一时冲动 (其实是蓄谋已久) 开始翻译 Lolita 原著
首发《序言》中英文对照:
Vladimir Nabokov
弗拉吉米尔•纳博科夫
Lolita
萝莉塔
To Véra
献给 维娜
Foreword
序言
"Lolita, or the Confession of a White Widowed Male," such were the two titles under which the writer of the present note received the strange pages it preambulates. "Humbert Humbert," their author, had died in legal captivity, of coronary thrombosis, on November 16, 1952, a few days before his trial was scheduled to start. His lawyer, my good friend and relation, Clarence Choate Clark, Esq., now of he District of Columbia bar, in asking me to edit the manuscript, based his request on a clause in his client's will which empowered my eminent cousin to use his discretion in all matters pertaining to the preparation of "Lolita" for print. Mr. Clark's decision may have been influenced by the fact that the editor of his choice had just been awarded the Poling Prize for a modest work ("Do the Senses make Sense?") wherein certain morbid states and perversions had been discussed.
这个奇特的前言是作序者为这本叫《萝莉塔》，或者《一个白人鳏夫的自白》的书而写的。此书的作者，“亨伯特•亨伯特”已于1952年11月16日因冠状动脉栓塞死在监狱中——在他即将被审判的几天前。他的律师，也是我的亲戚兼朋友，现工作于哥伦比亚区律师行的克拉伦斯•乔克•克拉克先生，拜托我来为《萝莉塔》脚本的付印作编辑工作。因为在这位客户留给我的大名鼎鼎的表兄的遗书上嘱咐无论如何都要将其出版。而克拉克先生选择了我这位编辑的原因，大概是我刚因一篇讨论病态和扭曲心理的拙作《意识的意义?》而获得了普林奖吧。
My task proved simpler than either of us had anticipated. Save for the correction of obvious solecisms and a careful suppression of a few tenacious details that despite "H.H."'s own efforts still subsisted in his text as signposts and tombstones (indicative of places or persons that taste would conceal and compassion spare), this remarkable memoir is presented intact. Its author's bizarre cognomen is his own invention; and, of course, this mask — through which two hypnotic eyes seem to glow — had to remain unlifted in accordance with its wearer's wish. While "Haze" only rhymes with the heroine's real surname, her first name is too closely interwound with the inmost fiber of the book to allow one to alter it; nor (as the reader will perceive for himself) is there any practical necessity to do so. References to "H.H."'s crime may be looked up by the inquisitive in the daily papers for September-October 1952; its cause and purpose would have continued to come under my reading lamp.
结果出乎我俩的意料，我工作得很轻松。除开纠正一些明显的语法错误，以及仔细掩盖一些“亨•亨”自己没有检查出来的，过于明显的细节（以保护和隐匿有关人物和地址），这本非凡的文集几乎未经改动。而本书作者的奇特的笔名这是他本人起的——按照他的遗愿，这个新奇的笔名理所当然的被保留了下来。除此之外，尽管书中女主角的姓——“黑治”，仅仅是个和她真姓押韵的替名，但是她的名字却如实地写入书中——不仅因为没有太大的必要性，而且这个名字与本书的情节有着很多隐秘的联系。关于“亨•亨”的犯罪，相关材料可以在1952年九月到十月的日报中查询到，而此事真正的起因和目的，则会由我亲自在书桌前审阅了。
For the benefit of old-fashioned readers who wish to follow the destinies of the "real" people beyond the "true" story, a few details may be given as received from Mr. "Windmuller," of "Ramsdale," who desires his identity suppressed so that "the long shadow of this sorry and sordid business" should not reach the community to which he is proud to belong. His daughter, "Louise," is by now a college sophomore, "Mona Dahl" is a student in Paris. "Rita" has recently married the proprietor of a hotel in Florida. Mrs. "Richard F. Schiller" died in childbed, giving birth to a stillborn girl, on Christmas Day 1952, in Gray Star, a settlement in the remotest Northwest. "Vivian Darkbloom" has written a biography, "My Cue," to be published shortly, and critics who have perused the manuscript call it her best book. The caretakers of the various cemeteries involved report that no ghosts walk.
不过为了有“经典阅读习惯”、喜欢了解真实故事背后的真正主角的命运的读者着想，一些来自“蓝斯代尔”的“温德木勒”先生提供的资料可以公布出来——为了保证这个“不洁而且令人遗憾的事件” 的阴影不会波及到“温德木勒”先生引以为傲的社区，此人的真实身份必然被隐去了。他的女儿，“路易丝”，现在已是一名大二学生；“蒙娜•达尔”，是一名在巴黎的学生；“丽塔”最近刚和弗罗里达州的一个旅馆主结婚；“理查德•F•席勒”太太已于1952年圣诞节死于难产，腹中的女婴也死去了，现埋葬于格雷斯达德西北部；“维维安•达克布隆”写了一本叫做《我的暗语》的自传，即将出版，已经阅读了草稿的评论家们认为此书是她的最佳作品。此外，各个相关墓地的看护人没有报告有幽灵出没。
Viewed simply as a novel, "Lolita" deals with situations and emotions that would remain exasperatingly vague to the reader had their expression been etiolated by means of platitudinous evasions. True, not a single obscene term is to be found in the whole work; indeed, the robust philistine who is conditioned by modern conventions into accepting without qualms a lavish array of four-letter words in a banal novel, will be quite shocked by their absence here. If, however, for this paradoxical prude's comfort, an editor attempted to dilute or omit scenes that a certain type of mind might call "aphrodisiac" (see in this respect the monumental decision rendered December 6, 1933, by Hon. John M. Woolsey in regard to another, considerably more outspoken, book), one would have to forego the publication of "Lolita" altogether, since those very scenes that one might ineptly accuse of sensuous existence of their own, are the most strictly functional ones in the development of a tragic tale tending unswervingly to nothing less than a moral apotheosis. The cynic may say that commercial pornography makes the same claim; the learned may counter by asserting that "H.H."'s impassioned confession is a tempest in a test tube; that at least 12% of American adult males — a "conservative" estimate according to Dr. Blanche Schwarzmann (verbal communication) — enjoy yearly, in one way or another, the special experience "H.H." describes with such despair; that had our demented diarist gone, in the fatal summer of 1947, to a competent psycho-pathologist, there would have been no disaster; but then, neither would there have been this book.
仅从小说的角度看，《萝莉塔》描述了一些对于古板而想象力失活得读者来说，极度暧昧的情景和感情。的确，你无法在这本书找出任何淫秽的词语；那些精力过剩的俗人在饱读那些充满“四字母单词”的现代世俗小说后，会震惊的意识到此词在这本书中的“缺席”。但是如果一个假正经的编辑试图来改写或者删节那些含有所谓“催情”内容的场景的话，这本《萝莉塔》就剩不了几个字了。（参见1933年12月6日，尊敬的约翰•M•沃斯利对于另一部更加直白的书作出的“不朽的”评价）因为那些会被无理的批作“纯粹感性”的情节，正是这个完全匹敌于一部道德经典的悲剧故事的不可或缺的组成部分。一些愤世嫉俗者可能会说，商业色情业可以如此自我辩护，但是有知识的人会知道，“亨•亨”充满激情的自我坦白仅仅是冰山一角：根据布兰奇•许瓦尔兹博士（口头）保守的估计，每年大约至少12%的美国成年男子都会经历如同“亨•亨”所描述的特殊遭遇。假使在那个致命的1947年夏天，我们这位精神不正常的自白者去拜访了专职心理病理学者的话，书中的这一切灾难都不会发生；不过如果这样的话，这本书也就不会诞生了。
This commentator may be excused for repeating what he has stressed in his own books and lectures, namely that "offensive" is frequently but a synonym for "unusual;" and a great work of art is of course always original, and thus by its very nature should come as a more or less shocking surprise. I have no intention to glorify "H.H." No doubt, he is horrible, he is abject, he is a shining example of moral leprosy, a mixture of ferocity and jocularity that betrays supreme misery perhaps, but is not conducive to attractiveness. He is ponderously capricious. Many of his casual opinions on the people and scenery of this country are ludicrous. A desperate honesty that throbs through his confession does not absolve him from sins of diabolical cunning. He is abnormal. He is not a gentleman. But how magically his singing violin can conjure up a tendresse, a compassion for Lolita that makes us entranced with the book while abhorring its author!
请原谅作序者反复的强调在他本人的著作和演讲中出现过的内容：很多情况下，“特别”的同义词是“令人不快”。一件伟大的艺术作品当然是具有独创性的，因此自然会带给鉴赏者一些具有冲击性的惊奇。我并不是想赞扬“亨•亨”，毫无疑问他是卑鄙可憎的，是典型的道德败坏者，是一个残忍和滑稽的不幸的混合体，而且毫无魅力。他极端的反复无常。他的很多关于这个国家的人文风俗的常识是可笑的。他透过自白表达出的竭尽全力的诚实并不能令他的恶魔般的狡诈受到赦免。他是一个变态者，完全称不上是一个绅士。但是他那魔琴般的故事却召唤出我们对萝莉塔的爱和怜悯，在憎恶书的作者的同时却深深地被书吸引。
As a case history, "Lolita" will become, no doubt, a classic in psychiatric circles. As a work of art, it transcends its expiatory aspects; and still more important to us than scientific significance and literary worth, is the ethical impact the book should have on the serious reader; for in this poignant personal study there lurks a general lesson; the wayward child, the egotistic mother, the panting maniac — these are not only vivid characters in a unique story: they warn us of dangerous trends; they point out potent evils. "Lolita" should make all of us — parents, social workers, educators — apply ourselves with still greater vigilance and vision to the task of bringing up a better generation in a safer world.
作为一个历史事件，《萝莉塔》毫无疑问将成为一个精神病学界的经典案例。作为一件艺术作品，它超越了它本身“赎罪”的目的。比起科学价值和艺术成就，对我们来说更重要的，是它给一个严肃的读者带来的道德冲击。因为在这个痛苦的个人经验中，暗含着一个广泛的教训，书中任性的小孩，自私的母亲和恋裤狂都不仅仅是一个特殊的故事中的栩栩如生的角色——他们为我们指出潜在的邪恶，向我们提出对危险倾向的警告。《萝莉塔》应该让我们所有人，家长、社会工作者、教育者，对肩负的重担提高警惕，以一个更安全的世界来养育后代。
Widworth, Mass.
韦德沃斯，马萨诸塞州
John Ray, Jr., Ph.D.
小约翰•莱 博士
August 5, 1955
1955年8月5日
