周末选读 │ F.S.菲茨杰拉德：了不起的盖茨比（节选）

I spent my Saturday nights in New York, because those gleaming, dazzling parties of his were with me so vividly that I could still hear the music and the laughter, faint and incessant, from his garden, and the cars going up and down his drive. One night I did hear a material car there, and saw its lights stop at his front steps. But I didn't investigate. Probably it was some final guest who had been away at the ends of the earth and didn't know that the party was over.

译：

每个星期六的夜晚我都在纽约度过，因为盖茨比家那些灯火闪耀、光彩炫目的宴会依然在我脑海里栩栩如生，我听到音乐和笑声不断地从他的花园里传来，还有一辆辆汽车在他的车道上开来又开走。有一天晚上，我确实听见来了一辆车，车灯照在他门前的台阶上。但我没有去看个究竟。大概是最后一位客人从天涯海角赶来，不知道宴会早已收场。

了不起的盖茨比（节选）
文 / 【美】F.S.菲茨杰拉德
译 / 邓若虚

On the last night, with my trunk packed and my car sold to the grocer, I went over and looked at that huge incoherent failure of a house once more. On the white steps an obscene word, scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it, drawing my shoe raspingly along the stone. Then I wandered down to the beach and sprawled out on the sand.

译：

最后那个晚上，我已经收拾好箱子，车也卖给了杂货店老板，我走过去再看一眼那庞大而杂乱、意味着失败的房子。白色大理石台阶上，有哪个男孩用砖块涂了一个脏字，在月光下分外触目，我去把它擦掉，鞋底在石头上磨得沙沙作响。然后我溜达到海边，仰面躺在沙滩上。

Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound. And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes—a fresh, green breast of the new world. Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

译：

此刻，那些海滨大别墅大多已经关闭，四周几乎没有灯光，只有海湾对面一艘渡船上时隐时现、若明若暗的一丝光亮。月亮渐渐升高，虚幻不实的别墅开始消隐退去，我慢慢意识到，这里就是当年让荷兰水手的眼睛绽放光芒的古老小岛——新世界里一片清新翠绿的土地。那些消失了的树木，那些为建造盖茨比的豪宅而被砍伐的树木，曾经在此轻声应和着人类最后也最伟大的梦想。在沉醉的一瞬间，人类面对这片新大陆一定会屏息凝神，不由自主地沉浸到无法理解也不企求理解的美学思索中，也是人类在历史上最后一次面对与其感受奇迹的能力相称的奇异景象。

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

译：

当我坐在沙滩上遥想那个古老而未知的世界时，我也可以体会到盖茨比第一次认出黛西家码头尽处那盏绿灯时有多么惊奇。他走过漫漫长路才来到这片碧绿的草坪上，他的梦想似乎近在眼前，触手可及。他无从知晓，这梦想早已离他而去，被遗弃在城市之外一片漫无边际的混沌中，遗弃在寂寂长夜里一望无垠的合众国的黑色原野上。

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther... And one fine morning—

译：

盖茨比一生的信念就寄托在这盏绿灯上，这个一年一年在我们眼前渐渐远去的极乐未来。它曾经从我们身边溜走，不过没有关系——明天我们会跑得更快，手臂伸得更远……总有一个美好的清晨——

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

译：

于是我们奋力向前划，逆流向上的小舟，不停地倒退，进入过去。

- END -

了不起的盖茨比

【美】F.S.菲茨杰拉德著

沈学甫译

中国言实出版社，2014

索书号：I712/1242(21)

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《了不起的盖茨比》是美国作家菲茨杰拉德1925年所写的一部以20世纪20年代的纽约及长岛为背景的短篇小说。小说描述了出身贫寒的盖茨比如何历尽艰辛不择手段地攫取财富最终从一个穷光蛋变成人们心中的“了不起”的大富豪，却又如何苦苦追求初恋时由于贫穷而失去情人的故事，再现了美国20世纪“爵士乐时代”的社会现实，揭示了“美国梦”的诱惑和破灭。小说文字短小精悍，结构错落有致并以典型的场面和行动、简洁、抒情的语言为读者提供了一部饱含韵味、极富美感的“尤为动人的美国悲剧”。这部小说谴责以汤姆为代表的美国特权阶级自私专横，为所欲为，以同情的态度描写了盖茨比的悲剧，并指出他的悲剧来自他对生活和爱情的幻想，对上层社会人物缺乏认识。它是一切希望了解美国社会与文化、提高英语理解与写作的读者必读的生动教材。《了不起的盖茨比》是世界文学史上“完美之书”，村上春树，海明威，塞林格疯狂迷恋。