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 45

Thus the first thing that plague brought to our town was exile. And the narrator is convinced that he can set down here, as holding good for all, the feeling he personally had and to which many of his friends confessed. It was undoubtedly the feeling of exile-that sensation of a void within which never left us, that irrational longing to hark back to the past or else to speed up the march of time, and those keen shafts of memory that stung like fire. Sometimes we toyed with our imagination, composing ourselves to wait for a ring at the bell announcing somebody's return, or for the sound of a familiar footstep on the stairs;  but, though we might deliberately stay at home at the hour when a traveler coming by the evening train would normally have arrived, and though we might contrive to forget for the moment that no trains were running, that game of make-believe, for obvious reasons, could not last. Always a moment came when we had to face the fact that no trains were coming in. And then we realized that the separation was destined to continue, we had no choice but to come to terms with the days ahead. In short, we returned to our prison-house, we had nothing left us but the past, and even if some were tempted to live in the future, they had speedily to abandon the idea-anyhow, as soon as could be-once they felt the wounds that the imagination inflicts on those who yield themselves to it.

It is noteworthy that our towns people very quickly desisted, even in public, from a habit one might have expected them to form-that of trying to figure out the probable duration of their exile. The reason was this: when the most pessimistic had fixed it at, say, six months; when they had drunk in advance the dregs of bitterness of those six black months, and painfully screwed up their courage to the sticking-place, straining all their remaining energy to endure valiantly the long ordeal of all those weeks and days-when they had done this, some friend they met, an article in a newspaper, a vague suspicion, or a flash of foresight would suggest that, after all, there was no reason why the epidemic shouldn't last more than six months; why not a year, or even more?

At such moments the collapse of their courage, willpower, and endurance was so abrupt that they felt they could never drag themselves out of the pit of despond into which they had fallen. Therefore they forced themselves never to think about the problematic day of escape, to cease looking to the future, and always to keep, so to speak, their eyes fixed on the ground at their feet. But, naturally enough, this prudence, this habit of feinting with their predicament and refusing to put up a fight, was ill rewarded. For, while averting that revulsion which they found so unbearable, they also deprived themselves of those redeeming moments, frequent enough when all is told, when by conjuring up pictures of a reunion to be, they could forget about the plague. Thus, in a middle course between these heights and depths, they drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress.

Thus, too, they came to know the incorrigible sorrow of all prisoners and exiles, which is to live in company with a memory that serves no purpose. Even the past, of which they thought incessantly, had a savor only of regret. For they would have wished to add to it all that they regretted having left undone, while they might yet have done it, with the man or woman whose return they now awaited; just as in all the activities, even the relatively happy ones, of their life as prisoners they kept vainly trying to include the absent one. And thus there was always something missing in their lives. Hostile to the past, impatient of the present, and cheated of the future, we were much like those whom men's justice, or hatred, forces to live behind prison bars. Thus the only way of escaping from that intolerable leisure was to set the trains running again in one's imagination and in filling the silence with the fancied tinkle of a doorbell, in practice obstinately mute.

《鼠疫》

作者：阿尔贝•加缪(法国）

第45页

这样，鼠疫给市民们带来的第一个影响是一种流放的感觉。作者在这里可以肯定他所写的东西也能代表大家的感受，因为这是作者同许多市民在同一时间里的共同感受。我们的心灵深处始终存在的空虚感确实是一种流放之感，一种明确清晰的情绪，一种焦虑如火的回忆，一种荒诞不经的妄想，不是妄想年光倒流就是相反地妄想时间飞逝。有时候我们让自己陶醉于幻想境界，设想自己在愉快地等候亲人回来的门铃声，或是楼梯上熟悉的脚步声，再不然便是故意把火车不通的事忘掉，在平时乘傍晚快车来的旅客应该到家的时刻，赶回家中等候亲人。当然，这些游戏是不能持久的，清醒地知道火车不通的时刻总是会到来，这时候我们才明白，我们同亲人的两地分离注定要持续下去。而且我们必须设法安排自己的一切来度过这段时光。总之，从此我们又陷入被囚禁的状态，我们只有怀念过去。即是我们当中有几个人寄希望于未来，但当他们发觉相信幻想的人最终受到了创伤时，他们也就很快地、尽力地放弃了种种奢望。

特别是，全体市民很快就克制住以前养成的推算他们还要分离多久的习惯，即使在公开场合也是如此。这是为什么呢？原因之一就是有一些最为悲观的人把这一分离的时间推断为六个月，于是他们对这一段时期事先做好了含辛茹苦的思想准备，鼓足勇气地去接受考验，并竭尽全力地来熬过这漫长而痛苦的岁月；可是当他们偶尔遇到一个朋友，或是看到报纸上的一条消息，再比如头脑中闪过某种臆测，再不然便是意识到没有理由不相信疫情会持续到半年以上，也可能是一年，甚至超过一年。

这时候他们的勇气、意志、耐心一下子统统垮掉了，垮得如此突然，以致于使他们感到好像再也爬不起来了。因此他们强制自己不再去想疫情解封的日期，不再去展望未来，只想着强制自己一直耷拉着脑袋过日子。但是这种小心谨慎、回避痛苦、高挂免战牌的做法效果肯定不大，因为当人们竭力避免这种绝对不希望发生的精神崩溃时，其结果他们连鼠疫这一严重的事情都暂且置于脑后，只是去幻想日后与亲人团聚的情景，这种人之常情的幻想也都给冲掉了。人们陷身于峰顶与深渊的中间，上不上，下不下。不是在那里过日子，而是在不停地浮沉，被遗弃在没有定向的日子里和毫无结果的回忆之中，就像是一群飘飘不定的幽灵。除非人们甘愿生根于痛苦之境地，否则边无立足之地。

他们体验了一切囚徒和流放者的悲惨遭遇，那就是生存于无益的回忆之中。他们无时无刻不在留恋着过去，而感觉到的不过是惆怅。他们就想着和他们所盼望的亲人们一起，把未曾做过的事情统统补进过去的回忆中去。同时，在他们的囚禁生活中，脑海里无时无刻不印上在外地亲人的影子，即使在比较愉快的情况下也是如此，因为他们当时的实际处境不能使他们得到满足。对眼前他们感到心焦，对过去他们感到憎恨，对未来他们感到绝望。他们活象受到人世间的法律制裁或仇恨报复而度着铁窗生涯的人。到未了，逃避这种难以忍受的空虚感的唯一方法是再次让火车在幻想中通车，让时光在幻想中充满响个不停的门铃声---然而这门铃却是顽固地保持沉默！

【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！