狄更斯双语小说:《董贝父子》第27章Part 01

Mr Carker the Manager rose with the lark, and went out, walking in the summer day. His meditations - and he meditated with contracted brows while he strolled along - hardly seemed to soar as high as the lark, or to mount in that direction; rather they kept close to their nest upon the earth, and looked about, among the dust and worms. But there was not a bird in the air, singing unseen, farther beyond the reach of human eye than Mr Carker's thoughts. He had his face so perfectly under control, that few could say more, in distinct terms, of its expression, than that it smiled or that it pondered. It pondered now, intently. As the lark rose higher, he sank deeper in thought. As the lark poured out her melody clearer and stronger, he fell into a graver and profounder silence. At length, when the lark came headlong down, with an accumulating stream of song, and dropped among the green wheat near him, rippling in the breath of the morning like a river, he sprang up from his reverie, and looked round with a suddensmile, as courteous and as soft as if he had had numerous observers to propitiate; nor did he relapse, after being thus awakened; but clearing his face, like one who bethought himself that it might otherwise wrinkle and tell tales, went smiling on, as if for practice.
Perhaps with an eye to first impressions, Mr Carker was very carefully and trimly dressed, that morning. Though always somewhat formal, in his dress, in imitation of the great man whom he served, he stopped short of the extent of Mr Dombey's stiffness: at once perhaps because he knew it to be ludicrous, and because in doing so he found another means of expressing his sense of the difference and distance between them. Some people quoted him indeed, in this respect, as a pointed commentary, and not a flattering one, on his icy patron - but the world is prone to misconstruction, and Mr Carker was not accountable for its bad propensity.
Clean and florid: with his light complexion, fading as it were, in the sun, and his dainty step enhancing the softness of the turf: Mr Carker the Manager strolled about meadows, and green lanes, and glided among avenues of trees, until it was time to return to breakfast. Taking a nearer way back, Mr Carker pursued it, airing his teeth, and said aloud as he did so, 'Now to see the second Mrs Dombey!'
He had strolled beyond the town, and re-entered it by a pleasant walk, where there was a deep shade of leafy trees, and where there were a few benches here and there for those who chose to rest. It not being a place of general resort at any hour, and wearing at that time of the still morning the air of being quite deserted and retired, Mr Carker had it, or thought he had it, all to himself. So, with the whim of an idle man, to whom there yet remained twenty minutes for reaching a destination easily able in ten, Mr Carker threaded the great boles of the trees, and went passing in and out, before this one and behind that, weaving a chain of footsteps on the dewy ground.
But he found he was mistaken in supposing there was no one in the grove, for as he softly rounded the trunk of one large tree, on which the obdurate bark was knotted and overlapped like the hide of a rhinoceros or some kindred monster of the ancient days before the Flood, he saw an unexpected figure sitting on a bench near at hand, about which, in another moment, he would have wound the chain he was making.

经理卡克先生跟云雀一道起床，走出屋外，在夏天的晨光中散步。他在漫步闲游时，皱着眉头，沉思默想着；但是他的沉思似乎没有象云雀飞得那么高或者向着那个方向飞去；倒不如说它们一直待在地面老窠的附近，在尘土和虫子中间东寻西找，但是在看不见的高空中鸣叫的鸟儿，没有一只能飞得比卡克先生的思想更为遥远，更不是人的肉眼所能看到的。他完全控制住脸部的表情，因此人们除了能看出他是在微笑或他正在沉思外，很少有人能用清楚的语言来说明他的表情中还包含着一些什么内容。从他现在的表情来看，他正在聚精会神地深深思考着。云雀愈飞愈高，他的思想则愈陷愈深。云雀的曲调唱得愈来愈清脆，愈来愈嘹亮，他则沉浸在愈来愈庄严、愈来愈深切的沉默中。最后，云雀带着愈流愈急的急流般的歌声，头朝地猛冲下来，停落在他近旁一块在晨风中像河流般起着波浪的绿色麦田中，这时候他从他的遐想中惊醒过来，看看四周，突然彬彬有礼、和蔼可亲地微笑了一下，仿佛他面前有许多观众需要他去抚慰似的。他清醒以后，没有再陷入沉思，而是抹抹脸孔，好像唯恐不这样做，它就会起皱纹，泄露心中的秘密似的；他一边走一边微笑，仿佛在做练习一样。
也许是希望留下一个良好的初次印象，卡克先生这天早晨穿得很讲究，很整齐。虽然他的服装模仿他所服侍的那位伟大人物，经常带有几分谨严的特色，但他没有达到董贝先生那种拘束呆板的程度；这也许一方面是因为他知道那样未免滑稽可笑，另一方面是因为他觉得正好可以通过这另一种方式来表示他明白他们之间存在的差别与距离。确实，有些人认为，他在这一方面是他的冷若冰霜的恩主的确切的注释，而不是谄媚的注释。——但是世界上的人们总是爱歪曲事实，卡克先生不能对这种恶癖负责。
经理卡克先生衣着整洁，华丽；脸色苍白，仿佛在阳光下褪了色似的；他那优雅的步伐更显出了草皮的柔软；他在草地和绿色的小路上漫步闲游，并沿着林荫道静悄悄地走去，直到该回去吃早饭的时候。卡克先生选了一条近路回去，一边走一边让牙齿露出来透透风，并高声说道，“现在去见第二位董贝夫人啦！”
他已走出了城镇的地界之外，回去走的是一条令人愉快的道路，树叶茂盛的林木投下了深沉的荫影，间或可以看到几条长凳，人们可以随意坐下休息。这不是一个时时都有人前去观光的胜地；在这静悄悄的早晨，它显得十分荒凉、僻静。这个地方就只有卡克先生一个人，或者他认为就只有他一个人在领略这里的一切风光。卡克先生这时的心情很像是一个游手好闲的人，本来毫不费劲就可以在十分钟之内到达目的地的，却觉得还有二十分钟可以让他磨蹭，所以他在粗大的树干中间漫游，走进走出，从这株树的前面绕到那株树的后面，在有露水的地面上编织成一个脚步的链条。
可是他发现，他原以为这个小树林里没有其他任何人的想法错了，因为当他轻轻地绕过一株大树的树干（这株大树古老的树皮形成了好多木瘤和相互叠盖的鳞片，就像犀牛或大洪水以前古代某些类似怪物的皮一样）时，他出乎意料地看见一个人坐在近旁的一条长凳上，本来他准备沿着他走的链条方向绕过它的。