海外頭條總編審 王 在 軍 （中國）
海外頭條副編審 Wendy溫迪（英國）
海 外 頭 條總 編 火 鳳 凰 （海外）
圖片選自百度
英文誦讀：龔如仲（美國）
中文播音：琬 喬（中國）
The Plague
By Albert Camus
Page 30
In fact, like our fellow citizens, Rieux was caught off his guard, and we should understand his hesitations in the light of this fact; and similarly understand how he was torn between conflicting fears and confidence. When a war breaks out, people say: “it’s stupid; it can’t last long.” But though a war may well be too stupid, that doesn’t prevent its lasting. Stupidity has a knack of getting its way; as we should see if we were not always so much wrapped up in ourselves.
In this respect our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn’t a thing made to man’s measure; therefore, we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn’t always pass away, and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they haven’t taken any precautions. Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be modest, that was all, and thought everything still was possible for them; which presupposed that pestilences were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How should they have given a thought to anything like plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys , silences the exchange of views? They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences.
Indeed, even after Dr. Rieux had admitted in his friend’s company that a handful of persons, scattered about the town, had without warning died of plague, the danger still remained fantastically unreal. For the simple reason that, when a man is a doctor, he comes to have his own ideas of physical suffering, and to acquire somewhat more imagination than the average. Looking from his window at the town, outwardly quite unchanged, the doctor felt little more than a faint qualm for the future, a vague unease.
He tried to recall what he had read about the disease. Figures floated across his memory, and he recalled that some thirty or so great plagues known to history had accounted for nearly hundred million deaths. But what are a hundred million deaths? When one has served in a war, one hardly knows what a dead man is, after a while. And since a dead man has no substance unless one has actually seen him dead, a hundred million corpses broadcast through history are no more than a puff of smoke in the imagination. The doctor remembered the plague at Constantinople that, according to Procopius, caused ten thousand deaths in a single day. Ten thousand death made about five times the audience in a biggish cinema. Yes, that was how it should be done. You should collect the people at the exits of five picture houses, you should lead them to a city square and make them die in heaps if you wanted to get a clear notion of what it means. Then at least you could add some familiar faces to the anonymous mass. But naturally that was impossible to put into practice; moreover, what man knows ten thousand faces? In any case the figures of those old historians, like Procopius, weren’t to be relied on; that was common knowledge. Seventy years ago, at Canton, forty thousand rats died of plague before the disease spread to the inhabitants. But, again, in the Canton epidemic there was no reliable way of counting up the rats. A very rough estimate was all that could be made, with, obviously, a wide margin for error. “Let’s see,” the doctor murmured to himself, “supposing the length of a rat to be ten inches, forty thousand rats placed end to end would make a line of …”
《鼠疫》
作者：阿貝爾?加繆 （法國）
第30頁
的確，里厄大夫和我們的同胞一樣，也是猝不及防。必須這樣來理解他的游移不定。也必須這樣來理解他在擔心和信心之間的搖擺不定。面對一場爆發(fā)的戰(zhàn)爭，人們總是說：“打仗是愚蠢的，這仗打不久?！焙翢o疑問，一場戰(zhàn)爭肯定是愚蠢到家了，但是愚蠢并不妨礙戰(zhàn)爭會持續(xù)很久。人若是不總為個人著想，那么就會發(fā)現(xiàn)，原來愚蠢是常態(tài)。在這方面，我們的同胞又和所有人一樣，他們考慮自身，換言之，他們是人本主義者：他們不相信災禍。災禍無法同人較量，于是就認為：災禍不是真實的，而是一場噩夢，總會過去的。然而，并不是總能躲過，噩夢接連不斷，倒是人過世了，首先就是那些人本主義者先死了，因為他們沒有采取預防措施。我們的同胞，論罪過也并不比別人大，只不過他們忘記了人應當謙虛，還以為自己無所不能，感到災難不可能發(fā)生。他們繼續(xù)經營生意，準備旅行，發(fā)表議論。他們怎么能想到鼠疫會毀掉他們的前程，打消了他們的出行和辯論呢？他們自以為自主自由，殊不知只要還有災難，人們永遠也不可能自主自由。
里厄大夫在他的朋友面前，雖然承認散居的幾個患者是在毫無征兆的情況下，剛剛死于鼠疫，但是他仍認為不存在鬧瘟疫的危險。不過，人若當了醫(yī)生，畢竟了解病痛，也多了點兒想象力。里厄醫(yī)生憑窗眺望這座并無變化的城市，隱約感到了心頭萌生了不安情緒，也就是那種面對未來的輕微沮喪。他在頭腦里極力搜索和收集自己對這種病癥所了解的情況。一些數(shù)據(jù)在他的記憶中飄忽顯現(xiàn)，他心中暗道：人類歷史經歷過三十來次鼠疫大流行，大約死了一億人。一億人的死亡，是個什么概念？在戰(zhàn)爭中，就連死亡一個人是怎么回事兒，也不甚了了。既然一個人喪命，只有目睹其死亡，才有一定分量，那么，一億具尸體，排列在歷史的長河中，憑想象也無非是一縷輕煙。里厄大夫想起了君士但丁堡流行的那場鼠疫，據(jù)普羅科厄斯記載：當時一天功夫就有上萬人喪生。一萬名死者，就是一家大型影院觀眾的五倍。要搞清這一點，就應該這樣做：把五家這樣影院的觀眾集中在門口，把他們帶到城里的廣場上，全部屠殺，將尸體堆起來，這樣就能看得稍微清楚一點。至少，在這些無名尸堆上，還可以分辨清幾張熟悉的面孔。自不待言，這是無法實現(xiàn)的。況且，誰能熟悉上萬張面孔呢？就連普羅科厄斯那種人也計算不出來，這是常識。七十年前，廣州鬧瘟疫，在傳染給居民之前，就有四萬只老鼠死于鼠疫。然而，在1871年，人們還沒有辦法統(tǒng)計死老鼠，只能大致估計，顯然很容易出差錯。想到這里，里厄大夫自言自語道：“一只老鼠身長十英寸，那么，四萬只老鼠首尾相連的話，就會長達……”
【作者簡介】龔如仲 (Ralph) , 中國對外經濟貿易大學英語系畢業(yè)。曾任鐵道部援建坦贊鐵路工作組總部英語翻譯, 中國國際廣播電臺英語部播音員、記者, 外貿部中國輕工業(yè)品進出口總公司駐美國公司總裁, 澳大利亞利富集團駐美國公司總裁, 外貿部中國基地總公司駐美國公司總裁, 美國TA國際有限公司駐北京辦事處首席代表。
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中華詩詞學會會員、中國經典文學網(wǎng)特約作家、臺灣采薇出版社資深顧問、奧地利英文網(wǎng)Sinopress特聘專欄作家、歐華新移民作家協(xié)會會員、加拿大高校文學社周同題作者、海外華英總顧問，北美翰苑社長兼總編。
琬喬：朗誦愛好者，喜歡用聲音傳遞世間一切美好與熱愛！
