At one o’clock on the 16th I went to the Rue d’Antin. The voice of the auctioneer could be heard from the outer door. —
在16日的一点钟,我去了安坦街。拍卖师的声音能从门外听到。 —

The rooms were crowded with people. There were all the celebrities of the most elegant impropriety, furtively examined by certain great ladies who had again seized the opportunity of the sale in order to be able to see, close at hand, women whom they might never have another occasion of meeting, and whom they envied perhaps in secret for their easy pleasures. —
房间里挤满了人。有那些最优雅的名人们,被某些贵妇偷偷观察,她们趁机会再次前来拍卖会,以能近距离看到这些她们可能再也见不到的女人,或许她们暗自羡慕这些女人轻松的快乐。 —

The Duchess of F. elbowed Mlle. A., one of the most melancholy examples of our modern courtesan; —
F公爵夫人拱肘与A小姐碰到了一起,她是我们这个时代最悲伤的现代妓女中的一个最佳例子。 —

the Marquis de T. hesitated over a piece of furniture the price of which was being run high by Mme. D., the most elegant and famous adulteress of our time; —
T侯爵在犹豫要不要买一件家具,这件家具的价格正被D女士推高,她是我们这个时代最优雅、最著名的通奸女子。 —

the Duke of Y., who in Madrid is supposed to be ruining himself in Paris, and in Paris to be ruining himself in Madrid, and who, as a matter of fact, never even reaches the limit of his income, talked with Mme. M., one of our wittiest story-tellers, who from time to time writes what she says and signs what she writes, while at the same time he exchanged confidential glances with Mme. de N., a fair ornament of the Champs-Elysées, almost always dressed in pink or blue, and driving two big black horses which Tony had sold her for 10, 000 francs, and for which she had paid, after her fashion; —
亚麻乌鸦公爵,在马德里被认为是在巴黎毁了自己,在巴黎又被认为是在马德里毁了自己,实际上他的收入从未达到极限,他与我们最聪明的讲故事的女士之一Mme. M.交谈,她会把她说的话写下来并签名,与此同时他与N.女士交换着私密的眼神,她是香榭丽舍大道上的一抹明媚风景,几乎总是穿粉红色或蓝色的衣服,驾驶两匹大黑马,是Tony以1万法郎卖给她的,她按自己的方式支付了款项。 —

finally, Mlle. R., who makes by her mere talent twice what the women of the world make by their dot and three times as much as the others make by their amours, had come, in spite of the cold, to make some purchases, and was not the least looked at among the crowd.
最后,R.小姐因仅凭才华就赚了那些闲人们通过彩礼和嫖娼赚到的两倍之多,冷天一点也没影响她来购物,但在人群中却没有引起丝毫注意。

We might cite the initials of many more of those who found themselves, not without some mutual surprise, side by side in one room. —
我们还可以列举更多人的首字母,他们在同一个房间里惊讶地发现彼此相邻。 —

But we fear to weary the reader. We will only add that everyone was in the highest spirits, and that many of those present had known the dead woman, and seemed quite oblivious of the fact. —
但我们担心读者疲倦。我们只会补充说,每个人的情绪都很高昂,许多在场的人都认识那个已故的女人,似乎对此毫不在意。 —

There was a sound of loud laughter; the auctioneers shouted at the top of their voices; —
传来大笑声;拍卖人高声喊叫; —

the dealers who had filled the benches in front of the auction table tried in vain to obtain silence, in order to transact their business in peace. —
坐在拍卖桌前的交易商们努力想要安静下来,以便平静地完成交易。 —

Never was there a noisier or a more varied gathering.
从来没有过如此嘈杂且各种各样的聚会。

I slipped quietly into the midst of this tumult, sad to think of when one remembered that the poor creature whose goods were being sold to pay her debts had died in the next room. —
我悄悄地混入这个喧闹中,心里感到难过,因为我记得那个贫苦人的财物被拍卖以偿还她的债务,而她就在隔壁房间去世了。 —

Having come rather to examine than to buy, I watched the faces of the auctioneers, noticing how they beamed with delight whenever anything reached a price beyond their expectations. —
我来这里更多是为了观察而不是买东西,我留意到拍卖人的表情,注意到每当有物品的价格超出他们的预期时,他们都会喜形于色。 —

Honest creatures, who had speculated upon this woman’s prostitution, who had gained their hundred per cent out of her, who had plagued with their writs the last moments of her life, and who came now after her death to gather in at once the fruits of their dishonourable calculations and the interest on their shameful credit! —
这些诚实的生物曾经猜测过这个妇女的卖淫行为,他们从她身上获得了百分之百的利益,他们用他们的传票折磨了她生命的最后时刻,如今在她死后,他们一起来收获他们不光彩的算计和耻辱信用的利益! —

How wise were the ancients in having only one God for traders and robbers!
古人多明智啊,他们只有一个神,供贸易商和强盗奉行!

Dresses, cashmeres, jewels, were sold with incredible rapidity. —
连衣裙、喀什米尔羊绒衫、珠宝以惊人的速度被卖出。 —

There was nothing that I cared for, and I still waited. All at once I heard: —
我什么都不在乎,仍然等待着。突然我听到: —

“A volume, beautifully bound, gilt-edged, entitled Manon Lescaut. —
“一本精美装帧、镀金边的名为《曼农·莱斯科》的书。 —

There is something written on the first page. Ten francs.”
第一页上写了些什么。十法郎。”

“Twelve,” said a voice after a longish silence.
“十二法郎。”长时间的沉默后,一个声音说道。

“Fifteen,” I said.
“十五法郎,”我说。

Why? I did not know. Doubtless for the something written.
为什么呢?我不知道。无疑是因为书上写了什么。

“Fifteen,” repeated the auctioneer.
“十五法郎,”拍卖师重复道。

“Thirty,” said the first bidder in a tone which seemed to defy further competition.
“三十法郎,”第一个出价者用一种似乎在挑战进一步竞争的口气说道。

It had now become a struggle. “Thirty-five,” I cried in the same tone.
现在已经变成了一场斗争。“三十五,”我用同样的语调大声喊道。

“Forty.”
“四十。”

“Fifty.”
“五十。”

“Sixty.”
“六十。”

“A hundred.”
“一百。”

If I had wished to make a sensation I should certainly have succeeded, for a profound silence had ensued, and people gazed at me as if to see what sort of a person it was, who seemed to be so determined to possess the volume.
如果我想引起轰动,那我肯定成功了,因为一片死寂降临,人们凝视着我,好像想看看这样一个看似决心要拥有这本书的人到底是什么样的人。

The accent which I had given to my last word seemed to convince my adversary; —
我对最后一个词的重音似乎使我的对手信服了; —

he preferred to abandon a conflict which could only have resulted in making me pay ten times its price for the volume, and, bowing, he said very gracefully, though indeed a little late:
他宁愿放弃这场争斗,因为这场争斗只会让我为这本书付出十倍的价钱,他优雅地鞠躬说道,虽然有些晚了:

“I give way, sir.”
“先生,我让步。”

Nothing more being offered, the book was assigned to me.
没人再报价了,这本书就归我了。

As I was afraid of some new fit of obstinacy, which my amour propre might have sustained somewhat better than my purse, I wrote down my name, had the book put on one side, and went out. —
由于担心我的自尊心可能比我的钱包更能承受一些新的固执,我写下了我的名字,把书放在一边,离开了。 —

I must have given considerable food for reflection to the witnesses of this scene, who would no doubt ask themselves what my purpose could have been in paying a hundred francs for a book which I could have had anywhere for ten, or, at the outside, fifteen.
我必须给这一场景的目击者们带来了极大的思考食料,他们无疑会想知道,为什么我要花100法郎买一本在任何地方都能买到的只需10甚至15法郎的书。

An hour after, I sent for my purchase. On the first page was written in ink, in an elegant hand, an inscription on the part of the giver. —
一个小时后,我把购买的书叫来。在第一页上用墨水写着,用一种优雅的手笔写着送礼人的铭文。 —

It consisted of these words:
它由以下几个词组成:

Manon to Marguerite.
Manon to Marguerite。

Humility.
谦卑。

It was signed Armand Duval.
签名是Armand Duval。

What was the meaning of the word Humility? —
谦卑这个词的意义是什么? —

Was Manon to recognise in Marguerite, in the opinion of M. Armand Duval, her superior in vice or in affection? —
根据阿尔芒·杜瓦尔先生的观点,Manon会认为Marguerite在恶行或者情感方面是她的上级吗? —

The second interpretation seemed the more probable, for the first would have been an impertinent piece of plain speaking which Marguerite, whatever her opinion of herself, would never have accepted.
第二种解释似乎更有可信性,因为第一种解释将会是一种粗俗的直接表达,不管Marguerite对自己的看法如何,她都不会接受。

I went out again, and thought no more of the book until at night, when I was going to bed.
我再次出门,直到晚上上床睡觉时才再次想起了那本书。

Manon Lescaut is a touching story. I know every detail of it, and yet whenever I come across the volume the same sympathy always draws me to it; —
《曼侬·莱斯科》是一个触动心灵的故事。我对它了如指掌,但每当我看到这本书时,同样的同情总是吸引着我; —

I open it, and for the hundredth time I live over again with the heroine of the Abbé Prévost. —
我打开它,就像第一次与阿贝·普雷沃斯特的女主人公一起重温。 —

Now this heroine is so true to life that I feel as if I had known her; —
这个女主人公如此真实,以至于我感觉好像我曾经认识她; —

and thus the sort of comparison between her and Marguerite gave me an unusual inclination to read it, and my indulgence passed into pity, almost into a kind of love for the poor girl to whom I owed the volume. —
因此,这种与玛格丽特之间的比较使我对读它产生了不寻常的倾向,我的宽容变成了怜悯,几乎变成了对这个我欠了这本书的可怜女孩的爱。 —

Manon died in the desert, it is true, but in the arms of the man who loved her with the whole energy of his soul; —
曼侬在沙漠中死去,这是真实的,但她死在了一个全心全意爱着她的男人的怀里; —

who, when she was dead, dug a grave for her, and watered it with his tears, and buried his heart in it; —
当她死后,他为她挖了一个坟墓,用泪水浸湿了它,并将他的心埋葬其中。 —

while Marguerite, a sinner like Manon, and perhaps converted like her, had died in a sumptuous bed (it seemed, after what I had seen, the bed of her past), but in that desert of the heart, a more barren, a vaster, a more pitiless desert than that in which Manon had found her last resting-place.
曼农这样的罪人,或许像她一样得到了救赎,她死在一个豪华的床上(从我所见的来看,似乎是她过去的床),但在那颗心的沙漠中,却是更加贫瘠、更加广阔、更加无情的沙漠,比曼农找到她最后安息之地时的沙漠还要残酷。

Marguerite, in fact, as I had found from some friends who knew of the last circumstances of her life, had not a single real friend by her bedside during the two months of her long and painful agony.
实际上,据我从一些知道她生命最后环境的朋友得知,玛格丽特在长达两个月的痛苦临终之时,并没有一个真正的朋友陪伴在她的病榻前。

Then from Manon and Marguerite my mind wandered to those whom I knew, and whom I saw singing along the way which led to just such another death. —
然后,我想到了曼农和玛格丽特,想到了那些我认识的人,他们正沿着通向一个类似死亡的道路高歌猛进。 —

Poor souls! if it is not right to love them, is it not well to pity them? —
可怜的灵魂们!如果不应该爱他们,那是否可以怜悯他们呢? —

You pity the blind man who has never seen the daylight, the deaf who has never heard the harmonies of nature, the dumb who has never found a voice for his soul, and, under a false cloak of shame, you will not pity this blindness of heart, this deafness of soul, this dumbness of conscience, which sets the poor afflicted creature beside herself and makes her, in spite of herself, incapable of seeing what is good, of hearing the Lord, and of speaking the pure language of love and faith.
你对那些从未见过阳光的盲人,从未听过自然和谐声的聋子,从未为自己的灵魂寻找声音的哑巴充满同情。然而,你却不会对这种心灵的盲目,灵魂的聋哑,良心的沉默抱以同情,而以虚伪的耻辱掩盖自己,将这可怜的困境抛之脑后。正是这种情况让她陷入苦恼,使她无法看到善良,无法听到上帝的声音,无法说出纯洁的爱与信仰的语言。

Hugo has written Marion Delorme, Musset has written Bernerette, Alexandre Dumas has written Fernande, the thinkers and poets of all time have brought to the courtesan the offering of their pity, and at times a great man has rehabilitated them with his love and even with his name. —
雨果为马里昂·德洛姆写过,穆塞为贝尔内雷特写过,亚历山大·杜马为费尔南德写过。所有时代的思想家和诗人都以怜悯之情向妓女献上了他们的恩赐,有时甚至有伟人以他的爱甚至以他的名字重新赋予她们尊严。 —

If I insist on this point, it is because many among those who have begun to read me will be ready to throw down a book in which they will fear to find an apology for vice and prostitution; —
我之所以坚持这一点,是因为在那些开始阅读我的人中,许多人会准备放下一本他们担心会找到为邪恶和卖淫辩护的书; —

and the author’s age will do something, no doubt, to increase this fear. —
作者的年龄无疑会增加这种恐惧。 —

Let me undeceive those who think thus, and let them go on reading, if nothing but such a fear hinders them.
让我解除那些这样思考的人的疑惑,如果只有这样的恐惧阻碍他们,让他们继续阅读。

I am quite simply convinced of a certain principle, which is: —
我非常坚信一个原则,那就是: —

For the woman whose education has not taught her what is right, God almost always opens two ways which lead thither the ways of sorrow and of love. —
对于没有接受正确教育的妇女,上帝几乎总会打开两条道路,这两条道路通向悲伤和爱的彼岸。 —

They are hard; those who walk in them walk with bleeding feet and torn hands, but they also leave the trappings of vice upon the thorns of the wayside, and reach the journey’s end in a nakedness which is not shameful in the sight of the Lord.
它们是艰难的道路,行走在这些道路上的人会流血和撕裂双手,但他们也会将邪恶的陷井留在路边的荆棘中,并在赤裸的状态下抵达旅程的终点,这种赤裸在上帝眼中并不可耻。

Those who meet these bold travellers ought to succour them, and to tell all that they have met them, for in so doing they point out the way. —
那些遇到这些勇敢的旅行者的人应该帮助他们,并告诉所有人他们遇到了他们,因为这样做是指引道路的方式。 —

It is not a question of setting at the outset of life two sign-posts, one bearing the inscription “The Right Way, ” the other the inscription “The Wrong Way, ” and of saying to those who come there, “Choose. —
这并不是在生命的开始就设立两个标志牌的问题,一个上面写着“正确的道路”,另一个上面写着“错误的道路”,并对来到这里的人说:“选择吧。” —

” One must needs, like Christ, point out the ways which lead from the second road to the first, to those who have been easily led astray; —
就像基督一样,我们必须向那些容易被引入歧途的人指出从第二条路通向第一条路的方式; —

and it is needful that the beginning of these ways should not be too painful nor appear too impenetrable.
而这些方式的起始点应该不太痛苦,也不应该显得过于费解。

Here is Christianity with its marvellous parable of the Prodigal Son to teach us indulgence and pardon. —
基督教以其奇妙的浪子回头的寓言来教导我们宽容与宽恕。 —

Jesus was full of love for souls wounded by the passions of men; —
耶稣对那些被人情所伤的灵魂充满爱心; —

he loved to bind up their wounds and to find in those very wounds the balm which should heal them. —
他喜欢包扎他们的伤口,并从那些伤口中找到治愈它们的香膏。 —

Thus he said to the Magdalen: “Much shall be forgiven thee because thou hast loved much, ” a sublimity of pardon which can only have called forth a sublime faith.
所以他对抹大拉的说:“因为你许多的罪都赦免了,所以你的爱多。”这种宽恕的崇高只能引起崇高的信仰。

Why do we make ourselves more strict than Christ? —
为什么我们要比基督自己更严格呢? —

Why, holding obstinately to the opinions of the world, which hardens itself in order that it may be thought strong, do we reject, as it rejects, souls bleeding at wounds by which, like a sick man’s bad blood, the evil of their past may be healed, if only a friendly hand is stretched out to lave them and set them in the convalescence of the heart?
为什么我们要固执地坚持世俗观点,像世界一样固执,排斥那些因过去的罪孽而流下鲜血的灵魂呢?这些灵魂就像病人的坏血一样,只要有友善的手伸出,它们就能得到治愈,并被安置在心灵的痊愈之地。

It is to my own generation that I speak, to those for whom the theories of M. de Voltaire happily exist no longer, to those who, like myself, realize that humanity, for these last fifteen years, has been in one of its most audacious moments of expansion. —
我向自己这个时代讲话,向那些幸运地不再相信伏尔泰(Voltaire)理论的人们讲话,向那些像我一样意识到,过去15年里,人类已经处于最大胆扩张的时刻的人们讲话。 —

The science of good and evil is acquired forever; —
善恶之学永远掌握在我们手中; —

faith is refashioned, respect for sacred things has returned to us, and if the world has not all at once become good, it has at least become better. —
信仰被重新打造,对神圣事物的尊重回到我们身边,虽然世界并没有一下子变好,但至少变得更好了。 —

The efforts of every intelligent man tend in the same direction, and every strong will is harnessed to the same principle: —
每个聪明人的努力都朝着同一个方向,每个坚强的意志都奉行着同一个原则。 —

Be good, be young, be true! Evil is nothing but vanity, let us have the pride of good, and above all let us never despair. —
善良,年轻,真实!邪恶只是虚荣,让我们以善良为骄傲,最重要的是永不绝望。 —

Do not let us despise the woman who is neither mother, sister, maid, nor wife. —
不要看不起那些既不是母亲,姐妹,女仆,也不是妻子的女人。 —

Do not let us limit esteem to the family nor indulgence to egoism. —
不要将尊重局限于家庭,也不要纵容自我主义。 —

Since “there is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons that need no repentance, ” let us give joy to heaven. —
“在天堂,一个回头的罪人胜过九十九个不需要悔改的义人”,让我们给天堂带来快乐。 —

Heaven will render it back to us with usury. —
天堂会加倍还给我们。 —

Let us leave on our way the alms of pardon for those whom earthly desires have driven astray, whom a divine hope shall perhaps save, and, as old women say when they offer you some homely remedy of their own, if it does no good it will do no harm.
让我们为那些被地上的欲望误导的人留下宽恕的施舍,也许他们会因为神圣的希望而得救;正如老太太们在给你们提供某种家常药物时说的,即使没有好处,也不会有坏处。

Doubtless it must seem a bold thing to attempt to deduce these grand results out of the meagre subject that I deal with; —
毫无疑问,试图从我所处理的狭隘主题中推导出这些宏伟结论,似乎是一件大胆的事情; —

but I am one of those who believe that all is in little. —
但我是那些相信一切都在微小中的人之一。 —

The child is small, and he includes the man; —
孩子很小,但他包含着成年人。 —

the brain is narrow, and it harbours thought; —
大脑狭小有限,却孕育着思想; —

the eye is but a point, and it covers leagues.
眼睛如针尖般微小,却可见千里迢迢。