狄更斯雙語小說:《董貝父子》第20章Part 07

The simple father was beginning to submit that he hoped his son, the quondam Grinder, huffed and cuffed, and flogged and badged, and taught, as parrots are, by a brute jobbed into his place of schoolmaster with as much fitness for it as a hound, might not have been educated on quite a right plan in some undiscovered respect, when Mr Dombey angrily repeating 'The usual return!' led the Major away. And the Major being heavy to hoist into Mr Dombey's carriage, elevated in mid—air, and having to stop and swear that he would flay the Native alive, and break every bone in his skin, and visit other physical torments upon him, every time he couldn't get his foot on the step, and fell back on that dark exile, had barely time before they started to repeat hoarsely that it would never do: that it always failed: and that if he were to educate 'his own vagabond,' he would certainly be hanged.
Mr Dombey assented bitterly; but there was something more in his bitterness, and in his moody way of falling back in the carriage, and looking with knitted brows at the changing objects without, than the failure of that noble educational system administered by the Grinders' Company. He had seen upon the man's rough cap a piece of new crape, and he had assured himself, from his manner and his answers, that he wore it for his son.
So from high to low, at home or abroad, from Florence in his great house to the coarse churl who was feeding the fire then smoking before them, everyone set up some claim or other to a share in his dead boy, and was a bidder against him! Could he ever forget how that woman had wept over his pillow, and called him her own child! or how he, waking from his sleep, had asked for her, and had raised himself in his bed and brightened when she carne in!
To think of this presumptuous raker among coals and ashes going on before there, with his sign of mourning! To think that he dared to enter, even by a common show like that, into the trial and disappointrnent of a proud gentleman's secret heart! To think that this lost child, who was to have divided with him his riches, and his projects, and his power, and allied with whom he was to have shut out all the world as with a double door of gold, should have let in such a herd to insult him with their knowledge of his defeated hopes, and their boasts of claiming community of feeling with himself, so far removed: if not of having crept into the place wherein he would have lorded it, alone!

這位老實人的兒子，過去的磨工，曾經被他那野獸般粗暴、殘忍的老師嚇唬過，毆打過，鞭撻過，在身上烙過印，並像鸚鵡般地教過；由這種人擔任老師職務，就像讓獵狗擔任這種職務一樣不合適。當這位頭腦簡單的父親正想表示希望他的兒子不要在某些方面接受了錯誤的教育的時候，董貝先生怒衝衝地重複了一句：“到頭來通常是這樣的報答！”，就領着少校走開了。少校身子很重，很不容易把他舉起送進董貝先生的車廂裏；他被懸舉在半空，每當他的腳踩不到車廂門口的踏板，重新落在膚色黝黑的流亡者的身上時，他就發誓賭咒地大罵說，他要把本地人活活剝下皮來，要把他的每根骨頭都打斷，還要讓他的身體吃其他各種苦頭；少校進了車廂以後，嘶啞地重複說，千萬別做那種事，那樣做總是失敗的，如果他要讓“自己這位流浪漢”去受教育的話，那麼這小子到頭來準會被絞死的；話音剛落，火車就開了。
董貝先生心裏很不好受地表示同意；但是在他的不好受中，在他仰靠在車廂裏、皺着眉頭看着車外不斷變化的景物時那鬱鬱不樂的神色中，還包含着另外的意義，它並不是由於磨工公司舉辦的高貴的教育制度遭到失敗所引起的。他剛纔在那人的質地粗糙的帽子上看到一塊新的黑紗；他從他的態度和回答中可以肯定，他是爲他的兒子保羅佩戴的。
正是這樣！從地位高的到地位低的，在家裏或在外面，從住在他的宏偉的公館中的弗洛倫斯開始，一直到這位正在給鍋爐燒火，在他們前面正冒出黑煙來的粗漢，每個人都認爲對他死去的孩子享有自己的一份權利，都成爲他的競爭對手！他能忘記那個女人曾經怎樣在保羅的枕邊痛哭，把他稱做她自己的孩子嗎？他能忘記那孩子從睡眠中醒來的時候怎樣打聽她，而當她進來的時候，他又怎樣喜形於色地從牀上坐起來嗎？
想一想這個在煤塊和灰燼中間撥弄火耙子的人正毫無顧忌地佩戴着他那服喪的標誌，在前面向前行進吧！想一想他竟敢那怕是採用那樣普普通通的一種表示，來分擔一位高傲的紳士的祕密的心中的煩惱與失望吧！想一想這個死去的孩子本應當和他共享財富與權力，本應當與他共同策劃未來的事業，本應當和他一起像關上雙重金門一樣地與全世界隔絕的，卻竟會讓這樣一類愚昧無知的平民闖進來，對他破滅的希望瞭如指掌，並揚揚得意地誇耀能跟他分擔與他們如此疏遠的感情上的悲痛，用這種方式來侮辱他吧！且不說他們還可能已偷偷地爬進他想獨自霸佔的地方了呢！