1. There once was an immensely rich old Englishman who had been a courier and a councillor to the Queen and who now, in his old age, cared for nothing but collecting ancient blue china. To that end he travelled to Persia, Japan and China, and he was everywhere accompanied by his daughter, the Lady Helena.
英國一位富有的老先生，年輕時任過內閣大臣，也當選過議會議員；如今年紀大了，無欲無求，獨愛搜藏青瓷老古董。為此他偕同女兒海琳娜，不惜遠渡重洋到波斯，日本還有中國尋覓愛物。
2. It happened, as they sailed in the China Sea, that the ship caught fire on a still night, and everybody went into the lifeboats and left her. In the dark and confusion the old peer was separated from his daughter. Lady Helena got up on deck late, and found the ship quite deserted. In the last moment a young English sailor carried her down into a lifeboat that had been forgotten. To the two fugitives it seemed as if fire was following them from all sides, for the phosphorescence played in the dark sea, and, as they looked up, a falling star ran across the sky, as if it was going to drop into the boat. They sailed for nine days, till they were picked up by a Dutch merchantman, and came home to England.
一個寂靜之夜，這對父女坐的輪船進入中國海域時意外失火了。漆黑和混亂之中，別的乘客很快轉移到救生船中，海琳娜卻還在著火的船上，就這樣與老父親斷了聯系。等她逃上甲板，整艘船已被燒毀得差不多了，眼看就要將她葬身火海。這時一位年輕的英國水手出現了，二話不說背起她，安全登上最后那只被逃生者們慌亂之下遺忘的救生船。黑暗的海面泛起大片磷光，猶如大火從四面八方涌來，追趕吞噬著這兩個亡命者。彼時，二人仰起頭，一顆流星劃過夜空，好像瞬間就要落入他們船里一樣。整整九天過去，兩人才被救上一條荷蘭商船，最后總算回到了英國。
3. The old lord had believed his daughter to be dead. He now wept with joy, and at once he took her off to a fashionable watering-place so that she might recover from the hardships she had gone through. And as he thought it must be unpleasant to her that a young sailor, who made his bread in the merchant service, should tell the world that he had sailed for nine days alone with a peer's daughter, he paid the boy a fine sum, and made him promise to go shipping in the other hemisphere and never come back. "For what," said the old nobleman, "would be the good of that?"
原以為女兒早已葬身火海的老爵士這會是喜極而泣，不能自已。為了讓身心受難的女兒盡早康復，老先生匆匆將她安頓在一個溫泉療養勝地。他還想到，萬一這個在航海業謀生的年輕水手大嘴巴，全世界都會知道海倫娜和一個陌生男人孤男寡女在海上漂了九天，這肯定會讓女兒很不開心。于是老爵士給了水手一大筆錢，并讓他承諾只在另一個半球繼續航海，永遠不再回英國。老先生說，這不正是好人做到底嗎？
4. When Lady Helena recovered, and they gave her the news of the Court and of her family, and in the end also told her how the young sailor had been sent away never to come back, they found that her mind had suffered from the trials, and that she cared for nothing in all the world. She would not go back to her father's castle in its park, nor go to Court, nor travel to any gay town of the continent. The only thing which she now wanted to do was to go, like her father before her, to collect rare blue china. So she began to sail, from one country to the other, and her father went with her.
海倫娜身體恢復得差不多時，旁人給她講王宮和家族的動態，最后還說了那個救她的年輕水手永遠離開英國的來龍去脈，他們發現海倫娜精神上依舊受那次大難折磨著，而且她變得對世間一切事都不在乎了。她不想回到父親大莊園的城堡，也不想去宮里，或游覽任何一個歐洲怡人小鎮。她唯一想要做的事就是和父親以前一樣，去搜集珍稀青瓷。于是海琳娜開始航海旅行，從一個國家到另一個國家，這次是父親一直陪在左右。

5. In her search she told people, with whom she dealt, that she was looking for a particular blue color, and would pay any price for it. But although she bought many hundred blue jars and bowls, she would always after a time put them aside and say: "Alas, alas, it is not the right blue." Her father, when they had sailed for many years, suggested to her that perhaps the color which she sought did not exist. "O God, Papa," said she, "how can you speak so wickedly? Surely there must be some of it left from the time when all the world was blue."
尋找青瓷時，海琳娜跟賣瓷器的人說，她正在找一種特別的藍色，愿意為之付出任何代價。她買過數千只青瓷罐和瓷碗，但過一段時間就擱到一旁，嘆道：“唉，這不是我想要的那種藍呢。” 陪她航行多年的父親勸道：也許根本就沒有這種顏色存在吧。“天啊，爸爸，你怎能說這種喪氣話呢？曾幾何時我們的世界一切都是藍藍的，肯定會有那么一些遺留下來啊。”海琳娜十分堅定地說。
6. Her two old aunts in England implored her to come back, still to make a great match. But she answered them: "Nay, I have got to sail. For you must know, dear aunts, that it is all nonsense when learned people tell you that the seas have got a bottom to them. On the contrary, the water, which is the noblest of elements, does, of course, go all through the earth, so that our planet really floats in the ether, like a soap bubble. And there, on the other hemisphere, a ship sails, with which I have got to keep pace.
遠在英國的兩位姑媽都懇求外甥女回家，并要給她介紹好人家。但海琳娜回答說：“不不不，我必須去航行。親愛的姑姑啊，你們一定都知道，有學之士宣揚大海是有底的，那是謬論胡說。正好相反，大自然中最高貴的海水，肯定是貫通大地的，所以我們的地球實際上像一個肥皂泡般浮在宇宙之中。而在另一個半球有這么一艘船航行著，我的船必須跟它齊驅并駕。
7. We two are like the reflection of one another, in the deep sea, and the ship of which I speak is always exactly beneath my own ship, upon the opposite side of the globe. You have never seen a big fish swimming underneath a boat, following it like a dark-blue shade in the water. But in that way this ship goes, like the shadow of my ship, and I draw it to and for wherever I go, as the moon draws the tides, all through the bulk of the earth. If I stopped sailing, what would those poor sailors who made their bread in the merchant service do? But I shall tell you a secret," she said. "In the end my ship will go down, to the centre of the globe, and at the very same hour the other ship will sink as well--for people call it sinking, although I can assure you that there is no up and down in the sea--and there, in the midst of the world, we two shall meet."
在深海之中，兩只船像是彼此的倒影。我乘的船正下方就是前面所說的那艘船，它就在地球的另一面行駛著。你們從沒見過會有一條很大很大的魚在船底之下，如一個暗黑的影子在海里隨船而行吧。但我們這兩艘船恰恰就是這樣，不管我坐的船在地球大部分區域穿行到哪，另一個半球那只船就像影子一樣，被牽引著來回移動，這和潮水在月亮的引力下漲起退去是差不多的道理。如果我停止航行，那些靠航海謀生的出身不好的水手怎么辦？” 海琳娜還說：“我得告訴你們一個秘密，在最后的最后，我坐的船會下沉，直到地球中心，另一只船也會在同一時間沉下來，就如通常人們說的沉沒。但我可以向你們保證，在海里沒有沉沉浮浮，因為在世界的最中心，我們兩只船會相遇在一起。
8. Many years passed, the old lord died and Lady Helena became old and deaf, but she still sailed. Then it happened, after the plunder of the summer palace of the Emperor of China, that a merchant brought her a very old blue jar. The moment she set eyes on it she gave a terrible shriek. "There it is!" she cried. "I have found it at last. This is the true blue. Oh, how light it makes one. Oh, it is as fresh as a breeze, as deep as a deep secret, as full as I say not what." With trembling hands, she held the jar to her bosom, and sat for six hours sunk in contemplation of it.
一年又一年過去，老爵士作古了，海倫娜也變成失聰的老太太，卻未曾停止航行。大清帝國的頤和園被入侵洗劫后，有位商人給她帶來了一個古老的青瓷罐。一看到它海琳娜就發出一聲可怕的尖叫：“就是它！”她哭喊著：“我總算找到了！這是真正的藍！瞧，它真讓人暈眩！天啊，它清新得像一陣柔美的微風，又深邃得好如一個玄妙的秘密，還圓潤得像我說過的什么來著？”海琳娜雙手顫顫巍巍，將瓷罐捧入懷里，靜靜凝思著，六個小時就這么過去了。
9. Then she said to her doctor and her lady-companion: "Now I can die. And when I am dead you will cut out my heart and lay it in the blue jar. For then everything will be as it was then. All shall be blue around me, and in the midst of the blue world my heart will be innocent and free, and will beat gently, like a wake that sings, like the drops that fall from an oar blade." A little later she asked them: "Is it not a sweet thing to think that, if only you have patience, all that has ever been, will come back to you?" Shortly afterwards the old lady died.
其后她對私人醫生和女伴說：“現在我可以死去了。到時請把我的心取出來，安放在這個青瓷罐里，那樣一切都回到最初的模樣。我的世界會化作藍色，在這個純藍天地的最中心，我的心純潔而自由，還會溫柔地跳動，像輪船航海的尾波輕輕哼唱，像槳葉劃動的水滴盈盈滑落。”一小會兒后她問到：“相信只要懷著耐心，一切美好都能重現——這不是一件很幸福的事嗎？” 不久之后，老太太離開了人世。