有声名著之双城记Book2 Chapter01

（单词翻译）

　　有声名著之双城记

       BOOK THE SECONDTHE GOLDEN THREAD

      CHAPTER IFive Years Later

      TELLSON'S Bank by Temple Bar was an old-fashioned place, even in the yearone thousand seven hundred and eighty. It was very small, very dark, veryugly, very incommodious. It was an old-fashioned place, moreover, in themoral attribute that the partners in the House were proud of its smallness,proud of its darkness, proud of its ugliness, proud of its incommodiousness.
They were even boastful of its eminence² in those particulars, and were firedby an empress conviction that, if it were less objectionable, it would beless respectable. This was no passive belief, but an active weapon whichthey flashed at more convenient places of business. Tellson's (they said)wanted no elbow-room, Tellson's wanted no light, Tellson's wanted noembellishment. Noakes and Co.'s might, or Snooks Brothers' might; butTellson's, thank Heaven!---Any one of these partners would have disinherited his son on the questionof rebuilding Tellson's. In this respect the House was much on a par¹ withthe Country; which did very often disinherit its sons for suggestingimprovements in laws and customs that had long been highly objectionable,but were only the more respectable.
Thus it had come to pass, that Tellson's was the triumphant³ perfection ofinconvenience. After bursting open a door of idiotic⁴ obstinacy⁵ with a weakrattle in its throat, you fell into Tellson's down two steps, and came toyour senses in a miser-able little shop, with two little counters, where theoldest of men made your cheque shake as if the wind rustled⁷ it, while theyexamined the signature by the dingiest⁸ of windows, which were always under ashower-bath of mud from Fleet-street, and which were made the dingier⁹ bytheir own iron bars proper, and the heavy shadow of Temple Bar. If yourbusiness necessitated¹⁰ your seeing `the House,' you were put into a speciesof Condemned<sup>11</sup> Hold at the back, where you meditated<sup>12</sup> on a misspent life, untilthe House came with its hands in its pockets, and you could hardly blink atit in the dismal<sup>13</sup> twilight<sup>14</sup>. Your money came out of' or went into, wormy oldwooden drawers, particles of which flew up your nose and down your throatwhen they were opened and shut. Your bank-notes had a musty odour, as ifthey were fast decomposing<sup>15</sup> into rags again. Your plate was stowed away amongthe neighbouring cesspools, and evil communications corrupted<sup>16</sup> its goodpolish in a day or two. Your deeds got into extemporised strong-rooms madeof kitchens and sculleries, and fretted<sup>17</sup> all the fat out of their parchmentsinto the banking<sup>18</sup> house air. Your lighter<sup>19</sup> boxes of family papers went up-stairs into a Barmecide room, that always had a great dining-table in it andnever had a dinner, and where, even in the year one thousand seven hundredand eighty, the first letters written to you by your old love, or by yourlittle children, were but newly released from the horror of being ogledthrough the windows, by the heads exposed on Temple Bar with an insensatebrutality and ferocity worthy<sup>20</sup> of Abyssinia or Ashantee.
But indeed, at that time, putting to death was a recipe much in vogue<sup>21</sup> withall trades and professions, and not least of all with Tellson's. Death isNature's remedy for all things, and why not Legislation's? Accordingly, theforger was put to death; the utterer of a bad note was put to Death; theunlawful opener of a letter was put to Death; the purloiner<sup>22</sup> of fortyshillings and sixpence was put to Death; the holder<sup>23</sup> of a horse at Tellson'sdoor, who made off with it, was put to Death; the coiner of a bad shillingwas put to Death; the sounders of three-fourths of the notes in the wholegamut of Grime, were put to Death. Not that it did the least good in the wayof prevention--it might almost have been worth remarking that the fact wasexactly the reverse--but, it cleared off (as to this world) the trouble ofeach particular case, and left nothing else connected with it to be lookedafter. Thus, Tellson's, in its day, like greater places of business, itscontemporaries, had taken so many lives, that, if the heads laid low beforeit had been ranged on Temple Bar instead of being privately<sup>24</sup> disposed of'
they would probably have excluded what little light the ground floor had, ina rather significant manner.
Cramped<sup>25</sup> in all kinds of dim cupboards and hutches at Tellson's, the oldestof men carried on the business gravely.
When they took a young man into Tellson's London house, they hid himsomewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a cheese,until he had the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon him. Then only washe permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring over large books, and castinghis breeches and gaiters into the general weight of the establishment.
Outside Tellson's--never by any means in it, unless called in--was an odd-job-man, an occasional porter and messenger, who served as the live sign ofthe house. He was never absent during business hours, unless upon an errand,and then he was represented by his son: a grisly urchin<sup>26</sup> of twelve, who washis express image. People understood that Tellson's, in a stately way,tolerated the odd-job-man. The house had always tolerated some person inthat capacity, and time and tide had drifted this person to the post. Hissurname was Cruncher, and on the youthful occasion of his renouncing<sup>27</sup> byproxy the works of darkness, in the easterly parish church of Houndsditch,he had received the added appellation<sup>28</sup> of Jerry.
The scene was Mr. Cruncher's private lodging<sup>29</sup> in Hanging-sword-alley,Whitefriars: the time, half-past seven of the clock on a windy Marchmorning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and eighty. (Mr. Cruncher himselfalways spoke<sup>30</sup> of the year of our Lord as Anna Dominoes: apparently<sup>31</sup> under theimpression that the Christian<sup>32</sup> era dated from the invention of a populargame, by a lady who had bestowed<sup>33</sup> her name upon it.)Mr. Cruncher's apartments were not in a savoury neighbourhood, and were buttwo in number, even if a closet with a single pane<sup>34</sup> of glass in it might becounted as one. But they were very decently kept. Early as it was, on thewindy March morning, the room in which he lay a-bed was already scrubbedthroughout; and between the cups and saucers arranged for breakfast, and thelumbering deal table, a very clean white cloth was spread.
Mr. Cruncher reposed<sup>35</sup> under a patchwork<sup>36</sup> counterpane, like a Harlequin athome. At first, he slept heavily, but, by degrees, began to roll and surgein bed, until he rose above the surface, with his spiky<sup>37</sup> hair looking as ifit must tear the sheets to ribbons. At which juncture<sup>38</sup>, he exclaimed, in avoice of dire<sup>39</sup> exasperation<sup>40</sup>:
`Bust me, if she ain't at it agin!'
A woman of orderly and industrious⁴¹ appearance rose from her knees in acorner, with sufficient haste and trepidation⁴² to show that she was theperson referred to.
`What!' said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot.
`You're at it agin, are you?
After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw a boot at thewoman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, and may introduce the oddcircumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher's domestic economy, that, whereashe often came home after banking hours with clean boots, he often got upnext morning to find the same boots covered with clay.
`What,' said Mr. Cruncher, varying his apostrophe after missing his mark--'what are you, up to, Aggerawayter?' #p#副标题#e#`I was only saying my prayers.
`Saying your prayers! You're a nice woman! What do you mean by floppingyourself down and praying agin me?'
`I was not praying against you; I was praying for you.'
`You weren't. And if you were, I won't be took the liberty with. Here! yourmother's a nice woman, young Jerry, going a praying agin your father'sprosperity. You've got a dutiful mother, you have, my son. You've got areligious mother, you have, my boy: going and flopping<sup>44</sup> herself down, andpraying that the bread-and-butter may be snatched out of the mouth of heronly child.'
Master cruncher (who was in his shirt) took this very ill, and, turning tohis mother, strongly deprecated any praying away of his personal board.
`And what do you suppose, you conceited⁴⁵ female,' said Mr. Cruncher, withunconscious inconsistency, `that the worth of your prayers may be? Name theprice that you put your prayers at!'
`They only come from the heart, Jerry. They are worth no more than that.'
`Worth no more than that,' repeated Mr. Cruncher. `They ain't worth much,then. Whether or no, I won't be prayed agin, I tell you. I can't afford it.
I'm not a going to be made unlucky by your sneaking⁴⁶. If you must go floppingyourself down, flop⁴³ in favour of your husband and child, and not inopposition to 'em. If I had had any but a unnat'ral wife, and this poor boyhad had any but a unnat'ral mother, I might have made some money last weekinstead of being counter-prayed and countermined and religiouslycircumwented into the worst of luck. B-u-u-ust me ` said Mr. Cruncher, whoall this time had been putting on his clothes, `if I ain't, what with pietyand one blowed thing and another, been choused this last week into as badluck as ever a poor devil of a honest tradesman met with! Young Jerry, dressyourself, my boy, and while I clean my boots keep a eye upon your mother nowand then, and if you see any signs of more flopping, give me a call. For, Itell you,' here he addressed his wife once more, `I won't be gone agin, inthis manner. I am as rickety as a hackneycoach, I'm as sleepy as laudanum,my lines is strained to that degree that I shouldn't know, if it wasn't forthe pain in 'em, which was me and which somebody else, yet I'm none thebetter for it in pocket; and it's my suspicion that you've been at it frommorning to night to prevent me from being the better for it in pocket, and Iwon't put up with it, Aggerawayter, and what do you say now!'
Growling<sup>49</sup>, in addition, such phrases as `Ah! yes! You're religious, too. Youwouldn't put yourself in opposition⁴⁷ to the interests of your husband andchild, would you? Not you!' and throwing off other sarcastic⁵⁰ sparks from thewhirling grindstone of his indignation, Mr. Cruncher betook himself to hisboot-cleaning and his general preparation for business. In the meantime, hisson, whose head was garnished⁵¹ with tenderer spikes⁵², and whose young eyesstood close by one another, as his father's did, kept the required watchupon his mother. He greatly disturbed that poor woman at intervals⁵³, bydarting out of his sleeping closet, where he made his toilet, with asuppressed cry of `You are going to flop, mother.--Halloa, father!' and,after raising this fictitious<sup>55</sup> alarm, darting<sup>54</sup> in again with an undutifulgrin.
Mr. Cruncher's temper was not at all improved when he came to hisbreakfast. He resented Mrs. Cruncher's saying grace with particularanimosity.
`Now, Aggerawayter! What are you up to? At it agin?'
His wife explained that she had merely `asked a blessing<sup>56</sup>.'
`Don't do it!' said Mr. Cruncher, looking about, as if he rather expectedto see the loaf disappear under the efficacy of his wife's petitions. `Iain't a going to be blest out of house and home. I won't have my wittlesblest off my table. Keep still!'
Exceedingly red-eyed and grim, as if he had been up all night at a partywhich had taken anything but a convivial<sup>57</sup> turn, Jerry Cruncher worried hisbreakfast rather than ate it, growling over it like any four-footed inmateof a menagerie. Towards nine o'clock he smoothed his ruffled<sup>58</sup> aspect, and,presenting as respectful and business-like an exterior<sup>59</sup> as he could overlayhis natural self with, issued forth<sup>48</sup> to the occupation of the day.
It could scarcely be called a trade, in spite of his favourite descriptionof himself as `a honest tradesman.' His stock consisted of a wooden stool,made out of a broken-backed chair cut down, which stool, young Jerry,walking at his father's side, carried every morning to beneath the banking-house window that was nearest Temple Bar: where, with the addition of thefirst handful of straw that could be gleaned⁶⁰ from any passing vehicle tokeep the cold and wet from the odd-job-man's feet, it formed the encampmentfor the day. On this post of his, Mr. Cruncher was as well known to Fleet-street and the Temple, as the Bar itself,--and was almost as ill-looking.
Encamped at a quarter before nine, in good time to touch his three-corneredhat to the oldest of men as they passed in to Tellson's, Jerry took up hisstation on this windy March morning, with young Jerry standing⁶¹ by him, whennot engaged in making forays through the Bar, to inflict⁶² bodily and mentalinjuries of an acute description on passing boys who were small enough forhis amiable⁶³ purpose. Father and son, extremely like each other, lookingsilently on at the morning traffic in Fleet-street, with their two heads asnear to one another as the two eyes of each were, bore a considerableresemblance to a pair of monkeys. The resemblance was not lessened⁶⁴ by theaccidental circumstance, that the mature Jerry bit and spat⁶⁵ out straw, whilethe twinkling eyes of the youthful Jerry were as restlessly watchful⁶⁶ of himas of everything else in Fleet-street.
The head of one of the regular indoor messengers attached to Tellson'sestablishment was put through the door, and the word was given.
`Porter wanted!'
`Hooray, father! Here's an early job to begin with!'
Having thus given his parent God speed, young Jerry seated himself on thestool, entered on his reversionary interest in the straw his father had beenchewing, and cogitated⁶⁷.
`Always rusty<sup>68</sup>! His fingers is al-ways rusty!' muttered young Jerry. `Wheredoes my father get all that iron rust⁶ from? He don't get no iron rust here!'