評論
打印
“The important thing is, Gig, that now I can teach you because you have the tools. And, in all immodesty, I know a lot about the trade.
“重要的是，吉格，現在我可以教你了，因為你具備了必要的工具。我可以毫不謙虛地說，我很了解這一行。
“I've wanted to cut down for a long time. The writing doesn't come so easily for me anymore. But I'll be just as happy helping you as doing it myself. Let's have a drink to celebrate.”
“很久以來我就想少寫一些了。寫作對我來說不再是那么輕而易舉了。可幫助你學習寫作，我就跟自己寫作一樣高興。讓我們來喝一杯，慶祝一下。”
Only once before can I remember papa being as pleased with me — when I tied for the pigeon-shooting championship. And he was confident that there was another winner in the family when I entered the short story for a school competition and won first prize.
我只記得一次爸爸對我這么滿意—當時我跟別人獲得并列射鴿子冠軍。后來我用這篇短篇小說參加學校作文比賽，并獲得一等獎的時候，他自信地以為家里又出了個文壇高手。
Turgenev should have won the prize. He wrote the story. I merely copied it, changing the setting and the names, from a book I assumed papa hadn't read because some of the pages were still stuck together.
得那個第一名的應該是屠格涅夫。他寫了那篇短篇小說。我不過是從一本書里抄襲了這個故事，把背景和人名改了，我猜爸爸還沒讀過這本書，因為有不少頁仍粘連在一起。
I didn't feel like a winner and wondered how long it would be before pa?pa found out that the only creative contribution I had made to the story was to alter “suddenly” to “all of a sudden.”
我沒覺得自己是個獲獎者，而是在想，不知什么時候爸爸會發(fā)現，我對那篇小說所作的唯一創(chuàng)造性貢獻便是將“suddenly”改成了“all of a sudden”。
Fortunately I wasn't around when papa discovered my plagiarism. It got back to me that someone asked him if his son Gregory wrote. “Yes,” he replied, with gusto and sparkle, flashing that “say cheese” smile he sometimes affected. “Gregory writes an occasional bad check.” And, of course, everyone laughed.
爸爸發(fā)現我的剽竊行為時，我很幸運地不在場。我聽說是有人問他，他兒子格雷戈里搞不搞寫作。他興致勃勃、神采飛揚地回答說“寫的，”臉上閃現出一種拍照時做出來的笑容，他有時會做出這種笑容。“格雷戈里偶爾會寫張空頭支票。”當然，大家都哈哈大笑。
Someone in that crowd might have thought, “What a brutal bastard to make such a callous wisecrack about his son. I guess all those stories I've heard about him being a hard-shell bully are true.”
那群人中也許有人會想，“真是個狠心的家伙，竟然對自己的兒子開這種冷酷的玩笑。想來我聽說過的那些說他是個執(zhí)迷不悟的惡棍的傳聞都是真的。”
Hard-shelled, yes, but I helped make that shell.
執(zhí)迷不悟，沒錯，可我?guī)椭斐闪诉@種執(zhí)迷不悟。
