What then is the work of life? What the business of great men, that pass the stage of the world in seeming triumph as these men we call heroes have done? Is it to grow great in the mouth of fame and take up so many pages in history? Alas! That is no more than making a tale for the reading of posterity till it turns into fable and romance. Is it to furnish subjects to the poets, and live in their immortal rhymes as they call them? That is, in short, no more than to be hereafter turned into ballad and song and be sung by old women to quiet children, or at the corner of the street to gather crowds in aid of the pickpocket and the poor. Or is their business rather to add virtue and piety to their glory, which alone will pass them into eternity and make them truly immortal? What is glory without virtue? A great man without religion is no more than a great beast without a soul. What is honour without merit? And what can be called true merit but that which makes a person be a good man as well as a great man?
一个完全相反的地方
A Thoroughly Negative Place
阿尔伯特·卡缪 / Albert Camus
让我们承认那个小镇的丑陋吧。它的气氛做作、平静，而且，你需要花时间去发现，它为何与世界其他地方的许多商业中心有所不同。你如何能想象这样的一种景致，例如，一个没有鸽子，没有任何树木或花园的小镇，在这里，听不见鸟儿振翅或树叶的沙沙声——简而言之，这是一个完全相反的地方。在这里季节只能依靠天空来辨别。春天的来临也只能通过空气的感觉，或是由小贩从郊区带来的一篮篮花儿来感知，春天在市场被叫卖着。在夏天里，房子被太阳烘得干透，灰色的尘埃布满了墙壁，你别无选择，只有躲在à上的百叶窗后，在室内逃避那些炙热的日子。秋天则泥沙泛滥。只有冬季带来真正愉悦的气候。
也许，了解一个城镇最简单的方法，是了解它的市民如何工作，如何恋爱和如何死亡。在我们的小镇上（不知是否受了天气的影响？）这三件事在同样灼热难耐却已司空见惯的空气中，以极为相同的方式完成。实际上，每个人都觉得无聊，便投入到各自爱好的培养中。我们的市民都努力工作，但唯一的目标是发财。他们最主要的兴趣是商业，而生活之首要目的，就如他们自己所说的，是“做生意”。自然，他们也免不了一些像海浴、看电影等简单的娱乐。但是，他们非常明智地把这些消遣留到周六下午与周日，而其他时间却尽可能地用来赚钱。黄昏，他们离开办公室后，会在固定的时间里聚集在咖啡馆，在相同的林荫大道上散步，或是在阳台上透透气。年轻人的热情强烈但为时不长，年长者的不良嗜好很少超出沉溺于保龄球、宴会和社交的范围，或者是沉湎于那种打出一张牌，就能赚大笔钱的俱乐部。
The town itself, let us admit, is ugly. It has a smug, placid air and you need time to discover what it is that makes it different from so many business centers in other parts of the world. How to conjure up a picture, for instance, of a town without pigeons, without any trees or gardens, where you never hear the beat of wings or the rustle of leaves—a thoroughly negative place, in short? The seasons are discriminated only in the sky. All that tells you of spring’s coming is the feel of the air, or the baskets of flowers brought in from the suburbs by peddlers; it’s a spring cried in the market-places. During the summer the sun bakes the houses bone-dry, sprinkles our walls with grayish dust, and you have no option but to survive those days of fire indoors, behind closed shutters. In autumn, on the other hand, we have deluges of mud. Only winter brings really pleasant weather.
Perhaps the easiest way of making a town’s acquaintance is to ascertain how the people in it work, how they love, and how they die. In our little town (is this, one wonders, an effect of the climate?) all three are done on much the same lines, with the same feverish yet casual air. The truth is that everyone is bored, and devotes himself to cultivating habits. Our citizens work hard, but solely with the object of getting rich. Their chief interest is in commerce, and their chief aim in life is, as they call it, “doing business.” Naturally they don’t eschew such simpler pleasures as sea-bathing, going to the pictures. But, very sensibly, they reserve these pastimes for Saturday afternoons and Sundays and employ the rest of the week in making money, as much as possible. In the evening, on leaving the office, they forgather, at an hour that never varies, in the cafe’ s, stroll the same boulevard, or take the air on their balconies. The passions of the young are violent and short-lived; the vices of older men seldom range beyond an addiction to bowling, to banquets and socials, or clubs where large sums change hands on the fall of a card.
风 车
The Windmill
爱德华·凡尔拉莱·卢卡斯 / Edward Verrall Lucas
不久前，一个偶然的机会曾使我成为一座风车房的住客。但并不是真的住进去，而且说来遗憾，也不是进去磨点儿什么东西，只是兴致来时进去转了转，从它最上端的窗户遥望港口的船只，或俯视周围的羊群和原野。这座风车又大又白——而且白得很厉害，每当雷雨云绕到它的背后时，整个风车就像一件擦亮的铝器一样。
从风车的其他几个窗口往外看，你还可以看到另外的四个风车，这些风车和它一样，也都闲置着。其中一个已经破损得非常厉害，还有一个也只剩下了两块翼板。但就在下一道山冈，远得望不见的东北方向，有一个风车在那里欢快地转动着。另外，由此再折向西北四五英里的地方，也有一个风车还在运转。所以，这个地方的情形还不至于像全国其他地方那么糟糕，任由阵阵好风从身边白白吹过……
一想起因蒸汽机以及工程师的聪明才智带给英国的种种损失，人们总会把风车的衰落列为其中的第一项。也许如果只从景物的美观别致来说，英国所遭遇的最大不幸是镀锌铁屋顶的发明。不过，毕竟红色屋顶的美好不只是安详富丽与舒适，转动着的风车不仅看起来美丽，而且非常浪漫：一个受制于自然的魔力但情愿为人类服务的温驯家伙，一个飞舞旋转的怪物，往往也是一个让人惧怕的东西。如果谁在风力正强的时候靠近一个风车轰鸣的翼板，心里都会骤然紧张起来——那感觉就像人们在暴风雨中望见水浪冲击堤岸的情景一样。此时待在风车房里面的话，就能对声音的来历有些体会，因为这里就是声音的洞穴。当然，有些孔洞中发出的轰鸣声震耳欲聋，具有很大的威力，但风车的声音大体来说是比较自然的，它们是木头与西南风搏斗时产生的，它充盈于人耳，而不会震耳欲聋。而且，这种效果并没有因为没有风或者磨坊主人及其用人的淡漠而有所减弱，这些人即使是在震耳欲聋的喧闹下，也总是一副文静样子，如同教堂管事人一般有条不紊地办事。
当然，我进入的磨坊并没有如此喧闹，我只是偶尔听到那些闲置的翼板上的横木作几下摆动罢了，一切都是如此寂静。更使人惆怅的是，一切又仿佛已完全就绪，就等着当天开工了。这个风车以前——大约几十年前——也曾是生气勃勃的，但是从那以后，它就永归沉寂，毫无生气，就像一条溪流在夜里突然遭遇封冻，或者像丁尼生《睡美人》诗中的宫殿那样寂寞。这风车并未损坏——它只是失去了魂魄。风车上几个苹果木的榫子已从轮机上脱落下来，地板上的木条也有几根烂掉了，但也仅是如此而已。只要一周的时间，就足以把这一切都修好。但永远没有这种可能了。因此，以前曾经使千千万万个英国风车一起欢舞的阵阵好风，而今只能在英吉利海峡上面徒劳地吹过。
Chance recently made me for a while the tenant of a windmill. Not to live in, and unhappily not to grind corn in, but to visit as the mood arose, and see the ships in the harbour from the topmost window, and look down on the sheep and the green world all around. For this mill stands high and white—so white, indeed, that when there is a thunder-cloud behind it, it seems a thing of polished aluminium.
From its windows you can see four other mills, all like itself, idle, and one merely a ruin and one with only two sweeps left. But just over the next range of hills, out of sight, to the northeast, is a windmill that still merrily goes, and about five miles away to the northwest is another also active; so that things are not quite so bad hereabouts as in many parts of the country, where the good breezes blow altogether in vain...
