英語聽書《白鯨記》第914期

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But one night, under cover of darkness, and further concealed in a most cunning disguisement, a desperate burglar slid into his happy home, and robbed them all of everything. And darker yet to tell, the blacksmith himself did ignorantly conduct this burglar into his family's heart. It was the Bottle Conjuror! Upon the opening of that fatal cork, forth flew the fiend, and shrivelled up his home. Now, for prudent, most wise, and economic reasons, the blacksmith's shop was in the basement of his dwelling, but with a separate entrance to it; so that always had the young and loving healthy wife listened with no unhappy nervousness, but with vigorous pleasure, to the stout ringing of her young-armed old husband's hammer; whose reverberations, muffled by passing through the floors and walls, came up to her, not unsweetly, in her nursery; and so, to stout Labor's iron lullaby, the blacksmith's infants were rocked to slumber.

可是，有一天晚上，一個險惡的夜賊借著深沉的夜色，尤其是借著一種最巧妙的偽裝，悄悄地溜進了他的快活的家里，把他所有的一切都偷得一干二凈。更為凄慘的是，這個夜賊是鐵匠本人莫知莫覺地引進自己家里的。這就是那個魔瓶鬼（《天方夜譚》中有一個裝在瓶子里的魔鬼，一放出來，身體能象常人或竟超過常人的大小。）！那只性命攸關(guān)的瓶塞一經(jīng)拔開，那個惡魔就猛地沖了出來，把他的家庭給搞垮了。且說這個鐵匠出于謹慎、精明和經(jīng)濟，他的作坊就設(shè)在他住屋的地下室里，單獨有一扇門；所以這個年輕可愛、身體壯健的妻子總是帶著一種不無快活的膽怯、然而卻很有樂趣，傾聽她年老丈夫那象小伙子的腕力猛力敲擊的錘子聲；錘子的回音，朦朧地穿過樓板和墻壁，頗為愉快地傳上她的育兒室；鐵匠的小孩們也就這樣合著勞動之神的猛力的鋼鐵催眠曲，給震蕩得甜睡著了。

Oh, woe on woe! Oh, Death, why canst thou not sometimes be timely? Hadst thou taken this old blacksmith to thyself ere his full ruin came upon him, then had the young widow had a delicious grief, and her orphans a truly venerable, legendary sire to dream of in their after years; and all of them a care-killing competency. But Death plucked down some virtuous elder brother, on whose whistling daily toil solely hung the responsibilities of some other family, and left the worse than useless old man standing, till the hideous rot of life should make him easier to harvest.

啊，哀上加哀！死神啊，你為什么有時候不能及時地來呢？如果你在這個老鐵匠傾家蕩產(chǎn)之前，先把他攫走，然后讓那個年青的孀婦痛痛快快地悲傷一場，讓她那些孤兒以后有個夢想他們那真有來歷的、神話似的祖先的機會；讓他們都心勞神悴下去，不是更好些嗎？可是，死神卻要突然拖走別的人家一個肩上壓著家庭重擔、終日勞累不停的善良的大哥，而撇下一個百無一用的老頭兒，等到那可怕的腐朽的生命更容易收拾時才來收拾他。