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 （France）
Page 45
Thus the first thing that plague brought to our town was exile. And the narrator is convinced that he can set down here, as holding good for all, the feeling he personally had and to which many of his friends confessed. It was undoubtedly the feeling of exile-that sensation of a void within which never left us, that irrational longing to hark back to the past or else to speed up the march of time, and those keen shafts of memory that stung like fire. Sometimes we toyed with our imagination, composing ourselves to wait for a ring at the bell announcing somebody's return, or for the sound of a familiar footstep on the stairs; but, though we might deliberately stay at home at the hour when a traveler coming by the evening train would normally have arrived, and though we might contrive to forget for the moment that no trains were running, that game of make-believe, for obvious reasons, could not last. Always a moment came when we had to face the fact that no trains were coming in. And then we realized that the separation was destined to continue, we had no choice but to come to terms with the days ahead. In short, we returned to our prison-house, we had nothing left us but the past, and even if some were tempted to live in the future, they had speedily to abandon the idea-anyhow, as soon as could be-once they felt the wounds that the imagination inflicts on those who yield themselves to it.
It is noteworthy that our towns people very quickly desisted, even in public, from a habit one might have expected them to form-that of trying to figure out the probable duration of their exile. The reason was this: when the most pessimistic had fixed it at, say, six months; when they had drunk in advance the dregs of bitterness of those six black months, and painfully screwed up their courage to the sticking-place, straining all their remaining energy to endure valiantly the long ordeal of all those weeks and days-when they had done this, some friend they met, an article in a newspaper, a vague suspicion, or a flash of foresight would suggest that, after all, there was no reason why the epidemic shouldn't last more than six months; why not a year, or even more?
At such moments the collapse of their courage, willpower, and endurance was so abrupt that they felt they could never drag themselves out of the pit of despond into which they had fallen. Therefore they forced themselves never to think about the problematic day of escape, to cease looking to the future, and always to keep, so to speak, their eyes fixed on the ground at their feet. But, naturally enough, this prudence, this habit of feinting with their predicament and refusing to put up a fight, was ill rewarded. For, while averting that revulsion which they found so unbearable, they also deprived themselves of those redeeming moments, frequent enough when all is told, when by conjuring up pictures of a reunion to be, they could forget about the plague. Thus, in a middle course between these heights and depths, they drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress.
Thus, too, they came to know the incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles, which is to live in company with a memory that serves no purpose. Even the past, of which they thought incessantly, had a savor only of regret. For they would have wished to add to it all that they regretted having left undone, while they might yet have done it, with the man or woman whose return they now awaited; just as in all the activities, even the relatively happy ones, of their life as prisoners they kept vainly trying to include the absent one. And thus there was always something missing in their lives. Hostile to the past, impatient of the present, and cheated of the future, we were much like those whom men's justice, or hatred, forces to live behind prison bars. Thus the only way of escaping from that intolerable leisure was to set the trains running again in one's imagination and in filling the silence with the fancied tinkle of a doorbell, in practice obstinately mute.
《鼠疫》
作者：阿爾貝?加繆(法國）
第45頁
這樣，鼠疫給市民們帶來的第一個影響是一種流放的感覺。作者在這里可以肯定他所寫的東西也能代表大家的感受，因為這是作者同許多市民在同一時間里的共同感受。我們的心靈深處始終存在的空虛感確實是一種流放之感，一種明確清晰的情緒，一種焦慮如火的回憶，一種荒誕不經(jīng)的妄想，不是妄想年光倒流就是相反地妄想時間飛逝。有時候我們讓自己陶醉于幻想境界，設(shè)想自己在愉快地等候親人回來的門鈴聲，或是樓梯上熟悉的腳步聲，再不然便是故意把火車不通的事忘掉，在平時乘傍晚快車來的旅客應該到家的時刻，趕回家中等候親人。當然，這些游戲是不能持久的，清醒地知道火車不通的時刻總是會到來，這時候我們才明白，我們同親人的兩地分離注定要持續(xù)下去。而且我們必須設(shè)法安排自己的一切來度過這段時光?？傊?，從此我們又陷入被囚禁的狀態(tài)，我們只有懷念過去。即是我們當中有幾個人寄希望于未來，但當他們發(fā)覺相信幻想的人最終受到了創(chuàng)傷時，他們也就很快地、盡力地放棄了種種奢望。
特別是，全體市民很快就克制住以前養(yǎng)成的推算他們還要分離多久的習慣，即使在公開場合也是如此。這是為什么呢？原因之一就是有一些最為悲觀的人把這一分離的時間推斷為六個月，于是他們對這一段時期事先做好了含辛茹苦的思想準備，鼓足勇氣地去接受考驗，并竭盡全力地來熬過這漫長而痛苦的歲月；可是當他們偶爾遇到一個朋友，或是看到報紙上的一條消息，再比如頭腦中閃過某種臆測，再不然便是意識到?jīng)]有理由不相信疫情會持續(xù)到半年以上，也可能是一年，甚至超過一年。
這時候他們的勇氣、意志、耐心一下子統(tǒng)統(tǒng)垮掉了，垮得如此突然，以致于使他們感到好像再也爬不起來了。因此他們強制自己不再去想疫情解封的日期，不再去展望未來，只想著強制自己一直耷拉著腦袋過日子。但是這種小心謹慎、回避痛苦、高掛免戰(zhàn)牌的做法效果肯定不大，因為當人們竭力避免這種絕對不希望發(fā)生的精神崩潰時，其結(jié)果他們連鼠疫這一嚴重的事情都暫且置于腦后，只是去幻想日后與親人團聚的情景，這種人之常情的幻想也都給沖掉了。人們陷身于峰頂與深淵的中間，上不上，下不下。不是在那里過日子，而是在不停地浮沉，被遺棄在沒有定向的日子里和毫無結(jié)果的回憶之中，就像是一群飄飄不定的幽靈。除非人們甘愿生根于痛苦之境地，否則邊無立足之地。
他們體驗了一切囚徒和流放者的悲慘遭遇，那就是生存于無益的回憶之中。他們無時無刻不在留戀著過去，而感覺到的不過是惆悵。他們就想著和他們所盼望的親人們一起，把未曾做過的事情統(tǒng)統(tǒng)補進過去的回憶中去。同時，在他們的囚禁生活中，腦海里無時無刻不印上在外地親人的影子，即使在比較愉快的情況下也是如此，因為他們當時的實際處境不能使他們得到滿足。對眼前他們感到心焦，對過去他們感到憎恨，對未來他們感到絕望。他們活象受到人世間的法律制裁或仇恨報復而度著鐵窗生涯的人。到未了，逃避這種難以忍受的空虛感的唯一方法是再次讓火車在幻想中通車，讓時光在幻想中充滿響個不停的門鈴聲---然而這門鈴卻是頑固地保持沉默！
【作者簡介】龔如仲 (Ralph) , 中國對外經(jīng)濟貿(mào)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(mào)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(mào)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。
有關(guān)作品: 中國電影出版社出版翻譯作品美國動畫電影小說《忍者神龜》（Ninja Turtles) 。
臺灣采薇出版社出版、發(fā)行《歲月如重---兼談華國鋒》（此書已被香港中文大學圖書館、美國紐約市市立圖書館、澳大利亞國家圖書館正式收藏）《東西南北中國人---細談如何在大陸做生意》《悠然時光》《如仲詩語》《My Life--Family, Career & VIPs》
中國國際廣播出版社出版、發(fā)行《悠然齋詩文選》《花兒在身邊開放》。
中華詩詞學會會員、中國經(jīng)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！
換一換
