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A DOG'S TALE
一只狗的自述
by Mark Twain
马克·吐温著
CHAPTER III
第三章
It was such a charming home! -- my new one; a fine great house, with pictures, and delicate decorations, and rich furniture, and no gloom anywhere, but all the wilderness of dainty colors lit up with flooding sunshine; and the spacious grounds around it, and the great garden -- oh, greensward, and noble trees, and flowers, no end! And I was the same as a member of the family; and they loved me, and petted me, and did notgive me a new name, but called me by my old one that was dear to me because my mother had given it me -- Aileen Mavoureen. She got it out of a song; and the Grays knew that song, and said it was a beautiful name.
那真是个有趣的家呀！——我那新的家。房子又好又大，还有许多图画和精巧的装饰，讲究的家具，根本没有阴暗的地方，处处的五颜六色都有充分的阳光照得非常鲜亮；周围还有很宽敞的空地，还有个大花园——啊，那一大片草坪，那些高大的树，那些花，说不完！我在那儿就好像是这一家人里面的一分子，他们都爱我，把我当成宝贝，而且并没有给我取个新名字，还是用我原来的名字叫我，这个名字是我母亲给我取的——爱莲·麦弗宁——所以我觉得它特别亲爱。她是从一首歌里找出来的。格莱夫妇也知道这首歌，他们说这个名字很漂亮。
Mrs. Gray was thirty, and so sweet and so lovely, you cannot imagine it; and Sadie was ten, and just like her mother, just a darling slender little copy of her, with auburn tails down her back, and short frocks; and the baby was a year old, and plump and dimpled, and fond of me, and never could get enough of hauling on my tail, and hugging me, and laughing out its innocent happiness;
格莱太太有30岁，她非常漂亮、非常可爱，那样子你简直想像不出；莎第10岁，正像她妈妈一样，简直是照她的模样做出来的一份苗条可爱的仿制品，背上垂着赭色的辫子，身上穿着短短的上衣；娃娃才一周岁，长得胖胖的，脸上有酒窝，他很喜欢我，老爱拉我的尾巴，抱我，并且还哈哈大笑地表示他那天真烂漫的快乐，简直没有个够；
and Mr. Gray was thirty-eight, and tall and slender and handsome, a little bald in front, alert, quick in his movements, business-like, prompt, decided, unsentimental, and with that kind of trim-chiseled face that just seems to glint and sparkle with frosty intellectuality! He was a renowned scientist.
格莱先生38岁，高个子，细长身材，长得很漂亮：头前面有点秃，人很机警，动作灵活，一本正经，办事迅速果断，不感情用事，他那副收拾得整整齐齐的脸简直就像是闪耀着冷冰冰的智慧的光！他是一位有名的科学家。
I do not know what the word means, but my mother would know how to use it and get effects. She would know how to depress a rat-terrier with it and make a lap-dog look sorry he came. But that is not the best one; the best one was Laboratory. My mother could organize a Trust on that one that would skin the tax-collars off the whole herd. The laboratory was not a book, or a picture, or a place to wash your hands in, as the college president's dog said -- no, that is the lavatory;
我不知道科学家是什么意思，可是我母亲一定知道这个名词怎么用法，知道怎么去卖弄它，叫别人佩服。她会知道怎么去拿它叫一只捉耗子的小狗听了垂头丧气，把一只哈巴狗吓得后悔它不该来。可是这个名词还不是最好的；最好的名词是实验室。要有一个实验室肯把所有的狗脖子上拴着缴税牌的颈圈都取下来，我母亲就可以组织一个托辣斯来办这么一个实验室。实验室并不是一本书，也不是一张图画，也不是洗手的地方——大学校长的狗说是这么回事，可是不对，那叫做盥洗室；
the laboratory is quite different, and is filled with jars, and bottles, and electrics, and wires, and strange machines; and every week other scientists came there and sat in the place, and used the machines, anddiscussed, and made what they called experiments and discoveries; and often I came, too, and stood around and listened, and tried to learn, for the sake of my mother, and in loving memory of her, although it was a pain to me, as realizing what she was losing out of her life and I gaining nothing at all; for try as I might, I was never able to make anything out of it at all.
实验室是大有区别的，那里面搁满了罐子、瓶子、电器、五金丝和稀奇古怪的机器；每个星期都有别的科学家到那儿来，坐在那地方，用那些机器，大家还讨论，还做他们所谓什么试验和发现；我也常常到那儿来，站在旁边听，很想学点东西，为了我母亲，为了好好地纪念她，虽然这对我是件痛苦的事，因为我体会到她一辈子耗费了多少精伸，而我可一点也学不到什么；无论我怎么努力，我听来听去，根本就一点也听不出所以然来。
