The Great Gatsby (Excerpt)

了不起的盖茨比（节选）

I spent my Saturday nights in New York because those gleaming, dazzling parties of his were with me so vividly that I could still hear the music and the laughter, faint and incessant, from his garden, and the cars going up and down his drive.

每星期六晚上我都是在纽约度过的，因为盖茨比举办的那些灯火辉煌、光彩炫目的宴会使我记忆犹新，所以我仍然可以听到微弱的音乐声和欢笑声不断地从他的园子里飘过来，还有一辆辆汽车在他的车道上开来开去。

One night I did hear a material car there, and saw its lights stop at his front steps.

一天晚上我确实听见那儿有一辆汽车，也看见车灯照在他门前的台阶上。

But I didn't investigate.

我没有去调查。

Probably it was some final guest who had been away at the ends of the earth and didn't know that the party was over.

那大概是最后一位客人，刚从天涯海角归来，还不知道宴会早已收场了。

On the last night, with my trunk packed and my car sold to the grocer, I went over and looked at that huge incoherent failure of a house once more.

在最后那个晚上，我的行李已经收拾好了，车子也卖给了杂货店老板，我走过去又看了一眼那座庞大而零乱的、意味着失败的房子。

On the white steps an obscene word，scrawled by some boy with a piece of brick, stood out clearly in the moonlight, and I erased it，drawing my shoe raspingly along the stone.

白色台阶不知被哪个男孩用砖头写了一个脏字儿，映在月光里分外醒目，于是我把它擦了，鞋子在石头上蹭出沙沙的响声。

Then I wandered down to the beach and sprawled out on the sand.

然后我又漫步到海边，仰天躺在沙滩上。

Most of the big shore places were closed now and there were hardly any lights except the shadowy, moving glow of a ferryboat across the Sound.

那些海滨大别墅现在大多已经关闭了，除了海湾上一只渡船的幽暗漂移的灯光，四周几乎没有灯火。

And as the moon rose higher the inessential houses began to melt away until gradually I became aware of the old island here that flowered once for Dutch sailors' eyes一a fresh, green breast of the new world.

当明月上升的时候，那些微不足道的房屋慢慢消逝，我逐渐看见了当年曾令荷兰水手眼睛大放异彩的这个古岛—一片清新碧绿的新世界。

Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams;

它那些消失了的树木，那些为盖茨比的别墅让路而被砍伐的树木，曾经一度迎风飘拂，在这里低声响应着人类最后的也是最伟大的梦想；

for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

在那个昙花一现的神妙的瞬间，人在面对这个新大陆时一定屏息惊异，不由自主地堕入他既不理解也不企求的一种美学的观赏中，在历史上最后一次面对着和他感到惊奇的能力相称的奇观。

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock.

当我坐在那里缅怀那个古老的、未知的世界时，我也想起了盖茨比第一次认出了黛西的那个码头的尽头的那盏绿灯时所感到的巨大惊奇。

He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it.

他经历了漫漫长路才来到这片草坪上，那时候他的梦一定就近在眼前，他几乎不可能抓不住的。

He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

他不知道那个梦已经丢在他背后了，丢在这个城市不知何处的一片无垠的混沌之中了，在那里，美利坚合众国的黑黝黝的田野在夜色中向前伸展。

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us.

盖茨比信奉这盏绿灯，这个逐年在我们眼前渐渐远去的极乐未来。

It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther...

它从前逃脱了我们的追求，不过没关系—明天我们跑得更快一点，把手臂伸得更远一点……

And one fine morning...

总有一天……

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.

于是我们奋力向前划，逆流向上的小舟，不停地倒退，进入过去。