The Emperor, though ill and discommoded on horseback by a local trouble, had never been in a better humor than on that day. —
皇帝虽然身体不适，骑在马上受到当地麻烦的困扰，但从未像那天那样心情如此愉快。 —

His impenetrability had been smiling ever since the morning. —
自早晨以来，他那坚不可摧的心境一直带着微笑。 —

On the 18th of June, that profound soul masked by marble beamed blindly. —
6月18日，那颗深沉的灵魂被大理石所掩饰，却目瞪口呆地发出了微笑。 —

The man who had been gloomy at Austerlitz was gay at Waterloo. —
曾经在奥斯特利茨沮丧的人，在滑铁卢很开心。 —

The greatest favorites of destiny make mistakes. —
命运最宠爱的人也会犯错。 —

Our joys are composed of shadow. The supreme smile is God’s alone.
我们的欢乐都是由阴影构成的。至高无上的微笑只属于上帝。

Ridet Caesar, Pompeius flebit, said the legionaries of the Fulminatrix Legion. —
弗尔米纳特里克斯军团的士兵们说：“凯撒会笑，庞培会哭。” —

Pompey was not destined to weep on that occasion, but it is certain that Caesar laughed. —
的确，庞培在那个场合没有哭泣，但凯撒笑了。 —

While exploring on horseback at one o’clock on the preceding night, in storm and rain, in company with Bertrand, the communes in the neighborhood of Rossomme, satisfied at the sight of the long line of the English camp-fires illuminating the whole horizon from Frischemont to Braine-l’Alleud, it had seemed to him that fate, to whom he had assigned a day on the field of Waterloo, was exact to the appointment; —
前一天晚上一点，尽管在暴风雨中骑马探索罗索姆附近的市政区，伴随着贝特朗，看到从弗里舍蒙到勃拉音卢德整个地平线上照亮的英军营地火，命运似乎对他在滑铁卢战场上规定的一天遵守得很准时； —

he stopped his horse, and remained for some time motionless, gazing at the lightning and listening to the thunder; —
他停下马，一动不动地停留了一段时间，凝视着闪电，听着雷声； —

and this fatalist was heard to cast into the darkness this mysterious saying, “We are in accord.” —
这位宿命论者被听到在黑暗中抛出这句神秘的话语：“我们达成了一致。” —

Napoleon was mistaken. They were no longer in accord.
拿破仑错了，他们再也没有达成一致。

He took not a moment for sleep; every instant of that night was marked by a joy for him. —
他甚至没有时间休息一下；那个夜晚的每一个瞬间对他来说都是一种快乐。 —

He traversed the line of the principal outposts, halting here and there to talk to the sentinels. —
他穿过主要前哨线，停在这里那里和哨兵们交谈。 —

At half-past two, near the wood of Hougomont, he heard the tread of a column on the march; —
在两点半，靠近侯戈蒙林地，他听到一列军队在行军。 —

he thought at the moment that it was a retreat on the part of Wellington. He said: —
他当时认为这是惠灵顿在撤退。他说： —

“It is the rear-guard of the English getting under way for the purpose of decamping. —
“这是英军后卫准备起程撤营。 —

I will take prisoners the six thousand English who have just arrived at Ostend.” —
我将俘虏六千英军刚刚抵达奥斯坦德的士兵。” —

He conversed expansively; he regained the animation which he had shown at his landing on the first of March, when he pointed out to the Grand-Marshal the enthusiastic peasant of the Gulf Juan, and cried, “Well, Bertrand, here is a reinforcement already!” —
他话多了起来；他恢复了三月一日登陆时所展现出的活力，当时他向大元帅指出了尚安湾的热情农民，喊道：“好了，贝特朗，这里已经有了增援！” —

On the night of the 17th to the 18th of June he rallied Wellington. —
在六月十七日到十八日的夜里，他召集了惠灵顿。 —

“That little Englishman needs a lesson,” said Napoleon. —
“那个小英国人需要上一课，”拿破仑说。 —

The rain redoubled in violence; the thunder rolled while the Emperor was speaking.
雨势变得更猛烈了；雷声在皇帝说话时隆隆作响。

At half-past three o’clock in the morning, he lost one illusion; —
凌晨三点半，他失去了一个幻想； —

officers who had been despatched to reconnoitre announced to him that the enemy was not making any movement. —
被派去侦察的军官向他报告说敌人没有任何动作。 —

Nothing was stirring; not a bivouac-fire had been extinguished; the English army was asleep. —
一切都安静；没有一个露营火被熄灭；英军还在熟睡中。 —

The silence on earth was profound; the only noise was in the heavens. —
地面上的寂静异常；只有天空中有噪音。 —

At four o’clock, a peasant was brought in to him by the scouts; —
四点，一名农民被侦察兵带到他面前； —

this peasant had served as guide to a brigade of English cavalry, probably Vivian’s brigade, which was on its way to take up a position in the village of Ohain, at the extreme left. —
这个农民曾担任英军一支骑兵旅的向导，可能是维维安的旅，这支骑兵正在前往奥恩村占据一个极左的位置。 —

At five o’clock, two Belgian deserters reported to him that they had just quitted their regiment, and that the English army was ready for battle. —
五点，两名比利时叛逃者向他报告他们刚刚离开了自己的团，而英军已经准备好了战斗。 —

“So much the better!” exclaimed Napoleon. —
“太好了！”拿破仑喊道。 —

“I prefer to overthrow them rather than to drive them back.”
“我更喜欢推翻他们，而不是把他们击退。”

In the morning he dismounted in the mud on the slope which forms an angle with the Plancenoit road, had a kitchen table and a peasant’s chair brought to him from the farm of Rossomme, seated himself, with a truss of straw for a carpet, and spread out on the table the chart of the battle-field, saying to Soult as he did so, “A pretty checker-board.”
在清晨，他在与普朗西瓦路呈角度的泥泞坡上下马，从罗索姆农场取来一张厨房桌和一个农民的椅子，坐在草垫上，展开战场图表，对着苏尔说：“漂亮的棋盘。”

In consequence of the rains during the night, the transports of provisions, embedded in the soft roads, had not been able to arrive by morning; —
因为夜间的降雨，被困在软弱道路上的运输部队早上未能赶到； —

the soldiers had had no sleep; they were wet and fasting. —
士兵们没有休息，他们又湿又饥饿。 —

This did not prevent Napoleon from exclaiming cheerfully to Ney, “We have ninety chances out of a hundred.” —
但这并没有阻止拿破仑欢快地对内伊说：“我们有九十次成功的可能。” —

At eight o’clock the Emperor’s breakfast was brought to him. He invited many generals to it. —
八点钟时，皇帝的早餐被端上来。他邀请了许多将军一起用餐。 —

During breakfast, it was said that Wellington had been to a ball two nights before, in Brussels, at the Duchess of Richmond’s; —
早餐时，有人说惠灵顿两天前曾到过布鲁塞尔的杜奇斯夫人的舞会； —

and Soult, a rough man of war, with a face of an archbishop, said, “The ball takes place to-day.” —
苏尔，一个粗犷的战争家，面容像一位大主教，说：“舞会今天也会举行。” —

The Emperor jested with Ney, who said, “Wellington will not be so simple as to wait for Your Majesty.” —
皇帝与内伊开玩笑，内伊说：“惠灵顿不会如此简单地等待陛下。” —

That was his way, however. “He was fond of jesting,” says Fleury de Chaboulon. —
然而，这正是他的方式。“他喜欢开玩笑，”弗勒里·德·沙布隆说。 —

“A merry humor was at the foundation of his character,” says Gourgaud. —
“欢快的心情是他性格的基础，”古尔戈说。 —

“He abounded in pleasantries, which were more peculiar than witty,” says Benjamin Constant. —
“他充满了一些特有而不是机智的幽默，”本杰明·康斯坦说。 —

These gayeties of a giant are worthy of insistence. —
这位巨人的幽默足以值得关注。 —

It was he who called his grenadiers “his grumblers”; he pinched their ears; —
他称他的步兵为“牢骚者”；他拧他们的耳朵； —

he pulled their mustaches. “The Emperor did nothing but play pranks on us,” is the remark of one of them. —
他拉他们的胡须。“皇帝除了跟我们开玩笑就什么都没做，”其中一位士兵说。 —

During the mysterious trip from the island of Elba to France, on the 27th of February, on the open sea, the French brig of war, Le Zephyr, having encountered the brig L’Inconstant, on which Napoleon was concealed, and having asked the news of Napoleon from L’Inconstant, the Emperor, who still wore in his hat the white and amaranthine cockade sown with bees, which he had adopted at the isle of Elba, laughingly seized the speaking-trumpet, and answered for himself, “The Emperor is well.” —
在从厄尔巴岛到法国的神秘旅途中，2月27日，在开阔的海上，遇到了躲藏着拿破仑的英国战船L’Inconstant的法国护航舰Le Zephyr，并从L’Inconstant询问拿破仑的消息。还佩戴着自厄尔巴岛时采纳的镶有蜜蜂的白色和紫菀色领巾的皇帝，欢笑地拿起对讲机，亲自回答：“皇帝身体好。” —

A man who laughs like that is on familiar terms with events. —
像那样大笑的人对事件很熟悉。 —

Napoleon indulged in many fits of this laughter during the breakfast at Waterloo. —
拿破仑在滑铁卢的早餐期间多次发笑。 —

After breakfast he meditated for a quarter of an hour; —
早餐后他思考了15分钟； —

then two generals seated themselves on the truss of straw, pen in hand and their paper on their knees, and the Emperor dictated to them the order of battle.
然后两位将军坐在稻草上，手持笔，膝上放着纸张，皇帝向他们口述作战命令。

At nine o’clock, at the instant when the French army, ranged in echelons and set in motion in five columns, had deployed– the divisions in two lines, the artillery between the brigades, the music at their head; —
九点钟，在法军以五个纵队整齐展开，分成两行的瞬间，军队已经罗列好–分队间夹杂着炮兵，音乐在队伍前方； —

as they beat the march, with rolls on the drums and the blasts of trumpets, mighty, vast, joyous, a sea of casques, of sabres, and of bayonets on the horizon, the Emperor was touched, and twice exclaimed, “Magnificent! Magnificent!”
随着他们开始行进的鼓声和号角声，无比强大、广阔、充满喜悦的军队如海洋一般扩张，刺盔、军刀和刺刀的海洋在地平线上，皇帝被感动，两次惊叹道“壮观！壮观！”

Between nine o’clock and half-past ten the whole army, incredible as it may appear, had taken up its position and ranged itself in six lines, forming, to repeat the Emperor’s expression, “the figure of six V’s.” A few moments after the formation of the battle-array, in the midst of that profound silence, like that which heralds the beginning of a storm, which precedes engagements, the Emperor tapped Haxo on the shoulder, as he beheld the three batteries of twelve-pounders, detached by his orders from the corps of Erlon, Reille, and Lobau, and destined to begin the action by taking Mont-Saint-Jean, which was situated at the intersection of the Nivelles and the Genappe roads, and said to him, “There are four and twenty handsome maids, General.”
九点到十点半之间，整支军队，这看起来难以置信，已经就位并排成六行，组成了，用皇帝的话来说，“六个V字型。”在阵型形成之后的短暂时间内，在那种宛如暴风来临前那种深静寂的氛围中，皇帝看到由他命令的艾尔隆、雷伊尔和洛尔协队分出的三支12磅炮团，旨在开始攻击把蒙圣让拿下,他拍了拍哈克索的肩膀，说道，“有二十四位美丽的少女，将军。”

Sure of the issue, he encouraged with a smile, as they passed before him, the company of sappers of the first corps, which he had appointed to barricade Mont-Saint-Jean as soon as the village should be carried. —
对胜局笃定，他微笑着鼓励通过他面前的第一军团工兵连，他指派他们在夺取村庄蒙圣让后立即修筑栅栏。 —

All this serenity had been traversed by but a single word of haughty pity; —
这种宁静被一句骄慢的怜悯所穿透； —

perceiving on his left, at a spot where there now stands a large tomb, those admirable Scotch Grays, with their superb horses, massing themselves, he said, “It is a pity.”
在他的左侧,现在耸立着一座巨大坟墓的地方，他看到那些杰出的苏格兰金龙骑兵，骑着他们华丽的马匹，募集起来时,他说，“太可惜了。”

Then he mounted his horse, advanced beyond Rossomme, and selected for his post of observation a contracted elevation of turf to the right of the road from Genappe to Brussels, which was his second station during the battle. —
然后，他骑上马，走到罗苏曼之外，选择了他的观察岗位，那是从勒讷比到布鲁塞尔的路上，他在战斗中的第二个驻地。 —

The third station, the one adopted at seven o’clock in the evening, between La Belle-Alliance and La Haie-Sainte, is formidable; —
晚上七点钟选定的第三个驻地在拉贝勒-阿利安斯和阿兰特角之间，威力强大； —

it is a rather elevated knoll, which still exists, and behind which the guard was massed on a slope of the plain. —
这是一个相当高耸的小丘，仍然存在，后面是宫廷守卫队集结的平原坡地。 —

Around this knoll the balls rebounded from the pavements of the road, up to Napoleon himself. —
在这个小丘周围，炮弹从路面弹回，直到拿破仑本人那里。 —

As at Brienne, he had over his head the shriek of the bullets and of the heavy artillery. —
就像在布里恩，他的头顶上响彻着子弹和重炮的尖叫声。 —

Mouldy cannon-balls, old sword-blades, and shapeless projectiles, eaten up with rust, were picked up at the spot where his horse’ feet stood. —
发霉的炮弹，老旧的剑刃，和被锈蚀吞噬的形状不规则的弹丸，在他坐骑站立的地方被拾起。 —

Scabra rubigine. A few years ago, a shell of sixty pounds, still charged, and with its fuse broken off level with the bomb, was unearthed. —
几年前，在这里发掘出一颗仍然装填着炸药的六十磅炮弹，引线与炸弹的一半齐平。 —

It was at this last post that the Emperor said to his guide, Lacoste, a hostile and terrified peasant, who was attached to the saddle of a hussar, and who turned round at every discharge of canister and tried to hide behind Napoleon: —
就是在这最后的据点，皇帝对他的向导拉科斯特说，一个敌对而恐惧的农民，被绑在一名胡萨尔的鞍上，每一次炮弹的轰鸣都回头试图躲在拿破仑后面： —

“Fool, it is shameful! You’ll get yourself killed with a ball in the back.” —
“傻瓜，真可耻！你会被后背的炮弹打死的。” —

He who writes these lines has himself found, in the friable soil of this knoll, on turning over the sand, the remains of the neck of a bomb, disintegrated, by the oxidization of six and forty years, and old fragments of iron which parted like elder-twigs between the fingers.
写下这些文字的人自己曾经在那个小丘易碎的土地里翻动沙子时，发现了一个被氧化六十四年的炸弹颈的残骸，老旧的铁碎片在手指间像长在榆树枝上的树枝一样折断。

Every one is aware that the variously inclined undulations of the plains, where the engagement between Napoleon and Wellington took place, are no longer what they were on June 18, 1815. —
每个人都知道，拿破仑和惠灵顿之间的战役发生的平原上的各种倾斜的起伏，已经不再是1815年6月18日的面貌了。 —

By taking from this mournful field the wherewithal to make a monument to it, its real relief has been taken away, and history, disconcerted, no longer finds her bearings there. —
通过将这个悲伤的战场上的东西取出来制作一个纪念碑，真正的地形已经被消除，迷茫的历史再也找不到方向了。 —

It has been disfigured for the sake of glorifying it. —
为了美化它，它已经被破坏。 —

Wellington, when he beheld Waterloo once more, two years later, exclaimed, “They have altered my field of battle!” —
等到两年后再次看到滑铁卢时，惠灵顿感叹道，“他们改变了我的战场！” —

Where the great pyramid of earth, surmounted by the lion, rises to-day, there was a hillock which descended in an easy slope towards the Nivelles road, but which was almost an escarpment on the side of the highway to Genappe. —
在今天耸立着狮子的土坟所在的地方，曾经是一个向尼维尔大路倾斜的小山坡，但在通往热那亚佩的公路一侧，几乎是一个悬崖。 —

The elevation of this escarpment can still be measured by the height of the two knolls of the two great sepulchres which enclose the road from Genappe to Brussels: —
这个悬崖的高度仍然可以通过两个伟大坟墓的两个小丘的高度来衡量，这两个坟墓围绕从热那亚佩到布鲁塞尔的道路延伸： —

one, the English tomb, is on the left; the other, the German tomb, is on the right. —
一个是英国墓，位于左侧；另一个是德国墓，位于右侧。 —

There is no French tomb. The whole of that plain is a sepulchre for France. —
没有法国墓。整个平原都是法国的坟墓。 —

Thanks to the thousands upon thousands of cartloads of earth employed in the hillock one hundred and fifty feet in height and half a mile in circumference, the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean is now accessible by an easy slope. —
由数以千计的车载土壤堆积而成的高度达一百五十英尺，周长半英里的小山，使得蒙圣让高原现在可以通过一个易于攀登的斜坡进入。 —

On the day of battle, particularly on the side of La Haie-Sainte, it was abrupt and difficult of approach. —
在战斗的那一天，特别是在圣艾特农场这一边，地势陡峭，难以攀登。 —

The slope there is so steep that the English cannon could not see the farm, situated in the bottom of the valley, which was the centre of the combat. —
在那里的斜坡非常陡峭，英国的大炮无法看到位于山谷底部的农场，而那里正是战斗的中心。 —

On the 18th of June, 1815, the rains had still farther increased this acclivity, the mud complicated the problem of the ascent, and the men not only slipped back, but stuck fast in the mire. —
1815年6月18日，雨水进一步加剧了这种上坡的困难，泥浆使攀登的问题变得更加复杂，士兵们不仅滑落，而且陷入泥潭。 —

Along the crest of the plateau ran a sort of trench whose presence it was impossible for the distant observer to divine.
在高原的山脊上沿着一条类似壕沟的地方，远处的观察者无法看到这个壕沟的存在。

What was this trench? Let us explain. Braine-l’Alleud is a Belgian village; Ohain is another. —
那么，这个壕沟是什么呢？让我们来解释一下。Braine-l’Alleud是比利时的一个村庄；Ohain是另一个。 —

These villages, both of them concealed in curves of the landscape, are connected by a road about a league and a half in length, which traverses the plain along its undulating level, and often enters and buries itself in the hills like a furrow, which makes a ravine of this road in some places. —
这两个村庄，在地形曲线中隐藏着，它们之间通过一条长约一英里半的道路连接，沿着起伏的平原穿过，经常进入并埋藏在山丘之中，就像一个犁耕的沟壑，这使得这条道路在某些地方形成了沟壑。 —

In 1815, as at the present day, this road cut the crest of the plateau of Mont-Saint-Jean between the two highways from Genappe and Nivelles; —
在1815年，就像现在一样，这条道路在蒙圣让高原的山脊上切穿，位于从热纳普和尼维尔前来的两条主路之间； —

only, it is now on a level with the plain; it was then a hollow way. —
只是，现在它与平原持平；而那时像一个沟谷。 —

Its two slopes have been appropriated for the monumental hillock. —
它的两侧已被用来建造了纪念性的小山。 —

This road was, and still is, a trench throughout the greater portion of its course; —
这条路在大部分路程上是一个沟渠； —

a hollow trench, sometimes a dozen feet in depth, and whose banks, being too steep, crumbled away here and there, particularly in winter, under driving rains. —
一条深深的沟渠，有时深达十几英尺，其岸边太陡，在冬天，尤其是在狂风暴雨下，会有一些地方崩塌。 —

Accidents happened here. The road was so narrow at the Braine-l’Alleud entrance that a passer-by was crushed by a cart, as is proved by a stone cross which stands near the cemetery, and which gives the name of the dead, Monsieur Bernard Debrye, Merchant of Brussels, and the date of the accident, February, 1637. —
在Braine-l’Alleud入口，这条道路是如此狭窄，以至于一个过路人被一辆马车压死了，根据附近的一座石十字架表明这一事件的事实，上面写着死者的名字贝尔纳德·德布里，布鲁塞尔商人，以及意外发生的日期1637年2月。 —

[8] It was so deep on the table-land of Mont-Saint-Jean that a peasant, Mathieu Nicaise, was crushed there, in 1783, by a slide from the slope, as is stated on another stone cross, the top of which has disappeared in the process of clearing the ground, but whose overturned pedestal is still visible on the grassy slope to the left of the highway between La Haie-Sainte and the farm of Mont-Saint-Jean.
在蒙圣让农场和圣艾特农场之间的公路左侧的草坡上，一个农民马修·尼凯斯于1783年在那里被滑坡压死，如另一个石十字架上所述，其顶部已在清理地面的过程中消失，但其翻倒的基座仍然可在公路左侧的山坡上看到。

[8] This is the inscription:– D. O. M. CY A ETE ECRASE, PAR MALHEUR, SOUS UN CHARIOT, MONSIEUR BERNARD, DE BRYE MARCHAND, A BRUXELLE LE [Illegible], FEVRIER 1637.
这里的铭文是：D.O.M.［对大能者至善者的供奉］这里有人不幸地被马车碾压，他名叫伯纳德·德布里勒，从事布鲁塞尔的贸易，日期是1637年2月[不清楚]。

On the day of battle, this hollow road whose existence was in no way indicated, bordering the crest of Mont-Saint-Jean, a trench at the summit of the escarpment, a rut concealed in the soil, was invisible; —
在战斗的那一天，这条空无一人的小路，在蒙桑让山脊边，顶部的壕沟，一条藏在土壤中的车辙，都是看不见的； —

that is to say, terrible.
也就是说，可怕的。