There was no possibility of taking a walk that day. We had been wandering, indeed, in the leafless shrubbery an hour in the morning; but since dinner (Mrs. Reed, when there was no company, dined early) the cold winter wind had brought with it clouds so sombre, and a rain so penetrating, that further out-door exercise was now out of the question.

那天，出门散步是不可能的了。其实，我们早晨还在寸草不生的灌木丛里闲逛了一小时；但自从午饭后（没有客人造访时，里德夫人就会早些用餐），便刮起了冬日的寒风，接着乌云满天，大雨倾盆，户外活动也就此作罢。

I was glad of it: I never liked long walks, especially on chilly afternoons: dreadful to me was the coming home in the raw twilight, with nipped fingers and toes, and a heart saddened by the chidings of Bessie, the nurse, and humbled by the consciousness of my physical inferiority to Eliza, John, and Georgiana Reed.

我倒是很高兴。我从来都不喜欢远距离散步，尤其是在寒冷的下午。一想到在阴冷的黄昏回到家，手脚都冻麻了，还要受到保姆贝西的责备，又觉得自己体力不如伊莱扎、约翰和乔治亚娜，心里既难过又惭愧，这情形是很糟的。

The said Eliza, John, and Georgiana were now clustered round their mama in the drawing-room: she lay reclined on a sofa by the fireside, and with her darlings about her (for the time neither quarrelling nor crying) looked perfectly happy. Me, she had dispensed from joining the group; saying, "She regretted to be under the necessity of keeping me at a distance;but that until she heard from Bessie, and could discover by her own observation, that I was endeavouring in good earnest to acquire a more sociable and childlike disposition, a more attractive and sprightly manner—something lighter, franker, more natural, as it were—she really must exclude me from privileges intended only for contented, happy, little children.”

现在，前面提到的伊莱扎、约翰和乔治亚娜正在客厅里，围着他们的妈妈。她则斜靠在火炉边的沙发上，身边是自己的宝贝儿们（他们此时既没争吵也没哭闹），看起来十分幸福。至于我，她批准我不必加入他们。说她很遗憾，不得不让我离得远一点儿。但是，直到她从贝西那里听到并亲眼见到，我在努力认真地培养更加随和、天真的性情，更加活泼、可爱的举止——更轻松、率真、自然，可以这么说——那她就真得剥夺我享受那些只有快乐知足的孩子才配拥有的特权了。

"What does Bessie say I have done?" I asked.

“贝西跟你说我干什么了？”我问。

"Jane, I don't like cavillers or questioners; besides, there is something truly forbidding in a child taking up her elders in that manner.

“简，我不喜欢吹毛求疵或刨根问底的人；而且，一个小孩子这么跟长辈说话，实在让人讨厌。

Be seated somewhere; and until you can speak pleasantly, remain silent.”

找个地方坐下，不会好好说话就保持沉默。”

A breakfast-room adjoined the drawing-room, I slipped in there. It contained a bookcase: I soon possessed myself of a volume, taking care that it should be one stored with pictures. I mounted into the window-seat: gathering up my feet, I sat cross-legged, like a Turk; and, having drawn the red moreen curtain nearly close, I was shrined in double retirement.

客厅隔壁是吃早饭的地方，我便溜了进去。那里有个书柜，我很快就拿了一本，特意挑了一本满是插图的。我爬上窗台，把脚缩起来，像土耳其人那样盘腿坐着；我把红色的波纹窗帘几乎拉严实了，这使我加倍隐蔽。

Folds of scarlet drapery shut in my view to the right hand; to the left were the clear panes of glass, protecting, but not separating me from the drear November day. At intervals, while turning over the leaves of my book, I studied the aspect of that winter afternoon. Afar, it offered a pale blank of mist and cloud; near a scene of wet lawn and storm-beat shrub, with ceaseless rain sweeping away wildly before a long and lamentable blast.

在我右边，绯红色窗幔的褶皱挡住了我的视线；我的左边则是明亮的玻璃窗，它保护我免受十一月阴沉天气的侵害，又没把我与其隔离开。在我翻书的时候，我会时不时地看看冬日下午的景色。只见远处是一片白茫茫的云雾；近处是一片湿漉漉的草坪和被暴风雨打过的灌木丛。一阵长久而凄厉的狂风，驱赶着无止无息的大雨，横扫而过。

I returned to my book—Bewick's History of British Birds : the letterpress thereof I cared little for, generally speaking; and yet there were certain introductory pages that, child as I was, I could not pass quite as a blank. They were those which treat of the haunts of sea-fowl; of "the solitary rocks and promontories" by them only inhabited; of the coast of Norway, studded with isles from its southern extremity, the Lindeness, or Naze, to the North Cape—

我又回到了书中——比伊克的《英国鸟类史》。我对书的正文通常不是很感兴趣，但是有几页导言，虽说我只是个孩子，我却不能当作空白页那样一翻而过。书中写到了海鸟的栖息地；写到了只有它们才居住的“孤单的岩石和海岬”；写到了从最南端的林纳斯尼斯或纳斯，到北角都布满岛屿的挪威海岸——

"Where the Northern Ocean, in vast whirls, Boils round the naked, melancholy isles Of farthest Thule; and the Atlantic surge Pours in among the stormy Hebrides."

“在那里，北冰洋的巨大漩涡，咆哮在极地荒芜、凄凉的小岛周围；大西洋的巨浪奔涌到狂风暴雨的赫布里底群岛。”

Nor could I pass unnoticed the suggestion of the bleak shores of Lapland, Siberia, Spitzbergen, Nova Zembla, Iceland, Greenland, with "the vast sweep of the Arctic Zone, and those forlorn regions of dreary space,—that reservoir of frost and snow, where firm fields of ice, the accumulation of centuries of winters, glazed in Alpine heights above heights, surround the pole, and concentre the multiplied rigours of extreme cold.”Of these death-white realms I formed an idea of my own: shadowy, like all the half-comprehended notions that float dim through children's brains, but strangely impressive. The words in these introductory pages connected themselves with the succeeding vignettes, and gave significance to the rock standing up alone in a sea of billow and spray; to the broken boat stranded on a desolate coast; to the cold and ghastly moon glancing through bars of cloud at a wreck just sinking.

我也不能把有些地方忽略过去，那就是书中提到的拉普兰、西伯利亚、斯匹次卑尔根群岛、新地岛、冰岛和格陵兰岛的荒凉海岸。“广袤无垠的北极地带和那些阴森的不毛之地——是冰雪的贮存处，经过几个世纪的冬天的积累，冰层坚固得像阿尔卑斯山的层层高峰，包围着极地，光滑耀眼，把与日俱增的寒冷都聚集到一起。”对于这些死白色的地域，我已有自己的看法，却很朦胧，如同浮现在孩子们头脑中的一些一知半解的念头，模糊，但却出奇地令人难忘。这几页导言中的文字，配合着后面的插图，使得独自矗立在破涛汹涌的大海中的岩石，搁浅在荒凉海岸上的破船，以及那透过云层俯视着沉船的凄冷惨淡的月光，更加意味深长。

I cannot tell what sentiment haunted the quite solitary churchyard, with its inscribed headstone; its gate, its two trees, its low horizon, girdled by a broken wall, and its newly-risen crescent, attesting the hour of eventide.

我说不清墓地周围弥漫着一种什么样的情愫。刻有铭文的墓碑、一扇门、两棵树、低低的地平线、环绕四周的残垣断壁，和那一轮刚刚升起的新月，表明正是薄暮时分。

The two ships becalmed on a torpid sea, I believed to be marine phantoms.

两艘轮船静静地躺在平静的海面上，我以为那是海上的鬼影。

The fiend pinning down the thief's pack behind him, I passed over quickly: it was an object of terror.

魔鬼从后面按住窃贼的背包，那情形十分可怕，我迅速翻了过去。

So was the black horned thing seated aloof on a rock, surveying a distant crowd surrounding a gallows.

还有那长着黑角的怪物，独坐在岩石上，审视着远处围着绞刑架的一群人，样子也很可怕。

Each picture told a story; mysterious often to my undeveloped understanding and imperfect feelings, yet ever profoundly interesting: as interesting as the tales Bessie sometimes narrated on winter evenings, when she chanced to be in good humour; and when, having brought her ironing-table to the nursery hearth, she allowed us to sit about it,and while she got up Mrs. Reed's lace frills, and crimped her nightcap borders, fed our eager attention with passages of love and adventure taken from old fairy tales and other ballads; or (as at a later period I discovered) from the pages of Pamela , and Henry, Earl of Moreland .

每一张图都讲述了一个故事；由于我理解力不足，欣赏水平不够，它们显得神秘莫测，但却非常生动有趣。和贝西有时在冬夜讲的故事一样有趣，当然得赶上她心情好；每当这时，贝西会把熨衣架搬到保育室的壁炉旁，让我们围着坐下。她一边烫着里德太太的蕾丝饰边，把睡帽的边沿烫出褶皱，一边给我们讲一段段出自古老的神话或其他歌谣的爱情和冒险故事，我们迫不及待地听着。或者（像我后来发现的），有一些出自《帕美拉》和《莫兰伯爵亨利》。

With Bewick on my knee, I was then happy: happy at least in my way. I feared nothing but interruption, and that came too soon. The breakfast-room door opened.

当时，我的膝头放着比伊克的书，感到非常高兴，至少是自得其乐。我最怕被打扰，但打扰总是来得很快。餐厅的门开了。

"Boh! Madam Mope!"

“嘘！忧愁小姐！”

cried the voice of John Reed; then he paused: he found the room apparently empty.

约翰·里德喊道，接着他又打住了，显然发现房间里空无一人。

"Where the dickens is she!"he continued.

“见鬼，她到哪儿去了！”他继续说道。

"Lizzy! Georgy! (calling to his sisters)

“丽茜！乔琪！（喊他的姐妹）

Joan is not here: tell mama she is run out into the rain—bad animal!”

琼不在这儿，告诉妈妈她跑到雨里去了——这个坏畜生！”

"It is well I drew the curtain," thought I; and I wished fervently he might not discover my hiding-place: nor would John Reed have found it out himself; he was not quick either of vision or conception; but Eliza just put her head in at the door, and said at once—

“幸好我拉好了窗帘。”我想，我真希望他找不到我的藏身之处。约翰·里德自己肯定是发现不了的；他眼睛不尖，头脑也不灵光；但是伊莱扎刚在门口探进头来，就立刻喊道：

"She is in the window-seat, to be sure, Jack.”

“她在窗台上呢，肯定的，杰克。”

And I came out immediately, for I trembled at the idea of being dragged forth by the said Jack.

于是我立刻出来了，因为一想到要被这个杰克拽出来，我就不寒而栗。

"What do you want?"I asked, with awkward diffidence.

“什么事呀？”我问，既尴尬又不安。

"Say, 'What do you want, Master Reed?'" was the answer. "I want you to come here;" and seating himself in an arm-chair, he intimated by a gesture that I was to approach and stand before him.

“要说‘什么事呀，里德少爷？’”这便是我得到的回答。“我想让你过来。”他坐到扶手椅上，做了个手势，意思是让我走过去站在他面前。

John Reed was a schoolboy of fourteen years old; four years older than I, for I was but ten: large and stout for his age, with a dingy and unwholesome skin; thick lineaments in a spacious visage, heavy limbs and large extremities. He gorged himself habitually at table, which made him bilious, and gave him a dim and bleared eye and flabby cheeks. He ought now to have been at school; but his mama had taken him home for a month or two,"on account of his delicate health."Mr. Miles, the master, affirmed that he would do very well if he had fewer cakes and sweetmeats sent him from home; but the mother's heart turned from an opinion so harsh, and inclined rather to the more refined idea that John's sallowness was owing to over-application and, perhaps, to pining after home.

约翰·里德是个十四岁的小学生，比我大四岁，而我只有十岁；他长得比同龄人要高大结实，肤色灰暗，一副病相；宽脸盘，五官粗犷，四肢沉重而肥大。他习惯性地暴饮暴食，这使得他肝火很旺，眼睛黯淡迟钝，双颊松弛。他现在本应该在学校，但是“由于身体欠佳”，他妈妈把他领回家住一两个月。他的老师迈尔斯先生断言，如果家里能少送些点心和糖果，他会很好的。但是做母亲的心里讨厌这种刻薄的建议，而倾向于一种更文雅的想法，认为约翰的蜡黄脸色是由于用功过度，或者可能是想家导致的。

John had not much affection for his mother and sisters, and an antipathy to me. He bullied and punished me; not two or three times in the week, nor once or twice in the day, but continually: every nerve I had feared him, and every morsel of flesh in my bones shrank when he came near. There were moments when I was bewildered by the terror he inspired, because I had no appeal whatever against either his menaces or his inflictions;the servants did not like to offend their young master by taking my part against him, and Mrs. Reed was blind and deaf on the subject: she never saw him strike or heard him abuse me, though he did both now and then in her very presence, more frequently, however, behind her back.

约翰对他母亲和姐妹们没有多少感情，对我则很厌恶。他欺负我，虐待我，一周都不只两三次，一天也不只一两次，而是经常如此。我的每根神经都惧怕他，他走近时，我身上的每块肌肉都会收缩起来。有时候我会被他吓得手足无措，因为面对他的威胁和欺负，我无处倾诉。仆人们不愿站在我这边而得罪他们的小主人。里德夫人对此则装聋作哑，她从来都没看到或听到她儿子打骂我，尽管约翰有时当着她的面欺负我，她不在的时候就更变本加厉了。

Habitually obedient to John, I came up to his chair: he spent some three minutes in thrusting out his tongue at me as far as he could without damaging the roots: I knew he would soon strike, and while dreading the blow, I mused on the disgusting and ugly appearance of him who would presently deal it. I wonder if he read that notion in my face; for, all at once, without speaking, he struck suddenly and strongly. I tottered, and on regaining my equilibrium retired back a step or two from his chair.

我已经习惯性地顺从于约翰，因此我走到他的椅子前。他用了三分钟朝我猛伸舌头，舌根差点没断了。我知道他马上就要下手，一面担心挨打，一面凝视着这个就要动手的人那张丑恶的、令人生厌的脸。我不知他是否看出了我的心思；因为，突然间，他二话不说，下了狠手。我踉跄了一下，从他椅子跟前往后退了一两步，才又站稳。

"That is for your impudence in answering mama awhile since," said he,"and for your sneaking way of getting behind curtains, and for the look you had in your eyes two minutes since, you rat!"

“谁让你刚才跟妈妈顶嘴，这是给你的教训。”他说，“谁让你偷偷摸摸地躲在窗帘后面，谁让你两分钟前用那种眼神看我，你这只耗子！”

Accustomed to John Reed's abuse, I never had an idea of replying to it; my care was how to endure the blow which would certainly follow the insult.

我已经习惯了约翰·里德的辱骂，从来都不愿回应。我在意的是怎样忍受辱骂过后必然随之而来的一顿暴打。

"What were you doing behind the curtain?" he asked.

“你在窗帘后面干什么？” 他问。

"I was reading."

“我在看书。”

"Show the book."

“把书拿出来。”

I returned to the window and fetched it thence.

我走回窗边把书取来。

"You have no business to take our books; you are a dependent, mama says; you have no money; your father left you none; you ought to beg, and not to live here with gentlemen's children like us, and eat the same meals we do, and wear clothes at our mama's expense. Now, I'll teach you to rummage my bookshelves: for they ARE mine; all the house belongs to me, or will do in a few years. Go and stand by the door, out of the way of the mirror and the windows.

“你没权利拿我们的书，妈妈说你是个累赘，你没有钱，你爸爸什么都没留给你。你应该去乞讨，而不是跟像我们这样体面人家的孩子一起住在这儿，你不该跟我们吃同样的饭，穿妈妈花钱买的衣服。现在，你乱翻我的书架，我要教训你。这些书都是我的，整个房子都属于我，或者过几年就都是我的了。去站到门边，离镜子和窗户远点儿。”

"I did so, not at first aware what was his intention; but when I saw him lift and poise the book and stand in act to hurl it, I instinctively started aside with a cry of alarm: not soon enough, however; the volume was flung, it hit me, and I fell, striking my head against the door and cutting it. The cut bled, the pain was sharp: my terror had passed its climax; other feelings succeeded.

我照他说的做了，起初还不知道他的意图，但当我看到他举起书并拿稳，站起身做好了要扔的姿势时，我一声尖叫，本能地往旁边一闪。但是太晚了，书已经扔了过来，正好打到我。我摔倒了，头撞在门上，磕伤了。伤口磕出了血，疼痛难忍。我的恐惧已经超过了极限，其他情感占了上风。

"Wicked and cruel boy!" I said. "You are like a murderer—you are like a slave-driver—you are like the Roman emperors!”

“你这个邪恶残忍的孩子！” 我说，“你就像个谋杀犯——像个奴隶监工——像个罗马的暴君！”

I had read Goldsmith's History of Rome , and had formed my opinion of Nero, Caligula, &c. Also I had drawn parallels in silence, which I never thought thus to have declared aloud.

我读过戈德史密斯的《罗马史》，对尼禄、卡利古拉等人已经形成了自己的看法。我曾私下做过对比，但从没想过会这么大声地喊出来。

"What! what!" he cried . "Did she say that to me? Did you hear her, Eliza and Georgiana? Won't I tell mama? but first—”

“什么！什么！” 他喊道，“那是她对我说的吗？你们听到了吗，伊莱扎、乔治亚娜？我能不去告诉妈妈吗？但是首先——”

He ran headlong at me: I felt him grasp my hair and my shoulder: he had closed with a desperate thing. I really saw in him a tyrant, a murderer. I felt a drop or two of blood from my head trickle down my neck, and was sensible of somewhat pungent suffering: these sensations for the time predominated over fear, and I received him in frantic sort. I don't very well know what I did with my hands, but he called me"Rat! Rat!" and bellowed out aloud. Aid was near him: Eliza and Georgiana had run for Mrs. Reed, who was gone upstairs: she now came upon the scene, followed by Bessie and her maid Abbot. We were parted: I heard the words—"Dear! dear! What a fury to fly at Master John!""Did ever anybody see such a picture of passion!"

他径直朝我跑过来，我感到他抓住了我的头发和肩膀，他已经不顾一切了。我发现他真的是个暴君，是个谋杀犯。我感觉到一两滴血从头上流到脖子里，感觉到一阵剧烈的疼痛。这些感觉一时占了上风，我不再害怕，疯狂地和他打了起来。我不太清楚我的双手都干了什么，只听他喊我“耗子！耗子！”，并大声咆哮。他的救兵马上就要到了，伊莱扎和乔治亚娜已经跑去找里德夫人了。里德夫人上楼来到现场，后面跟着贝西和女仆阿博特。我们被拉开，我听到有人说——“哎呀！哎呀！怎么在约翰少爷身上出这么大的气！”“有谁见过发这么大脾气的！”

Then Mrs .Reed subjoined—“Take her away to the red-room, and lock her in there.”Four hands were immediately laid upon me, and I was borne upstairs.

紧接着，里德夫人补充道：“把她带到红房子里，锁起来。”有四只手马上按住我，把我带上了楼。 PRtSuluGI5U6DVE6GxqxjV+jfbK1yRH3W0otJmZJ9do74aJG/bf8Ouh0krOvTEVk