《悲惨世界》——冉·阿让的修行

为你读英语美文·第341期：《悲惨世界》——冉·阿让的修行 主播：Sally 坐标：广州 Wechat首播 At the moment when the ray of moonlight superposed itself, so to speak, upon that inward radiance, the sleeping Bishop seemed as in a glory. It remained, however, gentle and veiled in an ineffable half-light. That moon in the sky, that slumbering nature, that garden without a quiver, that house which was so calm, the hour, the moment, the silence, added some solemn and unspeakable quality to the venerable repose of this man, and enveloped in a sort of serene and majestic aureole that white hair, those closed eyes, that face in which all was hope and all was confidence, that head of an old man, and that slumber of an infant. 正当月光射来重叠（不妨这样说）在他心光上的时候，熟睡着的主教好象是包围在一圈灵光里。那种光却是柔和的，涵容在一种无可言喻的半明半暗的光里。天空的那片月光，地上的这种沉寂，这个了无声息的园子，这个静谧的人家，此时此刻，万籁俱寂，这一切，都使那慈祥老人酣畅的睡眠有着一种说不出的奇妙庄严的神态，并且还以一种端详肃静的圆光环绕着那些白发和那双合着的眼睛，那种充满了希望和赤忱的容颜，老人的面目和赤子的睡眠。 There was something almost divine in this man, who was thus august, without being himself aware of it. 这个人不自觉的无比尊严几乎可以和神明媲美。 Jean Valjean was in the shadow, and stood motionless, with his iron candlestick in his hand, frightened by this luminous old man. Never had he beheld anything like this. This confidence terrified him. The moral world has no grander spectacle than this: a troubled and uneasy conscience, which has arrived on the brink of an evil action, contemplating the slumber of the just. That slumber in that isolation, and with a neighbor like himself, had about it something sublime, of which he was vaguely but imperiously conscious. 冉阿让，却待在黑影里，手中拿着他的铁烛钎，立着不动，望着这位全身光亮的老人，有些胆寒。他从来没有见过那样的人。他那种待人的赤忱使他惊骇。一个心怀叵测、濒于犯罪的人在景仰一个睡乡中的至人，精神领域中没有比这更宏伟的场面了。他孤零零独自一人，却酣然睡在那样一个陌生人的旁边，他那种卓绝的心怀冉阿让多少也感觉到了，不过他不为所动。 His eye never quitted the old man. The only thing which was clearly to be inferred from his attitude and his physiognomy was a strange indecision. One would have said that he was hesitating between the two abysses,-- the one in which one loses one's self and that in which one saves one's self. He seemed prepared to crush that skull or to kiss that hand. 他的眼睛没有离开老人。从他的姿势和面容上显露出来的，仅仅是一种奇特的犹豫神情。我们可以说，他正面对着两种关口而踟蹰不前，一种是自绝的关口，一种是自救的关口。他仿佛已准备要击碎那头颅或吻那只手。 At the expiration of a few minutes his left arm rose slowly towards his brow, and he took off his cap; then his arm fell back with the same deliberation, and Jean Valjean fell to meditating once more, his cap in his left hand, his club in his right hand, his hair bristling all over his savage head. 过了一会，他缓缓地举起他的左手，直到额边，脱下他的小帽，随后他的手又同样缓缓地落下去。冉阿让重又堕入冥想中了，左手拿着小帽，右手拿着铁钎，头发乱竖在他那粗野的头上。 The Bishop continued to sleep in profound peace beneath that terrifying gaze. 尽管他用怎样可怕的目光望着主教，但主教仍安然酣睡。 冉阿让依然偷了银器，飞快逃走。很快，他就被警察捉到了。米里哀先生却说，丢失的银器是送给冉阿让先生的，并让警察释放他。冉阿让不可置信。 "Is it true that I am to be released?" he said, in an almost inarticulate voice, and as though he were talking in his sleep. “你们真让我走吗？”他说，仿佛是在梦中，字音也几乎没有吐清楚。 "Yes, thou art released; dost thou not understand?" said one of the gendarmes. “是的，我们让你走，你耳朵聋了吗？”一个警察说。 "My friend," resumed the Bishop, "before you go, here are your candlesticks. Take them." “我的朋友，”主教又说，“您在走之先，不妨把您的那对烛台拿去。” He stepped to the chimney-piece, took the two silver candlesticks, and brought them to Jean Valjean. The two women looked on without uttering a word, without a gesture, without a look which could disconcert the Bishop. 他走到壁炉边，拿了那两个银烛台，送给冉阿让。那两个妇人没有说一个字、做一个手势或露一点神气去阻扰主教，她们瞧着他行动。 Jean Valjean was trembling in every limb. He took the two candlesticks mechanically, and with a bewildered air. 冉阿让全身发抖。他机械地接了那两个烛台，不知道怎样才好。 "Now," said the Bishop, "go in peace. By the way, when you return, my friend, it is not necessary to pass through the garden. You can always enter and depart through the street door. It is never fastened with anything but a latch, either by day or by night." “现在，”主教说，“您可以放心走了。呀！还有一件事，我的朋友，您再来时，不必走园里。您随时都可以由街上的那扇门进出。白天和夜里，它都只上一个活闩。” Then, turning to the gendarmes:-- "You may retire, gentlemen." The gendarmes retired. 他转过去朝着那些警察： “先生们，你们可以回去了。” 那些警察走了。 Jean Valjean was like a man on the point of fainting. 这时冉阿让象是个要昏倒的人。 The Bishop drew near to him, and said in a low voice: "Do not forget, never forget, that you have promised to use this money in becoming an honest man." 主教走到他身边，低声向他说：“不要忘记，永远不要忘记您允诺过我，您用这些银子是为了成为一个诚实的人。” Jean Valjean, who had no recollection of ever having promised anything, remained speechless. The Bishop had emphasized the words when he uttered them. He resumed with solemnity:--"Jean Valjean, my brother, you no longer belong to evil, but to good. It is your soul that I buy from you; I withdraw it from black thoughts and the spirit of perdition, and I give it to God." 冉阿让绝对回忆不起他曾允诺过什么话，他呆着不能开口。主教说那些话是一字一字叮嘱的，他又郑重地说：“冉阿让，我的兄弟，您现在已不是恶一方面的人了，您是在善的一面了。我赎的是您的灵魂，我把它从黑暗的思想和自暴自弃的精神里救出来，交还给上帝。” 冉阿让逃出了城。他在田野中仓皇乱窜，他怒不可遏，又不知道怒为谁发。他说不出他是受了感动还是受了侮辱。人生过去的苦难早已使他决心为恶，现在他觉得那种决心动摇了，反而感到不安。 这时一个孩子抛着一块硬币，硬币滚到了冉阿让的脚边。 按照恶的惯性，冉阿让一脚踏在上面。并且把孩子赶走了。把孩子赶走之后，他却没有因为抢了硬币而高兴。 他的眼睛盯着钱币，好象是触着电似的，在黑暗里闪光的银币，仿佛是一只盯着他的大眼睛。 他站在苍凉的平原上，发抖，无处藏身，终于，无法面对自己的良知，急忙向那孩子逃跑的方向走去，跑起来，跑跑停停，在那寂寥的原野上，吼出他那无比凄惨惊人的声音： "Little Gervais! Little Gervais!" Assuredly, if the child had heard him, he would have been alarmed and would have taken good care not to show himself. But the child was no doubt already far away. He encountered a priest on horseback. He stepped up to him and said:-- "Monsieur le Cure, have you seen a child pass?" “小瑞尔威！小瑞尔威！” 如果那孩子听见了，也一定会害怕，会好好地躲起来。不过那孩子，毫无疑问，已经走远了。 他遇见一个骑马的神甫。他走到他身边，向他说： “神甫先生，您看见一个孩子走过去吗？” "No," said the priest. "One named Little Gervais?" "I have seen no one." He drew two five-franc pieces from his money-bag and handed them to the priest. "Monsieur le Cure, this is for your poor people. Monsieur le Cure, he was a little lad, about ten years old, with a marmot, I think, and a hurdy-gurdy. One of those Savoyards, you know?" “没有。”神甫说。 “一个叫小瑞尔威的？” “我谁也没看见。” 他从他钱袋里取出两枚五法郎的钱，交给神甫。 “神甫先生，这是给您的穷人的。神甫先生，他是一个十岁左右的孩子，他有一只田鼠笼子，我想，还有一把摇琴。他是向那个方向走去的。他是一个通烟囱的穷孩子，您知道吗？” "I have not seen him." "Little Gervais? There are no villages here? Can you tell me?" "If he is like what you say, my friend, he is a little stranger. Such persons pass through these parts. We know nothing of them." “我确实没有看见。” “小瑞尔威？他不是这村子里的吗？您能告诉我吗？” “如果他是象您那么说的，我的朋友，那就是一个从别处来的孩子了。他们经过这里，却不会有人认识他们。” Jean Valjean seized two more coins of five francs each with violence, and gave them to the priest. "For your poor," he said. Then he added, wildly:-- "Monsieur l'Abbe, have me arrested. I am a thief." The priest put spurs to his horse and fled in haste, much alarmed. 冉阿让另又拿出两个五法郎的钱交给神甫。 “给您的穷人。”他说。 随后他又迷乱地说： “教士先生，您去叫人来捉我吧。我是一个窃贼。” 神甫踢动双腿，催马前进，魂飞天外似的逃了。 冉阿让走了许多路，张望，叫喊，呼号，越叫声音越微弱，几乎不成字音。那是他最后的努力，他的膝弯忽然折下，仿佛他良心上的负担已成了一种无形的威力突然把他压倒了似的，他精疲力竭，倒在一块大石头上，两手握着头发，脸躲在膝头中间，他喊道：“我是一个无赖！”他的心碎了，他哭了出来，那是他第一次流泪。 Jean Valjean wept for a long time. He wept burning tears, he sobbed with more weakness than a woman, with more fright than a child. 冉阿让哭了许久，淌着热泪，痛不成声，哭得比妇女更柔弱，比孩子更慌乱。 As he wept, daylight penetrated more and more clearly into his soul; an extraordinary light; a light at once ravishing and terrible. His past life, his first fault, his long expiation, his external brutishness, his internal hardness, his dismissal to liberty, rejoicing in manifold plans of vengeance, what had happened to him at the Bishop's, the last thing that he had done, that theft of forty sous from a child, a crime all the more cowardly, and all the more monstrous since it had come after the Bishop's pardon,--all this recurred to his mind and appeared clearly to him, but with a clearness which he had never hithert