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What despair in those immovable inscriptions! What deadly voids and unbidden infidelities in the lines that seem to gnaw upon all Faith, and refuse resurrections to the beings who have placelessly perished without a grave. As well might those tablets stand in the cave of Elephanta as here.
在這些似乎要嚙蝕一切信念,不讓那些死無葬身之地的人獲得復活的機會的字句中,可顯得多么空洞無聊,多么無情無義。這些字句正等于那些立在象島的石窟里的石碑。
In what census of living creatures, the dead of mankind are included; why it is that a universal proverb says of them, that they tell no tales, though containing more secrets than the Goodwin Sands! how it is that to his name who yesterday departed for the other world, we prefix so significant and infidel a word, and yet do not thus entitle him, if he but embarks for the remotest Indies of this living earth; why the Life Insurance Companies pay death-forfeitures upon immortals; in what eternal, unstirring paralysis, and deadly, hopeless trance, yet lies antique Adam who died sixty round centuries ago; how it is that we still refuse to be comforted for those who we nevertheless maintain are dwelling in unspeakable bliss; why all the living so strive to hush all the dead; wherefore but the rumor of a knocking in a tomb will terrify a whole city. All these things are not without their meanings.
死人是給算在哪一種人口調查登記簿上的?為什么俗語說人死口滅,仿佛包含有超于古德溫沙洲的秘密?我們為什么要在那些昨天動身到陰間去的人的名稱面前,加上這么一個意義深長而缺乏誠意的詞兒?而如果他不過是出發到現世的最遙遠的東印度群島去,卻又不這樣稱呼他?為什么人壽保險公司要付給未亡人死亡賠償金?為什么那個早在六千年前就已老死的古代亞當,卻還象害著什么永恒動彈不得的癱瘓癥。象死人似的。無藥可救地昏睡著?我們為什么對那些我們認定是居住在樂不可言的極樂世界中的人放不了心?為什么所有的活人都拚命要使一切死人靜默;因此只要風聞墳冢一聲響動,就會全城驚惶?所有這些事情都并不是毫無意義的。
But Faith, like a jackal, feeds among the tombs, and even from these dead doubts she gathers her most vital hope.
但是,信念就象豺狼一般是靠墳冢為生的,它甚至還從這些死人的疑懼里,搜集最重要的希望呢？
