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A DOG'S TALE
一只狗的自述
by Mark Twain
馬克·吐溫著
CHAPTER III
第三章
It was such a charming home! -- my new one; a fine great house, with pictures, and delicate decorations, and rich furniture, and no gloom anywhere, but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with flooding sunshine; and the spacious grounds around it, and the great garden -- oh, greensward, and noble trees, and flowers, no end! And I was the same as a member of the family; and they loved me, and petted me, and did notgive me a new name, but called me by my old one that was dear to me because my mother had given it me -- Aileen Mavoureen. She got it out of a song; and the Grays knew that song, and said it was a beautiful name.
那真是個有趣的家呀！——我那新的家。房子又好又大，還有許多圖畫和精巧的裝飾，講究的家具，根本沒有陰暗的地方，處處的五顏六色都有充分的陽光照得非常鮮亮；周圍還有很寬敞的空地，還有個大花園——啊，那一大片草坪，那些高大的樹，那些花，說不完！我在那兒就好像是這一家人里面的一分子，他們都愛我，把我當成寶貝，而且并沒有給我取個新名字，還是用我原來的名字叫我，這個名字是我母親給我取的——愛蓮·麥弗寧——所以我覺得它特別親愛。她是從一首歌里找出來的。格萊夫婦也知道這首歌，他們說這個名字很漂亮。
Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot imagine it; and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother, just a darling slender little copy of her, with auburn tails down her back, and short frocks; and the baby was a year old, and plump and dimpled, and fond of me, and never could get enough of hauling on my tail, and hugging me, and laughing out its innocent happiness;
格萊太太有30歲，她非常漂亮、非常可愛，那樣子你簡直想像不出；莎第10歲，正像她媽媽一樣，簡直是照她的模樣做出來的一份苗條可愛的仿制品，背上垂著赭色的辮子，身上穿著短短的上衣；娃娃才一周歲，長得胖胖的，臉上有酒窩，他很喜歡我，老愛拉我的尾巴，抱我，并且還哈哈大笑地表示他那天真爛漫的快樂，簡直沒有個夠；
and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight, and tall and slender and handsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick in his movements, business-like, prompt, decided, unsentimental, and with that kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to glint and sparkle with frosty intellectuality! He was a renowned scientist.
格萊先生38歲，高個子，細長身材，長得很漂亮：頭前面有點禿，人很機警，動作靈活，一本正經，辦事迅速果斷，不感情用事，他那副收拾得整整齊齊的臉簡直就像是閃耀著冷冰冰的智慧的光！他是一位有名的科學家。
I do not know what the word means, but my mother would know how to use it and get effects. She would know how to depress a rat-terrier with it and make a lap-dog look sorry he came. But that is not the best one; the best one was Laboratory. My mother could organize a Trust on that one that would skin the tax-collars off the whole herd. The laboratory was not a book, or a picture, or a place to wash your hands in, as the college president's dog said -- no, that is the lavatory;
我不知道科學家是什么意思，可是我母親一定知道這個名詞怎么用法，知道怎么去賣弄它，叫別人佩服。她會知道怎么去拿它叫一只捉耗子的小狗聽了垂頭喪氣，把一只哈巴狗嚇得后悔它不該來。可是這個名詞還不是最好的；最好的名詞是實驗室。要有一個實驗室肯把所有的狗脖子上拴著繳稅牌的頸圈都取下來，我母親就可以組織一個托辣斯來辦這么一個實驗室。實驗室并不是一本書，也不是一張圖畫，也不是洗手的地方——大學校長的狗說是這么回事，可是不對，那叫做盥洗室；
the laboratory is quite different, and is filled with jars, and bottles, and electrics, and wires, and strange machines; and every week other scientists came there and sat in the place, and used the machines, anddiscussed, and made what they called experiments and discoveries; and often I came, too, and stood around and listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my mother, and in loving memory of her, although it was a pain to me, as realizing what she was losing out of her life and I gaining nothing at all; for try as I might, I was never able to make anything out of it at all.
實驗室是大有區別的，那里面擱滿了罐子、瓶子、電器、五金絲和稀奇古怪的機器；每個星期都有別的科學家到那兒來，坐在那地方，用那些機器，大家還討論，還做他們所謂什么試驗和發現；我也常常到那兒來，站在旁邊聽，很想學點東西，為了我母親，為了好好地紀念她，雖然這對我是件痛苦的事，因為我體會到她一輩子耗費了多少精伸，而我可一點也學不到什么；無論我怎么努力，我聽來聽去，根本就一點也聽不出所以然來。
