狄更斯雙語小說:《董貝父子》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!

時間沒有減少董貝先生和他的妻子之間的障礙。搭配錯了的兩口子，不論是他們本人，還是他們彼此之間的關係，都是不幸的；把他們聯結在一起的，除了束縛他們雙手的手銬之外，沒有別的東西，在他們想掙脫開的時候，鏈條被拉得緊緊的，擦傷和磨破了他們的骨頭。時間這個苦惱的安慰者與憤怒的緩和者，對他們無能爲力，無法給予任何幫助。他們的高傲不論在性質和對象方面多麼不同，但在程度上卻是相等的；在他們毫不相讓的敵對狀態中，他們的高傲就像燧石一樣，在他們之間打出火花來；它隨着不同情況，時而悶火慢燃，時而熾烈地燃燒，但全都把他們相互能接觸到的一切東西焚燬無遺，使他們結婚的旅程成爲一條撒滿灰燼的道路。
讓我們公正地對待他。他的生活的怪異的迷誤，隨着滴進沙漏中去的每一粒沙子而擴展起來；在這種迷誤中，他驅趕着她往前跑，很少想一下要驅趕到什麼目的地去，或者她怎樣去；然而他對她的感情卻仍然跟最初的時候一樣。在他看來，她的極大的缺點在於：她莫名其妙地拒絕承認他的重要地位，拒絕完全服從他；因此有必要糾正她，征服她；但是在別的方面，他仍然以他冷靜的態度，把她看作是一位能對他的選擇與名望增添光彩、一位能給她的所有主帶來體面的夫人。
在她這方面呢，那天夜裏她曾坐在自己的臥室中，注視着牆上的影子，一直坐到很快來臨的深夜；從那天夜裏起，她懷着激烈與高傲的怨恨，一天又一天，一小時又一小時，用陰沉的眼光注視着一個人影兒指揮着一羣羞辱與憤怒化身的影子來反對她；這個人影兒仍然是她丈夫的。
無情地主宰着董貝先生的主要惡習是不是一種違反天性的特性？也許有時值得問一下：天性是什麼？人們怎樣設法去改變它？由於這種強行扭曲的結果，違反天性是不是不自然的？把我們偉大的大自然母親的任何兒子或女兒關進狹窄的籠子裏，強迫囚人接受一個思想，並用周圍懦怯或奸詐的人們對它奴顏婢膝、頂禮膜拜的態度來培育這種思想，在這種情況下，有些甘心充當俘囚的人們，從來不曾憑藉自由思想的翅膀（它很快就衰弱不振，毫無用處了）站起來看一看大自然的完備無缺的真實面貌；對於這些俘囚們，天性算是什麼呢？
唉！在世界上，在我們四周，最違反天性、但卻最自然的事難道還很少嗎？讓我們聽一聽行政長官或法官告誡那些被社會所摒棄的違反天性的人們吧！他們在野獸般的習慣方面違反天性，在缺乏端莊方面違反天性，在愚昧無知方面、在惡習方面、在輕率方面、在頑抗方面、在精神方面、在外貌方面、在一切方面都違反天性。可是讓我們再跟隨着善良的牧師或醫生（他們每吸進一口空氣，生命都遭受到危險），去到這些人們所居住的像野獸洞穴般狹小而骯髒的房屋裏看看吧，我們馬車車輪的轔轔聲和人們踩過馬路石頭的腳步聲每天都傳到那裏。讓我們再看一看他們四周充滿了可憎情景的世界吧--幾百萬不死的人們除了這個世界之外，在地面上沒有其他的世界了--，只要稍稍提到它，就會激起人性的反感；住在鄰近街道上的優美與高雅的仙女就會捂住耳朵，說：”我不相信這！”讓我們呼吸呼吸那被各種不潔的物質所污染的空氣吧，這些不潔的物質對健康與生命是有毒害的。讓原本是爲了快樂與幸福而授予我們人類的每一種感覺遭到凌辱、厭惡與唾棄吧；只有不幸與死亡才能進入我們感覺的通道。要想讓栽培在發臭的苗圃中的任何簡單的植物、花卉或藥草，像上帝有意安排的那樣，自然地生長起來，或迎着陽光，把它的小葉子伸展開來，這是徒勞的嘗試。然而，當我們回想起某個身材發育不全、臉上神色邪惡的可怕的孩子的時候，讓我們對他那違反天性的罪惡大發議論，哀嘆他在這樣早的年齡就遠遠地背離了天國吧，可是讓我們也稍稍想一下，他是在地獄中被懷孕、出生與撫養大的啊！