评论
打印
Corn-pone Opinions
关于从众的观点
Mark Twain
马克·吐温
Fifty years ago, when I was a boy of fifteen and helping to inhabit a Missourian village on the banks of the Mississippi, I had a friend whose society was very dear to mebecause I was forbidden by my mother to partake of it. He was a gay and impudent and satirical and delightful young black man—a slave—who daily preached sermons from the top of his master's woodpile, with me for sole audience. He imitated the pulpit style of the several clergymen of the village, and did it well, and with fine passion and energy. To me he was a wonder. I believed he was the greatest orator in the United States and would some day be heard from. But it did not happen; in the distribution of rewards he was overlooked. It is the way, in this world.
五十年前，我还是个十五岁的少年，在密西西比河畔密苏里州的一个小村庄当帮工。那时我有一个朋友，他的友谊对我来说非常可贵，因为妈妈禁止我和他交往。我这位朋友天性快乐，行为鲁莽，喜欢嘲讽，是个讨人喜欢的年轻黑人小伙子——个奴隶——他每天在主人的木料堆顶上布道传教，而我是他唯一的听众。他模仿着村里几位牧师的布道风格，而且模仿得很像，很有激情。对我来说他是个奇人。我觉得他是全美国最伟大的演说家，而且将来一定会出名。可是这事儿并没发生。在分配报酬的过程中他被遗漏了。这个世道就是如此。
He interrupted his preaching, now and then, to saw a stick of wood; but the sawing was a pretense—he did it with his mouth; exactly imitating the sound the bucksaw makes in shrieking its way through the wood. But it served its purpose; it kept his master from coming out to see how the work was getting along. I listened to the sermons from the open window of a lumber room at the back of the house. One of his texts was this:
他不时地中断布道去锯一根木头；不过锯木只是个假象——那只是用嘴在“锯”罢了；确切地说，是在用嘴模仿锯子在木头中艰难移动时发出的吱吱嘎嘎的声音。可是这已经达到了他的目的，他的主人听到声音后就不再探出头来看活儿干得怎么样了。我透过房后一个杂物间敞开的窗户听着他的布道。其中一段经文是这样的：
"You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I'll tell you what his 'pinions is."
“如果你告诉我一个人从哪得到他的玉米面包的，我就可以告诉你他的观点是什么。”
