《红楼梦》翻译（六十七）

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twin05 2010-07-29 09:21 | 只看楼主 树型| 收藏| 小中大 1 ^#

《红楼梦》翻译（六十七）

原著
　　盼到晚上，果然黑地里摸入荣府，趁掩门时，钻入穿堂．果见漆黑无一人，往贾母那边去的门户已倒锁，只有向东的门未关．贾瑞侧耳听着，半日不见人来，忽听咯噔一声，东边的门也倒关了．贾瑞急的也不敢则声，只得悄悄的出来，将门撼了撼，关的铁桶一般．此时要求出去亦不能够，南北皆是大房墙，要跳亦无攀援．这屋内又是过门风，空落落，现是腊月天气，夜又长，朔风凛凛，侵肌裂骨，一夜几乎不曾冻**．好容易盼到早晨，只见一个老婆子先将东门开了，进去叫西门．贾瑞瞅他背着脸，一溜烟抱着肩跑了出来，幸而天气尚早，人都未起，从后门一径跑回家去．原来贾瑞父母早亡，只有他祖父代儒教养．那代儒素日教训最严，不许贾瑞多走一步，生怕他在外吃酒赌钱，有误学业．今忽见他一夜不归，只料定他在外非饮即赌，**娼宿妓，那里想到这段公案，因此气了一夜．贾瑞也捻着一把汗，少不得回来撒谎，只说：“往舅舅家去了，天黑了，留我住了一夜。”代儒道：“自来出门，非禀我不敢擅出，如何昨日私自去了？据此亦该打，何况是撒谎。”因此，发狠到底打了三四十扳，不许吃饭，令他跪在院内读文章，定要补出十天的工课来方罢．贾瑞直冻了一夜，今又遭了苦打，且饿着肚子，跪着在风地里读文章，其苦万状．

　　此时贾瑞前心犹是未改，再想不到是凤姐捉弄他．过后两日，得了空，便仍来找凤姐．凤姐故意抱怨他失信，贾瑞急的赌身发誓．凤姐因见他自投罗网，少不得再寻别计令他知改，故又约他道：“今日晚上，你别在那里了．你在我这房后小过道子里那间空屋里等我，可别冒撞了。”贾瑞道：“果真？"凤姐道：“谁可哄你，你不信就别来。”贾瑞道：“来，来，来．**也要来！"凤姐道：“这会子你先去罢。”贾瑞料定晚间必妥，此时先去了．凤姐在这里便点兵派将，设下圈套．

　　那贾瑞只盼不到晚上，偏生家里亲戚又来了，直等吃了晚饭才去，那天已有掌灯时候．又等他祖父安歇了，方溜进荣府，直往那夹道中屋子里来等着，热锅上的蚂蚁一般，只是干转．左等不见人影，右听也没声响，心下自思：“别是又不来了，又冻我一夜不成？"正自胡猜，只见黑аа的来了一个人，贾瑞便意定是凤姐，不管皂白，饿虎一般，等那人刚至门前，便如猫捕鼠的一般，抱住叫道：“亲**子，等**我了。”说着，抱到屋里炕上就亲嘴扯裤子，满口里"亲娘”“亲爹"的乱叫起来．那人只不作声．贾瑞拉了自己裤子，硬帮帮的就想顶入．忽见灯光一闪，只见贾蔷举着个捻子照道：“谁在屋里？"只见炕上那人笑道：“瑞大叔要臊我呢。”贾瑞一见，却是贾蓉，真臊的无地可入，不知要怎么样才好，回身就要跑，被贾蔷一把揪住道：“别走！如今琏二**已经告到太太跟前，说你无故调戏他．他暂用了个脱身计，哄你在这边等着，太太气**过去，因此叫我来拿你．刚才你又拦住他，没的说，跟我去见太太！”

　　贾瑞听了，魂不附体，只说：“好侄儿，只说没有见我，明日我重重的谢你。”贾蔷道：“你若谢我，放你不值什么，只不知你谢我多少？况且口说无凭，写一文契来。”贾瑞道：“这如何落纸呢？"贾蔷道：“这也不妨，写一个赌钱输了外人帐目，借头家银若干两便罢。”贾瑞道：“这也容易．只是此时无纸笔。”贾蔷道：“这也容易。”说罢翻身出来，纸笔现成，拿来命贾瑞写．他两作好作歹，只写了五十两，然后画了押，贾蔷收起来．然后撕逻贾蓉．贾蓉先咬定牙不依，只说：“明日告诉族中的人评评理。”贾瑞急的至于叩头．贾蔷作好作歹的，也写了一张五十两欠契才罢．贾蔷又道：“如今要放你，我就担着不是．老太太那边的门早已关了，老爷正在厅上看南京的东西，那一条路定难过去，如今只好走后门．若这一走，倘或遇见了人，连我也完了．等我们先去哨探哨探，再来领你．这屋你还藏不得，少时就来堆东西．等我寻个地方。”说毕，拉着贾瑞，仍熄了灯，出至院外，摸着大台矶底下，说道：“这窝儿里好，你只蹲着，别哼一声，等我们来再动。”说毕，二人去了．
霍克斯译文
Having waited impatiently for nightfall, he groped his way into the Rong-guo mansion just before they closed the gates and slipped into the gallery, now totally deserted—as Xi-feng had promised it would be—and black as pitch.

The gate at the end of the alley-way opening on to Grand mother Jia’s quarters had already been barred on the outer side; only the gate at the east end remained open. For a long time Jia Rui listened intently, but no one came. Suddenly there was a loud slam and the gate at the east end, too, banged shut. Alarmed, but not daring to make a sound, Jia Rui stealthily crept out and tried it. It was locked—as tight as a bucket. Now even if he wanted to get out he could not, for the walls on either side of the alley-way were too high to scale. Moreover the gallery was bare and draughty and this was the midwinter season when the nights are long and the bitter north wind seems to pierce into the very marrow of the bones. By the end of the night he was almost dead with cold.

When at last morning came, Jia Rui saw the gate at the east end open and an old woman pass through to the gate opposite and call for someone to open up. Still hugging himself against the cold, he sprinted out of the other gate while her back was towards him. Fortunately no one was about at that early hour, and he was able to slip out of the rear entrance of the mansion and run back home unseen.

Jia Rui had lost both of his parents in infancy and had been brought up under the sole guardianship of his grandfather Jia Dai-ru. Obsessed by the fear that once outside the house his grandson might indulge in drinking and *** to the detriment of his studies, Dai-ru had subjected him since early youth to an iron discipline from which not the slightest deviation was tolerated. Seeing him now suddenly absent him self a whole night from home, and being incapable, in his wildest imaginings, of guessing what had really happened, he took it as a foregone conclusion that he had been either drink ing or gaming and had probably passed the night in some house of prostitution --- a supposition which caused the old gentleman to spend the whole night in a state of extreme choler.

The prospect of facing his grandfather on arrival made Jia Rui sweat. A lie of some sort was indispensable.

‘I went to see Uncle yesterday,’ he managed to say, ‘and as it was getting dark, he asked me to stay the night.’

‘I have always told you that you are not to go out of that gate without first informing me,’ said his grandfather. ‘Why then did you presume to go off on your own yesterday without saying a word to anybody? That in itself would constitute sufficient grounds for chastisement. But in addition to that you are lying!’

Thereupon he, forced him to the ground, and, with the utmost savagery, dealt him thirty or forty whacks with the bamboo, after which he forbade him to eat and made him kneel in the open courtyard with a book in his hand until he had prepared the equivalent of ten days’ homework.

The exquisite torments suffered by Jia Rui, as he knelt with an empty stomach in the draughty courtyard reciting his homework after having already been frozen all night long and then beaten, can be imagined.

Yet even now his infatuation remained unaltered. It never entered his mind that he had been made a fool of. And so two days later, as soon as he had some free time, he was back once more looking for Xi-feng. She deliberately reproached him for having failed her, thereby so exasperating him that he swore by the most terrible oaths that he had been faithful. Seeing him hurl himself so willingly into the net, Xi-feng decided that a further lesson would be needed to cure him of his folly and proposed another assignation.

‘Only tonight,’ she said, ‘don’t wait for me in that place again. Wait in the empty room in the little passage-way behind this apartment. But mind you don’t run into anybody.’

‘Do you really mean this?’ said Jia Rui.

‘If you don’t believe me, don’t come!’

‘I’ll come! I’ll come!’ said Jia Rui. ‘Whatever happens, I shall be there.’

‘Now I think you had better go.’

Confident of seeing her again in the evening, Jia Rui went off uncomplainingly, leaving Xi-feng time to muster her forces, brief her officers, and prepare the trap in which the luckless man was to be caught.

Jia Rui waited for the evening with great impatience. By a stroke of bad luck some relations came on a visit and stayed to supper. It was already lamplight when they left, and Jia Rui then had to wait for his grandfather to settle down for the night before he could scuttle off to the Rong mansion and make his way to the room in the little passage-way where Xi-feng had told him to go. He waited there for her arrival with the frenzied agitation of an ant on a hot saucepan. Yet, though he waited and waited, not a human shape appeared nor a human sound was heard, and he began to be frightened and a little suspicious:
‘Surely she won’t fail me? Surely I shan’t be made to spend another night in the cold...?’
As he was in the midst of these gloomy imaginings, a dark figure glided into the room. Certain that it must be Xi-feng, Jia Rui cast all caution to the winds and, when the figure approached him, threw himself upon it like a hungry tiger seizing its prey or a cat pouncing on a harmless mouse.
‘My darling, how I have waited for you!” he exclaimed, enfolding his beloved in his arms; and carrying her to the kang, he laid her down and began kissing her and tugging at her trousers, murmuring ‘my sweetest darling’ and ‘my honey love’ and other such endearments in between kisses. Throughout all of this not a single sound was uttered by his partner. Jia Rui now tore down his own trousers and prepared to thrust home his hard and throbbing member. Suddenly a light flashed --- and there was Jia Qiang holding aloft a candle in a candlestick which he shone around:
‘Who is in this room?’
At this the person on the kang gave a giggle:
‘Uncle Rui is trying to bugger me!’
Horrors! The sight he saw when he looked down made Jia Rui want to sink into the ground. It was Jia Rong! He turned to bolt, but Jia Qiang held him fast.
‘Oh no you don’t! Auntie Lian has already told Lady Wang that you have been pestering her. She asked us to keep you here while she went to tell. When Lady Wang first heard, she was so angry that she fainted, but now she’s come round again and is asking for you to be brought to her. Come along, then! Off we go!’
At these words Jia Rui’s soul almost left its seat in his body.
‘My dear nephew, just tell her that you didn’t find me here!’ he said. ‘Tomorrow I will reward you handsomely.’
‘I suppose I could let you go easily enough,’ said Jia Qiang. ‘The question is, how big would this reward be? In any case, just saying that you will give me a reward is no good. I should want a written guarantee.’
‘But I can’t put a thing like this down in writing!’
‘No problem there,’ said Jia Qiang. ‘Just say that you’ve lost money *** and have borrowed such and such an amount to cover your losses. That’s all you need do.’
‘I could do that, certainly,’ said Jia Rui.
Jia Qiang at once disappeared and reappeared only a moment later with ** and a writing-brush which had evidently been made ready in advance. Writing at his dicta tion Jia Rui was compelled, in spite of protests, to put down fifty taels of silver as the amount on the IOU. The document, having been duly signed, was at once pocketed by Jia Qiang, who then pretended to seek the connivance of Jia Rong. But Jia Rong feigned the most obdurate incorruptibility and in sisted that he would lay the matter next day before a council of the whole clan and see that justice was done. Jia Rui became quite frantic and kotowed to him. Finally, under pressure from Jia Qiang and in return for another IOU for fifty taels of silver made out in his favour, he allowed his scruples to be overcome.
‘You realize, don’t you,’ said Jia Qiang, ‘that I’m going to get into trouble for this? Now let’s see. The gate leading to Lady Jia’s courtyard was bolted some time ago, and Sir Zheng is at the moment in the main reception room looking at some stuff that has just arrived from Nanking, so you can’t go through that way. The only way left would be through the back gate. The trouble is, though, that if you leave now, you might run into someone on the way, and then I should get into even worse trouble. You’d better let me scout around a bit first and come for you when the coast is clear. In the meantime you can t hide here, though, because they will shortly be com ing in to store the stuff from Nanking here. I’ll find somewhere else for you.’
He took Jia Rui by the arm, and having first blown the candle out, led him into the courtyard and groped his way round to the underside of the steps which led up to the terrace of the central building.
‘This hollow under the steps will do. Crouch down there, and don’t make a sound! You can go when I come for you.

杨宪益译文
That night, sure enough, he groped his way to the Rong Mansion, slipping into the entrance hall just before the gates were bolted. It was pitch dark and not a soul was about. Already the gate to the Lady Dowager’s quarters was locked, only the one on the east remaining open.
He waited, listening intently, but no one came. Then with a sudden clatter the east gate was bolted too. Frantic as he was, he dared not make a sound. He crept out to try the gate and found it securely closed. Escape was out of the question, for the walls on either side were too high to climb.
The entrance hall was bare and draughty. As it was the depth of winter the nights were long and an icy north wind chilled him to the bone. He almost froze to death.
At last dawn came and a matron appeared to open the east gate. As she went over to knock on the west gate and was looking the other way, Jia Rui shot out like a streak of smoke, hugging his shoulders. Luckily no one else was up at this early hour. He was able to escape unseen through the postern door.
Jia Rui had been orphaned early and left in the charge of his grandfa ther Jia Dairu, a strict disciplinarian who allowed him no freedom for fear he drink or gamble outside and neglect his studies. Now that he had stayed out all night his grandfather was furious and suspected him of drinking, *** or whoring, little guessing the truth of the matter.
In a cold sweat with fright, Jia Rui tried to lie his way out.
“I went to my uncle’s house, and because it was late he kept me for the night.”
“You have never dared leave home before without permission,” thundered his grandfather. “You deserve a beating for sneaking off like that. And a worse one for deceiving me.
He gave Jia Rui thirty or forty strokes with a bamboo, would not let him have any food, and made him kneel in the courtyard to study ten days’ lessons. This thrashing on an empty stomach and kneeling in the wind to read essays completed the wretched youth’s misery after his freezing night.
But still too blinded by infatuation to realize that Xifeng was playing with him, he seized his first chance a couple of days later to call. She reproached him for his breach of faith, earnestly as he protested his inno cence; and since he had delivered himself into her hands she could not but devise further means to cure him.
“Tonight you can wait for me in another place that vacant room off the passage behind this apartment. But mind you don’t make any mis take this time.”
“Do you really mean it?”
“Of course I do. If you don’t believe me, don’t come.”
“I’ll come, I’ll come, even if I should die for it.”
“Now, you’d better go.”
Assuming that this time all would go well, Jia Rui went off.
Having got rid of him, Xifeng held a council of war and baited her trap while the young man waited at home impatiently, for to his annoyance one of their relatives called and stayed to supper. By the time he left the lamps were being lit, and Jia Rui had to wait for his grandfather to retire before he could slip over to the Rong Mansion and wait in the place appointed. He paced the room frantic as an ant on a hot griddle, but there was no sight or sound of anyone.
“Is she really coming?” he wondered. “Or shall I be left to freeze for another whole night?”
Just then a dark figure appeared. Sure that it was Xifeng, he threw caution to the winds and barely had the figure stepped through the door than he flung himself on it like a ravenous tiger, or a cat pouncing on a mouse.
“Dearest!” he cried. “I nearly died of longing.”
He carried her to the kang, where he showered kisses on her and fumbled with her clothes, pouring out incoherent endearments. Not a sound came from the figure in his arms.
Jia Rui had just pulled down his pants and prepared to set to work when a sudden flash of light made him look up. There stood Jia Qiang, a taper in his hand.
“What’s going on in here?” he demanded.
The figure on the kang said with a chuckle, “Uncle Rui was trying to bugger me.”
When Jia Rui saw that it was Jia Rong, he wished he could sink through the ground. In utter confusion he turned to run away.
“Oh, no you don’t!” Jia Qiang grabbed him. “Aunt Xifeng has told Lady Wang that without any reason you tried to make love to her. To escape your attentions she played this trick to trap you. Lady Wang’s fainted from shock. I was sent here to catch you. I found you on top of him, you can’t deny it. So come along with me to Lady Wang!”
Jia Rui nearly gave up the ghost. “Dear nephew,” he pleaded, “do tell her you couldn’t find me. I’ll pay you well for it tomorrow.”
“I might do that. Depends how much you’re willing to pay. I can’t just take your word for it, I must have it down in writing.”
“How can I put a thing like this down in writing?”
“That’s no problem. Just write that you borrowed so much silver from the bank to pay a *** debt.”
“All right. But I’ve no ** or brush.”
“That’s easy.” Jia Qiang disappeared for a moment and promptly returned with writing materials, where upon the two of them forced Jia
Rui to write and sign an I. O. U. for fifty taels which Jia Qiang pocketed. When he urged Jia Rong to leave, however, the latter at first absolutely refused and threatened to lay the matter before the whole clan the next morning, Jia Rui kowtowed to him in desperation. However, with Jia Qiang mediating between them, he was forced to write another I. O. U. for fifty taels of silver.
“I’ll get the blame if you’re seen leaving,” said Jia Qiang. “The Lady Dowager’s gate is closed, and the Second Master is in the hall looking over the things which have arrived from Jinling, so you can’t get out that way. You’ll have to go through the back gate. But if anyone meets you I’ll be finished too. Let me see if the coast is clear. You can’t hide here, they’ll be bringing stuff in presently. I’ll find you somewhere to wait.
He blew out the light and dragged Jia Rui out to the foot of some steps in the yard.
“Here’s a good place,” he whispered. “Squat down there until we come back and don’t make a sound.”

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《红楼梦》翻译 （六十七）

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《红楼梦》翻译（六十七）

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