"Jane is not such a weakling as you would make her," he would say:

“简可不是那种你们要把她说成的弱者，”他会说，

"she can bear a mountain blast, or a shower, or a few flakes of snow, as well as any of us.

“她会顶着山风，暴雨，或是几片飞雪，比我们准都不差。

Her constitution is both sound and elastic: -- better calculated to endure variations of climate than many more robust."

她体格健康富有适应性——比很多身强力壮的人更能忍受天气的变化。”

And when I returned, sometimes a good deal tired, and not a little weather-beaten,

我回到家里，虽然有时风吹雨淋，疲惫不堪，

I never dared complain, because I saw that to murmur would be to vex him:

但从不敢抱怨，因为我明白一嘀咕就会惹他生气。

on all occasions fortitude pleased him; the reverse was a special annoyance.

无论何时，你坚忍不拔，他会为之高兴，反之，则特别恼火。

One afternoon, however, I got leave to stay at home, because I really had a cold.

一天下午，我却告假呆在家里，因为我确实感冒了。

His sisters were gone to Morton in my stead: I sat reading Schiller; he, deciphering his crabbed Oriental scrolls.

他妹妹们代我去了莫尔顿，我坐着读起席勒的作品来。他在破译鸡爪一样的东方涡卷形字体。

As I exchanged a translation for an exercise, I happened to look his way: there I found myself under the influence of the ever-watchful blue eye.

我换成练习翻译时，碰巧朝他的方向看了下下，发觉自己正处于那双蓝眼睛的监视之下。

How long it had been searching me through and through, and over and over,

彻彻底底，一遍遍地扫视了多久，

I cannot tell: so keen was it, and yet so cold, I felt for the moment superstitious -- as if I were sitting in the room with something uncanny.

我无从知道。它他的目光锐利而冷漠，刹那之间我有些迷信了——仿佛同某种不可思议的东西坐在一个屋子里。

"Jane, what are you doing?"

“简，你在干嘛？”

"Learning German."

“学习德语。”

"I want you to give up German and learn Hindostanee."

“我要你放弃德语，改学印度斯坦语。”

"You are not in earnest?"

“你不是当真的吧？”

"In such earnest that I must have it so: and I will tell you why."

“完全当真，我会告诉你为什么。”

He then went on to explain that Hindostanee was the language he was himself at present studying;

随后他继续解释说，印度斯坦语是他眼下正在学习的语言，

that, as he advanced, he was apt to forget the commencement;

学了后面容易忘记前面。

that it would assist him greatly to have a pupil with whom he might again and again go over the elements, and so fix them thoroughly in his mind;

要是有个学生，对他会有很大帮助，他可以向他一遍遍重复那些基本知识，以便牢记在自己的脑子里。

that his choice had hovered for some time between me and his sisters;

究竟选我还是他的妹妹们，他犹豫了好久。

but that he had fixed on me because he saw I could sit at a task the longest of the three.

但选中了我，因为他看到我比任何一位都能坐得住

Would I do him this favour?

我愿意帮他忙吗？

I should not, perhaps, have to make the sacrifice long, as it wanted now barely three months to his departure.

也许我不必作太久的牺牲，因为离他远行的日子只有三个月了。