狄更斯雙語小說:《董貝父子》第47章Part2

Those who study the physical sciences, and bring them to bear upon the health of Man, tell us that if the noxious particles that rise from vitiated air were palpable to the sight, we should see them lowering in a dense black cloud above such haunts, and rolling slowly on to corrupt the better portions of a town. But if the moral pestilence that rises with them, and in the eternal laws of our Nature, is inseparable from them, could be made discernible too, how terrible the revelation! Then should we see depravity, impiety, drunkenness, theft, murder, and a long train of nameless sins against the natural affections and repulsions of mankind, overhanging the devoted spots, and creeping on, to blight the innocent and spread contagion among the pure. Then should we see how the same poisoned fountains that flow into our hospitals and lazar-houses, inundate the jails, and make the convict-ships swim deep, and roll across the seas, and over-run vast continents with crime. Then should we stand appalled to know, that where we generate disease to strike our children down and entail itself on unborn generations, there also we breed, by the same certain process, infancy that knows no innocence, youth without modesty or shame, maturity that is mature in nothing but in suffering and guilt, blasted old age that is a scandal on the form we bear. unnatural humanity! When we shall gather grapes from thorns, and figs from thistles; when fields of grain shall spring up from the offal in the bye-ways of our wicked cities, and roses bloom in the fat churchyards that they cherish; then we may look for natural humanity, and find it growing from such seed.
Oh for a good spirit who would take the house-tops off, with a mole potent and benignant hand than the lame demon in the tale, and show a Christian people what dark shapes issue from amidst their homes, to swell the retinue of the Destroying Angel as he moves forth among them! For only one night's view of the pale phantoms rising from the scenes of our too-long neglect; and from the thick and sullen air where Vice and Fever propagate together, raining the tremendous social retributions which are ever pouring down, and ever coming thicker! Bright and blest the morning that should rise on such a night: for men, delayed no more by stumbling-blocks of their own making, which are but specks of dust upon the path between them and eternity, would then apply themselves, like creatures of one common origin, owing one duty to the Father of one family, and tending to one common end, to make the world a better place!
Not the less bright and blest would that day be for rousing some who never have looked out upon the world of human life around them, to a knowledge of their own relation to it, and for making them acquainted with a perversion of nature in their own contracted sympathies and estimates; as great, and yet as natural in its development when once begun, as the lowest degradation known.'
But no such day had ever dawned on Mr Dombey, or his wife; and the course of each was taken.
Through six months that ensued upon his accident, they held the same relations one towards the other. A marble rock could not have stood more obdurately in his way than she; and no chilled spring, lying uncheered by any ray of light in the depths of a deep cave, could be more sullen or more cold than he.
The hope that had fluttered within her when the promise of her new home dawned, was quite gone from the heart of Florence now. That home was nearly two years old; and even the patient trust that was in her, could not survive the daily blight of such experience. If she had any lingering fancy in the nature of hope left, that Edith and her father might be happier together, in some distant time, she had none, now, that her father would ever love her. The little interval in which she had imagined that she saw some small relenting in him, was forgotten in the long remembrance of his coldness since and before, or only remembered as a sorrowful delusion.
Florence loved him still, but, by degrees, had come to love him rather as some dear one who had been, or who might have been, than as the hard reality before her eyes. Something of the softened sadness with which she loved the memory of little Paul, or of her mother, seemed to enter now into her thoughts of him, and to make them, as it were, a dear remembrance. Whether it was that he was dead to her, and that partly for this reason, partly for his share in those old objects of her affection, and partly for the long association of him with hopes that were withered and tendernesses he had frozen, she could not have told; but the father whom she loved began to be a vague and dreamy idea to her: hardly more substantially connected with her real life, than the image she would sometimes conjure up, of her dear brother yet alive, and growing to be a man, who would protect and cherish her.
The change, if it may be called one, had stolen on her like the change from childhood to womanhood, and had come with it. Florence was almost seventeen, when, in her lonely musings, she was conscious of these thoughts.'
She was often alone now, for the old association between her and her Mama was greatly changed. At the time of her father's accident, and when he was lying in his room downstairs, Florence had first observed that Edith avoided her. Wounded and shocked, and yet unable to reconcile this with her affection when they did meet, she sought her in her own room at night, once more.
'Mama,' said Florence, stealing softly to her side, 'have I offended you?'
Edith answered 'No.'

那些研究自然科學並探索它們對人類健康產生影響的人們告訴我們：從污濁的空氣中取得的有毒的微粒如果能夠被眼睛看見的話，那麼我們將看到它們像濃密的烏雲一般懸浮在這些人們棲息場所的上面，然後逐漸蔓延開來，使一個城鎮中較好的區域也受到毒害。傷風敗德的品行是與這些有毒的微粒一起發生的，而且，在違反大自然的永恆的規律的支配下與它們是分不開的，可是如果這些傷風敗德的品行也是可以看得清楚的話，那麼那該是何等可怕的暴露啊！那樣一來，我們就將會看到腐化墮落、不信上帝、酩酊大醉、偷竊、暗殺和一系列違反自然感情的無名的罪過和人類所嫌惡的事情在這些註定要遭殃的地方發生，並慢慢地擴散開來，去摧殘那些無辜的人們，並在那些純潔的人們中間傳染病毒。那樣一來，我們就將看到這些有毒的泉水怎樣流進我們的醫院和麻風病院，淹沒監獄，並讓運載罪犯的船隻吃水深深地行駛，漂洋過海，使罪惡在廣闊的大陸上猖獗爲害。那時候，我們知道：我們產生的疾病已摧殘了我們的孩子們，並遺傳給還沒有出生的今後的世世代代；那時候我們知道，由於同樣的確鑿的作用，我們養育了毫不純潔天真的嬰兒、不知謙遜與羞恥的青年、除了受苦與犯罪之外什麼也不成熟的壯年人，以及成爲人類形體恥辱的討厭的老年人；當我們知道這些情況的時候，我們將會驚嚇得毛骨悚然。違反天性的人類喲！當我們將從荊棘中採摘葡萄，從大薊中採集無花果的時候，當穀物從我們荒淫的城市的小路的垃圾中生長出來，玫瑰在它們所喜愛的肥沃的教堂墓地上開花的時候，我們就可以尋找符合天性的人類，並發現他們就是從這些種子中生長出來的了。
啊，如果有什麼善良的精靈用一隻比故事中瘸腿的魔鬼更有力更仁慈的手把屋頂掀開，向一個基督教徒指明，當他在他們中間走動時，什麼樣黑暗的形體會從他們的家裏走出來，參加到毀壞天使的隨從的隊伍中去，那將會怎樣啊！啊，如果僅僅在一夜的時間中看到這些蒼白的鬼怪從那些我們忽視過久的地方走出來，從惡習與熱病一起傳播的濃密與陰沉的天空中走出來，把可怕的社會報應像雨一般永遠不停地、愈來愈大地傾瀉下來，那將會怎樣啊！經過這樣一夜之後出現的早晨將會是明亮與幸福的，因爲人們將不再受他們自己所設置的絆腳石的障礙，這些絆腳石只不過是他們通向永恆的道路上的幾粒塵埃罷了；那時候他們將像出於同一個根源、對同一個家庭的父親負有同一個責任、併爲一個共同的目的而努力的人們一樣，專心致志地把這個世界建設成爲一個更好的地方！
這一天將是光明與幸福的，還因爲對於那些從來不曾注意周圍人類生活的世界的人們來說，這一天將喚醒他們認識到他們自己與它的關係；這一天將在他們面前展現出在他們自己偏狹的同情與估價中天性被扭曲的情形；這種扭曲一旦開始，在它的發展過程中，就會像降落到最低層的墮落一樣顯著，然而又同樣自然。
可是這樣一天的曙光始終沒有照射到董貝先生和妻子身上；他們各走各的道路。
在他發生不幸事故之後的六個月中，他們之間的關係沒有發生任何變化。大理石的岩石也不能比她更頑固地阻擋他的道路。巖洞深處絲毫照不到陽光的冰冷的泉水也不能比他更陰沉、更冷冰冰的了。
當建立一個新的家庭的前景開始出現的時候弗洛倫斯心中曾經升起的希望，現在已完全消失了。這個家庭建立已有近兩年之久了，甚至連她耐性的期待也經受不住每天這種冷酷經驗的摧殘。如果說在她心中還存有一線希望：在某個遙遠的將來伊迪絲跟她父親有一天將會一起過着幸福的生活的話，那麼她現在對她父親有一天會愛她的希望是絲毫也沒有了。有一段短短的時間，她曾以爲她看到他變得寬厚起來了，但現在，她在對他在這前後冷淡態度的長久的記憶中，這段時間已被忘記了；即使記起來，也僅僅被看作是一個令人悲哀的錯覺而已。
弗洛倫斯仍然愛他，但是漸漸地把他當作一個曾經是或可能是她的一個親人去愛，而不是把他當作一個出現在她眼前的冷酷的人物去愛。他喜歡回憶小保羅或她母親時所懷有的某種已經減輕了的悲哀現在似乎進入了她對他的思念之中，而且使這種思念成爲彷彿是一種親切的回憶。她說不出爲什麼她所愛的父親對她已成爲一種模糊不清的、像夢一般的概念--是不是因爲他對她來說已經死去了，還是因爲一方面他跟這些她過去所熱愛的對象有關，另一方面她的現已消逝的希望以及她的遭到他冷酷對待的親切感情與他長久地聯繫在一起的緣故。有時在她的想象中，她的弟弟仍然活着，而且已長成爲一個男子漢，愛着她並保護着她；父親這個模糊不清的概念跟她的現實生活實質上的聯繫幾乎不超過她想象中的這個已長成爲男子漢的弟弟。
她的這個變化（如果這可以稱爲變化的話）是不知不覺地發生的，就像她從童年轉變爲一個成年的女性一樣，而且是與這個轉變同時發生的。當弗洛倫斯在孤獨的沉思中意識到這些思想時，她差不多已十七歲了。
現在她時常是孤身一人，因爲她跟她媽媽先前的聯繫發生了很大的變化。當她父親遭遇不幸事故、躺在樓下自己房間裏的時候，弗洛倫斯第一次注意到，伊迪絲迴避她。她在感情上受到了創傷，在心中受到震驚，又不明白這怎麼能和她們每次相遇時伊迪絲那親切的感情調和呢，於是她又一次在夜間走進伊迪絲的房間。
“媽媽，”弗洛倫斯悄悄地走近她的身旁，說道，”我得罪您了嗎？”
伊迪絲回答道，”沒有。”