评论
打印
Mr. Pneumonia was not what you would call a chivalric old gentleman.
肺炎先生不是一个你们心目中行侠仗义的老的绅士。
A mite of a little woman with blood thinned by California zephyrs was hardly fair game for the red-fisted, short-breathed old duffer.
一个身子单薄，被加利福尼亚州的西风刮得没有血色的弱女子，本来不应该是这个有着红拳头的、呼吸急促的老家伙打击的对象。
But Johnsy he smote; and she lay, scarcely moving, on her painted iron bedstead,
然而，琼西却遭到了打击；她躺在一张油漆过的铁床上，一动也不动，
looking through the small Dutch window-panes at the blank side of the next brick house.
凝望着小小的荷兰式玻璃窗外对面砖房的空墙。
One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a shaggy, grey eyebrow.
一天早晨，那个忙碌的医生扬了扬他那毛茸茸的灰白色眉毛，把苏叫到外边的走廊上。
"She has one chance in - let us say, ten," he said, as he shook down the mercury in his clinical thermometer.
“我看，她的病只有十分之一的恢复希望，”他一面把体温表里的水银柱甩下去，一面说，
"And that chance is for her to want to live.
“这一分希望就是她想要活下去的念头。
This way people have of lining-u on the side of the undertaker makes the entire pharmacopoeia look silly.
有些人好像不愿意活下去，喜欢照顾殡仪馆的生意，简直让整个医药界都无能为力。
Your little lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind?"
你的朋友断定自己是不会痊愈的了。她是不是有什么心事呢？”
"She - she wanted to paint the Bay of Naples some day." said Sue.
“她——她希望有一天能够去画那不勒斯的海湾。”苏说。
"Paint? - bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking twice - a man for instance?"
“画画？——真是瞎扯！她脑子里有没有什么值得她留恋的事——比如说，一个男人？”
"A man?" said Sue, with a jew's-harp twang in her voice. "Is a man worth - but, no, doctor; there is nothing of the kind."
“男人？”苏像吹口琴似的扯着嗓子说，“男人难道值得——不，医生，没有这样的事。”
"Well, it is the weakness, then," said the doctor. "I will do all that science, so far as it may filter through my efforts, can accomplish.
“那么，这就是弱点了，”医生说。“我要尽我所能的全部力量去治疗她。”
But whenever my patient begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines.
可要是我的病人开始算计会有多少辆马车送她出丧，我就得把治疗的效果减掉百分之五十。
If you will get her to ask one question about the new winter styles in cloak sleeves I will promise you a one-in-five chance for her, instead of one in ten."
只要你能想法让她对冬季大衣袖子的时新式样感到兴趣而提出一两个问题，那我可以向你保证把医好她的机会从十分之一提高到五分之一。”
