杨宪益、戴乃迭英译鲁迅《一件小事》赏析
2018-05-10 11:08阅读：
《一件小事》
一件小事
鲁迅
我从乡下跑到京城里，一转眼已经六年了。其间耳闻目睹的所谓国家大事，算起来也很不少；但在我心里，都不留什么痕迹。倘要我寻出这些事的影响来说，便只是增长了我的坏脾气，——老实说，便是教我一天比一天的看不起人。
有一件小事，却于我有意义，将我从坏脾气里拖开，使我至今忘记不得。
这是民国六年的冬天，大北风刮得正猛，我因为生计关系，不得不一早在路上走。一路几乎遇不见人，好容易才雇定了一辆人力车，教他拉到S门去。不一会，北风小了，路上浮尘早已刮净，剩
下一条洁白的大道来，车夫也跑得更快。刚近S门，忽而车把上带着一个人，慢慢地倒了。
跌倒的是一个女人，花白头发，衣服都很破烂。伊从马路边上突然向车前横截过来；车夫已经让开道，但伊的破棉背心没有上扣，微风吹着，向外展开，所以终于兜着车把。幸而车夫早有点停步，否则伊定要栽一个大斤斗，跌到头破血出了。
伊伏在地上；车夫便也立住脚。我料定这老女人并没有伤，又没有别人看见，便很怪他多事，要自己惹出是非，也误了我的路。
我便对他说，“没有什么的。走你的罢！”
车夫毫不理会，——或者并没有听到，——却放下车子，扶那老女人慢慢起来，搀着臂膊立定，问伊说：
“你怎么啦？”
“我摔坏了。”
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我想，我眼见你慢慢倒地，怎么会摔坏呢，装腔作势罢了，这真可憎恶。车夫多事，也正是自讨苦吃，现在你自己想法去。
车夫听了这老女人的话，却毫不踌躇，仍然搀着伊的臂膊，便一步一步的向前走。我有些诧异，忙看前面，是一所巡警分驻所，大风之后，外面也不见人。这车夫扶着那老女人，便正是向那大门走去。
我这时突然感到一种异样的感觉，觉得他满身灰尘的后影，刹时高大了，而且愈走愈大，须仰视才见。而且他对于我，渐渐的又几乎变成一种威压，甚而至于要榨出皮袍下面藏着的“小”来。
我的活力这时大约有些凝滞了，坐着没有动，也没有想，直到看见分驻所里走出一个巡警，才下了车。
巡警走近我说，“你自己雇车罢，他不能拉你了。”
我没有思索的从外套袋里抓出一大把铜元，交给巡警，说，“请你给他……”
风全住了，路上还很静。我走着，一面想，几乎怕敢想到自己。以前的事姑且搁起，这一大把铜元又是什么意思？奖他么？我还能裁判车夫么？我不能回答自己。
这事到了现在，还是时时记起。我因此也时时煞了苦痛，努力的要想到我自己。几年来的文治武力，在我早如幼小时候所读过的“子曰诗云'一般，背不上半句了。独有这一件小事，却总是浮在我眼前，有时反更分明，教我惭愧，催我自新，并且增长我的勇气和希望。
（摘自鲁迅《鲁迅全集》，第一卷，北京：人民文学出版社，1982。）
（选自杨宪益、戴乃迭译《鲁迅作品选集》）
A SMALL INCIDENT
Six years have slipped by since I came from the country to
the capital. During that time the number of so-called affairs of
state I have witnessed or heard about is far from small, but none
of them made much impression. If asked to define their influence on
me, I can only say they made my bad temper worse. Frankly speaking,
they taught me to take a poorer view of people every
day.
One small incident, however, which struck me as significant
and jolted me out of my irritability, remains fixed even now in my
memory.
It was the winter of 1917, a strong north wind was
blustering, but the exigencies of earning my living forced me to be
up and out early. I met scarcely a soul on the road, but eventually
managed to hire a rickshaw to take me to S-Gate. Presently the wind
dropped a little, having blown away the drifts of dust on the road
to leave a clean broad highway, and the rickshaw man quickened his
pace. We were just approaching S-Gate when we knocked into someone
who slowly toppled over.
It was a grey-haired woman in ragged clothes. She had stepped
out abruptly from the roadside in front of us, and although the
rickshaw man had swerved, her tattered padded waistcoat, unbuttoned
and billowing in the wind, had caught on the shaft. Luckily the
rickshaw man had slowed down, otherwise she would certainly have
had a bad fall and it might have been a serious
accident.
She huddled there on the ground, and the rickshaw man
stopped. As I did not believe the old woman was hurt and as no one
else had seen us, I thought this halt of his uncalled for, liable
to land him trouble and hold me up.
'It's all right,' I said. 'Go on.'
He paid no attention - he may not have heard - but set down
the shafts, took the old woman's arm and gently helped her
up.
'Are you all right?' he asked.
'I hurt myself falling.'
I thought: I saw how slowly you fell, how could you be hurt?
Putting on an act like this is simply disgusting. The rickshaw man
asked for trouble, and now he's got it. He'll have to find his own
way out.
But the rickshaw man did not hesitate for a minute after
hearing the old woman's answer. Still holding her arm, he helped
her slowly forward. Rather puzzled by his I looked ahead and saw a
police-station. Because of the high wind, there was no one outside.
It was there that the rickshaw man was taking the old
woman.
Suddenly I had the strange sensation that his dusty
retreating figure had in that instant grown larger. Indeed, the
further he walked the larger he loomed, until I had to look up to
him. At the same time he seemed gradually to be exerting a pressure
on me which threatened to overpower the small self hidden under my
fur-lined gown. Almost paralysed at that juncture I sat there
motionless, my mind a blank, until a policeman came out. Then I got
down from the rickshaw.
The policeman came up to me and said, 'Get another rickshaw.
He can't take you any further.'
On the spur of the moment I pulled a handful of coppers from
my coat pocket and handed them to the policeman. 'Please give him
this,' I said.
The wind had dropped completely, but the road was still
quiet. As I walked along thinking, I hardly dared to think about
myself. Quite apart from what had happened earlier, what had I
meant by that handful of coppers? Was it a reward? Who was I to
judge the rickshaw man? I could give myself no answer.
Even now, this incident keeps coming back to me. It keeps
distressing me and makes me try to think about myself. The politics
and the fighting of those years have slipped my mind as completely
as the classics I read as a child. Yet this small incident keeps
coming back to me, often more vivid than in actual life, teaching
me shame, spurring me on to reform, and imbuing me with fresh
courage and fresh hope.
Translated by Yang Xianyi and Gladys Yang
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