帕布莉卡THE CHAMPION SNORER
呼噜王
作者不详，选自《伯灵顿鹰眼报》
张萍 译
It was the Cedar Rapids sleeper. Outside, it was as dark as the inside of an ink-bottle. In the sleeping car people slept. Or tried it.
这是一辆锡达拉皮兹卧铺车。外面黑得伸手不见五指，卧铺车厢里面，人们在睡觉，或者试图睡着。
Some of them slept like Christian men and women, peacefully, sweetly, and quietly.
有些人睡得像基督徒，平静、甜美，而且悄无声息。
Others slept like demons, malignantly, hideously, fiendishly, as though it was their mission to keep everybody else awake.
另一些人则睡得像魔鬼，凶恶、丑陋，而且冷酷无情，好像要完成令他人彻夜不眠的使命。
Of these the man in lower number three was the worst.
这些人中，三号下铺那位是最糟糕的。
We never heard anything snore like him. It was the most systematic snoring that was ever done, even on one of these tournaments of snoring, a sleeping car. He didn’t begin as soon as the lamps were turned down and everybody was in bed.
他的鼾声真是闻所未闻。即使是在像卧铺车这样呼噜锦标赛的宝地，这也是我们听过的最有条不紊的呼噜。大家还没关灯上床就寝，这边就开始鼾声大作。
O, no! There was more cold-blooded diabolism in his system than that. He waited until everybody had had a taste of sleep, just to see how nice and pleasant it was; and then he broke in on their slumbers like a winged, breathing demon, and they never knew what peace was again that night.
噢不！这家伙是更冷血的魔头。当所有人刚刚入眠正在品尝梦乡的甜美时，他破门而入，像一个张开双翼的活生生的魔鬼，让人整夜无法安宁。
He started out with a terrific “Gu-r-r-rt!” that opened every eye in the car. We all hoped it was an accident, however; and, trusting that he wouldn’t do it again, we all forgave him. Then he blasted our hopes and curdled the sweet serenity of our forgiveness by a long-drawn “Gw-a-h-h-hah!” that sounded too much like business to be accidental.
他那响亮的“咕噜噜”的开场白让车厢中每一个人睁开双眼。但我们还指望这只是偶然，他不会再接再厉，那么还可以原谅。可接着他用一声悠长的“呱哈哈”的声浪摧毁了我们的希望，使那些饱含安宁善意的谅解顿时灰飞烟灭。听上去此人绝不会就此善罢甘休。
Then every head in that sleepless sleeper was held off the pillow for a minute, waiting in breathless suspense to hear the worst; and the sleeper in “lower three” went on in long-drawn, regular cadences that indicated good staying qualities, “Gwa-a-a-h! Gwa-a-a-h! Gahwayway! Gahway-wah! Gahwa-a-ah!”
每个无法入眠的人都抬高了头，足足有一分钟，大家悬着心屏息等待最糟的情况。三号下铺却开始一长串抑扬顿挫、品质稳定并且余音袅袅的呼噜声。 “咕哇——哈！咕哇——哈！咕哇——哈！咕哇——哈！”
Evidently it was going to last all night; and the weary heads dropped back on the sleepless pillows, and the swearing began. It mumbled along in low, muttering tones, like the distant echoes of a profane thunderstorm. Pretty soon “lower three” gave us a little variation. He shot off a spiteful “Gwook!” which sounded as though his nose had got mad at him and was going to strike. Then there was a pause, and we began to hope he had either awakened from sleep or strangled to death, —nobody cared very particularly which. But he disappointed everybody with a guttural “Gurroch!”
很明显今夜他是打算没完没了的了。疲倦的人们倒向枕头却了无睡意，有人开始咒骂。低沉含混的喃喃自语像是遥远雷暴的回声。很快，三号下铺玩起了新花样。他突然吐出一声“咕呜——咔”，听上去好像他的鼻子要愤而罢工。然后他停顿了一下，在我们开始期望他要么睡醒，要么被勒死的时候——随便哪个都行——他带着喉音的一声“咕噜兮”让每个人都失望之极。
Then he paused again for breath; and when he had accumulated enough for his purpose he resumed business with a stentorious “Kowpff!” that nearly shot the roof off the car. Then he went on playing such fantastic tricks with his nose, and breathing things that would make the immortal gods weep, if they did but hear him. It seemed an utter, preposterous impossibility that any human being could make the monstrous, hideous noises with its breathing machine that the fellow in “lower three” was making with his.
然后他停顿片刻，调整呼吸，厚积薄发地发出响亮的“咔——噗”，几乎把车厢顶都掀掉了。接着他继续用鼻子玩着各种匪夷所思的技巧，呼吸声惊天地泣鬼神，如果诸神能听到的话。任何人要用自己的呼吸器官发出像三号下铺这位仁兄用鼻子所发出的那种震天动地的可怕噪音几乎是不可能的。
He then ran through all the ranges of the nasal gamut; he went up and down a very chromatic scale of snores; he ran through intricate and fearful variations until it seemed that his nose must be out of joint in a thousand places. All the night and all the day through he told his story: “Gawoh! gurrah! gu-r-r-! Kowpff! Gawaw-wah! gawah-hah! gwock! gwart! gwah-h-h-h woof!”
他在鼻腔各个部位游走，在鼾声的半音阶上下颤动；他穷尽各种微妙、令人生畏的变化，直到他的鼻子听上去应该早已脱节并散落一地。他就这样没日没夜地讲述自己的故事：“呱呜！呱啦！咕——！咔噗！嘎哇——哈！喔咔！喔特！喔——喔噗！”
Just as the other passengers had consulted together how they might slay him, morning dawned, and “lower number three” awoke. Everybody watched the curtain to see what manner of man it was that made the sleeping car a pandemonium. Presently the toilet was completed, the curtains parted, and “lower number three” stood revealed. Great Heavens!
正当其他乘客商量如何干掉这家伙的时候，拂晓来临，三号下铺终于醒了。每个人都盯着门帘，想看看把卧铺车厢搅成一锅粥的到底是何方神圣。梳洗完毕，门帘打开，“三号下铺”站在大家面前。老天爷！
It was a fair young girl, with golden hair, and timid, pleading eyes, like a hunted fawn.
那是个漂亮的年轻姑娘，金色的头发，羞怯恳求的目光，就像一只被追捕的小鹿。
来源：网络，版权归原创者所有，仅作学习交流之用，如有侵权请联系删除。
Companionship of Books
A man may usually be known by the books he reads as well as by the company he keeps; for there is a companionship of books as well as of men; and one should always live in the best company, whether it be of books or of men.
A good book may be among the best of friends. It is the same today that it always was, and it will never change. It is the most patient and cheerful of companions. It does not turn its back upon us in times of adversity or distress. It always receives us with the same kindness; amusing and instructing us in youth, and comforting and consoling us in age.
Men often discover their affinity to each other by the mutual love they have for a book just as two persons sometimes discover a friend by the admiration which both entertain for a third. There is an old proverb, ‘Love me, love my dog.” But there is more wisdom in this:” Love me, love my book.” The book is a truer and higher bond of union. Men can think, feel, and sympathize with each other through their favorite author. They live in him together, and he in them.
A good book is often the best urn of a life enshrining the best that life could think out; for the world of a man’s life is, for the most part, but the world of his thoughts. Thus the best books are treasuries of good words, the golden thoughts, which, remembered and cherished, become our constant companions and comforters.
Books possess an essence of immortality. They are by far the most lasting products of human effort. Temples and statues decay, but books survive. Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh today as when they first passed through their author’s minds, ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividly as ever from the printed page. The only effect of time have been to sift out the bad products; for nothing in literature can long survive e but what is really good.
Books introduce us into the best society; they bring us into the presence of the greatest minds that have ever lived. We hear what they said and did; we see the as if they were really alive; we sympathize with them, enjoy with them, grieve with them; their experience becomes ours, and we feel as if we were in a measure actors with them in the scenes which they describe.
The great and good do not die, even in this world. Embalmed in books, their spirits walk abroad. The book is a living voice. It is an intellect to which on still listens.
译文： 以书为伴（节选）
通常看一个读些什么书就可知道他的为人，就像看他同什么人交往就可知道他的为人一样，因为有人以人为伴，也有人以书为伴。无论是书友还是朋友，我们都应该以最好的为伴。
好书就像是你最好的朋友。它始终不渝，过去如此，现在如此，将来也永远不变。它是最有耐心，最令人愉悦的伴侣。在我们穷愁潦倒，临危遭难时，它也不会抛弃我们，对我们总是一如既往地亲切。在我们年轻时，好书陶冶我们的性情，增长我们的知识；到我们年老时，它又给我们以慰藉和勉励。
人们常常因为喜欢同一本书而结为知已，就像有时两个人因为敬慕同一个人而成为朋友一样。有句古谚说道：“爱屋及屋。”其实“爱我及书”这句话蕴涵更多的哲理。书是更为真诚而高尚的情谊纽带。人们可以通过共同喜爱的作家沟通思想，交流感情，彼此息息相通，并与自己喜欢的作家思想相通，情感相融。
好书常如最精美的宝器，珍藏着人生的思想的精华，因为人生的境界主要就在于其思想的境界。因此，最好的书是金玉良言和崇高思想的宝库，这些良言和思想若铭记于心并多加珍视，就会成为我们忠实的伴侣和永恒的慰藉。
书籍具有不朽的本质，是为人类努力创造的最为持久的成果。寺庙会倒坍，神像会朽烂，而书却经久长存。对于伟大的思想来说，时间是无关紧要的。多年前初次闪现于作者脑海的伟大思想今日依然清新如故。时间惟一的作用是淘汰不好的作品，因为只有真正的佳作才能经世长存。
书籍介绍我们与最优秀的人为伍，使我们置身于历代伟人巨匠之间，如闻其声，如观其行，如见其人，同他们情感交融，悲喜与共，感同身受。我们觉得自己仿佛在作者所描绘的舞台上和他们一起粉墨登场。
即使在人世间，伟大杰出的人物也永生不来。他们的精神被载入书册，传于四海。书是人生至今仍在聆听的智慧之声，永远充满着活力。
Ambition
It is not difficult to imagine a world short of ambition. It would probably be a kinder world: with out demands, without abrasions, without disappointments. People would have time for reflection. Such work as they did would not be for themselves but for the collectivity. Competition would never enter in. conflict would be eliminated, tension become a thing of the past. The stress of creation would be at an end. Art would no longer be troubling, but purely celebratory in its functions. Longevity would be increased, for fewer people would die of heart attack or stroke caused by tumultuous endeavor. Anxiety would be extinct. Time would stretch on and on, with ambition long departed from the human heart.
Ah, how unrelieved boring life would be!
There is a strong view that holds that success is a myth, and ambition therefore a sham. Does this mean that success does not really exist? That achievement is at bottom empty? That the efforts of men and women are of no significance alongside the force of movements and events now not all success, obviously, is worth esteeming, nor all ambition worth cultivating. Which are and which are not is something one soon enough learns on one’s own. But even the most cynical secretly admit that success exists; that achievement counts for a great deal; and that the true myth is that the actions of men and women are useless. To believe otherwise is to take on a point of view that is likely to be deranging. It is, in its implications, to remove all motives for competence, interest in attainment, and regard for posterity.
We do not choose to be born. We do not choose our parents. We do not choose our historical epoch, the country of our birth, or the immediate circumstances of our upbringing. We do not, most of us, choose to die; nor do we choose the time or conditions of our death. But within all this realm of choicelessness, we do choose how we shall live: courageously or in cowardice, honorably or dishonorably, with purpose or in drift. We decide what is important and what is trivial in life. We decide that what makes us significant is either what we do or what we refuse to do. But no matter how indifferent the universe may be to our choices and decisions, these choices and decisions are ours to make. We decide. We choose. And as we decide and choose, so are our lives formed. In the end, forming our own destiny is what ambition is about.
译文： 抱负
一个缺乏抱负的世界将会怎样，这不难想象。或许，这将是一个更为友善的世界：没有渴求，没有磨擦，没有失望。人们将有时间进行反思。他们所从事的工作将不是为了他们自身，而是为了整个集体。竞争永远不会介入；冲突将被消除。人们的紧张关系将成为过往云烟。创造的重压将得以终结。艺术将不再惹人费神，其功能将纯粹为了庆典。人的寿命将会更长，因为由激烈拼争引起的心脏病和中风所导致的死亡将越来越少。焦虑将会消失。时光流逝，抱负却早已远离人心。
啊，长此以往人生将变得多么乏味无聊！
有一种盛行的观点认为，成功是一种神话，因此抱负亦属虚幻。这是不是说实际上并不丰在成功？成就本身就是一场空？与诸多运动和事件的力量相比，男男女女的努力显得微不足？显然，并非所有的成功都值得景仰，也并非所有的抱负都值得追求。对值得和不值得的选择，一个人自然而然很快就能学会。但即使是最为愤世嫉俗的人暗地里也承认，成功确实存在，成就的意义举足轻重，而把世上男男女女的所作所为说成是徒劳无功才是真正的无稽之谈。认为成功不存在的观点很可能造成混乱。这种观点的本意是一笔勾销所有提高能力的动机，求取业绩的兴趣和对子孙后代的关注。
我们无法选择出生，无法选择父母，无法选择出生的历史时期与国家，或是成长的周遭环境。我们大多数人都无法选择死亡，无法选择死亡的时间或条件。但是在这些无法选择之中，我们的确可以选择自己的生活方式：是勇敢无畏还是胆小怯懦，是光明磊落还是厚颜无耻，是目标坚定还是随波逐流。我们决定生活中哪些至关重要，哪些微不足道。我们决定，用以显示我们自身重要性的，不是我们做了什么，就是我们拒绝做些什么。但是不论世界对我们所做的选择和决定有多么漠不关心，这些选择和决定终究是我们自己做出的。我们决定，我们选择。而当我们决定和选择时，我们的生活便得以形成。最终构筑我们命运的就是抱负之所在。
What I Have Lived For
Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a deep ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.
I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy—ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of my life for a few hours for this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it, finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found.
With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.
Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always it brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a hated burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate the evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.
译文： 我为何而生
我的一生被三种简单却又无比强烈的激情所控制：对爱的渴望，对知识的探索和对人类苦难难以抑制的屿。这些激情像狂风，把我恣情吹向四方，掠过苦痛的大海，迫使我濒临绝望的边缘。
我寻求爱，首先因为它使我心为之着迷，这种难以名状的美妙迷醉使我愿意用所有的余生去换取哪怕几个小时这样的幸福。我寻求爱，还因为它能缓解我心理上的孤独中，我感觉心灵的战栗，仿如站在世界的边缘而面前是冰冷，无底的死亡深渊。我寻求爱，因为在我所目睹的结合中，我仿佛看到了圣贤与诗人们所向往的天堂之景。这就是我所寻找的，虽然对人的一生而言似乎有些遥不可及，但至少是我用尽一生所领悟到的。
我用同样的激情去寻求知识。我希望能理解人类的心灵，希望能够知道群星闪烁的缘由。我试图领悟毕达哥拉斯所景仰的“数即万物”的思想。我已经悟出了其中的一点点道理，尽管并不是很多。
爱和知识，用它们的力量把人引向天堂。但是同情却总把人又拽回到尘世中来。痛苦的呼喊声回荡在我的内心。饥饿的孩子，受压迫的难民，贫穷和痛苦的世界，都是对人类所憧憬的美好生活的无情嘲弄。我渴望能够减少邪恶，但是我无能为力，我也难逃其折磨。
这就是我的一生。我已经找到它的价值。而且如果有机会，我很愿意能再活它一次。
