翻译习作｜马克·吐温《坏男孩的故事》

翻译习作｜马克·吐温《坏男孩的故事》

《坏男孩的故事》Once there was a bad little boy named Jim—though you’d notice, if you paid a little attention, that in Sunday school books, bad boys are almost always named James. Odd as it may seem, this one really was Jim. Jim didn’t have a sick mother. In Sunday school books, most bad boys named James have ailing mothers—pious women suffering from tuberculosis, who ought to have been lying peacefully in the graveyard, but who, out of love for their sons, worry they’ll be left alone, cold and hungry, after their own passing. These mothers teach their sons to say things like, “Now I lay me down to sleep,” sing them mournful lullabies, kiss them goodnight, then kneel by the bed and weep. But this boy was different—his name was Jim. His mother was hale and hearty, free from tuberculosis or any other dread disease. She was stout, irreligious, and unconcerned about Jim. She said she’d lose nothing if Jim broke his neck. She sent him to bed, often spanked him, and never kissed him goodnight; instead, she gave him a couple of slaps before leaving.Once, this bad boy stole the key to the pantry, slipped inside, and feasted on jam. Then, to avoid detection, he filled the jar with tar. He didn’t suddenly feel guilty, nor did he hear a faint voice say, “Is it right to disobey your mother? Don’t you feel remorse for gobbling up your kind mother’s jam? Where can a bad boy hide after devouring it all?” Nor did he kneel down and vow never to be naughty again, then rise with a light heart and run to tell his mother everything, begging her forgiveness so that she might bless him with tears of relief and pride shining in her eyes. No, that’s how other bad boys behave in books; strangely, Jim was nothing like that. After eating the jam, he said crudely and wickedly that it tasted great; after pouring in the tar, he laughed and said it would taste just as good, and that the old woman would “surely go wild” when she found out. Later, when his mother discovered the trick, he denied it all and ended up being soundly beaten, crying buckets in the process. In short, everything about this boy was odd and peculiar—very different from the bad Jameses in Sunday school books.Once, Jim climbed up Farmer Aiken’s apple tree to steal apples. The branch didn’t break; he didn’t fall and break his arm, nor was he mauled by the farmer’s big dog, nor did he lie in bed for weeks in pain, regretting his ways. Oh no, he picked as many as he wanted and came down unscathed; when the dog came at him, he was ready and knocked it flat with a brick. How strange—those sentimental little books with marbleized backs, featuring men in tailcoats and knickerbockers and top hats, and women in unhooped dresses, never had boys like Jim. Nothing at all was like what the Sunday school books described.Another time, Jim stole his teacher’s penknife and, fearing a whipping if caught, slipped it into George Wilson’s hat. George was the son of the poor Widow Wilson and a well-behaved boy in the village; he obeyed his mother, never lied, and loved school and Sunday school. Later, the penknife fell out of the hat, and poor George hung his head in shame, looking as guilty as a thief. The grieved teacher accused him of stealing and prepared to whip his trembling shoulders. At that moment, a white-haired justice of the peace didn’t suddenly appear out of nowhere, saying pompously, “Spare this virtuous child—someone here has done wrong and is cowering! I happened to see the theft as I passed by the school at recess!” So Jim wasn’t severely beaten, nor did a venerable judge preach to the tearful teacher and pupils, take George by the hand and say he deserved high praise, then bring him home to live, have him sweep the office, build fires, run errands, chop wood, study law, help the judge’s wife with chores, and give him plenty of time to play while earning forty cents a month, living happily ever after. No, such things might happen in books, but not to Jim, nor would a taciturn but meddlesome old judge suddenly show up to stop everything. So the model boy George got whipped, and Jim gloated over it; as everyone knew, he hated well-behaved boys. Jim said he “despised cowards”—a rude phrase from this ill-disciplined bad boy.But the strangest thing was that Jim didn’t drown when he went boating on Sunday, nor was he struck by lightning when he went fishing in a storm. How could that be? You could search through every Sunday school book until next Christmas and never find such a thing. Oh no! You’d find that bad boys who go boating on Sunday always drown, and those who go fishing in storms always get struck by lightning. Boats carrying bad boys on Sunday always meet disaster, and bad boys who fish on the Sabbath always face storms. How Jim escaped all this is truly a mystery.Jim’s life seemed charmed—it must have been. Nothing could harm him. He fed an elephant tobacco in the menagerie without having his head knocked off by its trunk. He rummaged through cabinets for peppermint essence without mistakenly drinking nitric acid. He stole his father’s gun and went hunting on the Sabbath without blowing off three or four fingers. When angry, he punched his little sister in the temple, and she didn’t spend the summer in pain, dying and repeating comforting words of forgiveness that broke his heart even more. No, she was fine.Eventually, Jim left home and became a sailor. When he returned, he didn’t feel lonely or desolate: his relatives weren’t lying in quiet churchyards, nor had his childhood vine-covered home collapsed into ruin. Ah, no; the first thing he did upon returning was to get drunk and end up in the police station.When Jim grew up, he married and had many children. One night, he even took an axe and smashed their heads in. Later, he grew rich through fraud and wrongdoing. Now, Jim is the most vicious scoundrel in the countryside, yet he’s respected and even elected to the legislature.So you see, in Sunday school books, bad Jameses never have the luck or smooth sailing that the wicked Jim enjoys.