競選州長

A few months ago I was nominated for Governor of the great state of New York, to run against Mr. John T. Smith and Mr. Blank J. Blank on an independent ticket. I somehow felt that I had one prominent advantage over these gentlemen, and that was--good character. It was easy to see by the newspapers that if ever they had known what it was to bear a good name, that time had gone by. It was plain that in these latter years they had become familiar with all manner of shameful crimes. But at the very moment that I was exalting my advantage and joying in it in secret, there was a muddy undercurrent of discomfort "riling" the deeps of my happiness, and that was--the having to hear my name bandied about in familiar connection with those of such people. I grew more and more disturbed. Finally I wrote my grandmother about it. Her answer came quick and sharp. She said:

几个月以前，我被提名为独立党的纽约州州长候选人，与斯图阿特-伍德福先生和约翰-霍夫曼先生竞选。我总觉得我有一个显著的长处胜过这两位先生，那就是——声望还好。从报纸上很容易看出，即令他们曾经知道保持名誉的好处，那个时候也已经过去了。近几年来，他们显然对各式各样可耻的罪行都习以为常了。但是正当我还在赞美自己的长处，并因此暗自得意的时候，却有一股不愉快的浑浊潜流“搅浑”我那快乐心情的深处，那就是——不得不听到我的名字动辄被人家拿来与那些人相提并论地到处传播。我心里越来越烦乱。后来我就写信给我的祖母，报告这桩事情。她的信回得又快又干脆。她说：

You have never done one single thing in all your life to be ashamed of--not one. Look at the newspapers--look at them and comprehend what sort of characters Messrs. Smith and Blank are, and then see if you are willing to lower yourself to their level and enter a public canvass with them.
你生平从来没有干过一桩可羞的事情——从来没有。你看看报纸吧——你看一看，要明白伍德福和霍夫曼这两位先生是一种什么人物，然后想一想你是否情愿把自己降到他们的水平，和他们公开竞选。

It was my very thought! I did not sleep a single moment that night. But, after all, I could not recede.
我也正是这么想呀！那天晚上我片刻也没有睡着。可是事已至此，我究竟无法撒手了。

I was fully committed, and must go on with the fight. As I was looking listlessly over the papers at breakfast I came across this paragraph, and I may truly say I never was so confounded before.
我已经完全卷入了漩涡，不得不继续这场斗争。早餐时，我无精打采地看着报纸，忽然发现下面这么一段。老实说，我从来没有那么吃惊过。

PERJURY.--Perhaps, now that Mr. Mark Twain is before the people as a candidate for Governor, he will condescend to explain how he came to be convicted of perjury by thirty-four witnesses in Wakawak, Cochin China, in 1863, the intent of which perjury being to rob a poor native widow and her helpless family of a meager plantain-patch, their only stay and support in their bereavement and desolation. Mr. Twain owes it to himself, as well as to the great people whose suffrages he asks, to clear this matter up. Will he do it?
伪证罪——马克-吐温先生现在既然在大众面前当了州长候选人，他也许会赏个面子，说明一下他怎么会在一八六三年在交趾支那瓦卡瓦克被三十四个证人证明犯了伪证罪。那次做伪证的意图是要从一个贫苦的土著寡妇及其无依无靠的儿女手里夺取一块贫瘠的香蕉园，那是他们失去亲人之后的凄凉生活中惟一的依靠和惟一的生活来源。吐温先生应该把这桩事情交代清楚，才对得起他自己，才对得起他所要求投票支持他的广大人民。他是否会照办呢？

I thought I should burst with amazement! Such a cruel, heartless charge! I never had seen Cochin China! I never had heard of Wakawak! I didn't know a plantain-patch from a kangaroo! I did not know what to do. I was crazed and helpless. I let the day slip away without doing anything at all. The next morning the same paper had this--nothing more:
我觉得我简直诧异得要爆炸了，这样残酷无情的诬蔑！我一辈子连见也没有见过交趾支那！瓦卡瓦克我连听也没有听说过！至于香蕉园，我简直就不知道它和一只袋鼠有什么区别！我真不知道怎么办才好。我简直弄得神经错乱，不知所措。我只好把那一天混过去，根本就没有采取任何步骤。第二天早上，同一报纸上登着这么一条（别的什么也没有）：

SIGNIFICANT.--Mr. Twain, it will be observed, is suggestively silent about the Cochin China perjury.
耐人寻味——大家都会注意到，吐温先生对于那桩交趾支那的伪证案保持缄默，似有隐衷。

[Mem.--During the rest of the campaign this paper never referred to me in any other way than as "the infamous perjurer Twain."]
（附注——从此以后，在竞选运动期中，这个报纸一提到我，惟一的称呼就始终是“无耻的伪证制造者吐温”。）

Next came the Gazette, with this:
其次是《新闻报》，上面登着这么一段：

WANTED TO KNOW.--Will the new candidate for Governor deign to explain to certain of his fellow-citizens (who are suffering to vote for him!) the little circumstance of his cabin-mates in Montana losing small valuables from time to time, until at last, these things having been invariably found on Mr. Twain's person or in his "trunk" (newspaper he rolled his traps in), they felt compelled to give him a friendly admonition for his own good, and so tarred and feathered him, and rode him on a rail; and then advised him to leave a permanent vacuum in the place he usually occupied in the camp. Will he do this?
敬请说明——新任州长竞选人可否将下述事实经过向本市若干迫切等待着给他投票的市民赐予说明，以释群疑？他在蒙大拿的时候，和他同住在一间小房子里的伙伴们时常遗失一些小小的贵重物品，后来这些东西通通在吐温先生身上或是他的“皮箱”（他用来包裹身边物品的报纸）里找到了。于是大家为了帮助他改过自新，就不得不对他进一番友谊的忠告，所以就给他浑身涂满柏油，粘上羽毛，让他吃“坐木杠”的苦头，然后就叫他永远离开他在这个工棚里所占的位子。这究竟是怎么回事，他可以说明一下吗？

Could anything be more deliberately malicious than that? For I never was in Montana in my life.
世间还能有比这更居心险恶的事情吗？我是一辈子没有到过蒙大拿的。

[After this, this journal customarily spoke of me as, "Twain, the Montana Thief."]
（从此以后，这个报纸就照例把我叫做“蒙大拿的小偷吐温”。）

I got to picking up papers apprehensively--much as one would lift a desired blanket which he had some idea might have a rattlesnake under it. One day this met my eye:
于是我渐渐对报纸有了戒心，一拿起来就觉得提心吊胆——很像一个人想睡觉的时候去揭开床毯，可是脑子里却担心那底下会有一条响尾蛇似的。有一天，我又看到这么一段：

THE LIE NAILED.--By the sworn affidavits of Michael O'Flanagan, Esq., of the Five Points, and Mr. Snub Rafferty and Mr. Catty Mulligan, of Water Street, it is established that Mr. Mark Twain's vile statement that the lamented grandfather of our noble standard- bearer, Blank J. Blank, was hanged for highway robbery, is a brutal and gratuitous LIE, without a shadow of foundation in fact. It is disheartening to virtuous men to see such shameful means resorted to to achieve political success as the attacking of the dead in their graves, and defiling their honored names with slander. When we think of the anguish this miserable falsehood must cause the innocent relatives and friends of the deceased, we are almost driven to incite an outraged and insulted public to summary and unlawful vengeance upon the traducer. But no! let us leave him to the agony of a lacerated conscience (though if passion should get the better of the public, and in its blind fury they should do the traducer bodily injury, it is but too obvious that no jury could convict and no court punish the perpetrators of the deed).
谣言被揭穿了——根据五点区的迈克尔-欧弗兰纳根先生和水街的启特-柏恩斯先生及约翰-亚伦先生三人宣誓负责的证词，现已证明马克-吐温先生诬蔑我党德高望重的领袖约翰-霍夫曼已故的祖父，说他是因犯盗劫罪被处绞刑的。这种卑鄙的说法是一种下流的无端的谣言，连丝毫事实根据的踪影都没有。像这样毁谤九泉之下的死者并以谰言玷污他们的令名的无耻手段，竟被人用以博得政治上的成功，这实在叫正人君子看了寒心。我们想到这种卑鄙的谣言给死者清白的家属和亲友们必然带来的悲恸时，几乎激动得要把受了污蔑和侮辱的公众鼓动起来，采取断然行动，对诽谤者施行非法的报复。但是我们不这么办！还是让他去受到良心的谴责而苦痛吧。（不过公众如果让感情的冲动占了上风，在盲目的愤怒支配之下竟至对诽谤者加以人身的伤害，显而易见，陪审员是不能给这些激于义愤的人们定罪的，法院也不能对他们加以处罚。）

The ingenious closing sentence had the effect of moving me out of bed with despatch that night, and out at the back door also, while the "outraged and insulted public" surged in the front way, breaking furniture and windows in their righteous indignation as they came, and taking off such property as they could carry when they went. And yet I can lay my hand upon the Book and say that I never slandered Mr. Blank's grandfather. More: I had never even heard of him or mentioned him up to that day and date.
末尾那句巧妙的话居然大起作用，当天夜里就有一群“受了污蔑和侮辱的公众”从我的房子前面冲进来，把我吓得连忙从床上爬起来，由后门逃出去。那些人满腔义愤，来势汹汹，一进门就捣毁了家具和窗户，走的时候把能带走的财物都拿去了。但是我可以把手按在《圣经》上发誓，我从来没有诽谤过霍夫曼州长的祖父。不但如此，直到那一天为止，我还从来没有听说过他，也从来没有提到过他。

[I will state, in passing, that the journal above quoted from always referred to me afterward as "Twain, the Body-Snatcher."]
（我要顺便说一声，从那以后，上面所引的那个报纸就把我称为“盗尸犯吐温”。）

The next newspaper article that attracted my attention was the following:
其次一条引起了我的注意的新闻是这样说的：

A SWEET CANDIDATE.--Mr. Mark Twain, who was to make such a blighting speech at the mass-meeting of the Independents last night, didn't come to time! A telegram from his physician stated that he had been knocked down by a runaway team, and his leg broken in two places--sufferer lying in great agony, and so forth, and so forth, and a lot more bosh of the same sort. And the Independents tried hard to swallow the wretched subterfuge, and pretend that they did not know what was the real reason of the absence of the abandoned creature whom they denominate their standard-bearer. A certain man was seen to reel into Mr. Twain's hotel last night in a state of beastly intoxication. It is the imperative duty of the Independents to prove that this besotted brute was not Mark Twain himself. We have them at last! This is a case that admits of no shirking. The voice of the people demands in thunder tones, "WHO WAS THAT MAN?"

好一个体面的候选人——马克-吐温先生原定于昨晚在独立党的群众大会上作一次中伤别人的演说，但是他不曾按时到场！他的医生打来了一个电报，说他被一辆狂奔的马车撞倒了，腿上两处受伤——伤者在床上躺着，非常苦痛，如此这般，还编了一大堆这类的谎话。独立党党员们极力要把这种卑鄙的托词信以为真，故意假装着不知道他们所提名为候选人的这个花天酒地的家伙之所以没有来的真正原因。昨晚上分明有人看见一个人醉得不成样子，一歪一倒地走进吐温先生住的旅馆。独立党党员们有不容推卸的义务，应该赶快证明这个醉鬼并非马克-吐温本人。我们终于把他们难住了！这件事情是不容避而不谈的。人民的呼声响雷似的要求回答，“那个人究竟是谁？”

It was incredible, absolutely incredible, for a moment, that it was really my name that was coupled with this disgraceful suspicion. Three long years had passed over my head since I had tasted ale, beer, wine or liquor or any kind.
当真把我的名字牵连到这个不名誉的嫌疑上面，一时实在令人难以置信，绝对难以置信。我已经整整三年没有尝过麦酒、啤酒、葡萄酒或是任何一种酒了。

[It shows what effect the times were having on me when I say that I saw myself, confidently dubbed "Mr. Delirium Tremens Twain" in the next issue of that journal without a pang--notwithstanding I knew that with monotonous fidelity the paper would go on calling me so to the very end.]
（现在我说起当初看到自己在那个报纸的下一期上被人确信地加上“酒疯子吐温先生”的诨名，竟能毫不感到苦恼——虽然明知那个报纸会要坚持不变地继续这样称呼我，一直到底——这就足见当时的环境对我起了多大的作用。）

By this time anonymous letters were getting to be an important part of my mail matter. This form was common
这时候匿名信逐渐成为我所收到的邮件中的重要部分，普通的方式是这样的：