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邦斯舅舅|Uncle Bunce

一、一个帝政时代的老古董|I

属类: 双语小说 【分类】世界名著 -[作者: 巴尔扎克] 阅读:[20594]
《邦斯舅舅》是法国现实主义作家巴尔扎克创作的长篇小说,也是他生前完成的最后一部作品。《邦斯舅舅》写于1846至1847年之间,与其姊妹篇《贝姨》同属“穷亲戚”研究系列。]
[5] 堂·吉诃德身体又高又瘦。根据一般情形,脸相大多与全身调和,故堂·吉诃德的鼻子一定也是很长的。
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一八四四年十月,有一天下午三点光景,一个六十来岁而看上去要老得多的男人,在意大利大街上走过。他探着鼻子,假作正经地抿着嘴,好像一个商人刚做了笔好买卖,或是一个单身汉沾沾自喜地从内客室走出来。在巴黎,这是一个人把心中的得意流露得最充分的表示。那些每天待在街上,坐在椅子里以打量过路人为消遣的家伙[1],远远地一瞧见这老人,都透出一点儿巴黎人特有的笑容;这笑容包含许多意思,或是讪笑,或是讽刺,或是同情。可是巴黎人对形形色色的场面也看腻了,一定要遇到头等怪物,脸上才会有点儿表情。

[1] 按此系指坐咖啡馆的巴黎人。咖啡座每伸展至人行道,故言待在街上。
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Towards three o’clock in the afternoon of one October day in the year 1844, a man of sixty or thereabouts, whom anybody might have credited with more than his actual age, was walking along the boulevard des Italiens with his head bent down, as if he were tracking some one. There was a smug expression about the mouth—he looked like a merchant who has just done a good stroke of business, or a bachelor emerging from a boudoir in the best of humors with himself; and in Paris this is the highest degree of self-satisfaction ever registered by a human countenance. As soon as the elderly person appeared in the distance, a smile broke out over the faces of the frequenters of the boulevard, who daily, from their chairs, watch the passers-by, and indulge in the agreeable pastime of analyzing them. That smile is peculiar to Parisians; it says so many things—ironical, quizzical, pitying; but nothing save the rarest of human curiosities can summon that look of interest to the faces of Parisians, sated as they are with every possible sight.

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那老头儿在考古学上的价值,以及大家眼中那一点笑意,像回声般一路传过去的笑意,只要一句话就能说明。有人问过以说俏皮话出名的戏子伊阿桑德,他那些博得哄堂大笑的帽子在哪儿定做的。他回答说:“我没有定做啊,只是保存在那儿。”对啦!巴黎上百万的居民其实都可以说是戏子,其中有好多人无意中全做了伊阿桑德,在身上保留着某一时代的一切可笑之处,俨然是整个时代的化身,使你在大街上溜达的时候,便是想着给朋友欺骗那一类的伤心事,也不由得要扑哧一声笑出来。

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A saying recorded of Hyacinthe, an actor celebrated for his repartees, will explain the archaeological value of the old gentleman, and the smile repeated like an echo by all eyes. Somebody once asked Hyacinthe where the hats were made that set the house in a roar as soon as he appeared. "I don’t have them made," he said; "I keep them!" So also among the million actors who make up the great troupe of Paris, there are unconscious Hyacinthes who "keep" all the absurd freaks of vanished fashions upon their backs; and the apparition of some bygone decade will startle you into laughter as you walk the streets in bitterness of soul over the treason of one who was your friend in the past.

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那过路人的服装,连某些小地方都十足保存着一八〇六年代的款式,所以它让你想起帝政时代而并不觉得有漫画气息。就凭这点儿细腻,有眼光的人才知道这一类令人怀古的景象更有价值。可是要体会那些小枝节,你的分析能力必须像逛马路的老资格一样,如今人家老远看了就笑,可见那走路人必有些怪模怪样。像俗语所说的扑上你的眼睛,那也正是演员们苦心研究,希望一露脸就得个满堂彩的。原来这又干又瘦的老人,在缀着白铜纽扣的、半绿不绿的大褂外面,套着一件没有下摆的栗色短褂,叫作斯宾塞的!……一八四四年上还看到一个穿斯宾塞的男人,岂不像拿破仑复活了一下吗?

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In some respects the passer-by adhered so faithfully to the fashions of the year 1806, that he was not so much a burlesque caricature as a reproduction of the Empire period. To an observer, accuracy of detail in a revival of this sort is extremely valuable, but accuracy of detail, to be properly appreciated, demands the critical attention of an expert flaneur; while the man in the street who raises a laugh as soon as he comes in sight is bound to be one of those outrageous exhibitions which stare you in the face, as the saying goes, and produce the kind of effect which an actor tries to secure for the success of his entry. The elderly person, a thin, spare man, wore a nut-brown spencer over a coat of uncertain green, with white metal buttons. A man in a spencer in the year 1844! it was as if Napoleon himself had vouchsafed to come to life again for a couple of hours.

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顾名思义,斯宾塞的确是那位想卖弄细腰身的英国勋爵的创作。远在一八〇二年亚眠安和会之前,这英国人就把大氅的问题给解决了:既能遮盖胸部,又不至于像笨重而恶俗的卡列克那样埋没一个人的身腰,这种衣服如今只有车行里的老马夫还拿来披在肩上[2]。但因细腰身的人为数不多,所以斯宾塞虽是英国款式,在法国走红的时间也并不久。那些四五十岁的人,看到有人穿着斯宾塞,自然而然会在脑筋里给他补充上一条丝带扎脚的绿短裤,一双翻筒长靴,跟他们年轻的时候一模一样!老太太们见了,也得回想起当年红极一时的盛况。可是一般年轻的人就要觉得奇怪:为什么这个老阿契皮阿特要割掉他外套的尾巴呢[3]?总之,那个人浑身上下都跟斯宾塞配得那么相称,你会毫不犹豫地叫他作帝政时代的人物,正如我们叫什么帝政时代的家具一样。但只有熟悉那个光华灿烂的时代的,至少亲眼见过的人,才会觉得那走路人是帝政时代的象征;因为要辨别服装,必须有相当真切的记忆力。帝政时代跟我们已经离得那么远,要想象它那种法国希腊式[4]的实际场面,绝不是每个人所能办到的。

[2] 叫作斯宾塞的短褂,有如现代的夏季礼服,原系英国的约翰·查理·斯宾塞勋爵创作。叫作卡列克的外氅,相传为英人约翰·卡列克所创,上半身披肩部分长至手腕,共有两三叠之多,故极厚重。
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The spencer, as its name indicates, was the invention of an English lord, vain, doubtless, of his handsome shape. Some time before the Peace of Amiens, this nobleman solved the problem of covering the bust without destroying the outlines of the figure and encumbering the person with the hideous boxcoat, now finishing its career on the backs of aged hackney cabmen; but, elegant figures being in the minority, the success of the spencer was short-lived in France, English though it was. At the sight of the spencer, men of forty or fifty mentally invested the wearer with top-boots, pistachio-colored kerseymere small clothes adorned with a knot of ribbon; and beheld themselves in the costumes of their youth. Elderly ladies thought of former conquests; but the younger men were asking each other why the aged Alcibiades had cut off the skirts of his overcoat. The rest of the costume was so much in keeping with the spencer, that you would not have hesitated to call the wearer "an Empire man," just as you call a certain kind of furniture "Empire furniture;" yet the newcomer only symbolized the Empire for those who had known that great and magnificent epoch at any rate de visu, for a certain accuracy of memory was needed for the full appreciation of the costume, and even now the Empire is so far away that not every one of us can picture it in its Gallo-Grecian reality.

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他帽子戴得很高,差不多把整个的脑门露在外面,这种昂昂然的气概,便是当年的文官和平民特意装出来对抗军人的气焰的。并且那还是一顶十四法郎的怕人的丝帽子,帽檐的反面给又高又大的耳朵印上两个半白不白的、刷也刷不掉的印子。帽坯上照例胶得很马虎的丝片子,好几处都乱糟糟地粘在一块儿,尽管天天早上给修整一次,还像害了大麻风似的。

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The stranger’s hat, for instance, tipped to the back of his head so as to leave almost the whole forehead bare, recalled a certain jaunty air, with which civilians and officials attempted to swagger it with military men; but the hat itself was a shocking specimen of the fifteen-franc variety. Constant friction with a pair of enormous ears had left their marks which no brush could efface from the underside of the brim; the silk tissue (as usual) fitted badly over the cardboard foundation, and hung in wrinkles here and there; and some skin-disease (apparently) had attacked the nap in spite of the hand which rubbed it down of a morning.

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仿佛要掉下来的帽子底下,露出一张脸,滑稽可笑的模样,唯有中国人才会想出来,去烧成那些丑八怪的瓷器。阔大的麻子脸像个脚炉盖,凹下去的肉窟窿成为许多阴影;高的高,低的低,像罗马人的面具,把解剖学上的规则全打破了。一眼望去,竟找不着脸架子。应当长骨头的地方,却来上一堆果子冻似的肉;该有窝儿的部分,又偏偏鼓起软绵绵的肉疙瘩。这张怪脸给压成了南瓜的形状,配上一对灰眼睛——眉毛的地位只有两道红线——更显得凄凉;整个的脸被一个堂·吉诃德式的鼻子[5]镇住了,像平原上的一座飞来峰。这鼻子,想必塞万提斯也曾注意到,表示一个人天生地热爱一切伟大的事,而结果是着了迷。那副丑相,尽管很滑稽,可绝对不会教人发笑。可怜虫苍白的眼中有一股极凄凉的情调,会教开玩笑的人把到了嘴边的刻薄话重新咽下去。你会觉得造物是不许这老头儿表示什么温情的,要是犯了禁,就得教女人发笑或是难受。看到这种不幸,连法国人也不作声了,他们觉得人生最大的苦难就是不能博得女人的欢心!

[5] 堂·吉诃德身体又高又瘦。根据一般情形,脸相大多与全身调和,故堂·吉诃德的鼻子一定也是很长的。
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Beneath the hat, which seemed ready to drop off at any moment, lay an expanse of countenance grotesque and droll, as the faces which the Chinese alone of all people can imagine for their quaint curiosities. The broad visage was as full of holes as a colander, honeycombed with the shadows of the dints, hollowed out like a Roman mask. It set all the laws of anatomy at defiance. Close inspection failed to detect the substructure. Where you expected to find a bone, you discovered a layer of cartilaginous tissue, and the hollows of an ordinary human face were here filled out with flabby bosses. A pair of gray eyes, red-rimmed and lashless, looked forlornly out of a countenance which was flattened something after the fashion of a pumpkin, and surmounted by a Don Quixote nose that rose out of it like a monolith above a plain. It was the kind of nose, as Cervantes must surely have explained somewhere, which denotes an inborn enthusiasm for all things great, a tendency which is apt to degenerate into credulity. And yet, though the man’s ugliness was something almost ludicrous, it aroused not the slightest inclination to laugh. The exceeding melancholy which found an outlet in the poor man’s faded eyes reached the mocker himself and froze the gibes on his lips; for all at once the thought arose that this was a human creature to whom Nature had forbidden any expression of love or tenderness, since such expression could only be painful or ridiculous to the woman he loved. In the presence of such misfortune a Frenchman is silent; to him it seems the most cruel of all afflictions—to be unable to please!

序号 英文/音标 中文解释 更多操作

Paris

[’pærɪs]

n.巴黎;重楼(百合科植物);帕里斯(姓氏)

frequenter

[frɪk’wentə]

n.常常来访者;常客

passer-by

[’pɑːsəbaɪ]

n.过路人;经过者

Parisian

[pəˈrɪzɪən]

n.巴黎人

ironic

[aɪ’rɒnɪk]

adj.说反话的;讽刺的

sate

[seɪt]

vt.使心满意足;过份地给与

echo

[’ekəʊ]

①[C][U]回声;反响;共鸣;

roar

[rɔː(r)]

v.吼叫;咆哮

freak

[friːk]

n. 奇想,异想;荒唐的行为;反常的现象;

past

[pɑːst]

a. 过去的;

reproduction

[ˌriːprə’dʌkʃn]

n.再现;生殖

revival

[rɪ’vaɪvl]

n.复兴;复活;恢复精神

spencer

[’spensə]

n.(羊毛)短上衣;Spencer.斯宾塞(姓氏;男子名).

encumber

[ɪn’kʌmbə(r)]

v.妨害;阻害

hideous

[’hɪdiəs]

adj.丑陋的;可怕的;可憎的;令人惊骇的

adorn

[ə’dɔːn]

v.装饰;佩戴

knot

[nɒt]

n.结;节

behold

[bɪ’həʊld]

vt.看到;注视;领悟

conquest

[’kɒŋkwest]

n.征服;占领地;战利品;俘虏

symbolize

[’sɪmbəlaɪz]

v.象征;用记号表现

epoch

[’iːpɒk]

n. 时期; 时代; 新纪元; 划时代的大事; 世

specimen

[’spesɪmən]

n.标本;样本

friction

[’frɪkʃn]

n.摩擦;摩擦力

dint

[dɪnt]

n.凹痕;力量

substructure

[’sʌbstrʌktʃə(r)]

n.底部构造;基础

flatten

[’flætn]

vt.使变平;打倒

pumpkin

[’pʌmpkɪn]

n.南瓜

surmount

[sə’maʊnt]

vt.克服;越过;登上 ... 最高点

denote

[dɪ’nəʊt]

vt.表示;象征

inborn

[ˌɪn’bɔːn]

adj.天生的;生来的

degenerate

[dɪ’dʒenəreɪt]

v.退化;堕落

inclination

[ˌɪnklɪ’neɪʃn]

n.倾向;意愿;趋势;斜坡;倾斜度

melancholy

[’melənkəli]

n.忧郁;忧愁;悲伤

tenderness

[’tendənɪs]

n.温柔;娇嫩;柔软

misfortune

[ˌmɪs’fɔːtʃuːn]

n.不幸;灾祸

expanse

[ɪk’spæns]

n.宽阔的区域

countenance

[’kaʊntənəns]

n.面容;面部表情;支持

grotesque

[ɡrəʊ’tesk]

adj.奇形怪状的;奇怪的;怪诞的;可笑的

droll

[drəʊl]

a. 滑稽的,好笑的;

quaint

[kweɪnt]

adj.离奇有趣的;古色古香的;古怪的

visage

[’vɪzɪdʒ]

n.脸;面貌;容貌

colander

[’kʌləndə(r)]

n.滤器;漏勺

honeycomb

[’hʌnikəʊm]

n.蜂窝;蜂窝状物

defiance

[dɪ’faɪəns]

n.蔑视;违抗;挑衅

cartilaginous

[ˌkɑːtɪ’lædʒɪnəs]

adj.软骨的;软骨质的

flabby

[’flæbi]

adj.软弱的;松弛的;没气力的;不稳的

forlornly

[fə’lɔːn]

adj.孤独的;凄凉的;渺茫的

monolith

[’mɒnəlɪθ]

n.巨型独石;整块石料;庞然大物

credulity

[krɪ’djuːləti]

n.轻信;易信

ugliness

[’ʌɡlinəs]

n.丑陋

ludicrous

[’luːdɪkrəs]

adj.荒谬的;可笑的;滑稽的

arouse

[ə’raʊz]

v.叫醒;唤醒;激起;睡醒

mocker

[mɒkə(r)]

n.嘲弄者;模仿者

Frenchman

[’frentʃmən]

n.法国人

简典