华东师范大学研究生英语期末考试翻译Down and Out in Paris and London

Unit 5:<Down and Out in Paris and London>

巴黎、伦敦落魄记

You discover the extreme precariousness of your six francs a day. Mean disasters happen and rob you of food. You have spent your last eighty centimes on half a litre of milk, and are boiling it over the spirit lamp. While it boils a bug runs down your forearm; you give the bug a flick with your nail, and it falls, plop! straight into the milk. There is nothing for it but to throw the milk away and go foodless.

你发现每天的六法郎根本没有保障。一些意想不到的灾难就会掠夺你的一日三餐。你花最后的八十生丁买了半升牛奶，然后在酒精灯上把它煮沸。煮牛奶时，一只臭虫跳到你的前臂上；你用指甲弹开臭虫，扑通一声，它掉进了牛奶。你无可奈何，只好把牛奶倒了，这样又得继续饿着肚子。

You go to the baker’s to buy a pound of bread, and you wait while the girl cuts a pound for another customer. She is clumsy, and cuts more than a pound. “Pardon, monsieur,” she says, “I suppose you don’t mind paying two sous extra?” Bread is a franc a pound, and you have exactly a franc. When you think that you might be asked to pay two sous extra, and would have to confess that you could not, you bolt in panic. It is hours before you dare venture into a baker’s shop again.

你去面包房买了一磅面包，面包房里的姑娘为另外一个顾客切面包时，你在一旁等着。她笨手笨脚，切了一磅多。“对不起，先生，”她说，“我相信你不会介意多付两苏吧。”一法郎一磅面包，你恰好只有一法郎。你觉得她有可能会让你额外付两苏，你不得不承认你付不起，所以只能落荒而逃。你作了很长时间的思想斗争才敢再次冒险走进面包房。

You go to the greengrocer’s to spend a franc on a kilogram of potatoes. But one of the pieces that make up the franc is a Belgian piece, and the shopman refuses it. You slink out of the shop, and can never go there again.

你来到蔬菜店，想花一法郎买一公斤土豆。但凑够一法郎的硬币中有一枚是比利时硬币，店主拒收。你灰溜溜地离开蔬菜店，再也不敢光顾那里。

You have strayed into a respectable quarter, and you see a prosperous friend coming. To avoid him you dodge into the nearest café. Once in the café you must buy something, so you spend your last fifty centimes on a glass of black coffee with a dead fly in it. One could multiply these disasters by the hundred. They are part of the process of being hard up.

你游荡到一个体面的街区，看到一个有钱的朋友走过来，为避免与他碰面，你躲进了最近的一家咖啡厅。一旦进了咖啡厅，你就必须买点什么，因此你花去最后五十生丁买了一杯黑咖啡，但里面还有一只死苍蝇。这些不幸数以百计地增加。它们是经济拮据过程中的一部分。

You discover what it is like to be hungry. With bread and margarine in your belly, you go out and look into the shop windows. Everywhere there is food insulting you in huge wasteful piles; whole dead pigs, baskets of hot loaves, great yellow blocks of butter, strings of sausages, mountains of potatoes, vast Gruyere cheeses like grindstones. A sniveling self-pity comes over you at the sight of so much food. You plan to grab a loaf and run, swallowing it before they catch you; and you refrain, from pure funk.

你体会到饥饿是什么感觉了。你真想把面包和黄油吃个够，于是走出住处，

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