We rubber plants form the connecting link between the vegetable kingdom and the decorations of a Waldorf-Astoria scene in a Third Avenue theatre. —
我们橡胶植物成为蔬菜王国和Waldorf-Astoria场景的装饰之间的连接。 —

I haven’t looked up our family tree, but I believe we were raised by grafting a gum overshoe on to a 30-cent table d’hote stalk of asparagus. —
我没有查过我们的家谱，但我相信我们是通过将橡胶凉鞋嫁接到30美分的套餐菜花上来养大的。 —

You take a white bulldog with a Bourke Cockran air of independence about him and a rubber plant and there you have the fauna and flora of a flat. —
你拿一只带有伯克·科克伦独立气质的白色斗牛犬和一株橡胶植物，那就是一个公寓的动植物。 —

What the shamrock is to Ireland the rubber plant is to the dweller in flats and furnished rooms. —
橡胶植物对于居住在公寓和家具房间的人来说，就像是爱尔兰的三叶草一样重要。 —

We get moved from one place to another so quickly that the only way we can get our picture taken is with a kinetoscope. —
我们搬家如此之快，以至于我们唯一能拍照的方式就是用一个动感影像机。 —

We are the vagrant vine and the flitting fig tree. You know the proverb: —
我们是流浪的藤蔓和匆匆的无花果树。你知道那句谚语： —

“Where the rubber plant sits in the window the moving van draws up to the door.”
“橡胶植物坐在窗前，搬家车就停在门口。”

We are the city equivalent to the woodbine and the honeysuckle. —
我们是城市里等同于木母和忍冬的植物。 —

No other vegetable except the Pittsburg stogie can withstand as much handling as we can. —
除了匹兹堡雪茄之外，没有其他植物能够承受像我们这样的搬动。 —

When the family to which we belong moves into a flat they set us in the front window and we become lares and penates, fly-paper and the peripatetic emblem of “Home Sweet Home.” We aren’t as green as we look. —
当我们所属的家庭搬进一套公寓时，他们把我们放在前窗户里，我们成为家庭的神灵和护佑，捕蝇纸和“甜蜜家园”的象征。我们并没有看上去那么天真无邪。 —

I guess we are about what you would call the soubrettes of the conservatory. —
我猜我们大致可以被称为温室中的配角。 —

You try sitting in the front window of a $40 flat in Manhattan and looking out into the street all day, and back into the flat at night, and see whether you get wise or not–hey? —
你试试坐在曼哈顿一套四十美元的公寓前窗户里，整天朝外看街道，晚上回头朝屋里看，看看你是否变聪明了，嗨？ —

Talk about the tree of knowledge of good and evil in the garden of Eden–say! —
说起伊甸园中的善恶树，嗯！ —

suppose there had been a rubber plant there when Eve–but I was going to tell you a story.
假设在夏娃……但我本来要给你讲个故事。

The first thing I can remember I had only three leaves and belonged to a member of the pony ballet. —
我能记得的第一件事就是我只有三片叶子，属于小马芭蕾团的一员。 —

I was kept in a sunny window, and was generally watered with seltzer and lemon. —
当时我被放在一个阳光明媚的窗户上，通常用苏打水和柠檬来浇水。 —

I had plenty of fun in those days. I got cross-eyed trying to watch the numbers of the automobiles in the street and the dates on the labels inside at the same time.
那些日子里我玩得很开心。我睁大眼睛试图同时观察街上的汽车号码和室内标签上的日期，结果使眼睛变斜视。

Well, then the angel that was molting for the musical comedy lost his last feather and the company broke up. —
那么，那只为音乐喜剧换羽毛的天使失去了最后一根羽毛，公司也解散了。 —

The ponies trotted away and I was left in the window ownerless. —
小马儿们嗖嗖地走了，我被留在了无主的窗台上。 —

The janitor gave me to a refined comedy team on the eighth floor, and in six weeks I had been set in the window of five different flats I took on experience and put out two more leaves.
这位清一色的喜剧班男佣将我送给了八楼的一个有修养的喜剧团队，六周内，我先后被放在了五个不同的公寓窗户里，我积累了经验并长出了另外两片叶子。

Miss Carruthers, of the refined comedy team–did you ever see her cross both feet back of her neck? —
卡鲁瑟斯小姐，那位修养的喜剧团队的成员，你见过她将双脚交叉放在脖子后面吗？ —

–gave me to a friend of hers who had made an unfortunate marriage with a man in a store. —
她把我送给了一个与一个商店的男子不幸结婚的朋友。 —

Consequently I was placed in the window of a furnished room, rent in advance, water two flights up, gas extra after ten o’clock at night. —
因此，我被安置在一间带家具的房间的窗户里，租金要提前支付，楼上两层有水，晚上十点后使用煤气需额外支付。 —

Two of my leaves withered off here. Also, I was moved from one room to another so many times that I got to liking the odor of the pipes the expressmen smoked.
在这里，我的两片叶子枯萎掉了。此外，我被反复搬家，以至于我喜欢上了搬运工抽烟的管子的气味。

I don’t think I ever had so dull a time as I did with this lady. —
我觉得我在这位女士身边度过的时光从未如此乏味。 —

There was never anything amusing going on inside–she was devoted to her husband, and, besides leaning out the window and flirting with the iceman, she never did a thing toward breaking the monotony.
这个地方从来没有什么好玩的事情-她对丈夫忠心耿耿，除了从窗子里伸出头与送冰的人调情，她没有做任何打破枯燥的事情。

When the couple broke up they left me with the rest of their goods at a second-hand store. —
当那对夫妇分手时，他们把其他的东西都留给了我，放在一个二手店里。 —

I was put out in front for sale along with the jobbiest lot you ever heard of being lumped into one bargain. —
我被放在前面，与你所能想到的最烂的东西一起卖。 —

Think of this little cornucopia of wonders, all for $1.89: —
想象一下，这个奇妙的丰富充实，一共只要1.89美元： —

Henry James’s works, six talking machine records, one pair of tennis shoes, two bottles of horse radish, and a rubber plant–that was me!
亨利·詹姆斯的著作，六张唱机唱片，一双网球鞋，两瓶辣根和一棵橡胶植物-那就是我！

One afternoon a girl came along and stopped to look at me. —
一个下午，一个女孩经过并停下来看着我。 —

She had dark hair and eyes, and she looked slim, and sad around the mouth.
她有着黑色的头发和眼睛，看起来苗条，在嘴边显得忧郁。

“Oh, oh!” she says to herself. “I never thought to see one up here.”
“噢，噢！”她自言自语道。”我从来没想过会在这里见到一个。

She pulls out a little purse about as thick as one of my leaves and fingers over some small silver in it. —
她从一个和我的叶子一样厚度的小钱包里掏出一些小银币来。 —

Old Koen, always on the lockout, is ready, rubbing his hands. —
老科恩，一直在观察，准备好了，搓着手。 —

This girl proceeds to turn down Mr. James and the other commodities. —
这个女孩拒绝了詹姆斯先生和其他商品。 —

Rubber plants or nothing is the burden of her song. —
橡胶植物或没有其他选项是她的负担。 —

And at last Koen and she come together at 39 cents, and away she goes with me in her arms.
最后，库恩和她以39美分聚在一起，然后她搂着我离开了。

She was a nice girl, but not my style. Too quiet and sober looking. Thinks I to myself: —
她是个不错的女孩，但不是我的类型。太安静和看似认真。我心里想： —

“I’ll just about land on the fire-escape of a tenement, six stories up. —
“我就会在一座6层楼高的廉租公寓的防火梯上着陆。” —

And I’ll spend the next six months looking at clothes on the line.”
“然后接下来的六个月我会看着晾晒的衣服。”

But she carried me to a nice little room only three flights up in quite a decent street. —
但是她带我去了一间很好的小房间，只有三层楼，位于一条相当不错的街道上。 —

And she put me in the window, of course. And then she went to work and cooked dinner for herself. —
当然，她把我放在了窗户上。然后她去做晚餐给自己。 —

And what do you suppose she had? Bread and tea and a little dab of jam! Nothing else. —
你猜她吃了什么？只有面包、茶和一点果酱！别无其他。 —

Not a single lobster, nor so much as one bottle of champagne. —
一个龙虾也没有，甚至没有一瓶香槟。 —

The Carruthers comedy team had both every evening, except now and then when they took a notion for pig’s knuckle and kraut.
卡鲁瑟斯喜剧团每天晚上都有这两样东西，除非偶尔他们想吃猪蹄和酸菜。

After she had finished her dinner my new owner came to the window and leaned down close to my leaves and cried softly to herself for a while. —
在她吃完晚餐后，我的新主人来到窗前，低下身子靠近我的叶子，默默流泪一会儿。 —

It made me feel funny. I never knew anybody to cry that way over a rubber plant before. —
这让我感到奇怪。我从来没见过有人为了一棵橡胶树而这样哭泣。 —

Of course, I’ve seen a few of ‘em turn on the tears for what they could get out of it, but she seemed to be crying just for the pure enjoyment of it. —
当然，我见过有些人嚎啕大哭，为的是从中获得利益，但她似乎只是为了纯粹的乐趣而哭泣。 —

She touched my leaves like she loved ‘em, and she bent down her head and kissed each one of ‘em. —
她轻抚着我的叶子，看起来好像很爱它们，然后低下头亲吻了每一片。 —

I guess I’m about the toughest specimen of a peripatetic orchid on earth, but I tell you it made me feel sort of queer. —
我想我是地球上最坚强的游走蘭花样本了，但我告诉你，这让我感到有些奇怪。 —

Home never was like that to me before. Generally I used to get chewed by poodles and have shirt-waists hung on me to dry, and get watered with coffee grounds and peroxide of hydrogen.
以前家从来不是这样的。通常我会被贵宾犬咬，会挂着衬衫等着晾干，会被用咖啡渣和过氧化氢浇水。

This girl had a piano in the room, and she used to disturb it with both hands while she made noises with her mouth for hours at a time. —
这个女孩的房间里放着一台钢琴，她会用两只手弹着琴，同时用嘴发出噪音，有时弹上好几个小时。 —

I suppose she was practising vocal music.
我想她是在练习声乐。

One day she seemed very much excited and kept looking at the clock. —
一天，她看起来很兴奋，一直盯着钟。 —

At eleven somebody knocked and she let in a stout, dark man with towsled black hair. —
十一点的时候有人敲门，她让进一个身材魁梧、头发凌乱的黑发男子。 —

He sat down at once at the piano and played while she sang for him. —
他立刻坐在钢琴前弹奏，而她为他唱歌。 —

When she finished she laid one hand on her bosom and looked at him. —
她唱完后，她把一只手放在胸口，看着他。 —

He shook his head, and she leaned against the piano. —
他摇了摇头，她就靠在钢琴上。 —

“Two years already,” she said, speaking slowly–“do you think in two more–or even longer?”
“已经两年了，”她缓慢地说道–“你觉得再过两年，甚至更久吗？”

The man shook his head again. “You waste your time,” he said, roughly I thought. —
那个男人再次摇头，我觉得他声音粗鲁。 —

“The voice is not there.” And then he looked at her in a peculiar way. —
“声音不在这里。”然后他用一种奇怪的方式看着她。 —

“But the voice is not everything,” he went on. —
“但声音并不是一切，”他继续说道。 —

“You have looks. I can place you, as I told you if–”
“你有颜值。我可以安排你，正如我告诉过你，如果–”

The girl pointed to the door without saying anything, and the dark man left the room. —
女孩没有说话，只是指了指门，那个黑发男子离开了房间。 —

And then she came over and cried around me again. —
然后她走过来又哭了起来。 —

It’s a good thing I had enough rubber in me to be water-proof.
幸好我身上有足够的橡胶，可以防水。

About that time somebody else knocked at the door. “Thank goodness,” I said to myself. —
就在这时，又有人敲门了。我自言自语地说：“谢天谢地。” —

“Here’s a chance to get the water-works turned off. —
“有机会了，可以让水管停工了。” —

I hope it’s somebody that’s game enough to stand a bird and a bottle to liven things up a little.” Tell you the truth, this little girl made me tired. —
希望是个愿意陪酒陪乐的人，让气氛热闹点。说实话，这个小女孩让我累了。 —

A rubber plant likes to see a little sport now and then. —
橡胶植物也喜欢偶尔参与一些活动。 —

I don’t suppose there’s another green thing in New York that sees as much of gay life unless it’s the chartreuse or the sprigs of parsley around the dish.
我想，除了查尔特酒和菜肴上的欧芹那些绿色的东西，纽约可能再没有一个绿植能够领略到如此多快乐的生活了。

When the girl opens the door in steps a young chap in a traveling cap and picks her up in his arms, and she sings out “Oh, Dick!” and stays there long enough to–well, you’ve been a rubber plant too, sometimes, I suppose.
当女孩打开门时，一个穿着旅行帽的年轻人走了进来，他抱起了她，她高兴地喊道：“哦，迪克！”并停在那里，像你有时也会做的那样，我猜。

“Good thing!” says I to myself. “This is livelier than scales and weeping. —
我自言自语地说：“好事！”“这比练琴和流泪要热闹多了。 —

Now there’ll be something doing.”
现在就会有些活动了。”

“You’ve got to go back with me,” says the young man. “I’ve come two thousand miles for you. —
年轻人说：“你必须跟我回去。”“我为了你已经奔波了两千英里。” —

Aren’t you tired of it yet. Bess? You’ve kept all of us waiting so long. —
“你还不厌倦吗，贝丝？你让我们都等了这么久。” —

Haven’t you found out yet what is best?”
“你还没有找出什么是最好的吗？”

“The bubble burst only to-day,” says the girl. —
“泡沫今天才破裂，”女孩说。 —

“Come here, Dick, and see what I found the other day on the sidewalk for sale.” She brings him by the hand and exhibits yours truly. —
“过来，迪克，看看我前几天在人行道上买到的东西。” 她拉着他的手，展示着亲手带来的东西。 —

“How one ever got away up here who can tell? —
“这么高的地方怎么会有人来呢？谁能知道？” —

I bought it with almost the last money I had.”
“我用几乎最后的钱买的。”

He looked at me, but he couldn’t keep his eyes off her for more than a second. —
他看着我，但他的目光不能离开她超过一秒钟。 —

“Do you remember the night, Bess,” he said, “when we stood under one of those on the bank of the bayou and what you told me then?”
“贝丝，你还记得那个晚上吗？”他说，“我们站在河湾边的一棵树下，还记得你当时告诉我的话吗？”

“Geewillikins!” I said to myself. “Both of them stand under a rubber plant! —
“哎呀天哪！”我暗自想道，“他们俩竟然站在一棵橡胶植物下！” —

Seems to me they are stretching matters somewhat!”
“感觉他们有点过分夸张了！”

“Do I not,” says she, looking up at him and sneaking close to his vest, “and now I say it again, and it is to last forever. —
“不是吗？”她抬头看着他，靠近他的背心，“我再次说出来，这将是永远的。” —

Look, Dick, at its leaves, how wet they are. —
“瞧，迪克，它的叶子多么湿！” —

Those are my tears, and it was thinking of you that made them fall.”
“那是我的眼泪，是因为想着你才会落下来的。”

“The dear old magnolias!” says the young man, pinching one of my leaves. “I love them all.”
“亲爱的老木兰树！”那年轻人说着，捏了一下我的叶子。“我爱它们。”

Magnolia! Well, wouldn’t that–say! those innocents thought I was a magnolia! —
木兰树！喔，那不就是——喂！那些天真的家伙们还以为我是一棵木兰树！ —

What the–well, wasn’t that tough on a genuine little old New York rubber plant?
这可真够狠的，把一个地地道道的小纽约橡皮树当成木兰树来欺骗！