小编所住的大院里有一只母狗,大家亲昵地叫她“阿黄”。每天早上出门时,总看到她站在大院里眺望,仿佛在等待着谁;晚上归来,她常常会在门口默默地迎接我。不知为什么,阿黄的眼里总会流露出一种忧郁和哀伤的神情,让人不由地心生怜爱。最近,阿黄又当妈妈了。某个阳光灿烂的秋日午后,只见阿黄躺在地上晒太阳,她的五只小宝宝环绕在她身边,一大家子聚在一起的场面很是温馨,此时的阿黄一脸的幸福与满足……我心想,如果阿黄会说话,想必她有很多话想说吧?^_^ 这期我们就来听一听“一只狗的自述”,通过作者马克·吐温的笔,这只狗将自己的故事和心声娓娓道来,语言不乏风趣,心理描写生动细腻,但读到最后却让人很揪心……
Mark Twain(马克·吐温,1835—1910),原名Samuel Langhorne Clemens(萨缪尔·兰亨·克莱门),美国著名的幽默大师、小说家、作家,19世纪后期美国现实主义文学的杰出代表,被誉为“文学史上的林肯”。其写作风格融幽默与讽刺为一体,既富有独特的个人机智与妙语,又不乏深刻的社会洞察与剖析。他的代表作有《百万英镑》、《汤姆索亚历险记》等。本文是他的一则短篇小说,因篇幅所限,有删节。 ——Maisie
文字难度：★★★
One day I was standing watch in the nursery. That is to say, I was asleep on the bed. The baby was asleep in the crib, which was alongside the bed, on the side next to the fireplace. It was the kind of crib that has a 1)lofty tent over it made of 2)gauzy stuff that you can see through. The nurse was out, and we two sleepers were alone. A spark from the wood-fire was shot out, and it lit on the slope of the tent. I suppose a quiet interval followed, then a scream from the baby awoke me, and there was that tent flaming up toward the ceiling! Before I could think, I 3)sprang to the floor in my fright, and in a second was half-way to the door; but in the next half-second my mother’s farewell was sounding in my ears, and I was back on the bed again. I reached my head through the flames and dragged the baby out by the waist-band, and tugged it along, and we fell to the floor together in a cloud of smoke; I 4)snatched a new hold, and dragged the screaming little creature along and out at the door and around the bend of the hall, and was still tugging away, when the master’s voice shouted:
有一天,我在婴儿房里担任守卫。情形是这样的,我在“床铺”上睡着了。小宝宝在婴儿床上睡着了,婴儿床挨着我的“床铺”,在靠近壁炉那一面。这种婴儿床上方挂着一顶高高的薄纱帐,里外都看得透。保姆出去了,只剩下我们两个在睡觉。燃烧的柴火从壁炉里迸出了一颗火星,掉在帐子的斜面上。我猜想其后还是有一阵短暂的平静,但后来小宝宝一声尖叫把我惊醒了,这时候帐子已经烧着了,火花直向天花板上窜!我还没有来得及想清楚就吓得跳到地板上,转眼就快要跑到门口了;可是就在这时,我的耳边响起了母亲临别时的叮嘱,于是我又爬回床上。我把头伸进火焰里,一口叼住小宝宝的腰带,将他往外拉,一路拖着他跑,我们俩在一片烟雾中跌倒在地板上;我往他身上另一处叼,一路拖着那尖叫的小家伙往外跑,一直跑出门口,跑过过道里的拐弯处,还在用力地拖着,这时我听到了主人的呼喊声:
“5)Begone you cursed 6)beast!” and I jumped to save myself; but he was furiously quick, and chased me up, striking furiously at me with his cane, I dodging this way and that, in terror, and at last a strong blow fell upon my left foreleg, which made me7)shriek and fall, for the moment, helpless; the cane went up for another blow, but never descended, for the nurse’s voice rang wildly out, “The nursery’s on fire!” and the master rushed away in that direction, and my other bones were saved.
“快滚开,你这该死的畜牲!”于是我跳开躲避;可是他却快得出奇,一下就追了上来,用他的手杖狠狠地打我。我这边躲一下,那边躲一下,吓得要命,后来我的左前腿挨了很重的一棍,我痛得直叫唤,一下子倒在地上,不知所措;手杖又被举起来准备再打,可是没有落下来,因为保姆在拼命地喊道:“婴儿房着火啦!”然后主人便往那边飞跑过去,我得以暂逃一劫。
The pain was cruel, but, no matter, I must not lose any time; he might come back at any moment; so I limped on three legs to the other end of the hall, where there was a dark little stairway leading up into a 8)garret where old boxes and such things were kept, as I had heard say, and where people seldom went. I managed to climb up there, then I searched my way through the dark among the piles of things, and hid in the most secret place I could find. So afraid that I 9)held in and hardly even whimpered, though it would have been such a comfort to whimper, because that eases the pain, you know.
那痛实在难捱,但尽管如此,我还是得抓紧时间,因为他随时都可能回来。于是我靠着三条腿一瘸一拐地走到过道的另一头,那儿有一段小楼梯,黑漆漆的,听说是通往一个阁楼,里面放着旧箱子之类的东西,很少有人上那儿去。我勉强地爬上了阁楼,然后在黑暗中摸索着往前走,穿过成堆的东西,钻到我所能找到的一个最隐秘的地方藏了起来。我是如此害怕,只好拼命忍住疼痛,甚至连低吠啜泣都不敢,即使啜泣可以使我好过一些,因为,你知道的,那样可以减轻痛苦。
For half an hour there was a 10)commotion downstairs, and shoutings, and rushing footsteps, and then there was quiet again. Quiet for some minutes, and that was grateful to my spirit, for then my fears began to go down; and fears are worse than pains—oh, much worse. Then came a sound that 11)froze me. They were calling me—calling me by name—hunting for me!
楼下乱轰轰的,一直持续了半个小时,有喊叫声,也有快跑的脚步声,然后又没有动静了。总算安静了几分钟,这让我心安不少,因为这时候我的恐惧感开始渐渐消除;恐惧比疼痛还难受——噢,难受得多。接着,我又听到了一阵声响,我吓呆了。他们正在叫我——在叫我的名字——正在找我!
It was 12)muffled by distance, but that could not take the terror out of it, and it was the most dreadful sound to me that I had ever heard. It went 13)all about: along the halls, through all the rooms, in both 14)stories, and in the basement and the 15)cellar; then outside, and farther and farther away—then back, and all about the house again, and I thought it would never, never stop. But at last it did, hours and hours after the vague16)twilight of the garret had long ago been 17)blotted out by black darkness.
虽然这阵喊声因为离得远而听得不是很清楚,可还是让我感到恐惧万分,这是我听到过的最可怕的声音。这喊声处处都能听到:穿过那些过道,穿过所有的房间,传遍楼上楼下、地下室和地窖;然后又传到外面,越传越远——然后又传回来,在整幢房子里再回响一遍,我还以为它永远也不会停止。可是最终,它还是停下来了,原本阁楼隐现昏黄的微光,现在已完全漆黑一片,这样又过了好几个小时。
Then in that blessed stillness my terrors fell little by little away, and I was at peace and slept. It was a good rest I had, but I woke before the twilight had come again. I was feeling fairly comfortable, and I could think out a plan now. I made a very good one; which was, to creep down, all the way down the back stairs, and hide behind the cellar door, and slip out and escape when the 18)iceman came at dawn, while he was inside filling the refrigerator; then I would hide all day, and start on my journey when night came; my journey to—well, anywhere where they would not know me and betray me to the master. I was feeling almost cheerful now; then suddenly I thought: 19)Why, what would life be without my 20)puppy!
然后,在那幸福的静寂之中,我的恐惧感一点点地消除了,我这才安下心来睡觉。我休息得很好,可是在微光再次出现之前我就醒了。我觉得相当舒服,这时候我可以想出一个主意来了。我想到了一个好主意:那就是,从后面的楼梯一路悄悄地爬下去,藏在地窖的门背后,等到天亮时送冰的人过来,趁他进地窖把冰往冰箱里装的时候我溜出去逃走;然后白天我会躲起来,到了晚上再动身;我要去……唉,随便去什么地方吧,只要是没人认识我,没人向我主人通风报信的地方就行。这时候我可以说是满心欢喜了,接着我突然想到:哎呀,要是离开了我的狗宝宝,那我活下去还有什么意思呀!
Then—well, then the calling began again! They called and called—days and nights, it seemed to me. So long that the hunger and thirst near drove me mad, and I recognized that I was getting very weak. When you are this way you sleep a great deal, and I did. Once I woke in an awful fright—it seemed to me that the calling was right there in the garret! And so it was: it was Sadie’s voice, and she was crying; my name was falling from her lips all broken, poor thing, and I could not believe my ears for the joy of it when I heard her say: “Come back to us—oh, come back to us, and forgive—it is all so sad without our—” I broke in with such a grateful little 21)yelp, and the next moment Sadie was22)plunging and stumbling through the darkness and the 23)lumber and shouting for the family to hear, “She’s found, she’s found!”
后来——唉,后来那喊声又响起来了!他们喊了又喊——我觉得他们好像没日没夜地在喊似的。时间拖得太久了,我又饿又渴,难受得快要发疯,我意识到自己变得非常虚弱。越是虚弱就越是能睡,于是我大睡特睡起来。有一次,我给狠狠地吓醒了——我觉得那喊声好像就在阁楼里!果然是这样:那是赛迪(编者注:主人家的大女儿)的声音,她一面还在哭;可怜的孩子,她嘴里断断续续地叫出我的名字,当我听见她说:“回来吧——噢,回来吧,请原谅——没有你,我们好难 过——”时,我非常高兴,简直不敢相信自己的耳朵。我感激得什么似的,突然“汪”地叫了一声,接着赛迪就连摸带爬地穿过黑漆漆的杂物堆,然后大声嚷着告诉大家:“找到她啦,找到她啦!”
The days that followed—well, they were wonderful. The mother and Sadie and the servants—why, they just seemed to worship me. They couldn’t seem to make me a bed that was fine enough; and as for food, they couldn’t be satisfied with anything but 24)game and 25)delicacies that were out of season; and every day the friends and neighbors 26)flocked in to hear about my 27)heroism—and a dozen times a day Mrs. Gray and Sadie would tell the tale to new-comers, and say I risked my life to save the baby’s, and both of us had 28)burns to prove it, and then the 29)company would pass me around and 30)pet me and 31)exclaim about me, and you could see the pride in the eyes of Sadie and her mother; and when the people wanted to know what made me limp, they looked ashamed and changed the subject, and sometimes when people hunted them this way and that way with questions about it, it looked to me as if they were going to cry.
以后的那些日子——啊,那才真是了不得呢。赛迪和她母亲以及仆人们——哎呀,他们简直就像是在崇拜我呀。他们想方设法给我弄一张精致的床,好像怎么弄都还嫌不够好;至于吃的东西,他们非得给我弄些还不到时令的稀罕野味和美味佳肴才觉得满意;每天都有朋友和邻居们成群地聚在一起来听他们讲述我的“英勇事迹”——格莱太太和赛迪会向新来的客人讲述这个故事,每天要说十几遍,她们说我冒着生命危险救了小宝宝的命,我们俩都有火伤可以证明,于是客人们就抱着我一个一个地传递,抚摸我,并大声称赞我。你可以看到赛迪和她母亲的眼里流露出得意的神情;而当人家问起我的腿为什么瘸了的时候,她们就显得很惭愧,然后转移话题,有时候当人家紧抓这个问题不放,想追根究底时,我觉得她们好像要哭了似的。
…
I have watched two whole weeks, and he doesn’t come up! This last week a fright has been stealing upon me. I think there is something terrible about this. I do not know what it is, but the fear makes me sick, and I cannot eat, though the servants bring me the best of food; and they pet me so, and even come in the night, and cry, and say, “Poor 32)doggie—do give it up and come home; Don’t break our hearts!” and all this terrifies me the more, and makes me sure something has happened. And I am so weak; since yesterday I cannot stand on my feet anymore. And within this hour the servants, looking toward the sun where it was sinking out of sight and the night chill coming on, said things I could not understand, but they carried something cold to my heart. “Those poor creatures! They do not suspect. They will come home in the morning, and eagerly ask for the little doggie that did the brave deed, and who of us will be strong enough to say the truth to them: ‘The humble little friend is gone where go the beasts that 33)perish.’”
我已经守了整整两个星期,可是他(狗宝宝)并没有长出来!在后一个星期里,有一种恐惧感不知不觉地钻到我心里。我觉得这事情有些可怕。我也不知道究竟是怎么回事,可是这种恐惧感使我病倒了,我吃不下东西,尽管仆人们拿了最好的食物给我吃;他们很心疼地爱抚我,甚至晚上还过来看我,哭着说道:“可怜的小狗——不要再守在这儿了,回家去吧;别让我们伤心了!”这些话更把我吓坏了,我知道肯定是出了什么事了。而且我是如此虚弱;从昨天起,我再也站不起来了。这个时候,夜里的寒气正在来临,仆人们望着正在落山的太阳,说了一些我听不懂的话,可是他们的话让我的心直发冷。“那些可怜的人(男主人之外的其他家人)啊!他们可不会想到这个。明天早上他们就要回来了,他们一定会急切地问起这只有过英勇事迹的小狗,那时候我们几个中谁敢硬着头皮把事实告诉他们呢:‘这位谦卑温顺的小朋友已经去了那‘畜生们’死后所去的地方了。’”
