0101 Economy

Walden
by
Henry David Thoreau
Economy
When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord,  Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only. I lived there two years and two months.  At present I am a sojourner in civilized life again.
写下面这些篇章，或者说写这里头大部分篇章时，我正形单影只地 住在马萨诸塞州康科德的瓦尔登湖畔树林子里我亲手搭建的一间小木 屋里，离左邻右舍一英里，仅凭一双手养活自己。我在那里住了两年零 两个月。如今，我又是文明生活中的匆匆过客了。
I should not obtrude my affairs so much on the notice of my readers if very particular inquiries had not been made by my townsmen concerning my mode of life, which some would call impertinent, though they do not appear to me at all impertinent, but, considering the circumstances, very natural and pertinent. 
要不是我的乡友们细致入微地探听我的生活方式，我本来不作兴 向读者念叨私事，有渎清神，尽管有人会认为我的生活方式不可理喻， 可在我看来并不尽然；而且，考虑到当时情况，我反而觉得非常合理。
Some have asked what I got to eat; if I did not feel lonesome; if I was not afraid; and the like.  Others have been curious to learn what portion of my income I devoted to charitable purposes; and some, who have large families, how many poor children I maintained. 
有人问我有些什么可吃的，我是不是感到孤独，我害怕不害怕，以及诸 如此类的问题。另一些人则好奇地想知道我的收入中有多少捐给慈善事 业了。还有一些拖家带口的人问我抚养了多少个贫困儿童。
I will therefore ask those of my readers who feel no particular interest in me to pardon me if I undertake to answer some of these questions in this book.
因此，我在 本书中对这些问题做出回答，要请那些对我并不特别感兴趣的人多多 包涵。
  In most books, the I, or first person, is omitted; in this it will be retained; We commonly do not remember that it is, after all, always the first person that is speaking. 
大多数书里，都不使用第一人称“我”这个字。在这本书里，“我”将保留第一人称。其实，不管哪本书，说到底，都是第一人称在说这说那，不过我们 往往把它给忘了。
 I should not talk so much about myself if there were anybody else whom I knew as well.  Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience.  Moreover, I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land; for if he has lived sincerely, it must have been in a distant land to me. 
要是我既有自知之明又有知人之深，那我断断乎不会 大谈特谈我自己的。不幸的是，我阅历很浅，只能局限于这一个主题。
再说，我还要求每一个作家，迟早都能朴实无华、真心实意地写自己的 生活，而不是仅仅写他听说过的别人的生活；写一些就像他从远方寄给 亲人那样的书简，因为他只要真心实意地融入生活，一定是在离我十分 遥远的地方。
 Perhaps these pages are more particularly addressed to poor students.  As for the rest of my readers, they will accept such portions as apply to them.  I trust that none will stretch the seams in putting on the coat, for it may do good service to him whom it fits.
本书中这些篇章，也许对清贫学子特别适合。至于我的其 他读者，他们会接受他们认为适合的那些部分。我相信，没有人会把撑 破线缝的衣服穿上身，因为衣服只有合身，穿着才舒服。
I have travelled a good deal in Concord; and everywhere, in shops, and offices, and fields, the inhabitants have appeared to me to be doing penance in a thousand remarkable ways…
我在康科德去过许多地方，所到之处，不管是商店、公事 房、田野，依我看，居民们都在苦修补赎，干着形形色色非同寻常的活 儿。
I see young men, my townsmen, whose misfortune it is to have inherited farms, houses, barns, cattle, and farming tools; for these are more easily acquired than got rid of. 
Better if they had been born in the open pasture and suckled by a wolf, that they might have seen with clearer eyes what field they were called to labor in.
我看到年轻人，亦即我的乡友们，他们继承了农场、房子、谷仓、 牲畜以及各种农具，因为这些家产来得容易，但要舍弃却很难，乃是他 们的不幸。他们还不如出生在空旷的牧场上让狼喂养成人为好，他们就 可以两眼更亮地看到他们应召去干活的田地是个什么样。
 Why should they eat their sixty acres, when man is condemned to eat only his peck of dirt? Why should they begin digging their graves as soon as they are born? How many a poor immortal soul have I met creeping down the road of life, pushing before it a barn seventy-five feet by forty, its Augean stables never cleansed, and one hundred acres of land, tillage, mowing, pasture, and woodlot! 
谁让他们成为 土地的奴隶？为什么有人只好含垢忍辱，为什么有人就可以坐吃他们的 六十英亩收成？为什么他们一生下来就得开始给自己挖坟墓？
我碰到过好多可怜虫，他们在沉重的负荷下几乎被压垮了， 连气都透不过来，在生活道路上爬行，推动一座七十五英尺长四十英尺宽的谷仓、从来不打扫的奥吉厄斯的牛棚气 祖传一百英亩土地还得 耕种、除草、放牧、护林！
The portionless, who struggle with no such unnecessary inherited encumbrances, find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh.
没有祖产继承的人，固然不被祖产继承而 来的拖累所折磨，但他们要拼命地干活，方能养育自己几许英尺的血 肉之躯。
But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before…
可是人们常在误导下辛勤劳作。人的音容才智很快被犁入泥土中， 化成肥料。正如古书里所说受一种似是而非、通称必然的命运支配，人 们积累的财宝会遭到虫咬、锈坏，而且诱贼入室偷盗，这是一个笨蛋 的一生经历，他们要是生前也许还不明白，那么在临终前准会明白。
Most men, even in this comparatively free country, are so occupied with the factitious cares and superfluously coarse labors of life that its finer fruits cannot be plucked by them. 
大多数人，即便在这个相对自由的国家，仅仅因为无知和误导，要应对的是虚假的忧虑，没完没了的粗活，却采撷不到更美好的生命 果实。
Their fingers, from excessive toil,  are too clumsy  and  tremble too much  for  that.  Actually,  the laboring man has not leisure for a true integrity day by day; he cannot afford to sustain the manliest relations to men; his  labor would be depreciated in the market.
 他们的手指，由于操劳过度，极其粗笨，而且一个劲儿颤抖，实 在没法摘果子了。说真的，劳动的人没得闲暇休息，使身体得以日渐复 原。他无法保持最洒脱的人际关系，他的劳动到了市场上就不免贬值。
 He has no time to be anything but a machine. How can he remember well  his  ignorance—which  his growth  requires—who has  so often to use his knowledge? We should feed and clothe him gratuitously sometimes, and recruit him with our cordials, before we judge of him. The finest qualities of our nature, like the bloom on fruits, can be preserved only by the most delicate handling. Yet we do not treat ourselves nor one another thus tenderly.
他除了做一台机器之外，哪儿有空去干别的什么来着。他怎么会记得自 己是无知呢——他正靠的是无知才成长起来——尽管他时不时让自己的 知识派上用场。有时我们应该无偿地让他得到温饱，并用我们的补品去 使他恢复健康，然后才好对他评头论足。我们天性中最优秀的品质，好 似水果外皮的粉霜，只有精心加以呵护才保得住。可是，我们不管对待 自己也好，还是对待别人也好，都缺失如此温情柔意。
Some of you, we all know, are poor, I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. 
我们全都知道，你们里头有些人挺穷，觉得求生很不易，有时 甚至连气都喘不过来。我毫不怀疑，你们里头读过这本书的一些人， 进餐后并不是都付得出钱来，或者说衣鞋快要穿烂，或者早已穿烂了 也没钱添新的，即便如此，你们还忙里偷闲，阅读这几页文字，而这 一点儿时间却是从你们的债主那儿偷来的。
It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, always promising to pay, promising to pay,  tomorrow,  and dying today,  insolvent;  lying, flattering, contracting  yourselves  into  a  nutshell  of civility  or  dilating  into  an atmosphere  of thin  and  vaporous  generosity,  that  you  may  persuade  your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import  his  groceries  for  him;  making yourselves  sick,  that  you  may  lay  up something against a sick day…
你们里头好多人，一望可 知，过的是多么卑微、鬼鬼祟祟的日子。你们老是身陷困厄，很想做一点儿事来还债，你们老是说好还债，满口答应还债，明天就还，直到今天死 了，债并没有偿还；你们撒谎，溜须拍马，选举投票， 自愿被那套繁文缚节框住，要不然，你们自己大吹大擂，营造一种稀 溜溜的慷慨大方的氛围，以便说服你们的邻居让你们给他们做鞋子、 制帽子、做衣服、造马车，或者给他们代买食品杂货，反正为了防备 日后生病而攒下点什么，没承望倒把自己累得病倒了。
Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market; does any divinity stir within him? See how he cowers, how vaguely all the day he fears, not being immortal nor divine, but the prisoner of his own opinion of himself. 
胡扯什么人身上的神性！看一看大路上的车把式夜以继日地往市场  赶，难道他心里还有什么神性在激动吗？瞧他那副畏 畏缩缩，整天闹不清楚自己为何胆战心惊，哪来什么不 朽和神性，不过话又说回来，他仅仅是以奴隶和囚犯自居，给自己干的活 儿挣个好口碑罢了。
Public opinion is a weak tyrant compared with our own private opinion. What a man thinks of himself, that it is which determines, or rather indicates, his fate.
与我们的个人见解相比，公众舆论只是一个软弱无力 的暴君。一个人如何看待自己，这决定了，或者换句话说，指明了他的命 运。
Think, also, of the ladies of the land weaving toilet cushions against the last day, not to betray too green an interest in their fates! As if you could kill time without injuring eternity.
不妨再想一想，这块国土上的女士们，她们 编织梳妆用的垫子，为世界末日做准备，对她们自己的命运却漠不关心！ 仿佛你尽管消磨大量时光，于永生纤毫无损似的。