《长腿叔叔》第一章

Part 1  Blue Wednesday
第一章 蓝色的星期三

The first Wednesday in every month was a Perfectly Awful Day--a day to be awaited with dread, endured with courage and forgotten with haste. Every floor must be spotless, every chair dustless, and every bed without a wrinkle. Ninety-seven squirming little orphans must be scrubbed and combed and buttoned into freshly starched ginghams; and all ninety-seven reminded of their manners, and told to say, 'Yes, sir,' 'No, sir,' whenever a Trustee spoke.
每个月的第一个星期三是个糟糕的日子——它是个在忧虑中等待，勇敢地忍耐，然后在忙碌中忘记的日子。这一天，每层楼的地板都必须纤尘不染，每张椅子都要光洁照人，全部床单都不能有半条皱褶。还要把97个四处乱跳的小孤儿梳洗一遍，给他们穿上浆洗过的格子衬衫，嘱咐他们要注意礼貌。回答理事们的问话时要说，“是的，先生。”“不是的，先生。”

It was a distressing time; and poor Jerusha Abbott, being the oldest orphan, had to bear the brunt of it. But this particular first Wednesday, like its predecessors, finally dragged itself to a close. Jerusha escaped from the pantry where she had been making sandwiches for the asylum's guests, and turned upstairs to accomplish her regular work. Her special care was room F, where eleven little tots, from four to seven, occupied eleven little cots set in a row. Jerusha assembled her charges, straightened their rumpled frocks, wiped their noses, and started them in an orderly and willing line towards the dining-room to engage themselves for a blessed half hour with bread and milk and prune pudding.
这个日子真是令人沮丧，可怜的乔若莎·艾伯特，作为孤儿院里年纪最大的孤儿当然更加倒霉。不过，这个特别的星期三，终于到头了。乔若莎离开了厨房，她刚在这里为来客们做了三明治，现在正跑回楼上完成她每天的例行工作。她负责第6室，那里有11个4岁到7岁的小家伙和11张排成一列的小床。乔若莎好不容易把他们叫过来，帮他们整理好皱巴巴的衣服，擦干净鼻涕，排成一行，然后带领他们去餐室，在那里他们可以尽情地享受半小时的好时光，喝牛奶，吃面包和梅子布丁。

Then she dropped down on the window seat and leaned throbbing temples against the cool glass. She had been on her feet since five that morning, doing everybody's bidding, scolded and hurried by a nervous matron. Mrs. Lippett, behind the scenes, did not always maintain that calm and pompous dignity with which she faced an audience of Trustees and lady visitors. Jerusha gazed out across a broad stretch of frozen lawn, beyond the tall iron paling that marked the confines of the asylum, down undulating ridges sprinkled with country estates, to the spires of the village rising from the midst of bare trees.
她疲惫地跌坐在窗台的椅子上，把涨得发疼的太阳穴贴着冰冷的玻璃。从早晨5点钟开始，她的手脚就不停地忙碌着，听从所有人的命令，还不时被神经兮兮的女监事骂得晕头转向。私下的李皮太太可不是像她面对理事们和来访的女士面前表现的那样冷静、庄重。乔若莎的眼神掠过孤儿院高高的铁栏杆外一片上了冻的开阔草地，看到远处起伏的山峰，山上散落的村舍，光秃秃的树丛中露出了房屋的尖顶。

The day was ended--quite successfully, so far as she knew. The Trustees and the visiting committee had made their rounds, and read their reports, and drunk their tea, and now were hurrying home to their own cheerful firesides, to forget their bothersome little charges for another month. Jerusha leaned forward watching with curiosity--and a touch of wistfulness--the stream of carriages and automobiles that rolled out of the asylum gates. In imagination she followed first one equipage, then another, to the big houses dotted along the hillside. She pictured herself in a fur coat and a velvet hat trimmed with feathers leaning back in the seat and nonchalantly murmuring 'Home' to the driver. But on the door-sill of her home the picture grew blurred.
这一天就算过去了——就她所知应该是圆满落幕，因为没有出现任何差错。理事们和来访团已经巡视过一遍，听取了汇报，也喝了茶，现在正忙着赶回自家温暖的炉火边，起码要再过一个月才会想起这些需要他们照管的磨人的小家伙。乔若莎倚着窗台，好奇地看着一连串的马车、汽车穿过孤儿院的大门。她不禁产生了幻想。她想象自己跟着一辆又一辆车，来到坐落在山脚下的密密麻麻的大房子前。她看见自己穿着一件貂皮大衣，带着天鹅绒装饰的丝织帽子靠在车座上，漫不经心地对司机说“回家！”不过，当她回到家门口，整个想象就变得模糊不清了。

Jerusha had an imagination--an imagination, Mrs. Lippett told her, that would get her into trouble if she didn't take care--but keen as it was, it could not carry her beyond the front porch of the houses she would enter. Poor, eager, adventurous little Jerusha, in all her seventeen years, had never stepped inside an ordinary house; she could not picture the daily routine of those other human beings who carried on their lives undiscommoded by orphans.
乔若莎喜欢幻想——李皮太太说，如果不小心，幻想就会让她惹上麻烦。但是，不管她的想象力多么丰富，都无法带领她走进那些渴望进入的大门，她只能待在门廊上。可怜的充满冒险精神的小乔若莎，在她17年的岁月里，从未进入任何一个家庭。她完全无法想象，其他没有孤儿干扰的人们会有怎样的日常生活。

Je-ru-sha Ab-bott
You are wan-ted
In the of-fice,
And I think you'd
Better hurry up!
“乔……若……莎……艾……伯……特 
有人找……你
去办公室，
而我想啊，
你最好动作快一点！”

Tommy Dillon, who had joined the choir, came singing up the stairs and down the corridor, his chant growing louder as he approached room F. Jerusha wrenched herself from the window and refaced the troubles of life.
汤米·狄伦刚加入了唱诗班，他唱着歌经过楼梯和走廊，当他走向第6室时，声音越来越响。乔若莎将思绪从窗外收回来，再次面对生活中的麻烦。

'Who wants me?' she cut into Tommy's chant with a note of sharp anxiety.
“谁在叫我？”她打断汤米的哼唱，急切地问道。

Mrs. Lippett in the office,
And I think she's mad.
Ah-a-men!
“办公室的李皮太太，
我觉得她的火气很大，
阿……门！”

Tommy piously intoned, but his accent was not entirely malicious. Even the most hardened little orphan felt sympathy for an erring sister who was summoned to the office to face an annoyed matron; and Tommy liked Jerusha even if she did sometimes jerk him by the arm and nearly scrub his nose off.
汤米依然拉长腔调，他的语气并没有幸灾乐祸的意思。即便是心肠最硬的小孤儿也会同情这个做了错事的姐姐，因为她将要去见那个讨厌的院长。更何况，汤米还挺喜欢乔若莎，虽然她偶尔会使劲地扯他的胳膊，给他洗脸时几乎擦掉他的鼻子！

Jerusha went without comment, but with two parallel lines on her brow. What could have gone wrong, she wondered. Were the sandwiches not thin enough? Were there shells in the nut cakes? Had a lady visitor seen the hole in Susie Hawthorn's stocking? Had--O horrors!-- one of the cherubic little babes in her own room F 'sauced' a Trustee?
乔若莎默默地走开了，她的额头上出现了两道皱纹。她想知道差错在哪里，三明治切得不够薄？还是杏仁蛋糕里有壳？或者哪位来访的女士看到了苏西·华生袜子上的破洞？还是……哎呀，糟糕！是不是第6室的顽皮的小宝贝们把调味酱弄在理事身上了？

The long lower hall had not been lighted, and as she came downstairs, a last Trustee stood, on the point of departure, in the open door that led to the porte-cochere. Jerusha caught only a fleeting impression of the man--and the impression consisted entirely of tallness. He was waving his arm towards an automobile waiting in the curved drive. As it sprang into motion and approached, head on for an instant, the glaring headlights threw his shadow sharply against the wall inside. The shadow pictured grotesquely elongated legs and arms that ran along the floor and up the wall of the corridor. It looked, for all the world, like a huge, wavering daddy-long-legs.
低矮的长廊上已经灭了灯，当她下楼时，最后一个理事站在那儿正打算离开。他站在通往院外的大门前，乔若莎看了一眼这个人，只有一个感觉——高。他正朝院外一辆等待的汽车招手，汽车发动时，耀眼的灯光把他的影子投射在屋子的墙上，怪模怪样的影子把手脚都拉长了，滑稽的样子从地板一直延伸到走廊的墙壁上。活像人们俗称的“长腿叔叔”——一只晃来晃去的大蜘蛛。

Jerusha's anxious frown gave place to quick laughter. She was by nature a sunny soul, and had always snatched the tiniest excuse to be amused. If one could derive any sort of entertainment out of the oppressive fact of a Trustee, it was something unexpected to the good. She advanced to the office quite cheered by the tiny episode, and presented a smiling face to Mrs. Lippett. To her surprise the matron was also, if not exactly smiling, at least appreciably affable; she wore an expression almost as pleasant as the one she donned for visitors.
乔若莎顿时展开紧锁的眉头，欢快地笑起来。她是个天性乐观的姑娘，一点小事都能让她开怀大笑。能够从一个使人压抑的理事身上发现笑料，确实让人感到意外。这段小插曲让她很高兴，以至她进入办公室见到李皮太太时，脸上还带着笑容。出乎意料的是，院长也在对她笑，就算不是真的笑容，但表情还算和蔼。她几乎像对来访的客人一样充满善意。

'Sit down, Jerusha, I have something to say to you.'
“乔若莎，坐下，我有些话要对你说。”

Jerusha dropped into the nearest chair and waited with a touch of breathlessness. An automobile flashed past the window; Mrs. Lippett glanced after it. 'Did you notice the gentleman who has just gone?'
乔若莎坐在最近的椅子上，屏息等待。一辆汽车从窗前驶过，光芒掠过窗户。李皮太太注视着远去的车子问：“你是否注意到了刚走的那位先生？”

'I saw his back.'
“我看见了他的背影。”

'He is one of our most affluential Trustees, and has given large sums of money towards the asylum's support. I am not at liberty to mention his name; he expressly stipulated that he was to remain unknown.'
“他是理事中最富有的人之一，曾给孤儿院捐了大笔的钱。我不能告诉你他的姓名，因为他特意要求不要透露他的姓名。”

Jerusha's eyes widened slightly; she was not accustomed to being summoned to the office to discuss the eccentricities of Trustees with the matron.
乔若莎微微张大了双眼。她不太习惯被院长叫到办公室一起讨论理事们的怪癖。

'This gentleman has taken an interest in several of our boys. You remember Charles Benton and Henry Freize? They were both sent through college by Mr.--er--this Trustee, and both have repaid with hard work and success the money that was so generously expended. Other payment the gentleman does not wish. Heretofore his philanthropies have been directed solely towards the boys; I have never been able to interest him in the slightest degree in any of the girls in the institution, no matter how deserving. He does not, I may tell you, care for girls.'
“这位先生非常关照孤儿院的几个男孩子。你记得查理·班顿和亨利·弗理兹吧？他们都是被这位先生……哦，这位理事送去上大学的。两人都很用功，用良好的成绩回报了他慷慨的资助。这位先生并不要求别的回报。到目前为止，他的仁慈仅限于男孩子，我从来都无法做到让他对女孩们留心，哪怕她们多么出色。我可以告诉你，他对女孩子没有什么兴趣。”

'No, ma'am,' Jerusha murmured, since some reply seemed to be expected at this point.
“是的，太太。”乔若莎喃喃地开口，因为此刻这个问题似乎需要她的回答。

'To-day at the regular meeting, the question of your future was brought up.'
“在今天的例会上，有人提到你的去向问题。”

Mrs. Lippett allowed a moment of silence to fall, then resumed in a slow, placid manner extremely trying to her hearer's suddenly tightened nerves.
李皮太太略微停顿了一下，然后才慢条斯理地往下说。这让她的听众突然绷紧了神经，非常痛苦。