原文及翻译

When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than hisright; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn't have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt.

我哥哥杰姆快满十三岁的时侯，肘关节被扭断过。后来伤好了，他对于再也玩不了橄榄球的担心也就没有了，所以也不再介怀自己曾经的伤势了。他的左胳膊比右胳膊短些，站立或行走时，左手的手背与身体成直角，大拇指和大腿平行。这些，他一点儿也不在乎，只要能传球，能踢球就行了。

When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.

长大到可以回顾往事时，我们有时谈起那次事故的起因。我始终认为事情是从尤厄尔家开始的，但是杰姆（他比我大四岁）说起因还远在以前。他说，迪尔来到我们这里的那个夏天，事情就开始。在那个夏天，他第一次怂恿我们设法把布，拉德利从他家里引出来。

I said if he wanted to take a broad view of the thing, it really began with AndrewJackson. If General Jackson hadn’t run the Creeks up the creek, Simon Finch wouldnever have paddled up the Alabama, and where would we be if he hadn’t? We were fartoo old to settle an argument with a fist-fight, so we consulted Atticus. Our father said we were both right.

我说，如果他要看得远些，就真得从安德鲁·杰克逊算起。假如杰克逊将军没有把克里克人沿克里克河赶走的话，西蒙·芬奇就不会划着小船沿着亚拉巴马河到这儿来。他没来的话，我们现在还不知道在哪儿呢。当时，我们早已大到不该再用拳头来解决争吵了。于是，我们去问爸爸阿迪克斯。爸爸说我们俩各有各的道理。

Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that wehad no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings. All we had was Simon Finch, a fur-trapping apothecary from Cornwall whose piety was exceeded only by his stinginess. In England, Simon was irritated by the persecution of those who called themselves Methodists at the hands of their more liberal brethren, and as Simon called himself a Methodist, he worked his way across the Atlantic to Philadelphia, thence to Jamaica, thence to Mobile, and up the Saint Stephens. Mindful of John Wesley’s strictures on the use of many words in buying and selling, Simon made a pile practicing medicine, but in this pursuit he was unhappy lest he be tempted into doing what he knew was not for the glory of God, as the putting on of gold and costly apparel. So Simon, having forgotten his teacher’s dictum on the possession of human chattels, bought three slaves and with their aid established a homestead on the banks of the Alabama River some forty miles above Saint Stephens. He returned to Saint Stephensonly once, to find a wife, and with her established a line that ran high to daughters. Simon lived to an impressive age and died rich.

作为南方人，哈斯汀斯战役的任何一方都没有我们的祖先参加，这总使家族中有一些人感到不光彩。我们只有西蒙·芬奇这样一个祖先——一个来自康沃耳的爱捕捉毛皮兽的药剂师。他的虔诚仅次于他的吝啬。在当时的英国，自称卫理公会教徒的人，常常遭到那些更自由的教友的迫害，对此，西蒙十分恼怒。因为他自认为是卫理公会的教徒，他沿途做工，横渡大西洋来到费城。然后又迁徙到牙买加，再到莫比尔，最后沿着圣·斯蒂芬斯河北上。他牢记约翰·韦斯利的训诫，做生意时，时刻注意什么话该说，什么话不该说，靠行医发了大财。但是正因为此，他感到不快活，担心会被诱惑去做有损于上帝荣誉的事，比如穿戴价钱昂贵的衣饰。后来，他忘记了他老师所说的不应该占有奴隶的格言，买了三个奴隶，依靠他们在圣·斯蒂芬斯以东约四十英里的亚拉巴马河岸上建立了家业。他只回过圣·斯蒂芬斯一次，在那里娶了妻子，生了一大串女儿。西蒙死时年纪很大，留下了一大笔遗产。

It was customary for the men in the family to remain on Simon’s homestead, Finch’s Landing, and make their living from cotton. The place was self-sufficient: modest incomparison with the empires around it, the Landing nevertheless produced everything required to sustain life except ice, wheat flour, and articles of clothing, supplied by river-boats from Mobile.

家里的男人惯常留在西蒙建立的家园——芬奇庄园上，靠植棉为生。这个地方能自给自足。尽管比不上周围的其它庄园，芬奇庄园还是能生产维持生活的各种必需品，只有冰制食品、面粉、衣料等要用船从莫比尔运来。

Simon would have regarded with impotent fury the disturbance between the North andthe South, as it left his descendants stripped of everything but their land, yet the tradition of living on the land remained unbroken until well into the twentieth century, when my father, Atticus Finch, went to Montgomery to read law, and his younger brother went to Boston to study medicine. Their sister Alexandra was the Finch who remained at the Landing: she married a taciturn man who spent most of his time lying in a hammock by the river wondering if his trot-lines were full.

要是西蒙投死的话，尽管无可奈何，也一定会无比愤怒地看待南方和北方之问的那场动乱，因为他的后代在动乱中失去了除土地以外的所有财产。不过，在这块土地上生活的传统一直延续到二十世纪。这时，我父亲——阿迪克斯·芬奇——离家去蒙哥马利攻读法律，他弟弟去波士顿学医。他们的妹妹亚历山德拉是留在庄园上的芬奇家唯一的后裔。她嫁给了一个沉默寡言的男子，这人大部分时间都躺在河边的吊床上，猜想着安置在河里的钓钩是否全部钩上了鱼。

When my father was admitted to the bar, he returned to Maycomb and began hispractice. Maycomb, some twenty miles east of Finch’s Landing, was the county seat of Maycomb County. Atticus’s office in the courthouse contained little more than a hat rack,a spittoon, a checkerboard and an unsullied Code of Alabama. His first two clients werethe last two persons hanged in the Maycomb County jail. Atticus had urged them toaccept the state’s generosity in allowing them to plead Guilty to second-degree murderand escape with their lives, but they were Haverfords, in Maycomb County a name synonymous with jackass. The Haverfords had dispatched Maycomb’s leading blacksmith in a misunderstanding arising from the alleged wrongful detention of a mare,were imprudent enough to do it in the presence of three witnesses, and insisted that the-son-of-a-bitch-had-it-coming-to-him was a good enough defense for anybody. They persisted in pleading Not Guilty to first-degree murder, so there was nothing much Atticus could do for his clients except be present at their departure, an occasion thatwas probably the beginning of my father’s profound distaste for the practice of criminal law.

我父亲取得律师资格后，回到梅科姆镇，当起律师来。梅科姆镇坐落在芬奇庄园以东二十英里左右的地方，是梅科姆县的县政府所在地。阿迪克斯的事务所设在法院里。里面陈设简单，只有一只衣帽架，一个痰盂，一个棋盘和一部爱护得很好的亚拉巴马法典。他的头两个当事人是在梅科姆县监狱处死的最后两个人。阿迪克斯曾劝他们承认犯了误杀罪，好接受州立法院的宽大处理，保住性命。但他们是哈弗福特家族的人，在梅科姆县，这个家族是笨驴的同义词。这两个人误以为梅科姆县最有名的铁匠非法扣留了他们的一匹母马，就把他杀了。他们莽撞得竟敢当着三个人的面行凶，还坚持他们自己没有任何罪，说铁匠是他妈的自作自受。他们认为这就是最好的答辩。他们矢口否认犯了谋杀罪。所以，阿迪克斯无能为力，只能眼睁睁地望着他们被处死。也许就是从这件事开始，我父亲对实施刑法产生了强烈的反感。

During his first five years in Maycomb, Atticus practiced economy more than anything; for several years thereafter he invested his earnings in his brother’s education. John Hale Finch was ten years younger than my father, and chose to study medicine at atime when cotton was not worth growing; but after getting Uncle Jack started, Atticus derived a reasonable income from the law. He liked Maycomb, he was Maycomb County born and bred; he knew his people, they knew him, and because of Simon Finch’s industry, Atticus was related by blood or marriage to nearly every family in the town.

在梅科姆镇度过的头五年中，我父亲极端俭朴。在以后的好几年里，他用攒下的钱资助他的弟弟上学。约翰·黑尔·芬奇比我父亲小十岁。在种植棉花不合算的时候，他开始学医。等杰克叔叔能够自立以后，阿迪克斯当律师，收入还可以。他热爱梅科姆镇。他生在梅科姆，长在梅科姆，了解当地人，当地人也了解他，并且，由于西蒙·芬奇的产业，阿迪克斯几乎与小镇上的每家都有血缘或姻亲关系。

精选赏析

1、He couldn't have cared less, so long as he could pass andpunt.

只要能传球，他就一点也不在乎。

as long as 只要；not any more 不能更怎样。                  

这句话的两个分句并不难，但是两个短语组合在一起，就使句子变得生动有趣。直译过来的意思是“只要成传球，他就不能在意更少。”

2、Mindful of John Wesley's strictures on the use of many words in buying and selling, Simon made a pile practicingmedicine, but in this pursuit he was unhappy lest he be tempted into doing what heknew was not for the glory of God, as the putting on of gold and costly apparel. 

他牢记约翰·韦斯利的训诫，做生意时，时刻注意什么话该说，什么话不该说，靠行医发了大财。尽管有钱，但他并不快活，担心会被诱惑去做有损于上帝荣誉的事，比如穿戴价钱昂贵的衣饰。

but 连接的前后两个句子是并列句。“Mindful of…selling“是前面句子中的状语；lest 是连词（必须连接两个句子的词），意为“唯恐，担心”。in this pursuit 在这里的意思大致为“在这种情况下”。所以这个句子在大结构上是并列句。并列的分句中又各有两到三处的状语成分。但是并无从句结构。其结构之复杂精妙，非考试中的科学型文章可比拟。

3、All we had was Simon Finch, a fur-trapping apothecary from Cornwall whose piety was exceeded only by his stinginess.

我们只有西蒙·芬奇这样一个祖先——一个来自康沃耳的爱捕捉毛皮兽的药剂师。他的虔诚仅次于他的吝啬。

这个句子的结构比较复杂，总体来讲是A was B 的结构，主语是主语从句，宾语（Simon Finch）后又有两个并列的定语。

但是句子的亮点在于“whose piety was exceeded only by his stingness”的表达方式十分生动。