翻译天堂  2016-10-03

春跑

刘世聪（译）

It was a perfect white night, as they call it. All green things seemed to have made a month’s growth since the morning. The branch that was yellow-leaved the day before dripped sap when Mowgli broke it. The mosses curled deep and warm over his feet, the young grass had no cutting edges, and all the voices of the Jungle boomed like one deep harp-string touched by the moon — the Moon of New Talk, who splashed her light full on rock and pool, slipped it between trunk and creeper, and sifted it through a million leaves. Forgetting his unhappiness, Mowgli sang aloud with pure delight as he settled into his stride. 这正像人们所说的，是一个地道的白夜。自早晨，所有的绿色植物好像已经生长了一个月。前一天还有枯黄叶子的树枝，莫格里折断一看，便有汁液滴出来。地上暖乎乎的苔藓没过他的双脚，小草还没有长出尖利的叶子，丛林里回荡着嗡嗡声，犹如竖琴的低音琴弦被月光拨动时发出的音响。月亮把她的光径直洒在石头上，洒在水洼里，穿过树干和藤萝之间的空隙，透过万千婆娑的树叶。当莫格里迈开步子跑起来，他便忘记了自己的不幸，怀着纯真的愉快心情，高声唱了起来。

It was more like flying than anything else, for he had chosen the long downward slope that leads to the Northern Marshes through the heart of the main Jungle, where the springy ground deadened the fall of his feet. A man-taught man would have picked his way with many stumbles through the cheating moonlight, but Mowgli’s muscles, trained by years of experience, bore him up as though he were a feather. When a rotten log or a hidden stone turned under his foot he saved himself, never checking his pace, without effort and without thought. When he tired of ground-going he threw up his hands monkey-fashion to the nearest creeper, and seemed to float rather than to climb up into the thin branches, whence he would follow a tree-road till his mood changed, and he shot downward in a long, leafy curve to the levels again. There were still, hot hollows surrounded by wet rocks where he could hardly breathe for the heavy scents of the night flowers and the bloom along the creeper buds; dark avenues where the moonlight lay in belts as regular as checkered marbles in a church aisle; thickets where the wet young growth stood breast-high about him and threw its arms round his waist; and hilltops crowned with broken rock, where he leaped from stone to stone above the lairs of the frightened little foxes. He would hear, very faint and far off, the chug-drug of a boar sharpening his tusks on a bole; and would come across the great gray brute all alone, scribing and rending the bark of a tall tree, his mouth dripping with foam, and his eyes blazing like fire. 那比什么都像飞翔，因为，他选择了一条很长的下行山坡路，穿过丛林的中心通向北泽，脚跺在松软而有弹性的地上听不见声音。即使是经别人提醒过的人，由于月光所造成的假象，在这样的地上即使小心地行走也会经常绊倒的，可是，莫格里的肌肉经过多年的锻炼，支撑着他就像支撑一片羽毛。当腐烂的树干或看见的石头被他踩翻时，他从不放慢速度，也无须多想，仍能毫不费力地让自己平安无事。当他在地面上跑厌倦了，就像猴子似地把双手往上一伸，抓住最近的藤萝，不是往上爬，而好像是漂进稀疏的树枝里，然后，沿着一条树上的路前行，直到他的心情改变，便往下一跳，穿过空中的树叶划出一个长长的弧，又回到平地上。他所经过的地方有很热的洼地，这里寂静无声，周围都是湿漉漉的石头，夜里的花卉和藤萝上的花蕾散发着浓郁的香味，几乎让他喘不过气来；有阴影的路上洒满规则的带状月光，犹如教堂通道上方各状的大理石；树丛里新生的湿漉漉的小树长得齐胸高，树枝伸出来搂住他的腰身；小山丘的顶上满地是碎石，他踩在上面往前跳跃，石头下面就是狐狸窝，窝里的小狐狸吓得惊恐万状。远处传来野猪在树干上磨牙时发出的微弱的喀嚓喀嚓的声音；然后，便会碰见一头巨大的灰色野兽，孤零零的，正在用它的獠牙把一棵大树的树皮划开撕成碎条，嘴里滴着白沫，眼睛冒出火光。

Or he would turn aside to the sound of clashing horns and hissing grunts, and dash past a couple of furious sambhur, staggering to and fro with lowered heads, striped with blood that showed black in the moonlight. Or at some rushing ford he would hear Jacala the Crocodile bellowing like a bull, or disturb a twined knot of the Poison People, but before they could strike he would be away and across the glistening shingle, and deep in the Jungle again. 或者，他躲开野猪之后又听见动物犄角的碰撞声和嘴里发出的嘶嘶声，接着，就看见一对愤怒的黑鹿正低着头踉踉跄跄地相互顶撞，浑身留下了在月光下呈黑色的道道血迹，他便赶紧从它们身边跑过去。或者来到水流湍急的浅滩，听见鳄鱼杰卡拉像公牛似地吼叫，或惊扰了蜷曲成一团的毒蛇，但是，还没等他们来得及向他发起进攻，他已经跑开，越过闪闪发光的卵石滩，又跑进丛林的深处。

So he ran, sometimes shouting, sometimes singing to himself, the happiest thing in all the Jungle that night, till the smell of the flowers warned him that he was near the marshes, and those lay far beyond his farthest hunting-grounds.就这样，他跑着，有时喊着，有时唱着，那天晚上丛林中属他最幸福，直到闻见了花香，他才知道已经接近沼泽地，而那些别的沼泽地离他最远的猎场还很远很远。