狄更斯双语小说:《董贝父子》第47章Part1

The barrier between Mr Dombey and his wife was not weakened by time. Ill-assorted couple, unhappy in themselves and in each other, bound together by no tie but the manacle that joined their fettered hands, and straining that so harshly, in their shrinking asunder, that it wore and chafed to the bone, Time, consoler of affliction and softener of anger, could do nothing to help them. Their pride, however different in kind and object, was equal in degree; and, in their flinty opposition, struck out fire between them which might smoulder or might blaze, as circumstances were, but burned up everything within their mutual reach, and made their marriage way a road of ashes.
Let us be just to him. In the monstrous delusion of his life, swelling with every grain of sand that shifted in its glass, he urged her on, he little thought to what, or considered how; but still his feeling towards her, such as it was, remained as at first. She had the grand demerit of unaccountably putting herself in opposition to the recognition of his vast importance, and to the acknowledgment of her complete submission to it, and so far it was necessary to correct and reduce her; but otherwise he still considered her, in his cold way, a lady capable of doing honour, if she would, to his choice and name, and of reflecting credit on his proprietorship.
Now, she, with all her might of passionate and proud resentment, bent her dark glance from day to day, and hour to hour - from that night in her own chamber, when she had sat gazing at the shadows on the wall, to the deeper night fast coming - upon one figure directing a crowd of humiliations and exasperations against her; and that figure, still her husband's.
Was Mr Dombey's master-vice, that ruled him so inexorably, an unnatural characteristic? It might be worthwhile, sometimes, to inquire what Nature is, and how men work to change her, and whether, in the enforced distortions so produced, it is not natural to be unnatural. Coop any son or daughter of our mighty mother within narrow range, and bind the prisoner to one idea, and foster it by servile worship of it on the part of the few timid or designing people standing round, and what is Nature to the willing captive who has never risen up upon the wings of a free mind - drooping and useless soon - to see her in her comprehensive truth!
Alas! are there so few things in the world, about us, most unnatural, and yet most natural in being so? Hear the magistrate or judge admonish the unnatural outcasts of society; unnatural in brutal habits, unnatural in want of decency, unnatural in losing and confounding all distinctions between good and evil; unnatural in ignorance, in vice, in recklessness, in contumacy, in mind, in looks, in everything. But follow the good clergyman or doctor, who, with his life imperilled at every breath he draws, goes down into their dens, lying within the echoes of our carriage wheels and daily tread upon the pavement stones. Look round upon the world of odious sights - millions of immortal creatures have no other world on earth - at the lightest mention of which humanity revolts, and dainty delicacy living in the next street, stops her ears, and lisps 'I don't believe it!' Breathe the polluted air, foul with every impurity that is poisonous to health and life; and have every sense, conferred upon our race for its delight and happiness, offended, sickened and disgusted, and made a channel by which misery and death alone can enter. Vainly attempt to think of any simple plant, or flower, or wholesome weed, that, set in this foetid bed, could have its natural growth, or put its little leaves off to the sun as GOD designed it. And then, calling up some ghastly child, with stunted form and wicked face, hold forth on its unnatural sinfulness, and lament its being, so early, far away from Heaven - but think a little of its having been conceived, and born and bred, in Hell!

时间没有减少董贝先生和他的妻子之间的障碍。搭配错了的两口子，不论是他们本人，还是他们彼此之间的关系，都是不幸的；把他们联结在一起的，除了束缚他们双手的手铐之外，没有别的东西，在他们想挣脱开的时候，链条被拉得紧紧的，擦伤和磨破了他们的骨头。时间这个苦恼的安慰者与愤怒的缓和者，对他们无能为力，无法给予任何帮助。他们的高傲不论在性质和对象方面多么不同，但在程度上却是相等的；在他们毫不相让的敌对状态中，他们的高傲就像燧石一样，在他们之间打出火花来；它随着不同情况，时而闷火慢燃，时而炽烈地燃烧，但全都把他们相互能接触到的一切东西焚毁无遗，使他们结婚的旅程成为一条撒满灰烬的道路。
让我们公正地对待他。他的生活的怪异的迷误，随着滴进沙漏中去的每一粒沙子而扩展起来；在这种迷误中，他驱赶着她往前跑，很少想一下要驱赶到什么目的地去，或者她怎样去；然而他对她的感情却仍然跟最初的时候一样。在他看来，她的极大的缺点在于：她莫名其妙地拒绝承认他的重要地位，拒绝完全服从他；因此有必要纠正她，征服她；但是在别的方面，他仍然以他冷静的态度，把她看作是一位能对他的选择与名望增添光彩、一位能给她的所有主带来体面的夫人。
在她这方面呢，那天夜里她曾坐在自己的卧室中，注视着墙上的影子，一直坐到很快来临的深夜；从那天夜里起，她怀着激烈与高傲的怨恨，一天又一天，一小时又一小时，用阴沉的眼光注视着一个人影儿指挥着一群羞辱与愤怒化身的影子来反对她；这个人影儿仍然是她丈夫的。
无情地主宰着董贝先生的主要恶习是不是一种违反天性的特性？也许有时值得问一下：天性是什么？人们怎样设法去改变它？由于这种强行扭曲的结果，违反天性是不是不自然的？把我们伟大的大自然母亲的任何儿子或女儿关进狭窄的笼子里，强迫囚人接受一个思想，并用周围懦怯或奸诈的人们对它奴颜婢膝、顶礼膜拜的态度来培育这种思想，在这种情况下，有些甘心充当俘囚的人们，从来不曾凭借自由思想的翅膀（它很快就衰弱不振，毫无用处了）站起来看一看大自然的完备无缺的真实面貌；对于这些俘囚们，天性算是什么呢？
唉！在世界上，在我们四周，最违反天性、但却最自然的事难道还很少吗？让我们听一听行政长官或法官告诫那些被社会所摒弃的违反天性的人们吧！他们在野兽般的习惯方面违反天性，在缺乏端庄方面违反天性，在愚昧无知方面、在恶习方面、在轻率方面、在顽抗方面、在精神方面、在外貌方面、在一切方面都违反天性。可是让我们再跟随着善良的牧师或医生（他们每吸进一口空气，生命都遭受到危险），去到这些人们所居住的像野兽洞穴般狭小而肮脏的房屋里看看吧，我们马车车轮的辚辚声和人们踩过马路石头的脚步声每天都传到那里。让我们再看一看他们四周充满了可憎情景的世界吧--几百万不死的人们除了这个世界之外，在地面上没有其他的世界了--，只要稍稍提到它，就会激起人性的反感；住在邻近街道上的优美与高雅的仙女就会捂住耳朵，说：”我不相信这！”让我们呼吸呼吸那被各种不洁的物质所污染的空气吧，这些不洁的物质对健康与生命是有毒害的。让原本是为了快乐与幸福而授予我们人类的每一种感觉遭到凌辱、厌恶与唾弃吧；只有不幸与死亡才能进入我们感觉的通道。要想让栽培在发臭的苗圃中的任何简单的植物、花卉或药草，像上帝有意安排的那样，自然地生长起来，或迎着阳光，把它的小叶子伸展开来，这是徒劳的尝试。然而，当我们回想起某个身材发育不全、脸上神色邪恶的可怕的孩子的时候，让我们对他那违反天性的罪恶大发议论，哀叹他在这样早的年龄就远远地背离了天国吧，可是让我们也稍稍想一下，他是在地狱中被怀孕、出生与抚养大的啊！