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New Year's Eve
EVERY man hath two birth—days; two days, at least, in every year, which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it affects his mortal duration. The one is that which in an especial manner he termeth his. In the gradual desuetude of old observances, this custom of solemnizing our proper birth—day hath nearly passed away, or is left to children, who reflect nothing at all about the matter, nor understand any thing in it beyond cake and orange. But the birth of a New Year is of an interest too wide to be pretermitted by king or cobbler. No one ever regarded the First of January with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left. It is the nativity of our common Adam.
每个人都有两次生日，一年至少两天，让他思索时光流逝对自己寿命的影响。其中一个是专属于他的生日。随着旧习俗渐渐废止，庄重地为自己庆生的风俗也几乎随之消失，只有小孩子还保持着。但是，他们对过生日的事又不会有什么想法，除了橘子和蛋糕之外，他们什么都不懂。但是，新年的诞生却关系重大，无论国王还是鞋匠，都不能漠然置之。没有人会对元月一日漠不关心。从那一天起，每个人都要好好规划时间，把握剩下的时日。那天是所有人共同的生日。
Of all sounds of all bell—（bells, the music nighest bordering upon heaven）—most solemn and touching is the peal which rings out the Old Year. I never hear it without a gathering—up of my mind to a concentration of all the images that have been diffused over the past twelvemonth; all I have done or suffered, performed or neglected in that regretted time. I begin to know its worth, as when a person dies. It takes a personal colour; nor was it a poetical flight in a contemporary, when he exclaimed: I saw the skirts of the departing Year.
在所有的钟声当中——钟声是最接近天堂的音乐——最庄严最感人的就是辞别旧岁的钟声了。每次听到这样的钟声，我就会集中精神，让过去十二个月里经历的所有场景在脑海中回放，回想自己在那段无可挽回的时间里做了什么，遭受过什么，完成了什么，又忽略了什么。然后我才如一个将死之人一样，认清了那段时光的价值。这件事带有个人色彩，而一位当代文人也并非由于一时诗性大发才发出如下感叹： “旧的一年一晃而过，我只瞥见了她的裙裾。”
It is no more than what in sober sadness every one of us seems to be conscious of, in that awful leave—taking. I am sure I felt it, and all felt it with me, last night; though some of my companions affected rather to manifest an exhilaration at the birth of the coming year, than any very tender regrets for the decease of its predecessor. But I am none of those who—Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest.
在辞旧之际，我们每一个笼罩在清醒的伤感情绪之下的人才最能体会到这一点。我肯定我昨晚就体会到了这种心情，所有人都随我体会到了这一点。虽然我认识的有些人假装是在展现迎接新年的兴奋，而非惋惜前一年的逝去。但是，我不是那种人。那种 “迎接新人，撵走旧客” 的人。
I am naturally, beforehand, shy of novelties: new books, new faces, new years, —from some mental twist which makes it difficult in me to face the prospective. I have almost ceased to hope; and am sanguine only in the prospects of other （former）years. I plunge into foregone visions and conclusions. I encounter pell—mell with past disappointments. I am armour—proof against old discouragements. I forgive, or overcome in fancy, old adversaries. I play over again for love, as the gamesters phrase it, games, for which I once paid so dear. I would scarce now have any of those untoward accidents and events of my life reversed. I would no more alter them than the incidents of some well—contrived novel. Methinks, it is better that I should have pined away seven of my goldenest years, when I was thrall to the fair hair, and fairer eyes, of Alice W—n, than that so passionate a love—adventure should be lost. It was better that our family should have missed that legacy, which old Dorrell cheated us of, than that I should have at this moment two thousand pounds in banco, and be without the idea of that specious old rogue.
首先，我生来就对新的事物很害羞——新书、新面孔、新年——某种纠结的心理让我难以面对未来。我对未来几乎已经不抱希望了，只有在回想过去的时候才会感到快乐。我一头扎进过去的幻想和结局中。我会因过去的失望而心绪纷乱。面对过去的挫折，我如有盔甲护体。我会在想象中原谅或击败昔日仇敌。为了爱，我会再次像赌徒说的那样去玩票，尽管我曾经为此付出过沉重的代价。我不希望免遭过去我生命中那些不愉快的事情。正如我不愿去修改一部构思巧妙的小说中的情节，我也不愿改变那些事情。我觉得，臣服于艾丽斯·温那迷人的金发和更加迷人的碧眼，痛苦地度过黄金般的七年，这要比失去那段满含激情的爱恋冒险好。老多雷尔骗走我家的那份遗产，这要比此时看到那两千英镑存在银行里，还有那个表里不一的老无赖从脑海中消失要好。
In a degree beneath manhood, it is my infirmity to look back upon those early days. Do I advance a paradox, when I say, that, skipping over the intervention of forty years, a man may have leave to love himself, without the imputation of self—love?
说起来有点缺乏男子汉气概，我的弱点就在于喜欢回顾过去的日子。如果我说，一个人只有跳过四十年的障碍，才可以爱恋自己而不致落下自恋的罪名，这算不算是谬论呢？
If I know aught of myself, no one whose mind is introspective—and mine is painfully so—can have a less respect for his present identity, than I have for the man Elia. I know him to be light, and vain, and humorsome; a notorious***addicted to****averse from counsel, neither taking it, nor offering it: —***besides, a stammering buffoon; what you will; lay it on, and spare not: I subscribe to it all, and much more, than thou canst be willing to lay at his door—but for the child Elia—that "other me, " there, in the back—ground—I must take leave to cherish the remembrance of that young master—with as little reference, I protest, to this stupid changeling of five—and—forty, as if it had been a child of some other house, and not of my parents. I can cry over its patient small—pox at five, and rougher medicaments. I can lay its poor fevered head upon the sick pillow at Christ's, and wake with it in surprise at the gentle posture of maternal tenderness hanging over it, that unknown had watched its sleep. I know how it shrank from any the least colour of falsehood. —God help thee, Elia, how art thou changed! Thou art sophisticated. —I know how honest, how courageous （for a weakling）it was—how religious, how imaginative, how hopeful! From what have I not fallen, if the child I remember was indeed myself, —and not some dissembling guardian, presenting a false identity, to give the rule to my unpractised steps, and regulate the tone of my moral being!
如果我还有自知之明，那么在喜欢自省的人中——我尤其喜欢如此——没有人会像我瞧不起成年的伊莱亚一样瞧不起现在的自我。我知道伊莱亚生性轻浮，虚荣，还反复无常。他……是出了名的，而且还……成瘾。他对忠告抵触得很，既不听人劝，也不劝别人。另外，他还是个小丑，说话结结巴巴。你想怎样说，就尽管直说，不必客气。不管你怎样批判他，我都赞成，甚至还要加深程度。但是，至于童年的伊莱亚——也就是过去的那 “另一个我” ，我非常珍惜关于那个小少爷的回忆——我声明，他与现在这个年满四十五岁的傻瓜几乎没什么关系，仿佛他是别人家的孩子，而不是我父母生的。想到他五岁时得了天花，当他要服那难喝的药时，我流下泪来。我会把他那可怜的发着烧的脑袋放在基督慈幼院病床的枕头上，然后和他一起猛然惊醒，看到一个陌生人正像母亲一般温柔地照顾着他。这个人在他睡觉的时候看护着他。我知道，只要稍微流露出一点虚假，他就会退缩——上帝保佑，伊莱亚，你变化好大啊！你变得世故了。可我知道，过去你是多么诚实，多么勇敢（对于一个病弱的孩子来说），多么虔诚，多么富有想象力，多么充满希望！如果我记忆中的那个孩子确实是我自己——而不是由某位监护人假扮，以一个虚假的身份来规范我不甚熟练的步伐，纠正我的道德观念，那么比起那时，我不是堕落了吗！
That I am fond of indulging, beyond a hope of sympathy, in such retrospection, may be the symptom of some sickly idiosyncrasy. Or is it owing to another cause; simply, that being without wife or family, I have not learned to project myself enough out of myself: and having no offspring of my own to daily with, I turn back upon memory, and adopt my own early idea, as my heir and favourite. If these speculations seem fantastical to thee, reader—（a busy man, perchance）, if I tread out of the way of thy sympathy, and am singularly—conceited only, I retire, impenetrable to ridicule, under the phantom cloud of Elia.
我太喜欢沉浸在这样的回忆之中，别人无法与我产生同感，也许这是一种病态的表现。或者我这样是别有原因的。简单来说，我既无妻子，又无家庭，不知道怎样走出自己的世界。我也没有子女每日相伴，所以我只好回到记忆中去，将过去的想法看作自己的子嗣和宠儿。读者（您必定是一位大忙人），如果您觉得这些念头是空想，觉得我不过是狂妄自负，已经不值得您的同情，那我只好退到伊莱亚那虚幻、奚落无法穿透的云层里。
The elders, with whom I was brought up, were of a character not likely to let slip the sacred observance of any old institution; and the ringing out of the Old Year was kept by them with circumstances of peculiar ceremony. —In those days the sound of those midnight chimes, though it seemed to raise hilarity in all around me, never failed to bring a train of pensive imagery into my fancy. Yet I then scarce conceived what it meant, or thought of it as a reckoning that concerned me. Not childhood alone, but the young man till thirty, never feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it indeed, and, if need were, he could preach a homily on the fragility of life; but he brings it not home to himself, any more than in a hot June we can appropriate to our imagination the freezing days of December. But now, shall I confess a truth? —I feel these audits but too powerfully. I begin to count the probabilities of my duration, and to grudge at the expenditure of moments and shortest periods, like miser's farthings. In proportion as the years both lessen and shorten, I set more count upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual finger upon the spoke of the great wheel. I am not content to pass away "like a weaver's shuttle. " Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with the tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity: and reluct at the inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth; the face of town and country; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the sweet security of streets. I would set up my tabernacle here. I am content to stand still at the age to which I am arrived; I, and my friends: to be no younger, no richer, no handsomer. I do not want to be weaned by age; or drop, like mellow fruit, as they say, into the grave. —Any alteration, on this earth of mine, in diet or in lodging, puzzles and discomposes me. My household gods plant a terrible fixed foot, and are not rooted up without blood. They do not willingly seek Lavinian shores. A new state of being staggers me.
和我一起长大的年长者不会不遵循那些神圣的古老习俗。他们一定要听着钟声辞别旧岁，并且还有一些特殊的仪式。那时，午夜的钟声似乎在我周围营造出了快乐的氛围，但同时也在我脑海中引出了一连串的忧郁场景。但那时我几乎没有细想这意味着什么，也不觉得这和自己有什么关系。不只是孩子，就连三十岁的年轻人也几乎从来都不会想到自己会死去。他清楚地知道，如果需要，他还能就生命的脆弱性发表一通训诫。但他自己却意识不到，就像人们在炎热的六月很难想象到腊月的寒冷一样。但现在，我能说句实话吗？我对那种计算是深有体会的。我开始计算自己还能在世界上活多久，花一时片刻的时间也会吝惜，就像个守财奴守着自己的小钱一样。随着年月越来越少，越来越短，我更加珍惜流逝的时光，想要伸手挡住时间的大车轮上车条的转动，这也是无济于事的。我不甘心让自己像 “织布工手里的梭子” 一样穿过。这些比喻对我起不了慰藉作用，也不会让令人不快的死亡变得甜蜜。我不想让自己被时光的潮水冲走，把生命顺畅地冲到永恒之地，也不愿屈服于命运不可避免的进程。我爱上了这片绿色的土地，城市与村庄的样子，乡间难以言表的孤寂和安全甜美的街道。我愿意在此搭建帐篷。我愿意保持现在的年龄不变，愿我和我的朋友保持现在的年轻、富有和英俊的状态。我不想因为年龄增长而放弃，也不想像熟透的果实那样掉进坟墓。在我的世界里，食物也好，住处也好，只要有一点改变，都会让我困惑不安。我家的守护神牢牢地扎根在这片土地上，若要拔起，定会流血。他们不愿漂到大海的彼岸去。新的生活状态会让我慌乱。
Sun, and sky, and breeze, and solitary walks, and summer holidays, and the greenness of fields, and the delicious juices of meats and fishes and society, and the cheerful glass, and candle—light, and fireside conversations, and innocent vanities, and jests, and irony itself—these things go out with life?
太阳、天空、和风、幽径、夏日的假期、绿色的原野、鲜美的鱼汤肉汁、社交活动、愉悦人心的杯盏、烛光、炉边倾谈、天真的虚荣、戏谑，还有讽刺本身——这些难道都要随生命一同流逝？
Can a ghost laugh, or shake his gaunt sides, when you are pleasant with him?
如果你和鬼相处的愉快，那它会笑吗？枯瘦的身体会不会颤抖？
And you, my midnight darlings, my Folios! must I part with the intense delight of having you （huge armfuls）in my embraces? Must knowledge come to me, if it come at all, by some awkward experiment of intuition, and no longer by this familiar process of reading?
还有你，午夜的宝贝，我的书卷！那种拥你们在怀（一满怀）的强烈快乐，也要与我就此分别了吗？如果我还能获取知识的话，那知识必须要通过某种奇怪的直觉实验获得而非依靠读书这种熟悉的方式吗？
Shall I enjoy friendships there, wanting the smiling indications which point me to them here, —the recognisable face—the "sweet assurance of a look" —?
要是没有微笑的暗示把我指引给他们，没有熟悉的面孔，没有 “给人以信心的甜美一望” ，我还能享受友谊吗？
In winter this intolerable disinclination to dying—to give it its mildest name—does more especially haunt and beset me. In a genial August noon, beneath a sweltering sky, death is almost problematic. At those times do such poor snakes as myself enjoy an immortality. Then we expand and burgeon. Then are we as strong again, as valiant again, as wise again, and a great deal taller. The blast that nips and shrinks me, puts me in thoughts of death. All things allied to the insubstantial, wait upon that master feeling; cold, numbness, dreams, perplexity; moonlight itself, with its shadowy and spectral appearances, —that cold ghost of the sun, or Phoebus 'sickly sister, like that innutritious one denounced in the Canticles: —I am none of her minions—I hold with the Persian.
冬天，那种不想死的难耐心绪——这是最委婉的说法——确实更容易困扰着我，挥之不去。在八月宜人的正午，在炙热的晴空之下，死亡几乎是个问题。这种时节，就连我这样的可怜虫也希望长生不老。于是，我们发芽抽枝，茁壮成长。我们又变得强壮，勇敢，聪明，还比以前高大了许多。但一阵寒风又会让我瑟缩退缩，重新想起死亡。一切都与虚无相连，静候着那种主宰的感觉。寒冷、麻木、梦幻、困惑，还有朦胧、幽灵似的月光本身——它是太阳冰冷的鬼魅，是太阳神羸弱的姊妹，如同《雅歌》中被谴责的那个营养不良的女人。我绝非她的追随者——我站在波斯人一边。
Whatsoever thwarts, or puts me out of my way, brings death into my mind. All partial evils, like humours, run into that capital plague—sore. —I have heard some profess an indifference to life. Such hail the end of their existence as a port of refuge; and speak of the grave as of some soft arms, in which they may slumber as on a pillow. Some have wooed death—but out upon thee, I say, thou foul, ugly phantom! I detest, abhor, execrate, and （with Friar John）give thee to six—score thousand devils, as in no instance to be excused or tolerated, but shunned as a universal viper; to be branded, proscribed, and spoken evil of! In no way can I be brought to digest thee, thou thin, melancholy Privation, or more frightful and confounding Positive!
阻碍我或是让我误入歧途的任何东西，都会使我想起死亡。所有细微的弊病，比如说心情不佳，都会酿成致命的灾疫。我听到有的人公开承认对生命的漠视。他们欢呼称死亡是他们的避风港，说坟墓是他们的温柔乡，可以在其中高枕酣睡。有人甚至还追求死亡——但是，我要对你说，滚开，你这肮脏丑陋的幻影！我厌恶你，憎恨你，诅咒你，还要像约翰修道士那样把你交给七万二千名恶鬼去处置，绝无原谅或宽恕的可能。要把你当成毒蛇，让人人都避开你，还要在你身上烙上烙印，驱逐流放，受人唾骂！我无论如何都不可能接受你，不管你是瘦弱悲戚的虚无，还是更为可怕的错综混杂的实在！
Those antidotes, prescribed against the fear of thee, are altogether frigid and insulting, like thyself. For what satisfaction hath a man, that he shall "lie down with kings and emperors in death, " who in his life—time never greatly coveted the society of such bed—fellows? —or, forsooth, that "so shall the fairest face appear? " —why, to comfort me, must Alice W—n be a goblin? More than all, I conceive disgust at those impertinent and misbecoming familiarities, inscribed upon your ordinary tombstones. Every dead man must take upon himself to be lecturing me with his odious truism, that "such as he now is, I must shortly he. " Not so shortly, friend, perhaps, as thou imaginest. In the mean—time I am alive. I move about. I am worth twenty of thee. Know thy betters! Thy New Years' Days are past. I survive, a jolly candidate for 1821. Another cup of wine—and while that turn—coat bell, that just now mournfully chanted the obsequies of 1820departed, with changed notes lustily rings in a successor, let us attune to its peal the song made on a like occasion, by hearty, cheerful Mr. Cotton. THE NEW YEAR. Hark, the cock crows, and yon bright star Tells us, the day himself's not far; And see where, breaking from the night, He gilds the western hills with light. With him old Janus doth appear, Peeping into the future year, With such a look as seems to say, The prospect is not good that way. Thus do we rise ill sights to see, And 'gainst ourselves to prophesy; When the prophetic fear of things A more tormenting mischief brings, More full of soul—tormenting gall, Than direst mischiefs can befall. But stay! but stay! methinks my sight, Better inform'd by clearer light Discerns sereneness in that brow, That all contracted seem'd but now. His revers'd face may show distaste, And frown upon the ills are past; But that which this way looks is clear, And smiles upon the New—born Year. He looks too from a place so high, The Year lies open to his eye; And all the moments open are To the exact discoverer. Yet more and more he smiles upon The happy revolution. Why should we then suspect or fear The influences of a year, So smiles upon us the first morn, And speaks us good so soon as born? Plague on't! the last was ill enough, This cannot but make better proof; Or, at the worst, as we brush'd through The last, why so we may this too; And then the next in reason shou'd Be superexcellently good: For the worst ills （we daily see）Have no more perpetuity, Than the best fortunes that do fall; Which also bring us wherewithal Longer their being to support, Than those do of the other sort: And who has one good year in three, And yet repines at destiny, Appears ungrateful in the case, And merits not the good he has. Then let us welcome the New Guest With lusty brimmers of the best; Mirth always should Good Fortune meet, And renders e' en Disaster sweet: And though the Princess turn her back, Let us but line ourselves with sack, We better shall by far hold out, Till the next Year she face about.
那些本是为消除对你的恐惧而开出的解药，却显得和你一样冰冷，无礼。 “死后便可与帝王君主共眠” ，对那些一生从未觊觎过这些同榻而眠之人的群体，可以给人以什么满足感？或者，另有人言之凿凿，道 “此间必能见到绝美容颜” ——这么说来，为了给我以安慰，艾丽斯·温就必须化身为妖精吗？最让我厌恶的是，你那平平无奇的墓碑上，却刻着一些俗不可耐又不合时宜的亲密言语。每个已故之人都要拿他那套讨厌的老生常谈来教育我，比如 “俯仰之间，君当如我” 。朋友，恐怕没你想得那么快吧。现在我还活得好好的。我还能四处走动。一个我抵得上二十个你。识相点儿吧！你的新年已经过完了。而我还活着，会高高兴兴地进入1821年。再喝一杯酒吧——那易变的钟声，前一刻还在为过去的1820年哀鸣，后一刻便转换了调子，为新的一年大唱欢歌。让我们伴着钟声，一起高唱热心、快乐的科顿先生在一个类似场合下创作的歌曲。《新年颂》鸡鸣声声星辰闪耀，宣告黎明就要来到。划破夜空直上苍穹，西山之色有如金铜。双面之神一同降临，目光炯炯窥视来年，一副神气似在表示，来年光景未必顺利。这样刚一展身观望，入眼种种俱是恶象。我们生怕发生什么，更多灾祸折磨来到，心灵烦扰更多苦恼，甚至胜过实际苦难。不过且慢，且慢，窃以为，眼前景物渐渐清晰，眉宇之间辨出宁静，此刻顿觉湛然一片。原来脸上种种不悦，却在愁苦去年厄运。此般看来明了无限，对着新年笑逐颜开。他高瞻远瞩仔细看，一年好景尽展眼底。对于那副明察锐目，人间万变他都有数。愈来他愈笑容可掬，可能他已觑出转机。为何生出怀疑恐惧，担心一年否泰如何。黎明对你我展笑颜，初生即以美言称赞。若说旧岁一切不佳，今年只会更加奋发。既然去岁还能混过，今年岂能挡住你我！如此下去来年一到，万事必然好上加好。正如我们平日所见，不吉不利不会永远。好运必然再度降临，带给我们福祉无疑。好运所获长久支持，必将久于其他霉运。三年之中一年还好，已是命运极大回报。谁如对此仍然悻悻，那便与他嘉名不称。让我们速速迎新宾，快将佳酿盛满酒杯。欢乐好运从来成双，灾厄至此也会呈祥。虽然女神转瞬即去，且让酒袋鼓舞士气，且让我们奋战今年，直到来岁再拜新颜。
How say you, reader—do not these verses smack of the rough magnanimity of the old English vein? Do they not fortify like a cordial, enlarging the heart, and productive of sweet blood, and generous spirits, in the concoction? Where be those puling fears of death, just now expressed or affected? —passed like a cloud—absorbed in the purging sunlight of clear poetry—clean washed away by a wave of genuine Helicon, your only Spa for these hypochondries—And now another cup of the generous! and a merry New Year, and many of them, to you all, my masters!
读者意下如何呢——这些诗句能不能传达出几分旧时英国佬的粗犷豪情？它们能否如一杯美酒一般，让你大受鼓舞，让你心胸开阔，热血沸腾，气度豪爽？之前表现出来的，或是装出来的那些对死亡的惧怕，现在到哪里去了呢？它如云朵般消散了——在清新诗歌的洁净光芒下融入了——在赫利康山下被真正的波浪清洗干净了，那是这些忧郁情绪的唯一浴场。那么，再喝一杯吧！新年快乐，各位先生，愿你们还能享受许许多多个新年新岁！