試譯：〈海隅逐客〉（部分）－約瑟夫·康拉德 江離
Chapter I
When he stepped off the straight and narrow path of his peculiar honesty, it was with an inward assertion of unflinching resolve to fall back again into the monotonous but safe stride of virtue as soon as his little excursion into the wayside quagmires had produced the desired effect.
當他踏上那條狹直的、種有他那特別的銀扇草的小徑時，他內心早已打定主意，一旦他那往路邊泥塘的小小意外之行已產生了預期效果，他便要回復到先前那單調但安全的得體步履中。
It was going to be a short episode—a sentence in brackets, so to speak—in the flowing tale of his life: a thing of no moment, to be done unwillingly, yet neatly, and to be quickly forgotten.
那將只會是一段短短的插曲–換句話，像一個括號內的句子–在他流長的生命故事裏：一件彈指即逝的事，而且是不情願地做的，不過倒幹得乾淨俐落，且能被迅速遺忘。
He imagined that he could go on afterwards looking at the sunshine, enjoying the shade, breathing in the perfume of flowers in the small garden before his house.
他想像他之後便可繼續迎望日光，享受樹影，且深深呼吸在他屋前花園內的群花的香氣。
He fancied that nothing would be changed, that he would be able as heretofore to tyrannize good-humouredly over his half-caste wife, to notice with tender contempt his pale yellow child, to patronize loftily his dark-skinned brother-in-law, who loved pink neckties and wore patent-leather boots on his little feet, and was so humble before the white husband of the lucky sister.
他幻想甚麼都不會改變。他將可像至今那樣繼續不失幽默地欺壓他那混血的妻子，繼續以溫和的輕蔑留意他那淡黃色的孩子，或繼續以高姿態訓示他那黑人內弟：內弟愛戴粉紅色領呔，小腳上老穿著漆皮靴子，而且總是在他姐姐（她夠運，嫁得白人）的丈夫面前顯得十分謙恭。
Those were the delights of his life, and he was unable to conceive that the moral significance of any act of his could interfere with the very nature of things, could dim the light of the sun, could destroy the perfume of the flowers, the submission of his wife, the smile of his child, the awe-struck respect of Leonard da Souza and of all the Da Souza family.
那些都是他生活中的樂子。而他無法想像他任何舉動上的道德影響力竟可干預了事情的本質；可以使陽光黯淡，可以摧毀了花朵的香氣、妻子的馴服、孩子的笑容，和倫納德‧達‧蘇扎以致整個達‧蘇扎家族對他的敬畏。
That family’s admiration was the great luxury of his life. It rounded and completed his existence in a perpetual assurance of unquestionable superiority.
事關家族的欽佩是他人生最大的財富。它圍繞並完整了他的存在，以一種永恆的保證：毫無疑問的優越性。
He loved to breathe the coarse incense they offered before the shrine of the successful white man; the man that had done them the honour to marry their daughter, sister, cousin; the rising man sure to climb very high; the confidential clerk of Hudig & Co.
在成功白人廟堂前，他喜歡聞着那些他們供奉的粗香；這白人娶了他們的女兒，或是姐妹，或是堂表妹……使他們家族顯榮；而這矗立着的白種男人注定是要攀居高位的；這一胡迪公司的機要文員。
They were a numerous and an unclean crowd, living in ruined bamboo houses, surrounded by neglected compounds, on the outskirts of Macassar. He kept them at arm’s length and even further off, perhaps, having no illusions as to their worth.
他們則是一大群不乾淨的人，住在孟加錫城郊的破敗竹屋裏，被久棄的院落圍繞。他與他們總維持著一臂之距，甚而更遠，或許，是對他們的價值也不作多餘的假想了。
They were a half-caste, lazy lot, and he saw them as they were—ragged, lean, unwashed, undersized men of various ages, shuffling about aimlessly in slippers; motionless old women who looked like monstrous bags of pink calico stuffed with shapeless lumps of fat, and deposited askew upon decaying rattan chairs in shady corners of dusty verandahs; young women, slim and yellow, big-eyed, long-haired, moving languidly amongst the dirt and rubbish of their dwellings as if every step they took was going to be their very last.
他們是混血、慵懶的一群，而他看到的正是他們本來的樣子–襤褸、精瘦、未經清潔、身形矮小、且不同年紀的男人，漫無目的地拖曳着拖鞋。沒動靜的老女人，看上去像一袋袋恐怖的粉紅色棉布袋，裏面塞滿了不辨形狀的脂肪膏，斜放於露台暗角處的那多塵的爛藤椅上；苗條而黃種的年輕女性，大眼的，長髮的，在房屋的泥塵和垃圾中痠軟地走著，好像每步都將是他們此生邁出的最後一步一般。
He heard their shrill quarrellings, the squalling of their children, the grunting of their pigs; he smelt the odours of the heaps of garbage in their courtyards: and he was greatly disgusted. But he fed and clothed that shabby multitude; those degenerate descendants of Portuguese conquerors; he was their providence; he kept them singing his praises in the midst of their laziness, of their dirt, of their immense and hopeless squalor: and he was greatly delighted.
他聽到他們尖銳的爭吵，他們孩子的哭鬧，還有那些飼豬的呼嚕聲。 他聞到了院子裡那堆垃圾的氣味：他覺得極度噁心。 但是他仍替那些破爛的群眾餵食和穿衣。 對於那些葡萄牙征服者的墮落的後代； 他就是他們的老天爺； 他使他們在自身的懶惰，污穢，和巨大的絕望的窮苦之中，唱着對他的頌歌：他為此感到非常高興。
They wanted much, but he could give them all they wanted without ruining himself. In exchange he had their silent fear, their loquacious love, their noisy veneration. It is a fine thing to be a providence, and to be told so on every day of one’s life. It gives one a feeling of enormously remote superiority, and Willems revelled in it.
他們需索很多，但他能滿足他們一切需求而不致毀了自己。而作為交換，他獲得了他們不言的畏懼，口舌上的敬愛，和喧囂嚷雜的崇拜。做老天爺是美好的，而在人生中的每天也被人家提着這點也是美好的。 它能給人一種極之遙距的優越感，而威廉姆斯陶醉其中。
He did not analyze the state of his mind, but probably his greatest delight lay in the unexpressed but intimate conviction that, should he close his hand, all those admiring human beings would starve. His munificence had demoralized them. An easy task.
他沒有分析自己心理。但他最大的樂趣，可能正是在於他那沒表露出但私下秉持的信念：即他若翹上手，所有那些欣賞他的人等都會被餓死。 他的慷慨使他們頹敗。一個很簡單的手段。
Since he descended amongst them and married Joanna they had lost the little aptitude and strength for work they might have had to put forth under the stress of extreme necessity. They lived now by the grace of his will. This was power. Willems loved it.
自從他對他們紓尊降貴，並娶了喬安娜以來，他們便連一般因糊口而激發的對工作的微小本能和力量也喪失殆盡了。他們如今活在他意志的恩典中。 這就是權力。 而威廉姆斯太愛它了。
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For the first time in many months the East Coast slept unseen by the stars under a veil of motionless cloud that, driven before the first breath of the rainy monsoon, had drifted slowly from the eastward all the afternoon; pursuing the declining sun with its masses of black and grey that seemed to chase the light with wicked intent, and with an ominous and gloomy steadiness, as though conscious of the message of violence and turmoil they carried.
是許多月來的第一次，東岸沒有在星光的注視下入睡。一片如面紗般凝然靜止的雲層，受到本年雨季以來首次候風的驅動，已經緩慢地由東面漂來一整個下午了；它趨趕着衰敗的太陽（其附帶的灰黑質量也似是要以邪惡的意圖追逐着日光一般），而且有着一種不祥而陰鬱的穩定性，彷彿也是自覺於當中暴力的信息以致其將為地面帶來的動盪。
At the sun’s disappearance below the western horizon, the immense cloud, in quickened motion, grappled with the glow of retreating light, and rolling down to the clear and jagged outline of the distant mountains, hung arrested above the steaming forests; hanging low, silent and menacing over the unstirring tree-tops; withholding the blessing of rain, nursing the wrath of its thunder; undecided—as if brooding over its own power for good or for evil.
在太陽消隱的西方水平線之下，廣大的雲霾與退縮的光線廝纏着，再滾落到遠處清晰和鋸齒狀輪廓的山脈，最後固定並虛懸在霧氣騰騰的森林上方。它低低地掛着，沉默而隱然威脅到不動的樹冠；剋扣着雨水的祝福，安撫着雷霆的暴怒，猶豫未決，彷彿是為了應以自己的力量行善還是為惡而苦悶。
