Luck

Mark Twain

It was at a banquet in London in honour of one of the two or three conspicuously illustrious English military names of this generation. For reasons which will presently appear, I will withhold his real name and titles, and call him Lieutenant-General Lord Arthur Scoresby (阿瑟·斯科里斯比), V.C., K.C.B., etc., etc., etc. What a fascination there is in a renowned name! There say the man, in actual flesh, whom I had heard of so many thousands of times since that day, thirty years before, when his name shot suddenly to the zenith from a Crimean battle-field, to remain for ever celebrated. It was food and drink to me to look, and look, and look at that demigod; scanning, searching, noting: the quietness, the reserve, the noble gravity of his countenance; the simple honesty that expressed itself all over him; the sweet unconsciousness of his greatness--unconsciousness of the hundreds of admiring eyes fastened upon him, unconsciousness of the deep, loving, sincere worship welling out of the breasts of those people and flowing toward him.

The clergyman at my left was an old acquaintance of mine--clergyman now, but had spent the first half of his life in the camp and field, and as an instructor in the military school at Woolwich (伍利芝). Just at the moment I have been talking about, a veiled and singular light glimmered in his eyes, and he leaned down and muttered confidentially to me--indicating the hero of the banquet with a gesture,--'Privately--his glory is an accident-- just a product of incredible luck.'

This verdict was a great surprise to me. If its subject had been Napoleon, or Socrates, or Solomon, my astonishment could not have been greater.

Some days later came the explanation of this strange remark, and this is what the Reverend told me.

About forty years ago I was an instructor in the military academy at Woolwich. I was present in one of the sections when young Scoresby underwent his preliminary examination. I was touched to the quick with pity; for the rest of the class answered up brightly and handsomely, while he--why, dear me, he didn't know anything, so to speak. He was evidently good, and sweet, and lovable, and guileless; and so it was exceedingly painful to see him stand there, as serene as a graven image, and deliver himself of answers which were veritably miraculous for stupidity and ignorance. All the compassion in me was aroused in his behalf. I said to myself, when he comes to be examined again, he will be flung over, of course; so it will be simple a harmless act of charity to ease his fall as much as I can.

I took him aside, and found that he knew a little of Caesar's history; and as he didn't know anything else, I went to work and drilled him like a galley-slave on a certain line of stock questions concerning Caesar which I knew would be used. If you'll believe me, he went through with flying colours on examination day! He went through on that purely superficial 'cram', and got compliments, too, while others, who knew a thousand times more than he, got plucked. By some strangely lucky accident--an accident not likely to happen twice in a century--he was asked no question outside of the narrow limits of his drill.

It was stupefying. Well, although through his course I stood by him, with something of the sentiment which a mother feels for a crippled child; and he always saved himself--just by miracle, apparently.

Now of course the thing that would expose him and kill him at last was mathematics. I resolved to make his death as easy as I could; so I drilled him and crammed him, and crammed him and drilled him, just on the line of questions which the examiner would be most likely to use, and then launched him on his fate. Well, sir, try to conceive of the result: to my consternation, he took the first prize! And with it he got a perfect ovation in the way of compliments.

Sleep! There was no more sleep for me for a week. My conscience tortured me day and night. What I had done I had done purely through charity, and only to ease the poor youth's fall--I never had dreamed of any such preposterous result as the thing that had happened. I felt as guilty and miserable as the creator of Frankenstein（弗兰肯斯坦，小说中人物，生理学家，曾制造一怪物，后为此怪物所灭）. Here was a wooden- head whom I had put in the way of glittering promotions and prodigious responsibilities, and but one thing could happen: he and his responsibilities would all go to ruin together at the first opportunity.

The Crimean war had just broken out. Of course there had to be a war, I said to myself: we couldn't have peace and give this donkey a chance to die before he is found out. I waited for the earthquake. It came. And it made me reel when it did come. He was actually gazetted to a captaincy in a marching regiment! Better men grow old and gray in the service before they climb to a sublimity like that. And who could ever have foreseen that they would go and put such a load of responsibility on such green and inadequate shoulders? I could just barely have stood it if they had made him a cornet; but a captain--think of it! I thought my hair would turn white.

Consider what I did--I who so loved repose and inaction. I said to myself, I am responsible to the country for this, and I must go along with him and protect the country against him as far as I can. So I took my poor little capital that I had saved up through years of work and grinding economy, and went with a sigh and bought a cornetcy in his regiment, and away we went to the field.

And there--oh dear, it was awful. Blunders? why, he never did anything but blunder. But, you see, nobody was in the fellow's secret--everybody had him focused wrong, and necessarily misinterpreted his performance every time--consequently they took his idiotic blunders for inspirations of genius; they did honestly! His mildest blunders were enough to make a man in his right mind cry; and they did make me cry--and rage and rave too, privately. And the thing that kept me always in a sweat of apprehension was the fact that every fresh blunder he made increased the lustre of his reputation! I kept saying to myself, he'll get so high that when discovery does finally come it will be like the sun falling out of the sky.

就在战场上，天呐，他真是糟糕透了。犯糊涂！我这么说一点也不过分，他简直是一无是处。可是，偏偏就没有一个人看得出来，每个人都没有注意到他的错误之处，每次都所以士兵们都把他那蠢到家的决定当成锦囊妙计，还都很佩服他！他犯的小错都足以让正常人崩溃，反正我是崩溃了，实际上很生气，恨不得臭骂他一顿。但是每次他犯糊涂的时候，把我吓得一身冷汗，他却名声大振！我暗自对自己说，他爬的越高，摔得越疼，等到大错酿成，他的好名声也就日落西山了。

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He went right along up, from grade to grade, over the dead bodies of his superiors, until at last, in the hottest moment of the battle of.... down went our colonel, and my heart jumped into my mouth, for Scoresby was next in rank! Now for it, said I; we'll all land in Sheol in ten minutes, sure.

他踩着前人的尸体，级级攀升。直到那一刻，战争最激烈的时候，我们的上校阵亡了。我的心随之跳到了嗓子眼，因为斯克里斯比就要取而代之。完了，我想，有他在，十分钟之内我们就等着见阎王吧！

The battle was awfully hot; the allies were steadily giving way all over the field. Our regiment occupied a position that was vital; a blunder now must be destruction. At this critical moment, what does this immortal fool do but detach the regiment from its place and order a charge over a neighbouring hill where there wasn't a suggestion of an enemy! 'There you go!' I said to myself; 'this is the end at last.'

战斗异常激烈，英国军队和盟友持续地全线溃退。我们的团占领了一处重要的位置，这个关键的时刻，任何一个错误都会带来致命的灾难。然而，这个没头没脑的傻瓜居然命令整个团撤离这个据点，转移到旁边的山头，可那里没有一点敌人的迹象！“去吧！”我自然自语，“这场战斗要完蛋了。”

And away we did go, and were over the shoulder of the hill before the insane movement could be discovered and stopped. And what did we find? An entire and unsuspected Russian army in reserve! And what happened? We were eaten up? That is necessarily what would have happened in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred. But no; those Russians argued that no single regiment would come browsing around there at such a time. It must be the entire English army, and that the sly Russian game was detected and blocked; so they turned tail, and away they went, pell-mell, over the hill and down into the field, in wild confusion, and we after them; they themselves broke the solid Russia centre in the field, and tore through, and in no time there was the most tremendous rout you ever saw, and the defeat of the allies was turned into a sweeping and splendid victory! Marshal Canrober（甘罗拜尔）t looked on, dizzy with astonishment, admiration, and delight; and sent right off for Scoresby, and hugged him, and decorated him on the field in presence of all the armies!

我们依照命令撤离了，在这疯狂的行动还没被发现和阻止的时候，我们爬上了山头。我们发现了什么？整个毫无戒备正在待命的俄国军队！接下来发生了什么？我们被消灭了吗？正常情况下百分之九十九都会是这种结果。然而不是！那些俄国人开始争吵，觉得在这个时候，肯定不可能只有一个团的英国军队在这里游荡，一定是自己被发现，被整个英国军队包围了。他们仓皇而逃，跑上另一座山又跑下山，陷入了血腥混乱的战场中，我们在后面紧追不舍。历史性的时刻到来了，盟军转败为胜，取得了辉煌的胜利。这一切令正在观战的甘罗拜尔元帅十分惊喜，对他赞赏有加，他径直走向斯克里斯比，给他一个拥抱，并当着全军队的面授予嘉奖。

And what was Scoresby's blunder that time? Merely the mistaking his right hand for his left--that was all. An order had come to him to fall back and support our right; and instead he fell forward and went over the hill to the left. But the name he won that day as a marvelous military genius filled the world with his glory, and that glory will never fade while history books last.

实际上，斯克里斯比那天犯的是什么错误呢？他就是把左右方向搞混了，仅此而已。当时他接到的命令是撤退并支持右翼战场，然而他却全面进攻并攻占了左面的山头。然而那天他名声大振，被赞为军事天才，并永载史册。

He is just as good and sweet and lovable and unpretending as a man can be, but he doesn't know enough to come in when it rains. He has been pursued, day by day and year by year, by a most phenomenal and astonishing luckiness. He has been a shining soldier in all our wars for half a generation; he has littered his military life with blunders, and yet has never committed one that didn't make him a knight or a baronet or a lord or something. Look at his breast; why, he is just clothed in domestic and foreign decorations. Well, sir, every one of them is a record of some shouting stupidity or other; and, taken together, they are proof that the very best thing in all this world that can befall a man is to be born lucky.

他还是像以前一样举止文雅，温柔友善，还是不知道雨天该出门还是待在屋里的傻瓜。一天天，一年年，奇妙的好运总是紧紧跟随着他。多少年来，他都是战争中最耀眼的战士，他的军事生涯里错误百出，然而他每一次犯糊涂都能升官加爵。看看他胸前的国内国外的勋章，每一个勋章都是他犯糊涂的一次记录，好事总是发生在一个天生的幸运儿身上，这些勋章就是证据。