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"Let me ask you the question that you asked Strickland. Do you never regret France and your old home in Brittany?"
“讓我問你一個問題：這個問題你過去也問過思特里克蘭德。你離開了法國，把布列塔尼的老家拋在腦后，從來也沒有后悔過嗎？”
"Some day, when my daughter is married and my son has a wife and is able to take my place on the island, we shall go back and finish our days in the old house in which I was born."
“將來有一天，等我女兒結了婚，我兒子娶了妻子，能夠把我在島上的一番事業接過去以后，我就和我妻子回去，在我出生的那所老房子里度過我們的殘年。”
"You will look back on a happy life," I said.
“你那時回顧過去，會感到這一輩子是過得很幸福的。”
"Evidemment, it is not exciting on my island, and we are very far from the world—imagine, it takes me four days to come to Tahiti—but we are happy there. It is given to few men to attempt a work and to achieve it. Our life is simple and innocent. We are untouched by ambition, and what pride we have is due only to our contemplation of the work of our hands. Malice cannot touch us, nor envy attack. Ah, mon cher monsieur, they talk of the blessedness of labour, and it is a meaningless phrase, but to me it has the most intense significance. I am a happy man."
“當然了，在我們那個小島上，日子可以說比較平淡，我們離開文明社會非常遙遠——你可以想象一下，就是到塔希提來一趟，在路上也要走四天，但是我們過得很幸福。世界上只有少數人能夠最終達到自己的理想。我們的生活很單純、很簡樸。我們并不野心勃勃，如果說我們也有驕傲的話，那是因為在想到通過雙手獲得的勞動成果時的驕傲。我們對別人既不嫉妒，更不懷恨。唉，我親愛的先生，有人認為勞動的幸福是句空話，對我說來可不是這樣。我深深感到這句話的重要意義。我是個很幸福的人。”
"I am sure you deserve to be," I smiled.
“我相信你是有資格這樣說的。”
"I wish I could think so. I do not know how I have deserved to have a wife who was the perfect friend and helpmate, the perfect mistress and the perfect mother."
“我也希望我能這樣想。我的妻子不只是我貼心的朋友，還是我的好助手；不只是賢妻，還是良母，我真是配不上她。”
I reflected for a while on the life that the Captain suggested to my imagination.
船長的這番話在我的腦子里描繪了別樣一種生活，使我思索了好大一會兒。
"It is obvious that to lead such an existence and make so great a success of it, you must both have needed a strong will and a determined character."
“你過著這樣的生活，而且取得很大成功，顯然這不只需要堅強的意志，而且要有堅毅的性格。”我說。
"Perhaps; but without one other factor we could have achieved nothing."
“也許你說得對。但是如果沒有另外一個因素，我們是什么也做不成的。”
"And what was that?"
“那是什么呢？”
He stopped, somewhat dramatically, and stretched out his arm.
他站住了，有些象演戲似地抬起了兩只胳臂。
"Belief in God. Without that we should have been lost."
“對上帝的信仰。要是不相信上帝我們早就迷途了。”
Then we arrived at the house of Dr. Coutras.
話說到這里，我們已經走到庫特拉斯醫生的門口。
