张爱玲《雨伞下》中英互译及读后感

时间:2021-08-31

张爱玲《雨伞下》中文原文】

  下大雨,有人打着伞,有人没带伞。没伞的挨着有伞的,钻到伞底下去躲雨,多少有点掩蔽,可是伞的边缘滔滔流下水来,反而比外面的雨更来得凶。挤在伞沿下的人,头上游得稀湿。

  当然这是说教式的寓言,意义很明显:穷人结交富人,往往要赔本,某一次在雨天的街头想到这一节,一直没有写出来,因为太像讷厂①先生茶话的作风了。

  (收入《流言》,1944年12月中国科学公司初版)

  ① 讷厂,原名严谔声,三四十年代上海知名的小报作家。

【张爱玲《雨伞下》英文译文】

  It’s pouring. Some people are carrying umbrellas and some people are not. Those who don’t have an umbrella press against those who do, squeezing beneath the edges of passing umbrellas to avoid the rain and afford themselves a little shelter. But the water cascading from the umbrellas turns out to be worse than the rain itself, and the heads of the people squeezed in between are soaked to the skin.

  This is a parable, of course, the moral of which is perfectly clear: when poor folks associate with the rich, they usually get soaked. I thought of it one rainy day but never wrote it down, because it sounds too much like the style of the tabloid “tea talks” of Mr. Nachang (1).

  (1) A celebrated columnist in the Shanghai tabloids of the 1930s and 1940s.

【张爱玲《雨伞下》读后感】

  张爱玲大雅大俗。说她雅,她出身于逐渐没落的贵族家庭,有着深厚的中西合璧的文化底蕴,因而能够写出常人不能写的文章;说她俗,因为她经历了常人难得经历的世情,她自小就对金钱看得很重,斤斤计较。也许正因为她俗到骨子里,没有了一般文人的自高自贵的毛病,所以她总能理解生活中芸芸众生的苦难与心理诉求,因此她的文章于清淡处藏珠玑,在平静中响惊雷。