I did not see him again for nearly a week. —
我将近一周没见到他。 —

Then he fetched me soon after seven one evening and took me out to dinner. —
然后一个傍晚七点多他来接我，带我出去吃晚餐。 —

He was dressed in the deepest mourning, and on his bowler was a broad black band. —
他穿着深深的丧服，礼帽上还带着一条宽宽的黑丝带。 —

He had even a black border to his handkerchief. —
他手帕上甚至也缝了黑边。 —

His garb of woe suggested that he had lost in one catastrophe every relation he had in the world, even to cousins by marriage twice removed. —
他的哀伤服饰暗示着他在一场灾难中失去了世界上所有的亲属，甚至包括两次移除的姑表堂兄。 —

His plumpness and his red, fat cheeks made his mourning not a little incongruous. —
他的肥胖和红润的脸颊让他的哀悼显得有些不相称。 —

It was cruel that his extreme unhappiness should have in it something of buffoonery.
他极度不幸却又有些闹剧般，这是残酷的。

He told me he had made up his mind to go away, though not to Italy, as I had suggested, but to Holland.
他告诉我他已经决定离开，尽管没有像我建议的去意大利，而是去荷兰。

“I’m starting to-morrow. This is perhaps the last time we shall ever meet. “
“我明天就要出发了。也许这是我们永远不会再见面的最后一次。”

I made an appropriate rejoinder, and he smiled wanly.
我做出了恰当的回答，他苍白地微笑着。

“I haven’t been home for five years. I think I’d forgotten it all; —
“我已经五年没回家了。我觉得我把它都忘了； —

I seemed to have come so far away from my father’s house that I was shy at the idea of revisiting it; —
我似乎已经离父亲的家太远，以至于对重返访想感到害羞； —

but now I feel it’s my only refuge. “
但现在我感觉那是我的唯一避难所。”

He was sore and bruised, and his thoughts went back to the tenderness of his mother’s love. —
他受伤痛苦，回忆起他母亲的柔情。 —

The ridicule he had endured for years seemed now to weigh him down, and the final blow of Blanche’s treachery had robbed him of the resiliency which had made him take it so gaily. —
多年来遭受的嘲笑现在似乎让他心力交瘁，而布兰奇的背叛给了他致命一击，让他失去了曾让他如此开心地应对的弹性。 —

He could no longer laugh with those who laughed at him. He was an outcast. —
他不再能与那些嘲笑他的人一起笑了。他成了一个被排斥的人。 —

He told me of his childhood in the tidy brick house, and of his mother’s passionate orderliness. —
他告诉我他在整洁的砖房中度过的童年，以及他母亲的激情整洁。 —

Her kitchen was a miracle of clean brightness. —
她的厨房简直是一片干净明亮的奇迹。 —

Everything was always in its place, and no where could you see a speck of dust. —
一切总是井然有序，而你无处可见一丝灰尘。 —

Cleanliness, indeed, was a mania with her. —
事实上，对她来说，干净简直成了一种狂热。 —

I saw a neat little old woman, with cheeks like apples, toiling away from morning to night, through the long years, to keep her house trim and spruce. —
我看到一个整洁的小老太太，脸颊红润如苹果，日复一日地辛勤劳作，保持她的房子整洁漂亮。 —

His father was a spare old man, his hands gnarled after the work of a lifetime, silent and upright; —
他的父亲是一个瘦削的老人，手掌因一生的劳作而变得粗糙，沉默而正直； —

in the evening he read the paper aloud, while his wife and daughter (now married to the captain of a fishing smack), unwilling to lose a moment, bent over their sewing. —
晚上他朗读报纸，而他的妻子和女儿（现在已嫁给一艘拖网渔船船长），不愿浪费一刻，低头专心做着缝纫。 —

Nothing ever happened in that little town, left behind by the advance of civilisation, and one year followed the next till death came, like a friend, to give rest to those who had laboured so diligently.
在那个被现代文明抛在后面的小镇上，从一年接续到另一年，直到死神如友人般来临，让那些辛勤劳作的人得以安息。

“My father wished me to become a carpenter like himself. —
“我父亲希望我成为像他一样的木匠。 —

For five generations we’ve carried on the same trade, from father to son. —
五代人从父亲到儿子都从事同一行业。 —

Perhaps that is the wisdom of life, to tread in your father’s steps, and look neither to the right nor to the left. —
也许这就是生活的智慧，跟随父亲的脚步，左右逢源。 —

When I was a little boy I said I would marry the daughter of the harness-maker who lived next door. —
当我还是个小男孩的时候，我说我会娶隔壁边的鞍具制造商的女儿。 —

She was a little girl with blue eyes and a flaxen pigtail. —
她是一个有着蓝眼睛和金黄辫子的小女孩。 —

She would have kept my house like a new pin, and I should have had a son to carry on the business after me. “
她会把我的家里弄得井井有条，我就会有一个儿子来接替我从事生意。”

Stroeve sighed a little and was silent. His thoughts dwelt among pictures of what might have been, and the safety of the life he had refused filled him with longing.
Stroeve叹了口气，沉默了一会儿。他的思绪停留在了可能发生的事情的图景上，对他拒绝的那种安稳生活产生了向往之情。

“The world is hard and cruel. We are here none knows why, and we go none knows whither. —
“世界是残酷严酷的。我们不知为何存在于此，去向何方也无人知晓。 —

We must be very humble. We must see the beauty of quietness. —
我们必须非常谦卑。我们必须看到宁静的美。 —

We must go through life so inconspicuously that Fate does not notice us. —
我们必须过着如此低调的生活，以致命运都不会注意到我们。 —

And let us seek the love of simple, ignorant people. —
让我们寻求简单、无知人们的爱。 —

Their ignorance is better than all our knowledge. —
他们的无知胜过我们所有的知识。 —

Let us be silent, content in our little corner, meek and gentle like them. —
让我们沉默，满足于我俩的小角落，像他们那样温顺和谦恭。 —

That is the wisdom of life. “
这就是生活的智慧。

To me it was his broken spirit that expressed itself, and I rebelled against his renunciation. —
对我来说，他所表达的是一种破灭的精神，而我在他的放弃面前感到反叛。 —

But I kept my own counsel.
但我守口如瓶。

“What made you think of being a painter?” I asked.
“你是怎么想到当画家的呢？”我问道。

He shrugged his shoulders.
他耸了耸肩。

“It happened that I had a knack for drawing. I got prizes for it at school. —
“我在画画方面有天赋。在学校我因此得过奖。 —

My poor mother was very proud of my gift, and she gave me a box of water-colours as a present. —
我贫穷的母亲对我的天赋非常自豪，她送我一盒水彩作为礼物。 —

She showed my sketches to the pastor and the doctor and the judge. —
她把我的素描拿给牧师、医生和法官看。 —

And they sent me to Amsterdam to try for a scholarship, and I won it. Poor soul, she was so proud; —
他们派我去阿姆斯特丹申请奖学金，我成功了。可怜的灵魂，她当时是如此自豪； —

and though it nearly broke her heart to part from me, she smiled, and would not show me her grief. —
尽管和我分开几乎让她心碎了，她微笑着，不让我看到她的悲伤。 —

She was pleased that her son should be an artist. —
她为自己的儿子成为艺术家感到高兴。 —

They pinched and saved so that I should have enough to live on, and when my first picture was exhibited they came to Amsterdam to see it, my father and mother and my sister, and my mother cried when she looked at it. —
他们节衣缩食以保证我有足够的生活费，当我的第一幅画在阿姆斯特丹展出时，他们来看了，父亲、母亲和姐姐，母亲看着画时哭了。 —

” His kind eyes glistened. “And now on every wall of the old house there is one of my pictures in a beautiful gold frame. “
“他慈祥的眼睛闪闪发亮。“现在在老房子的每面墙上都挂着我画的一幅画，镶嵌在漂亮的金框里。”

He glowed with happy pride. I thought of those cold scenes of his, with their picturesque peasants and cypresses and olive-trees. —
他因幸福和骄傲而容光焕发。我想起他那些冷峻的画面，描绘着风景如画的农民们、柏树和橄榄树。 —

They must look queer in their garish frames on the walls of the peasant house.
它们在农家屋的墙上用俗气的框架看起来肯定很奇怪。

“The dear soul thought she was doing a wonderful thing for me when she made me an artist, but perhaps, after all, it would have been better for me if my father’s will had prevailed and I were now but an honest carpenter. “
“亲爱的灵魂以为让我成为画家是件了不起的事，但也许综合考虑，如果我父亲的意愿最终实现了，我现在仅仅是个诚实的木匠或许更好。”

“Now that you know what art can offer, would you change your life? —
“现在你知道艺术能提供什么，你会改变你的生活吗？ —

Would you have missed all the delight it has given you?”
你会放弃它给你带来的所有乐趣吗？”

“Art is the greatest thing in the world, ” he answered, after a pause.
“艺术是世界上最伟大的事物，”他说，停顿片刻后。

He looked at me for a minute reflectively; he seemed to hesitate; then he said:
他若有所思地看着我一分钟；他似乎在犹豫，然后说：

“Did you know that I had been to see Strickland?”
“你知道我去看了斯特里克兰吗？”

“You?”
“你？”

I was astonished. I should have thought he could not bear to set eyes on him. —
我感到惊讶。我本以为他无法忍受见到他。 —

Stroeve smiled faintly.
斯特罗夫微微一笑。

“You know already that I have no proper pride. “
“你已经知道我并没有真正的自尊。”

“What do you mean by that?”
“你是仜什么意思？”

He told me a singular story.
他告诉我一个奇特的故事。