双语畅销书《艾伦图灵传》第1章19:威灵顿夫人

This particular incident was always held against Mr Turing by his wife, the more so as she was particularly in awe of Lady Willingdon. The truth perhaps was that despite all the endless talk of duty, the qualities required in a district officer were very different from those of rule-book-keeping and deference to rank. Governing millions of people spread over an area equal to that of Wales called for an independent judgment and force of personality which were less welcome in the more courtly circles of metropolitan Madras. They were certainly little needed in his retirement, in which the busy intrigue of India assumed a retrospective appeal. His remaining years were dogged by a sense of loss, disillusion, and an intense boredom which fishing and bridge parties could never alleviate. He was aggravated by the fact that his younger wife found the return to Europe an opportunity to emerge from the constricting mental atmosphere of Dublin and Coonoor. For he had little regard for her more intellectual ambitions, combined as they were with a rather nervous, fussy domesticity; while she suffered from his obsessive penny-pinching and sense of being betrayed. They were both emotionally demanding, but neither met the other's demands, and they came to communicate in little but planning the garden.

图灵夫人对此也经常抱怨，尤其是当她羡慕威灵顿夫人的时候。说实话，图灵先生工作很负责，遵守规章，服从安排，一心为当地的数百万人民服务。但是在马德拉斯官场，这些都没有什么用。他的余生，充满了挫折感和幻灭感，钓鱼和桥牌，也无法缓解他的苦闷和压抑。特别是图灵夫人想要回欧洲，这更加恶化了他的情绪。他们不断地给对方提出要求，但是谁也不能满足谁，到后来除了一起收拾花园以外，就很少再沟通了。

One result of the new arrangement was that Alan now saw some point to learning French, and it became Alan's favourite school subject. But he also liked it as a sort of code, in which he naively wrote a postcard to his mother about 'la revolution' at Hazelhurst that Mr Darlington was not supposed to be able to read. (The joke was on their Breton maid at Dinard, who often spoke of a socialist revolution being imminent.)

这趟法国之行的结果是，艾伦喜欢上法语了，这现在成了他最喜欢的学科。实际上，他是喜欢用法语作为一种密码。在海兹赫斯特时，他就用达灵顿先生看不懂的法语，给母亲写明信片，讲法国大革命。这是他在迪纳时，从布瑞顿的女佣那里知道的，这位女佣经常说，社会主义革命即将来临。

But it was science that entranced him, as his parents discovered when they arrived back to find him clutching Natural Wonders. Their reaction was not entirely negative. Mrs Turing's grandfather's second cousin, George Johnstone Stoney (1826-1911), had been a famous Irish scientist whom she had once met as a girl in Dublin. He was best known as the inventor of the word 'electron' which he coined in 1894 before the atomicity of electric charge had been established. Mrs Turing was very proud of having a Fellow of the Royal Society in her family, for ranks and titles made a great impression upon her. She would also show Alan the picture of Pasteur on the French postage stamps, which suggested the prospect of Alan as a benefactor of humanity. Perhaps she recalled that doctor missionary in Kashmir, all those years ago! – but there was also the simple fact that although she herself pressed her ideas into a suitably ladylike form, she still represented the Stoneys who had married applied science to the expanding empire. Alan's father, however, could well have pointed out that a scientist could expect no more than ?500 a year, even in the Civil Service.

不过，真正让艾伦入迷的，仍然是科学。他父母回来时，看到他紧紧抓着《自然奇迹》，对此他们也并不完全反对。图灵夫人的祖父的二堂兄，乔治?约翰斯托?斯托尼（1826-1911），是一位挺有名的爱尔兰科学家，当她还是小女孩的时候，曾在都柏林见过他。这位科学家最著名的事迹，是在1894年创造了「电子」这个词，那时还没有原子价这个概念。家族里有这么一位皇家科学院成员，这让图灵夫人感到十分自豪，那种头衔和地位，给她留下了深刻的印象。她还给艾伦看了印有巴斯德（1822-1895，法国化学家，细菌学家）肖像的法国邮票，让他看看当科学家的光明前景。也许她还想起了多年以前让她仰慕的那位克什米尔的传教士医生。总而言之，她一切的想法都是围绕一个原则，那就是她希望成为贵族，她希望斯托尼家族有人用科学来推动王国进步。然而，图灵先生对此却有不同的看法，他觉得一个科学家每年顶多能挣500英镑，即便当上政府科学家，也多挣不了多少。

But he also helped Alan in his own way, for when back at school in May 1924 Alan wrote:

他虽然这样想，但他还是以自己的方式在帮助艾伦。1924年5月，当艾伦回到学校时，给父亲写信说：