luck马克吐温中英文

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

–

“Pri

vately

–

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：

“

< br>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：

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

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，

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。

Well,

all

through

his

studies,

I

stood

by him, with the

feeling

a

mother

has

for

a

disabled

child. 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，