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"Let me ask you the question that you asked Strickland. Do you never regret France and your old home in Brittany?"
“让我问你一个问题：这个问题你过去也问过思特里克兰德。你离开了法国，把布列塔尼的老家抛在脑后，从来也没有后悔过吗？”
"Some day, when my daughter is married and my son has a wife and is able to take my place on the island, we shall go back and finish our days in the old house in which I was born."
“将来有一天，等我女儿结了婚，我儿子娶了妻子，能够把我在岛上的一番事业接过去以后，我就和我妻子回去，在我出生的那所老房子里度过我们的残年。”
"You will look back on a happy life," I said.
“你那时回顾过去，会感到这一辈子是过得很幸福的。”
"Evidemment, it is not exciting on my island, and we are very far from the world—imagine, it takes me four days to come to Tahiti—but we are happy there. It is given to few men to attempt a work and to achieve it. Our life is simple and innocent. We are untouched by ambition, and what pride we have is due only to our contemplation of the work of our hands. Malice cannot touch us, nor envy attack. Ah, mon cher monsieur, they talk of the blessedness of labour, and it is a meaningless phrase, but to me it has the most intense significance. I am a happy man."
“当然了，在我们那个小岛上，日子可以说比较平淡，我们离开文明社会非常遥远——你可以想象一下，就是到塔希提来一趟，在路上也要走四天，但是我们过得很幸福。世界上只有少数人能够最终达到自己的理想。我们的生活很单纯、很简朴。我们并不野心勃勃，如果说我们也有骄傲的话，那是因为在想到通过双手获得的劳动成果时的骄傲。我们对别人既不嫉妒，更不怀恨。唉，我亲爱的先生，有人认为劳动的幸福是句空话，对我说来可不是这样。我深深感到这句话的重要意义。我是个很幸福的人。”
"I am sure you deserve to be," I smiled.
“我相信你是有资格这样说的。”
"I wish I could think so. I do not know how I have deserved to have a wife who was the perfect friend and helpmate, the perfect mistress and the perfect mother."
“我也希望我能这样想。我的妻子不只是我贴心的朋友，还是我的好助手；不只是贤妻，还是良母，我真是配不上她。”
I reflected for a while on the life that the Captain suggested to my imagination.
船长的这番话在我的脑子里描绘了别样一种生活，使我思索了好大一会儿。
"It is obvious that to lead such an existence and make so great a success of it, you must both have needed a strong will and a determined character."
“你过着这样的生活，而且取得很大成功，显然这不只需要坚强的意志，而且要有坚毅的性格。”我说。
"Perhaps; but without one other factor we could have achieved nothing."
“也许你说得对。但是如果没有另外一个因素，我们是什么也做不成的。”
"And what was that?"
“那是什么呢？”
He stopped, somewhat dramatically, and stretched out his arm.
他站住了，有些象演戏似地抬起了两只胳臂。
"Belief in God. Without that we should have been lost."
“对上帝的信仰。要是不相信上帝我们早就迷途了。”
Then we arrived at the house of Dr. Coutras.
话说到这里，我们已经走到库特拉斯医生的门口。
