1、Unit 5:巴黎、伦敦落魄记You discover the extreme precariousness of your six francs a day. Mean disasters happen and rob you of food. You have spent your last eighty centimes on half a litre of milk, and are boiling it over the spirit lamp. While it boils a bug runs down your forearm; you give the bug a flick
2、 with your nail, and it falls, plop! straight into the milk. There is nothing for it but to throw the milk away and go foodless. 你发现每天的六法郎根本没有保障。一些意想不到的灾难就会掠夺你的一日三餐。你花最后的八十生丁买了半升牛奶,然后在酒精灯上把它煮沸。煮牛奶时,一只臭虫跳到你的前臂上;你用指甲弹开臭虫,扑通一声,它掉进了牛奶。你无可奈何,只好把牛奶倒了,这样又得继续饿着肚子。You go to the bakers to buy a pound of bread
3、, and you wait while the girl cuts a pound for another customer. She is clumsy, and cuts more than a pound. “Pardon, monsieur,” she says, “I suppose you dont mind paying two sous extra?” Bread is a franc a pound, and you have exactly a franc. When you think that you might be asked to pay two sous ex
4、tra, and would have to confess that you could not, you bolt in panic. It is hours before you dare venture into a bakers shop again.你去面包房买了一磅面包,面包房里的姑娘为另外一个顾客切面包时,你在一旁等着。她笨手笨脚,切了一磅多。 “对不起,先生, ”她说, “我相信你不会介意多付两苏吧。 ”一法郎一磅面包,你恰好只有一法郎。你觉得她有可能会让你额外付两苏,你不得不承认你付不起,所以只能落荒而逃。你作了很长时间的思想斗争才敢再次冒险走进面包房。You go to
5、the greengrocers to spend a franc on a kilogram of potatoes. But one of the pieces that make up the franc is a Belgian piece, and the shopman refuses it. You slink out of the shop, and can never go there again.你来到蔬菜店,想花一法郎买一公斤土豆。但凑够一法郎的硬币中有一枚是比利时硬币,店主拒收。你灰溜溜地离开蔬菜店,再也不敢光顾那里。You have strayed into a re
6、spectable quarter, and you see a prosperous friend coming. To avoid him you dodge into the nearest caf. Once in the caf you must buy something, so you spend your last fifty centimes on a glass of black coffee with a dead fly in it. One could multiply these disasters by the hundred. They are part of
7、the process of being hard up.你游荡到一个体面的街区,看到一个有钱的朋友走过来,为避免与他碰面,你躲进了最近的一家咖啡厅。一旦进了咖啡厅,你就必须买点什么,因此你花去最后五十生丁买了一杯黑咖啡,但里面还有一只死苍蝇。这些不幸数以百计地增加。它们是经济拮据过程中的一部分。You discover what it is like to be hungry. With bread and margarine in your belly, you go out and look into the shop windows. Everywhere there is food
8、insulting you in huge wasteful piles; whole dead pigs, baskets of hot loaves, great yellow blocks of butter, strings of sausages, mountains of potatoes, vast Gruyere cheeses like grindstones. A sniveling self-pity comes over you at the sight of so much food. You plan to grab a loaf and run, swallowi
9、ng it before they catch you; and you refrain, from pure funk.你体会到饥饿是什么感觉了。你真想把面包和黄油吃个够,于是走出住处,透过商店橱窗往里看。商店里大堆奢靡的食物对你是种凌辱;整头整头的死猪,成篮子的热长条面包,大块的黄色牛油,成串的香肠,堆积如山的土豆,状如磨刀石的巨型瑞士格里尔干奶酪。一看到这么多的食物你就觉得极度自怜。你想抓一条面包就跑,在他们抓住你之前吃掉;只是因为怯懦,你还是克制住了。You discover the boredom which is inseparable from poverty; the time
10、s when you have nothing to do and ,being underfed, can interest yourself in nothing. For half a day at a time you lie on your bed, feeling like the jeune squelette in Baudelaires poem. Only food could rouse you. You discover that a man who has gone even a week on bread and margarine is not a man any
11、 longer, only a belly with a few accessory organs.你发现贫困与无聊如影随形;很多时候,你无所事事,因为吃不饱,你对一切都提不起精神。一睡就是半天,感觉像波德莱尔诗中的年轻的骷髅(jeune squelette) 。只有食物能够使你振奋精神。你发现,如果一个人仅靠面包和黄油度日,即使一周,也不再有人样了,仅仅是长有几个附属器官的胃而己。This-one could describe it further, but it is all in the same style -is life on six francs a day. Thousands of people in Paris live it -struggling artists and students, prostitutes when their luck is out, out-of-work people of all kinds. It is the suburbs, as it were, of poverty.这人们可以进一步描述,但风格都一样就是一天六法郎的生活。巴黎有成千上万的人过这种生活奋斗着的艺术家、学生,时运不济的妓女,和各种失业人员。他们仿佛都处于贫困的边缘。