LESSON 80

A HOT DAY IN NEW YORK

纽约一个大热天

William Dean Howells, 1837—, was born in Belmont County, Ohio. In boyhood he learned the printer’s trade, at which he worked for several years. He published a volume of poems in 1860, in connection with John J. Piatt. From 1861 to 1865 he was United States Consul at Venice. On his return he resided for a time in New York City, and was one of the editors of the “Nation.” In 1871 he was appointed editor in chief of the “Atlantic Monthly.” He held the position ten years, and then retired in order to devote himself to his own writings. Since then, he has been connected with other literary magazines.

Mr. Howells has written several books: novels and sketches: his writings are marked by an artistic finish, and a keen but subtile humor. The following selection is an extract from “Their Wedding Journey.”

When they alighted, they took their way up through one of the streets of the great wholesale businesses, to Broadway. On this street was a throng of trucks and wagons, lading and unlading; bales and boxes rose and sank by pulleys overhead; the footway was a labyrinth of packages of every shape and size; there was no flagging of the pitiless energy that moved all forward, no sign of how heavy a weight lay on it, save in the reeking faces of its helpless instruments.

It was four o’clock, the deadliest hour of the deadly summer day. The spiritless air seemed to have a quality of blackness in it, as if filled with the gloom of low-hovering wings. One half the street lay in shadow, and one half in sun; but the sunshine itself was dim, as if a heat greater than its own had smitten it with languor. Little gusts of sick, warm wind blew across the great avenue at the corners of the intersecting streets. In the upward distance, at which the journeyers looked, the loftier roofs and steeples lifted themselves dim out of the livid atmosphere, and far up and down the length of the street swept a stream of tormented life.

All sorts of wheeled things thronged it, conspicuous among which rolled and jarred the gaudily painted stages, with quivering horses driven each by a man who sat in the shade of a branching, white umbrella, and suffered with a moody truculence of aspect, and as if he harbored the bitterness of death in his heart for the crowding passengers within, when one of them pulled the strap about his legs, and summoned him to halt.

Most of the foot passengers kept to the shady side, and to the unaccustomed eyes of the strangers they were not less in number than at any other time, though there were fewer women among them. Indomitably resolute of soul, they held their course with the swift pace of custom, and only here and there they showed the effect of the heat.

One man, collarless, with waistcoat unbuttoned, and hat set far back from his forehead, waved a fan before his death-white, flabby face, and set down one foot after the other with the heaviness of a somnambulist. Another, as they passed him, was saying huskily to the friend at his side, “I can’t stand this much longer. My hands tingle as if they had gone to sleep; my heart—” But still the multitude hurried on, passing, repassing, encountering, evading, vanishing into shop doors, and emerging from them, dispersing down the side streets, and swarming out of them.

It was a scene that possessed the beholder with singular fascination, and in its effect of universal lunacy, it might well have seemed the last phase of a world presently to be destroyed. They who were in it, but not of it, as they fancied—though there was no reason for this—looked on it amazed, and at last their own errands being accomplished, and themselves so far cured of the madness of purpose, they cried with one voice that it was a hideous sight, and strove to take refuge from it in the nearest place where the soda fountain sparkled.

It was a vain desire. At the front door of the apothecary’s hung a thermometer, and as they entered they heard the next comer cry out with a maniacal pride in the affliction laid upon mankind, “Ninety-seven degrees!” Behind them, at the door, there poured in a ceaseless stream of people, each pausing at the shrine of heat, before he tossed off the hissing draught that two pale, close-clipped boys served them from either side of the fountain. Then, in the order of their coming, they issued through another door upon the side street, each, as he disappeared, turning his face half round, and casting a casual glance upon a little group near another counter.

The group was of a very patient, half-frightened, half-puzzled looking gentleman who sat perfectly still on a stool, and of a lady who stood beside him, rubbing all over his head a handkerchief full of pounded ice, and easing one hand with the other when the first became tired. Basil drank his soda, and paused to look upon this group, which he felt would commend itself to realistic sculpture as eminently characteristic of the local life, and, as “The Sunstroke,” would sell enormously in the hot season.

“Better take a little more of that,” the apothecary said, looking up from his prescription, and, as the organized sympathy of the seemingly indifferent crowd, smiling very kindly at his patient, who thereupon tasted something in the glass he held.

“Do you still feel like fainting?” asked the humane authority. “Slightly, now and then,” answered the other, “but I’m hanging on hard to the bottom curve of that icicled S on your soda fountain, and I feel that I’m all right as long as I can see that. The people get rather hazy occasionally, and have no features to speak of. But I do n’t know that I look very impressive myself,” he added in the jesting mood which seems the natural condition of Americans in the face of all embarrassments.

“Oh, you’ll do!” the apothecary answered, with a laugh; but he said, in an answer to an anxious question from the lady, “He mustn’t be moved for an hour yet,” and gayly pestled away at a prescription, while she resumed her office of grinding the pounded ice round and round upon her husband’s skull. Isabel offered her the commiseration of friendly words, and of looks kinder yet, and then, seeing that they could do nothing, she and Basil fell into the endless procession, and passed out of the side door.

“What a shocking thing,” she whispered. “Did you see how all the people looked, one after another, so indifferently at that couple, and evidently forgot them the next instant? It was dreadful. I shouldn’t like to have you sun-struck in New York.”

“That’s very considerate of you; but place for place, if any accident must happen to me among strangers, I think I should prefer to have it in New York. The biggest place is always the kindest as well as the cruelest place. Amongst the thousands of spectators the good Samaritan as well as the Levite would be sure to be. As for a sunstroke, it requires peculiar gifts. But if you compel me to a choice in the matter, then I say give me the busiest part of Broadway for a sunstroke. There is such experience of calamity there that you could hardly fall the first victim to any misfortune.”

【中文阅读】

他们突然醒过来神儿时，已经踏上了通往百老汇一条专门做批发生意的繁忙街道。这条街道上塞满了卡车和小手推车，有的在装货，有的在卸货。头顶上的滑车将货包和箱子竖起来后又放倒。旁边的人行道成了各种形状和尺寸的包装箱堆成的迷宫一般的小径。除了毫无帮助的工具那令人作呕的外表，没有一直朝前的冷酷无情的石板路，也没有上面可以承载多重的重物的标识。

现在是下午四点，正是酷热难耐的夏日最难熬的时刻。无精打采的空气里似乎有一种阴郁的特征，仿佛被在低空盘旋的翅膀遮盖着。大街一半处在阴影里，一半则暴露在太阳之下。阳光本身有点暗淡，热量好像超过了懒散地打了一下所达到的程度。没有强风，只有暖风刮过位于十字街道角落的大街。在远处，行人驻足望着将他们自己从乌青色氛围里解脱出来的高高的穹顶和尖塔，高低不平的长长街道掠过令人痛苦的生活场景。

所有带轮子的东西都涌上了街道，在这个涂了俗丽的色彩的舞台上，带轮子的东西和瓶瓶罐罐特别显眼，每一匹颤抖的马都由坐在分开撑的白伞阴影下的一个人驱赶着，平添了几分残酷；当其中一人拉了一下他腿上的挎带，叫他停下来时，他仿佛在心里对摩肩接踵的行人怀有死亡的辛酸。

大多数步履匆匆的行人一直在阴凉的一侧行走，不习惯那些并不比其他任何时候少的陌生人的目光，尽管他们中不乏女性。凭着精神上不气馁的倔强，他们按照习惯的迅捷步伐走着，只是不时地显露出高温对他们的影响。

一个穿了一件没有衣领和没有纽扣背心的人，帽子戴得非常靠后，在他那张苍白且松弛的脸前挥了一下扇子，然后像梦游似的前面的腿蹲下来，重心放在后腿上。至于另一个人，在人们从他身边走过时，对身旁的朋友嗓音粗噶地说：“我再也受不了了。我的手一阵刺痛，好像睡着了似的；我的心——”可是，很多人依旧急匆匆赶路，经过，再经过，碰上，躲开，闪身进了商店，接着又从商店门后现身，纷纷钻进小巷，又一窝蜂地涌出来。

这是对此特别痴迷的人看到的一幕，人们都普遍极蠢，这个世界似乎处于末日来临前的最后阶段。置身于这个世界的人们，虽然并不属于这个世界，正如他们所幻想的那样——尽管无法予以解释——惊异地打量这个世界，最后他们自己的差事也得以完成了，而他们则出于医治躁狂之目的，遂异口同声地呼吁，这是可怕的景象，极力躲避到最近的地方，那里到处都可见冷饮柜。

其实，这是徒劳的愿望而已。在药店门口挂着一支温度计，他们进去时听到下一个来客凭着降临到人类头上的痛苦所导致的癫狂的自豪喊道：“九十七度！”在他们身后的门口，涌进不间断的人流，大家都在炙热的“圣坛”前停下脚步，在他站在通风口处脱下衣服前，两个面色苍白，说话急促的小伙子从喷泉的两侧迎上前来。为了对大家光临表示欢迎，他们穿过面向小巷的另一道门，就在他闪身消失时，他转过半边脸，冲在另一个柜台附近的一小群人投去冷冷的一瞥。

这群人很有耐心，半害怕半困惑地望着四平八稳地坐在一张椅子上的绅士，这人身边站着一位女士，正用抱着冰块的手帕敷他的脑袋呢，在一只手感到酸了时，轻松地用另一只手替换。巴希尔喝着苏打水，停下脚步打量这帮人，他觉得这一幕会使现实主义雕刻对其感兴趣，可以作为当地生活的一个突出特征，就像在炎热季节“中暑”司空见惯一样。

“最好多服一点，”药剂师抬起目光说道，脸上浮出有条理的同情之色，貌似对方是不相干的人群，非常和善地对患者报以微笑，患者于是啜了一口他端的玻璃杯里的东西。

“你还觉得有点难受吗？”这位权威人士问道，“有点吧，”其他人答道。“不过，我一直紧紧抓住装苏打水瓶子的瓶底，只要我能看清，我就觉得没有问题。偶尔有的人会看得相当模糊，更不用说五官了。可是，我不晓得我看自己是否非常清楚。他用戏谑的口吻补充道，似乎美国人面对尴尬时这种口吻会使场面显得自然。

“哦，你可以试一下！”这位药剂师答道，抱以大笑。他继续说，以此作为对那位女士提出的迫切问题的回答。“在一个小时内他还不能动弹，”她重新开始在她丈夫脑壳上抹冰块的同时，愉快地捣碎大夫开的药。伊莎贝尔跟她说了几句寄予同情的话，脸上的神情依旧很和善，之后见他们无动于衷，她和巴希尔遂加入到没有尽头的队伍中，从边门出去了。

“你考虑得非常周全；但是设身处地想一想，如果置身于陌生人中间的我碰巧遇上一件偶然发生的事儿，我想我宁愿发生的场合是在纽约。最大的地方始终都是最友好，同时也是最无情的地方。在成千上万的观众中间，撒玛利亚人和利未人毫无疑问一眼就能辨认出来。至于中暑嘛，它要求具有特有的禀赋。不过倘若你逼着我在这件事情做出选择的话，我要说还是让我在百老汇最繁忙的地方中暑吧。就这种灾难的经验而言，你几乎不可能成为任何不幸第一个牺牲品。”