評論
打印
In good time, nevertheless, as the ardor of youth declines; as years and dumps increase; as reflection lends her solemn pauses; in short, as a general lassitude overtakes the sated Turk; then a love of ease and virtue supplants the love for maidens; our Ottoman enters upon the impotent, repentant, admonitory stage of life, forswears, disbands the harem, and grown to an exemplary, sulky old soul, goes about all alone among the meridians and parallels saying his prayers, and warning each young Leviathan from his amorous errors.
然而，到了相當的時候，隨著青春活力的衰退，隨著年事日長，煩惱增加，隨著反射作用的真正終止；總之，隨著這個飽饜的土耳其人已經意興闌珊；于是，從前的愛美人就為如今的愛安逸、修德行所取而代之了；這樣，我們這位土耳其貴族便開始踏上體衰力弱、自我懺悔、勸人行善的生活階段，毅然遣散全部妻妾，精神逐漸陰郁、蒼老、事事都想為人表率，孤身寡人地到處走動，誦經祈禱，并以自己的情海孽恨告誡年青的鯨莫蹈覆轍。
Now, as the harem of whales is called by the fishermen a school, so is the lord and master of that school technically known as the schoolmaster. It is therefore not in strict character, however admirably satirical, that after going to school himself, he should then go abroad inculcating not what he learned there, but the folly of it. His title, schoolmaster, would very naturally seem derived from the name bestowed upon the harem itself, but some have surmised that the man who first thus entitled this sort of Ottoman whale, must have read the memoirs of Vidocq, and informed himself what sort of a country-schoolmaster that famous Frenchman was in his younger days, and what was the nature of those occult lessons he inculcated into some of his pupils.
既然鯨類的妻妾，捕魚人都管它叫做學校，那么，這個學校的主持人顧名思義就得稱為校長了。因此，不管多么奇妙可笑，這并不是很嚴格地說，它自己進了學校之后，它出洋講學所灌輸的，就一定不是它所在行的東西，只是亂搞一通罷了。它這個校長的稱號，雖則十分自然地，似乎是來自那賜給它的妻妾的名稱，不過，有人不免推測，認為那個這樣首先給這種土耳其貴族的大鯨封上這個尊號的人，一定讀過了維多克（歐仁·弗朗索瓦·維多克（1775-1857）——法國冒險家，拐子，騙子，曾被流放后越獄。一八零九年左右充捕快眼線，升為巡長，一直做到保安廳長。他專事化裝混入犯人群中，從中竊取案情秘密后報告警局。他著有《回憶錄》一冊。其中敘述他怎樣在一個鄉村女學校中教書，表面上裝做一個修道士，實際上卻在干著勾引學生的可恥的勾當。）的《回憶錄》，還熟知這個著名的法國人在少年的時候，是個什么樣的鄉村小學校校長，也知道他對他的一些學生灌輸了什么神秘性質的課程。
