威克菲尔德的牧师 02 破产与迁移

The tem­por­al con­cerns of our fam­ily were chiefly com­mit­ted to my wife’s man­age­ment, as to the spir­itu­al I took them en­tirely un­der my own dir­ec­tion. The profits of my liv­ing, which amoun­ted to but thirty-five pounds a year, I made over to the orphans and wid­ows of the clergy of our dio­cese; for hav­ing a suf­fi­cient for­tune of my own, I was care­less of tem­por­al­it­ies, and felt a secret pleas­ure in do­ing my duty without re­ward. I also set a res­ol­u­tion of keep­ing no cur­ate, and of be­ing ac­quain­ted with every man in the par­ish, ex­hort­ing the mar­ried men to tem­per­ance and the bach­el­ors to mat­ri­mony; so that in a few years it was a com­mon say­ing, that there were three strange wants at Wake­field, a par­son want­ing pride, young men want­ing wives, and ale­houses want­ing cus­tom­ers. Mat­ri­mony was al­ways one of my fa­vour­ite top­ics, and I wrote sev­er­al ser­mons to prove its hap­pi­ness: but there was a pe­cu­li­ar ten­et which I made a point of sup­port­ing; for I main­tained with Whis­ton, that it was un­law­ful for a priest of the church of Eng­land, after the death of his first wife, to take a second, or to ex­press it in one word, I val­ued my­self upon be­ing a strict mono­gam­ist. I was early ini­ti­ated in­to this im­port­ant dis­pute, on which so many la­bor­i­ous volumes have been writ­ten. I pub­lished some tracts upon the sub­ject my­self, which, as they nev­er sold, I have the con­sol­a­tion of think­ing are read only by the happy few. Some of my friends called this my weak side; but alas! they had not like me made it the sub­ject of long con­tem­pla­tion. The more I re­flec­ted upon it, the more im­port­ant it ap­peared. I even went a step bey­ond Whis­ton in dis­play­ing my prin­ciples: as he had en­graven upon his wife’s tomb that she was the only wife of Wil­li­am Whis­ton; so I wrote a sim­il­ar epi­taph for my wife, though still liv­ing, in which I ex­tolled her prudence, eco­nomy, and obed­i­ence till death; and hav­ing got it copied fair, with an el­eg­ant frame, it was placed over the chim­neypiece, where it answered sev­er­al very use­ful pur­poses. It ad­mon­ished my wife of her duty to me, and my fi­del­ity to her; it in­spired her with a pas­sion for fame, and con­stantly put her in mind of her end.

我家庭的物质问题主要由我妻子负责，至于精神问题，我完全自己负责。我的生活收入，总共只有每年三十五英镑，我将其转让给我们教区的孤儿和寡妇；因为我有自己的足够的财富，所以我对物质并不在意，并且在做我的职责而不需要任何回报时感到内心的愉悦。我还决定不雇用任何助理，并认识我们村庄里每个人，劝说已婚男士遵循节制，向未婚男士劝说结婚；这样在几年后，人们在wakefield就会说，缺乏教士的骄傲，年轻人缺乏妻子，酒吧缺乏顾客。结婚一直是我最喜欢的话题，我写了几个宣传它快乐的诗篇；但是，我一直坚持支持一种特殊的主张，即我认为教会的牧师，在第一位妻子去世后，无法再婚，或者用一句话来说，我自豪地认为自己是一个严格的单婚主义者。我早就参与到了这个重要的争议中，这个争议已经引发了许多辛苦的卷宗。我本人也写了一些关于这个主题的小册子，但由于从未出售，我很欣慰地认为只有那些幸福的少数人在阅读它们。有些朋友称这是我的弱点，但唉！他们没有像我一样把它作为长期的考虑对象。随着我对它的反思，它似乎变得越来越重要。我甚至比Whis­ton更加展示我的原则：就像他在妻子的墓碑上雕刻了她是Wil­li­am Whis­ton的唯一妻子一样，我也为我的妻子写了一张类似的墓碑，虽然她还活着，在上面我赞美她的谨慎、节俭和顺从，直到死亡；然后我把它打印得很漂亮，并放在壁炉旁，这样它可以发挥几个非常有用的作用。它提醒我的妻子她应该对我的责任，提醒我向她的忠贞，激发她对名声的热情，并始终让她想起她的末日。

It was thus, per­haps, from hear­ing mar­riage so of­ten re­com­men­ded, that my eld­est son, just upon leav­ing col­lege, fixed his af­fec­tions upon the daugh­ter of a neigh­bour­ing cler­gy­man, who was a dig­nit­ary in the church, and in cir­cum­stances to give her a large for­tune: but for­tune was her smal­lest ac­com­plish­ment. Miss Ar­a­bella Wilmot was al­lowed by all, ex­cept my two daugh­ters, to be com­pletely pretty. Her youth, health, and in­no­cence, were still heightened by a com­plex­ion so trans­par­ent, and such an happy sens­ib­il­ity of look, as even age could not gaze on with in­dif­fer­ence. As Mr. Wilmot knew that I could make a very hand­some set­tle­ment on my son, he was not averse to the match; so both fam­il­ies lived to­geth­er in all that har­mony which gen­er­ally pre­cedes an ex­pec­ted al­li­ance. Be­ing con­vinced by ex­per­i­ence that the days of court­ship are the most happy of our lives, I was will­ing enough to lengthen the peri­od; and the vari­ous amuse­ments which the young couple every day shared in each oth­er’s com­pany, seemed to in­crease their pas­sion. We were gen­er­ally awaked in the morn­ing by mu­sic, and on fine days rode a-hunt­ing. The hours between break­fast and din­ner the ladies de­voted to dress and study: they usu­ally read a page, and then gazed at them­selves in the glass, which even philo­soph­ers might own of­ten presen­ted the page of greatest beauty. At din­ner my wife took the lead; for as she al­ways in­sisted upon carving everything her­self, it be­ing her moth­er’s way, she gave us upon these oc­ca­sions the his­tory of every dish. When we had dined, to pre­vent the ladies leav­ing us, I gen­er­ally ordered the table to be re­moved; and some­times, with the mu­sic mas­ter’s as­sist­ance, the girls would give us a very agree­able con­cert. Walk­ing out, drink­ing tea, coun­try dances, and for­feits, shortened the rest of the day, without the as­sist­ance of cards, as I hated all man­ner of gam­ing, ex­cept back­gam­mon, at which my old friend and I some­times took a two­penny hit. Nor can I here pass over an omin­ous cir­cum­stance that happened the last time we played to­geth­er: I only wanted to fling a quatre, and yet I threw deuce ace five times run­ning. Some months were elapsed in this man­ner, till at last it was thought con­veni­ent to fix a day for the nup­tials of the young couple, who seemed earn­estly to de­sire it. Dur­ing the pre­par­a­tions for the wed­ding, I need not de­scribe the busy im­port­ance of my wife, nor the sly looks of my daugh­ters: in fact, my at­ten­tion was fixed on an­oth­er ob­ject, the com­plet­ing a tract which I in­ten­ded shortly to pub­lish in de­fence of my fa­vour­ite prin­ciple. As I looked upon this as a mas­ter­piece both for ar­gu­ment and style, I could not in the pride of my heart avoid show­ing it to my old friend Mr. Wilmot, as I made no doubt of re­ceiv­ing his ap­prob­a­tion; but not till too late I dis­covered that he was most vi­ol­ently at­tached to the con­trary opin­ion, and with good reas­on; for he was at that time ac­tu­ally court­ing a fourth wife. This, as may be ex­pec­ted, pro­duced a dis­pute at­ten­ded with some ac­ri­mony, which threatened to in­ter­rupt our in­ten­ded al­li­ance: but on the day be­fore that ap­poin­ted for the ce­re­mony, we agreed to dis­cuss the sub­ject at large. It was man­aged with prop­er spir­it on both sides: he as­ser­ted that I was het­ero­dox, I re­tor­ted the charge: he replied, and I re­joined. In the mean­time, while the con­tro­versy was hot­test, I was called out by one of my re­la­tions, who, with a face of con­cern, ad­vised me to give up the dis­pute, at least till my son’s wed­ding was over. “How,” cried I, “re­lin­quish the cause of truth, and let him be an hus­band, already driv­en to the very verge of ab­surdity. You might as well ad­vise me to give up my for­tune as my ar­gu­ment.” “Your for­tune,” re­turned my friend, “I am now sorry to in­form you, is al­most noth­ing. The mer­chant in town, in whose hands your money was lodged, has gone off, to avoid a stat­ute of bank­ruptcy, and is thought not to have left a shil­ling in the pound. I was un­will­ing to shock you or the fam­ily with the ac­count till after the wed­ding: but now it may serve to mod­er­ate your warmth in the ar­gu­ment; for, I sup­pose, your own prudence will en­force the ne­ces­sity of dis­sem­bling at least till your son has the young lady’s for­tune se­cure.”—“Well,” re­turned I, “if what you tell me be true, and if I am to be a beg­gar, it shall nev­er make me a ras­cal, or in­duce me to dis­avow my prin­ciples. I’ll go this mo­ment and in­form the com­pany of my cir­cum­stances; and as for the ar­gu­ment, I even here re­tract my former con­ces­sions in the old gen­tle­man’s fa­vour, nor will I al­low him now to be an hus­band in any sense of the ex­pres­sion.”

在这种情况下，也许是因为频繁地推荐结婚，我的长子刚刚离开大学时，他就对邻居牧师的女儿产生了情感，她是教会的一位尊敬的人，也处于有利的经济状况下；但是，她的美好并不在于财富。艾拉贝拉·威尔默被所有人称赞，除了我的两个女儿，她的青春、健康和无邪,一个如此透明的肤色和如此快乐的感性相结合，即使年老的人也无法面对不以为然。因为我知道我可以为我的儿子提供一个非常优秀的婚姻安排，威尔默先生对这一事宜并不反感。因此，两家人生活在预期的和谐之中，这通常是预期的联盟之前的情况。我被实践所说服，提婚期最快可以延长一段时间，而两个年轻人每天在一起度过的各种娱乐似乎增加了他们的感情。我们每天早上都会被音乐唤醒，而在晴朗的日子里，我们会去狩猎。午餐之前和午餐之后，女士们会花时间打扮和学习：她们通常会读一页，然后在镜子前仔细地审视自己，即使是哲学家也会承认这种情况下镜子上的页面通常是最美丽的页面。我的妻子在午餐时会主导：因为她坚持自己切割每一样菜肴，这是她母亲的做法，所以在这些场合，她会向我们讲述每一道菜的历史。我们午餐后，为了防止女士们离开我们，我通常会指示清除桌子；有时，与音乐师的协助，女孩们会给我们带来非常令人愉悦的音乐会。散步、喝茶、乡村跳舞和罚金都可以使剩下的时间更快地消逝，而我厌恶所有形式的游戏，除了我和我的老朋友在一起时的游戏棋，这是我们最终会下注两便的游戏。在我和我的老朋友最后一次一起玩这个游戏时，有一个令人不安的情况发生：我只想抛出一个四，但是我连续抛出了五次两 ace 和五。这样的日子一直持续到我们最终决定确定年轻夫妇结婚的日子，他们似乎非常渴望结婚。在婚礼准备中，我不必描述我妻子的繁忙重要性，或者我的女儿的窥探眼光；实际上，我的注意力被另一个目标吸引，那就是我打算很快发表我自己的一篇小册子，以支持我最喜欢的原则。我认为这是一篇大师级的文章，至少在论点和写作风格上是如此，我在心中为自己骄傲地想到，我不会有任何疑问地获得他的认可；但是，直到太迟了，我才发现他非常坚定地支持相反的观点，而且有充分的理由；因为他当时已经追求第四任妻子。这当然导致了一场尖锐的争议，带有一些恶意，挑战我们的预期联盟；但是，在结婚当天的前一天，我们同意详细讨论这个问题。两方都表现得很有气度地进行了辩论：他声称我是异端的，我则反驳他的指责；他回答，我反驳。在此期间，辩论最激烈的时候，我被一个我的亲戚召见，他脸色阴沉地告诉我，要我放弃这个争议，至少在我的儿子结婚之前；“你怎么能放弃为真理而斗争的原因，让他成为一个已经靠近愚蠢的丈夫？”他说，“你可以向我透露这个消息，就像你不会在你的儿子获得年轻女士的财产之前惊吓你或你的家人一样。”“你的财产，”我的朋友回答，“我现在很抱歉地告诉你，已经几乎不存在了。你在镇上的商人，在他的手中存放你的钱，为了避免倒闭的法律，已经跑了，据说他没有留下一个便士；我不想伤害你或你的家人，所以我一直在推迟告诉你这个账单，但现在它可能会减少你在争议中的激情，因为你的自己的明智会强制你在你的儿子获得年轻女士的财产之前装扮下来。”“好的，”我回答，“如果你所说的是真的，如果我真的要成为一个乞丐，那么即使我成为一个乞丐，我也不会成为一个坏人，也不会放弃我的原则。我现在就要去告诉大家我的情况；至于争议，我现在就会否认我以前对老人的任何妥协，也不会同意他在任何意义上成为一个丈夫。”

It would be end­less to de­scribe the dif­fer­ent sen­sa­tions of both fam­il­ies when I di­vulged the news of our mis­for­tune; but what oth­ers felt was slight to what the lov­ers ap­peared to en­dure. Mr. Wilmot, who seemed be­fore suf­fi­ciently in­clined to break off the match, was by this blow soon de­term­ined: one vir­tue he had in per­fec­tion, which was prudence, too of­ten the only one that is left us at sev­enty-two.

为我们的不幸所做的消息让我们的两家人感到非常沮丧，但恋人们的感受比他们的感受要轻微得多。威尔默先生似乎在事件发生之前已经足够倾向于解除这一婚约，但是这一打击让他迅速决定：在七十二岁时，他拥有的唯一一项完美的美德就是谨慎，这是我们常常在年老时才剩下的唯一一项美德。

A mi­gra­tion—The for­tu­nate cir­cum­stances of our lives are gen­er­ally found at last to be of our own pro­cur­ing.

迁移——我们生命中幸运的情况最终被发现是我们自己采取措施引发的。

The only hope of our fam­ily now was, that the re­port of our mis­for­tunes might be ma­li­cious or pre­ma­ture: but a let­ter from my agent in town soon came with a con­firm­a­tion of every par­tic­u­lar. The loss of for­tune to my­self alone would have been tri­fling; the only un­eas­i­ness I felt was for my fam­ily, who were to be humble without an edu­ca­tion to render them cal­lous to con­tempt.

Near a fort­night had passed be­fore I at­temp­ted to re­strain their af­flic­tion; for pre­ma­ture con­sol­a­tion is but the re­mem­bran­cer of sor­row. Dur­ing this in­ter­val, my thoughts were em­ployed on some fu­ture means of sup­port­ing them; and at last a small Cure of fif­teen pounds a year was offered me in a dis­tant neigh­bour­hood, where I could still en­joy my prin­ciples without mo­lesta­tion. With this pro­pos­al I joy­fully closed, hav­ing de­term­ined to in­crease my salary by man­aging a little farm.

我们家族唯一的希望是，对我们的不幸的报告可能是恶意的或过早的；但是，来自城里我的代理人的信件很快证实了每一个细节。财产的丧失对我个人来说是微不足道的；我唯一的不安是我的家人，他们将不再尊贵，而不会有受到蔑视的教育来使他们麻木。

已经过去了接近两个星期，我才尝试克制他们的悲伤；因为过早的安慰只是记忆的痛苦。在这段时间里，我的思想被以后支持他们的一些方法所吸引。最终，我得到了一份价值每年15英镑的小教区工作，这是在一个遥远的地方，我可以在那里没有受到干扰地享受我的原则。我高兴地接受了这个建议，已经决定通过管理一个小农场来增加我的薪水。

Hav­ing taken this res­ol­u­tion, my next care was to get to­geth­er the wrecks of my for­tune; and all debts col­lec­ted and paid, out of four­teen thou­sand pounds we had but four hun­dred re­main­ing. My chief at­ten­tion there­fore was now to bring down the pride of my fam­ily to their cir­cum­stances; for I well knew that as­pir­ing beg­gary is wretched­ness it­self. “You can­not be ig­nor­ant, my chil­dren,” cried I, “that no prudence of ours could have pre­ven­ted our late mis­for­tune; but prudence may do much in dis­ap­point­ing its ef­fects. We are now poor, my fond­lings, and wis­dom bids us con­form to our humble situ­ation. Let us then, without re­pin­ing, give up those splend­ours with which num­bers are wretched, and seek in hum­bler cir­cum­stances that peace with which all may be happy. The poor live pleas­antly without our help, why then should not we learn to live without theirs. No, my chil­dren, let us from this mo­ment give up all pre­ten­sions to gen­til­ity; we have still enough left for hap­pi­ness if we are wise, and let us draw upon con­tent for the de­fi­cien­cies of for­tune.” As my eld­est son was bred a schol­ar, I de­term­ined to send him to town, where his abil­it­ies might con­trib­ute to our sup­port and his own. The sep­ar­a­tion of friends and fam­il­ies is, per­haps, one of the most dis­tress­ful cir­cum­stances at­tend­ant on pen­ury. The day soon ar­rived on which we were to dis­perse for the first time. My son, after tak­ing leave of his moth­er and the rest, who mingled their tears with their kisses, came to ask a bless­ing from me. This I gave him from my heart, and which, ad­ded to five guineas, was all the pat­ri­mony I had now to be­stow. “You are go­ing, my boy,” cried I, “to Lon­don on foot, in the man­ner Hook­er, your great an­cest­or, trav­elled there be­fore you. Take from me the same horse that was giv­en him by the good bish­op Jew­el, this staff, and take this book too, it will be your com­fort on the way: these two lines in it are worth a mil­lion—I have been young, and now am old; yet nev­er saw I the right­eous man for­saken, or his seed beg­ging their bread. Let this be your con­sol­a­tion as you travel on. Go, my boy, whatever be thy for­tune let me see thee once a year; still keep a good heart, and farewell.” As he was pos­sessed of in­teg­rity and hon­our, I was un­der no ap­pre­hen­sions from throw­ing him na­ked in­to the am­phi­theatre of life; for I knew he would act a good part wheth­er van­quished or vic­tori­ous.

我做出决定后，下一个关注点是收集我的财产残渣；我收集了所有的债务，付清了所有的债务，我们剩下的是只有400英镑。因此，我的主要任务现在是降低我的家人的骄傲，让他们适应他们的情况；因为冒充贫穷是悲惨的。「你们当然不会是无知的，我的孩子们，」我喊道，「我们的不幸是无法预防的；但是，谨慎可以做很多事情，使它的影响受到限制。我们现在是穷人了，我的爱人们，智慧告诉我们应该适应我们贫困的情况。那么，没有理由怨恨的情况下，我们就应该放弃那些让数百万人苦恼的奢侈，寻求在更谦卑的环境中获得和平，所有人都可以快乐。穷人可以高兴地生活而不需要我们的帮助，那么为什么我们不应该学会在不需要他们的帮助下生活？不，我的孩子们，从现在开始，我们应该放弃对高雅的一切幌子；如果我们聪明，我们还有足够的东西让我们快乐，让我们将内容用于弥补财富的不足。」由于我的长子是学者，我决定让他去市里，他的才能可以为我们的生计做出贡献，并为他自己做出贡献。朋友和家人分离是贫穷伴随的最为悲痛的情况之一。分离的那一天很快到来了，我们第一次分散。我的儿子离开他的妈妈和其他人，他们混合着眼泪和吻。他来请求我的祝福。我从心底为他祝福，加上五个英镑，这是我现在唯一可以传递的财富。「你要去，我的孩子，」我说，「像你的远大祖先，Hook­er先生在他之前那样跑到伦敦。从我这里带走这匹马，这根杖，还有这本书，它会在你旅途中给你带来安慰：这两行文字对我来说价值一百万——我年轻时，现在老了；但是我从未见过正直的人被遗弃，或他的后裔乞讨饭碗。这可以成为你旅途中的安慰。去吧，孩子，不管你的运气如何，让我在一年的时间里看到你一次；保持一个好心态，再见。」由于他有正直和荣誉感，我不用担心将他抛弃在生命的角斗场中，因为我知道他在失败或获胜的情况下都会发挥好的表演。

His de­par­ture only pre­pared the way for our own, which ar­rived a few days af­ter­wards. The leav­ing a neigh­bour­hood in which we had en­joyed so many hours of tran­quil­ity, was not without a tear, which scarce forti­tude it­self could sup­press. Be­sides, a jour­ney of sev­enty miles to a fam­ily that had hitherto nev­er been above ten from home, filled us with ap­pre­hen­sion, and the cries of the poor, who fol­lowed us for some miles, con­trib­uted to in­crease it. The first day’s jour­ney brought us in safety with­in thirty miles of our fu­ture re­treat, and we put up for the night at an ob­scure inn in a vil­lage by the way. When we were shown a room, I de­sired the land­lord, in my usu­al way, to let us have his com­pany, with which he com­plied, as what he drank would in­crease the bill next morn­ing. He knew, how­ever, the whole neigh­bour­hood to which I was re­mov­ing, par­tic­u­larly Squire Thornhill, who was to be my land­lord, and who lived with­in a few miles of the place. This gen­tle­man he de­scribed as one who de­sired to know little more of the world than its pleas­ures, be­ing par­tic­u­larly re­mark­able for his at­tach­ment to the fair sex. He ob­served that no vir­tue was able to res­ist his arts and as­siduity, and that scarce a farm­er’s daugh­ter with­in ten miles round but what had found him suc­cess­ful and faith­less. Though this ac­count gave me some pain, it had a very dif­fer­ent ef­fect upon my daugh­ters, whose fea­tures seemed to bright­en with the ex­pect­a­tion of an ap­proach­ing tri­umph, nor was my wife less pleased and con­fid­ent of their al­lure­ments and vir­tue. While our thoughts were thus em­ployed, the host­ess entered the room to in­form her hus­band, that the strange gen­tle­man, who had been two days in the house, wanted money, and could not sat­is­fy them for his reck­on­ing. “Want money!” replied the host, “that must be im­possible; for it was no later than yes­ter­day he paid three guineas to our beadle to spare an old broken sol­dier that was to be whipped through the town for dog-steal­ing.” The host­ess, how­ever, still per­sist­ing in her first as­ser­tion, he was pre­par­ing to leave the room, swear­ing that he would be sat­is­fied one way or an­oth­er, when I begged the land­lord would in­tro­duce me to a stranger of so much char­ity as he de­scribed. With this he com­plied, show­ing in a gen­tle­man who seemed to be about thirty, dressed in clothes that once were laced. His per­son was well formed, and his face marked with the lines of think­ing. He had some­thing short and dry in his ad­dress, and seemed not to un­der­stand ce­re­mony, or to des­pise it. Upon the land­lord’s leav­ing the room, I could not avoid ex­press­ing my con­cern to the stranger at see­ing a gen­tle­man in such cir­cum­stances, and offered him my purse to sat­is­fy the present de­mand. “I take it with all my heart, Sir,” replied he, “and am glad that a late over­sight in giv­ing what money I had about me, has shown me that there are still some men like you. I must, how­ever, pre­vi­ously en­treat be­ing in­formed of the name and res­id­ence of my be­ne­fact­or, in or­der to re­pay him as soon as pos­sible.” In this I sat­is­fied him fully, not only men­tion­ing my name and late mis­for­tunes, but the place to which I was go­ing to re­move. “This,” cried he, “hap­pens still more luck­ily than I hoped for, as I am go­ing the same way my­self, hav­ing been de­tained here two days by the floods, which, I hope, by to­mor­row will be found pass­able.” I test­i­fied the pleas­ure I should have in his com­pany, and my wife and daugh­ters join­ing in en­treaty, he was pre­vailed upon to stay sup­per. The stranger’s con­ver­sa­tion, which was at once pleas­ing and in­struct­ive, in­duced me to wish for a con­tinu­ance of it; but it was now high time to re­tire and take re­fresh­ment against the fa­tigues of the fol­low­ing day.

他离开只为铺平了我们自己离开的道路，这几天后我们也离开了。离开我们在那里享受过这么多宁静时光的邻里，并不是没有流泪，即使是刚刚强大的自觉也无法抑制。此外，一次七十英里的旅行，到目前为止从未超过十英里的家人，让我们感到有些不安，当我们离开时，数个贫困者还在跟随我们几英里，这使我们更加不安。第一天的旅行安全地将我们带入了 retreat 附近，我们在路边的一个小旅店过夜。当我们被安排了房间时，我像平常一样地要求旅店老板和我们在一起，他也很顺从，因为他喝的东西会增加第二天的账单。他知道我要去的地方，特别是我的房东——安格尔先生，他是我的房东，住在那里的几英里之内。这位绅士介绍他是一个只对世界的娱乐感兴趣的人，尤其注重追求美女。他观察到没有任何道德可以抵抗他的arts和努力，在附近十英里的范围内，几乎没有一个农家女孩没有发现他成功和不忠实。虽然这个描述让我有点痛苦，但它对我的女儿产生了非常不同的效果，她们的面孔似乎因着期待到来的勝利而闪烁着光芒，我的妻子也不例外，对她们的魅力和美德充满信心。当我们这样想的时候，房主来告诉他的丈夫，那位住在家里两天的陌生人需要钱，但是他无法结清账单。「需要钱！」房主回答道，「那是不可能的，因为昨天他已经付给了我们的城吏三英镑，以免为狗偷狗狗而受到鞭打。」然而，房主的妻子仍然坚持自己的说法，他准备离开房间，骂道：「无论如何，我一定会得到满意的答复。」我请求旅店老板介绍给我这位那么慷慨的陌生人，他很快同意，带来了一位看上去是三十岁的gentleman，穿着曾经有褶边的衣服。他的身体很好，脸上有思考的纹路。他的语气有些短小干巴，似乎不理解或不顾 ceremony。旅店老板离开房间后，我无法避免向陌生人表达关心，为他在如此情况下看到一个gentleman，并提供了我的钱包以满足当前的要求。「我非常高兴地接受了它，」他回答说，「因为我最近一个错误，给了我所有的钱，才发现有些人仍然是那样的人。然而，在我借用之前，我需要了解我的恩主的姓名和地址，以便尽快偿还他。」在这一点上，我满足了他的要求，并提到了我的名字、我的不幸和我要去的地方。「这对我来说比我预期的要幸运，」他说，「因为我本来打算今天离开这里，因为洪水最近还没有平息。」我表示了我在他的陪伴中的快乐，我的妻子和女儿也加入了我的请求，他最终被劝说了下来，在那里过夜。陌生人的对话，既有魅力又有教育意义，让我想要继续这种感觉；但现在已经很晚了，是时候休息了，为明天的疲劳做好准备。

The next morn­ing we all set for­ward to­geth­er: my fam­ily on horse­back, while Mr. Burchell, our new com­pan­ion, walked along the foot­path by the road­side, ob­serving, with a smile, that as we were ill moun­ted, he would be too gen­er­ous to at­tempt leav­ing us be­hind. As the floods were not yet sub­sided, we were ob­liged to hire a guide, who trot­ted on be­fore, Mr. Burchell and I bring­ing up the rear. We lightened the fa­tigues of the road with philo­soph­ic­al dis­putes, which he seemed to un­der­stand per­fectly. But what sur­prised me most was, that though he was a money-bor­row­er, he de­fen­ded his opin­ions with as much ob­stin­acy as if he had been my pat­ron. He now and then also in­formed me to whom the dif­fer­ent seats be­longed that lay in our view as we trav­elled the road. “That,” cried he, point­ing to a very mag­ni­fi­cent house which stood at some dis­tance, “be­longs to Mr. Thornhill, a young gen­tle­man who en­joys a large for­tune, though en­tirely de­pend­ent on the will of his uncle, Sir Wil­li­am Thornhill, a gen­tle­man, who con­tent with a little him­self, per­mits his neph­ew to en­joy the rest, and chiefly resides in town.” “What!” cried I, “is my young land­lord then the neph­ew of a man whose vir­tues, gen­er­os­ity, and sin­gu­lar­it­ies are so uni­ver­sally known? I have heard Sir Wil­li­am Thornhill rep­res­en­ted as one of the most gen­er­ous, yet whim­sic­al, men in the king­dom; a man of con­sumate be­ne­vol­ence.”—“Some­thing, per­haps, too much so,” replied Mr. Burchell, “at least he car­ried be­ne­vol­ence to an ex­cess when young; for his pas­sions were then strong, and as they all were upon the side of vir­tue, they led it up to a ro­mantic ex­treme. He early began to aim at the qual­i­fic­a­tions of the sol­dier and schol­ar; was soon dis­tin­guished in the army and had some repu­ta­tion among men of learn­ing. Ad­u­la­tion ever fol­lows the am­bi­tious; for such alone re­ceive most pleas­ure from flat­tery. He was sur­roun­ded with crowds, who showed him only one side of their char­ac­ter; so that he began to lose a re­gard for private in­terest in uni­ver­sal sym­pathy. He loved all man­kind; for for­tune pre­ven­ted him from know­ing that there were ras­cals. Phys­i­cians tell us of a dis­order in which the whole body is so ex­quis­itely sens­ible, that the slight­est touch gives pain: what some have thus suffered in their per­sons, this gen­tle­man felt in his mind. The slight­est dis­tress, wheth­er real or fic­ti­tious, touched him to the quick, and his soul la­boured un­der a sickly sens­ib­il­ity of the miser­ies of oth­ers. Thus dis­posed to re­lieve, it will be eas­ily con­jec­tured, he found num­bers dis­posed to so­li­cit: his pro­fu­sions began to im­pair his for­tune, but not his good-nature; that, in­deed, was seen to in­crease as the oth­er seemed to de­cay: he grew im­provid­ent as he grew poor; and though he talked like a man of sense, his ac­tions were those of a fool. Still, how­ever, be­ing sur­roun­ded with im­por­tun­ity, and no longer able to sat­is­fy every re­quest that was made him, in­stead of money he gave prom­ises. They were all he had to be­stow, and he had not res­ol­u­tion enough to give any man pain by a deni­al. By this he drew round him crowds of de­pend­ants, whom he was sure to dis­ap­point; yet wished to re­lieve. These hung upon him for a time, and left him with mer­ited re­proaches and con­tempt. But in pro­por­tion as he be­came con­tempt­able to oth­ers, he be­came despic­able to him­self. His mind had leaned upon their ad­u­la­tion, and that sup­port taken away, he could find no pleas­ure in the ap­plause of his heart, which he had nev­er learned to rev­er­ence. The world now began to wear a dif­fer­ent as­pect; the flat­tery of his friends began to dwindle in­to simple ap­prob­a­tion. Ap­prob­a­tion soon took the more friendly form of ad­vice, and ad­vice when re­jec­ted pro­duced their re­proaches. He now, there­fore found that such friends as be­ne­fits had gathered round him, were little es­tim­able: he now found that a man’s own heart must be ever giv­en to gain that of an­oth­er. I now found, that—that—I for­get what I was go­ing to ob­serve: in short, sir, he re­solved to re­spect him­self, and laid down a plan of restor­ing his fall­ing for­tune. For this pur­pose, in his own whim­sic­al man­ner he trav­elled through Europe on foot, and now, though he has scarce at­tained the age of thirty, his cir­cum­stances are more af­flu­ent than ever. At present, his boun­ties are more ra­tion­al and mod­er­ate than be­fore; but still he pre­serves the char­ac­ter of an hu­mour­ist, and finds most pleas­ure in ec­cent­ric vir­tues.”

第二天早上我们一起离开：我的家人骑马，而我们的新伴侣Mr. Burchell在路边的小路上走着，微笑着说，因为我们骑马不是很熟练，他不会太宽慰地离开我们。由于洪水还没有平息，我们不得不雇佣一个向导，他在前面奔跑，Mr. Burchell和我在后面。我们通过谈论哲学问题来减轻道路的疲劳，他似乎非常了解。但是，让我感到惊讶的是，即使是一个借钱的人，他也用同样的固执地捍卫他的观点，就好像他是我的恩人一样。他时不时地向我指明我们旅行时看到的不同的座位的主人。「那个，」他指着一座非常宏伟的房子说，「是Mr. Thornhill的房子，一个年轻的绅士，享有大的财富，尽管他的财富完全取决于他的叔叔Sir Wil­li­am Thornhill的意愿，一个在城里生活的绅士，他非常欣赏他的叔叔，允许他享受所有剩余的财富，他自己则主要驻扎在城市。」「什么！」我说，「那么我的年轻房东就是那个人，他的美德、仁慈和怪诞行为如此普遍知名的人的侄子？我听说过Sir Wil­li­am Thornhill被认为是一个非常仁慈、慷慨的人。」「或许有点过分了，」Mr. Burchell回答说，「至少他在年轻时对诚挚的善良过于盲目，因为他的情感很强烈，而且都是为了善良；他很快就成为了军人和学者，在军队中表现出色，在知识分子中也有一定的名声。追求成功总是伴随着讨好；因为只有那些人能够让他们感到高兴。他被围绕着人群，而这些人只向他展示了他们的一面；所以他开始放弃了对私人利益的关注，转而关注普世同情。他热爱所有人；因为财富让他免于认识渣滓。医生告诉我们有一种疾病，使整个身体如此敏感，即使是轻微的触摸也会痛苦：有些人在身体上经历过这种痛苦，这位绅士则在心理上经历过这种痛苦。他对任何实际或虚拟的不幸如此敏感，以至于他的灵魂会受到影响，这使他感到生活在一个虚弱的感性之中。因此，他被人们想要帮助的人所吸引，他的财富开始减少，但他的善良却不断增加；他变得不负责任，变得贫穷，但他的行为却像一个明智的人一样，而他的行动却像一个白痴一样。然而，由于他被人们的讨好包围，而且不再能满足每个要求，他开始给出承诺，而不是钱。这是他唯一有价值的东西，他也没有勇气拒绝任何人。这样，他就吸引了一群无法实现的人，他们必须离开他而感到愤怒和蔑视。但随着他变得令人蔑视，他对自己也变得可耻。他的心灵曾经依靠他们的讨好，这个支持被拿走了，他找不到使自己快乐的方法，除了心灵的赞美，他从来没有学会尊敬自己。现在，世界开始有了不同的面貌；他的朋友们的讨好变成了单纯的认可。认可很快变成了更友好的形式——建议，当建议被拒绝时，产生了他们的责难。他现在发现那些聚集在他周围的朋友实际上不值得估计，现在他发现一个人必须永远将自己的心灵交给他才能获得他人的心灵。现在，我发现——发现——我忘记了我想要观察的内容；总之， sir，他决定尊重自己，并设定了恢复他衰退的财富的计划。为此，他用他的怪诞方式通过欧洲旅行，现在即使他还没有到三岁，他的经济状况也比以前更加富足。现在，他的恩惠比以前更加理性和谨慎，但他仍然保留着humourist的特质，并且仍然感到在做出古怪的善行时最感到快乐。」

My at­ten­tion was so much taken up by Mr. Burchell’s ac­count, that I scarce looked for­ward as we went along, till we were alarmed by the cries of my fam­ily, when turn­ing, I per­ceived my young­est daugh­ter in the midst of a rap­id stream, thrown from her horse, and strug­gling with the tor­rent. She had sunk twice, nor was it in my power to dis­en­gage my­self in time to bring her re­lief. My sen­sa­tions were even too vi­ol­ent to per­mit my at­tempt­ing her res­cue: she must have cer­tainly per­ished had not my com­pan­ion, per­ceiv­ing her danger, in­stantly plunged in to her re­lief, and with some dif­fi­culty, brought her in safety to the op­pos­ite shore. By tak­ing the cur­rent a little farther up, the rest of the fam­ily got safely over; where we had an op­por­tun­ity of join­ing our ac­know­ledg­ments to hers. Her grat­it­ude may be more read­ily ima­gined than de­scribed: she thanked her de­liver­er more with looks than words, and con­tin­ued to lean upon his arm, as if still will­ing to re­ceive as­sist­ance. My wife also hoped one day to have the pleas­ure of re­turn­ing his kind­ness at her own house. Thus, after we were re­freshed at the next inn, and had dined to­geth­er, as Mr. Burchell was go­ing to a dif­fer­ent part of the coun­try, he took leave; and we pur­sued our jour­ney. My wife ob­serving as we went, that she liked him ex­tremely, and protest­ing, that if he had birth and for­tune to en­title him to match in­to such a fam­ily as our’s, she knew no man she would soon­er fix upon. I could not but smile to hear her talk in this lofty strain: but I was nev­er much dis­pleased with those harm­less de­lu­sions that tend to make us more happy.

我对Mr. Burchell的描述如此吸引我的注意力，以至于我在旅行时几乎没有注意周围，直到我的家人发出惊叫，我才转过身来，看到我的最年轻的女儿被抛在了急流中，正与激流斗争。她已经沉下两次，而我却没有及时将自己解开，以救援她。我的情绪甚至也太激烈，以至于我没有尝试救援她：如果不是我的伴侣迅速跳入救援，她可能会死亡。他立即跳入救援，并有点困难地将她安全带到对面岸。通过沿着更远的流程，其余的家人得到了安全，在那里我们有机会表达我们的感激之情；她的感激之情可能更容易想象,她用眼神，而不是用话语感激了她的救援英雄，并且继续依靠他的胳膊，表示她仍然愿意接受帮助。我的妻子也希望有一天能在自己的家中回报他的恩惠。因此，在我们在下一个旅店里休息并共进晚餐后，由于Mr. Burchell要去另一个方向，他离开了我们，我们继续旅行。我的妻子在旅行中观察到，她非常喜欢他，并宣誓，如果他有资格和我们的家庭结婚，她不知道有什么人比他更适合结婚。我不禁笑着听了她这么傲慢地说话：但是，我从来没有不喜欢那些无害的错觉，因为它们有助于使我们更快乐。