雙語小說連載:《董貝父子》第六章 Part 1大綱

Chapter 6 Paul's Second Deprivation

Polly was beset by so many misgivings in the morning, that but for the incessant promptings of her black-eyed companion, she would have abandoned all thoughts of the expedition, and formally petitioned for leave to see number one hundred and forty-seven, under the awful shadow of Mr Dombey's roof. But Susan who was personally disposed in favour of the excursion, and who (like Tony Lumpkin), if she could bear the disappointments of other people with tolerable fortitude, could not abide to disappoint herself, threw so many ingenious doubts in the way of this second thought, and stimulated the original intention with so many ingenious arguments, that almost as soon as Mr Dombey's stately back was turned, and that gentleman was pursuing his daily road towards the City, his unconscious son was on his way to Staggs's Gardens.

到了早上，波利由於顧慮重重，心中十分忐忑不安；若不是她那位黑眼睛的女伴不斷慫恿，她就會斷絕這次外出遠走的各種念頭，而改爲提出正式申請，請求在董貝先生屋頂的森嚴的陰影下，與147號見見面。可是蘇珊本人有意進行這次短途旅行；她像託尼•拉姆金①一樣，能夠用堅強的意志忍受另人的沮喪失意，但卻決不能容忍讓自己的希望落空；於是她對波利的第二種想法巧妙地提出了許多疑問，對原先的打算則巧妙地發表了許多支持的意見，所以幾乎當董貝先生這位紳士一轉開他莊嚴的後背，沿着平日的道路向城裏進發的時候，他的一無所知的兒子就已經上了前往斯塔格斯花園的路了。

This euphonious locality was situated in a suburb, known by the inhabitants of Staggs's Gardens by the name of Camberling Town; a designation which the Strangers' Map of London, as printed (with a view to pleasant and commodious reference) on pocket handkerchiefs, condenses, with some show of reason, into Camden Town. Hither the two nurses bent their steps, accompanied by their charges; Richards carrying Paul, of course, and Susan leading little Florence by the hand, and giving her such jerks and pokes from time to time, as she considered it wholesome to administer.

這個聲音悅耳的地方座落在一個郊區，斯塔格斯花園的居民們都管它叫做坎伯林鎮；有一種爲了查找起來有趣和方便，印在手絹上供外地遊客使用的倫敦地圖，不無理由地把這個地名縮寫爲坎登鎮。兩位保姆在她們所撫養的孩子的陪伴下，就向這裏走去。理查茲當然抱着保羅，蘇珊則拉着小弗洛倫斯的手，而且不時在她認爲對她指揮合適的時候，猛拉她一下，狠戳她一下。

註釋：administer vt. 管理；執行；給予vi. 給予幫助；執行遺產管理人的職責；擔當管理人詞組：administer justice 執法，執行審判例句：1. It takes brains to administer a large corporation.管理一個大公司需要智慧。2. The area which a bishop administer have one cathedral and many smaller church.一個主教所掌管的地區包括一個大教堂和許多較小的教堂。--------①託尼•拉姆金（TonyLampkin）：英國作家奧利弗•戈德史密斯（OliverGold－smith，1728—1774）所寫歌劇《屈身求愛》（SheStoopstoConquer，1771年發表）中的主人翁之一。他是個愚蠢、自私的人。

The first shock of a great earthquake had, just at that period, rent the whole neighbourhood to its centre. Traces of its course were visible on every side. Houses were knocked down; streets broken through and stopped; deep pits and trenches dug in the ground; enormous heaps of earth and clay thrown up; buildings that were undermined and shaking, propped by great beams of wood. Here, a chaos of carts, overthrown and jumbled together, lay topsy-turvy at the bottom of a steep unnatural hill; there, confused treasures of iron soaked and rusted in something that had accidentally become a pond. Everywhere were bridges that led nowhere; thoroughfares that were wholly impassable; Babel towers of chimneys, wanting half their height; temporary wooden houses and enclosures, in the most unlikely situations; carcases of ragged tenements, and fragments of unfinished walls and arches, and piles of scaffolding, and wildernesses of bricks, and giant forms of cranes, and tripods straddling above nothing. There were a hundred thousand shapes and substances of incompleteness, wildly mingled out of their places, upside down, burrowing in the earth, aspiring in the air, mouldering in the water, and unintelligible as any dream. Hot springs and fiery eruptions, the usual attendants upon earthquakes, lent their contributions of confusion to the scene. Boiling water hissed and heaved within dilapidated walls; whence, also, the glare and roar of flames came issuing forth; and mounds of ashes blocked up rights of way, and wholly changed the law and custom of the neighbourhood.[qh]

這個時期發生的大地震，第一次震動就把整個地區都震裂了，一直達到它的中心。到處都可以看到地震留下的痕跡。房屋倒塌了；街道完全裂開和堵塞了；地底下被挖掘成深深的凹坑和溝渠；大堆大堆的泥土高高堆積；建築物由於基礎遭到破壞，動搖不牢，正用大根的木頭支撐着。這裏，翻倒在地、雜亂一團的大車橫七豎八地躺在一座峻峭的非自然的小山底下；那裏，珍貴的鐵器毫無條理地浸泡在偶然形成的池塘中，腐蝕生鏽。到處是不通向任何地方的橋樑，完全不能通行的大路，失去一半高度、像巴別塔①一樣的煙囪，在最意想不到的場所臨時搭建的木房子和圍欄，破爛的住房的骨架，未建成的牆和拱門的斷片，一堆堆的腳手架，雜亂無章的磚塊，巨人般的起重機以及跨立在空處的三腳架。這裏有十幾萬個沒有完成的形狀和實體，散亂地混雜在一起，上下倒立，深埋在地下，高聳在空中，腐爛在水裏，像夢一樣地難以理解。地震通常的伴隨物——溫泉和火焰噴發，對整個場景增添上一份混亂。在頹垣斷壁之內，沸騰的水上下滾動，發出了嘶嘶的聲音，從那裏也發出了火焰的閃耀與怒號；山丘般的灰燼堵塞了來往通道，而且完全改變了本地的法律與風俗。[qh]

In short, the yet unfinished and unopened Railroad was in progress; and, from the very core of all this dire disorder, trailed smoothly away, upon its mighty course of civilisation and improvement.[qh]

簡單地說，尚未峻工、尚未通車的鐵路正在修建中，它從極端雜亂的中心，沿着它的文明與進步的宏偉路線，平靜地、慢慢地向遠處延伸。

註釋：flame n. 火焰；熱情；光輝
v. 焚燒；泛紅
例句：
1. I add the coal on the flame continuously.
他們這一陣子一直在修這條路。
2. Billows of flame swept through the forest.
熊熊烈火席捲森林。

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①巴別塔（Babeltower）：聖經《創世紀》中的故事說：在洪水大劫之後，挪亞的子孫成羣向東遷移，走到示拿地方，發現一片廣袤的原野，就決定在那裏住下來，並在那裏建一座城，城中建一座塔，塔頂通天；不久，那塔節節升高，直入雲霄。但後來耶和華變亂了他們的口音，使他們從本來只說一種語言變爲說出各種各樣的語言；由於語言不通，停工待料，人們逐漸走散，那座城和那座塔也就半途而廢了。半途而廢的原因在於語言的變亂。“變亂”一詞在希伯來語中讀作“巴別”，因此人們就管那座城叫巴別城，管那座塔叫巴別塔。

But as yet, the neighbourhood was shy to own the Railroad. One or two bold speculators had projected streets; and one had built a little, but had stopped among the mud and ashes to consider farther of it. A bran-new Tavern, redolent of fresh mortar and size, and fronting nothing at all, had taken for its sign The Railway Arms; but that might be rash enterprise - and then it hoped to sell drink to the workmen. So, the Excavators' House of Call had sprung up from abeer-shop; and the old-established Ham and Beef Shop had become the Railway Eating House, with a roast leg of pork daily, through interested motives of a similar immediate and popular description. Lodging-house keepers were favourable in like manner; and for the like reasons were not to be trusted. The general belief was very slow. There were frowzy fields, and cow-houses, and dunghills, and dustheaps, and ditches, and gardens, and summer-houses, and carpet-beating grounds, at the very door of the Railway. Little tumuli of oyster shells in the oyster season, and of lobster shells in the lobster season, and of broken crockery and faded cabbage leaves in all seasons, encroached upon its high places. Posts, and rails, and old cautions to trespassers, and backs of mean houses, and patches of wretched vegetation, stared it out of countenance. Nothing was the better for it, or thought of being so. If the miserable waste ground lying near it could have laughed, it would have laughed it to scorn, like many of the miserable neighbours.[qh]

可是到現在爲止，附近的居民還羞於承認這條鐵路。一兩個大膽的投機商已經在籌劃修建街道；有一位已經動工修建了一點兒，但卻在泥淖與灰燼中間停頓下來，需要再考慮考慮。有一個新開張的小酒店，店裏散發着新鮮的灰漿與膠料的氣味，店前只有一片空地，它已經把鐵路紋章畫在它的招牌上了；但這可能是個未經深思熟慮、草草創辦的企業——這時它希望能賣些酒給工人喝。同樣，“掘路工人之家”設在一個啤酒店裏；一家開設好久的火腿與牛肉店同樣由於直接的和可以受到歡迎的營利動機，已改變爲鐵路飲食店，每天賣出一隻烤豬腿。公寓老闆也同樣討人喜歡，並且由於同樣原因不能受到人們的信任。人們的信心增長得很慢。在鐵路線開始的地方有黴臭難聞的田野、牛棚、糞堆、垃圾堆、水溝、菜園、涼亭和敲打地毯的場地。在牡蠣季節中的牡蠣殼，在龍蝦季節中的龍蝦殼，在所有季節中的破碎的陶器和枯萎的捲心菜葉，像小墳般一堆一堆地侵佔了鐵路線的路堤。標竿、圍欄、對入侵者的舊警告牌、簡陋房屋的後背和長着衰敗植物的地塊瞪眼看着這條鐵路，看得它侷促不安。沒有什麼由於它而比過去更好，或認爲比過去好。如果附近可憐的荒地能夠發笑的話，那麼它也會像許多可憐的鄰居一樣，對它冷嘲熱諷一番的。[qh]

Staggs's Gardens was uncommonly incredulous. It was a little row of houses, with little squalid patches of ground before them, fenced off with old doors, barrel staves, scraps of tarpaulin, and dead bushes; with bottomless tin kettles and exhausted iron fenders, thrust into the gaps. Here, the Staggs's Gardeners trained scarlet beans, kept fowls and rabbits, erected rotten summer-houses (one was an old boat), dried clothes, and smoked pipes. Some were of opinion that Staggs's Gardens derived its name from a deceased capitalist, one Mr. Staggs, who had built it for his rs, who had a natural taste for the country, held that it dated from those rural times when the antlered herd, under the familiar denomination of Staggses, had resorted to its shady precincts. Be this as it may, Staggs's Gardens was regarded by its population as a sacred grove not to be withered by Railroads; and so confident were they generally of its long outliving any such ridiculous inventions, that the master chimney-sweeper at the corner, who was understood to take the lead in the local politics of the Gardens, had publicly declared that on the occasion of the Railroad opening, if ever it did open, two of his boys should ascend the flues of his dwelling, with instructions to hail the failure with derisive cheers from the chimney-pots.[qh]

斯塔格斯花園異乎尋常地令人難以置信。這裏有一小排房屋，房屋前面是一片污穢的土地；房屋與房屋之間被舊的門、樓板、塗了柏油的帆布片和枯死的矮樹叢隔開，縫隙裏塞上沒有底的白鐵壺和不堪使用的鐵製火爐圍欄。斯塔格斯花園的園丁們在這裏栽培紅豆，飼養家禽、兔子，建造簡陋的涼亭（其中一個是一條舊的小船），晾曬衣服，叼着菸斗吸菸。有些人說，斯塔格斯花園是爲了紀念一位已故的資本家斯塔格斯先生而命名的，這位先生建造它是爲了供他消遣娛樂。另有一些生性喜愛鄉村的人認爲，這個名稱的由來應該追溯到安逸幽靜、田園詩般的那段時光，那時候稱爲斯塔格斯的長角的獸羣常常到蔭涼的效野棲身安息。不論實際情況怎麼樣，當地的居民們都把斯塔格斯花園看作是一個神聖的園林，不許被鐵路消滅；他們深信它的壽命必定會比這類可笑的發明長得多，所以住在角落裏的掃煙囪的工長（大家都認爲他在花園的當地政治中坐第一把交椅）曾經當衆宣佈，在鐵路舉行通車典禮的時候（如果它有一天真能通車的話），他的兩個孩子將會攀登上他的房屋的煙道，按照他的指示，嘲笑、歡呼他們想要消滅斯塔格斯花園的計劃已告失敗。[qh]

To this unhallowed spot, the very name of which had hitherto been carefully concealed from Mr. Dombey by his sister, was little Paul now borne by Fate and Richards.[qh]

小保羅現在就由命運和理查茲帶往這個褻瀆神明的地方；董貝先生的妹妹至今還對她的哥哥隱瞞着它的名稱。[qh]

'That's my house, Susan,' said Polly, pointing it out.[qh]

“那就是我的家，蘇珊，”波利指着它，說道。[qh]

'Is it, indeed, Mrs. Richards?' said Susan, condescendingly.[qh]

“真的嗎，理查茲大嫂？”蘇珊謙和地說道。[qh]

'And there's my sister Jemima at the door, I do declare' cried Polly, 'with my own sweet precious baby in her arms!'[qh]

“站在門口的是我的妹妹傑邁瑪，準沒錯！”波利喊道，“她手裏抱着的是我自己可愛的寶貝娃娃！”[qh]

The sight added such an extensive pair of wings to Polly's impatience that she set off down the Gardens at a run, and bouncing on Jemima, changed babies with her in a twinkling; to the unutterable astonishment of that young damsel, on whom the heir of the Dombeys seemed to have fallen from the clouds.[qh]

這個情景在波利的急切難耐的心情上增添了一對十分寬闊的翅膀，因此她開始沿着花園奔跑過去，蹦跳到傑邁瑪的身邊，一轉眼的工夫就跟她的妹妹交換了嬰孩；那位年輕的姑娘大吃一驚，董貝的繼承人似乎是從雲霄中降落到她的懷裏一樣。

註釋：ascend vi. 上升；登高；追溯
vt. 攀登，上升
vi.上升；登高；追溯
例句：
1. The path started to ascend more steeply at this point.
這條路從這 向上就更陡了。
2. His ancestors ascend to the 15th century.
他的祖先可上溯到十五世紀。