being always drawn by some invisible attraction to the threshold of the dirty house to let immediately opposite, addressed a dismal eloquence to Mr Dombey's windows.

公館裏面和外面一樣單調無趣。葬禮結束以後，董貝先生命令把傢俱都蒙罩起來——也許是要保留起來給他兒子用的，因爲他所有的計劃都和他的兒子聯繫着——；除了第一層留給他自己用的房間外，其他所有的房間都不進行佈置。因此，桌子和椅子堆在房間的中間，外面用大塊的包屍布遮蓋着，形成了各種神祕離奇的形狀。鈴柄、窗簾、鏡子，由於用雜誌、日報和週刊的紙包着，因此被迫對上面登載着的死亡與可怖的謀殺案情進行片斷的報道。每一個用荷蘭麻布包裹起來的枝形吊燈或分枝燭臺，看上去就像是天花板眼睛中掉下的一滴巨大的淚珠。從煙囪中跑出來的氣味就像從地下靈堂或潮溼的地方跑出的一樣。已經逝世和安葬的夫人的肖像被鑲嵌在用可怕的繃帶包紮起來的畫框中，看起來陰森可怖。每颳起一陣風，就從鄰近的馬廄中吹來了幾根稻草，在拐角四周旋轉；當她生病的時候，這些稻草曾經撒在房屋前面，那些發了黴的殘餘的稻草至今仍粘附在鄰近的房屋上；它們常常被某種看不見的力量吸引到正對過的、等待出租的、骯髒的房屋的門檻上，現在正以淒涼的聲調，向董貝先生的窗子滔滔不絕地訴說着。

The apartments which Mr Dombey reserved for his own inhabiting, were attainable from the hall, and consisted of a sitting room; a library, which was in fact a dressing-room, so that the smell of hot-pressed paper, vellum, morocco, and Russia leather, contended in it with the smell of divers pairs of boots; and a kind of conservatory or little glass breakfast-room beyond, commanding a prospect of the trees before mentioned, and, generally speaking, of a few prowling cats. These three rooms opened upon one another. In the morning, when Mr Dombey was at his breakfast in one or other of the two first-mentioned of them, as well as in the afternoon when he came home to dinner, a bell was rung for Richards to repair to this glass chamber, and there walk to and fro with her young charge. From the glimpses she caught of Mr Dombey at these times, sitting in the dark distance, looking out towards the infant from among the dark heavy furniture the house had been inhabited for years by his father, and in many of its appointments was old-fashioned and grim she began to entertain ideas of him in his solitary state, as if he were a lone prisoner in a cell, or a strange apparition that was not to be accosted or understood. Mr Dombey came to be, in the course of a few days, invested in his own person, to her simple thinking, with all the mystery and gloom of his house. As she walked up and down the glass room, or sat hushing the baby there which she very often did for hours together, when the dusk was closing in, too she would sometimes try to pierce the gloom beyond, and make out how he was looking and what he was doing. Sensible that she was plainly to be seen by him' however, she never dared to pry in that direction but very furtively and for a moment at a time. Consequently she made out nothing, and Mr Dombey in his den remained a very shade.

董貝先生留給自己居住的房間和前廳連接，它們包括一間起居室，一間圖書室，還有一間暖房或吃早餐的小玻璃房。圖書室實際上是個化妝室，因此熱壓紙、上等皮紙、摩洛哥皮、俄國皮革的氣味與好幾雙靴子的氣味在室內相互競賽。從暖房裏可以望見前面提到的那兩株樹和幾隻四處覓食的貓。這三間房屋彼此相通。早上，當董貝先生在前面首先提到的那兩間房子中的一間裏吃早飯的時候，或者下午，當他回家來吃晚飯的時候，就有人搖鈴，召喚理查茲到這個玻璃房裏來，抱着她所撫養的小孩在那裏走來走去。她在這些時候可以瞥見董貝先生坐在黑暗的遠處，越過黑暗的笨重的傢俱（他的父親曾經在這座邸宅中居住多年，它的許多陳設都是老式的，陰沉呆板的），向外望着這個嬰兒。她從這些瞥見中開始產生了對他在孤獨狀態時的一些想法，彷彿他是一個在單人牢房中寂寞無伴的囚徒，或者是一個奇怪的幽靈，不能跟他說話，也不能對他進行了解。

註釋：preserve 1. vt. 保存；保護；維持；醃；禁獵 2. n. 保護區；禁獵地；加工成的食品
例句：
1. On a shelf nearby is coffee, already packed cans to preserve its flavor.
附近一個架子上有咖啡，爲了保持香味，是用罐子裝的。
2. She regards negotiating prices with customers as her special preserve.
她把與顧客討價還價看作自己的專長。

Little Paul Dombey's foster-mother had led this life herself, and had carried little Paul through it for some weeks; and had returned upstairs one day from a melancholy saunter through the dreary rooms of state (she never went out without Mrs Chick, who called on fine mornings, usually accompanied by Miss Tox, to take her and Baby for an airing or in other words, to march them gravely up and down the pavement, like a walking funeral); when, as she was sitting in her own room, the door was slowly and quietly opened, and a dark-eyed little girl looked in.

小保羅•董貝的奶媽本人過着這樣的生活，並帶着小保羅一起過着這樣的生活，已有好幾個星期了。沒有奇剋夫人在一起，她是從來不出去的。奇剋夫人通常在托克斯小姐的陪同下，在天氣晴朗的上午前來看望，並帶領她和嬰孩到戶外去散步，或者換句話說，就是在人行道上莊嚴地來回行走，像是個步行的送葬隊伍似的。有一天，當她憂鬱地穿過那些冷冷清清的房間閒逛之後，回到樓上，正要在自己的房間裏坐下來的時候，房門緩慢地、平靜地開了，一個黑眼睛的小女孩向房間裏探望。

'It's Miss Florence come home from her aunt's, no doubt,' thought Richards, who had never seen the child before. 'Hope I see you well, Miss.'
'Is that my brother?' asked the child, pointing to the Baby.
'Yes, my pretty,' answered Richards. 'Come and kiss him.'
But the child, instead of advancing, looked her earnestly in the face, and said:
'What have you done with my Mama?'

“這一定是弗洛倫斯小姐從她姑媽家裏回來了，”理查茲想道，她以前從沒有看見過這個孩子。“我希望，您身體很好，小姐。”
“這是我的弟弟嗎？”女孩子指着嬰孩，問道。
“是的，我的寶貝，”理查茲回答道。“來親親他吧。”
但是女孩子沒有走上前來，而是望着她的臉，問道：
“您把我的媽媽怎麼搞的？”

註釋：in other words: 換句話說
例句：
1. In other words, with hard work any obstacle can be overcome.
換句話說，只要努力工作任何障礙都可以被克服。
2. In other words, we'd better change our plan.
換句話說，我們最好改變一下計劃。

'Lord bless the little creeter!' cried Richards, 'what a sad question! I done? Nothing, Miss.'
'What have they done with my Mama?' inquired the child, with exactly the same look and manner.
'I never saw such a melting thing in all my life!' said Richards, who naturally substituted 'for this child one of her own, inquiring for herself in like circumstances. 'Come nearer here, my dear Miss! Don't be afraid of me.'
'I am not afraid of you,' said the child, drawing nearer. 'But I want to know what they have done with my Mama.'

“天主保佑這個小人兒！”理查茲喊道，“多麼使人傷心的問題！我怎麼搞的？我什麼也沒有搞，小姐。”
“他們把我媽媽怎麼搞的？”女孩子問道。
“我這一輩子還從沒有見到過這樣使人感傷的事情！”理查茲說道，她在心裏自然把她自己的一個孩子代替了這個女孩子，在類似的情況下，正在打聽她的下落。“往這裏走近一些，我親愛的小姐！別怕我。”
“我不怕您，”女孩子走近一些，說道，“但是我想知道，他們把我媽媽怎麼搞的。”

Her heart swelled so as she stood before the woman, looking into her eyes, that she was fain to press her little hand upon her breast and hold it there. Yet there was a purpose in the child that prevented both her slender figure and her searching gaze from faltering.
'My darling,' said Richards, 'you wear that pretty black frock in remembrance of your Mama.'
'I can remember my Mama,' returned the child, with tears springing to her eyes, 'in any frock.'
'But people put on black, to remember people when they're gone.'
'Where gone?' asked the child.
'Come and sit down by me,' said Richards, 'and I'll tell you a story.'

“我親愛的，”理查茲說道，“您穿那件漂亮的黑長衣來紀念您的媽媽。”
“不論穿什麼長衣，”女孩子眼睛裏涌出眼淚，回答道，“我都能記得我的媽媽。”
“可是人們穿上黑衣服來紀念那些已經離開我們的人們。”
“離開我們到哪裏去了？”女孩子問道。
“到這裏來坐在我的身旁，”理查茲說道，“我跟您講一個故事。”

註釋：substitute for: 代替；取代
例句：
1. Water is not a proper substitute for wine.
水不是酒的適當代用品。
2. Honey can substitute for sugar in this recipe.
在這個食譜中，可用蜂蜜代替食糖。