goodbye Mr.Chips翻译.doc

Goodbye, Mr. Chips (Excerpted)
by James Hilton

When you are getting on in years (but not ill, of course), you get very sleepy at times, and the hours seem to pass like lazy cattle moving across a landscape.
It was like that for Chips as the autumn term progressed and the days shortened till it was actually dark enough to light the gas before call-over.
For Chips, like some old sea captain, still measured time by the signals of the past; and well he might, for he lived at Mrs. Wickett's, just across the road from the School.
He had been there more than a decade, ever since he finally gave up his mastership; and it was Brookfield far more than Greenwich time that both he and his landlady kept.
"Mrs. Wickett," Chips would sing out, in that jerky, high-pitched voice that had still a good deal of sprightliness in it, "you might bring me a cup of tea before prep, will you?"

When you are getting on in years it is nice to sit by the fire and drink a cup of tea and listen to the school bell sounding dinner, call-over, prep, and lights-out.
Chips always wound up the clock after that last bell; then he put the wire guard in front of the fire, turned out the gas, and carried a detective novel to bed.
Rarely did he read more than a page of it before sleep came swiftly and peacefully, more like a mystic intensifying of perception than any changeful entrance into another world.
For his days and nights were equally full of dreaming.
He was getting on in years (but not ill, of course); indeed, as Doctor Merivale said, there was really nothing the matter with him.

"My dear fellow, you're fitter than I am," Merivale would say, sipping a glass of sherry when he called every fortnight or so.

"You're past the age when people get these horrible diseases; you're one of the few lucky ones who're going to die a really natural death.

That is, of course, if you die at all. You're such a remarkable old boy that one never knows."
But when Chips had a cold or when east winds roared over the fenlands, Merivale would sometimes take Mrs. Wickett aside in the lobby and whisper: "Look after him, you know. His chest … it puts a strain on his heart.
Nothing really wrong with him—only anno domini, but that's the most fatal complaint of all, in the end."

Anno domini … by Jove, yes.
Born in 1848, and taken to the Great Exhibition as a toddling child—not many people still alive could boast a thing like that.

Besides, Chips could even remember Brookfield in Wetherby's time.

A phenomenon, that was. Wetherby had been an old man in those days—1870—easy to remember because of the Franco-Prussian War.

Chips had put in for Brookfield after a year at Melbury, which he hadn't liked, because he had been ragged there a good deal.
But Brookfield he had liked, almost from the beginning.
He remembered that day of his preliminary interview—sunny June, with the air full of flower scents and the plick-plock of cricket on the pitch.
Brookfield was playing Barnhurst, and one of the Barnhurst boys, a chubby little fellow, made a brilliant century.

Queer that a thing like that should stay in the memory so clearly.
Wetherby himself was very fatherly and courteous; he must have been ill then, poor chap, for he died during the summer vacation, before Chips began his first term.

But the two had seen and spoken to each other, anyway.
再见了，奇普先生
詹姆斯.希尔顿著

当你到了垂暮之年（当然不是因为生病），你常常会非常困倦，时间也会像一头慵懒的牛一样缓缓地走过田间。
在他被点名之前，这对奇普先生来说就像秋日的到来，白天变短直到黑暗把空气染的一片漆黑。
奇普就像有些老船长，仍然以过去的一些符号来记录时间，因为就住在学校对面维克特太太家的关系，他可能还很健康。
在他终于放弃了他的主人身份以后，他到这里已经有十多年了。没看懂

“维克特太太”奇普用他那激动中带着愉快的高音喊，“你会在备课之前给我一杯茶的，对吗？”
当你慢慢上了年纪，坐在火炉旁边，听着学校晚餐的钟声，点名，备课以及匆忙的脚步声是很惬意的。
奇普总是会在最后一声钟声响完以后给钟上足发条，给火炉放上铁丝护网，关掉煤气，然后拿一本书上床。
他很少在睡意迅速而又平静地来临之前读完一页书，比任何富有挑战性的进入另外一个世界的入口还有神秘的觉察力。
对他来说白天跟黑夜同样充满了梦境。
他在慢慢走向生命的最后那几年(当然不是因为疾病)，确实是，就像梅里韦尔医生说的那样，他真的一点问题都没有。

每两周或一段时间梅里韦尔医生都会叫奇普去他那儿。“我亲爱的朋友，你可是比我还健壮呢！”他总是呷着一杯雪利酒说。
“你已经过了那个人们感染可怕的疾病的年龄了，你是极少数几个可以幸运地自然死亡的的人里中的一个。
当然，如果你死了，你就是一个人人都知道很卓越的老男孩。”
但是当奇普先生得感冒或者是东风吹过沼泽地的时候，梅里韦尔医生有时候会和维克特太太走进大厅的时候跟她低语“照顾好他，你知道的，他的胸部…压迫着他的心脏。
对他来说没有什么是不公平的——除了anno domini，但到最后，这是让他感到最痛苦的。

Anno domini… by Jove, yes.
他生于1848年，在他还是一个很小的孩子的时候就被带去参加展览会，这可不是一件所有活着的人能够吹擂的事情。
而且，奇普还能记住在韦瑟比时期的布鲁克菲尔德。
有一个现象就是，韦瑟比在那个时候曾经是一个老人 ——在1870年的时候，由于普法战争，这是很容易记住的。
奇普在梅尔布里呆了一年之后选择了布鲁克菲尔德，因为他在那里被很多人嘲笑。
但是他喜欢上布鲁克菲尔德几乎是在最开始的时候。
他记得初试的那一天，晴朗的六月，空气里充满花的香气，球场上蟋蟀的方方糖。
布鲁克菲尔德姓巴尔赫斯特的人家比较多，有个巴尔赫斯特家的孩子，一个胖乎乎的男孩，创造了一个明亮的纪元。

搞糟一件这样的事情应该在脑海里留下深刻的印象。
韦瑟比自身是一个很慈祥，谦逊的人。他后来肯定生病了，在奇普开始他的第一个学期之前的那个暑假就去世了，可怜的家伙。
但是，无论如何，他们两见了面也说了话了。