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（France）

Page 41

When Rieux entered the room, the old man was sitting up in bed, at his usual occupation, counting out dried peas from one pan to another. On seeing his visitor he looked up, beaming with delight.

“Well, doctor? It's cholera, isn't it?”

“Where on earth did you get that idea from?”

“It's in the paper, and the radio said it, too.”

“No, it's not cholera.”

“Anyhow,” the old man chuckled excitedly, “the big bugs are laying it on thick. Got the jitters, haven't they?”

“Don't you believe a word of it,” the doctor said.

He had examined the old man and now was sitting in the middle of the dingy little dining-room. Yes, despite what he had said, he was afraid. He knew that in this suburb alone eight or ten unhappy people, cowering over their buboes, would be awaiting his visit next morning. In only two or three cases had incision of the buboes caused any improvement. For most of them it would mean going to the hospital, and he knew how poor people feel about hospitals. “I don't want them trying their experiment on him,” had said the wife of one of his patients. But he wouldn't be experimented on; he would die, that was all. That the regulations now in force were inadequate was lamentably clear. As for the “specially equipped” wards, he knew what they amounted to: two out buildings from which the other patients had been hastily evacuated, whose windows had been hermetically sealed, and round which a sanitary cordon had been set. The only hope was that the outbreak would die a natural death; it certainly wouldn't be arrested by the measures the authorities had so far devised.

Nevertheless, that night the official communiqué was still optimistic. On the following day Ransdoc announced that the rules laid down by the local administration had won general approval and already thirty sick persons had reported. Castel rang up Rieux.

"How many beds are there in the special wards?”

“Eighty.”

“Surely there are far more than thirty cases in the town?”

“Don't forget there are two sorts of cases: those who take fright, and those-they're the majority-who don't have time to do so.”

“I see. Are they checking up on the burials?”

“No. I told Richard over the phone that energetic measures were needed, not just words; we'd got to set up a real barrier against the disease, otherwise we might just as well do nothing.”

“Yes? And what did he say?”

“Nothing doing. He hadn't the powers. In my opinion, it's going to get worse.”

That was so. Within three days both wards were full. According to Richard, there was talk of requisitioning a school and opening an auxiliary hospital. Meanwhile Rieux continued incising buboes and waiting for the anti-plague serum. Castel went back to his old books and spent long hours in the public library.

“Those rats died of plague,” was his conclusion, “or of something extremely like it. And they've loosed on the town tens of thousands of fleas, which will spread the infection in geometrical progression unless it's checked in time.”

Rieux said nothing.

《鼠疫》

作者：阿尔贝•加缪（法国）

第41页

译者：龚如仲（Ralph）

当里厄大夫进入房间时，坐在床上的那位气喘病患者老人正用他那“本行不忘”的方式，数着一盘干豆子，然后把数好的豆子挪到另一盘里。一见到他所尊敬的贵客，老人家非常开心。

“嗨，大夫是您啊？这祸害是霍乱，对吧？”

“您是从世界上哪个角落里听到这个说法的？”

“报纸上有报道，而且收音机里也说过这件事啊。”

“不！这不是霍乱。”

“不管怎么样吧，”老人家激动地笑着说道，“这些头头们也太夸张了吧，都让人们不知所措了，不是吗？”

“您不要相信种种传言，”医生说道。

医生对这位已经坐在他家里那间邋遢的小小饭堂里的老人家进行了检查。医生心里想到：是啊，不管这位老人家说了什么，其实他是害怕啊。医生知道，就在这个郊区，已经有八个或十个不幸的人被他们自己的淋巴管炎的症状吓得够呛，他们等着医生次日上午去他们家中作进一步的诊治。只有两三个患者的淋巴管切开后，经治疗，有了一点点起色，他们当中的大多数人必须入院治疗。医生知道，入院治疗对穷人们来说意味着什么。“我可不愿意他们把我的丈夫当成试验品，”这些病人中间的一位妻子说道。但是，医生必须在他身上作试验，否则他只有死路一条。那些正在执行的尚不完备的规定非常清楚。医生知道“特殊装备”病房的真正含义是：两栋从其他病人那里紧急腾出来的病房，窗户被牢牢地封住，病房外面拉起了卫生警戒线。唯一的希望是：疫情的爆发只是引起自然死亡；它不是被当局所发布的强制性措施所抑制。

尽管如此，那天晚上，官方的公报依然是乐观的。到了第二天，兰斯多克宣布：地方当局所制定的那些规定得到了普遍认可，又有三十个病号出现。卡斯特尔当即给里厄大夫打电话。

“特殊病房有多少个床位？”

“八十张。”

“啊，但城里远远超出三十个病人吧？”

“请您不要忘记，当下有两种类型的病号：一种人是非常恐惧；而另一种人，他们可是大多数， 他们来不及申报。”

“哦，我明白了。埋葬尸体有人监督吗？”

“没有！我已经通过电话告诉理查德积极有效的措施是必须的，不能光说空话；我们必须对瘟疫建立切实的防止蔓延的壁垒，否则等于白干，没有用处。”

“是啊？那么他是怎么说的？”

“什么也没有说，因为他没有这个权限。依我所见，事态正在恶化。”

确实如此。仅仅三天后，所有的病房都爆满了。据理查德说，政府正在征用一所学校来安排病房，同时要开启一所辅助治疗医院。与此同时，里厄大夫继续切开病人的淋巴管作紧急治疗，并等待着抗鼠疫血清的到来。卡斯特尔又去查阅他的旧书本，并在公立图书馆里待得很久很久。

“这些老鼠是死于鼠疫，”这就是卡斯特尔的结论，“或者是与鼠疫极为相似的病菌。这个城里，老鼠身上成千上万的跳蚤正以几何级数的速度传播着鼠疫，必须及时检查！”

里厄医生默默无语。

【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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