I was not alone. Close beside me, half hidden by a tuft of bushes, lay a human being,
就在我身边,一簇灌丛边躺着一个人,
stretched out at full length, with his face literally rooted into the gravel.
他的四肢摊开,脸部简直就是埋在砾石里,
A little boy, five or six years of age, clean and healthful, with his fair brown locks and blue eyes,
似乎那是个孩子,不过五六岁大小,看起来还很健康,衣着干净,褐色的美丽头发,蓝色的眼睛。
stood on the bank above, gazing down upon him with an expression of childhood’s simple and unaffected pity.
我站在上端堤岸上,向下打量着他,眼里满是孩子般的真诚怜悯。
“What ails you?” asked the boy at length. “What makes you lie there?”
“你哪里不舒服?”我开口问道,“你怎么躺着那里?”
The prostrate groveler struggled halfway up, exhibiting the bloated and filthy countenance of a drunkard.
那匍匐在地的家伙挣扎爬起,一付醉醺醺酒鬼的污秽嘴脸,
He made two or three efforts to get upon his feet, lost his balance, and tumbled forward upon his face.
他拼命地两三次欲想站起,没想到却失去重心,脸部朝下再次摔倒。
“What are you doing there?” inquired the boy.
“你到这里做什么?”我问他。
“I’m taking comfort,” he muttered, with his mouth in the dirt.
“我在自我解脱。”他咕哝着说,嘴角紧贴泥土。
Taking his comfort! There he lay,—squalid and loathsome under the bright heaven,—an imbruted man.
自我解脱!他躺在那里,浑身污秽不堪。令人憎恶,一如行尸走肉,趴在一望如洗的蓝天下?
The holy harmonies of Nature, the sounds of gushing waters, the rustle of the leaves above him,
自然神性和谐,河水滚滚不息,枝头树叶婆娑,
the wild flowers, the frost bloom of the woods,—what were they to him?
漫地灿烂野花,树林里闪动晶莹的晨霜,所有这些美好对他意味着什么?
Insensible, deaf, and blind, in the stupor of a living death,
毫无知觉,失去听觉,没有视觉,纯粹一个活死人的恍惚虚无世界。
he lay there, literally realizing that most bitterly significant eastern malediction, “May you eat dirt.”
他僵卧在那里,恐怕最能验证那句颇为苦涩的东方咒语:“啃你的土去吧。”