-
I was at a dinner in London given in honor
of one of the most celebrated1 English military
men of
his time. I do not want to tell
you his real name and titles. I will just call him
Lieutenant2 General
Lord Arthur
Scoresby.
我出席了一
次在伦敦举行的为当时最著名的英国军人举行的宴会。
我不想告诉你他真实
的名字和头衔，我只想叫他阿瑟
.
斯考兹比爵士。<
/p>
I cannot describe my excitement when
I saw this
great and famous
man. There he sat, the
man himself, in
person, all covered with medals. I could not take
my eyes off him. He seemed to
show the
true mark of greatness. His fame had no effect on
him. The hundreds of eyes watching
him,
the worship of so many people, did not seem to
make any difference to him.
当我见到这位伟大而著名的人物的时候，
兴奋之情无以言表。
他独自一人坐在那里，
浑
身戴满了勋章。
我的注意力无法从他身上挪开，
他好
象就是真正伟大的标志。
他的名望对他
根本没什么影响，成百上
千双敬佩的眼睛，那么多人的崇敬似乎对他没有一丝影响。
Next to me sat
a clergyman, who was an old friend of mine. He was
not always a clergyman.
During the
first half of his life he was a teacher in the
military school at Woolwich. There was a
strange look in his eye as he leaned
toward me and whispered
–
“Privately –
he
is a complete fool.”
He meant, of
course, the hero of our dinner.
坐在我旁边的是一位牧师，
我的一位
老朋友。
他并不是一直是个牧师，
他的前半生在吾
尔维希的军校当一名老师。当他向我斜着身子轻声说话的时候，眼睛里有一种奇怪的表情：
“
别跟别人说，他是个十足的傻子。
”
他，当然指的是宴会上的那位英雄。
This came as a
shock to me. I looked hard at my friend. I could
not have been more surprised
if he had
said the same thing about Napoleon, or Socrates,
or Solomon.
他的话
使我感到很震惊。
这比他说拿破伦或者苏格拉底或者所罗门王是傻子更令我吃惊。
But
I
was
sure
of
two
things
about
the
clergyman.
He
always
spoke3
the
truth.
And,
his
judgment4 of men was good. Therefore, I
wanted to find out more about our hero as soon as
I
days later I got a chance to talk
with the clergyman, and he told me more. These are
his exact words:
但是，
对于这位牧师，我有两点可以
确信：他总是说实话和他对人的判断总是对的。因
此，
我想尽快
找出我们那位大英雄的更多的秘密。
几天以后，
我找到了一个和
这位牧师谈话
的机会。下面就是他跟我说的，原文是：
1
About
forty
years
ago,
I
was
an
instructor5
in
the
military
academy
at
Woolwich,
when
young
Scoresby
was
given
his
first
examination.
I
felt
extremely
sorry
for
him.
Everybody
answered the
questions well, intelligently, while he
–
why, dear me
–
he did not know anything,
so
to
speak.
He
was
a
nice,
pleasant
young
man.
It
was
painful
to
see
him
stand
there
and
give
answers
that were miracles of stupidity.
大约四十年前，
我在吾尔维希军事学
院任教的时候，
年轻的斯考兹比参加了他的第一次
考试。我感到
他那么可怜，每个人都出色机智地回答了问题，而他
----
我
的天，不知道为什
么
----
也就是说
，他什么也不知道。他是个友善的、举止文雅的年轻人。看着他象块木头一
样站在那儿，
净给出一些愚蠢的回答，真是一件痛苦的事。
I knew of
course that when examined again he would fail and
be thrown out. So, I said to
myself, it
would be a simple, harmless act to help him as
much as I could.
我当然知道，如果再考一次他还失败的话，他将会被开除了。于是，我对自己说，我尽
自己最大所能去帮助他，将是一件简单而无恶意的善事。
I
took
him
aside
and
found
he
knew
a
little
about
Julius
Caesar’s
history.
But,
he
did
not
know anything else. So,
I went to work and tested him and worked him like
a slave. I made him
work, over and over
again, on a few questions about Caesar, which I
knew he would be asked.
我把他带到一边，
发现他知道有关凯撒的一点历史。
由于其它的东西他都不知道，
我就
开始逼着他象做苦工
一样学习和检测。
我反复地让他学习一些我知道会用上的关于凯撒的问
< br>题。
If you will believe me, he
came through very well on the day of the
examination. He got high
praise too,
while others who knew a thousand times more than
he were sharply criticized. By some
strange, lucky accident, he was asked
no questions but those I made him study. Such an
accident
does not happen more than once
in a hundred years.
请相信我，
考试那天他出色地通过了，
也得到了很高
的赞赏。
那些知道的比他多一千倍
的人也通过了考试。
出于奇妙而幸运的巧合，
除了我教他的那些问题以外，
< br>别的什么都没有
问道。象这样的巧合，一百年也不会发生一次。
< br>
Well, all through his studies, I stood
by him, with the feeling a mother has for a
disabled child.
2
And he always saved himself by some
miracle.
不过，
虽然他学习的时候，
我就象一位照顾有残疾的孩子的母亲一样待在他身
边，
他还
是通过一些奇迹救了自己。
I
thought that what in the end would destroy him
would be the mathematics examination. I
decided6 to make his end as painless as
possible. So, I pushed facts into his stupid head
for hours.
Finally, I let him go to the
examination to experience what I was sure would be
his dismissal from
school. Well, sir,
try to imagine the result. I was shocked out of my
mind. He took first prize! And
he got
the highest praise.
我想最终会毁掉他的可能是数学。
我决定尽可能使他的结局没有痛苦。
我长时间地训练
他，
把知识硬塞进他那迟钝的
脑壳。
我只在那些考官们最有可能提出的问题上训练和灌输他。
最后，我又让他吃了一些补脑药。呵。先生，你就尽力想象一下吧，我都被自己的智慧给震
惊了，他得了一等奖
!
并且得到了最高奖励。
I felt guilty day and night
–
what I was doing was not
right. But I only wanted to make his
dismissal a little less painful for
him.
I never dreamed
it
would lead to such strange, laughable
results.I thought that sooner or later
one thing was sure to happen: The first real test
once he was
through school would ruin
him.
我日夜承受着良心的谴
责
----
我所做的一切都是错误的，但是起初我只是想使他被
开除
的时候没那么痛苦。
这纯粹是处于善意，
< br>我做梦也没想到会产生这样奇异的令人发笑的结果。
我想一件事迟早肯定会发生：
第一次真正的考试会毁了他。
Then, the Crimean War broke
out. I felt that sad for him that there had to be
a war. Peace
would have given this
donkey a chance to escape from ever being found
out as being so stupid.
Nervously7, I
waited for the worst to happen. It did. He was
appointed an officer. A captain, of all
things!
Who
could
have
dreamed
that
they
would
place
such
a
responsibility
on
such
weak
shoulders as his.
后来，克里米亚战争爆发了，我觉得对他来讲，战争是一件悲
哀的事。和平的时候，可
以给这头蠢驴一次机会，
免得他被别人
发现是个白痴。
我神经紧张地等着最糟糕的事情发生。
它的确发
生了，
它发生的时候，
恐惧在我的大脑里萦绕不停。
他被任命成了队长，
负责全部
事物的队长
!
谁能想到他们会把如此重任放在象他那样柔弱的肩膀上呢
!
队长
!
我觉得我的头
3
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
上一篇：减速机外文翻译
下一篇：机械化英语翻译法[钟平老师2013版]