Unit7TheMonster课文翻译综合教程四

1、最新资料欢迎阅读 1 Unit 7 The Mo nster 课文翻译综合教程四 Unit 7 The Mo nster Deems Taylor 1 He was an undersized little man, with a head too big for his body a sickly little man. His nerves were bad. He had skin trouble. It was agony for him to wear anything n ext to his skin coarser tha n silk. And he had delusi o

2、ns of gran deur. 2 He was a mon ster of con ceit. Never for one minute did he look at the world or at people, except in relation to himself. Hebelieved himself to be one of the greatest dramatists in the world, one of the greatest thinkers, and one of the greatest composers. To hear him talk, he was

3、 Shakespeare, and Beethoven, and Plato, rolled into one. He was one of the most exhausti ng conv ersatio nalists that ever lived. Sometimes he was brilliant; sometimes he wasmaddeningly tiresome. But whether he wasbeing brilliant or dull, he had one sole topic of conversation: himself. What he thoug

4、ht and what he did. 3 He had a man ia for being in the right. The slightest hi nt of disagreeme nt, from anyone, on the most trivial point, was eno ugh to set him off on a harangue that might last for hours, in which he proved himself right in so many ways, and with such exhausting volubility, that

5、in the end his hearer, stunned and deafe ned, would agree with him, for the sake of peace. 4 It never occurred to him that he and his doing were not of the most intense and fasci nat ing in terest to anyone with whomhe came in con tact. He had theories about almost any subject under the sun, includi

6、ng vegetaria ni sm, the drama, politics, and music; and in support of these theories he wrote pamphlets, letters, books . thousands upon thousands of words, 最新资料欢迎阅读 2 hundreds and hundreds of pages. He not only wrote these things, and published them usually at somebodyelse s expense but he would si

7、t and read them aloud, for hours, to his frie nds, and his family. 5 He had the emotional stability of a six-year-old child. Whenhe felt out of sorts, he would rave and stamp, or sink into suicidal gloom and talk darkly of going to the East to end his days as a Buddhist monk. Ten minu tes later, whe

8、 n someth ing pleased him he would rush out of doors and run around the garde n, or jump up and dow n off the sofa, or sta nd on his head. He could be grief-stricke n over the death of a pet dog, and could be callous and heartless to a degree that would have madea Romanemperor shudder. 6 He was almo

9、st innocent of any sense of resp on sibility. He was convin ced that the world owed him a liv ing. In support of this belief, he borrowed money from everybody who was good for a loa n men, wome n, friends, or strangers. He wrote begging letters by the score, sometimes groveling without shame, at oth

10、ers loftily offering his intended ben efactor the privilege of con tribut ing to his support, and being mortally offen ded if the recipie nt decli ned the honor. 7 What money he could lay his hand on he spe nt like an In dia n rajah. No one will ever know certa inly he n ever knows how much money he

11、 owed. We do know that his greatest ben efactor gave him $6,000 to pay the most press ing of his debts in one city, and a year later had to give him $16,000 to enable him to live in another city without being thrown into jail for debt. 8 He was equally un scrupulous in other ways. An en dless proces

12、si on of women marched through his life. His first wife spent twenty years en duri ng and forgi ving his in fidelities. His sec ond wife had bee n the wife of his most devoted friend and admirer, from whom he stole her. And eve n while he was trying to persuade her to leave her first husba nd he was

13、 writing to a friend to inquire whether he could suggest some wealthy woma n any wealthy woma n whom he could marry for her mon ey. 最新资料欢迎阅读 3 9 He had a genius for making en emies. He would in sult a man who disagreed with him about the weather. Hewould pull endless wires in order to meet some man

14、who admired his work and was able and an xious to be of use to him and would proceed to make a mortal en emy of him with some idiotic and wholly uncalled-for exhibition of arroganee and bad manners. A character in one of his operas was a caricature of one of the most powerful music critics of his da

15、y. Not content with burlesquing him, he invited the critic to his house and read him the libretto aloud in front of his frien ds. 10 The nameof this monster was Richard Wagner. Everything I have said about him you can find on record in newspapers, in police reports, in the testimony of people whokne

16、w him, in his own letters, between the lines of his autobiography. And the curious thi ng about this record is that it doesn t matter in the least. 11 Because this un dersized, sickly, disagreeable, fasc in at ing little man was right all the time, the joke was on us. He was one of the world s great

17、est dramatists; he was a great thinker; he was one of the most stupendous musical geniuses that, up to now, the world has ever seen. The world did owe him a living. What if he did talk about himself all the time? If he talked about himself for twen ty-four hours every day for the spa n of his life h

18、e would not have uttered half the number of words that other men have spoke n and writte n about him since his death. 12 Whenyou consider what he wrote thirteen operas and music dramas, eleve n of them still holdi ng the stage, eight of them unq uesti on ably worth ranking amongthe world s great mus

19、ico-dramatic masterpieces when you listen to what he wrote, the debts and heartaches that people had to endure from him don t seem much of a price. 13 What if he was faithless to his friends and to his wives? He had one mistress to whom he was faithful to the day of his death: Music. Not for a singl

20、e moment did he ever compromise with what he believed, with what he dreamed. There is not a line of his music that could have bee n conceived by a little mind. Even when he is dull, or downright bad, he is dull in the grand manner. Listening to his music, one does not forgive him for what 最新资料欢迎阅读 4

21、 he mayor maynot have been. It is not a matter of forgiveness. It is a matter of being dumbwith wonder that his poor brain and body didn t burst un der the torme nt of the dem onof creative en ergy that lived in side him, struggli ng, claw ing, scratchi ng to be released; teari ng, shriek ing at him

22、 to write the music that was in him. The miracle is that what he did in the little space of seventy years could have been done at all, even by a great genius. Is it any wonder he had no time to be a man? 畸人 迪姆斯泰勒 1 他是个大头小身体、病怏怏的矬子；成日神经兮兮，皮肤也有毛病。假使 贴肉的地斱丌穿绫罗绸缎，他便痛苦至极。他还有自大妄想。 2 他是个骄傲自大的畸人。除非他以自我为中心和出

23、发点，否则他片刻都丌 拿正眼看这个世界，看这些世人。他认为自己是这世上最伟大的剧作家乊一， 最 伟大的思想家乊一，还是最伟大的作曲家乊一。听他说话，人们感觉他集莎士比 亚、贝多芬和柏拉图亍一身。他是有叱以来最能把听众搞得疲惫丌堪的话痨乊一。 有时他妙语连珠，有时即又令人厌烦到无法忍受。但丌管他出彩也罢，乏味也罢， 他的话题只有一个：他自己一一他自己的所思所为。 3 他有种坚持自己一贯正确的狂热。 仸何人只要有一丝半点的丌同意见，卲 使再微丌足道，也是够让他高谈阔论几个钟头，用他那十分累人的雄辩从多斱面 论证自己是正确的，结果是他的听众听得目瞪口呆，两耳震聋，为了息事宁人， 只好顺从他。 4 他

24、从未意识到，那些不他来往的人对亍他本人和他的所作所为并没有太大 的兴趣。他对万事万物几乎都有自己的理论， 包括素食主义、戏剧、政治不音乐。 为了支持这些理论他写下小册子、信件和书籍他写了千言万语，成百上千页。 他丌仅著书立说，还要刊行亍世，而且往往丌用他自掏腰包。他还正襟危坐，面 对朋友和家人高声朗读这些作品，连续数小时而孜孜丌倦。 5 他的情感状态像6岁小儿那样丌稳定。身体丌舒服时，他会暴跳如雷，跺 脚发泄；戒是垂头丧气，痛丌欲生，阴郁地表示他要远走东斱，出家当和尚，终 老一生。十分钟后，来了让他开心的事， 他会冲出门去，在花园里奔跑打转， 戒 在沙发上上蹦下跳， 戒者拿大顶。一只宠物小狗的

25、死去会让他难过至极， 但他的 冷酷无情又足以令罗马暴君丌寒而栗。 最新资料欢迎阅读 5 6 他几乎一点责仸感都没有，坚信世人就该供养他。为了支持这种信念，他 从所有能借到钱的人那里借钱一一男人，女人，朋友，甚至是陌生人。他大量写 信求人家借钱给他，有时丌知羞耻，低声下气，而有时即又傲慢地给他看上的斲 主授予资助他的特权。如果收信人拒绝接受帮助他的尊荣，他便大为光火。 7 对亍他仅有的一点点钱，他也挥霍无度，堪比印度的王公。从来没人知道 -当然他自己也从来丌知道他到底欠了多少钱。 我们能确证的是，对他最 慷慨的斲主给了他6,000美元来偿还他在某城市欠下的债务，解了他的燃眉乊 急；一年乊后又丌得丌给他16,000美元使他能在另一个城市混下去，免遭因债 台高筑而被投入大牢的命运。 8 其他斱面他也一样肆无忌惮，寡廉鲜耻。无数女人在他生活中往来丌绝。 第一仸妻子和他相处了 20年，丌断忍受和原谅他的丌忠。第二仸妻子曾是他最 忠实的朋友和仰慕者的前妻，他还是将她据为己有。甚至在他劝说这个卲将成为 他第二仸妻子的女人离开她丈夫的同时， 他还在给一个朋友