原文：
Most of the confidences were unsought - frequently I have feigned sleep, preoccupation or a hostile levity when I realised by some unmistakable sign that an intimate revelation was quivering on the horizon; for the intimate revelations of young men, or at least the term in which they express them, are usually plagiaristic and marred by obvious suppressions. Reserving judgements is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parcelled out unequally at birth.
译文：
这些秘密大多不请自来－每当察觉到眼下就要出现私密告白的明显迹象时，我常装睡，假装心事重重或不厌其烦的样子；因为年轻人的私密告白，或至少他们表达时的措辞，通常是从别处听来的，且明显有所隐瞒。我不加评判，是因为还心怀无限希望。正如父亲自我感觉优越地暗示过，而我也自认优越地再重复一次的，人的基本礼度因出身不平等而不同，我唯恐忘了这点会错过些什么。
有两点需要解释：
第一，I have feigned sleep, preoccupation or hostile levity 这个结构是并列的，根据上下文可知，“我”其实想避开这些私密告白。 将“常装睡，假装全神贯注或是不厌其烦”这三个状态中的 preoccupation 翻译成“全神贯注”不够准确，因为“全神贯注”是正面的，指集中精神，它与“装睡”、“不厌其烦”所表现的有意避开不相配，会造成理解混乱。选择Preoccupation另外的释义“心事重重”，则会更贴近作者避开私密告白的本意。
网友评论