《卡拉马佐夫兄弟》开篇：英文原著带中文翻译

Alexey Fyodorovitch Karamazov was the third son of Fyodor Pavlovitch Karamazov, a land owner well known in our district in his own day, and still remembered among us owing to his gloomy and tragic death, which happened thirteen years ago, and which I shall describe in its proper place. For the present I will only say that this “landowner” —for so we used to call him, although he hardly spent a day of his life on his own estate —was a strange type, yet one pretty frequently to be met with, a type abject and vicious and at the same time senseless. But he was one of those senseless persons who are very well capable of looking after their worldly affairs, and, apparently, after nothing else. Fyodor Pavlovitch, for instance, began with next to nothing; his estate was of the smallest; he ran to dine at other men’s tables, and fastened on them as a toady, yet at his death it appeared that he had a hundred thousand roubles in hard cash. At the same time, he was all his life one of the most senseless, fantastical fellows in the whole district. I repeat, it was not stupidity —the majority of these fantastical fellows are shrewd and intelligent enough —but just senselessness, and a peculiar national form of it.

阿列克谢·费奥多罗维奇·卡拉马佐夫是费奥多尔·巴甫洛维奇·卡拉马佐夫的三儿子。费奥多尔·巴甫洛维奇是我们县里当年赫赫有名的地主，由于十三年前那桩阴森悲惨的命案，至今还被人记得。关于那件事，我会在适当的地方叙述。现在我只想说，这个「地主」（我们当年都这么称呼他，尽管他一生几乎没在自己的庄园里住过一天）是个古怪的家伙，可这类人却屡见不鲜：既卑鄙下流，又愚不可及。不过，他属于那种虽然愚不可及，却非常善于经营俗务，而且看来也只善于此道的人。譬如费奥多尔·巴甫洛维奇，他起家时几乎一无所有，他的庄园小得可怜，他常到别人家蹭饭，死乞白赖地充当食客，可是临死时，他竟有十万卢布现款。与此同时，他一生都是全县最愚不可及、最想入非非的人物之一。我再说一遍，这不是愚蠢，这类想入非非的人大多相当精明聪明，而是愚不可及，一种独特的民族形式的愚不可及。

He was married twice, and had three sons, the eldest, Dmitri, by his first wife, and two, Ivan and Alexey, by his second. Fyodor Pavlovitch’s first wife, Adelaïda Ivanovna, belonged to a fairly rich and distinguished noble family, also landowners in our district, the Miüsovs. How it came to pass that an heiress, who was also a beauty, and moreover one of those vigorous, intelligent girls, so common in this generation, but sometimes also to be found in the last, could have married such a worthless, puny weakling, as we all called him, I won’t attempt to explain. I knew a young lady of the last “romantic” generation who after some years of an enigmatic passion for a gentleman, whom she might quite easily have married at any moment, invented insuperable obstacles to their union, and ended by throwing herself one stormy night into a rather deep and rapid river from a high bank, almost a precipice, and so perished, entirely to satisfy her own caprice, and to be like Shakespeare’s Ophelia. Indeed, if this precipice, a chosen and favorite spot of hers, had been less picturesque, if there had been a prosaic flat bank in its place, most likely the suicide would never have taken place. This is a fact, and probably there have been not a few similar instances in the last two or three generations. Adelaïda Ivanovna Miüsov’s action was similarly, no doubt, an echo of other people’s ideas, and was due to the irritation caused by lack of mental freedom. She wanted, perhaps, to show her feminine independence, to override class distinctions and the despotism of her family. And a pliable imagination persuaded her, we must suppose, for a brief moment, that Fyodor Pavlovitch, in spite of his parasitic position, was one of the bold and ironical spirits of that progressive epoch, though he was, in fact, an ill-natured buffoon and nothing more. What gave the marriage piquancy was that it was preceded by an elopement, and this greatly captivated Adelaïda Ivanovna’s fancy. Fyodor Pavlovitch’s position at the time made him specially eager for any such enterprise, for he was passionately anxious to make a career in one way or another. To attach himself to a good family and obtain a dowry was an alluring prospect. As for mutual love it did not exist apparently, either in the bride or in him, in spite of Adelaïda Ivanovna’s beauty. This was, perhaps, a unique case of the kind in the life of Fyodor Pavlovitch, who was always of a voluptuous temper, and ready to run after any petticoat on the slightest encouragement. She seems to have been the only woman who made no particular appeal to his senses.

他结过两次婚，有三个儿子：长子德米特里是前妻所生，另外两个，伊凡和阿列克谢，是后妻所生。费奥多尔·巴甫洛维奇的第一位妻子阿黛拉伊达·伊凡诺夫娜出身于相当富有而显赫的贵族家庭，也是我们县里的地主，姓米乌索夫。一个女继承人，又是美人，而且属于那一代常见的那种精力充沛、聪明伶俐的姑娘（上一代有时也能遇到），怎么会嫁给这么一个微不足道的窝囊废（我们都这么叫他），我无法解释。我认识一位属于上一个「浪漫」时代的年轻小姐，她多年对一个绅士怀有神秘莫测的爱情，其实她随时都可以轻而易举地嫁给他，但她却臆想出种种无法克服的障碍，阻挠他们结合，最后在一个风雨交加的夜晚，从高岸上（几乎是一处悬崖）跳进一条相当深、水流湍急的河里，就此香消玉殒，完全是为了满足自己的任性，为了效仿莎士比亚的奥菲莉亚。确实，如果这处悬崖（她所选中的、心爱的地方）不那么风景如画，如果那里只是一片平淡无奇的平坦河岸，那么很可能就不会发生这桩自杀事件了。这是事实，而且最近两三代人里，类似的事例大概也不少。阿黛拉伊达·伊凡诺夫娜·米乌索娃的行为，无疑同样是别人思想的回声，是由于缺乏精神自由而感到的恼怒。她也许想显示女性的独立，想超越阶级差别和家庭的专制。而一种柔顺的想象力使她一时相信（我们必须这样设想），费奥多尔·巴甫洛维奇尽管寄人篱下，却是那个进步时代大胆而玩世不恭的人物之一，其实他不过是个心肠恶毒的丑角，仅此而已。使这桩婚事格外刺激的是，它是以私奔开始的，这大大迎合了阿黛拉伊达·伊凡诺夫娜的幻想。费奥多尔·巴甫洛维奇当时处境特殊，特别渴望这类冒险，因为他热切地想要出人头地。攀上一门好亲事，得到一份嫁妆，前景十分诱人。至于相互的爱情，无论在新娘身上还是在他身上，显然都不存在，尽管阿黛拉伊达·伊凡诺夫娜美貌动人。这也许是费奥多尔·巴甫洛维奇一生中唯一的一桩例外，因为他一向好色，只要稍加撩拨，就会去追逐任何一条裙子。看来她是唯一没有特别引起他情欲的女人。