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A few months ago I was nominated for
Governor of the great state of New York, to run
against
Mr. John T. Smith and Mr. Blank
J. Blank on an independent ticket. I somehow felt
that I had one
prominent advantage over
these gentlemen, and that was--good character. It
was easy to see by
the newspapers that
if ever they had known what it was to bear a good
name, that time had
gone by. It was
plain that in these latter years they had become
familiar with all manner of
shameful
crimes. But at the very moment that I was exalting
my advantage and joying in it in
secret, there was a muddy undercurrent
of discomfort
that was--the having to
hear my name bandied about in familiar connection
with those of such
people. I grew more
and more disturbed. Finally I wrote my grandmother
about it. Her answer
came quick and
sharp. She said:
几个月以前，我被提名为独立党的纽约州州长候选
人，与斯图阿特
-
伍德福先生和约翰
-
霍夫曼先生竞选。
我总觉得我有一个显著的长处胜过这两位先生
，
那就是——声望还好。
从报纸上很容易看出，
即令他们曾
经知道保持名誉的好处，那个时候也已经过去了。近几年来，他们显
然对各式各样可耻的罪行都习以为常
了。但是正当我还在赞美自己的长处，并因此暗自得
意的时候，却有一股不愉快的浑浊潜流“搅浑”我那
快乐心情的深处，
< br>那就是——不得不听到我的名字动辄被人家拿来与那些人相提并论地到处传播。
我
心里
越来越烦乱。后来我就写信给我的祖母，报告这桩事情。她的信回得又快又干脆。她
说：
You have never done one
single thing in all your life to be ashamed of--
not one. Look at the
newspapers--look
at them and comprehend what sort of characters
Messrs. Smith and Blank are,
and then
see if you are willing to lower yourself to their
level and enter a public canvass with
them.
你生平从来没有干过一桩可羞的事情——从来没有
。你看看报纸吧——你看一看，要明白伍德福和霍夫
曼这两位先生是一种什么人物，然后
想一想你是否情愿把自己降到他们的水平，和他们公开竞选。
It was my very thought! I did not sleep
a single moment that night. But, after all, I
could not
recede.
我也正是这么想呀！那
天晚上我片刻也没有睡着。可是事已至此，我究竟无法撒手了。
I was fully committed, and must go on
with the fight. As I was looking listlessly over
the papers at
breakfast I came across
this paragraph, and I may truly say I never was so
confounded before.
我已经完全卷入了漩涡，
不得不继续这场斗争。
早餐时，
我无精打采地看着报纸，<
/p>
忽然发现下面这么一段。
老实说，我从来没有那么吃惊过。
PERJURY.--Perhaps, now that
Mr. Mark Twain is before the people as a candidate
for Governor,
he will condescend to
explain how he came to be convicted of perjury by
thirty-four witnesses in
Wakawak,
Cochin China, in 1863, the intent of which perjury
being to rob a poor native widow
and
her helpless family of a meager plantain-patch,
their only stay and support in their
bereavement and desolation. Mr. Twain
owes it to himself, as well as to the great people
whose
suffrages he asks, to clear this
matter up. Will he do it?
伪证罪——马克
-
吐温先生现在既然在大众面前当了州长候选人，他也许会赏个面子，说明一
下他怎么会
在一八六三年在交趾支那瓦卡瓦克被三十四个证人证明犯了伪证罪。
那次做伪证的意图是要从一个贫苦的
土著寡妇及其无依无靠的儿女手里夺
取一块贫瘠的香蕉园，
那是他们失去亲人之后的凄凉生活中惟一的依
靠和惟一的生活来源。吐温先生应该把这桩事情交代清楚，才对得起他自己，才对得起他所要求投票支持
他的广大人民。他是否会照办呢？
I
thought I should burst with amazement! Such a
cruel, heartless charge! I never had seen Cochin
China! I never had heard of Wakawak! I
didn't know a plantain-patch from a kangaroo! I
did not
know what to do. I was crazed
and helpless. I let the day slip away without
doing anything at all.
The next morning
the same paper had this--nothing more:
我觉得我简直诧异得要爆炸了，这样残酷无情的诬蔑！我一辈子连见也没有见过交趾支那！瓦卡瓦克我连
听也没有听说过！至于香蕉园，我简直就不知道它和一只袋鼠有什么区别！我真不知道怎么办才好
。我简
直弄得神经错乱，不知所措。我只好把那一天混过去，根本就没有采取任何步骤。
第二天早上，同一报纸
上登着这么一条（别的什么也没有）：
SIGNIFICANT.--Mr. Twain, it will be
observed, is suggestively silent about the Cochin
China
perjury.
耐人寻味——大家都会注意到
，吐温先生对于那桩交趾支那的伪证案保持缄默，似有隐衷。
[Mem.--During the rest of the campaign
this paper never referred to me in any other way
than as
（附注——从此以后，在竞选运动期中，这个
报纸一提到我，惟一的称呼就始终是“无耻的伪证制造者吐
温”。）
Next came the Gazette, with this:
其次是《新闻报》，上面登着这么一段：
WANTED TO KNOW.--Will the new candidate
for Governor deign to explain to certain of his
fellow-citizens (who are suffering to
vote for him!) the little circumstance of his
cabin-mates in
Montana losing small
valuables from time to time, until at last, these
things having been
invariably found on
Mr. Twain's person or in his
felt
compelled to give him a friendly admonition for
his own good, and so tarred and feathered
him, and rode him on a rail; and then
advised him to leave a permanent vacuum in the
place he
usually occupied in the camp.
Will he do this?
敬请说明——新任州长竞选人可否将下述事实经过
向本市若干迫切等待着给他投票的市民赐予说明，
以释
群疑？他
在蒙大拿的时候，
和他同住在一间小房子里的伙伴们时常遗失一些小小的贵重物品，
后来这些东
西通通在吐温先生身上或是他的“皮箱”（他用来包裹身
边物品的报纸）里找到了。于是大家为了帮助他
改过自新，就不得不对他进一番友谊的忠
告，所以就给他浑身涂满柏油，粘上羽毛，让他吃“坐木杠”的
苦头，然后就叫他永远离
开他在这个工棚里所占的位子。这究竟是怎么回事，他可以说明一下吗？
Could anything be more deliberately
malicious than that? For I never was in Montana in
my life.
世间还能有比这更居心险恶的事情吗？我是一辈子没有到过蒙大拿的
。
[After this, this journal
customarily spoke of me as,
（从此以后，这个报纸就
照例把我叫做“蒙大拿的小偷吐温”。）
I got to
picking up papers apprehensively--much as one
would lift a desired blanket which he
had some idea might have a rattlesnake
under it. One day this met my eye:
于是我渐
渐对报纸有了戒心，
一拿起来就觉得提心吊胆——很像一个人想睡觉的时候去揭开床毯，
可是脑
子里却担心那底下会有一条响尾蛇似的。有一天，我又看
到这么一段：
THE LIE NAILED.--By
the sworn affidavits of Michael O'Flanagan, Esq.,
of the Five Points, and Mr.
Snub
Rafferty and Mr. Catty Mulligan, of Water Street,
it is established that Mr. Mark Twain's vile
statement that the lamented grandfather
of our noble standard- bearer, Blank J. Blank, was
hanged for highway robbery, is a brutal
and gratuitous LIE, without a shadow of foundation
in
fact. It is disheartening to
virtuous men to see such shameful means resorted
to to achieve
political success as the
attacking of the dead in their graves, and
defiling their honored names
with
slander. When we think of the anguish this
miserable falsehood must cause the innocent
relatives and friends of the deceased,
we are almost driven to incite an outraged and
insulted
public to summary and unlawful
vengeance upon the traducer. But no! let us leave
him to the
agony of a lacerated
conscience (though if passion should get the
better of the public, and in its
blind
fury they should do the traducer bodily injury, it
is but too obvious that no jury could
convict and no court punish the
perpetrators of the deed).
谣言被揭穿了——根据五点
区的迈克尔
-
欧弗兰纳根先生和水街的启特
-
柏恩斯先生及约翰
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亚伦先生三
人
宣誓负责的证词，现已证明马克
-
吐
温先生诬蔑我党德高望重的领袖约翰
-
霍夫曼已故的祖父，说他
是因犯
盗劫罪被处绞刑的。这种卑鄙的说法是一种下流的无端的谣言，连丝毫事实根据的
踪影都没有。像这样毁
谤九泉之下的死者并以谰言玷污他们的令名的无耻手段，
竟被人用以博得政治上的成功，
这实在叫正人君
子看了寒心。
我们想到这种卑鄙的谣言给死者清白的家属和亲友们必然带来的悲恸时，<
/p>
几乎激动得要把受
了污蔑和侮辱的公众鼓动起来，采取断然行动，
对诽谤者施行非法的报复。但是我们不这么办！还是让他
去受到良心的谴责而苦痛吧。<
/p>
（不过公众如果让感情的冲动占了上风，在盲目的愤怒支配之下竟至对诽谤
者加以人身的伤害，
显而易见，
陪审员是不能给这些激
于义愤的人们定罪的，
法院也不能对他们加以处罚。
）
The ingenious closing sentence
had the effect of moving me out of bed with
despatch that night,
and out at the
back door also, while the
breaking
furniture and windows in their righteous
indignation as they came, and taking off such
property as they could carry when they
went. And yet I can lay my hand upon the Book and
say
that I never slandered Mr. Blank's
grandfather. More: I had never even heard of him
or
mentioned him up to that day and
date.
末尾那句巧妙的话居然大起作用，当天夜里就有一群“受了污蔑和侮辱的公
众”从我的房子前面冲进来，
把我吓得连忙从床上爬起来，由后门逃出去。那些人满腔义
愤，来势汹汹，一进门就捣毁了家具和窗户，
走的时候把能带走的财物都拿去了。但是我
可以把手按在《圣经》上发誓，我从来没有诽谤过霍夫曼州长
的祖父。不但如此，直到那
一天为止，我还从来没有听说过他，也从来没有提到过他。
[I will state, in passing, that the
journal above quoted from always referred to me
afterward as
（我要顺便说一声，从那以后，上
面所引的那个报纸就把我称为“盗尸犯吐温”。）
The
next newspaper article that attracted my attention
was the following:
其次一条引起了我的注意的新闻是这样说的：
A SWEET CANDIDATE.--Mr. Mark Twain, who
was to make such a blighting speech at the
mass-meeting of the Independents last
night, didn't come to time! A telegram from his
physician stated that he had been
knocked down by a runaway team, and his leg broken
in two
places--sufferer lying in great
agony, and so forth, and so forth, and a lot more
bosh of the same
sort. And the
Independents tried hard to swallow the wretched
subterfuge, and pretend that
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