A Tale of Dickens
狄更斯记
Charles Dickens, second of eight children, was born in Portsea, England, in 1812 during the new industrial age. Dickens’s father was at the time a clerk in the navy pay office. He was well paid but often ended in financial troubles. When Charles was two the family moved to London, where he had two years，schooling, and then to Chatham, where he received some education. Charles was a frail boy, and the family’s frequent moves to ever poorer housing distressed him greatly.
狄更斯于1812年出生在英格兰的波特西，家里有8个孩子，他排行老二。当时是新产业时代，他的父亲当 时在海军出纳室供职，收入颇丰，却经常入不敷出。狄 更斯两岁时，举家搬到伦敦，他在那里上了两年学，后 又搬到查塔姆，又在那里上了一段时间学。狄更斯身体 比较虚弱，一次次的搬家，居住条件越来越差，使他饱 受折磨。
As a result of his father’s habit of living far beyond his means, the family was forced to sell all its possessions, down to the spoon, when Charles was 12 years old. In the same year he saw his father thrown into debtors’ prison. Young Charles had to leave school and did a five-month stretch of child labor in a shoe-polish factory. When a legacy temporarily rescued the family fortunes Charles got another two years of school, and later a job in a solicitor’s office. Ambitious and unyielding, he learned shorthand, became at 19 Parliamentary reporter for a series of London newspapers -just as David Copperfield did.
狄更斯的父亲习惯了花钱大手大脚，这让家里深受其害，狄更斯12岁那年，家里被迫变卖了所有家当，连勺子都没剩下。也在这一年，他父亲被关进了债务人监狱。 狄更斯被迫辍学，在一家鞋油厂做了 5个月的童工。再后 来，家里继承了一笔财产，才得以摆脱危机。狄更斯又读 了两年学，在一家律师行找到一份工作。当时的狄更斯志 向远大，坚忍不拔，他学了速记，19岁便做了一名国会记 者，接连为数家伦敦报社供稿，这正是他小说中的人物大卫.科波菲尔从事的职业。
Dickens began to write sketches of London life, signed them with the pen-name Boz. The sketches were so popular that the proprietors of the Morning Chronicle regarded him with an increasing kindly eye. With the publication of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1837), Dickens’ reputation was made. The book was translated into French and German. All of a sudden success and fame came to him with a smash. It swelled with each succeeding novel and never deserted him as he launched into weekly newspaper editing,amateur theatricals and public readings.
狄更斯开始写一些伦敦生活的随笔，以“鲍斯”的 笔名发表。这些随笔当时很受欢迎，晨报的老板们对他青睐有加。他的小说《匹克威克外传》于1837年完成, 一经发表便使他名声鹊起。该书被译为法语和德语， 瞬间功名接踵而至。此后他每发表一本小说，都得到 极力推崇，后来他又涉足周报编辑、戏剧创作及公共 阅读栏目，人们对他的喜爱有增无减。
Author Dickens took a fame like a duck to water, working harder than ever. One popular success followed another from his ready pen -Oliver Twist, Nicholas Nickleby, The Old Curiosity Shop. No plodding cultivator of a thankless Muse, Dickens enjoyed not only the fruits of his work but the work itself.
成名之后，狄更斯愈发不可收拾，他比以前更加卖 力地工作。涌现出一本本更受欢迎的作品：《雾都孤儿》, 《尼古拉斯·尼克尔贝》，《老古玩店》等。狄更斯不仅 喜欢自己的作品，更喜欢写作本身。
Looking back on his own childhood, Dickens saw “a very small and not over-particularly-taken-care-of boy.” That very boy grew into a astonishing amount of hard work, transformed himself into the most famous writer of his age. In April 1856, Dickens wrote to his friend of how clear it was to him that “one is driven by irresistible might until the journey is worked out!”
追忆童年时，狄更斯觉得自己是个“别人不怎么留 意的小男孩”。而就是这个小男孩，长大后凭借自己的 辛勤耕耘，成为当时最有名的作家。1856年4月，狄更 斯在给朋友的信中说道，他自己非常明白，“一个人会 被不可抗拒的力量所推动，直至实现目标！ ”
Despites of his hardships and bitter memories, Charles Dickens managed to become a kind of king-of-the-hill of Victorian letters. Even today he is still remembered as a greats novelist and his works enjoy a large number of readers both in China and around the world. His life-long experience has proved to us that armed with determination and resilience anyone can walk out of dark days to a bright future.
尽管狄更斯命途多磨难、多艰辛，他凭着个人的努 力，最终成为维多利亚时代的文学泰斗。直到今天人们 还记得他这位伟大的小说家。他的作品不仅在中国，在 全世界都拥有大批的读者。他一生的历程证明了，有坚 定的决心，有乐观的心态，任何人都能走出阴影，走向 美好的未来。 |