The present moment, by God! is the ark of the Lord. Woe betide the man who lays his hand upon it.
DIDEROT
我们这个时代，伟大的天主！它是约柜。谁碰它谁要遭到不幸。
狄德罗
The reader will kindly excuse our giving but few clear and precise details of this epoch in Julien's life. Not that we lack them, far from it; but perhaps the life he led in the Seminary is too black for the modest colouring which we have sought to preserve in these pages. People who have been made to suffer by certain things cannot be reminded of them without a horror which paralyses every other pleasure, even that to be found in reading a story.
读者一定会允许我们对于连这一时期的生活提供很少明白而准确的事实。不是我们缺少事实，恰正相反；但是，他在神学院的所见所闻对于本书所竭力保持的温和色调来说也许是过于黑暗了。因某些事情而感到痛苦的同时代人回忆起来只能产生一种厌恶，扼杀了其它任何乐趣，甚至阅读一篇故事的乐趣。
Julien met with little success in his attempts at hypocrisy in action; he passed through moments of disgust and even of complete discouragement. He was utterly unsuccessful, and that moreover in a vile career.The slightest help from without would have sufficed to restore his morale, the difficulty to be overcome was not great; but he was alone, as lonely as a vessel abandoned in mid-ocean. 'And if I should succeed,' he said to himself; 'to have to spend my whole life in such evil company!Gluttons who think of nothing but the ham omelette they are going to devour at dinner, or men like the abbe Castanede, to whom no crime is too black! They will rise to power; but at what a price, great God!
于连试着做出一些虚伪的举动，但很少成功。他常常感到厌恶，甚至完全地气馁了。他没有取得成功，而且还是在一种卑劣的职业中。哪怕一点点外界的帮助都足以使他重新振作起来，需要克服的困难并不很大；可是他像被遗弃在这汪洋大海中的一时孤舟，茕茕孑立。“我就是成功，”他想，“也要和这样一群卑劣的人一起度过一生！一群饕餮之徒，一心只想着他们在餐桌上狼吞唬咽肥肉煎蛋，或者一群卡斯塔奈德神甫，对于他们，任何罪孽都不会过于卑劣！他们将会掌权；可是那要什么样的代价呵，伟大的天主！
'Man's will is powerful, I see it written everywhere; but is it sufficiently so to overcome such repulsion? The task of great men has always been easy; however terrible was their danger, it was beautiful in their eyes; and who but myself can realise the ugliness of all that surrounds me?'
“人的意志是强大的，我到处都读到这一点；然而靠它能克服这样的厌恶吗？那些伟人的任务是容易的；无论危险多么可怕，他们总觉得它是美的；然而除了我，谁又能理解包围着我的那一切有多丑恶呢？”
This was the most trying moment in his life. It was so easy for him to enlist in one of the fine regiments that were stationed at Besancon! He might become a teacher of Latin; he wanted so little to keep himself alive! But then, no career, no future for his imagination: it was a living death. Here is a detailed account of one of his wretched days.
这是他一生中最难忍受的时刻。对他来说，到一个驻扎在贝藏松的漂亮团队去当兵，那是何等容易的事！他可以当拉丁文教师；他的生活所需是那样地少！不过，那可就没有前程了，对他的想象力来说，也就没有未来了，这等于是死亡。这就是他那些悲惨的日子中的一天的详细情况。
'My presumption has so often flattered itself upon my being different from the other young peasants! Well, I have lived long enough to see that difference breeds hatred,' he said to himself one morning. This great truth had just been revealed to him by one of his most annoying failures.He had laboured for a week to make himself agreeable to a student who lived in the odour of sanctity. He was walking with him in the courtyard,l istening submissively to idiocies that sent him to sleep as he walked.Suddenly a storm broke, the thunder growled, and the saintly student exclaimed, thrusting him rudely away:
“我是何等自负啊，经常庆幸自己与那些农家子弟不同！这下好了，我已有了足够的生活经验，看到了不同产生仇恨，”一天早晨，他对自己说，这个伟大的真理，刚刚通过他的一次最惨重的挫折展示在他面前。他做了一个礼拜的工作，竭力讨好一个生活在圣洁的气息中的修士。他跟他一道在院子里散步，谦卑地聆听那些让人站着都能睡着的蠢话。突然，暴风雨来了，响起一记闷雷，那位圣洁的修士粗暴地推开他，大声叫道：
'Listen, each for himself in this world, I have no wish to be struck by lightning: God may blast you as an infidel, another Voltaire.'
“您听；这个世界上人人为自己，我不愿意遭雷击；天主可以把您像个不信神者、像个伏尔泰那样用雷劈了。”
His teeth clenched with rage and his eyes opened towards the sky furrowed by streaks of lightning: 'I should deserve to be submerged, were I to let myself sleep during the storm!' cried Julien. 'Let us attempt the conquest of some other drudge.'
于连咬紧了牙，睁大眼睛望着雷电交加的天空，“如果我在风暴中睡大觉，就活该被淹死！”于连叫道。“让我们试试去征服另一个学究吧！”
The bell rang for the abbe Castanede's class of sacred history.These young peasants who lived in such fear of the hard toil and poverty of their fathers, were taught that day by the abbe Castanede that that being so terrible in their eyes, the Government, had no real or legitimate power save what was delegated to it by God's Vicar on Earth.
铃响了，是卡斯塔奈德神甫的圣教史课。那一天，面对着这些如此惧伯艰苦的工作和父辈的贫穷的年轻农民，卡斯塔奈德神甫教导说，政府，这个在他们眼中如此可怕的东西，只有根据天主派到地上的代理人的授权，才具有真实合法的权力。
'Render yourselves worthy of the Pope's bounties by the sanctity of your lives, by your obedience, be like a rod in his hands,' he went on,' and you will attain to a superb position where you will be in supreme command, under no man's control; a permanent position, of which the Government pays one third of the emoluments, and the faithful, roused by your preaching, the other two thirds.'
“要用你们的圣洁的生活，你们的服从来使你们无愧于教皇的关怀，成为他手中的一根棍子吧，”他补充说，“你们将得到一个极好的职位，在那儿你们发号施令，不受监督；一个终身的职位，薪傣的三分之一由政府支付，其余的三分之二由受过你们的布道培养的信徒支付。”
On leaving his classroom, M. Castanede stopped in the courtyard.
下了课，卡斯塔奈德神甫在院于里站住了。
'You may well say of a cure, each man gets what he deserves,' he said to the students who gathered round him. 'I myself have known mountain parishes where the fees came to more than those of many town cures. There was as much in money, not to speak of the fat capons, eggs, fresh butter, and endless little delicacies; and there the cure takes the first place without challenge: no good meal to which he is not invited, made much of,' etc.
“关于一个本堂神甫，完全可以这样说：人值几何，位值几何，”他对围在身边的学生们说，“我跟你们说，我知道山里的几个本堂区， 那里的额外收入超过城里的许多本堂神甫。钱是一样多，外带肥阉鸡、蛋、新鲜奶油和许多其它的零零碎碎的东西；在那儿，本堂神甫是无可争议的第一号人物：没有一顿好饭他不受到邀请、欢迎，……。”
No sooner had M. Castanede gone up to his own room, than the students divided into groups. Julien belonged to none of these; they drew away from him as from a tainted wether. In each of the groups, he saw a student toss a copper in the air, and if he guessed head or tail aright, his companions concluded that he would soon have one of these livings with fat fees.
卡斯塔奈德神甫刚刚上楼回房，学生们就三五成群地分开了。于连哪一堆也不是，他们把他丢在一旁，仿佛一只长疥的羊。每一堆里，他都看见有一个学生朝空中抛一钢板，如果猜中是正面或反面，同学们就说他很快将得到某个额外收入丰厚的本堂神甫职位。
Stories followed. One young priest, barely a year in orders, having presented a domestic rabbit to an old cure's servant, had got the cure to ask for him as his assistant, and a few months afterwards, for the cure had died almost immediately, had succeeded him in a good living.Another had managed to have his name put forward for the eventual succession to the curacy of a prosperous country town, by attending all the meals of the paralytic old cure and carving his chickens for him gracefully.
跟着来的就是那些小故事。某年轻教士，刚受神职才一年，送了一只家养的兔子给一老本堂神甫的女仆，老本堂神甫就要求由他来当副本堂神甫，没几个月，他就在这个好堂区接替了老本堂神甫，因为老本堂神甫很快就死了。另有一位，顿顿饭陪着一位瘫痪的老本堂神甫，细细地为他切鸡，终于被指定为一个很富的大镇的堂区继承人。
The seminarists, like young men in every profession, exaggerated the effect of these little stratagems when they were out of the ordinary and struck the imagination.
像一切职业中的年轻人一样，神学院的学生们往往夸大此类具有奇异作用、能够刺激想象力的小手段的效果。
'I must,' thought Julien, 'take part in these conversations.' When they were not discussing sausages and rich livings, their talk ran on the worldly side of ecclesiastical teaching; the differences between Bishops and Prefects, mayors and cures. Julien saw lurking in their minds the idea of a second God, but of a God far more to be feared and far more powerful than the first; this second God was the Pope. It was said, but with lowered voice, and when the speaker was quite certain of not being overheard by M. Pirard, that if the Pope did not take the trouble to appoint all the Prefects and all the mayors in France, it was because he had delegated the King of France for that duty, by naming him the Eldest Son of the Church.
“我得参加这些谈话，”于连想。他们若是不谈香肠和好堂区，就谈教理中的世俗部分，谈主教和省长、市长和本堂神甫之间的纠纷。于 连看到有一个第二天主的观念出现，这第二天主远比另—个天主更可怕更强大，这第二天主就是教皇。他们压低了声音，当他们确信彼拉先生听不见时，就说，如果教皇不愿费神去任命法国的所有省长和市长，那是因为他已任命法国国王为教会的长子，委托他去办了。
It was about this time that Julien thought he might derive some benefit from his admiration for M. de Maistre's book on the Pope. He did, as a matter of fact, astonish his fellow-students; but this was a fresh misfortune. He annoyed them by expressing their opinions better than they could themselves. M. Chelan had been a rash counsellor for Julien as he had been for himself. After training him to the habit of reasoning accurately and not letting himself be taken in by vain words, he had omitted to tell him that in a person of little repute this habit is a crime; for sound reasoning always gives offence.
大概是这个时候，于连认为可以利用德·迈斯特先生的《教皇论》来赢得别人对他的尊敬。他使同学们大吃一惊，然而这又是一大不幸。他表述他们的意见比他们自己都好，这使他们不悦。谢朗先生对于连对自己都做了一件不谨慎的事情。他使他养成正确推理、不说空话的习惯，却忘了告诉他，在不大受敬重的人那里，此种习惯乃是一大罪孽，因为任何正确的推论都要得罪人。
Julien's fine speech was therefore only another crime against him. His companions, being compelled to think about him, succeeded in finding two words to express all the horror with which he filled them: they nicknamed him Martin Luther; 'chiefly,' they said, 'because of that infernal logic of which he is so proud.'
于连说得好，这又成了他的新罪孽。他的同学们想来想去，终于用一个词表达了他使他们产生的全部厌恶之情，他们送了他一个绰号：马丁·路德；他们说：“这特别是因为使他变得如此骄傲的那种恶魔似的逻辑。”
Several young seminarists had fresher complexions and might be reckoned better looking than Julien; but he had white hands, and could not hide certain habits of personal cleanliness. This distinction was none at all in the grim dwelling into which destiny had cast him. The unclean peasants among whom he lived declared that he had extremely lax morals. We are afraid to tire the reader by an account of our hero's endless mishaps. To take one instance, the more vigorous among his companions tried to make a practice of thrashing him; he was obliged to arm himself with a metal compass and to inform them, but only by signs, that he would use it. Signs cannot be represented, in a spy's report, so damningly as words.
有几个年轻修士面色更为鲜嫩，可以说比于连还漂亮，但是，他有一双白皙的手，而且不能掩饰某些酷爱清洁的习惯。在命运把他抛进的这座沉闷的学校里，这一优点却不是优点。他生活其中的那些肮脏的农民公开说他行为放荡。我们担心，叙述我们的主人公的种种厄运会使读者感到厌倦。比方说，同学中几位身强力壮的就想经常地揍他一顿；他不得不揣上一支铁圆规，并且宣布他会使用的，不过他是用手势宣布的。手势写在密探的报告里，就不如说的话那么有份量了。