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首发于“个人ＱＱ空间” 首发地址：http://user.qzone.qq.com/865463310/infocenter
作者： 爱德华•贝拉米
是个人第一次翻译比较长的小说，本来是参加是想参加竞赛的，因为工作原因没有参加，现在贴在这里，恳请大家指教，非常感谢！
Lost 失踪
The 25th of May, 1866, was no doubt to many a quite indifferent date, but to two persons it was the saddest day of their lives.
1886年的5月25日，对多数人来说，注定是一个很平常的一天，但有两个人，这一天却很不平常，这一天是他们生命里最心碎的一天。
Charles Randall that day left Bonn, Germany, to catch the steamer home to America, and Ida Werner was left with a mountain of grief on her gentle bosom, which must be melted away drop by drop, in tears, before she could breathe freely again.
查尔斯•兰德尔就是在这天离开德国波恩，登上了回美国的蒸汽船，而留下的艾达•沃纳的心里，却是满腹的悲伤，那悲伤化成了点点滴落的泪水，使她的呼吸都感觉困难。
A year before, Randall, hunting for apartments, his last term at the university just begun, had seen the announcement, “Zimmer zu vermiethen,” in the hall below the flat where the Werners lived.
一年前，兰德尔刚开始他最后一个大学学期，他找房子时在沃纳家楼下的门厅里看到这样一份广告：“出租房屋”。
Ida answered his ring, for her father was still at his government office, and her mother had gone out to the market to buy the supper.
父亲从政府的单位上还没有回来，母亲又去市场买晚餐了，所以当兰德尔敲门时，艾达就开门接待了他。
She would much rather her mother had been at home to show the gentleman the rooms; but, knowing that they could not afford to lose a chance to rent them, she plucked up courage, and, candle in hand, showed him through the suite.
其实在心里，艾达情愿母亲在家里，让母亲领着这位绅士看房子，但她知道他们不能失去租出房子的机会，所以就鼓起勇气拿着烛，带他看要出租的房间了。
When he came next day with his baggage, he learned for the first time what manner of apartments he had engaged; for although he had protracted the investigation the previous evening to the furthest corner, and had been most exacting as to explanations, he had really rented the rooms entirely on account of a certain light in which a set of Madonna features, in auburn hair, had shown at the first opening of the door.
当第二天他带着行李再来时，他第一次知道他要租住的是怎样的一种房子，虽然昨天下午他长时间地仔细查看了这个房子，甚至连最遥远的墙角也没放过，而且对房东的解答也是非常的苛刻，但当他第一次打开门，那一种带有圣母玛丽亚赤褐色头发特征的光辉显现在他面前时，明白自己确实已完全租到了这些房间。
A year had passed since this, and a week ago a letter from home had stated that his father, indignant at his unexplained stay six months beyond the end of his course, had sent him one last remittance, barely sufficient for a steamer ticket, with the intimation that if he did not return on a set day, he must thenceforth attend to his own exchequer.
从那时算起，一年过去了。一周前他收到了一封家信，信里父亲对他很是恼怒，因为他在课程结束后又无故超期停留六个月；信里还寄给他最后一笔勉强够船票的钱，并暗示如果他没有在选定的日子里返回美国，那以后就得自己养活自己了。
The 25th was the last day on which he could leave Bonn to catch the requisite steamer.
二十五日就是选定日子的最后一天，也就是他能赶上离开波恩最后一班船的最后一天
Had it been in November, nature at least would have sympathized; it was cruel that their autumn time of separation should fall in the spring, when the sky is full of bounteous promise and the earth of blissful trust.
因为那是十一月份，大自然仿佛也表现了最低限度的同感，本来是在春季的分离却要提前在秋季，在面对的天空和大地都充满了慷慨的承诺和幸福的信赖之时，这实在是太残酷了。
Love is so improvident that a parting a year away is no more feared than death, and a month’s end seems dim and distant.
爱是没有远见的，所以对死亡的恐惧远超过一次一年的别离，可一个月的时间却好像又那么的模糊而遥远。
But a week,—a week only,—that even to love is short, and the beginning of the end.但是一星期——就一星期——或许对爱情来说那是短暂的，但那也是一个结束的开始。
The chilling mist that rose from the gulf of separation so near before them overshadowed all the brief remnant of their path.
寒冷的薄雾升起在要分别的港湾上，它是这样的近，以致遮住了他们短短的路途。
They were constantly together.
他们一直拥抱着。
But a silence had come upon them.
却没有说一句话。
Never had words seemed idler, they had so much to say.
不说话仿佛是无话可说，其实他们有太多的话想说出。
They could say nothing that did not mock the weight on their hearts, and seem trivial and impertinent because it was exclusive of more important matter.
因为离别之情是天底下最重要的事，所以这看上去有不珍重或是说有点儿粗鲁，可他们不说什么并不是降低对方在自己心中的分量。
The utmost they could do was to lay their hearts open toward each other to receive every least impression of voice, and look, and manner, to be remembered afterward.
他们所能做到的是最大程度地互相敞开自己的心扉，接收来自对方的所有音容笑貌和举止方式，然后记下它们。
At evening they went into the minster church, and, sitting in the shadows, listened to the sweet, shrill choir of boys whose music distilled the honey of sorrow; and as the deep bass organ chords gripped their hearts with the tones that underlie all weal and woe, they looked in each other’s eyes, and did for a space feel so near that all the separation that could come after seemed but a trifling thing.
晚上，他们走进明斯特教堂，坐在暗处听男孩唱诗班动人响亮的歌声，那歌声给悲伤增添了快乐，像是深沉而又低音的风琴，用和弦乐声攫住他们的心，那乐声里充满了人生的祸福。他们看着对方的眼睛，他们的空间感觉是这样的近，仿佛所有将来的离别都只是一件微不足道的小事。
It was all arranged between them.
他们的缘分早已注定。
He was to earn money, or get a position in business, and return in a year or two at most and bring her to America.
他要去挣钱，也就是去个公司谋个职位，然后在一年内或最多两年内再回来，把她带回美国。
“Oh,” she said once, “if I could but sleep till thou comest again to wake me, how blessed I should be; but, alas, I must wake all through the desolate time!”
“啊，”她突然说，“要是我能再睡到你来唤醒我，那我该是多么幸福呀！可是，唉，我却在这孤独而凄凉的时间里都不会沉睡！”
Although for the most part she comforted him rather than he her, yet at times she gave way, and once suddenly turned to him and hid her face on his breast, and said, trembling with tearless sobs:—
虽然在多数都是她安慰他，而不是他安慰她，但有时她也会流露出脆弱，会突然转向他把脸藏在他的怀抱里，然后是那种欲哭无泪抽泣颤抖：——
“I know I shall never see thee more, Karl. Thou wilt forget me in thy great, far land and wilt love another.
My heart tells me so.”
“卡尔，我知道我再也不会见到你了，在你那伟大而遥远的国家，你一定会忘记我并爱上别人的，我的直觉告诉是这样的。”
And then she raised her head, and her streaming eyes blazed with anger.
“I will hover about thee, and if thou lovest another, I will kill her as she sleeps by thy side.”
接着，她抬起头，流泪的眼睛带着愤怒。“我将永远缠着你，如果你爱上别人，我就会在她在你身边睡时杀了她。”
And the woman must have loved him much who, after seeing that look of hers, would have married him.
But a moment after she was listening with abject ear to his promises.看到自己的容颜便就嫁给了他，那么这个女人一定得非常爱这个男人。可从那刻之后，她就将不得不用她那可怜的耳朵来倾听他的那些誓言。
The day came at last.
He was to leave at three o’clock.
After the noontide meal, Ida’s mother sat with them and they talked a little about America, Frau Werner exerting herself to give a cheerful tone to the conversation, and Randall answering her questions absently and without taking his eyes off Ida, who felt herself beginning to be seized with a nervous trembling.
这天终于到了。他打算3点走。吃过午饭，艾达的母亲和他们坐在一起谈论了一些美国的事，沃纳夫人努力让这次会谈有点欢快的气氛，可兰德尔在回答她的问话时却心不在焉，而且眼睛一刻也没有离开艾达，艾达开始感到紧张的颤抖控制了自己。
At last Frau Werner rose and silently left the room, looking back at them as she closed the door with eyes full of tears.
Then, as if by a common impulse, they rose and put their arms about each other’s necks, and their lips met in a long, shuddering kiss.
The breath came quicker and quicker; sobs broke the kisses; tears poured down and made them salt and bitter, as parting kisses should be in which sweetness is mockery.
最后沃纳夫人起身默默地离开了房间，在她关门回首看他们的那一刻，她眼里充满了泪水。接着，仿佛是同样的冲动，他们起身互相搂着对方的脖子，他们的嘴唇被一个长长的颤抖的吻粘结在一起。呼吸越来越急促，抽泣让吻停止，随后泉涌泪水让他们尝到了泪水的苦涩，具有讽刺意味的，这就是离别的甜蜜之吻。
Hitherto they had controlled their feelings, or rather she had controlled him; but it was no use any longer, for the time had come, and they abandoned themselves to the terrible voluptuousness of unrestrained grief, in which there is a strange, meaningless suggestion of power, as though it might possibly be a force that could affect or remove its own cause if but wild and strong enough.
迄今，他们还是控制住了自己的感情，或者更确切地说，是她控制住了他的感情，但这不会持续很久，因为那时刻终于来了，他们陷入了一种无比的快感悲伤，在那里面有一种奇特且毫无意义的力量暗示：如果它有足够的狂野和强壮，它仿佛就可能会成为一种可以影响或消除自己目标的力量。
“Herr Randall, the carriage waits and you will lose the train,” said Frau Werner from the door, in a husky voice.
“兰德尔先生，快点，马车在等你了，要不你就赶不上火车了，”从门口传来沃纳夫人沙哑的声音。
“I will not go, by God!” he swore, as he felt her clasp convulsively strengthen at the summons.
“上帝呀，我不会走！”他发誓，那时他感觉到她拥抱的力量在痉挛中增强。
The lesser must yield to the greater, and no loss or gain on earth was worth the grief upon her face.
His father might disinherit him, America might sink, but she must smile again.
And she did,—brave, true girl and lover.
The devotion his resolute words proved was like a strong nervine to restore her self-control.
She smiled as well as her trembling lips would let her, and said, as she loosed him from her arms:—
渺小必将屈服于伟大，没有什么得失能比得上她脸上的忧伤。他的父亲可以剥夺他继承权，美国也可以沉没，但她一定得再次微笑起来了。她做到了，像一位勇敢的、真正的女孩和爱人。他的那些誓言仿佛是一味强大的精神镇定剂，恢复她的自制力。她微笑着松开了抱紧他的手臂，颤抖着双唇说：
“No, thou must go, Karl.
But thou wilt return, @nicht wahr@?”
“不行，你必须走，卡尔。但你将再回来，对不对？”
I would not venture to say how many times he rushed to the door, and, glancing back at her as she stood there desolate, followed his glance once more to her side.
Finally, Frau Werner led him as one dazed to the carriage, and the impatient driver drove off at full speed.
我敢说有很多次，他冲到了门口，又回过头了看她，她孤零零地站在那儿，一次又一次的随着他的目光落向她的身边。最后，沃纳夫人像是领一位失魂的人一样把他领到了马车上，不耐烦的车夫立刻就飞马驾车走了。
It is seven years later, and Randall is pacing the deck of an ocean steamer, outward bound from New York.
It is the evening of the first day out.
Here and there passengers are leaning over the bulwarks, pensively regarding the sinking sun as it sets for the first time between them and their native land, or maybe taking in with awed faces the wonder of the deep, which has haunted their imaginations from childhood.
Others are already busily striking up acquaintances with fellow-passengers, and a bridal pair over yonder sit thrilling with the sense of isolation from the world that so emphasizes their mutual dependence and all-importance to each other.
And other groups are talking business, and referring to money and markets in New York, London, and Frankfort as glibly as if they were on land, much to the secret shock of certain raw tourists, who marvel at the in-sensitiveness of men who, thus speeding between two worlds, and freshly in the presence of the most august and awful form of nature, can keep their minds so steadily fixed upon cash-books and ledgers.
七年后的一天，兰德尔正踱步在从纽约开出的轮船甲板上。
这是出海来的第一个晚上。
到处都有旅客依靠在船舷上，对着落日若有所思，因为这是第一次太阳在他们和故土之间落下，又或是因为敬畏于大海壮丽的景观，他们从小就有这样的想像。
有些人则忙着与同船的人交朋友，坐那边的一对新人正激动地享受与世界孤立的感觉，那一刻显出了在他们之间的相互依存和重要。
还有一些人在谈生意，就像在陆地上那样，高谈阔论着纽约，伦敦和法兰克福的货币和市场，许多信息让那些初次出游的人感到了内心震撼，也惊叹于那些人的灵敏天性，那种两种世界转换的速度，及最威严可怕的本性形态的完整流露，使他们的心能始终专注于各类金钱账簿，不论是现金账还是分类帐。
But Randall, as, with the habit of an old voyager, he already falls to pacing the deck, is too much engrossed with his own thoughts to pay much heed to these things.
Only, as he passes a group of Germans, and the familiar accents of the sweet, homely tongue fall on his ear, he pauses, and lingers near.
然而兰德尔却像是一位老航海的人那样，开始在甲板上踱步了，他全神贯注于自己的想法，对于周边的这些事情一点也没意识到。
只是，当他经过一群德国人时，一种亲切悦耳的语言的熟悉音调钻进了耳朵，他停下来，徘徊在附近。
The darkness gathers, the breeze freshens, the waves come tumbling out of the east, and the motion of the ship increases as she rears upward to meet them.
The groups on deck are thinning out fast, as the passengers go below to enjoy the fearsome novelty of the first night at sea, and to compose themselves to sleep as it were in the hollow of God’s hand.
But long into the night Randall’s cigar still marks his pacing up and down as he ponders, with alternations of tender, hopeful glow and sad foreboding, the chances of his quest.
Will he find her?
夜色越来越黑，微风凉飕飕起来，波涛从东面翻滚而来，加上船的运动，那激起的浪花好像是在欢迎他们。
甲板上的人群很快就稀疏起来，多数乘客都回到了船舱，去享受有点惶恐又有点新奇的海上第一夜，他们都睡地很安宁，仿佛是睡在上帝的手心里。
但直到深夜，抽着雪茄的兰德尔仍一边踱来踱去，一边思索着他能找到的机会，那思索的意识在微小的希望之光和悲伤的恶兆之间交替。
他能找到她吗？
It is necessary to go back a little.
When Randall reached America on his return from Germany, he immediately began to sow his wild oats, and gave his whole mind to it.
Answering Ida’s letters got to be a bore, and he gradually ceased doing it.
Then came a few sad reproaches from her, and their correspondence ceased.
Meanwhile, having had his youthful fling, he settled down as a steady young man of business.
One day he was surprised to observe that he had of late insensibly fallen into the habit of thinking a good deal in a pensive sort of way about Ida and those German days.
The notion occurred to him that he would hunt up her picture, which he had not thought of in five years.
With misty eyes and crowding memories he pored over it, and a wave of regretful, yearning tenderness filled his breast.
有必要把时间再倒回去一点。
从德国一返回美国，兰德尔立刻开始播种野燕麦，把自己的全部精力都放在野燕麦上。
渐渐开始厌烦起来给艾达回信，慢慢他就不再回信了。
接下来收到她几封伤心责备的信，随后他们的通信就断了。
经历一段年轻放荡的行乐期，他最后安顿了下来，成一个稳重的年轻生意人，。
有一天，他很惊讶地注意到自己不知不觉养成一种怀念的习惯，那就是在忧思中怀念起许多关于艾达和那些在德国日子的事。
这些想法促使他去找寻她的照片，这是他在五年里从来没有想到过的。
他流着泪，仔细地默想着那过去的许多记忆，内心充满了悔恨和柔情的渴望。
Late one night, after long search, he found among his papers a bundle of her old letters, already growing yellow.
Being exceedingly rusty in his German, he had to study them out word by word.
That night, till the sky grew gray in the east, he sat there turning the pages of the dictionary with wet eyes and glowing face, and selecting definitions by the test of the heart.
He found that some of these letters he had never before taken the pains to read through.
In the bitterness of his indignation, he cursed the fool who had thrown away a love so loyal and priceless.
花了好长时间，直到一天深夜，他终于在他的报纸堆里发现了一包她的旧信，信已都已泛黄。
德语已经很生疏了，他不得不一个字一个字的来了解信的内容。
那天夜里，直到天空的东方泛白，他一直都坐在那里翻着词典，找寻着良心能够验证的解读，泪水从羞愧的脸上流下。
他发现有些信件以前从没有下功夫看完。
他懊恼痛苦，他诅咒自己是个傻瓜，居然抛弃那么一个忠诚无价的爱人。
All this time he had been thinking of Ida as if dead, so far off in another world did those days seem.
It was with extraordinary effect that the idea finally flashed upon him that she was probably alive, and now in the prime of her beauty.
After a period of feverish and impassioned excitement, he wrote a letter full of wild regret and beseeching, and an ineffable tenderness.
Then he waited.
After a long time it came back from the German dead-letter office.
There was no person of the name at the address.
She had left Bonn, then.
Hastily setting his affairs in order, he sailed for Germany on the next steamer.
这些天他一直思念着艾达，像是艾达死了一样，就好像她是在另一个遥远的世界。
伴随着这些非正常的念头，他突然想到她很可能还活着，现在正处在最美丽盛季。
激情兴奋过后，他写了一封满是悔恨和恳求的信，语气是那样的温柔。
然后，他就等待着。
漫长的一段时间后，信被德国无法投递邮政办公室退回来了。
因为按照信件地址查无此人。
应该说，艾达已经离开波恩了。
匆匆安排好自己的事务，他就马上赶下一航班汽船去德国了。
The incidents of the voyage were a blank in his mind.
On reaching Bonn, he went straight from the station to the old house in—strasse.
As he turned into it from the scarcely less familiar streets leading thither, and noted each accustomed landmark, he seemed to have just returned to tea from an afternoon lecture at the university.
In every feature of the street some memory lurked, and, as he passed, threw out delaying tendrils, clutching at his heart.
Rudely he broke away, hastening on to that house near the end of the street, in each of whose quaint windows fancy framed the longed-for face.
这次出航在他的脑海是一片空白。
抵达波恩后，他径直从车站去了位于Strasse街上的老房子。
当他走进那依然熟悉的街道，看到那些熟悉的标志性建筑物，感觉自己好像刚从那所大学听完下午课回来喝茶。
街道上的每点特征都隐藏在记忆里，而且，随着他的经过，那蔓延出的记忆卷须爬上了他的心。
他忽然打破幻想的感觉，快步跑到靠近街道尽头的房子，幻想在每扇古朴窗户里都有一张期盼的脸。
She was not there, he knew, but for a while he stood on the other side of the street, unmindful of the stares and jostling of the passers-by, gazing at the house-front, and letting himself imagine from moment to moment that her figure might flit across some window, or issue from the door, basket in hand, for the evening marketing, on which journey he had so often accompanied her.
At length, crossing the street, he inquired for the Werner family.
The present tenants had never heard the name.
Perhaps the tenants from whom they had received the house might be better informed.
他知道她不住在那里了，但好长时间还是站在对面的街道上，怔怔地望着房子的正面，一点也不在乎路人的目光和冲撞。他幻想她从某扇窗户里闪出来，或提着篮子从门口走出来，正打算去市场，过去他经常陪她走去市场的那段路。
最后，他终于穿过了马路，询问起了沃纳的家。
如今的租住户从未听说过这个名字。
也许从以前的租户那里可能会得到点好消息。
Where were they?
They had moved to Cologne.
He next went to the Bonn police-office, and from the records kept there, in which pretty much everything about every citizen is set down, ascertained that several years previous Herr Werner had died of apoplexy, and that no one of the name was now resident in the city.
Next day he went to Cologne, hunted up the former tenants of the house, and found that they remembered quite distinctly the Werner family, and the death of the father and only breadwinner.
It had left the mother and daughter quite without resources, as Randall had known must probably have been the case.
His informants had heard that they had gone to Dusseldorf.
他们到哪里去了？
他们去了科隆。
他接着去了波恩警察局，那儿保存着几乎所有公民的每一件事，从那里保存的记录里得知有位沃纳先生几年前死于中风，现在这个城市里没有一位姓沃纳的人了。
第二天，他去了科隆，终于找到房子的以前租户，他们都记得很清楚沃纳家，记得唯一的家庭支柱艾达的父亲也去世了。
最后只剩下了没有收入来源的母亲和女儿，兰德尔知道情况应当就是这样的。
知情人说他们最后去了杜塞尔多夫。
His search had become a fever.
After waiting seven years, a delay of ten minutes was unendurable.
The trains seemed to creep.
And yet, on reaching Diisseldorf, he did not at once go about his search, but said to himself:—
他的寻找变得有点狂热。
等待七年了，现在就是10分钟的耽误也让人无法忍受。
飞快的火车似乎成了慢慢的爬行。
然而，等到杜塞尔多夫，他却并没有马上去找她，只是心里想：-
“Let me not risk the killing of my last hope till I have warmed myself with it one more night, for to-morrow there may be no more warmth in it.”
“我不想失掉这最后的希望，就让这希望再温暖我一个晚上吧，可能明天这希望连同温暖都会消失了。”
He went to a hotel, ordered a room and a bottle of wine, and sat over it all night, indulging the belief that he would find her the next day.
He denied his imagination nothing, but conjured up before his mind’s eye the lovely vision of her fairest hour, complete even to the turn of the neck, the ribbon in the hair, and the light in the blue eyes.
So he would turn into the street.
Yes, here was the number.
Then he rings the bell.
She comes to the door.
She regards him a moment indifferently.
Then amazed recognition, love, happiness, transfigure her face.
“Ida!”
“Karl!” and he clasps her sobbing to his bosom, from which she shall never be sundered again.
他进一家酒店，订一个房间，要一瓶酒，然后就在那儿坐了一个晚上，沉溺在第二天一定能找到她幻想里。
他不去幻想其它的东西，只是祈求他心灵之眼看到她最美丽时刻的模样，甚至能完整地看清她曲线的脖颈，头发上的丝带，还有蓝眼睛里的光芒。
就这样，他走进了这条街道。
对，这是这个数字。
然后，他按了门铃。
她走到了门口。
她很冷淡地看了他一下。
然后是那种认出来了的惊讶，爱情和幸福使她容光焕发。
“卡尔！”她抽泣着扑进他的怀里，她再也不会和他分开了。
The result of his search next day was the discovery that mother and daughter had been at Diisseldorf until about four years previous, where the mother had died of consumption, and the daughter had removed, leaving no address.
The lodgings occupied by them were of a wretched character, showing that their circumstances must have been very much reduced.
第二天的寻找结果是：大约在四年以前，母亲和女儿曾住在杜塞尔多夫，母亲在这儿因肺结核去世，女儿后来就搬去了其它地方，没留下任何地址。
从她们在这里居住的破败住所来看，她们的景况一定是很窘困。
There was now no further clue to guide his search.
It was destined that the last he was to know of her should be that she was thrown on the tender mercies of the world,—her last friend gone, her last penny expended.
She was buried out of his sight, not in the peaceful grave, with its tender associations, but buried alive in the living world; hopelessly hid in the huge, writhing confusion of humanity.
He lingered in the folly of despair about those sordid lodgings in Diisseldorf, as one might circle vainly about the spot in the ocean where some pearl of great price had fallen overboard.
现在没有进一步寻找她的线索了。
注定他最后可能想到的结局应当是：她陷入了一种悲惨的境地——最后一个朋友离她而去，身上分文没有。
她消失在了他的视线之外，不是以一种宁静的庄严，让人有一种温柔的联想，而是活生生地消失在这个活生生的世界里。隐藏在人性巨大痛苦的混乱里的是绝望。
带着傻傻的绝望神情，他徘徊在杜塞尔多夫那些破败的房屋附近，就好像是有无价的珍珠自船上坠入了海洋，他就是那个在珍珠坠海位置上徒劳转悠的人。
After a while he roused again, and began putting advertisements for Ida into the principal newspapers of Germany, and making random visits to towns all about to consult directories and police records.
A singular sort of misanthropy possessed him.
He cursed the multitude of towns and villages that reduced the chances in his favor to so small a thing.
He cursed the teeming throngs of men, women, and children, in whose mass she was lost, as a jewel in a mountain of rubbish.
Had he possessed the power, he would in those days, without an instant’s hesitation, have swept the bewildering, obstructing millions of Germany out of existence, as the miner washes away the earth to bring to light the grain of gold in his pan.
He must have scanned a million women’s faces in that weary search, and the bitterness of that million-fold disappointment left its trace in a feeling of aversion for the feminine countenance and figure that he was long in overcoming.
过了阵子，他又清醒了，开始在德国一些主流报纸上做寻找艾达的广告，漫无目的地逛一些城镇，查看当地的电话簿和警局的档案记录。
他的内心有了一种怪异的厌世情绪。
他咒骂有那么多的城镇和村庄，让他能找到她的那样小事的机会也变得那么少。
他咒骂那充斥了男女老少的人群，她就是这个拥挤的人群里失踪了，就好像是一颗宝石掉进了一座垃圾山里。
在这段时间里，如果他拥有清除现在那些让他混乱并阻碍他的人的能力，他将毫不犹豫地清除掉这数百万计的德国人，就像矿工为在淘金盆里得到一粒闪光的黄金洗去所有的泥土一样。
在那筋疲力尽的寻找过程里，他肯定是见过一百万个女人的脸，但那一百万倍的失望生出的怨恨，进而由怨恨生出厌恶女人面孔的心理，得花很长时间他才能改变过来。
Knowing that only by some desperate chance he could hope to meet her in his random wanderings, it seemed to him that he was more likely to be successful by resigning as far as possible all volition, and leaving the guidance of the search to chance; as if Fortune were best disposed toward those who most entirely abdicated intelligence and trusted themselves to her.
他明白通过那漫无目的的游逛来遇上她，那希望的机会近乎渺茫。对于他来说，辞掉工作，丢掉那些去碰运气寻找的线索，然后尽他所有的意志力，他很可能就会找到她；犹如有些人做事一点也不用大脑，全凭直觉就能把事情办得好好的，找她也是这样的。
He sacredly followed every impulse, never making up his mind an hour before at what station he should leave the cars, and turning to the right or left in his wanderings through the streets of cities, as much as possible without intellectual choice.
他神圣地遵循着每一次的心血来潮，在城市街道上游逛时，从没有提前一个小时决定要在什么车站下车，或向左转或向右拐，这一切都尽可能的不经过大脑。
Sometimes, waking suddenly in the middle of the night, he would rise, dress with eager haste, and sally out to wander through the dark streets, thinking he might be led of Providence to meet her.
And, once out, nothing but utter exhaustion could drive him back; for how could he tell but in the moment after he had gone, she might pass?
He had recourse to every superstition of sortilege, clairvoyance, presentiment, and dreams.
And all the time his desperation was singularly akin to hope.
He dared revile no seeming failure, not knowing but just that was the necessary link in the chain of accidents destined to bring him face to face with her.
The darkest hour might usher in the sunburst.
The possibility that this was at last the blessed chance lit up his eyes ten thousand times as they fell on some new face.
有时半夜突然醒来，他就匆匆起床穿衣，然后冲进漆黑的街上游荡，认为天命会引导他和她相会。
然而，每一次的半夜出去，最终带回来的只是满脸疲惫，问他怎么事，他说就在他走后的瞬间，她可能已经过去了吧？
他求助于各种迷信的方式，如抽签、千里眼、预感和解梦等。
他的绝望和希望一直有着诡异的类似。
他不惧失败地咒骂，却不明白那仅是一种必要的在一连串注定的不幸中能让他和她相见的联结。
最黑暗的时刻过后，可能就会迎来灿烂的旭日。
每当看见新的面孔而消沉下去的时候，这种可能性是最后让他的眼睛一万次的闪亮了起来的天赐运气。
But at last he found himself back in Bonn, with the feverish infatuation of the gambler, which had succeeded hope in his mind, succeeded in turn by utter despair!
His sole occupation now was revisiting the spots which he had frequented with her in that happy year.
As one who has lost a princely fortune sits down at length to enumerate the little items of property that happen to be attached to his person, disregarded before but now his all, so Randall counted up like a miser the little store of memories that were thenceforth to be his all.
Wonderfully, the smallest details of those days came back to him.
The very seats they sat in at public places, the shops they entered together, their promenades and the pausing-places on them, revived in memory under a concentrated inward gaze like invisible paintings brought over heat.
但最后他发现自己又回到了波恩，带着一种赌徒发狂的迷恋，这种迷恋让他心里有成功的希望，能从绝望转为成功。
重游他和她俩人在那段快乐岁月经常去的地方，成了他现在唯一的爱好。
当一个人失去了大笔的财富后，在最后坐下来清点自己身边那丁点儿财产时，这些过去微不足道的财产却成了他现在的全部；现在的兰德尔就是这样，他就像守财奴一样数算着记忆里那点东西，因为那就是他现在的全部。
真让让人吃惊，过去的那些点点滴滴他都记起来了。
他凝思记忆里的事，像无形的画带来的一种强烈感情，他想起了他们过去在公共场所坐过的座位、一起逛过的商店和一起骑马和驻马的地方。
One afternoon, after wandering about the city for some hours, he turned into a park to rest.
As he approached his usual bench, sacred to him because Ida and he in the old days had often sat there, he was annoyed to see it already occupied by a pleasant-faced, matronly looking German woman, who was complacently listening to the chatter of a couple of small children.
Randall threw himself upon the unoccupied end of the bench, rather hoping that his gloomy and preoccupied air might cause them to depart and leave him to his melancholy reverie.
And, indeed, it was not long before the children stopped their play and gathered timidly about their mother, and soon after the bench tilted slightly as she relieved it of her substantial charms, saying in a cheery, pleasant voice:—
一天下午，当在这个城市转悠了几个小时后，他进了一个公园休息。
在他走向贯常坐的长凳时，神圣就会涌上心头，在过去的日子里艾达和他就经常坐那儿。看到一位神情和蔼安详的德国妇女已经坐在那儿，且正满心高兴地听着一对小孩叽叽喳喳时，他心里顿生不快。
兰德尔猛地坐在长凳头上空位置，他希望自己那种忧郁的神情会让她们离开，然后自己就能忧郁地遐思了。
的确，一会儿孩子们就停止了戏闹，都胆怯地围拢到妈妈的身边，长凳就显得有点儿倾斜，为了缓解紧张的气氛，她用一种慈祥愉快地语调说：
“Come, little ones, the father will be at home before us.”
“好了，小宝贝们，你们的爸爸可能早我们到家了。
It was a secluded part of the garden, and the plentiful color left her cheeks as the odd gentleman at the other end of the bench turned with a great start at the sound of her voice, and transfixed her with a questioning look.
But in a moment he said:—
这是公园一处幽静的角落，当这位奇怪的坐在长凳另一端的绅士听到她的声音转向她时，立刻让她那富于变化的脸颊上所震惊，他呆若木鸡、怔怔看着她。
一会儿，他忙说：
“Pardon me, madame, a thousand times.
The sound of your voice so reminded me of a friend I have lost that I looked up involuntarily.”
对不起，夫人，请千万要原谅我。你说话的声音让我想起了我失去联系的朋友，所以就不由自主地抬起头看你了。
The woman responded with good-natured assurances that he had not at all alarmed her.
Meanwhile Randall had an opportunity to notice that, in spite of the thick-waisted and generally matronly figure, there were, now he came to look closely, several rather marked resemblances to Ida.
这位女子报以和善的回应，以表明他一点也没有让她感觉不安。
这时，兰德尔有机会看清这位女子：尽管她有厚厚的高腰和通常主妇的体态，更近一点看，却有一些明显类似艾达的地方。
The eyes were of the same blue tint, though about half as large, the cheeks being twice as full.
In spite of the ugly style of dressing it, he saw also that the hair was like Ida’s; and as for the nose, that feature which changes least, it might have been taken out of Ida’s own face.
As may be supposed, he was thoroughly disgusted to be reminded of that sweet girlish vision by this broadly moulded, comfortable-looking matron.
His romantic mood was scattered for that evening at least, and he knew he should not get the prosaic suggestions of the unfortunate resemblance out of his mind for a week at least.
It would torment him as a humorous association spoils a sacred hymn.
眼睛是同样的浅蓝色，虽然它只有以前的一半大，脸比以前胖了两倍多。
尽管发型不好看，他也仍看出艾达头发的样子，至于鼻子，它的特征变化的最小，就和从艾达脸上生出的一样。
本来，他早已十分地厌恶这种常见耐看的已婚妇女，因为她会勾起他记忆里甜甜的少女形象。
他的浪漫心情没有了，至少是在那个晚上是这样的，他知道至少在一周内，他的头脑里再也不会有这种脸貌相似的灵感暗示了。
这折磨着他，就像滑稽的联想糟蹋了一曲圣歌。
He bowed with rather an ill grace, and was about to retire, when a certain peculiar turn of the neck, as the lady acknowledged his salute, caught his eye and turned him to stone.
Good God! this woman was Ida!
他很不情愿地鞠了一躬，准备离去，可当这位妇人答礼时，一个独特的颈部转动动作吸引了他，让他像块石头立在了那儿。
天哪！这名妇女就是艾达！
He stood there in a condition of mental paralysis.
The whole fabric of his thinking and feeling for months of intense emotional experience had instantly been annihilated, and he was left in the midst of a great void in his consciousness out of touching-reach of anything.
There was no sharp pang, but just a bewildered numbness.
A few filaments only of the romantic feeling for Ida that filled his mind a moment before still lingered, floating about it, unattached to anything, like vague neuralgic feelings in an amputated stump, as if to remind him of what had been there.
他站在那里，思维一阵麻痹。
他用思念和感情为这几个月的强烈情感经历所编织的整个结构瞬间破碎了，他孤立于自己意识里的巨大真空中间，什么也触摸不到。
没有刺骨的剧痛，有的只是不知所措的麻木。
仅有些关于艾达的浪漫情丝霎时充溢在他的心头，在那儿徘徊飘浮，像是截肢残端的那种说不清的神经痛觉，仿佛在提醒他那里曾经发生的一切。
All this was as instantaneous as a galvanic shock the moment he had recognized—let us not say Ida, but this evidence that she was no more.
It occurred to him that the woman, who stood staring, was in common politeness entitled to some explanation.
He was in just that state of mind when, the only serious interest having suddenly dropped out of the life, the minor conventionalities loom up as peculiarly important and obligatory.
这瞬间像是触电一样，他认出来了——先不要说艾达，她也有这样的感觉。
对他来说，有女人站在那儿盯着他，当然得有些合乎日常礼节的说法。
在那种精神状态下，他生命里的那种唯一的执着突然消失了，那些不重要的礼节突然显得特别的重要和必须。
“You were Fraiilein Ida Werner, and lived at No.—strasse in 1866, @nicht wahr@?”
“你是Fraiilein•艾达•沃纳，1866年住在strasse街，是不是？”
He spoke in a cold, dead tone, as if making a necessary but distasteful explanation to a stranger.
他的话透着一种冰冷和沉闷，像是向一位陌生人做一个必须但却不情愿的解释。
“Yes, truly,” replied the woman curiously; “but my name is now Frau Stein,” glancing at the children, who had been staring open-mouthed at the queer man.
“嗯，确实是，但我现在的名字是弗劳•斯坦因，”女子好奇地答道，同时又看着孩子，孩子们正张大嘴巴盯着这位奇怪的男子。
“Do you remember Karl Randall?
I am he.”
“你还记得卡尔•兰德尔吗？我就是他。“
The most formal of old acquaintances could hardly have recalled himself in a more indifferent manner.
老熟人的那种最明显的外貌特征让他不能再无动于衷自己的回忆。
“@Herr Gott im Himmel!@” exclaimed the woman, with the liveliest surprise and interest “Karl!
Is it possible?
Yes, now I recognize you.
Surely! surely!”
“是你吗？天主在上！”女人叫道，伴随那种欢快无比的惊奇和兴趣。
“卡尔！这可能吗？对，现在我认出你了。确实是你，真是你呀！
She clapped one hand to her bosom, and dropped on the bench to recover herself.
Fleshy people, overcome by agitation, are rather disagreeable objects.
Randall stood looking at her with a singular expression of aversion on his listless face.
But, after panting a few times, the woman recovered her vivacity and began to ply him vigorously with exclamations and questions, beaming the while with delighted interest.
He answered her like a schoolboy, too destitute of presence of mind to do otherwise than to yield passively to her impulse.
But he made no inquiries whatever of her, and did not distantly allude to the reason of his presence in Germany.
As he stood there looking at her, the real facts about that matter struck him as so absurd and incredible that he could not believe them himself.
她手捂住了胸口，坐到了板凳上以使自己平静下来。
一位胖人，在激动过后会让人感觉非常不舒服。
兰德尔站在那儿看着她，脸上带着一种厌恶的奇异神情。
但是，几次深呼吸后，恢复活泼的女子开始了兴奋的没完没了的惊呼和提问，欢快的好奇心让这段时间充满了喜悦。
他像个小学生一样回答她，那种毫无表情的镇定，只是被动地回应她的那份冲动。
但他没有问她的事情，甚至也没有隐约地暗示自己为什么会在德国。
当他站在那里看着她时，有关这事的现实让他觉得如此荒唐和不可思议，以致不敢相信自己。
Pretty soon he observed that she was becoming a little conscious in her air, and giving a slightly sentimental turn to the conversation.
It was not for some time that he saw her drift, so utterly without connection in his mind were Ida and this comfortable matron before him; and when he did, a smile at the exquisite absurdity of the thing barely twitched the corners of his mouth, and ended in a sad, puzzled stare that rather put the other out of countenance.
很快他发现，她兴奋的心情开始变得有点儿平静了，谈话里透给人一种些微的感伤。
不久他就完全明白了她的话，脑海里却一点也没有把面前的这位无忧无虑的中年妇女和艾达联系在一起。当他那样想时，一种透出强烈荒唐事意味的微笑抽搐在他的嘴角，随后又在一种伤感茫然的让人发慌的眼神里结束。
But the children had now for some time been whimpering for supper and home, and at length Frau Stein rose, and, with an urgent request that Randall should call on her and see her husband, bade him a cordial adieu.
He stood there watching her out of sight, with an unconscious smile of the most refined and subtle cynicism.
Then he sat down and stared vacantly at the close-cropped grass on the opposite side of the path.
By what handle should he lay hold of his thoughts?
而在那时，孩子们已经为想回家吃晚饭嘀咕一些时间了，所以最后，弗劳•斯坦因就起身了，而且极力请求兰德尔以后去拜访她并看她的丈夫，接着就和热情的告别了。
他站在那里看着她消失在视野里，脸上带着下意识的微笑，微笑里透着最完美的那种难以形容的玩世不恭。
然后他又坐下来，茫然地盯着小路对面剪短的草地。
他该怎样才能了解自己的想法呢？
That woman could not retroact and touch the memory of Ida.
That dear vision remained intact.
He drew forth his locket, and opening it gazed passionately at the fair girlish face, now so hopelessly passed away.
By that blessed picture he could hold her and defy the woman.
Remembering that fat, jolly, comfortable matron, he should not at least ever again have to reproach himself with his cruel treatment of Ida.
这个女人无法让人回想起艾达。
那珍贵的情景仍保持着原状。
他拿出了他的小金盒，打开了它，充满深情地注视着那张相片上美丽少女的脸，现在这一切都无可挽回地成为了过去！
由那张带来欢乐的相片，他能记下艾达却接受不下这个女人。
想起那胖胖的、开朗的且无忧无虑的夫人，他或许至少不应再因他曾经无情的对待艾达而去虐待自己了。
And yet why not?
What had the woman to do with her?
She had suffered as much as if the woman had not forgotten it all.
His reckoning was with Ida,—was with her.
Where should he find her?
In what limbo could he imagine her?
Ah, that was the wildering cruelty of it.
She was not this woman, nor was she dead in any conceivable natural way so that her girlish spirit might have remained eternally fixed.
然而，为什么不呢？
那个女人和她有什么联系呢？
如果这个女人还记得，那艾达和这个女人一定遭遇了同样多的不幸。
他想的是艾达，只是艾达。
可他在哪里能找到她呢？
在地狱边缘的什么地方，他能想像她呢？
啊，那真是让人迷途的残忍。
艾达不是这个女人，艾达也不会像平常人那样自然的死去，因此她那女孩子的气息可能永远定格保存。
She was nothing.
She was nowhere.
She existed only in this locket, and her only soul was in his heart, far more surely than in this woman who had forgotten her.
她什么也不是。
她并不存在。
他越来越确信，她只存在于这个小金盒，她唯一的灵魂在他心里而不在这个女人心里，这个女人忘记了艾达。
Death was a hopeful, cheerful state compared to that nameless nothingness that was her portion.
For had she been dead, he could still have loved her soul; but now she had none.
The soul that once she had, and, if she had then died, might have kept, had been forfeited by living on, and had passed to this woman, and would from her pass on further till finally fixed and vested in the decrepitude of age by death.
相比于曾经是她一部分的那些无名的虚无，死亡是一种充满希望和欢乐的境界。
即使她已经死了，他仍然爱她的灵魂，但现在她没有。
艾达曾经的灵魂（如果她那时就死了，有可能被保存。）已经因为生存而被剥夺，并传继给了这个女人，然后继续传继并刻在年龄的衰老里直至最终因死亡而定格。
So, then, it was death and not life that secured the soul, and his sweet Ida had none because she had not died in time.
Ah! had not he heard somewhere that the soul is immortal and never dies?
Where, then, was Ida’s?
因此，那么，可以说是死亡保护了灵魂，而不是生命。他那可爱的艾达不存在了，就是因为她没有及时的死亡。
啊！难道他没有听说过有个地方，在那里灵魂将不朽不逝吗？在那儿？那么，艾达的灵魂在那儿呀？
She had disappeared utterly out of the universe.
She had been transformed, destroyed, swallowed up in this woman, a living sepulcher, more cruel than the grave, for it devoured the soul as well as the body.
艾达已经完全在这个世界消失了。
在这个女人身上，她被改变、被破坏并最终被吞噬了，一座真实的墓穴远比一座墓地更让人痛苦，因为它吞噬不仅是肉体，更重要的是它吞噬了灵魂。
Pah! this prating about immortality was absurd, convicted of meaninglessness before a tragedy like this; for what was an immortality worth that was given to her last decrepit phase of life, after all its beauty and strength and loveliness had passed soulless away?
To be aught but a mockery, immortality must be as manifold as the manifold phases of life.
Since life devours so many souls, why suppose death will spare the last one?
呸！在这样一曲悲剧的面前作无意义的判定，这种对不朽的瞎扯真是荒谬呀，毕竟它的美丽、它的力量和它的美好都已悄无声息地成为了过去，那怎样的不朽才值得给予她人生衰老的最后阶段呢？
除了嘲讽，不朽应当和人生的有不同阶段一样有着多样性。
既然生命吞噬这么多的灵魂，为什么会想像死亡会宽恕这最后一个呢？
But he would contend with destiny.
Painters should multiply the face in his locket.
He would immortalize her in a poem.
He would constantly keep the lamp trimmed and burning before her shrine in his heart.
She should live in spite of the woman.
但他愿意抗衡命运。
画家应该多画些他小金盒里的脸庞。
他会在诗歌里让她不朽。
他会在心里经常修剪她圣所前的圣灯并让它长明不熄。
尽管有这个女人，但艾达应该留存于记忆中。
But he could now never make amends to her for the suffering his cruel, neglectful youth had caused her.
He had scarcely realized before how much the longing to make good that wrong had influenced bis quest of her.
Tears of remorse for an unatonable crime gathered in his eyes.
He might, indeed, enrich this woman, or educate her children, or pension her husband; but that would be no atonement to Ida.
无情、粗心的青年时期给她的伤害，他现在再也无法纠正了。
曾经做过许多影响她的不公正的事，现在刚刚意识到他再次去寻找她，那是多么渴望去弥补自己的错误呀！
他眼里充溢着为不能赎回的犯罪而悔恨的眼泪。
他确实可以使这个女人富有，或教育她的孩子，甚至或给她丈夫补助金，但那都不是给艾达的补偿。
And then, as if to intensify that remorse by showing still more clearly the impossibility of atonement, it flashed on him that he who loved Ida was not the one to atone for an offense of which he would be incapable, which had been committed by one who despised her love.
然后，仿佛要通过更清楚地显示这种赎罪的不可能来强化痛悔，他突然想到，爱艾达的他不是那个为 “罪行”赎罪的人，他没有这个资格，因为这罪行是由那个蔑视她的爱的人所犯下的。
Justice was a meaningless word, and amends were never possible, nor can men ever make atonement; for, ere the debt is paid, the atonement made, one who is not the sufferer stands to receive it; while, on the other hand, the one who atones is not the offender, but one who comes after him, loathing his offense and himself incapable of it.
公正是废话，补偿是永远办不到的，人类永远不能赎罪，因为，在偿清债务之前，赎罪已经形成，不是受害者的人可能会来接受这种赎罪，同时，在另一方面，进行赎罪的人却不是这个罪犯，只是这位跟他后面的人厌恶他的罪行和对此没有资格的本人。
The dead must bury their dead.
And, thus pondering from personal to general thoughts, the turmoil of his feelings gradually calmed, and a restful melancholy, vague and tender, filled the aching void in his heart.
逝者终将埋葬逝者！
接着，在他思索从一个人到全体人的想法时，他混乱的感情逐渐地平息了，同时一种安闲的忧郁，困惑和脆弱充斥了他痛苦空虚的内心。 |
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发表于 2011-5-4 10:10:29
