評論
打印
This essay on a famous man, whose name is not revealed until almost the end of the piece, is a study of monstrous conceit. Filled with biographical details that keep the reader guessing to the last moment, the essay concludes with a challenging view on the nature of genius: If a genius was so prolific, "is it any wonder that he had no time to be a man?"
這篇關于一位名人的文章探討了駭人聽聞的自負，但幾乎直到結尾才道出他的姓名。文中寫滿關于此人的生平細節，讓讀者一直猜到最后一刻。文章在結尾提出了關于天才本質的具有挑戰性的觀點：如果一位天才如此多產，"時間不允許他像常人一樣生活，這有什么好奇怪的呢？"
The Monster
怪杰
Deems Taylor
迪姆斯·泰勒
He was an undersized little man, with a head too big for his body—a sickly little man.His nerves were bad. He had skin trouble. It was agony for him to wear anything next to his skin coarser than silk. And he had delusions of grandeur.
他五短身材，頭倒挺大，與他的身軀極不相稱——是個一副病態的矮子。他神經脆弱，患有皮膚病。貼身穿戴若比絲綢稍稍粗糙一點，便會使他痛苦不堪。他還有夸大妄想的毛病。
He was a monster of conceit. Never for one minute did he look at the world or at people,except in relation to himself. He was not only the most important person in the world, to himself; in his own eyes he was the only person who existed. He believed himself to be one of the greatest dramatists in the world, one of the greatest thinkers, and one of the greatest composers. To hear him talk, he was Shakespeare, and Beethoven, and Plato, rolled into one. And you would have had no difficulty in hearing him talk. He was one of the mostexhausting conversationalists that ever lived. An evening with him was an evening spent in listening to a monologue. Sometimes he was brilliant; sometimes he was maddeningly tiresome. But whether he was being brilliant or dull, he had one sole topic of conversation: himself. What he thought and what he did.
他是個十分自負的怪物。他從來不屑對世界或世人瞧上一眼，除非事情與己有關。他不但自以為是天下頭號重要人物，而且在他眼里唯有他一人生活在世間。他確信自己是世上最偉大的戲劇家之一，最偉大的思想家之一，最偉大的作曲家之一。聽他侃侃而談，他便是莎士比亞、貝多芬、柏拉圖，集三人于一身。聽他談話其實并無難處，他是世上論事不厭其詳的健談者之一。同他度過一個夜晚，就是聽他獨自滔滔不絕講一個夜晚。有時他妙語連珠，有時卻令人厭煩不已，但不管是妙趣橫生，還是枯燥乏味，他只有一個話題：他自己。總是講自己想些什么，干些什么。
