Now, this is a subject on which I flatter myself I really am au fait. The gentleman who, when I was young, bathed me at wisdom's font for nine guineas a term—no extras—used to say he never knew a boy who could do less work in more time; and I remember my poor grandmother once incidentally observing, in the course of an instruction upon the use of the Prayer-book, that it was highly improbable that I should ever do much that I ought not to do, but that she felt convinced beyond a doubt that I should leave undone pretty well everything that I ought to do.

那么，懒散度日的确是我自认为十分擅长的题目，这点可不是我自夸。小时候，有位先生每学期收我九几尼——不再额外收费——让我沐浴在智慧的清泉里。他常说，他从来没见过哪个男孩能比我用更多的时间，做更少的功课。我还记得我可怜的祖母在一次教我使用祈祷书的过程中顺便评论说，要我去做我不该做的事是极不可能的，不过同时她也坚信不疑，我该做的每件事情，也一定会原封不动地丢在原地。

I am afraid I have somewhat belied half the dear old lady's prophecy. Heaven help me! I have done a good many things that I ought not to have done, in spite of my laziness. But I have fully confirmed the accuracy of her judgment so far as neglecting much that I ought not to have neglected is concerned. Idling always has been my strong point I take no credit to myself in the matter—it is a gift. Few possess it. There are plenty of lazy people and plenty of slow-coaches, but a genuine idler is a rarity. He is not a man who slouches about with his hands in his pockets. On the contrary, his most startling charhacteristic is that he is always intensely busy.

现在，从某种程度上说，我恐怕已经证明了老祖母的预言有一半不对。上帝保佑！尽管天生一把懒骨头，我还是做了许许多多我本不该做的事。但就忽略了许多我本不该忽略的事情这一点而言，我倒是充分验证了她老人家判断的准确性。懒散度日一直是我的强项，在这件事上我并不居功自恃——这是一种天赋。极少有人拥有这份天赋。这世上有许许多多的懒汉和做事不紧不慢的人，但天生懒骨头却极为罕有。他并非双手插在口袋里到处闲逛的家伙。相反，他最引人注目的特征就是：他总是忙得不可开交。

It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do. There is no fun in doing nothing when you have nothing to do. Wasting time is merely an occupation then, and a most exhausting one. Idleness, like kisses, to be sweet must be stolen.

一个人如果没有许许多多工作需要完成，就无法彻底享受懒散度日的乐趣。而一个人无事可做的时候，无所事事也失去了它原有的乐趣。于是浪费时间仅仅变成了一项任务，还是最劳心费神的任务。懒散度日的感觉就像吻一样，只有偷来的才甜美。

Many years ago, when I was a young man, I was taken very ill—I never could see myself that much was the matter with me, except that I had a beastly cold. But I suppose it was something very serious, for the doctor said that I ought to have come to him a month before, and that if it (whatever it was) had gone on for another week he would not have answered for the consequences. It is an extraordinary thing, but I never knew a doctor called into any case yet but what it transpired that another day's delay would have rendered cure hopeless. Our medical guide, philosopher, and friend is like the hero in a melodrama—he always comes upon the scene just, and only just, in the nick of time. It is Providence, that is what it is.

多年前，我还是个年轻小伙的时候，生了一场大病——我自己没觉得病得多厉害，只知道是场重感冒。但我推测情况应该很严重，因为医生说我本来一个月之前就该去找他，还说如果这病（甭管什么病吧）再拖一个礼拜，他也不敢对后果负责。不过这事太离奇了，我从没见过哪个医生接过延迟一天就会变得无药可救的病例。我们的医疗指导也好，哲学家也好，朋友也好，就像情节剧中的主人公一样——他总是恰好在紧要关头登场，不早也不晚。这是天意，早已注定。

Well, as I was saying, I was very ill and was ordered to Buxton for a month, with strict injunctions to do nothing whatever all the while that I was there. "Rest is what you require," said the doctor, "perfect rest."

好吧，回到刚才的话题，我病得很严重，所以被安排到巴克斯顿休养一个月，整个养病期间被严格禁止做任何事情。“你需要的就是休息，”医生说道，“彻底休息。”

It seemed a delightful prospect. "This man evidently understands my complaint," said I, and I pictured to myself a glorious time—a four weeks' dolce far niente with a dash of illness in it. Not too much illness, but just illness enough—just sufficient to give it the flavor of suffering and make it poetical. I should get up late, sip chocolate, and have my breakfast in slippers and a dressing-gown. I should lie out in the garden in a hammock and read sentimental novels with a melancholy ending, until the books should fall from my listless hand, and I should recline there, dreamily gazing into the deep blue of the firmament, watching the fleecy clouds floating like white-sailed ships across its depths, and listening to the joyous song of the birds and the low rustling of the trees. Or, on becoming too weak to go out of doors, I should sit propped up with pillows at the open window of the ground-floor front, and look wasted and interesting, so that all the pretty girls would sigh as they passed by.

事情听起来令人期待。“这位老兄显然很了解我的心思嘛。”我说道，并为自己描绘了一段无比美妙的时光——四个星期优哉游哉，其间养养小病。大病就不必了，小病就已足够——足以让我感到几丝苦楚，几分诗意就行了。我可以睡到日上三竿，品品巧克力饮料，然后穿着拖鞋和睡袍享用早餐。我可以躺在花园的吊床上读些结局凄凉的情感小说，直到书本从我无力的手中滑落。我还可以躺在那儿，迷蒙地凝望深蓝的天空，看朵朵白云飘浮，仿佛挂着白帆的船舶穿行深海，听鸟儿快乐地歌唱和树叶在风中沙沙作响。或者，身体太过虚弱不能外出的时候，我就在底楼临街敞开的窗口前，垫几个枕头临窗而坐，看起来孱弱消瘦却又惹人注意，引来那些路过的漂亮女孩们一声声叹息。

And twice a day I should go down in a Bath chair to the Colonnade to drink the waters. Oh, those waters! I knew nothing about them then, and was rather taken with the idea. "Drinking the waters" sounded fashionable and Queen Anne -fi ed, and I thought I should like them. But, ugh! After the first three or four mornings! Sam Weller's description of them as "having a taste of warm fl at-irons" conveys only a faint idea of their hideous nauseousness. If anything could make a sick man get well quickly, it would be the knowledge that he must drink a glassful of them every day until he was recovered. I drank them neat for six consecutive days, and they nearly killed me; but after then I adopted the plan of taking a stiff glass of brandy-and-water immediately on the top of them, and found much relief thereby. I have been informed since, by various eminent medical gentlemen, that the alcohol must have entirely counteracted the effects of the chalybeate properties contained in the water. I am glad I was lucky enough to hit upon the right thing.

我得每天两次坐轮椅去科伦纳德喝矿泉水。噢，那水啊!我当时对那里的水一无所知，特别想去尝尝。“喝矿泉水”听起来很时髦，而且还有安妮女王那个时代的感觉，我觉得自己应该会喜欢。可是，唉！最初的三四个上午之后，那是什么感觉啊！萨姆·韦勒说它们尝起来“有股热熨斗的味道”，这实在太过轻描淡写，完全不足以描述它们可怕的恶心味道。假如有什么办法能让一个病人迅速康复，那就是告诉他，病好之前必须每天喝一杯这样的矿泉水。我就是这样连喝了六天纯矿泉水，差点儿要了我的命；不过后来我采取了一个方法，就是在喝完矿泉水后马上灌一杯高浓度的兑水白兰地，这样感觉就好多了。后来很多知名的医学家都告诉我，一定是酒精把矿泉水中铁盐质的作用完全抵消了。我很高兴自己运气不错，能够歪打正着。

But "drinking the waters" was only a small portion of the torture I experienced during that memorable month—a month which was, without exception, the most miserable I have ever spent. During the best part of it I religiously followed the doctor's mandate and did nothing whatever, except moon about the house and garden and go out for two hours a day in a Bath chair. That did break the monotony to a certain extent. There is more excitement about Bath-chairing—especially if you are not used to the exhilarating exercise—than might appear to the casual observer. A sense of danger, such as a mere outsider might not understand, is ever present to the mind of the occupant. He feels convinced every minute that the whole concern is going over, a conviction which becomes especially lively whenever a ditch or a stretch of newly macadamized road comes in sight. Every vehicle that passes he expects is going to run into him; and he never finds himself ascending or descending a hill without immediately beginning to speculate upon his chances, supposing—as seems extremely probable—that the weak-kneed controller of his destiny should let go.

但是在这难忘的一个月里，也是我有生以来度过的最悲惨的一个月里，“喝矿泉水”只是我所受折磨的一小部分。那个月的大部分时间，我都虔诚地奉行医生的指示，不做任何事，只在房子和花园里走动走动，以及每天坐轮椅出行两小时。在某种程度上，这确实对单调的生活有所调剂。坐轮椅的乐趣——特别是你还不习惯这种令人兴奋的锻炼时——远比漫不经心的旁观者可能看到的要多。一个纯粹的局外人或许不会明白坐在轮椅上的人那时时涌上心头的不安全感。每分钟，他都认为轮椅要向前翻个个儿，这种信念在路上出现小坑或者遇到一段新铺的碎石子路时尤为强烈。道路上所有来来往往的车辆，他都认为会撞向自己；但凡上坡或者下坡，他就马上开始捻算自己的命数，生怕掌管自己命运的神仙一时腿脚发软就撒手不管了——而这似乎是极有可能的。

But even this diversion failed to enliven after awhile, and the ennui became perfectly unbearable. I felt my mind giving way under it. It is not a strong mind, and I thought it would be unwise to tax it too far. So somewhere about the twentieth morning I got up early, had a good breakfast, and walked straight off to Hayfield, at the foot of the Kinder Scout —a pleasant, busy little town, reached through a lovely valley, and with two sweetly pretty women in it. At least they were sweetly pretty then; one passed me on the bridge and, I think, smiled; and the other was standing at an open door, making an unremunerative investment of kisses upon a red-faced baby. But it is years ago, and I dare say they have both grown stout and snappish since that time. Coming back, I saw an old man breaking stones, and it roused such strong longing in me to use my arms that I offered him a drink to let me take his place. He was a kindly old man and he humored me. I went for those stones with the accumulated energy of three weeks, and did more work in half an hour than he had done all day. But it did not make him jealous.

但是就连这个调剂也在一段时间后失去了效力，百无聊赖的生活终于变得完全无法忍受。我觉得自己的心智正在其压迫下一点点崩溃。本来我就不是什么心智坚强的人，而且，我认为过度考验它实在不明智。所以，到大约第二十天的时候，一大早我就起来，好好吃了顿早餐，然后径直走向坐落在金德斯考特山脚下的海菲尔德——一个繁忙而舒适的小镇，穿过一个美丽的山谷就能到达。那儿还有两位十分甜美可人的女子，至少她们当时很甜美。其中一个在桥上和我擦肩而过，而且，我感觉到她嫣然一笑；另一个站在敞开的门前，把自己的吻无私地献给了一个脸蛋红润的婴儿。然而，那是好几年前了，我敢说现在她们已经发福，而且变得脾气暴躁。在回来的路上，我看见一个老头儿在砸石子。这个情景勾起了我想活动活动筋骨的强烈愿望，所以我请他喝酒，希望能代替他干活。老人和善而爽快，答应了我。于是，我带着积蓄了三个星期的力量向那些石头走去，半个小时就干了比老头儿干一整天还多的活儿。不过他倒没有因此而妒忌我。

Having taken the plunge, I went further and further into dissipation, going out for a long walk every morning and listening to the band in the pavilion every evening. But the days still passed slowly notwithstanding, and I was heartily glad when the last one came and I was being whirled away from gouty, consumptive Buxton to London with its stern work and life. I looked out of the carriage as we rushed through Hendon in the evening. The lurid glare overhanging the mighty city seemed to warm my heart, and when, later on, my cab rattled out of St. Pancras' station , the old familiar roar that came swelling up around me sounded the sweetest music I had heard for many a long day.

第一次冒险之后，我更加无所顾忌，每天早上都到很远的地方散步，每天晚上都去公园的亭子听乐队演奏。可是日子还是过得缓慢无比。所以当最后一天到来，我坐上飞驰的列车离开巴克斯顿漫漫无期、虚耗生命的生活时，我打心眼儿里高兴可以返回伦敦严苛的工作和生活中。晚上经过亨登时，我向车厢外望去，广阔的城市上空灯火通明，那炫目的光线似乎温暖着我的心。而后来，当车驶出圣潘克拉斯车站时，古老而熟悉的喧哗声潮水般涌来，那真是这许多天以来我听到的最美妙的音乐。

I certainly did not enjoy that month's idling. I like idling when I ought not to be idling; not when it is the only thing I have to do. That is my pigheaded nature. The time when I like best to stand with my back to the fi re, calculating how much I owe, is when my desk is heaped highest with letters that must be answered by the next post. When I like to dawdle longest over my dinner is when I have a heavy evening's work before me. And if, for some urgent reason, I ought to be up particularly early in the morning, it is then, more than at any other time, that I love to lie an extra half-hour in bed.

我当然不喜欢这一个月的无所事事。我喜欢在我不该懒散，而并非在懒散成为我唯一可做之事的时候懒散度日。我的天性就是这样顽固。我最喜欢背靠壁炉算自己欠多少账的时候，也正是我书桌上堆满了邮差下次来之前必须写好回复的信件的时候。我最喜欢慢条斯理享用晚餐的时候，也正是有一晚上的繁重工作在等待我的时候。另外，假如哪天因为某件急事需要起特别早，那一天我就比其他任何时候都更喜欢在床上多赖半个钟头。

Ah! How delicious it is to turn over and go to sleep again: "just for five minutes." Is there any human being, I wonder, besides the hero of a Sunday-school "tale for boys," who ever gets up willingly? There are some men to whom getting up at the proper time is an utter impossibility. If eight o'clock happens to be the time that they should turn out, then they lie till half-past. If circumstances change and half-past eight becomes early enough for them, then it is nine before they can rise. They are like the statesman of whom it was said that he was always punctually half an hour late. They try all manner of schemes. They buy alarm-clocks (artful contrivances that go off at the wrong time and alarm the wrong people). They tell Sarah Jane to knock at the door and call them, and Sarah Jane does knock at the door and does call them, and they grunt back "awri" and then go comfortably to sleep again. I knew one man who would actually get out and have a cold bath; and even that was of no use, for afterward he would jump into bed again to warm himself.

啊！能够翻身再睡个回笼觉的滋味多么美妙，“就再睡五分钟”。我好奇除了主日学校“少年故事”里的主人公外，有谁会自觉自愿地起床呢？对于有些人来说，正点起床是绝对不可能的。如果八点钟是他们应该起床的时间，他们肯定要躺到八点半。如果情况有变，八点半起也来得及，那九点之前他们肯定不会起床。他们就像有些政客一样，据说每次都准时迟到半小时。他们也会尝试各种方法避免晚起。他们买闹钟（可这个精巧的设备不是闹错了时间，就是闹错了人）。他们让萨拉·简敲他们的房门叫他们，萨拉·简确实敲了他们的房门，也确实叫了他们，但他们迷迷糊糊地嗯哼两声算是回应，就又安逸地再次入睡。我认识一个人，他真的会爬出被窝，再洗个冷水澡；可即使那样也毫无用处，因为之后他又会钻回被窝把自己捂热。

I think myself that I could keep out of bed all right if I once got out. It is the wrenching away of the head from the pillow that I find so hard, and no amount of over-night determination makes it easier. I say to myself, after having wasted the whole evening, "Well, I won't do any more work tonight; I'll get up early tomorrow morning;" and I am thoroughly resolved to do so—then. In the morning, however, I feel less enthusiastic about the idea, and reflect that it would have been much better if I had stopped up last night. And then there is the trouble of dressing, and the more one thinks about that the more one wants to put it off.

对于我来说，如果已经起了床，还是可以不再钻回被窝的。但恰恰就是把头拔出枕头的过程让我觉得太过艰难，就算下了一整晚的决心，还是难以做到。在虚度完一整晚的时光后，我会告诉自己：“今晚就不再做什么了，明天早早起床。”我干劲十足，决心一试——至少在当时。可是到了早上，我就感觉没那么多激情了，回想起来，还不如昨晚熬夜晚睡呢。接着又是穿衣打扮的麻烦，越想这些，就越不愿起床。

It is a strange thing this bed, this mimic grave, where we stretch our tired limbs and sink away so quietly into the silence and rest. "O bed, O bed, delicious bed, that heaven on earth to the weary head," as sang poor Hood , you are a kind old nurse to us fretful boys and girls. Clever and foolish, naughty and good, you take us all in your motherly lap and hush our wayward crying. The strong man full of care—the sick man full of pain—the little maiden sobbing for her faithless lover—like children we lay our aching heads on your white bosom, and you gently soothe us off to by-by.

床是一件很奇妙的家具，在这个仿制的墓穴上面，我们伸展疲惫的筋骨，然后多么平静地陷入寂静和睡眠之中。“床啊床，香甜的床，对于疲惫的头颅来说，你就是人间的天堂。”已故的胡德所唱不错，对我们这些浮躁的男孩女孩来说，你就好像是一个温柔可亲的老保姆。不管我们聪明还是迟钝，淘气还是乖巧，你都会将我们抱到你慈母般的膝上，安抚我们任性的哭闹。满腹心思的壮年人——饱受病痛煎熬的病人——为负心男子哭泣的少女——我们都像孩子一样将疼痛的脑袋伏在你洁白的胸膛上，在你温柔的抚慰下进入梦乡。

Our trouble is sore indeed when you turn away and will not comfort us. How long the dawn seems coming when we cannot sleep! Oh! Those hideous nights when we toss and turn in fever and pain, when we lie, like living men among the dead, staring out into the dark hours that drift so slowly between us and the light. And oh! Those still more hideous nights when we sit by another in pain, when the low fire startles us every now and then with a falling cinder, and the tick of the clock seems a hammer beating out the life that we are watching.

在你转身不顾、不再安抚我们的时刻，我们真是极度痛苦。无法入睡时，黎明的到来似乎永无可待！啊！那些我们在高烧和疼痛中辗转反侧的无眠之夜，我们躺着，仿佛活人躺在死魂的世界，双眼向外凝视着，看黑夜时光无比缓慢地从我们与光明之间流过。啊！还有那些更加可怕的夜晚：我们坐在火炉旁，守护着另一个遭受痛苦折磨的人。微弱的火苗不时噼啪作响，扣动心弦，灰烬片片坠落；而钟表的嘀嗒声，则声声如锤，像要把我们悉心守护的生命一点点砸碎。

But enough of beds and bedrooms. I have kept to them too long, even for an idle fellow. Let us come out and have a smoke. That wastes time just as well and does not look so bad. Tobacco has been a blessing to us idlers. What the civil-service clerk before Sir Walter's time found to occupy their minds with it is hard to imagine. I attribute the quarrelsome nature of the Middle Ages young men entirely to the want of the soothing weed. They had no work to do and could not smoke, and the consequence was they were forever fighting and rowing. If, by any extraordinary chance, there was no war going, then they got up a deadly family feud with the next-door neighbor, and if, in spite of this, they still had a few spare moments on their hands, they occupied them with discussions as to whose sweetheart was the best looking, the arguments employed on both sides being battle-axes, clubs, etc. Questions of taste were soon decided in those days. When a twelfth-century youth fell in love he did not take three paces backward, gaze into her eyes, and tell her she was too beautiful to live. He said he would step outside and see about it. And if, when he got out, he met a man and broke his head—the other man's head, I mean—then that proved that his—the first fellow's—girl was a pretty girl. But if the other fellow broke his head—not his own, you know, but the other fellow's—the other fellow to the second fellow, that is, because of course the other fellow would only be the other fellow to him, not the first fellow who—well, if he broke his head, then his girl—not the other fellow's, but the fellow who was the—Look here, if A broke B's head, then A's girl was a pretty girl; but if B broke A's head, then A's girl wasn't a pretty girl, but B's girl was. That was their method of conducting art criticism.

但是关于床铺和卧室就谈这么多吧。即使对于一个无所事事的人来说，这个话题也已说了太长时间。让我们从卧室里出来，抽几口烟吧！抽烟同样可以很好地消磨时光，看起来也还不是很坏。烟草是我们懒人的福音。难以想象沃尔特爵士时代之前的那些国家公职人员都找点什么来填塞他们的头脑。我认为中世纪年轻人争强好斗的全部原因就在于缺少这令人舒心的烟草。他们无事可做，也不能抽烟，所以只好永无休止地打斗和争吵。假如机缘巧合，天下太平，那么他们就得和隔壁邻居结下不共戴天的家族世仇。假如除此之外，他们还能有那么一星半点儿的空闲时间在手上，他们就会争论谁的女友最好看，而双方所持的论据往往是战斧或者棍棒之类的东西。品味问题在那个年代很快就能得出结论。十二世纪的年轻人坠入爱河时，从不后退三步，盯住女孩儿的眼睛，然后告诉她，她美得仿佛不属于人间——他说他想离开一会儿，去考虑一下这个问题。如果他走到外面，见到另一个男人，并且打破了他的头——我是指另一个人的头——那么就能证明他的——第一个人的——女友是个漂亮的姑娘。但如果另一个人打破了他4的4头——不是他自己的，你知道，而是另一个人的——对于第二个人来说的第一个人的，因为显然另一个人肯定是相对于他来说的另一个人，而不是第一个人——好吧，总之如果他打破了他的头，那么他的44女友——不是指另一个人的，而是指那个曾经44——这么说好了，如果甲打破了乙的头，那么甲的女友就是漂亮的；但如果乙打破了甲的头，那么甲的女友就不是漂亮的，而乙的女友才是漂亮的。这就是他们进行艺术评论的方法。

Nowadays we light a pipe and let the girls fight it out among themselves.

如今，我们只需点上烟斗，让姑娘们自己打一架，去解决这个问题吧。

They do it very well. They are getting to do all our work. They are doctors, and barristers, and artists. They manage theaters, and promote swindles, and edit newspapers. I am looking forward to the time when we men shall have nothing to do but lie in bed till twelve, read two novels a day, have nice little five-o'clock teas all to ourselves, and tax our brains with nothing more trying than discussions upon the latest patterns in trousers and arguments as to what Mr. Jones' coat was made of and whether it fitted him. It is a glorious prospect—for idle fellows.

姑娘们做得很好。她们正在慢慢接手我们所有的工作。她们中有医生，有律师，有艺术家。她们管理剧院，诈骗钱财，编辑报纸。我很期待有朝一日我们男人变得无事可做，睡到十二点才起床，每天读两本小说，下午独自享受惬意的小型“五时茶”聚会，除了讨论最新流行的裤子款式，争论诸如琼斯先生外套的质地和式样是否适合他之类的话题以外，再没有更烦心的事了。这是个多么光明的前景——对我们这些懒散的家伙来说。 FwtYLDKsF01J8HZ33rmKSsHqXMV7Avm7GMMheF+g/FqpjqnY+zM7zfbNM9k6AnqH