評論
打印
How strange Africa is, thought the boy.
非洲真是太奇怪了，圣地亞哥心想。
He was sitting in a bar very much like the other bars he had seen along the narrow streets of Tangier.
他坐在一家酒吧里，這個酒吧與他在這個城市狹窄的街巷中見到的其他酒吧一樣。
Some men were smoking from a gigantic pipe that they passed from one to the other.
有些人在抽巨大的煙袋，他們你一口我一口地傳遞。
In just a few hours he had seen men walking hand in hand, women with their faces covered,
在短短幾個小時內，他見到男人手牽手，女人則都蒙著臉，
and priests that climbed to the tops of towers and chanted—
阿訇爬到高高的塔頂上去唱彌撒的同時，
as everyone about him went to their knees and placed their foreheads on the ground.
所有人都跪在塔周圍，以頭搶地。
"A practice of infidels," he said to himself.
“異教徒的玩意兒。”圣地亞哥自言自語道。
As a child in church, he had always looked at the image of Saint Santiago Matamoros on his white horse,
小時候，在家鄉的教堂里，他總看到一尊圣地亞哥·馬塔莫羅斯的雕像騎著白馬，
his sword unsheathed, and figures such as these kneeling at his feet.
拔劍出鞘，腳下就是那些異教徒的形象。
The boy felt ill and terribly alone. The infidels had an evil look about them.
異教徒的目光都很陰險。男孩感到很不舒服，有一種可怕的孤獨感。
Besides this, in the rush of his travels he had forgotten a detail, just one detail,
除此之外，因急于趕路，他忘記了一個細節，一個重要的細節，
which could keep him from his treasure for a long time: only Arabic was spoken in this country.
那可能會使他拖延很久才能找到那批寶藏。這個細節就是：在這個國家，所有的人都只講阿拉伯語。
The owner of the bar approached him, and the boy pointed to a drink that had been served at the next table.
酒吧老板走過來時，男孩指了指鄰桌人點的飲料。
It turned out to be a bitter tea. The boy preferred wine.
那時一種苦澀的茶。而男孩更喜歡喝葡萄酒。
But he didn't need to worry about that right now.
但是，眼下他不應該關心喝什么飲料，
What he had to be concerned about was his treasure, and how he was going to go about getting it.
而必須專心考慮一下寶藏以及如何獲取寶藏。
The sale of his sheep had left him with enough money in his pouch, and the boy knew that in money there was magic;
賣掉羊群之后，口袋里有錢了，男孩知道金錢是有魔力的：
whoever has money is never really alone.
只要有了錢，誰都不會孤單。
Before long, maybe in just a few days, he would be at the Pyramids.
也許幾天之后，他就到金字塔跟前了。
An old man, with a breastplate of gold, wouldn't have lied just to acquire six sheep.
一個佩戴純金胸牌的老人，沒有必要為得到六只羊而撒謊。
