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The Libido for the Ugly
愛丑之欲
H. L. Mencken
HL門肯
On a Winter day some years ago, coming out of Pittsburgh on one of the expresses of the Pennsylvania Railroad, I rolled eastward for an hour through the coal and steel towns of Westmoreland county. It was familiar ground; boy and man, I had been through it often before. But somehow I had never quite sensed its appalling desolation. Here was the very heart of industrial America, the center of its most lucrative and characteristic activity, the boast and pride of the richest and grandest nation ever seen on earth--and here was a scene so dreadfully hideous , so intolerably bleak and forlorn that it reduced the whole aspiration of man to a macabre and depressing joke . Here was wealth beyond computation, almost beyond imagination--and here were human habitations so abominable that they would have disgraced a race of alley cats.
幾年前的一個冬日，我乘坐賓夕法尼亞鐵路公司的一班快車離開匹茲堡，向東行駛一小時，穿越了威斯特摩蘭縣的煤城和鋼都。這是我熟悉的地方，無論是童年時期還是成年時期，我常常經過這一帶。但以前我從來沒有感到這地方荒涼得這么可怕。這兒正是工業化美國的心臟，是其最賺錢、最典型活動的中心，世界上最富裕、最偉大的國家的自豪和驕傲--然而這兒的景象卻又丑陋得這樣可怕，凄涼悲慘得這么令人無法忍受，以致人的抱負和壯志在這兒成了令人毛骨悚然的、令人沮喪的笑料。這兒的財富多得無法計算，簡直都無法想象--也是在這兒，人們的居住條件又是如此之糟，連那些流浪街頭的野貓也為之害羞。
I am not speaking of mere filth. One expects steel towns to be dirty. What I allude to is the unbroken and agonizing ugliness, the sheer revolting monstrousness, of every house in sight. From East Liberty to Greensburg, a distance of twenty-five miles, there was not one in sight from the train that did not insult and lacerate the eye.
我說的不僅僅是臟。鋼鐵城鎮的臟是人們意料之中的事。我指的是所看到的房子沒有一幢不是丑陋得令人難受，畸形古怪得讓人作嘔的。從東自由鎮到格林斯堡，在這全長25英里的路上，從火車上看去，沒有一幢房子不讓人看了感到眼睛不舒服和難受。
