海外头条总编审   王 在 军   （中国）

海外头条副编审 Wendy温迪（英国）

海 外 头 条总 编   火 凤  凰 （海外）

图片选自百度

英文诵读：龚如仲（美国）

中文播音：琬   乔（中国）

The Plague

By Albert Camus

Page 32

The doctor opened the window, and at once the noises of the town grew louder. The brief, intermittent sibilance of a machine-saw came from a nearby work-shop. Rieux pulled himself together. There lay certitude; there, in the daily round. All the rest hung on mere thread and trivial contingencies; you couldn't waste your time on it. The thing was to do your job as it should be done.

The doctor's musings had reached this point when the visit of Joseph Grand was announced. Grand's duties as clerk in the Municipal Office were varied, and he was sometimes employed in the statistical department on compiling the figures of births, marriages, and deaths. Thus it had fallen to him to add up the number of deaths during the last few days, and, being of an obliging disposition, he had volunteered to bring a copy of the latest figures to the doctor.

Grand, who was waving a sheet of paper, was accompanied by his neighbor, Cottard.

"The figures are going up, doctor. Eleven deaths in forty-eight hours.”

Rieux shook hands with Cottard and asked him how he was feeling. Grand put in a word explaining that Cottard was bent on thanking the doctor and apologizing for the trouble he had given. But Rieux was gazing frowningly at the figures on the sheet of paper.

“Well, "he said, "perhaps we'd better make up our minds to call this disease by its name. So far we've been only shillyshallying. Look here, I'm off to the laboratory; like to come with me?”

“Quite so, quite so, "Grand said as he went down the stairs at the doctor's heels. “I, too, believe in calling things by their name. But what's the name in this case?”

“That I shan't say, and anyhow you wouldn't gain anything by knowing.” You see," Grand smiled. "It's not easy after all!”

They started off toward the Place d'Armes. Cottard still kept silent. The streets were beginning to fill up. The brief dusk of our town was already giving place to night, and the first stars glimmered above the still clearly marked horizon. A few moments later all the streetlamps went on, dimming the sky, and the voices in the street seemed to rise a tone.

“Excuse me,” Grand said at the corner of the Place d'Armes, “but I must catch my car now. My evenings are sacred. As we say in my part of the world: 'Never put off to tomorrow-'”

Rieux had already noticed Grand's trick of professing to quote some turn of speech from “his part of the world”(he hailed from Montélimar), and following up with some such hackneyed expression as “lost in dreams,” or “pretty as a picture.”

“That's so,” Cottard put in. “You can never budge him from his den after dinner.”

Rieux asked Grand if he was doing extra work for the municipality. Grand said no, he was working on his own account.

“Really?” Rieux said, to keep the conversation going. “And are you getting on well with it?”

“Considering I've been at it for years, it would be surprising if I wasn't. Though in one sense there hasn't been much progress.”

“May one know”-the doctor halted-“what it is that you're engaged on?”

Grand put a hand up to his hat and tugged it down upon his big, protruding ears, then murmured some half-inaudible remark from which Rieux seemed to gather that Grand's work was connected with "the growth of a personality." Then he turned rather hastily and a moment later was hurrying, with short, quick steps, under the fig trees lining the boulevard de la Marne.

《鼠疫》

作者：阿尔贝•加缪（法国）

第32页

里厄大夫打开窗户，突然涌入了市井的喧嚣。从邻近的锯木厂传来了锯床的声响，无休无止地重复着短促而尖厉的声音。里厄抖了抖精神。他知道，确实性就在那里，就在每天的劳作中，而其余的一切都轻若游丝，都是些微不足道的举动。他知道，他不可以在这里面恋栈，做好本职工作才是关键。

里厄大夫正在那里浮想联翩，忽然听见有客人来访。来者是约瑟夫•格朗。这位市政府的职员虽然工作庞杂，但他依然定期地被委派到统计处协管户籍，于是统计死亡人口也自然而然地成了他的分内之事。他生性乐于助人，他答应把统计结果抄写一份，亲自送到里厄大夫的家中。

这时候，里厄大夫看到格朗是在他的邻居科塔尔的陪同下来到的。这位职员正向里厄大夫挥动着一张纸。“数字增加了，大夫！”格朗喊道，“四十八小时里，共死了十一人。”里厄和可塔尔打了个招呼，刻意问他当下感觉如何？格朗插话道：科塔尔执意要向大夫表示谢意，同时也为他干的傻事深感歉意，因为他给大夫增添了许多麻烦。不过，里厄大夫没有注意到这些，他正在专心地看着统计表。

“好吧，”里厄大夫说道，“也许应该下个决心给这种疾病命名了。迄今为止，我们总是在原地踏步。对了，我要去化验室，你们谁愿意和我同往？”“好呀，好呀，”格朗跟在大夫身后，边下楼边说道：“是什么毛病，就该有个具体名称。但是，这种病的名称到底是什么呢？”

里厄大夫说道：“我不能告诉您，况且，您即便知道了也没有好处。”

“您瞧，”格朗微笑道：“说出来还真不那么容易。”

一行三人朝着阅兵场方向的化验室走去。科塔尔一路默默无语。街上的行人多了起来。这个城市，黄昏来去匆匆，在夜幕降临之际，黄昏步步后退。晚上的星星初现于苍穹，地平线忽隐忽现。片刻之间，街道上路灯点点亮，映衬着一片渐渐幽暗的云空。这时候，大家的谈话声也似乎提高了腔调。

“请原谅，”抵达阅兵场的路口时格朗突然说道：“我得去乘坐有轨电车了，晚上是我的神圣时间。这正如我家乡人常说的‘今天的事绝不能拖到明天……’”

里厄大夫已经注意到格朗，这个出生在蒙特利马尔的家伙有一种喜欢引用家乡俗谚的癖好，随后再加上几句毫无出处的陈词滥调，就好像什么“梦幻之时刻，”“仙境般明艳”。

“嗯，是真的，”科塔尔突然插话道：“晚饭之后，您休想把他从他的安乐窝中拉出来！”

里厄大夫问格朗，他是否只为市政府工作？格朗回答说，倒也不是如此，他同时也为自个儿干活。

“哦？”里厄大夫随口又问了一句：“您自己的活儿干得不错？有进展？”

“都已经干了好几年了，要说没有进展，那也不可能啊。但从另一个意义上来讲，进展不算太大。”

“简单说吧，究竟干的是什么活计？”里厄大夫停下了脚步，继续问道。

格朗嘴里呜噜呜噜地说着，同时正了正戴在他两只突出的大耳朵上面的圆帽。里厄大夫费劲地才从格朗十分模糊的话语中听出来，是有关他个人发展的事由。还没有等里厄大夫再次反应过来，格朗已经离开了他们，正沿着榕树多多的马恩林荫大道小碎步地快速远去。

【作者简介】龚如仲 (Ralph) , 中国对外经济贸易大学英语系毕业。曾任铁道部援建坦赞铁路工作组总部英语翻译, 中国国际广播电台英语部播音员、记者, 外贸部中国轻工业品进出口总公司驻美国公司总裁, 澳大利亚利富集团驻美国公司总裁, 外贸部中国基地总公司驻美国公司总裁, 美国TA国际有限公司驻北京办事处首席代表。

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琬乔：朗诵爱好者，喜欢用声音传递世间一切美好与热爱！