文/约翰·博因顿·普里斯特利 译/朱建迅

Sometimes, on one of these sunny autumn mornings, when I turn my back on the town and take to the highway, I seem to have the world to myself.I walk forward, as it were, into great sunlit emptiness.Once I am a little way out of the town it is as if the world has been swept clean of men.I pass a few young mothers, who are proudly ushering their round-eyed solemn2译为“两眼圆睁、小脸紧绷”，增加动感，凸显婴儿憨态可掬的神态。babies into the presence of the morning sun, a lumbering cart or two, and maybe a knot of labourers, who look up from their task with a humorous resignation in their faces; these and others I overtake and pass by, and then there is often an end to my fellows.I alone keep a lounging tryst with the sun, himself, I fancy, a mighty, genial idler and the father of all dreamers and idlers among men.

有时候，在这样一个秋阳朗照的早晨，我转身背对城市走上公路之际，会觉得这世界仿佛为我一人所独有。我径自前行，好似步入一个洒满阳光的巨大空间。一旦我离开城市一小段路，世上的人们似乎就被一扫而空了。我会遇见几个年轻的母亲，她们骄傲地带着自己两眼圆睁、小脸紧绷的婴儿迎接晨光；会经过一两辆缓慢行进的运货马车；也许还会碰到一群工人，他们停下活儿抬头瞧着什么，露出幽默达观的表情。我赶上并从他们旁边走过后，路上就常常再无别人了。为消磨时间，我独自来赴与太阳的约会，我把他想象成万能而和善的闲人，是全天下所有空想家和无所事事者的始祖。

2A light mist covers the neighbouring hills, which are almost imperceptible,their shapes and colours showing but faintly, so that they seem to stand aloof—things of dream.As I go further along the shining road I seem to be lounging into a vast empty room.There are sights and sounds in plenty; cows looking over the walls with their great mournful eyes; here and there a thin blue column of smoke; the cawing of rooks about the decaying woods; and distantly sounding, the creak of a cart,a casual shout or two, a vague hammering, and, more distant still, the noise of the town, now the faint murmur of a hive.Yet to me, coming from the crowded, tumultuous streets, it seems empty because I meet no one by the way.The road, for all its thick drift of leaves, deep gold and brown, at either side, seems to lie naked in the sunshine,and I drink in this unexpected solitude as eagerly as a dusty traveller takes his ale.For a time, it comes as a delectable and quickening draught3“爽口怡神的佳酿”，呼应前句，切合情境。, and though outwardly a sober, meditatively, almost melancholy pedestrian, I hold high festival in the spirit, drink deep, and revel with the younger gods.

2在一片薄雾的笼罩下，附近的群山模糊难辨，山的颜色和轮廓影影绰绰，因而它们好似超然而立，恰如梦中的景物。我沿着亮闪闪的道路继续前行，好像悠闲地走入一间宽敞的空房。耳闻眼见的东西可真不少：母牛睁着忧愁的大眼瞅着墙头外面；偶尔飘起一缕稀薄的蓝烟；秃鼻乌鸦围着朽木呱呱叫唤；远方响起一辆运货马车的嘎吱声、间或一两声呼喊、隐约的敲击声，更远处传来市镇嘈杂的声音，如今变成若有若无的嗡嗡声。然而，对于来自拥挤而喧闹的街道的我来说，这里又好像空荡荡的，因为我路上没遇见一个人。眼前的这条路，尽管两边厚厚地堆积了暗黄和棕色的落叶，却好像赤裸裸地横亘在阳光下。我陶醉于这种料想不到的孤寂中，如同风尘仆仆的旅人畅饮啤酒般急切。有一刻，会感到这种孤寂好似爽口怡神的佳酿。从外表上看，我是一个为人持重、耽于沉思、近乎忧郁的行人，但我却在举行精神上的节日盛宴，与年轻的神灵一起纵情饮酒狂欢。

3生活在大城市的一个极大危险是，我们的邻居太多，而人们之间的交情过于廉价。我们动辄对人感到厌烦；相比一千多个同胞，有时一棵孤零零的绿树似乎更让我们觉得亲切。除非我们变得麻木不仁，那几百万双眼睛真会逼得我们发疯。始终被人群推来搡去的我们，开始对马尔萨斯多了一些好感，甚至愿意重新评价希律和其他一大批嗜好屠戮的恶棍。我们开始讨厌看到那些人——如若在土耳其斯坦或巴塔哥尼亚遇见，他们会被我们视若神明。我们已经变得对人群深恶痛绝。我们觉得，这成千上万不断出现的男男女女将很快粉碎、践踏或压迫我们独特而非凡的个性，使其成为街头某种令人厌恶的样板；我们觉得，精神将因缺乏拓展的空间而颓丧；而我们渴望呼吸未遭人群污染的空气。

3One of the greatest dangers of living in large towns is that we have too many neighbours and human fellowship is too cheap.We are apt to become wearied of humanity; a solitary green tree sometimes seems dearer to us than an odd thousand of our fellow citizens4此句若依照原有的比较结构译为“一棵孤零零的绿树比……还要使我们感到亲切”，显得累赘拖沓，故作切分处理。.Unless we are hardened, the millions of eyes begin to madden us; and forever pushed and jostled by crowds we begin to take more kindly to Malthus5马尔萨斯（1766—1834），英国经济学家，主张限制人口增长，以其所著《人口论》而知名。, and are even willing to think better of Herod6希律（约前73—前4），古犹太王，为杀死襁褓中的耶稣，曾下令屠杀伯利恒所有的男婴。and other wholesale depopulators.We begin to hate the sight of men who would appear as gods to us if we met them in Turkestan or Patagonia7土耳其斯坦原系苏联属区，巴塔哥尼亚系阿根廷南部大草原，均为人口稀少的地区。, we have become thoroughly crowd-sick, we feel that the continued presence of these thousands of other men and women will soon crush, stamp, or press our unique,miraculous individuality into some vile pattern of the streets; we feel that the spirit will perish for want of room to expand in; and we gasp for air untainted by crowded humanity.

4Some such thoughts as these came to me, at first, in my curious little glimpse of solitude.8翻译此句，应避免“这样一些念头是在……之时出现的”之类过长的整句，宜从句中断开。I am possessed by an ampler mood than men commonly know, and feel that I can fashion the world about me to my changing whims;my spirit overflows, and seems to fill the quiet drooping countryside with sudden light and laughter; the empty

4起初萌生这样一些念头，是在我短暂而好奇地品尝孤寂之时。我具有一种比常人所知更充沛的情绪，觉得可以按自己时常变化的古怪念头塑造周围的世界。我的精神饱满酣畅，似乎瞬间便以光焰与笑声充实了这宁静而疲乏的乡间。空寂的道路和空旷的田野，金色的大气与蔚蓝的天空，正是我的王国，我可以尽凭想象随心所欲居住其中。诗句断断续续浮现在我的脑海，我怀着激情反复高声吟诵其中的几个词，甚至只是一个词，似乎要用它们的意义和美丽打动一群聆听者的心灵。有时，我会爆发一阵阵短促的大笑以自娱；有时，我则恣意高歌，听众是被吓呆的一头母牛和三棵树。我以悦耳的腔调坚称，菲莉斯风姿何等迷人，我可以爱她爱到死，这话当时我也相信。我自我吹嘘，自我喝彩，自我奉承。我甚至沉湎于一两个年少时自我膨胀的白日梦，梦中发现自己忽然登上了某个非凡的高位，成为数百万人的偶像，成为半神之人，用不乏善意的轻蔑眼光居高俯视那些目光短浅的人——他们目睹了真正的伟大而不知，其中多为爱挖苦人的教师和出语尖刻的亲戚。road and vacant fields, the golden atmosphere and blue spaces are my kingdom, and I can people them at will with my fancies.Snatches of poetry come into my head, and I repeat a few words,or even only one word, aloud and with passionate emphasis, as if to impress their significance and beauty upon a listening host.Sometimes I break into violent little gusts of laughter, for my own good pleasure.At other times I sing,loudly and with abandon: to a petrified audience of one cow and three trees.I protest melodiously that Phyllis9本出希腊神话，常在田园诗中用作乡村少女和情人的名字。has such charming graces that I could love her till I die, and I believe it, too, at the time.I brag to myself, and applaud and flatter myself.I even indulge in one or two of those swaggering day-dreams of boyhood in which one finds oneself suddenly raised to some extraordinary eminence, the idol of millions, a demigod among men, from which height one looks down with kindly scorn10译为“用不乏善意的轻蔑眼光”，再现原文矛盾修辞的特点。on those myopic persons who did not know true greatness when they saw it, sarcastic schoolmasters and jeering relatives for the most part.

5Only by such heightened images,seemingly more applicable to centuries of riotous life than half an hour’s sauntering, can I suggest in stubborn words the swelling moods that first comes to me with this sudden, unexpected seclusion.

5这些被拔高的形象似乎比半小时的漫步更适合几个世纪的热闹生活，只有借助它们，我才能言之凿凿地表明，那些高涨的情绪是因陷入这种突兀而意外的隔绝状态而首次产生的。

6But as the morning wears away, the jubilation arising from this new expansion of oneself dwindles and perishes;the spirit wearies of its play.The road stretches out its vacant length, a few last leaves come fluttering down, and the sun grows stronger, sharpening the outline of the hills.The day is lovelier than ever.But I met no one by the way, and even the distant sounds of men’s travail and sport have died down.After a time the empty road and silent valley become vaguely disquietening, like a great room spread for a feast, blazing with lights,opulent in crimson and gold, and yet all deserted and quiet as the grave.I ask myself if all men have been mewed up in offices and underground warehouses,by some ghastly edict, unknown to me which has come into force this very morning.Have I alone escaped? Or I wonder if the Last Day has dawned, and been made plain to men not by sound of trump, but by some sign in the sky that I have overlooked11译文增加了“昭告天下”的同义词“周知世人”，节奏鲜明、铿锵有力，意美音美兼具。; a vast hand may have beckoned to all men or the heavens may have opened while I was busy lighting my pipe.Have all but one of the weary children of earth been gathered to their long rest? I walk in loneliness.

6但是，随着早晨的时光悄然流逝，这种由新的自我膨胀而引发的欣悦渐渐消减乃至泯灭，精神厌倦了它的戏弄。空空荡荡的道路伸向远方，最后几片叶子飘落到地上，阳光愈发强烈，让群山的轮廓更加清晰。这一日比以往更怡人，然而路上我没遇见一人，就连远方人们劳作和嬉闹的声音也已沉寂。少顷，阒无人迹的道路和静谧的山谷开始让人隐隐有些不安，犹如一个准备设宴的宽大房间，绯红和金黄的灯火映照得满室生辉，然而却一派凄清，死寂如同坟墓。我问自己，是不是所有人都被依据某项严酷的法令强行禁闭在办公室或地下仓库，这项法令我一无所知，而就在今晨已经生效。是否仅有我一人逃脱了？我转而又琢磨，是否最后的审判日已经降临，不是通过号声昭告天下，而是通过天上某个被我忽略的标记周知世人。一只巨手大概已经召唤了所有的人吧，抑或在我忙着点燃烟斗之时天堂敞开了大门。大地倦乏的子民们除一人外都被召集去长眠了吧？我孤单单地走着。

7Suddenly, I see a tiny moving figure on the road before me, and immediately it focuses my attention.What are walls,fields, trees, and cows compared with this miraculous thing, a fellow human being, played upon by the same desires and passion, this head stuffed with the same dreams and fluttering thoughts?In one of the world’s greatest romances is not the most breathless moment concerned with the discovery of a human footprint in the sand12出自英国作家笛福的长篇小说《鲁滨逊漂流记》第十四章，主人公在荒岛的沙滩上忽然发现一个人的足印。? Does not the world’s story begin with one human being meeting another? As I keep my eyes fixed on the nearing figure the last of my vague fancies and egotistical imaginings are blown away; my mind is engrossed by the solidly romantic possibilities of the encounter.Just as I was glad to escape from the sight and sound of men, so I am eager now to break my solitude: the circle is complete.And as we come up together, the stranger and I,I give him a loud greeting, and he, a little startled, returns the salute; and so we pass on, fellow-travellers and nameless companions in a great adventure, knowing no more of each other than the brief sight of a face, the sound of a voice can tell us.We only cry out a Hail and Farewell through the mist, yet I think we go on our way a little heartened.■

7蓦地，我瞧见前面路上一个小小的移动的身影，它即刻攫住我的注意力。这个神奇的人物、我的一位同胞受到相同的愿望和激情的驱使，脑瓜里塞满了同样的梦想和飘忽的思绪——相较于他，围墙、田野、树木和母牛又算得了什么呢？在某部世上最伟大的经典传奇作品中，沙滩上发现人类的足迹不是最摄人心魄的时刻吗？世上的故事不都是始于一人遇见另一人吗？就在我注视着来人身影的当儿，心里残存的模糊念头和自负想象消失了，心神专注于此次邂逅种种非常浪漫的可能性。正如我曾乐得避见他人、避听其声，此刻我急于打破我的孤寂：循环就此完成。陌生人与我走到一起时，我向他大声打了个招呼，稍稍有些吃惊的他也给我回了礼。我们就这样交错而过。作为一次了不起的历险的同行者和无名的同路人，我们互不相识，仅仅打了个照面，加上简单的语音交流。虽说我们只是透过薄雾彼此问好和道别，可我觉得，我们继续前行时，精神多少振作了些。 □