評論
打印
Corn-pone Opinions
關于從眾的觀點
Mark Twain
馬克·吐溫
Fifty years ago, when I was a boy of fifteen and helping to inhabit a Missourian village on the banks of the Mississippi, I had a friend whose society was very dear to mebecause I was forbidden by my mother to partake of it. He was a gay and impudent and satirical and delightful young black man—a slave—who daily preached sermons from the top of his master's woodpile, with me for sole audience. He imitated the pulpit style of the several clergymen of the village, and did it well, and with fine passion and energy. To me he was a wonder. I believed he was the greatest orator in the United States and would some day be heard from. But it did not happen; in the distribution of rewards he was overlooked. It is the way, in this world.
五十年前，我還是個十五歲的少年，在密西西比河畔密蘇里州的一個小村莊當幫工。那時我有一個朋友，他的友誼對我來說非常可貴，因為媽媽禁止我和他交往。我這位朋友天性快樂，行為魯莽，喜歡嘲諷，是個討人喜歡的年輕黑人小伙子——個奴隸——他每天在主人的木料堆頂上布道傳教，而我是他唯一的聽眾。他模仿著村里幾位牧師的布道風格，而且模仿得很像，很有激情。對我來說他是個奇人。我覺得他是全美國最偉大的演說家，而且將來一定會出名。可是這事兒并沒發生。在分配報酬的過程中他被遺漏了。這個世道就是如此。
He interrupted his preaching, now and then, to saw a stick of wood; but the sawing was a pretense—he did it with his mouth; exactly imitating the sound the bucksaw makes in shrieking its way through the wood. But it served its purpose; it kept his master from coming out to see how the work was getting along. I listened to the sermons from the open window of a lumber room at the back of the house. One of his texts was this:
他不時地中斷布道去鋸一根木頭；不過鋸木只是個假象——那只是用嘴在“鋸”罷了；確切地說，是在用嘴模仿鋸子在木頭中艱難移動時發出的吱吱嘎嘎的聲音。可是這已經達到了他的目的，他的主人聽到聲音后就不再探出頭來看活兒干得怎么樣了。我透過房后一個雜物間敞開的窗戶聽著他的布道。其中一段經文是這樣的：
"You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is."
“如果你告訴我一個人從哪得到他的玉米面包的，我就可以告訴你他的觀點是什么。”
