Mark Twain-第九课课文翻译

?

朗赫恩

?

克莱门斯， 他一生之中有超过三分之一的时间浪迹美国

各地，体验着美国的新生活，尔后便以作家和 演说家的身分将他所感受到的这一切介绍给全世界。他的笔

名取自他在蒸汽船上做工时听 到的报告水深为两口寻

(12

英尺

)< /p>

——

意即可以通航的信号语。他的作品中有

二十几部至今仍在印行，其外文译本仍在世界各地拥有读者，由此可见他的享誉程度。

The geographic core, in Twain's early years, was the great valley of the Mississippi River, main artery of

transportation in the young nation's heart. Keelboats

，

flatboats , and large rafts carried the first major commerce.

Lumber, corn, tobacco, wheat, and furs moved downstream to the delta country; sugar, molasses , cotton, and

whiskey traveled north. In the 1850's, before the climax of westward expansion, the vast basin drained

three-quarters of the settled United States.

在马克

?< /p>

吐温青年时代，美国的地理中心是密西西比河流域，而密

西西比河 是这个年轻国家中部的交通大动脉。

龙骨船、

平底船和大木筏载 运着最重要的商品。

木材、

玉米、

烟草 、小麦和皮货通过这些运载工具顺流而下，运送到河口三角洲地区，而砂糖、糖浆、棉花和威士忌酒

等货物则被运送到北方。在

19

世纪

50

年代，西部领土开发高潮到来之前，辽阔的密西西比河流域占美国

已开发领土的四分之三。

Young Mark Twain entered that world in 1857 as a cub pilot on a steamboat. The cast of characters set before

him in his new profession was rich and varied a cosmos . He participated abundantly in this life, listening to

pilothouse talk of feuds , piracies, lynchings ,medicine shows, and savage waterside slums. All would resurface in

his books, together with the colorful language that he soaked up with a memory that seemed phonographic. 1857

年，少年马克

< br>?

吐温作为蒸汽船上的一名小领航员踏人了这片天地。在这个新的工作岗位上，他 接触到的是

各式各样的人物，看到的是一个多姿多彩的大干世界。他完全地投身到这种生 活之中，经常在操舵室里听

着人们谈论民间争斗、海盗抢劫、私刑案件、游医卖药以及河 边的一些化外民居的故事。所有这一切，连

同他那像留声机般准确可靠的记忆所吸收的丰 富多彩的语言，后来都有机会在他的作品中得以再现。

Steamboat decks teemed not only with the main current of pioneering humanity, but its flotsam of hustlers,

gamblers, and thugs as well. From them all Mark Twain gained a keen perception of the human race, of the

difference between what people claim to be and what they really are. His four and a half year s in the steamboat

1

2

trade marked the real beginning of his education, and the most lasting part of it. In later life Twain acknowledged

that the river had acquainted him with every possible type of human nature. Those acquaintanceships strengthened

all his writing, but he never wrote better than when he wrote of the people a-long the great stream.

蒸汽船的甲板

上不仅挤满了富有 开拓精神的人们，而且也载着一些娼妓、赌棍和歹徒等社会渣滓。从所有这些形形色色

的 人身上，马克

?

吐温敏锐地认识了人类，认识了人们的言与行之 间的差距。他在蒸汽船上工作的四年半时

间是他真正接受教育的开端，而且也是最具有深 远意义的教育。到了晚年，马克

?

吐温还声言是密西西比河

使他了解了各种各样的人的本性。这种生活体验对他的全部创作都起了促进作用，然而他描写 得最为成功

的还是那些密西西比河上的人物。

When railroads began drying up the demand for steam-boat pilots and the Civil War halted commerce, Mark

Twain left the river country. He tried soldiering for two weeks with a motley band of Confederate guerrillas who

diligently avoided contact with the enemy. Twain quit after deciding,

man that invented retreating.

随着铁路运输的发展，社会上对汽船领航员的需求日渐减少，而内战的爆发又

?

吐温便离开 了密西西比河流域。他在南方邦联游击队的一支杂牌队伍

里当了两个星期的兵。那支队伍 想方设法避免与敌军交战。在确信

―

我比发明撤退的人更精通撤 退

‖

之后，

马克

?

吐温离开了那支队伍。

He went west by stagecoach and succumbed to the epidemic of gold and silver fever in Nevada's Washoe

region. For eight months he flirted with the colossal wealth available to the lucky and the persistent, and was

rebuffed . Broke and discouraged, he accepted a job as reporter with the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, to

literature's enduring gratitude.

他乘驿站马车来到西部，

< br>在内华达州的华苏地区受到当时正流行的淘金热的诱

惑。同那只有既幸运而又锲而 不舍的追求者才能取得的巨大财富三心二意地打了八个月交道之后，他遭到

了失败。在破 产和灰心之余，他接受了为弗吉尼亚市《领土开发报》当记者的工作，这一行动将获得文学

界永久的感激。

From the discouragement of his mining failures, Mark Twain began digging his way to regional fame as a

newspaper reporter and humorist. The instant riches of a mining strike would not be his in the reporting trade, but

for making money, his pen would prove mightier than his pickax. In the spring of 1864, less than two years after

joining the Territorial Enterprise, he boarded the stagecoach for San Francisco, then and now a hotbed of hopeful

young writers.

自从他因淘金失败而感到心灰意冷之后，

马克

?

吐温便开始努力博取作为一名报社记者和幽默

作家的地区性声望。从 事新闻报道工作当然不能使他像淘金成功者一样立成巨富，但在挣钱方面他的笔杆

却比他 的锄镐要有效得多。

1864

年春季，在他加盟《领土开发报》 还不足两年之时，他又乘驿站马车前往

旧金山，那儿在当时和现在都是有前途的年轻作家 成长的摇篮。

Mark Twain honed and experimented with his new writing muscles, but he had to leave the city for a while

because of some scathing columns he wrote. Attacks on the city government, concerning such issues as

mistreatment of Chinese, so angered officials that he fled to the goldfields in the Sacramento Valley. His

descriptions of the rough-country settlers there ring familiarly in modern world accustomed to trend setting on the

West Coast.

–

for all the slow, sleepy, sluggish-brained sloths stayed at home... It

was that population that gave to California a name for getting up astounding enterprises and rushing them through

with a magnificent dash and daring and a recklessness of cost or consequences, which she bears unto this day

–

and when she projects a new surprise, the grave world smiles as usual, and says 'Well, that is California all over.

马克

?

吐温磨炼并试验了 他的新笔力，但他却因写了一些尖锐的评论文章而被迫暂时离开这座城市。他围绕

着虐待 华人等一类问题对市政府提出的尖锐批评惹得一些官员大为恼火，因之他只好逃到萨克拉门托山谷

的金矿区暂避风头。

他对那儿的拓荒者们的描写使西海岸地区富有创新精神的现 代人倍感亲切。

―

这儿的人

们真是了不 起

——

因为那些笨手笨脚、无精打彩、呆头呆脑的懒汉都呆在家 里

……

正是那些人们为加利福

尼亚赢得 了这样的声誉：当他们着手进行一项宏伟的事业时，他们会不计代价或风险而以一种豪迈的气概

< br>和闯劲勇往直前，一千到底。加利福尼亚人至今仍保持着这样的声誉，因而，每当他们发起一项新的惊天< /p>

2