WHEN A MAN finds himself in movement, he always invents a goal of that movement. —
当一个人发现自己在移动时，他总是会为这个移动制定一个目标。 —

In order to walk a thousand versts, a man must believe that there is some good beyond those thousand versts. —
为了走一千个versts，一个人必须相信在那一千个versts之外有些好处。 —

He needs a vision of a promised land to have the strength to go on moving. —
他需要对一个有承诺的土地有一个愿景，才能有力量继续前进。 —

The promised land for the French on their march into Russia was Moscow; —
法国人进军俄国时的承诺之地是莫斯科； —

on their retreat it was their own country. But their country was too far; —
撤退时，承诺之地是自己的国家。但是他们的国家离得太远； —

and a man walking a thousand versts must inevitably put aside his final goal and say to himself every day that he is going to walk forty versts to a resting-place where he can sleep; —
一个走一千个versts路程的人不可避免地会放下他的最终目标，并且每天告诉自己他要走四十个versts到达一个可以休息的地方； —

and before the first halt that resting-place has eclipsed the image of the final goal, and all his hopes and desires are concentrated on it. —
在第一次停下来之前，这个休息的地方已经掩盖了最终目标的形象，他的全部希望和欲望都集中在这里。 —

All impulses manifest in the individual are always greatly exaggerated in a crowd.
所有在个人身上显现的冲动总是在人群中极度夸张。

For the French, marching back along the old Smolensk road, the final goal, their own country, was too remote, and the nearer goal on which all hopes and desires, enormously intensified by the influence of the crowd, were concentrated was Smolensk.
对于沿着史摩棱斯克旧道而退的法国人来说，最终的目标——自己的国家——太远了，而所有希望和欲望都极度增强了，受到人群的影响，这些希望和欲望都集中在斯摩棱斯克。

It was not because the soldiers knew that there were plentiful supplies in Smolensk and reinforcements, nor because they were told so (on the contrary, the generals and Napoleon himself knew that the supplies there were scanty), but because this was the only thing that could give them the strength to move and to bear their present hardships, that they—those that knew better and those that did not alike—deceived themselves, and rushed to Smolensk as to a land of promise.
不是因为士兵们知道在斯摩棱斯克有充足的补给和增援，也不是因为他们被告知了这一点（相反，将军和拿破仑自己知道那里的补给很少），而是因为这是唯一能给他们力量前行并忍受目前艰难的事情的东西，他们——不论他们是否知道得更清楚还是不知道——都是在欺骗自己，然后冲向斯摩棱斯克，就像冲向一个充满诺言的土地。

When they got out on the high road, the French fled to their imagined goal with extraordinary energy and unheard-of rapidity. —
当他们走上大路时，法国人以非凡的能量和前所未有的速度逃向他们想象中的目标。 —

Apart from the common impulse that bound the crowds of Frenchmen together into one whole and gave them a certain momentum, there was another cause that held them together, that cause was their immense number. —
除了将法国人群体紧密地团结成一个整体并给他们一定的动力的共同冲动外，还有一个原因使他们团结在一起，那就是他们庞大的人数。 —

As in the physical law of gravitation, the immense mass of them drew the separate atoms to itself. —
正如引力定律一样，它们巨大的质量将分散的原子吸引到自己身上。 —

They moved in their mass of hundreds of thousands like a whole state.
他们像一个整体，在数十万个人群中移动。

Every man among them longed for one thing only—to surrender and be taken prisoner, to escape from all the horrors and miseries of his actual position. —
他们中的每个人都只渴望一件事——投降并成为俘虏，逃离他们目前位置的所有恐怖和痛苦。 —

But on one hand the momentum of the common impulse toward Smolensk drew each individual in the same direction. —
但一方面，朝着斯摩棱斯克的共同冲动的动力将每个个体都拉向同一方向。 —

On the other hand, it was out of the question for a corps to surrender to a squadron; —
另一方面，一个部队不可能向一个中队投降； —

and although the French took advantage of every convenient opportunity to straggle away from one another, and on the smallest decent pretext to be taken prisoners, those opportunities did not always occur. —
虽然法国人利用一切方便的机会离群出走，并以最小的合适理由被俘，但并不总是有这样的机会。 —

Their very number, and their rapid movement in such a closely-packed mass, deprived them of such possibilities, and made it not only difficult but impossible for the Russians to stop that movement into which the whole energy of that great mass was thrown. —
他们数量众多，以及在如此密集的大规模运动中，使他们失去了这样的可能性，并且使得俄罗斯人无法阻止整个群体投入其中的运动。 —

No mechanical splitting up of the body could accelerate beyond certain limits the process of dissolution that was going on within it.
任何身体的机械分割都不能加速正在其中发生的分解过程，超过一定限度。

A snowball cannot be melted instantaneously. —
雪球不能瞬间融化。 —

There is a certain limit of time within which no application of heat can thaw the snow. —
在一定时间限制内，任何加热都无法融化雪。 —

On the contrary, the greater the heat, the harder the snow that is left.
相反，加热越高，剩下的雪越硬。

Of the Russian generals no one but Kutuzov understood this. —
除了库图佐夫以外，没有一个俄罗斯将领理解这一点。 —

When the flight of the French army took its final direction along the Smolensk road, then what Kutuzov had foreseen on the night of the 11th of October began to come to pass. —
当法军的撤退方向最终沿着斯摩棱斯克道路时，库图佐夫在10月11日的夜晚已经预见到了即将发生的事情。 —

All the generals and officers of the Russian army were eager to distinguish themselves, to cut off the enemy’s retreat, to overtake, to capture, to fall upon the French, and all clamoured for action.
俄罗斯军队的所有将军和军官都渴望成名，切断敌军的退路，追赶，俘虏，袭击法军，所有人都在呼吁行动。

Kutuzov alone used all his powers (and the powers of any commander-in-chief are far from great) to resist this clamour for attack.
唯独库图佐夫动用了他的全部力量（而任何一位总司令的力量都远非伟大）来抵制这种对攻击的呼声。

He could not tell them what we can say now: —
他现在不能告诉他们我们所能说的。 —

he could not ask them what was the object of fighting and obstructing the road and losing our men, and inhumanly persecuting the poor wretches, when one-third of that army melted away of itself without a battle between Moscow and Vyazma. —
他不能问他们战斗和阻碍道路、丢失我们的士兵以及无情迫害可怜的不幸者的目的是什么，当在莫斯科和维亚兹马之间有三分之一的军队在没有战斗的情况下自行消失。 —

But drawing from the stores of his aged wisdom what they could understand, he told them of the golden bridge, and they laughed at him, slandered him, pushed on and dashed forward, exulting over the wounded beast.
但是根据他年迈的智慧给他们可以理解的信息，他告诉他们有一座金桥，而他们嘲笑他，诽谤他，继续前进，狂喜地对待受伤的野兽。

Near Vyazma, Yermolov, Miloradovitch, Platov, and others, finding themselves in the neighbourhood of the French, could not resist the desire to cut them off and to fall upon two French corps. —
在维亚兹马附近，耶尔莫洛夫、米洛拉多维奇、普拉托夫等人发现自己靠近法国人，无法抵制想要截住他们并袭击两个法国军团的欲望。 —

In sending to inform Kutuzov of their project, they slipped a blank sheet of paper into the envelope instead of the despatch.
在通知库图佐夫他们的计划时，他们在信封里夹带了一张空白纸而不是信件。

And in spite of Kutuzov’s efforts to restrain the army, our soldiers attacked the French and tried to bar their way. —
尽管库图佐夫试图控制军队，我们的士兵还是攻击了法国人并试图阻挡他们的道路。 —

The infantry regiments, we are told, marched to attack them with music and beating of drums and slew and were slain by thousands.
据说步兵团奏乐并敲鼓去袭击他们，杀敌数以千计，自己也被杀伤。

But as for cutting off their retreat—none were cut off nor turned aside. —
但是没有人被切断退路，也没有被转移。 —

And the French army, brought into closer cohesion by danger, and slowly melting as it went, kept still on its fatal way to Smolensk.
法国军队在危险中变得更加紧密，慢慢融化，仍然前往致命的斯摩棱斯克。