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 49
Oran assumed a novel appearance. You saw more pedestrians, and in the slack hours numbers of people, reduced to idleness because shops and a good many offices were closed, crowded the streets and cafés. For the present they were not unemployed; merely on holiday. So it was that on fine days, toward three in the afternoon, Oran brought to mind a city where public rejoicings are in progress, shops are shut, and traffic is stopped to give a merry-making populace the freedom of the streets.
Naturally the picture-houses benefited by the situation and made money hand over fist. They had one difficulty, however，to provide a change of program, since the circulation of films in the region had been suspended. After a fortnight the various cinemas were obliged to exchange films and, after a further lapse of time, to show always the same program. In spite of this their takings did not fall off.
The cafés, thanks to the big stocks accumulated in a town where the wine-and-liquor trade holds pride of place, were equally able to cater for their patrons. And, to tell the truth, there was much heavy drinking. One of the café had the brilliant idea of putting up a slogan: “The best protection against infection is a bottle of good wine,” which confirmed an already prevalent opinion that alcohol is a safeguard against infectious disease. Every night, toward two a.m., quite a number of drunken men, ejected from the cafés, staggered down the streets, vociferating optimism.
Yet all these changes were, in one sense, so fantastic and had been made so precipitately that it wasn't easy to regard them as likely to have any permanence. With the result that we went on focusing our attention on our personal feelings.
When leaving the hospital two days after the gates were closed, Dr. Rieux met Cottard in the street. The little man was beaming with satisfaction. Rieux congratulated him on his appearance.
“Yes," Cottard said, “I'm feeling very fit. Never was fitter in my life. But tell me, doctor. This blasted plague, what about it? Getting to look mighty serious, isn't it?” When the doctor nodded, he continued exuberantly: “And there's no reason for it to stop now. This town's going to be in an unholy mess, by the look of things.”
They walked a little way together. Cottard told the story of a grocer in his street who had laid by masses of canned provisions with the idea of selling them later on at a big profit. When the ambulance men came to fetch him he had several dozen cans of meat under his bed. “He died in the hospital. There's no money in plague, that's sure.” Cottard was a mine of stories of this kind, true or false, about the epidemic. One of them was about a man with all the symptom and running a high fever who dashed out into the street, flung himself on the first woman he met, and embraced her, yelling that he'd “got it.”
“Good for him!” was Cottard' s comment. But his next remark seemed to belie his gleeful exclamation. “Anyhow, we'll all be nuts before long, unless I'm much mistaken.”
It was on the afternoon of the same day that Grand at last unburdened himself to Rieux. Noticing Mme Rieux' s photograph on the desk, he looked at the doctor inquiringly. Rieux told him that his wife was under treatment in a sanatorium some distance from the town. “In one way,” Grand said, “that's lucky.” The doctor agreed that it was lucky in a sense; but, he added, the great thing was that his wife should recover.
《鼠疫》
作者：阿貝爾?加繆（法國）
第49頁
奧蘭呈現(xiàn)出一派奇怪景象：行人增多了，即使不是高峰時(shí)刻也是一樣，因?yàn)樯痰旰湍承┺k事處關(guān)了門，閑著沒事可干的人群擠滿了街頭和咖啡館。暫時(shí)他們還不是失業(yè)者，只能說是他們享受假期。下午三點(diǎn)，在明朗的天空下的奧蘭簡直給人以一種節(jié)日中的城市的虛假形象：停止了交通，關(guān)上了店門，以便讓群眾性的慶?；顒?dòng)得以開展，市民們涌上街頭，共享節(jié)日的歡樂。
不用說，電影院是不會(huì)放過這種公共假日的，它們趁機(jī)大做生意。但是，省里影片的正常輪流放映已經(jīng)中斷，因此經(jīng)過兩周的放映后，個(gè)電影院不得不互相交換影片，又過了一段時(shí)間，電影院終于只得將同樣的幾部片子放了又放。它們的收入并未減少。
最后再來談?wù)効Х瑞^的情況。在一座葡萄酒和燒酒貿(mào)易居首位的城市中，這類商品的庫存總是可觀的，因此咖啡館倒是能滿足顧客的需求的。說實(shí)在的，酒的銷售量真的不少。有一家咖啡館貼出了“醇酒具有良好殺菌效能”的廣告。老百姓本來就自然而然地相信酒精有防止傳染病的作用，這樣一來，輿論就一下子表示出對(duì)此堅(jiān)信不疑了。每逢到了半夜兩點(diǎn)，街頭上到處可見數(shù)量眾多的被逐出酒店的醉漢，樂觀的言論也到處可聞，
但所有這些變化，從某種意義上來說，顯得異乎尋常，又出現(xiàn)得突如其來，因此很難說這是個(gè)正常和持久的現(xiàn)象。最后，個(gè)人情緒還是在大家的頭腦中占據(jù)了主要位置。
在封城后的兩天，里厄大夫從醫(yī)院出來時(shí)碰見了科塔爾，科塔爾得意地迎向里厄。里厄?qū)扑栒f道，他臉上的氣色看起來很好。
那矮個(gè)子科塔爾回應(yīng)道：“不錯(cuò)，我身體完全好了，比我想象的還要好。對(duì)了，醫(yī)生，請您告訴我，這該死的鼠疫，嗯，嚴(yán)重起來了吧？”
醫(yī)生承認(rèn)情況確實(shí)如此，但科塔爾卻以一種毫不在乎的口吻發(fā)表意見道：“現(xiàn)在它沒有理由停止蔓延啊，這兒的一切都會(huì)被它搞得亂七八糟！”
他們二人一起走了一段路?？扑栔v到他所在的社區(qū)有一個(gè)食品雜貨店的大老板囤積居奇，以圖暴利。當(dāng)人家來送他這個(gè)鼠疫患者去醫(yī)院時(shí)，發(fā)現(xiàn)他的床底下藏著許多罐頭食品?！八涝诹酸t(yī)院，鼠疫是不會(huì)付他錢的。”科塔爾這個(gè)家伙總是有著一肚子這種真真假假的有關(guān)鼠疫的傳聞。比如有人說在市中心，一天早上，一個(gè)帶著癥狀的男子在高燒中精神錯(cuò)亂，他跑到屋外，向他所遇見的第一個(gè)人---一位女子撲去，把她緊緊地?fù)ё。炖锎蠛八呀?jīng)得了鼠疫。
“好吧，”科塔爾用一種同他的語氣不相容的和悅的語調(diào)說道：“我們大家都將發(fā)瘋，這是肯定的！”
同一天下午，約瑟夫?格朗終于向里厄醫(yī)生傾吐了他的秘密，他說他看到過放在里厄醫(yī)生桌子上的里厄太太的相片。說完這句話后，他回過頭來向里厄大夫瞧了一眼。里厄大夫回答他說，他的妻子正在外地療養(yǎng)?！皬哪撤N意義上來說，”格朗說道，“這就是運(yùn)氣?！崩锒虼蠓蚧卮鸬溃@確實(shí)是運(yùn)氣，只要她的病能好起來。
【作者簡介】龔如仲 (Ralph) , 中國對(duì)外經(jīng)濟(jì)貿(mào)易大學(xué)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(tái)英語部播音員、記者, 外貿(mào)部中國輕工業(yè)品進(jìn)出口總公司駐美國公司總裁, 澳大利亞利富集團(tuán)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(dòng)畫電影小說《忍者神龜》（Ninja Turtles) 。
臺(tái)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(xué)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(xì)談如何在大陸做生意》《悠然時(shí)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(xué)會(huì)會(huì)員、中國經(jīng)典文學(xué)網(wǎng)特約作家、臺(tái)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(huì)會(huì)員、加拿大高校文學(xué)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！
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