美文•悦读｜满分英文什么样：钱锺书先生的四封英文信

点右关注▷ 英语世界

据称，钱锺书先生当年报考清华大学时，对国文和外语都很有把握，唯独数学不行，一看到阿拉伯数字就头晕，所以考试时只在数学考卷上胡乱填了几个数字，最终数学只考了15分。相比之下，他的国文和英文都得了第一，其中英文更是考了个满分。最终，清华大学时任校长罗家伦一锤定音，破格录取了才华横溢的钱锺书。今天，我们就通过四封英文信一起来领略下钱先生的英文丰采。

My Dear Shu-Wu[1], May 14

Your letter gives me a joyful surprise[2]. Your English is astonishingly good. This is not "flannel" or "butter"[3] but my sincere opinion (my hand upon my heart!). The idea found from your version of Chairman's statement is, to say the least, quite unjust[4]. Perhaps your hand is recovering some of its old cunning momentarily lost through long lack of practice[5]. At any rate, it would be a pity—nay, a sin, a crime[6]—to let your[7] English get rusty and become finally unserviceable。

Yours in haste

By a slip of pen, you wrote "allocation" instead of "Collocation". This is a mere peccadillo. Don't let meticulousness about such trifles cramp your style.

参考译文及注解

书武：

看了来信，又惊又喜。你的英语之好，出人意外。这不是兜圈子的奉承话，而是真诚的意见(我手按在胸前发誓！)。你以前翻译主席文章的段落，我看了以后有些想法。现在看来，那些想法至少是很不公正的。你长期以来缺乏实践，一时失去原有的灵巧手法，也许逐渐得到恢复。不管怎么样，让你的英语生锈，最终变得无法利用，那是件憾事——不，是罪过，是犯罪。

钱锺书匆匆

5月14日

又及，由于笔误，你把collocation写成allocation。这只是一个小错。别把这些小事看得过重，变得谨小慎微，妨碍你写作方式的完善。

注解：

[1] My Dear...是英语书信的一种格式，并非一定要译出。这里可译作：书武。林书武当时是中国社会科学院语言研究所研究人员。1970年冬，下放河南息县劳动锻炼，在那段时间跟钱钟书有过一段交往。此信写于1971年5月。

[2] a joyful surprise: 又惊又喜。英语的短语，译成汉语时往往变成动词短语。

[3] flannel: 花言巧语。此信中用双引号有两处。第一处有“所谓的”的意思，第二处意指原词。

[4] 这是一个复杂句，但并不难分析。to say the least 是插入语；英语句子常用插入语。例如：Your composition, to put it bluntly, is ill written. 你的作文，坦率地说，写得很不好。

[5] momentarily lost 修饰 cunning。through long lack of practice 又是名词短语变作译文中动词短语的例子。

[6] sin 和 crime 几乎是同义词。这里连用，旨在加强语气。

[7] 词底下划一横线，表强调之意。

My Dear Lin[1], May 2

Excuse this belated reply[2] to your very kind May Day greetings. It’s almost literally "a day after the fair". What with fixing the mosquito net, queuing for sweets at the co-op store, fetching and distributing letters, and the thousand and one odds and ends which eat away one's time, the red letter day was over before I know where I was[3]. Well[4], here go my best wishes in which my wife joins. Your letter makes me ashamed. I feel guilty like a swindler who has won your "gratitude" without doing anything to earn it. Your characteristic generosity has led you to overestimate the aids to study I gave. Yes, vocabulary is important. Pedagogues used to distinguish a pupil's active... or[5] writing and speaking vocabulary. As you know, the latter is far more extensive than the former. How to turn the supinely passive into the nimbly active—that's the big problem[6]. However, enough of shop talk. Tomorrow to the battle and more power to your elbow![7]

Yours Sincerely

参考译文及注解

林：

5月1日承蒙来信祝贺节日，迟复为歉。称之为“集市后的一天”，此语非虚。安蚊帐，在合作社小店排队买糖果，往邮局取信，回来分发，以及忙乎耗费时间的没完没了的琐事，不知不觉中纪念日已经过去了。在此，我和妻子向你致以最良好的祝愿。你的来信，使我感到惭愧。我像个骗子，没干什么就获得了你的感谢，这使我感到内疚。我对你的学习，帮助甚少，你特有的忠厚，使你过誉了这种帮助。是的，词汇是重要的。教师通常把词汇分为积极的和消极的词汇，前者为写和说的词汇，后者为阅读的词汇。正如你所知道的，学生的词汇中，后者远比前者多得多。如何把呆板的消极词汇变成灵活的积极词汇，这是个大问题。但有关行内的议论，就说这么多吧。明天就要投入战斗了，加油干！

钱锺书谨上

5月2日

注解：

[1] 此信写于1972年5月2日，距上封信近一年。

[2] Excuse my late arrival 或 Excuse me for coming late 都可以说，但中国学生似乎更喜欢采用后一个句型。所以信中说 Excuse this belated reply 更显得新颖。

[3] 这是一个复杂句。Thousand and one odds and ends, 极言琐事繁多。Red letter day: 日历上节日、纪念日都是用红色字体印，故称。这个句子定是神来之笔，百读不厌。

[4] well 是个多义词。作为感叹词，也可以表达多种意思，不能一律译作“嗳”、“嗯”、“啊”。这里信中用来改变话题。

[5] or 除了常见的“或者”义之外，这里是“等于”“即”的意思(注：此处原文有删减)。

[6] How to...是个话题，that是主话。这样的写法突出重点，又很生动。

[7] 两句都是不完全句。前一个常用，如快下课时说：Enough for the time being（暂时就谈这么多）， So much for today（今天就讲这么多）。后一个是口号式句，简洁有力。

My Dear Lin[1],

I am deeply grateful, but I have smiting of conscience[2]. As you know, I have my own ration of sugar, and I must not deprive you of yours[3]. As to the tidbits, a healthy young man has more need of them to stay his hunger[4] between the meals—much more than an old man does. So I am returning them with heartfelt thanks—accompanied with a little token of esteem[5]. The latest Number of Broadsheet is worth glancing at.[6]

Your thankfully

参考译文及注解

林：

很感谢你，但我深感不安。正如你知道的，白糖，我有自己的定量，我不应该取你的。至于那些精美的点心，健康的小伙子比老人更加迫切需要，以便在两顿饭之间充饥。所以我怀着衷心的谢意把糖和点心还给你，同时附上一些英文报纸杂志，聊表敬意。最近一期的 Broadsheet（报纸）值得一看。

钱锺书谨上

注解：

[1] 这封信没署日期。大概写于1972年钱钟书杨绛离开河南明港，提前返回北京的几个月前。信中提到“白糖”“点心”等话，指的是林书武为了感谢钱钟书赠送英语书报，对林书武学习上的指导，送给钱钟书的东西。

[2] smite 和 conscience 搭配，是地道的英语，如：His conscience smote him. 他受到了良习的谴责。也可以说成：He had smiting of conscience。

[3] to deprive you of yours 夺取你的东西，不能说成 to deprive yours. 同类动词还有一些，如 rob：Those barking of a dog robbed me of my sleep. 狗吠了又吠，弄得我无法入睡。

[4] to stay ones hunger 是地道的英语，学生往往想不到这种用法。“充饥”不要说成 to fill ones hunger, 要采用这里的说法。

[5] a little token of esteem 当时钱钟书还送给林书武一些英文报纸杂志。

[6] to be worth 接动词的ing形式，表示值得做……，这里的is worth glancing at, 值得一看。注意跟to be worthy的差别：to be worthy of something 应该得到某事物；to be worthy to do sth 应该做某事。

28, Avenue Laplace

　　Arcueil (Seine)

　　France

　　12, iii, 1938

My Dear Stuart,

We are overjoyed at your generously long letter. We have been rather worried about you since your reticent Xmas card from Spain. We thought that your indignation at the Fascist terrors might have made you join the Spanish Republican army on leaving Oxford. In that case, the world would certainly gain a hero, but we might (O horrible thought!) lose a friend. You can imagine our relief to hear from you again.

We are very, very sorry indeed to hear about your viva. we do hope that it will not be prejudicial to your chances of getting a job. As your favorite Walter Raleigh used to say, Oxford final schools and the Last Judgement are two examinations, not one. You are quite right to take the whole thing lightly.

We shall be here for another four or five months yet. My scholarship expires this August, and we shall sail home in September. Not that we have homes to return to! Our houses, spared by the shell-fire, have been looted and gutted of all their valuable contents. Our respective families have taken refuge in mountains honeycombed with bandits. My wife lost her mother, and I myself have no prospect whatsoever of getting decent jobs in China. Still, one's lot is with one's own people; I don't mind roughing it a bit. The revolution of the Fortune's wheel might bring us up, and, as Goethe was fond of saying, abwarten Sie. You see, I spare my own patriotic heroics.

Yes, my clairvoyant Stuart, I have been working entirely on my own. I have tried to read French literature systematically downwards, beginning with Villon, and already got as far as the mid-nineteenth century. I have also laboriously tackled the German romantics. I am reading Taine's novel Graindorge and Novalis's Fragmente. Besides, I have not neglected my English and Chinese studies. I am reading—no, I am not going to tell you my reading debauches. This paragraph reads already like a snippet from that model letter of a schoolboy to his parents ("or parent according to circumstances") in Anstey's Vice Versa.

The baby is burstingly fat. She already boasts of six teeth (each tooth meaing a week or so of worries and sleeplessness on her part as well our own). She is very naughty and mutinous and self-willed, altogether an ugly customer to deal with. She will be able to walk a little next month.

You are a disquieting feller, my dear Stuart. You always give me the impression of some impending catastrophe. Why this sudden "treachery" to your "former interests"? You seem to have a "gout trop facilement degoute". Your mind seems to slough its idea as frequently as the snakes their skins. No doubt you will call me smug and incorrigible. Do keep me abreast of your lastest developments.

My wife sends you her best wishes, to which I say ditto. Write to me at your earliest convenience.

Yours ever,

Chung-shu Tchi'ien

P.S. My wife wants me to tell you that the baby is really "her father's daughter". She loves nothing so much as books—to tear and nibble at, certainly not to read. She has already destroyed a German primer, not to mention innumberable tradesmen's circulars and booklets. She throws away her toys to grab at the books we happen to be reading.

参考译文

亲爱的司徒亚：

收到你这封慷慨的长信，我们真是喜出望外。上次你从西班牙寄来的圣诞贺卡语焉未详，害得我们心里一直忐忑不安。我们以为，由于你对法西斯的恐怖行径出离愤怒，或许会在牛津毕业后投入到西班牙共和军的队伍中。那样的话，世界会多一位英雄，而我们或许会（啊，多可怕的想法！）失去一位朋友。我们收到你的信时的宽慰你可想而知了。

关于你大学口语入学口试的事，我们感到十分遗憾。真希望它不会影响你找工作。正如你的Walter Raleigh曾说的，牛津的毕业考试不等于末日审判，它们是两种考试。你不把这事放在心上是对的。

我们在这还要待四五个月。我的奖学金在八月到期，九月份我们将坐船回家。可不是因为我们有家可归！我们的房子虽免于战火，但值钱的家当被洗劫一空。我们俩各自的家庭也都在满是土匪的山上寻求避难之处。我的妻子失去了她的母亲，我对自己在中国找到体面的工作也不抱任何希望。但个人的命运是和民族的命运连在一起的。我并不介意生活得艰苦一些。会时来运转的，像歌德常说的abwarten Sie(德语，等待吧)。你看，我就不说那些爱国主义豪言壮语了。

得承认，你很有远见。我目前完全在自学。我在系统地用心读法国文学，从维龙开始，已经读到十九世纪中期。我也在费力地啃一些德国小说。我在读泰纳的 Graindorge和诺瓦利斯的《哲学片段》。此外，我也并未荒废英语和汉语的学习。我在看——不，我还是不告诉你我纵情阅读的内容了。这段文字读来已然像是摘自Anstey的Vice Versa《父亲的教训》中小学生给父母的（或其中之一的，视情况而定）范例书信了。

小宝宝胖得要爆了。她为已经了不起地有六颗牙了（每颗牙都代表我们和她一个星期左右的忧虑和失眠）。她淘气，叛逆，任性，整个一个难伺候的主。下个月她就会走路了。

亲爱的Stuart，你是个不让人放心的家伙。你总给人一种大难临头的感觉。这次你对“旧的爱好”的“叛变”是怎么回事？仿佛你有种gout trop facilement degoute（法语，有种爱改变口味的习惯），你摆脱旧想法的频率犹如蛇蜕皮。无怪乎你称我是不可一世又不可救药。请务必要让我知道你的最新进展。

我妻子与我一并奉上最美好的祝愿。期待你早日来信。

你永远的，

钱锺书

又：我妻子让我告诉你，小宝宝颇有“其父之风”，最爱的就是书——撕或咬，绝不是为了读。她已毁掉一本德语入门书，更不要说不可计数的商家传单和手册。当我们读书时，她常扔掉手上的玩具，来抓我们的书。

（整理自“译术人生”“北极光翻译”）

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