Nor is it, altogether, the remembrance of her cathedral-toppling earthquakes; nor the stampedoes of her frantic seas;
利马之所以教人看来会是一个欲哭无泪,最奇特。
nor the tearlessness of arid skies that never rain; nor the sight of her wide field of leaning spires, wrenched cope-stones, and crosses all adroop (like canted yards of anchored fleets);
最悲伤的城市,并不仅仅是因为下列这些缘故:把大教堂震垮了的地震(利马大教堂建于一五三五年,一七四六年遭大地震后又重建。);
and her suburban avenues of house-walls lying over upon each other, as a tossed pack of cards;
疯狂的海浪的冲击,从来就不下雨的干涸无泪的天空,辽阔的田野里枝茎倾斜的作物,歪七倒八的冠石,
it is not these things alone which make tearless Lima, the strangest, saddest city thou can'st see.
全都垂挂着的十字架(好象是因船舶碇泊次数过多而倾斜了的船坞),以及郊外的街道中有着一堆散乱的扑克牌似的。
For Lima has taken the white veil; and there is a higher horror in this whiteness of her woe.
彼此倚靠着的屋墙。不,完全不是因为这种缘故,而是因为利马罩有一层白色的帷幕;
Old as Pizarro, this whiteness keeps her ruins for ever new; admits not the cheerful greenness of complete decay; spreads over her broken ramparts the rigid pallor of an apoplexy that fixes its own distortions.
在它这种悲伤的白色中,有一种更为叫人恐怖的气氛。这种白色跟皮萨罗一样古老,把那废墟罩得永远如新,毫无满地草莽的颓废景象;弥漫在它那残破的城垣上的,正是那一片跟它本身相称的害中风症似的僵硬的苍白色。
I know that, to the common apprehension, this phenomenon of whiteness is not confessed to be the prime agent in exaggerating the terror of objects otherwise terrible;
根据一般人的理解力说来,我知道这种白色现象并不是作为夸张那种本来并不怎样可怕的恐怖事物的主要原因;
nor to the unimaginative mind is there aught of terror in those appearances whose awfulness to another mind almost solely consists in this one phenomenon, especially when exhibited under any form at all approaching to muteness or universality.
而且在一个缺乏想象力的人看来,那种情景也许一点也没有什么可怖之处,不过,在另外一种人看来,这种情景之所以可怕,简直也就正好是包括在这一种现象里面,尤其是当它以一种完全迹近沉默或者浑然一体的形式表现出来的时候。
What I mean by these two statements may perhaps be respectively elucidated by the following examples.
我对这两种说法的含义,也许可以由下列事例分别加以说明。