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聪明的消遣：毛姆谈英国文学

查尔斯·狄更斯与《大卫·科波菲尔》 1|Charles Dickens and David Copperfield 1

属类： 双语小说 【分类】其他读物 -[作者: 毛姆] 阅读：[11996]
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查尔斯·狄更斯虽然身量不高，但却仪态大方，相貌讨人喜欢。他二十七岁时由麦克利斯画的那张肖像现藏于英国国家肖像美术馆。画中的他坐在写字台前的一把漂亮椅子里，一只优雅的小手轻放在一部手稿的上面。他穿得隆重，系了个极宽大的绸缎颈巾，褐色的头发自然拳曲，垂在脸颊两侧，刚好盖住耳朵。他的眼睛长得很好，眼里那种深思的表情正是崇拜他的公众所期待的，一个成功的年轻作家应有的样子。画作没表现出的是那些与他有接触的人在他脸上看到的那种活力、炯炯的眼神，以及他心灵和头脑的活动。他一直都有点花花公子的派头，年轻时喜欢穿天鹅绒的外衣和华丽的马甲，系彩色的颈巾，戴白色的帽子，可他从来都没能达到他想达到的那种效果。人们惊讶甚至震惊于他的穿着，认为那既草率又俗丽。

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Charles Dickens, though far from tall, was graceful and of a pleasing appearance. A portrait of him, painted by Maclise when he was twenty-seven, is in the National Portrait Gallery. He is seated in a handsome chair at a writing-table, with a small, elegant hand resting lightly on a manuscript. He is grandly dressed, and wears a vast satin neck-cloth. His brown hair is curled, and falls well below the ears down each side of his face. His eyes are fine; and the thoughtful expression he wears is such as an admiring public might expect of a very successful young author. What the portrait does not show is the animation, the shining light, the activity of heart and mind, which those who came in contact with him saw in his countenance. He was always something of a dandy, and in his youth favoured velvet coats, gay waistcoats, coloured neck-cloths and white hats; but he never quite achieved the effect he sought: people were surprised and even shocked by his dress, which they described as both slip-shod and flashy.

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狄更斯的祖父威廉·狄更斯开始是个仆人，娶了个女仆，最后成了克鲁堂的管家，克鲁堂是切斯特城议员约翰·克鲁的家宅。威廉·狄更斯有两个儿子：威廉和约翰，与我们有关的是约翰，首先因为他是英国最伟大的小说家的父亲。其次，因为他是他儿子创造出的最伟大的人物麦考伯的原型。威廉·狄更斯死后，他的遗孀继续在克鲁堂当管家，终于在三十五年的服务后拿着一笔退休金退休了。可能是想离两个儿子近点，她住到了伦敦。克鲁家供她两个丧父的儿子受教育，并给他们提供了生计。他们给约翰在海军出纳室找了个职位，他和那里同为文员的一个同事结交起来，并且很快娶了那人的妹妹伊丽莎白·巴罗。从结婚开始，他似乎就有财务上的麻烦，总是找人借钱，任何人只要蠢到肯借给他，他都借。但是他心地善良，使钱慷慨，他不傻，工作也勤奋，虽然他的勤奋只是一阵阵的。他还极嗜好酒，因为他第二次被捕就是由于欠债被一个葡萄酒商控告了。晚年的他被描述为一个讲究穿戴的老花花公子，永远都在抚摸他怀表上系着的那一大串印章。

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His grandfather, William Dickens, began life as a footman, married a housemaid and eventually became steward at Crewe Hall, the seat of John Crewe, Member of Parliament for Chester. William Dickens had two sons, William and John; but the only one that concerns us is John, first because he was the father of England’s greatest novelist, and secondly because he served as a model for his son’s greatest creation, Mr. Micawber. William Dickens died, and his widow stayed on at Crewe Hall as housekeeper. After thirty-five years she was pensioned off, and, perhaps to be near her two sons, went to live in London. The Crewes educated her fatherless boys, and provided them with a means of livelihood. They got John a post in the Navy Pay Office. There he made friends with a fellow-clerk and presently married his sister, Elizabeth Barrow. From the beginning of his married life he appears to have been in financial trouble, and he was always ready to borrow money from anyone who was foolish enough to lend it. But he was kind-hearted and generous, no fool, industrious, though perhaps but fitfully; and he evidently had a taste for good wine, since the second time he was arrested for debt, it was at the suit of a wine-merchant. He is described in later life as an old buck who dressed well and was for ever fingering the large bunch of seals attached to his watch.

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查尔斯·狄更斯是约翰和伊丽莎白的第一个儿子，但是是他们的第二个孩子，他一八一二年出生于波特西。两年后他父亲被调到伦敦，三年后又调动到查塔姆。小查尔斯就在查塔姆入学读书。他父亲有几本藏书：《汤姆·琼斯》《威克菲尔德牧师》《吉尔·布拉斯》《堂吉诃德》《蓝登传》《佩雷格林·皮克尔传》，查尔斯·狄更斯把它们读了又读。他自己的小说显示出那些小说对他的影响是多么巨大、持久。

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Charles, the first son, but second child, of John and Elizabeth Dickens, was born in 1812 at Portsea. Two years later his father was transferred to London, and three years after that to Chatham. There the little boy was put to school, and there he began to read. His father had collected a few books, Tom Jones, The Vicar of Wakefield, Gil Blas, Don Quixote, Roderick Random, Peregrine Pickle; Charles read and re-read them. His own novels show how great and persistent an influence they had on him.

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一八二二年，已经有了五个孩子的约翰·狄更斯把家搬回了伦敦。查尔斯被留在了查塔姆，为的是继续上学，几个月后他才和家人团聚。团聚时他发现他们住在伦敦城郊的卡姆登镇，那个房子后来被他当成麦考伯的家写进了小说。约翰·狄更斯此时虽然一年能挣三百多镑，价值相当于今天的四倍之多，但他明显处于比以往更加绝望的窘迫之中，似乎没钱送小查尔斯回学校继续读书了。更令小查尔斯憎恶的是，他被要求看孩子、擦鞋、刷衣服，帮狄更斯太太从查塔姆带来的女仆干家务。得闲的时候他在“被田野和水渠围绕的荒凉之地”卡姆登镇晃荡，也在附近的萨默斯镇和肯特镇闲逛，有时跑得更远，甚至发现了苏活和莱姆豪斯(1)。

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In 1822 John Dickens, who by this time had five children, was moved back to London. Charles was left at Chatham to continue his schooling, and did not rejoin his family for some months. He found them settled in Camden Town on the outskirts of the city, in a house which he was later to describe as the home of the Micawbers. John Dickens, though earning a little more than three hundred pounds a year, which to-day would be equivalent to at least four times as much, was apparently in more than usually desperate straits, and it would seem that there was not enough money to send little Charles to school again. To the boy’s disgust, he was put to minding the children, cleaning the boots, brushing the clothes and helping the maid Mrs. Dickens had brought with her from Chatham with the housework. In the intervals he roamed about Camden Town, “a desolate place surrounded byfields and ditches, ”and the neighbouring Somers Town and Kentish Town, and sometimes he was taken farther afield and got a glimpse of Soho and Limehouse.

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家里的情形愈发坏了，于是狄更斯太太决定开设一间学校，招收父母住在印度的孩子。可能是从婆婆那里借了钱，她印了准备分发的传单，派孩子们塞到邻居的信箱里。结果当然没有一个学生上门，同时债务问题变得越来越紧迫。查尔斯被派去典当家里一切还能换钱的物件。那些书，那些对他来说意义深远、无比宝贵的书都被卖掉了。然后詹姆斯·拉默特，狄更斯太太的一个远房姻亲，给查尔斯找了一份工作，让他在自己有一半产权的鞋油厂里打工，每周可以挣六先令。狄更斯的父母千恩万谢地接受了这个安排，却把少年狄更斯伤到了痛处，因为他发现父母居然可以如此如释重负地将他脱手。他那时十二岁。此后不久，约翰·狄更斯因欠债被关进了马夏尔西监狱，他妻子则典当了最后一点能典当的东西，带着孩子们去监狱和他会合了。当时的监狱肮脏拥挤，卫生条件极差，因为坐监的不光有犯人，还有他们的家属。如果愿意，犯人们是可以带家属一起蹲监狱的，但我不知道他们被允许这样做是为了缓解监狱生活的困苦，还是因为那些可怜的家属反正也无处可去。如果欠债者有钱，他所需忍受的最大的不便就是失去自由，在某些情况下，就连这个损失也可以得到缓解。某些特殊的犯人如能遵守某些规定，还大可不住在监狱里。以前，监狱长经常勒索犯人，还野蛮残酷地对待犯人。但是到约翰·狄更斯入狱的时候，那些最恶劣的勒索、虐待犯人的刑法已经被废除了，他能使自己过得足够舒服。他家那个忠诚的小女仆住在监狱外，每天进监狱来给他做饭带孩子。他仍然每周挣六镑，但他根本不想还钱。可以推测，他满足于住在债主够不着的地方，并不特别想被释放。在狱中，他很快就恢复了过来。其他欠债人“推举他做掌管狱内经济的委员会的主席”，很快，从看守到最令人讨厌的犯人，他和每个人都搞好了关系。后来的传记作者们迷惑于一件事，即约翰·狄更斯居然能在蹲监狱的同时继续领薪水。唯一的解释就是政府职员是靠关系任命的，像欠债入狱这种事还没有严重到要部里采取激烈的举措停发他薪水的地步。

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Things grew so bad that Mrs. Dickens decided to open a school for the children of parents living in India; she borrowed money, presumably from her mother-in-law, and had handbills printed for distribution, which her own children were sent to push into letter-boxes in the neighbourhood. Naturally enough, no pupils were brought. Debts meanwhile grew more and more pressing. Charles was sent to pawn whatever articles they had on which cash could be raised; the books, the precious books which meant so much to him, were sold. Then James Lamert, vaguely related by marriage to Mrs. Dickens, offered Charles a job at six shillings a week in a blacking factory, of which he was part-owner. His parents thankfully accepted the offer, but it cut the boy to the quick that they should be so manifestly relieved to get him off their hands. He was twelve years old. Shortly afterwards, John Dickens was arrested for debt and taken to the Marshalsea; and there his wife, after pawning the little that was left to pawn, joined him with her children. The prison was filthy, insanitary and crowded, for not only was it occupied by the prisoners, but by the families they might, if they chose, bring with them; though whether they were allowed to do this to alleviate the hardships of prison life or because the unfortunate creatures had nowhere else to go, I do not know. If a debtor had money, loss of liberty was the worst of the inconveniences he had to endure, and this loss in some cases might be mitigated: particular prisoners were permitted, on observing certain conditions, to reside outside the prison walls. In the past, the warden was in the habit of practising outrageous extortion on the prisoners and often treated them with barbarous cruelty; but by the time John Dickens was consigned to jail, the worst abuses had been done away with, and he was able to make himself sufficiently comfortable. The faithful little maid lived out and came in daily to help with the children and prepare meals. He still had his salary of six pounds a week, but made no attempt to pay his debt; and it may be supposed that, content to be out of reach of his other creditors, he did not especially care to be released. He soon recovered his usual spirits. The other debtors“made him chairman of the committee by which they regulated the internal economy of the prison, ”and presently he was on cordial terms with everyone from the turnkeys to the meanest inmate. The biographers have been puzzled by the fact that John Dickens continued meanwhile to receive his wages. The only explanation appears to be that since government clerks were appointed by influence, such an accident as being imprisoned for debt was not considered so grave a matter as to call for the drastic step of cutting off a salary.

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父亲入狱之初，查尔斯·狄更斯住在卡姆登镇，但是因为卡姆登镇离位于查令十字街附近的亨格福德码头的鞋油厂太远，于是约翰·狄更斯为他在马夏尔西监狱附近的南华克区的兰特街找了个住处，这样他就能和家人一起吃早晚饭了。他被分配干的活并不苦，只是洗瓶子、给瓶子贴标签、把瓶子系起来。一八二四年四月，威廉·狄更斯的太太、克鲁堂的老管家死了，把积蓄留给了两个儿子。约翰·狄更斯的债（被他哥哥）还清了，他重获了自由。他再一次和家人住到了卡姆登镇，也再一次回到了海军出纳室工作。查尔斯继续在工厂洗了一阵子瓶子，但是约翰·狄更斯和詹姆斯·拉默特吵了一架。“是在信上吵的，”查尔斯后来写道，“因为是我把我父亲的那封信带给他，造成了那场争吵的爆发。”詹姆斯·拉默特告诉查尔斯他父亲侮辱了自己，因此他必须得走。“怀着一种奇怪的、好似压抑的轻松，我回了家。”他妈妈试图让事情缓和下来，好使查尔斯能够保住这份工作和周薪，因为此时薪水已经涨到了七先令，而她非常需要这笔钱。查尔斯却因此永远都不原谅她。“我后来从来没有忘记，也不会和不能忘记，我母亲是如此想让我回去。”他说。但是约翰·狄更斯不同意，他把儿子送进了汉姆斯特德街的一所学校，这所学校有个堂皇的名字，叫“威灵顿堂学院”。查尔斯在那上了两年半学。

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At the beginning of his father’s imprisonment, Charles lodged in Camden Town; but since this was a long way from the blacking factory, which was at Hungerford Stairs, Charing Cross, John Dickens found him a room in Lant Street, Southwark, which was near the Marshalsea. He was then able to breakfast and sup with his family. The work he was put to do was not hard; it consisted in washing the bottles, labelling them and tying them up. In April, 1824, Mrs. William Dickens, the Crewes’ old housekeeper, died and left her savings to her two sons. John Dickens’s debt was paid (by his brother), and he regained his freedom. He settled his family once more in Camden Town, and went back to work at the Navy Pay Office. Charles continued to wash bottles at the factory for a while, but then John Dickens quarrelled with James Lamert, “quarrelled by letter, ”wrote Charles later, “for I took the letter from my father to him which caused the explosion.”James Lamert told Charles that his father had insulted him, and that he must go.“With a relief so strange that it was like oppression, I went home.”His mother tried to smooth things down, so that Charles should retain his job and the weekly wage, seven shillings by then, which she still sorely needed; and for this he never forgave her.“I never afterwards forgot, I never shall forget, I never can forget that my mother was warm for my being sent back, ”he added. John Dickens, however, would not hear of it, and sent his son to a school, very grandly called the Wellington House Academy, in the Hampstead Road. He stayed there two and a half years.

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很难知道查尔斯·狄更斯到底在鞋油厂干了多久。他二月初到的那儿，六月又和家人回来了。表面看来，他在那待了不过四个月。但是鞋油厂给他留下了深刻的印象，他后来把这段经历看成奇耻大辱，以至于不忍提及。当他的好友和第一位传记作者约翰·福斯特偶然提及了一星半点时，狄更斯告诉他，他触碰到了一件令人非常痛苦的事，“即使是现在，”——二十五年后，“只要他还有记忆，他就无法忘怀。”

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It is difficult to make out how long the boy spent at the blacking factory: he was there early in February and was back with his family by June, so that at the outside he could not have been at the factory for more than four months. It appears, however, to have made a deep impression upon him, and he came to look upon the experience as so humiliating that he could not bear to speak of it. When John Forster, his intimate friend and first biographer, by chance hit upon some inkling of it, Dickens told him that he had touched upon a matter so painful that“even at the present hour, ”and this was twenty-five years later, “he could never lose the remembrance of it while he remembered anything.”

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我们已经听惯了显赫的政治家和工业巨头们夸耀年轻时如何洗盘子、卖报纸，因此很难理解为什么查尔斯·狄更斯会把父母送他进鞋油厂看成他们给他造成的巨大伤害，看成一个需要他隐藏的耻辱的秘密。狄更斯是个快乐、淘气和机灵的孩子，对生活的阴暗一面已经有了很多了解，很小就目睹他父亲的得过且过把全家人害成了什么样。他们是穷人，过得也像穷人。在卡姆登镇时他被要求打扫擦洗，为了能吃上晚饭，他被派去典当衣服或饰品。他一定曾像所有孩子一样和别的孩子们在街上玩耍过，也曾像当时他那个阶层的所有男孩一样，到了一定年龄就去做工，工资还很不错。他一周挣六先令，很快涨到七先令，这至少等于今天的二十五到三十先令。在一段不太长的时间里他必须靠这笔钱养活自己，但是后来搬到马夏尔西监狱附近可以和家人一起吃早晚饭后，他就只需要自己负担午饭了。和他一起干活的男孩们都很友好，因此很难理解他为什么会觉得和他们交往是件丢人的事。他时不时被带到牛津街去见他祖母，不可能不知道她这辈子是个仆人。也可能约翰·狄更斯是个势利眼，毫无根据地夸过口，但是一个十二岁的男孩不太可能对社会阶层有太多认识。而且我们必须假设，如果狄更斯足够成熟，认为自己比其他的工厂小孩都高一个等级，那他也一定足够聪明，明白他的工资对家里来说是多么必要。我们还以为能挣工资会成为他一个骄傲的资本呢。

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We are so used to hearing eminent politicians and captains of industry boast of having in their early youth washed dishes and sold newspapers, that it is hard for us to understand why Charles Dickens should have worked himself up into looking upon it as a great injury that his parents had done him when they sent him to the blacking factory, and a secret so shameful that it must be concealed. He was a merry, mischievous, alert boy, and already knew a good deal of the seamy side of life. From an early age he had seen to what a pass his father’s improvidence reduced the family. They were poor people, and they lived as poor people. At Camden Town he was put to sweep and scrub; he was sent to pawn a coat or a trinket to buy food for dinner; and like any other boy, he must have played in the streets with boys of the same sort as himself. He went to work at an age when at the time it was usual for boys of his class to go to work, and at a fair wage. His six shillings a week, presently raised to seven, was worth at least twenty-five to thirty shillings to-day. For a short time he had to feed himself on that, but later, when he lodged near enough to the Marshalsea to have breakfast and supper with his family, he only had to pay for his dinner. The boys he worked with were friendly, and it is hard to see why he should have found it such a degradation to consort with them. He had from time to time been taken to see his grandmother in Oxford Street, and he could hardly have helped knowing that she had spent her life in“service.”It may be that John Dickens was a bit of a snob and made pretensions that had no basis, but a lad of twelve surely has little sense of social distinctions. One must suppose, further, that if Charles was sophisticated enough to think himself a cut above the other boys at the factory, he would be smart enough to understand how necessary his earnings were to his family. One would have expected it to be a source of pride to him that he was become a wage-earner.

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因此，我们可以假设，因为福斯特的发现，狄更斯写了这一段生活的自传，并给了福斯特，使我们得知了他生活中这段经历的细节。我怀疑当他的想象作用于他的回忆时，他就充满了对曾经的那个小男孩的同情，他就把痛苦、厌恶和屈辱都给了那个男孩，因为这是如今名利双收、受人爱戴的他认为如果他身处那个小男孩的位置将会感受到的东西。而当他运笔写下那个可怜男孩的孤独，写下他被他信任的人背叛时，一切都历历在目，他仁慈的心流血了，泪水打湿了他的双眼。我不认为他是在有意夸大，他是情不自禁地夸大。他的才华，或者说天才，就在于夸大。正是通过讲述和强调麦考伯性格中的喜剧因素，他才令读者发笑。也正是通过强化小耐尔缓慢衰弱过程中的悲怆，他才能令读者哭。他要是不能把他在鞋油厂度过的四个月写得如此令人感动，那他就不是他——一位那么了不起的小说家了。大家都知道，他在《大卫·科波菲尔》里把这段经历再次写了一遍，再次取得了令人撕心裂肺的效果。就我而言，我认为这段经历并不像多年后他既出名又体面，既是个社交人物又是个公众人物时，劝说自己相信的那样给他带来了那么多的痛苦。我更不信这事对他的工作和生活起到了决定性的影响，虽然很多传记家和评论家是这样认为的。

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As a result, one may presume, of Forster’s discovery, Dickens wrote, and gave Forster the fragment of autobiography from which the details of this episode in his life have been made known to us. As his imagination went to work on his recollections, he was filled, I suspect, with pity for the little boy he had been; he gave him the pain, the disgust, the mortification which he thought he, famous, affluent, beloved, would have felt if he had been in the little boy’s place. And seeing it all so vividly, his generous heart bled, his eyes were dim with tears, as he wrote of the poor lad’s loneliness and his misery at being betrayed by those in whom he had put his trust. I do not think he consciously exaggerated; he couldn’t help exaggerating: his talent, his genius if you like, was based on exaggeration. It was by dwelling upon, and emphasizing, the comic elements in Mr. Micawber’s character that he excited his readers’ laughter; and it was by intensifying the pathos of Little Nell’s slow decline that he reduced them to tears. He would not have been the novelist he was, if he had failed to make his account of the four months he spent at the blacking factory as moving as he alone knew how to make it; and, as everyone knows, he used it again to harrowing effect in David Copperfield. For my part, I do not believe that the experience caused him anything like the suffering that in after years, when he was famous and respectable, a social as well as a public figure, he persuaded himself that it had; and I believe even less that, as biographers and critics have thought, it had a decisive effect on his life and work.

10
-

还在马夏尔西监狱的时候，约翰·狄更斯担心他作为债务未清者会失去他在海军出纳室的工作，于是他恳求他部门的头头，让他以健康不佳为由领取退休金。考虑到他工作了二十年和他的六个孩子，他最后被“同情地”准许每年领一百四十镑的退休金。这对像约翰·狄更斯这样的人来说远不够养家，他还得寻找其他方法增加收入。他会点速记，于是在和报社有点关系的内兄的帮助下，他找了份议会记者的工作。查尔斯·狄更斯则留在学校继续读书，直到他十五岁时去给一家律师事务所跑腿。这次查尔斯似乎不觉得有辱身份，他进入了我们现在叫作白领的阶层。几星期后，他父亲给他另找了一个活，让他在另一个律师事务所当文员，一周能挣十先令，后来涨到了十五先令。他觉得这种生活很沉闷，想要提升自己，就学了速记，一年半后就能胜任民事律师公会的主教法庭的速记员的工作。二十岁时，他已经获得了议会记录员的资格，并且很快赢得了“旁听席上最快、最准确之人”的名声。

10
-

While still at the Marshalsea, John Dickens, fearing that as an insolvent debtor he would lose his job in the Navy Pay Office, solicited the head of his department to recommend him for a superannuation grant on the ground of his ill health; and eventually, in consideration of his twenty years’ service and six children, he was granted“on compassionate grounds, ”a pension of one hundred and forty pounds a year. This was little enough for such a man as John Dickens to support a family and he had to find some means of adding to his income. He had somehow acquired a knowledge of shorthand; and with the help of his brother-in-law, who had connections with the press, he got employment as a parliamentary reporter. Charles remained at school till, at fifteen, he went to work as an errand-boy in a lawyer’s office. He does not seem to have considered this beneath his dignity. He had joined what we now call the white-collar class. A few weeks later, his father managed to get him engaged as a clerk in another lawyer’s office at ten shillings a week, which in course of time rose to fifteen shillings. He found the life dull and, with the hope of bettering himself, studied shorthand—to such purpose that after eighteen months he was sufficiently competent to set up as a reporter in the Consistory Court of Doctors’ Commons. By the time he was twenty, he was qualified to report the debates in the House of Commons, and soon gained the reputation of being“the fastest and most accurate man in the Gallery.”

11
-

与此同时，他爱上了一个银行职员的漂亮女儿玛丽亚·比德内尔。他们初见时查尔斯十七岁。玛丽亚是个轻浮、爱调情的年轻女子，她似乎给了他很多挑逗性的鼓励。他们之间甚至可能有过秘密婚约。她对自己有了个爱人的事觉得既好玩又高兴，但是查尔斯身无分文，她是绝不可能想要嫁给他的。两年后他们情断，二人以真正浪漫的方式归还了彼此的礼物和信件，查尔斯觉得自己的心都碎了。多年后他们再见时，玛丽亚·比德内尔已经结婚多年，她肥胖、平庸、愚蠢。她和著名的狄更斯先生和太太吃饭，于是她成了《小杜丽》中弗罗拉·芬奇的原型，早前她就当过《大卫·科波菲尔》中朵拉的原型。

11
-

Meanwhile, he had fallen in love with Maria Beadnell, the pretty daughter of a bank clerk. They met first when Charles was seventeen. Maria was a flirtatious young person, and she seems to have given him a good deal of encouragement. There may even have been a secret engagement between them. She was flattered and amused to have a lover, but Charles was penniless, and she can never have intended to marry him. When after two years the affair came to an end, and in true romantic fashion they returned one another’s presents and letters, Charles thought his heart would break. They did not meet again till many years later. Maria Beadnell, long a married woman, dined with the celebrated Mr. Dickens and his wife: she was fat, commonplace and stupid. She served then as the model for Flora Finching in Little Dorrit. She had already served as the model for Dora in David Copperfield.

12
-

为了离自己效力的报纸近点，查尔斯·狄更斯在河岸街旁那些肮脏的小巷子里找了个住处，但因为对住处不满，他很快又在弗尼沃旅社找了个没配置家具的房间。可他还没来得及采买家具，他父亲就又一次因欠债被捕了，查尔斯不得不出钱让他待在债务人拘留所(2)。“因为约翰·狄更斯将在一段时间内无法与家人团聚”，查尔斯只得又给家人租了个便宜的住处，自己则带着弟弟弗里德里克勉强住进了弗尼沃旅社那间“四楼后”的房间。“正因为他心胸宽广，使钱大方，似乎很会处理类似的困难，”后来为他作传的乌娜·蒲柏—亨尼斯在她写的那本很可读的传记里说，“他家，后来还有他太太家，那群没骨气的亲戚都指望着他给他们找钱找工作，正如每一个养家糊口的人要负担的那样。”

12
-

In order to be near the paper for which he was working, Dickens had taken lodgings in one of the dingy streets off the Strand, but finding them unsatisfactory, he presently rented unfurnished rooms in Furnival’s Inn. But before he could furnish these, his father was again arrested for debt, and he had to provide money for his keep at the sponging-house.“As it had to be assumed that John Dickens would not rejoin his family for some time, ”Charles took cheap lodgings for his family and camped out with his brother Frederick, whom he took to live with him, in the“three-pair back”at Furnival’s Inn.“Just because he was open-hearted as well as open-handed, ”wrote the late Una Pope-Hennessy in her very readable biography of Charles Dickens, “and seemed able to deal with difficulties of the kind easily, it became the custom in his family, and later on in his wife’s family, to expect him to find money and appointments for as spineless a set of people as ever breadwinner was saddled with.”

序号 英文/音标 中文解释 更多操作

graceful

[’ɡreɪsfl]

adj.优雅的;得体的

manuscript

[’mænjuskrɪpt]

n.手稿;原稿

satin

[’sætɪn]

n.缎子

curl

[kɜːl]

n.卷曲;卷发;年轮;漩涡;【足】曲线球

thoughtful

[’θɔːtfl]

adj.深思的;体贴的

animation

[ˌænɪ’meɪʃn]

n.活泼;生气;兴奋;动画片;动画片制作

waistcoat

[’weɪskəʊt]

n.背心;马甲

novelist

[’nɒvəlɪst]

n.小说家

kindhearted

[’kaɪnd’hɑːtɪd]

adj.善心的;仁慈的

fitful

[’fɪtfl]

adj.断断续续的;一阵阵的

Pickle

[’pɪkl]

n.腌汁;泡菜;淘气鬼;困境

persistent

[pə’sɪstənt]

adj.坚持的;连续的;固执的

outskirt

[’aʊtˌskɜːt]

n.郊区(常用复数)

strait

[streɪt]

n.海峡;困境

shilling

[’ʃɪlɪŋ]

n.先令(货币单位)

thankful

[’θæŋkfl]

adj.感谢的;感激的

manifest

[’mænɪfest]

vt.显示;证实;表露

pawn

[pɔːn]

vt. 当；抵押;

alleviate

[ə’liːvieɪt]

vt.减轻;使 ... 缓和

debtor

[’detə(r)]

n.借方;债务人

inconvenience

[ˌɪnkən’viːniəns]

n.不便;困难

mitigate

[’mɪtɪɡeɪt]

vt.减轻;缓和

reside

[rɪ’zaɪd]

vi.居住;属于;存在

past

[pɑːst]

a. 过去的;

cruelty

[’kruːəlti]

n.残酷;虐待;残酷的行为

creditor

[’kredɪtə(r)]

n.债权人;债主

turnkey

[’tɜːnkiː]

n.监狱的看守;狱吏

biographer

[baɪ’ɒɡrəfə(r)]

n.传记作家

imprison

[ɪm’prɪzn]

v.监禁;关押;束缚

drastic

[’dræstɪk]

adj.激烈的;重大的;极端的

lodge

[lɒdʒ]

n.小屋;巢穴;门房;传达室;支部

Academy

[əˈkædəmɪ]

高等(专科)院校研究院(所)

humiliate

[hjuː’mɪlieɪt]

vt.使 ... 蒙羞;使丢脸

eminent

[’emɪnənt]

adj.著名的;卓越的

merry

[’meri]

adj.愉快的;欢乐的;微醉的

scrub

[skrʌb]

n.用力擦洗;矮树;渺小之物

supper

[’sʌpə(r)]

n.晚饭

degradation

[ˌdeɡrə’deɪʃn]

n.降低;堕落;退化

Oxford

[’ɒksfəd]

n.牛津城;牛津大学;牛津

episode

[’epɪsəʊd]

n.一段情节;片段;轶事;插曲

beloved

[bɪ’lʌvd]

adj.心爱的

felted

[’feltɪd]

v. 把 ... 制成毡(使 ... 粘结)

bleed

[bliːd]

v.流血;渗色;榨取;放掉(水或气体);给...抽血

excite

[ɪk’saɪt]

vt.使兴奋;使激动;刺激;激起

intensify

[ɪn’tensɪfaɪ]

vt.增强;强化;加剧

David

[’deɪvɪd]

戴维(男子名)

solicit

[sə’lɪsɪt]

vt.恳求;征求;勾引

grind

[ɡraɪnd]

v.磨;压迫;碾碎;磨得吱吱响;逐渐停顿

parliamentary

[ˌpɑːlə’mentri]

adj.议会的;国会的;议会制定的

competent

[’kɒmpɪtənt]

adj.有能力的;足够的;胜任的

Commons

[’kɒmənz]

n.英国国会下院(the House of Common)

mare

[meə(r)]

n.母马;母驴;(月球等)表面阴暗处

flatter

[’flætə(r)]

v.奉承;恭维;取悦;显得好看

dine

[daɪn]

v.用正餐;进餐

Flora

[’flɔːrə]

n.植物;群落(大写)Flora：【罗神】花神弗洛拉; 弗洛拉(女名).

lodging

[’lɒdʒɪŋ]

n.寄宿处;借宿

camped

[kæmp]

n.野营;帐篷;营地

readable

[’riːdəbl]

adj.可读的;易读的;值得一读的

Dickens

[’dɪkɪnz]

n. 魔鬼;究竟

lodging

[’lɒdʒɪŋ]

n.寄宿处;借宿

dingy

[’dɪndʒi]

adj.肮脏的;昏暗的

unsatisfactory

[ˌʌnˌsætɪs’fæktəri]

adj.不能令人满意的

presently

[’prezntli]

adv.不久;一会儿;现在;目前

unfurnished

[ʌn’fɜːnɪʃt]

adj.无家具设备的

rejoin

[ˌriː’dʒɔɪn]

v.(使)再结合;再加入;反驳

spineless

[’spaɪnləs]

adj.无脊椎的;没有骨气的;懦弱的

breadwinner

[’bredwɪnə(r)]

n.养家糊口的人;负担家计的人

saddle

[’sædl]

n.鞍;车座;山脊;当权

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