本帖最后由 ヮ成熟、羙° 于 2014-5-13 11:11 编辑
乞丐 荷叶/译 他大声地朝地铁车厢喊:“如果你不想给我钱,给我工作,或给我点吃的,那何不收养了我?我比狗干净,不随地便溺,还不用去溜。”多数人感到好笑,但仍然没有多少人提供他真正想要的施舍。我没有,我今天不想施舍,况且,我正在读书,这似乎是个不错的借口。 他经过时,我还是抬头看了一眼,注意到沿过道有个相当漂亮的女孩正在微笑。当这个出奇年轻,出奇利落,甚至有点好看的乞丐来到她的座位时,他朝她回笑了一下。当她在下一站下车时,他也跳了出去,大步跟在她旁边走,和她搭讪。她还在笑,很明显,对他没有什么不友好地感觉,或者,不止这些,这使其他人,反正我在怀疑这整个场面是不是在演戏,两个孩子在开玩笑。但,不,他看上去确实需要帮助,他头发太油了,衣服上的污渍已经超过体面的界线了。这两者似乎一点也没使女孩感到不安。因此,谁知道呢?也许我们会目睹一场不大可能发生的浪漫,电视上所谓的“浪漫的邂逅”,然后回归现实,我们此时的良心就会被赦免一次,重归平静。 附:原文 The Beggar "If you don't want to give me money, or a job, or something to eat," he announces loudly to the subway car, "then why not adopt me? I'm cleaner than a dog, I'm housebroken, so I don't have to be walked." Most of us are amused, but still, not many come across with the handout he's really after. I don't, I just don't feel like it today, and besides I'm absorbed in a book, which seems excuse enough. I look up, though,after he passes, and notice that a rather pretty girl down the aisle is smiling, and that when the beggar -- he's surprisingly young, and surprisingly clean-cut, even good-looking -- comes to her seat, he smiles back, and when shegets off at the next station he pops out too and strides beside her, chattingher up, she still smiling, obviously feeling not unfriendly towards him, or,more than that, leaving the rest of us, or me anyway, to wonder if the whole thing was a put-on, two kids on a lark, but no, he did look like he needed help, hair too oily, clothes stained past the cusp of respectability, neither of which seemed to bother the girl at all, so who knows, maybe we've had the chance to be present at the onset of an unlikely romance, something from a movie, a "cute meet" they call it, and can go back to what we'd been doing, our consciences, such as they are, absolved for once, at peace. |