英译现代散文●中学时代生活的回忆 ◎ 庐隐

中学时代生活的回忆

Recollections of My High School Days

◎　庐隐

◎　Lu Yin

只要一回忆到学生时代的生活，心头便不禁有一种顽皮的跳动，过去的童年，也似乎复活了。

Whenever I look back upon my school days, my heart will throb hard and my childhood will seem to come back to life.

我正是十三岁的那一年秋天，考进了女子师范的一年级，在全级同学的年龄中，我是倒数第一，身材呢，偏偏也是又矮又小，当我拖着两条小辫发，跑进课堂时，同学们都惊奇地望着我，在她们的揣测中，这仅仅是个小学四五年级的孩子，怎么会参加她们的集团呢，而我就在她们的猜疑中，安然地坐在第一排的位子上了。

In the autumn of the year when I was thirteen, I got enrolled by examination to a women's normal school as a first-year student. Being the youngest of the class, I was short and small. As I entered the classroom wearing my hair in two braids, my classmates all stared at me with amazement, wondering how a primary school kid of the 4th or 5th grade could have become one of their clique. Nevertheless, in the midst of their guesses, I took a seat in the first row with composure.

一个中年妇女，据说是学监曹先生，迈着那小脚放大的特有的八字步，神乎其神的走进教室，登上讲台，我们恭敬的起立，鞠躬，坐下，学监发给我们一份油印的学校规则，上面罗列着森严可怖的校规，最使我刺心的，是学生必须全体住堂，除星期六例假外，不许外出，即使例假外出时，也必有家长盖章的证明书才行，星期日下午五点以前一定要回学校，如果迟误，下星期就不准回家，其次就是不许穿制服以外的任何衣服，——而制服偏偏又是那样难看，夏季的是灰色布衫，灰色山东绸的裙子，新的时候还好，洗过几次之后，颜色灰黯，活像一窝老鼠精。至于冬季的呢，那又不如夏季的了，青蛙色的爱国布裙衫，洗得黄不黄绿不绿，谁说不能象征癞蛤蟆的色彩呢?同时头上再梳个日本式高搭凉棚式的头，真是呜呼嘻噫，不像鼠精，也像蛙怪了。这虽然似乎是一件小事，而对于我这个还拖着两条辫发的孩子，简直等于是一种滑稽的刑罚呢!

A middle-aged woman, known as Miss Cao the proctor, walked into the classroom and mounted the platform with self-important airs. Having been once a woman with bound-feet, she was splayfooted. We all stood up, bowed and sat down with great deference. The proctor then gave us each a mimeographed sheet with a horrible list of strict regulations, of which the most detestable was that all students must be boarders forbidden to go out of the campus except during weekends with a certificate sealed by parents and that they must return to the campus before 5 o'clock on Sunday afternoons and otherwise they would not be allowed to go home next weekend. On top of that, we were allowed to wear no other outer garment than the school uniform, which was so ugly. The summer uniform consisted of a gray cotton shirt and a gray silk skirt, which would discolor with each washing until they looked as pale as gray rats. The winter uniform with frog-colored jacket and skirt, was even lousier. They would, after several washings, turn neither yellow nor green, taking on the color of brown-skinned toads. Meanwhile, we had to wear our hair after the Japanese style, with a hairpiece shaped like a huge canopy. O my, we were thus all transformed into rat spirits and frog monsters! Though it was a trivial matter, yet to a little girl like me with two treasured short braids, it was as good as a ludicrous form of punishment!

自从学监曹先生颁布校规以后，一些天真活泼的女孩，霎时间都变成了日本婆娘，——那时间日本的教育及其他，都正在中国走着极时的红运，所有的教育当局，也大半是日本留学生，所以为了贯彻他们的取法乎日本的主张，便连装饰也必使其逼似。试想那样庞大笨重的凉棚头，顶在一些尚未全成人形的孩子们身上，究竟类乎不类呢?尤其在全级比较最小的我更是个要命的勾当，每逢走过整容镜前，由不得掩面急趋，这一副头大身小，畸形发展的尊容，便连自己，也无勇气看。所以仅仅是一个大棚头，和一身蛙色或鼠色的布裙衫，简直像一副全份的刑具，压迫得我无精打采，先天所有的爱美情感，都被摧毁了，因此我每个星期六回家时，必作一次欺骗的行为，那就是从学监处领得回家的通知书后，走到门房，放下包裹，先把那大棚头摧毁，仍旧拖两条发辫，这才雇车回家。第二天回学校时，也是偷偷摸摸乘学监看不见的时候，逃到栉沐室，恢复了大棚头，再去交通知书。

Upon the announcement of the school regulations by Miss Cao the proctor, the innocent school girls immediately started to behave like Japanese women. In those days, things Japanese, including the educational system, were at the height of their popularity in China. And most of the Chinese officials in charge of education then were returned students from Japan. Hence the slavish copying of even the Japanese style of ornamentation. Imagine how absurd it was to fix a huge cumbersome canopy-like hairpiece on the head of an under-age little girl! Being the smallest girl of the class, I was worst hit by it. I would quickly shy away from the full-length mirror at school with my face buried in my hands, not daring to look at my own top-heavy bizarre appearance in it. The canopy-like hairpiece and the ugly cotton uniform, like a complete set of instruments of torture, depressed me and deprived me of my inborn love for being well groomed. So I started playing a trick every Saturday before I went home for the weekend. After getting the certificate for leave, I would enter the janitor's room where I put down my knapsack and took off my canopy-like hairpiece. Then I would be on my way home sporting my short braids. The next day when I returned to school, I would, before handing in the certificate for leave, sneak into the women's bathroom without the knowledge of the proctor and furtively put on the unwieldy hairpiece again.

在这个中学时期中，本来是我的黄金时代，谁知我的活泼快乐的童年，竟销灭于这如牢狱似的学校生活中，至今想来，对于当时那种专门以压迫手段的学校教育，犹觉不寒而栗了。

My high school days would have been my golden age had it not been for the prison-like school life. Today, I still cannot help shuddering at the thought of the erstwhile coercion-oriented school education.

对于学校训育法，给我的印象太坏了，至于功课呢，也是不能使人满意，一味的注入，不管你能吸收消化与否，他们只管照着老调唱，因此我对于读书，竟视为畏途，在讲堂里总是想法消遣，不是作打油诗，俏皮先生，便是和同学传递纸条，以为玩笑，只要听见下课铃一响，但没命的逃了。

While I loathed the moral education conducted by the school, I was also fed-up with its spoon-fed intellectual education. The teachers then would harp on the same old platitudes regardless of whether the students could comprehend or not. As a result, I became bored with studies. While in class, I would try to divert myself by writing lines of doggerel at the expense of the teachers, or surreptitiously exchanging scribbled notes with my classmates for fun. And at the sound of the class-dismissing bell, we would all scatter in a rush.

在这枯燥阴暗的学校生活中，我有时仍然要自寻光明，那就是偷看小说——那时候的学生，除了教科书以外，什么都不许看，小说尤其在严禁之列，如被发觉，轻则学监叫去当面训斥一顿，把小说没收，重则挂牌记大过一次，可是这也禁不断我们，仍然不断的偷看书，有时我竟躲在讲堂最后一排的椅子上，把小说藏在国文讲义下面，趁先生讲的唾沫乱溅的时候，我已一页一页的偷看下去，有时看到小说中情节太滑稽的部分，我竟忘其所以的噗哧一笑，这就惹下了大祸，先生瞪起铜铃般的眼睛，恶狠狠地叫我到前排来，我连忙把小说往屉子里一塞，垂头丧气的坐到前排位子上，但是心里更急切要想晓得那故事的下文，于是我的精神贯注于那小说的想象中，虽是木然静坐，心早不知飞越到第几世界去了。

Confronted with the boredom of school life, I often tried to find a way out by reading novels on the sly. In those days, students were allowed to read no other books, especially novels, than textbooks. Acts of disobedience would incur a stern reprimand by the proctor plus confiscation of the novels, or, what was even worse, having a major demerit put on record. But all that proved of little avail. Sometimes, while the teacher was lecturing, I would, seating myself in the last row of the classroom, be absorbed in reading a novel hidden under a copy of lecture notes on Chinese. Sometimes, I would be carried away by something funny in the novel and chuckle involuntarily. That brought great trouble on me. The teacher glared at me with eyes wide open like two brass bells and fiercely ordered me to take a front-row seat instead. Thereupon, I quickly thrust the novel into my drawer and took the new seat, looking crestfallen. But, inwardly, I was concerned about the denouement of the novel. I just couldn't take my mind off what the ensuing chapters would be like. So, sitting still and quietly in the classroom, I would have my thoughts wandering immeasurably far away.

有一次，我从一个同学那里，借到林译小说的全部，这使我发狂的想看，于是就想了个绝妙的方法，跑到学监处，皱紧眉头假称肚子疼，学监叫我到寝室去睡，——平时寝室的门是锁了的，除非生病不到打睡觉铃时，不准到寝室去，——我这时暗暗地高兴，拿着锁打开寝室的门，放下帐子，拿上两三本小说，睡在床上，大看而特看，到吃饭的时候，学监只派校役，送一些稀饭和咸菜给我，这使我有苦说不出，无可奈何，只好把这稀饭咸菜姑且疗饥吧。我这样装病过三四次，是后一次这个秘密被学监发觉了，以欺骗和违法的罪名，记了我一大过。

Once, having borrowed from a classmate a collection of Western fiction translated into Chinese by Lin Shu, I was all eagerness to finish reading all of it. So I thought up a good idea. I went to the proctor with knitted eyebrows, pretending that I was suffering from a stomach-ache. She told me to go and get a sleep at the student dorm, which was ordinarily locked and no one could enter unless when in illness or before the lightsout bell rang. I felt secretly pleased. And with the key I got from her, I opened the dorm door and then lay in bed reading avidly Lin's translations with the mosquito net hung round me. At meal time, the proctor would send me by a school worker nothing but watery rice gruel and pickles. I felt unutterably miserable and had no alternative but to eat the simple fare to appease my hunger. Altogether I malingered three or four times until it was discovered by the proctor. Consequently I got a serious demerit put on my record on the charge of cheating and disobedience.

……

…

一年复一年的我们这样生活着，混过四年毕业书骗到手，我的中学生活也就告了结束。

That was how I managed to muddle through year after year until I gotthe diploma at the end of four years, thus concluding my high school life.

《中学时代生活的回忆》的作者庐隐(1898—1934)原名黄淑仪，又名黄英，福建闽侯人，是“五四”时期著名女作家，早期与冰心齐名。本文在英译时有所删节。