翻译者：兰超、陈晓燕

批注者：侯国金 

 

 

Read the passage below (authorship to be told next time) carefully before you try your translating pen. While doing the written translation, try to get across to the translation readers not only the explicit meaning of words and lines, but implicit meaning (the implicature, the tone, the style) as well. And pay attention the translation of a few tough words like laugher. For the convenience of my reading, please make a chart so that each ST line is followed by a TT line, or each left-hand ST line is followed by a right-hand TT line. You can also pose me some questions about your hard points, when you finish it, overcoming difficulties. Finally, do not venture to look for the text in any book, for it does you no good, even if you could lay your guilty hand on it.

 

 原文：

The Laugher

 

When someone asks me what business I am in, I am seized with embarrassment: I blush and stammer, I who am otherwise known as a man of poise. I envy people who can say: I am a bricklayer. I envy barbers, bookkeepers and writers the simplicity of their avowal, for all these professions speak for themselves and need no lengthy explanation which I am constrained to reply to such questions: I am a laugher. An admission of this kind demands another, since I have to answer the second question ‘Is that how you make your living?’ truthfully with ‘Yes.’  I actually do make a living at my laughing, and a good one too, for my laughing is – commercially speaking – much in demand.

I am a good laugher, experienced, no one else laughs as well as I do, no one else has such command of the fine points of my art. For a long time, in order to avoid tiresome explanations, I called myself an actor, but my talents in the field of mime and elocution are so meager that I felt this designation to be too far from the truth: I love the truth, and the truth is: I am a laugher. I am neither a clown nor a comedian, I do not make people gay, I portray gaiety: I laugh like a Roman emperor, or like a sensitive schoolboy, I am as much at home in the laughter of the seventeenth century as in that of the nineteenth, and when occasion demands I laugh my way through all the centuries, all classes of society, all categories of age – it is simply a skill which I have acquired, like the skill of being able to repair shoes. In my breast I harbor the laugher of America, the laughter of Africa, white, red, yellow laughter – and for the right fee I let it peal out in accordance with the director’s requirements.

I have become indispensable; I laugh on records, I laugh on tape, and television directors treat me with respect. I laugh mournfully, moderately, hysterically; I laugh like a streetcar conductor or like a helper in the grocery business; laughter in the morning, laughter in the evening, nocturnal laughter, and the laughter of twilight. In short: wherever and however laughter is required – I do it.

It need hardly be pointed that a profession of this kind is tiring, especially as I have also – this is my specialty – mastered the art of infectious laughter; this has also made me indispensable to third- and fourth-rate comedians, who are scared – and with good reason – that their audiences will miss their punch lines, so I spend most evenings in night clubs as a kind of discreet claque, my job being to laugh infectiously during the weaker parts of the program. It has to be carefully timed: my hearty, boisterous laughter must not come too soon, but neither must it come too late, it must come just at the right spot: at the prearranged moment I must burst out laughing, the whole audience roars with me, and the joke is saved.

But as for me, I drag myself exhausted to the checkroom, put on my overcoat, happy that I can go off duty at last. At home I usually find telegrams waiting for me: ‘Urgently require your laughter. Recording Tuesday,’ and a few hours later I am sitting in an overheated express train bemoaning my fate.

I need scarcely say that when I am off duty or on vacation I have little inclination to laugh: the cowhand is glad when he can forget the cow, the bricklayer when he can forget the mortar, and carpenters usually have doors at home which don’t work or drawers which are hard to open. Confectioners like sour pickles, butchers like marzipans, and the baker prefers sausage to bread; bullfighters raise pigeons for a hobby, boxers turn pale when their children have nosebleeds: I find all this quite natural, for I never laugh off duty. I am a very solemn person, and people consider me – perhaps rightly so – a pessimist.

During the first years of our married life, my wife would often say to me: ‘Do laugh!’ but since then she has come to realized that I cannot grant her this wish. I am happy when I am free to relax my tense face muscles, my frayed spirit, in profound solemnity. Indeed, even other people’s laughter gets on my nerves, since it reminds me too much of my profession. So our marriage is a quiet, peaceful one, because my wife has also forgotten how to laugh: now and again I catch her smiling, and I smile too. We converse in low tones, for I detest（hate） the noise of the night clubs, the noise that sometimes fills the recording studios. People who do not know me think I am taciturn. Perhaps I am, because I have to open my mouth so often to laugh.

 I go through life with an impassive expression, from time to time permitting myself a gentle smile, and I often wonder whether I have ever laughed. I think not. My brothers and sisters have always known me for a serious boy.

So I laugh in many different ways, by my own laughter I have never heard.

 

 -- Heinrich Boll (1917 – 1985, German novelist)

I copy this text from 《综合教程》（学生用书，（1）：109-110页）

 

 

 

 1）兰超翻译[微软用户1] 

 

当有人问及我是做什么的时候，我就尴尬不已，面红耳赤，结结巴巴。从其他方面讲我是自信的人。我羡慕那些说自己是泥水匠的人。我羡慕理发师，作家，他们一说就简单明了，因为他们的职业就说明了他们是做什么的，不需要任何冗余的解释。回答这种问题，我浑身不自在：我的职业就是笑。回答了这个问题就有下一个。因此，第二个问题——笑是你的谋生之道？——我回答是：对是这样的[微软用户2] 。事实上我就是以笑谋生的，而且过得很好。因为，从商业角度来讲，我的笑需求量很大。我笑得好，经验老道，没人笑得过我，没人笑得有我这么出神入化那么有艺术。为避免厌烦的解释，长期以来我自称为[微软用户3] 是一名演员。但是我的笑剧和演说技巧的才能微不足道，让我觉得这种称谓有点言过其实。我热爱真理，所以事实就是：我是个笑者。我非小丑亦非喜剧演员，我不是去愉悦别人，而是去表现喜悦。我笑如罗马帝王亦如害羞的学生。十七，十九世纪的笑声我无所不会，倘若需要，我能笑出[微软用户4] 所有世纪，所有社会阶级，所有年龄段[微软用户5] 的笑声。这就是我获得的一技之长，就如同补鞋的技艺一般。在我心中，有美国的笑声，非洲的笑声，白人的笑声，红种人的笑声，黄种人的笑声，只要价格合适，我就会按照导演的要求去笑。

我变得不可或缺。在唱片里笑，在磁带里笑，电视导演也要尊重我。我悲哀地笑，我温和地笑，我歇斯底里地笑。学电车售票员笑，或学杂货店帮手笑。我早上笑，傍晚笑，晚上笑，黎明笑。总之，只要需要，不管何时，要我怎么笑我就怎么笑。[微软用户6] 

不消说，这种职业很累。特别是由于我掌握了这种具有感染力笑声的艺术。（这是我的特长）这样我变成了三四级喜剧演员不可或缺的人物。他们害怕他们的观众（这是有道理的）错过包袱笑料。所以我常常晚上在夜总会扮演谨慎的喝彩者。我的工作就是在节目不是很精彩部分，带动大家笑起来。这是要仔细把握好时机的。我发自肺腑的狂笑来得不能太早也不能太晚，要恰到好处。在事先安排好的点上，我得捧腹大笑，所有观众就跟着我大笑，于是笑料就成功了。

而我呢，拖着疲惫的身躯走进更衣室，穿上外套，最后高兴的下班。家里经常都会发现等着我的电报：‘急需您的笑声，周二录制’。几小时以后我便坐在闷热的高速火车上哀叹自己的命运。

不用说，下班或者放假我是不想笑的：养牛工忘记牛是快乐的，泥水匠忘记灰泥是快乐的，木工高兴的则是发现家里门坏了，抽屉不好使了。[微软用户7] 做蜜饯的人喜欢酸溜溜的泡菜，屠夫喜欢杏仁酥糖，面包师傅喜欢香肠不喜欢面包，斗牛士喜欢养鸽子，拳击手看到自己孩子鼻孔流血脸色苍白[微软用户8] ：我觉得这些都太正常了，因为我就是下班从来不笑。我这人很严肃，人们都认为我是个乐观派[微软用户9] 。

我婚姻的头几年，妻子常常对我说：‘笑啊’。但自从那时，妻子开始明白我满足不了她这种愿望。我高兴，因为我自由了，可以放松下我紧绷的面部肌肉，放松下我疲惫的心灵，变得一本正经。的确，其他人的笑声也能刺激我神经，因为它让我想起我的职业。我们的婚姻安安静静，和和美美，因为妻子也忘记了怎样去笑：现在我再次看到她的笑容，我也笑了。我们窃窃私语，因为觉得夜总会有噪音，这种噪音常常充斥着录播室里。不了解我的人认为我沉默寡言，不苟言笑。也许这就是我自己。因为我已开口笑得太多太多。

我的生活过得没啥激情，常常我都是轻微的一笑，于是我常常问自己是否从未[微软用户10] 笑过。我认为不是，因为我哥哥姐姐了解我是个严肃的孩子。所[微软用户11] 以我的笑与众不同，就我自己的笑声而言我从未听见。[微软用户12] 

 

 

 

2）陈晓燕翻译

 

卖[微软用户1] 笑者

 

被人问起从事哪行时，我便一头雾水，十分窘迫：我面红耳赤、舌头打结，或被视为犹豫不决之人。我嫉妒能道出“我是砖瓦匠”的人。我嫉妒理发师、会计和作家，嫉妒他们的开诚布公。他们各有专长、不言自明，当被问及专从哪行时，便不会如我般局促：我是个卖笑人。承认之后问题便接踵而至，因为第二个问题便是“你就是以此为生的？”“说实话‘是的’”。确实，我是以笑为生，而且做的不错。因为从商业角度看，我的笑市场广阔[微软用户2] 。

 

 

 

 

我是优秀的笑声家[微软用户3] ，经验丰富、无人能匹敌，我娴熟地操控笑声、众生望尘莫及。以免徒劳的解释，我长期称自己是演员。但是，我的喜剧才华和雄辩才能相当贫乏，所以演员的目标远非我能企及，

 

 

这是事实：我钟爱事实，真相便是：我是卖笑人。既非小丑，亦非喜剧演员，我并未取乐他人，而是展现喜悦之情：我笑，如同罗马帝王般威武，或如学童般多愁善感。我游刃于17世纪的笑声中，如同在19世纪般自如地笑。必要时，我的笑能贯穿整个历史、渗透各个阶层、老少皆宜——

 

 

这便是我的技能，与修鞋术无异。我胸中充满笑，囊括各大洲、总揽各种肤色的笑——为了丰厚的报酬，[微软用户4] 

 

我便根据导演的要求各供所需、尽情大笑。

 

我已成了不可或缺之人；我的笑声刻成了光盘、录成了磁带、搬上了电视，导演都对我敬爱有加。我的笑声既悲痛凄惨，又歇斯底里，有声有色；我的笑声，如同电车司机的喊叫，或像百货店里帮工的吆喝；我凌晨卖笑，夜晚也笑，傍晚时分，我也卖[微软用户5] 笑。简而言之：无论何地，不管何种笑，有笑声需求——我便卖笑。

 

 

毋庸置言，这类职业令人疲倦，特别是我已经——我的特长是——掌握了极富感染力的笑声艺术；我也因此而成为三线或四线喜剧演员不可或缺的力量，[微软用户6] 

 

他们唯恐——出于堂皇的理由——观众们会听不懂他们妙语连珠的表演。所以大部分晚上我都是在夜总会扮演言行谨慎的喝彩者，我的角色便是节目冷场时，放声大笑，感染观众。这样的演出必须细致精确：我那发自内心地大笑不能太早，也不能太迟，必须精准、到位：根据事先安排，我必须笑声阵阵，使全体观众与我一起哄堂大笑，从而喜剧表演便有笑果。

 

 

可是我自己却是拖着身子前往衣帽间，裹上外套，庆幸终于下班了！但经常回到家便看到电报，上书：“急需您的笑声。录制时间，周二” 。于是，几小时后我便动身搭乘快速列车，车厢内热得要命，我只能嗔怪自己命运多舛。

 

我得说，下班或度假时，我毫无笑的念头：牛仔没有牛儿相扰时是开心的，砖瓦匠摆脱泥浆时是愉快的，木匠无须在家刨木做门或搬弄打不开的抽屉时是轻松的。

 

糖果商爱吃腌制食品，肉铺老板钟爱杏仁膏，面包师傅喜欢吃香肠而不乐意啃面包；斗牛士养鸽子为乐，拳击选手看到子女流鼻血时会惊慌失措，

 

诸如此类：我认为都是司空见惯的，因为我下班也从未放声大笑。我非常严肃，不苟言笑，人们因此认为我是悲观主义者——可能真有那么几分色彩。

婚后前几年，妻子经常对我说：“笑笑嘛！”但是渐渐地，她开始理解到我不能如她所愿。能放松紧绷的面部神经，无须在非常肃穆的环境中紧张兮兮时，我身心愉悦。的确，他人的笑声扯动了我的职业神经，甚至令我心烦气躁。

 

 

所以，我们的婚姻生活平静、恬淡，妻子也变得不苟言笑了：时而看到她微笑，我也会伴之微微一笑。我讨厌像在夜总会里那样大声嚷嚷，有时噪音导致录音室无法录音，所以，在家中，我和妻子都轻声交谈。

 

不理解我的人会认为我沉默寡言，或许言之有理，原因是我必须免开尊口，以养精蓄锐即时卖笑。

我终身表情淡漠，时而容许自己微微一笑，但我怀疑真的笑了吗？我想没有。

 

我的兄弟姐妹都认为我是不苟言笑的男孩。

 

纵使我以各种声音卖笑，但从未听闻自己的笑声。