狄更斯雙語小說:《董貝父子》第27章Part 01

Mr Carker the Manager rose with the lark, and went out, walking in the summer day. His meditations - and he meditated with contracted brows while he strolled along - hardly seemed to soar as high as the lark, or to mount in that direction; rather they kept close to their nest upon the earth, and looked about, among the dust and worms. But there was not a bird in the air, singing unseen, farther beyond the reach of human eye than Mr Carker's thoughts. He had his face so perfectly under control, that few could say more, in distinct terms, of its expression, than that it smiled or that it pondered. It pondered now, intently. As the lark rose higher, he sank deeper in thought. As the lark poured out her melody clearer and stronger, he fell into a graver and profounder silence. At length, when the lark came headlong down, with an accumulating stream of song, and dropped among the green wheat near him, rippling in the breath of the morning like a river, he sprang up from his reverie, and looked round with a suddensmile, as courteous and as soft as if he had had numerous observers to propitiate; nor did he relapse, after being thus awakened; but clearing his face, like one who bethought himself that it might otherwise wrinkle and tell tales, went smiling on, as if for practice.
Perhaps with an eye to first impressions, Mr Carker was very carefully and trimly dressed, that morning. Though always somewhat formal, in his dress, in imitation of the great man whom he served, he stopped short of the extent of Mr Dombey's stiffness: at once perhaps because he knew it to be ludicrous, and because in doing so he found another means of expressing his sense of the difference and distance between them. Some people quoted him indeed, in this respect, as a pointed commentary, and not a flattering one, on his icy patron - but the world is prone to misconstruction, and Mr Carker was not accountable for its bad propensity.
Clean and florid: with his light complexion, fading as it were, in the sun, and his dainty step enhancing the softness of the turf: Mr Carker the Manager strolled about meadows, and green lanes, and glided among avenues of trees, until it was time to return to breakfast. Taking a nearer way back, Mr Carker pursued it, airing his teeth, and said aloud as he did so, 'Now to see the second Mrs Dombey!'
He had strolled beyond the town, and re-entered it by a pleasant walk, where there was a deep shade of leafy trees, and where there were a few benches here and there for those who chose to rest. It not being a place of general resort at any hour, and wearing at that time of the still morning the air of being quite deserted and retired, Mr Carker had it, or thought he had it, all to himself. So, with the whim of an idle man, to whom there yet remained twenty minutes for reaching a destination easily able in ten, Mr Carker threaded the great boles of the trees, and went passing in and out, before this one and behind that, weaving a chain of footsteps on the dewy ground.
But he found he was mistaken in supposing there was no one in the grove, for as he softly rounded the trunk of one large tree, on which the obdurate bark was knotted and overlapped like the hide of a rhinoceros or some kindred monster of the ancient days before the Flood, he saw an unexpected figure sitting on a bench near at hand, about which, in another moment, he would have wound the chain he was making.

經理卡克先生跟雲雀一道起牀，走出屋外，在夏天的晨光中散步。他在漫步閒遊時，皺着眉頭，沉思默想着；但是他的沉思似乎沒有象雲雀飛得那麼高或者向着那個方向飛去；倒不如說它們一直待在地面老窠的附近，在塵土和蟲子中間東尋西找，但是在看不見的高空中鳴叫的鳥兒，沒有一隻能飛得比卡克先生的思想更爲遙遠，更不是人的肉眼所能看到的。他完全控制住臉部的表情，因此人們除了能看出他是在微笑或他正在沉思外，很少有人能用清楚的語言來說明他的表情中還包含着一些什麼內容。從他現在的表情來看，他正在聚精會神地深深思考着。雲雀愈飛愈高，他的思想則愈陷愈深。雲雀的曲調唱得愈來愈清脆，愈來愈嘹亮，他則沉浸在愈來愈莊嚴、愈來愈深切的沉默中。最後，雲雀帶着愈流愈急的急流般的歌聲，頭朝地猛衝下來，停落在他近旁一塊在晨風中像河流般起着波浪的綠色麥田中，這時候他從他的遐想中驚醒過來，看看四周，突然彬彬有禮、和藹可親地微笑了一下，彷彿他面前有許多觀衆需要他去撫慰似的。他清醒以後，沒有再陷入沉思，而是抹抹臉孔，好像唯恐不這樣做，它就會起皺紋，泄露心中的祕密似的；他一邊走一邊微笑，彷彿在做練習一樣。
也許是希望留下一個良好的初次印象，卡克先生這天早晨穿得很講究，很整齊。雖然他的服裝模仿他所服侍的那位偉大人物，經常帶有幾分謹嚴的特色，但他沒有達到董貝先生那種拘束呆板的程度；這也許一方面是因爲他知道那樣未免滑稽可笑，另一方面是因爲他覺得正好可以通過這另一種方式來表示他明白他們之間存在的差別與距離。確實，有些人認爲，他在這一方面是他的冷若冰霜的恩主的確切的註釋，而不是諂媚的註釋。——但是世界上的人們總是愛歪曲事實，卡克先生不能對這種惡癖負責。
經理卡克先生衣着整潔，華麗；臉色蒼白，彷彿在陽光下褪了色似的；他那優雅的步伐更顯出了草皮的柔軟；他在草地和綠色的小路上漫步閒遊，並沿着林蔭道靜悄悄地走去，直到該回去吃早飯的時候。卡克先生選了一條近路回去，一邊走一邊讓牙齒露出來透透風，並高聲說道，“現在去見第二位董貝夫人啦！”
他已走出了城鎮的地界之外，回去走的是一條令人愉快的道路，樹葉茂盛的林木投下了深沉的蔭影，間或可以看到幾條長凳，人們可以隨意坐下休息。這不是一個時時都有人前去觀光的勝地；在這靜悄悄的早晨，它顯得十分荒涼、僻靜。這個地方就只有卡克先生一個人，或者他認爲就只有他一個人在領略這裏的一切風光。卡克先生這時的心情很像是一個遊手好閒的人，本來毫不費勁就可以在十分鐘之內到達目的地的，卻覺得還有二十分鐘可以讓他磨蹭，所以他在粗大的樹幹中間漫遊，走進走出，從這株樹的前面繞到那株樹的後面，在有露水的地面上編織成一個腳步的鏈條。
可是他發現，他原以爲這個小樹林裏沒有其他任何人的想法錯了，因爲當他輕輕地繞過一株大樹的樹幹（這株大樹古老的樹皮形成了好多木瘤和相互疊蓋的鱗片，就像犀牛或大洪水以前古代某些類似怪物的皮一樣）時，他出乎意料地看見一個人坐在近旁的一條長凳上，本來他準備沿着他走的鏈條方向繞過它的。