2021年经济学人 小说家约翰·勒卡尔(2)

On the avenue his own pace slowed. Instinctively¹ he began to practise tradecraft, or writing craft. He became observant, guarded, watchful², keeping to the edge of the path where the undergrowth slightly obscured him. Writers and spies shared the same "corrosive³ eye", as Graham Greene put it: that wish to penetrate⁴ the surface to the centre and truth of things. In fact he had not been in "the circus" for long; just a few years, running low-grade agents into eastern Europe and then working out of the British embassy in Bonn, before Kim Philby, a celebrated⁵ double agent, exposed him. He was a writer who, very briefly⁶, had been a spy.

在大街上，他自己的脚步放慢了。他本能地开始练习间谍情报技术，或写作技巧。他变得敏锐、谨慎、警惕，一直守在灌木丛稍稍遮住他的小路边上。作家和间谍都有一个“腐蚀性的眼睛”，就像格雷厄姆·格林所说的那样：他们希望从表面渗透到事物的中心和真相。事实上，他在“马戏团”里待的时间不长，只有几年，从低级特工到东欧，然后在英国驻波恩大使馆工作，在著名的双重间谍金·菲尔比揭发他之前。他是一位作家，曾短暂地做过间谍。

Yet he felt he had been recruited to the secret world from childhood, as Conrad was to the sea. He had acquired the comforting habit of cover-stories to try to account for a father who was in jail one moment and at Ascot the next: an epic⁷ conman from whom his mother bolted when he was five. He had joined the secret service for all kinds of romantic reasons, to do some good for society, and to discover how the world was really run; but also because he felt corporate⁸ attachment⁹ offered him a family's protection.

然而，他觉得自己从小就被征召到这个秘密世界，就像康拉德被征召到大海一样。他养成了用封面故事安慰人的习惯，试图解释一个父亲，他曾在监狱里呆过一段时间，后来又在阿斯科特：一个史诗般的骗子，他五岁时母亲就离开了他。他因为各种浪漫的原因加入了特勤局，为社会做点好事，发现世界是如何运转的；但也因为他觉得组织的依恋为他提供了一个家庭的保护。

To some extent it did. But he soon found with Alec Leamas, the pretend defector whom Smiley in "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" sent into East Germany and ultimately to his death, that spies were not priests or saints, but "a squalid procession of vain fools, sadists and drunkards, people who play cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten lives". In the cold war Western agents, aping Soviet¹⁰ ones, walked on the thinnest moral ice. It often broke.

在某种程度上确实如此。但他很快发现亚历克·莱马斯，在《从寒冷中走来的间谍》中，那个假装叛逃的人被派往东德，最后被处死，间谍不是牧师或圣徒，而是“一群虚荣的傻瓜、虐待狂和醉汉组成的肮脏队伍，扮演牛仔和印第安人来照亮他们腐朽生活的人”。在冷战中，西方特工，仿效苏联特工，走在道德冰层最薄的地方，冰经常裂掉。

1 instinctively   

adv.本能地

参考例句：

• As he leaned towards her she instinctively recoiled. 他向她靠近，她本能地往后缩。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He knew instinctively where he would find her. 他本能地知道在哪儿能找到她。 来自《简明英汉词典》

2 watchful   

adj.注意的，警惕的

参考例句：

• The children played under the watchful eye of their father.孩子们在父亲的小心照看下玩耍。
• It is important that health organizations remain watchful.卫生组织保持警惕是极为重要的。

3 corrosive   

adj.腐蚀性的；有害的；恶毒的

参考例句：

• Many highly corrosive substances are used in the nuclear industry.核工业使用许多腐蚀性很强的物质。
• Many highly corrosive substances are used in the nuclear industry.核工业使用许多腐蚀性很强的物质。

4 penetrate   

v.透(渗)入；刺入，刺穿；洞察，了解

参考例句：

• Western ideas penetrate slowly through the East.西方观念逐渐传入东方。
• The sunshine could not penetrate where the trees were thickest.阳光不能透入树木最浓密的地方。

5 celebrated   

adj.有名的，声誉卓著的

参考例句：

• He was soon one of the most celebrated young painters in England.不久他就成了英格兰最负盛名的年轻画家之一。
• The celebrated violinist was mobbed by the audience.观众团团围住了这位著名的小提琴演奏家。

6 briefly   

adv.简单地，简短地

参考例句：

• I want to touch briefly on another aspect of the problem.我想简单地谈一下这个问题的另一方面。
• He was kidnapped and briefly detained by a terrorist group.他被一个恐怖组织绑架并短暂拘禁。

7 epic   

n.史诗，叙事诗；adj.史诗般的，壮丽的

参考例句：

• I gave up my epic and wrote this little tale instead.我放弃了写叙事诗，而写了这个小故事。
• They held a banquet of epic proportions.他们举行了盛大的宴会。

8 corporate   

adj.共同的，全体的；公司的，企业的

参考例句：

• This is our corporate responsibility.这是我们共同的责任。
• His corporate's life will be as short as a rabbit's tail.他的公司的寿命是兔子尾巴长不了。

9 attachment   

n.附属物，附件；依恋；依附

参考例句：

• She has a great attachment to her sister.她十分依恋她的姐姐。
• She's on attachment to the Ministry of Defense.她现在隶属于国防部。

10 Soviet   

adj.苏联的，苏维埃的；n.苏维埃

参考例句：

• Zhukov was a marshal of the former Soviet Union.朱可夫是前苏联的一位元帅。
• Germany began to attack the Soviet Union in 1941.德国在1941年开始进攻苏联。