<John Bull's Other Island>
by G.Bernard Shaw
<ACT I>
01
Great George Street, Westminster, is the address of Doyle and Broadbent, civil engineers. On the threshold one reads that the firm consists of Mr Lawrence Doyle and Mr Thomas Broadbent, and that their rooms are on the first floor. Most of their rooms are private; for the partners, being bachelors and bosom friends, live there; and the door marked Private, next the clerks' office, is their domestic sitting room as well as their reception room for clients. Let me describe it briefly from the point of view of a sparrow on the windowsill. The outer door is in the opposite wall, close to the right hand corner. Between this door and the left hand corner is a hatstand and a table consisting of large drawing boards on trestles, with plans, rolls of tracing paper, mathematical instruments and other draughts man's accessories on it. In the left hand wall is the fireplace, and the door of an inner room between the fireplace and our observant sparrow. Against the right hand wall is a filing cabinet, with a cupboard on it, and, nearer, a tall office desk and stool for one person. In the middle of the room a large double writing table is set across, with a chair at each end for the two partners. It is a room which no woman would tolerate, smelling of tobacco, and much in need of repapering, repainting, and recarpeting; but this it the effect of bachelor untidiness and indifference,not want of means; for nothing that Doyle and Broadbent themselves have purchased is cheap; nor is anything they want lacking. On the walls hang a large map of South America, a pictorial advertisement of a steamship company, an impressive portrait of Gladstone, and several caricatures of Mr Balfour as a rabbit and Mr Chamberlain as a fox by Francis Carruthers Gould.
At twenty minutes to five o'clock on a summer afternoon in 1904, the room is empty. Presently the outer door is opened, and a valet comes in laden with a large Gladstone bag, and a strap of rugs. He carries them into the inner room. He is a respectable valet, old enough to have lost all alacrity, and acquired an air of putting up patiently with a great deal of trouble and indifferent health. The luggage belongs to Broadbent, who enters after the valet. He pulls off his overcoat and hangs it with his hat on the stand. Then he comes to the writing table and looks through the letters which are waiting for him. He is a robust, full-blooded,energetic man in the prime of life, sometimes eager and credulous, sometimes shrewd and roguish, sometimes portentously solemn, sometimes jolly and impetuous, always buoyant and irresistible, mostly likeable, and enormously absurd in his most earnest moments. He bursts open his letters with his thumb, and glances through them, flinging the envelopes about the floor with reckless untidiness whilst he talks to the valet.
trestle /ˈtresl/ n. [交] 棧橋，高架橋；支架，擱凳
pictorial /pɪkˈtɔːriəl/ adj. 繪畫的；形象化的 n. 畫報；畫刊
alacrity /əˈlækrəti/ n. 敏捷；輕快；樂意
credulous /ˈkredjələs/ adj. 輕信的；因輕信而產生的
shrewd /ʃruːd/ adj. 精明的；狡猾的；機靈的 n. 精明（的人）；機靈（的人）
roguish /ˈrəʊɡɪʃ/ adj. 流氓的；惡作劇的，淘氣的
portentously /pɔːrˈtentəsli/ adv. 不祥地；有預兆地；盛氣凌人地，自負地
impetuous /ɪmˈpetʃuəs/ adj. 衝動的；魯莽的；猛烈的
buoyant /ˈbɔɪənt/ adj. 輕快的；有浮力的；上漲的
irresistible /ˌɪrɪˈzɪstəbl/ adj. 極度誘人的；不可抵抗的
02
Haffigan is a stunted, shortnecked, smallheaded, redhaired man of about 30, with reddened nose and furtive eyes. He is dressed in seedy black, almost clerically, and might be a tenth-rate schoolmaster ruined by drink. He hastens to shake Broadbent's hand with a show of reckless geniality and high spirits, helped out by a rollicking stage brogue. This is perhaps a comfort to himself, as he is secretly pursued by the horrors of incipient delirium tremens.
furtive /ˈfɜːtɪv/ adj. 鬼鬼祟祟的，秘密的
seedy /ˈsiːdi/ adj. 多種子的；結籽的；破爛的；沒精打採的；下流的
clerically /'klɛrɪkli/ adv. 如牧師般地
geniality /ˌdʒiːniˈæləti/ n. 親切；溫暖；舒適
rollicking /ˈrɑːlɪkɪŋ/ adj. 歡樂的；喧鬧的 n. （非正式）申斥；責罵
brogue /brəʊɡ/ n. 粗革皮鞋；拷花皮鞋；土腔（指愛爾蘭口音的英語）
delirium /dɪˈlɪriəm; dɪˈlɪəriəm/ n. 精神錯亂；發狂，狂熱；說譫語狀態
03
BROADBENT. Where else can I go? I am an Englishman and a Liberal; and now that South Africa has been enslaved and destroyed, there is no country left to me to take an interest in but Ireland. Mind: I don't say that an Englishman has not other duties. He has a duty to Finland and a duty to Macedonia. But what sane man can deny that an Englishman's first duty is his duty to Ireland? Unfortunately, we have politicians here more unscrupulous than Bobrikoff, more bloodthirsty than Abdul the Damned; and it is under their heel that Ireland is now writhing.
unscrupulous /ʌnˈskruːpjələs/ adj. 肆無忌憚的；寡廉鮮恥的；不講道德的
writhing /ˈraɪðɪŋ/ vt. 翻滾，打滾；因劇痛扭動/蠕動；盤繞
04
Mr Laurence Doyle is a man of 36, with cold grey eyes, strained nose, fine fastidious lips, critical brown,clever head, rather refined and goodlooking on the whole, but with a suggestion of thinskinedness and dissatisfaction that contrasts strongly with Broadbent's eupepticjollity.
He comes in as a man at home there, but on seeing the stranger shrinks at once, and is about to withdraw when Broadbent reassures him. He then comes forward to the table, between the two others.
fastidious /fæˈstɪdiəs/ adj. 挑剔的；苛求的，難取悅的；（微生物等）需要複雜營養地
eupeptic /juː'peptɪk/ 消化良好的 [內科] 消化正常的
jollity /ˈdʒɒləti/ n. 酒宴；高興；歡樂
05
DOYLE [returning]. Where the devil did you pick up that seedy swindler? What was he doing here? [He goes upto the table where the plans are, and makes a note on one of them, referring to his pocket book as be does so].
BROADBENT. There you go! Why are you so down on every Irishman you meet, especially if he's a bit shabby? poor devil! Surely a fellow-countryman may pass you the top of the morning without offence, even if his coat is a bit shiny at the seams.
DOYLE [contemptuously]. The top of the morning! Did he call you the broth of a boy? [He comes to the writingtable].
BROADBENT [triumphantly]. Yes.
DOYLE. And wished you more power to your elbow?
BROADBENT. He did.
DOYLE. And that your shadow might never be less?
BROADBENT. Certainly.
DOYLE [ taking up the depleted whisky bottle and shaking his head at it]. And he got about half a pint of whisky out of you.
BROADBENT. It did him no harm. He never turned a hair.
DOYLE. How much money did he borrow?
BROADBENT. It was not borrowing exactly. He showed a very honorable spirit about money. I believe he would share his last shilling with a friend.
DOYLE. No doubt he would share his friend's last shilling if his friend was fool enough to let him. How much did he touch you for?
BROADBENT. Oh, nothing. An advance on his salary--for travelling expenses.
DOYLE. Salary! In Heaven's name, what for?
BROADBENT. For being my Home Secretary, as he very wittily called it.
DOYLE. I don't see the joke.
BROADBENT. You can spoil any joke by being cold blooded about it. I saw it all right when he said it. It was something--something really very amusing--about the Home Secretary and the Irish Secretary. At all events, he's evidently the very man to take with me to Ireland to break the ice for me. He can gain the confidence of the people there, and make them friendly to me. Eh? [ He seats himself on the office stool, and tilts it back so that the edge of the standing desk supports his back and prevents his toppling over].
contemptuously /kənˈtemptʃuəsli/ adv. 輕蔑地
06
DOYLE [ rising nervously and recommencing his restless movements]. That's it. That's what I dread. That's what has upset me.
BROADBENT. But don't you want to see your country again after 18 years absence? to see your people, to be in the old home again? To--
DOYLE [ interrupting him very impatiently]. Yes, yes: I know all that as well as you do.
BROADBENT. Oh well, of course [with a shrug] if you take it in that way, I'm sorry.
DOYLE. Never you mind my temper: it's not meant for you, as you ought to know by this time. [He sits down again, a little ashamed of his petulance; reflects a moment bitterly; then bursts out] I have an instinct against going back to Ireland: an instinct so strong that I'd rather go with you to the South Pole than to Rosscullen.
BROADBENT. What! Here you are, belonging to a nation with the strongest patriotism! the most inveterate homing instinct in the world! and you pretend you'd rather go anywhere than back to Ireland. You don't suppose I believe you, do you? In your heart--
DOYLE. Never mind my heart: an Irishman's heart is nothing but his imagination. How many of all those millions that have left Ireland have ever come back or wanted to come back? But what's the use of talking to you? Three verses of twaddle about the Irish emigrant "sitting on the stile, Mary," or three hours of Irish patriotism in Bermondsey or the Scotland Division of Liverpool, go further with you than all the facts that stare you in the face. Why, man alive, look at me! You know the way I nag, and worry, and carp, and cavil, and disparage, and am never satisfied and never quiet, and try the patience of my best friends.
recommence /ˌriːkəˈmens/ vi/vt. 重新開始
petulance /ˈpetjuləns/ n. 易怒；生氣；性急；暴躁
inveterate /ɪnˈvetərət/ adj. 根深的；積習的；成癖的
twaddle /ˈtwɒdl/ n. 廢話，閒聊 vi. 講廢話
carp /kɑːp n. 鯉魚；抱怨；鯉科屬魚 v. 吹毛求疵
07
DOYLE. My dear Tom, you only need a touch of the Irish climate to be as big a fool as I am myself. If all my Irish blood were poured into your veins, you wouldn't turn a hair of your constitution and character. Go and marry the most English Englishwoman you can find, and then bring up your son in Rosscullen; and that son's character will be so like mine and so unlike yours that everybody will accuse me of being his father. [With sudden anguish] Rosscullen! oh, good Lord, Rosscullen! The dullness! the hopelessness! the ignorance! the bigotry!
BROADBENT [matter-of-factly]. The usual thing in the country, Larry. Just the same here.
DOYLE [ hastily]. No, no: the climate is different. Here, if the life is dull, you can be dull too, and no great harm done. [ Going off into a passionate dream] But your wits can't thicken in that soft moist air, on those white springy roads, in those misty rushes and brown bogs, on those hillsides of granite rocks and magenta heather. You've no such colors in the sky, no such lure in the distances, no such sadness in the evenings. Oh, the dreaming! the dreaming! the torturing, heart scalding, never satisfying dreaming, dreaming, dreaming, dreaming! [Savagely] No debauchery that ever coarsened and brutalized an Englishman can take the worth and usefulness out of him like that dreaming. An Irishman's imagination never lets him alone, never convinces him, never satisfies him; but it makes him that he can't face reality nor deal with it nor handle it nor conquer it: he can only sneer at them that do, and [ bitterly, at Broadbent] be "agreeable to strangers," like a good-for-nothing woman on the streets. [ Gabbling at Broadbent across the table] It's all dreaming, all imagination. He can't be religious. The inspired Churchman that teaches him the sanctity of life and the importance of conduct is sent away empty; while the poor village priest that gives him a miracle or a sentimental story of a saint, has cathedrals built for him out of the pennies of the poor. He can't be intelligently political, he dreams of what the Shan Van Vocht said in ninety- eight. If you want to interest him in Ireland you've got to call the unfortunate island Kathleen ni Hoolihan and pretend she's a little old woman. It saves thinking. It saves working. It saves everything except imagination, imagination, imagination; and imagination's such a torture that you can't bear it without whisky. [ With fierce shivering self-contempt] At last you get that you can bear nothing real at all: you'd rather starve than cook a meal; you'd rather go shabby and dirty than set your mind to take care of your clothes and wash yourself; you nag and squabble at home because your wife isn't an angel, and she despises you because you're not a hero; and you hate the whole lot round you because they're only poor slovenly useless devils like yourself. [ Dropping his voice like a man making some shameful confidence] And all the while there goes on a horrible, senseless, mischievous laughter. When you're young, you exchange drinks with other young men; and you exchange vile stories with them; and as you're too futile to be able to help or cheer them, you chaff and sneer and taunt them for not doing the things you daren't do yourself. And all the time you laugh, laugh, laugh! eternal derision, eternal envy, eternal folly, eternal fouling and staining and degrading, until, when you come at last to a country where men take a question seriously and give a serious answer to it, you deride them for having no sense of humor, and plume yourself on your own worthlessness as if it made you better than them.
BROADBENT [ roused to intense earnestness by Doyle's eloquence]. Never despair, Larry. There are great possibilities for Ireland. Home Rule will work wonders under English guidance.
DOYLE [ pulled up short, his face twitching with a reluctant smile]. Tom: why do you select my most tragic moments for your most irresistible strokes of humor?
BROADBENT. Humor! I was perfectly serious. What do you mean? Do you doubt my seriousness about Home Rule?
anguish /ˈæŋɡwɪʃ/ n. 痛苦；苦惱 vt. 使極度痛苦 vi. 感到極度的痛苦
springy /ˈsprɪŋi/ adj. 有彈力的
scalding /ˈskɔːldɪŋ/ adj. 滾燙的；尖刻的 n. [外科] 燙傷 v. 燙（scald的ing形式）
debauchery /dɪˈbɔːtʃəri/ n. 放蕩；縱情酒色；墮落
coarsen /ˈkɔːsn/ vt. 使變粗；使變粗俗 vi. 變粗糙；變粗俗
gabble /ˈɡæbl/v. 急促而含混不清地說 n. 急促不清的話
self-contempt n. 自卑；自我輕視，自我鄙視
squabble /ˈskwɒbl/ v. （為瑣事）發生口角，大聲爭吵 n. 爭吵，口角
slovenly /ˈslʌvnli/ adj. 懶散的；不整潔的；馬虎的 adv. 邋遢地；馬虎地；不整潔地
derision /dɪˈrɪʒn/ n. 嘲笑；嘲笑的對象
eloquence/ˈeləkwəns/ n. 口才；雄辯；雄辯術；修辭
08
DOYLE. Yes, a caterpillar. Now give your mind to what I am going to say; for it's a new and important scientific theory of the English national character. A caterpillar--
BROADBENT. Look here, Larry: don't be an ass.
DOYLE [insisting]. I say a caterpillar and I mean a caterpillar. You'll understand presently. A caterpillar [ Broadbent mutters a slight protest, but does not press it] when it gets into a tree, instinctively makes itself look exactly like a leaf; so that both its enemies and its prey may mistake it for one and think it not worth bothering about.
BROADBENT. What's that got to do with our English national character?
DOYLE. I'll tell you. The world is as full of fools as a tree is full of leaves. Well, the Englishman does what the caterpillar does. He instinctively makes himself look like a fool, and eats up all the real fools at his ease while his enemies let him alone and laugh at him for being a fool like the rest. Oh, nature is cunning, cunning! [ He sits down, lost in contemplation of his word-picture].
BROADBENT [ with hearty admiration]. Now you know, Larry, that would never have occurred to me. You Irish people are amazingly clever. Of course it's all tommy rot; but it's so brilliant, you know! How the dickens do you think of such things! You really must write an article about it: they'll pay you something for it. If Nature won't have it, I can get it into Engineering for you: I know the editor.
contemplation /ˌkɒntəmˈpleɪʃn/ n. 沉思；注視；意圖
09
BROADBENT [ who has been nursing his knee and reflecting, apparently rather agreeably]. You know, all this sounds rather interesting. There's the Irish charm about it. That's the worst of you: the Irish charm doesn't exist for you.
DOYLE. Oh yes it does. But it's the charm of a dream. Live in contact with dreams and you will get something of their charm: live in contact with facts and you will get something of their brutality. I wish I could find a country to live in where the facts were not brutal and the dreams not unreal.
<ACT II>
01
Rosscullen. Westward a hillside of granite rock and heather slopes upward across the prospect from south to north, a huge stone stands on it in a naturally impossible place, as if it had been tossed up there by a giant. Over the brow, in the desolate valley beyond, is a round tower. A lonely white high road trending away westward past the tower loses itself at the foot of the far mountains. It is evening; and there are great breadths of silken green in the Irish sky. The sun is setting.
A man with the face of a young saint, yet with white hair and perhaps 50 years on his back, is standing near the stone in a trance of intense melancholy, looking over the hills as if by mere intensity of gaze he could pierce the glories of the sunset and see into the streets of heaven. He is dressed in black, and is rather more clerical in appearance than most English curates are nowadays; but he does not wear the collar and waistcoat of a parish priest. He is roused from his trance by the chirp of an insect from a tuft of grass in a crevice of the stone. His face relaxes: he turns quietly, and gravely takes off his hat to the tuft, addressing the insect in a brogue which is the jocular assumption of a gentleman and not the natural speech of a peasant.
desolate /ˈdesələt/ adj. 荒涼的；無人煙的 vt. 使荒涼；使孤寂
trance /trɑːns/ n. 恍惚；出神；著迷，入迷 vt. 使恍惚；使發呆
curate /'kjʊərət/ n. （某教區的）助理牧師；堂區牧師 v. 操持（收藏品或展品的）展出；組織（音樂節的）演出
chirp /tʃɜːp/ v. （蟲、鳥）吱喳而鳴；尖聲地說；輕鬆愉快地講（話）；抱怨；奚落 n. 唧喳聲；（蟲、鳥）鳴叫聲；（通信）啁啾聲
tuft /tʌft/ n. 一簇；叢生植物；一叢 vt. 用叢毛裝飾 vi. 叢生
crevice/ˈkrevɪs/ n. 裂縫；裂隙
brogue /brəʊɡ/ n. 粗革皮鞋；拷花皮鞋；土腔（指愛爾蘭口音的英語）
jocular/ˈdʒɒkjələ(r)/ adj. 愛開玩笑的；打趣的；滑稽的
02
THE GRASSHOPPER [plaintively]. X.X.
THE MAN. Ah, it's no use, me poor little friend. If you could jump as far as a kangaroo you couldn't jump away from your own heart an its punishment. You can only look at Heaven from here: you can't reach it. There! [ pointing with his stick to the sunset] that's the gate o glory, isn't it?
plaintively /ˈpleɪntɪvli/ adv. 哀怨地；傷心地
03
NORA [ embarrassed]. Oh, only idle curiosity. I wanted to know whether you found Ireland--I mean the country part of Ireland, of course--very small and backward like when you came back to it from Rome and Oxford and all the great cities.
KEEGAN. When I went to those great cities I saw wonders I had never seen in Ireland. But when I came back to Ireland I found all the wonders there waiting for me. You see they had been there all the time; but my eyes had never been opened to them. I did not know what my own house was like, because I had never been outside it.
NORA. D'ye think that's the same with everybody?
KEEGAN. With everybody who has eyes in his soul as well as in his head.
NORA. But really and truly now, weren't the people rather disappointing? I should think the girls must have seemed rather coarse and dowdy after the foreign princesses and people? But I suppose a priest wouldn't notice that.
KEEGAN. It's a priest's business to notice everything. I won't tell you all I noticed about women; but I'll tell you this. The more a man knows, and the farther he travels, the more likely he is to marry a country girl afterwards.
NORA [blushing with delight]. You're joking, Mr Keegan: I'm sure yar.
KEEGAN. My way of joking is to tell the truth. It's the funniest joke in the world.
dowdy /ˈdaʊdi/ adj. 懶散的；過時的；寒酸的 n. 懶散的女人；邋遢女人
04
KEEGAN. Well, not anxious perhaps; but you will be curious to see how much he has changed in all these years.
NORA [with a sudden bitter flush]. I suppose that's all that brings him back to look at us, just to see how much WE'VE changed. Well, he can wait and see me be candlelight: I didn't come out to meet him: I'm going to walk to the Round Tower [ going west across the hill].
KEEGAN. You couldn't do better this fine evening. [ Gravely] I'll tell him where you've gone. [ She turns as if to forbid him; but the deep understanding in his eyes makes that impossible; and she only looks at him earnestly and goes. He watches her disappear on the other side of the hill; then says] Aye, he's come to torment you; and you're driven already to torment him. [ He shakes his head, and goes slowly away across the hill in the opposite direction, lost in thought].
05
The priest, stout and fatherly, falls far short of that finest type of countryside pastor which represents the genius of priesthood; but he is equally far above the base type in which a strongminded and unscrupulous peasant uses the Church to extort money, power, and privilege. He is a priest neither by vocation nor ambition, but because the life suits him. He has boundless authority over his flock, and taxes them stiffly enough to be a rich man. The old Protestant ascendency is now too broken to gall him. On the whole, an easygoing, amiable, even modest man as long as his dues are paid and his authority and dignity fully admitted.
ascendency /əˈsendənsi/ n. 優勢；權勢；優越
gall /ɡɔːl/ n. 膽汁；五倍子；怨恨；苦味 vt. 煩惱；屈辱；磨傷 vi. 被磨傷
06
Cornelius Doyle is an elder of the small wiry type, with a hardskinned, rather worried face, clean shaven except for sandy whiskers blanching into a lustreless pale yellow and quite white at the roots. His dress is that of a country-town titan of business: that is, an oldish shooting suit, and elastic sided boots quite unconnected with shooting. Feeling shy with Broadbent, he is hasty, which is his way of trying to appear genial.
lustreless /'lʌstəlis/ adj. 無光澤的；平淡乏味的
genial /ˈdʒiːniəl/ adj. 親切的，友好的；和藹的；適宜的
07
Aunt Judy comes down the hill, a woman of 50, in no way remarkable, lively and busy without energy or grip, placid without tranquillity, kindly without concern for others: indeed without much concern for herself: a contented product of a narrow, strainless life. She wears her hair parted in the middle and quite smooth, with a fattened bun at the back. Her dress is a plain brown frock, with a woollen pelerine of black and aniline mauve over her shoulders, all very trim in honor of the occasion. Shelooks round for Larry; is puzzled; then stares incredulously at Broadbent.
placid /ˈplæsɪd/ adj. 平靜的；溫和的；沉著的
pelerine /'pelərɪn; 'peləriːn/ n. 細長披肩，狹長披肩（女用）
08
CORNELIUS. Yah, you great gaum, you! Widjer grasshoppers and dark lookers! Here: take up them things and let me hear no more o your foolish lip. [Patsy obeys]. You can take the sammin under your oxther. [He wedges the salmon into Patsy's axilla].
PATSY. I can take the goose too, sir. Put it on me back and gimme the neck of it in me mouth. [Cornelius is about to comply thoughtlessly].
AUNT JUDY [ feeling that Broadbent's presence demands special punctiliousness]. For shame, Patsy! to offer to take the goose in your mouth that we have to eat after you! The master'll bring it in for you. [Patsy, abashed, yet irritated by this ridiculous fastidiousness, takes his load up the hill].
axilla /æk'sɪlə/ n. [解剖] 腋窩，[解剖] 腋下；咯肢窩
punctiliousness /pʌŋkˈtɪliəsnəs/ n. 一絲不苟；小心翼翼；謹小慎微
abashed /əˈbæʃt/ adj. 不安的；窘迫的；尷尬的
fastidiousness /fæˈstɪdiəsnəs/ n. 一絲不苟；嚴格
09
Broadbent does not fare so badly after all at Aunt Judy's board. He gets not only tea and bread-and-butter, but more mutton chops than he has ever conceived it possible to eat at one sitting. There is also a most filling substance called potato cake. Hardly have his fears of being starved been replaced by his first misgiving that he is eating too much and will be sorry for it tomorrow, when his appetite is revived by the production of a bottle of illicitly distilled whisky, called pocheen, which he has read and dreamed of [ he calls it pottine] and is now at last to taste. His good humor rises almost to excitement before Cornelius shows signs of sleepiness. The contrast between Aunt Judy's table service and that of the south and east coast hotels at which he spends his Fridays-to-Tuesdays when he is in London, seems to him delightfully Irish. The almost total atrophy of any sense of enjoyment in Cornelius, or even any desire for it or toleration of the possibility of life being something better than a round of sordid worries, relieved by tobacco, punch, fine mornings, and petty successes in buying and selling, passes with his guest as the whimsical affectation of a shrewd Irish humorist and incorrigible spendthrift. Aunt Judy seems to him an incarnate joke. The likelihood that the joke will pall after a month or so, and is probably not apparent at any time to born Rossculleners, or that he himself unconsciously entertains Aunt Judy by his fantastic English personality and English mispronunciations, does not occur to him for a moment. In the end he is so charmed, and so loth to go to bed and perhaps dream of prosaic England, that he insists on going out to smoke a cigar and look for Nora Reilly at the Round Tower. Not that any special insistence is needed; for the English inhibitive instinct does not seem to exist in Rosscullen. Just as Nora's liking to miss a meal and stay out at the Round Tower is accepted as a sufficient reason for her doing it, and for the family going to bed and leaving the door open for her, so Broadbent's whim to go out for a late stroll provokes neither hospitable remonstrance nor surprise. Indeed Aunt Judy wants to get rid of him whilst she makes a bed for him on the sofa. So off he goes, full fed, happy and enthusiastic, to explore the valley by moonlight.
atrophy /ˈætrəfi/ n. 萎縮，萎縮症；發育停止 vi. 萎縮；虛脫
sordid /ˈsɔːdɪd/ adj. 骯髒的；卑鄙的；利慾薰心的；色彩暗淡的
whimsical /ˈwɪmzɪkl/ adj. 古怪的；異想天開的；反覆無常的
spendthrift /ˈspendθrɪft/ n. 揮霍無度的人，浪費的人 adj. 揮霍無度的；浪費的
incarnate /ɪn'kɑːnət/ adj. 人體化的，化身的；擬人化的；極典型的；以極端形式體現的 v. 體現，化身為，使具體化；使人格化，擬人化；（人）體現（某種品質）
loth /ləʊθ/ adj. 不願意的（等於loath）；勉強的；憎惡的
prosaic /prəˈzeɪɪk/ adj. 平凡的，乏味的；散文體的
inhibitive /ɪnˈhɪbɪtɪv/ adj. 抑制的；禁止的
whim /wɪm/ n. 奇想；一時的興致；怪念頭；幻想
remonstrance /rɪˈmɒnstrəns/ n. 抗議；規勸；諫書
10
The Round Tower stands about half an Irish mile from Rosscullen, some fifty yards south of the road on a knoll with a circle of wild greensward on it. The road once ran over this knoll; but modern engineering has tempered the level to the Beeyankiny car by carrying the road partly round the knoll and partly through a cutting; so that the way from the road to the tower is a footpath up the embankment through furze and brambles.
On the edge of this slope, at the top of the path, Nora is straining her eyes in the moonlight, watching for Larry. At last she gives it up with a sob of impatience, and retreats to the hoary foot of the tower, where she sits down discouraged and cries a little.Then she settles herself resignedly to wait, and hums a song--not an Irish melody, but a hackneyed English drawing-room ballad of the season before last--until some slight noise suggests a footstep, when she springs up eagerly and runs to the edge of the slope again. Some moments of silence and suspense follow, broken by unmistakable footsteps. She gives a little gasp as she sees a man approaching.
NORA. Is that you, Larry? [Frightened a little] Who's that?
[BROADBENT's voice from below on the path]. Don't be alarmed.
NORA. Oh, what an English accent you've got!
BROADBENT [rising into view] I must introduce myself--
NORA [violently startled, retreating]. It's not you! Who are you? What do you want?
BROADBENT [advancing]. I'm really so sorry to have alarmed you, Miss Reilly. My name is Broadbent. Larry's friend, you know.
NORA [chilled]. And has Mr Doyle not come with you?
BROADBENT. No. I've come instead. I hope I am not unwelcome.
NORA [ deeply mortified]. I'm sorry Mr Doyle should have given you the trouble, I'm sure.
BROADBENT. You see, as a stranger and an Englishman, I thought it would be interesting to see the Round Tower by moonlight.
NORA. Oh, you came to see the tower. I thought--[ confused, trying to recover her manners] Oh, of course. I was so startled--It's a beautiful night, isn't it?
BROADBENT. Lovely. I must explain why Larry has not come himself.
NORA. Why should he come? He's seen the tower often enough: it's no attraction to him. [Genteelly] An what do you think of Ireland, Mr Broadbent? Have you ever been here before?
BROADBENT. Never.
knoll /nəʊl/ n. 小山
furze /fɜːz/ n. 荊豆（等於whin）
bramble /ˈbræmbl/ n. 荊棘；樹莓；懸鉤子屬植物
hoary /ˈhɔːri/ adj. 久遠的，古老的；灰白的
resignedly /rɪˈzaɪnɪdli/ adv. 聽從地；服從地
hackneyed /ˈhæknid/ adj. 陳腐的；平庸的 v. 出租（馬匹、馬車等）；役使（hackney的過去式）
genteelly /dʒenˈtiːlli/ adv. 文雅地，有教養地
11
NORA. How dare you touch me?
BROADBENT. There are not many things I would not dare for you. That does not sound right perhaps; but I really--[ he stops and passes his hand over his forehead, rather lost].
NORA. I think you ought to be ashamed. I think if you were a gentleman, and me alone with you in this place at night, you would die rather than do such a thing.
BROADBENT. You mean that it's an act of treachery to Larry?
NORA. Deed I don't. What has Larry to do with it? It's an act of disrespect and rudeness to me: it shows what you take me for. You can go your way now; and I'll go mine. Goodnight, Mr Broadbent.
BROADBENT. No, please, Miss Reilly. One moment. Listen to me. I'm serious: I'm desperately serious. Tell me that I'm interfering with Larry; and I'll go straight from this spot back to London and never see you again. That's on my honor: I will. Am I interfering with him?
NORA [ answering in spite of herself in a sudden spring of bitterness]. I should think you ought to know better than me whether you're interfering with him. You've seen him oftener than I have. You know him better than I do, by this time. You've come to me quicker than he has, haven't you?
BROADBENT. I'm bound to tell you, Miss Reilly, that Larry has not arrived in Rosscullen yet. He meant to get here before me; but his car broke down; and he may not arrive until tomorrow.
NORA [ her face lighting up]. Is that the truth?
BROADBENT. Yes: that's the truth. [ She gives a sigh of relief]. You're glad of that?
NORA [ up in arms at once]. Glad indeed! Why should I be glad? As we've waited eighteen years for him we can afford to wait a day longer, I should think.
BROADBENT. If you really feel like that about him, there may be a chance for another man yet. Eh?
NORA [ deeply offended]. I suppose people are different in England, Mr Broadbent; so perhaps you don't mean any harm. In Ireland nobody'd mind what a man'd say in fun, nor take advantage of what a woman might say in answer to it. If a woman couldn't talk to a man for two minutes at their first meeting without being treated the way you're treating me, no decent woman would ever talk to a man at all.
BROADBENT. I don't understand that. I don't admit that. I am sincere; and my intentions are perfectly honorable. I think you will accept the fact that I'm an Englishman as a guarantee that I am not a man to act hastily or romantically, though I confess that your voice had such an extraordinary effect on me just now when you asked me so quaintly whether I was making love to you--
NORA [flushing] I never thought--
BROADHHNT [quickly]. Of course you didn't. I'm not so stupid as that. But I couldn't bear your laughing at the feeling it gave me. You--[ again struggling with a surge of emotion] you don't know what I-- [ he chokes for a moment and then blurts out with unnatural steadiness] Will you be my wife?
NORA [ promptly]. Deed I won't. The idea! [ Looking at him more carefully] Arra, come home, Mr Broadbent; and get your senses back again. I think you're not accustomed to potcheen punch in the evening after your tea.
BROADBENT [ horrified]. Do you mean to say that I--I--I--my God! that I appear drunk to you, Miss Reilly?
NORA [compassionately]. How many tumblers had you?
BROADBENT [ helplessly]. Two.
NORA. The flavor of the turf prevented you noticing the strength of it. You'd better come home to bed.
BROADBENT [ fearfully agitated]. But this is such a horrible doubt to put into my mind--to--to--For Heaven's sake, Miss Reilly, am I really drunk?
NORA [ soothingly]. You'll be able to judge better in the morning. Come on now back with me, an think no more about it. [ She takes his arm with motherly solicitude and urges him gently toward the path].
BROADBENT [ yielding in despair]. I must be drunk--frightfully drunk; for your voice drove me out of my senses [ he stumbles over a stone]. No: on my word, on my most sacred word of honor, Miss Reilly, I tripped over that stone. It was an accident; it was indeed.
NORA. Yes, of course it was. Just take my arm, Mr Broadbent, while we're goin down the path to the road. You'll be all right then.
BROADBENT [ submissively taking it]. I can't sufficiently apologize, Miss Reilly, or express my sense of your kindness when I am in such a disgusting state. How could I be such a bea-- [ he trips again] damn the heather! my foot caught in it.
NORA. Steady now, steady. Come along: come. [ He is led down to the road in the character of a convicted drunkard. To him there it something divine in the sympathetic indulgence she substitutes for the angry disgust with which one of his own country women would resent his supposed condition. And he has no suspicion of the fact, or of her ignorance of it, that when an Englishman is sentimental he behaves very much as an Irishman does when he is drunk].
quaintly /ˈkweɪntli/ adv. 離奇有趣地；古雅地；優雅地
promptly /ˈprɒmptli/ adv. 迅速地；立即地；敏捷地
tumbler /ˈtʌmblə(r)/ n. 不倒翁（玩具）；雜技演員；翻筋鬥者；一杯的容量；滾筒；平底玻璃杯
soothingly /ˈsuːðɪŋli/ adv. 安慰地
solicitude /səˈlɪsɪtjuːd/ n. 牽掛，關懷
<ACT III>
01
An oldish peasant farmer, small, leathery, peat faced, with a deep voice and a surliness that is meant to be aggressive, and is in effect pathetic--the voice of a man of hard life and many sorrows--comes in at the gate. He is old enough to have perhaps worn a long tailed frieze coat and knee breeches in his time; but now he is dressed respectably in a black frock coat, tall hat, and pollard colored trousers; and his face is as clean as washing can make it, though that is not saying much, as the habit is recently acquired and not yet congenial.
surliness /ˈsɜːrlinəs/ n. 不和藹；粗魯；險惡的天氣；乖戾
frieze /friːz/ n. 帶狀物；起絨粗呢 vt. 使起絨毛
pollard /ˈpɒləd; ˈpɒlɑːd/ n. 截去樹梢的樹；角被割下的動物 vt. 將……截角；將……去梢
congenial /kənˈdʒiːniəl/ adj. 意氣相投的；性格相似的；適意的；一致的
02
LARRY. No wonder! Of course they all hated us like the devil. Ugh! [Moodily] I've seen them in that office,telling my father what a fine boy I was, and plastering him with compliments, with your honor here and your honor there, when all the time their fingers were itching to beat his throat.
AUNT JUDY. Deedn why should they want to hurt poor Corny? It was he that got Mat the lease of his farm, and stood up for him as an industrious decent man.
BROADBENT. Was he industrious? That's remarkable, you know, in an Irishman.
LARRY. Industrious! That man's industry used to make me sick, even as a boy. I tell you, an Irish peasant's industry is not human: it's worse than the industry of a coral insect. An Englishman has some sense about working: he never does more than he can help--and hard enough to get him to do that without scamping it; but an Irishman will work as if he'd die the moment he stopped. That man Matthew Haffigan and his brother Andy made a farm out of a patch of stones on the hillside--cleared it and dug it with their own naked hands and bought their first spade out of their first crop of potatoes. Talk of making two blades of wheat grow where one grew before! those two men made a whole field of wheat grow where not even a furze bush had ever got its head up between the stones.
BROADBENT. That was magnificent, you know. Only a great race is capable of producing such men.
Moodily /ˈmuːdɪli/ adv. 易生氣地，心情不穩地
03
BROADBENT. Larry.
LARRY. What is it?
BROADBENT. I got drunk last night, and proposed to Miss Reilly.
LARRY. You HWAT??? [ He screams with laughter in the falsetto Irish register unused for that purpose in England].
BROADBENT. What are you laughing at?
LARRY [stopping dead]. I don't know. That's the sort of thing an Irishman laughs at. Has she accepted you?
BROADBENT. I shall never forget that with the chivalry of her nation, though I was utterly at her mercy, she refused me.
LARRY. That was extremely improvident of her. [ Beginning to reflect] But look here: when were you drunk? You were sober enough when you came back from the Round Tower with her.
BROADBENT. No, Larry, I was drunk, I am sorry to say. I had two tumblers of punch. She had to lead me home.You must have noticed it.
LARRY. I did not.
BROADBENT. She did.
LARRY. May I ask how long it took you to come to business? You can hardly have known her for more than a couple of hours.
BROADBENT. I am afraid it was hardly a couple of minutes. She was not here when I arrived; and I saw her for the first time at the tower.
LARRY. Well, you are a nice infant to be let loose in this country! Fancy the potcheen going to your head like that!
BROADBENT. Not to my head, I think. I have no headache; and I could speak distinctly. No: potcheen goes to the heart, not to the head. What ought I to do?
LARRY. Nothing. What need you do?
BROADBENT. There is rather a delicate moral question involved. The point is, was I drunk enough not to be morally responsible for my proposal? Or was I sober enough to be bound to repeat it now that I am undoubtedly sober?
LARRY. I should see a little more of her before deciding.
BROADBENT. No, no. That would not be right. That would not be fair. I am either under a moral obligation or I am not. I wish I knew how drunk I was.
LARRY. Well, you were evidently in a state of blithering sentimentality, anyhow.
BROADBENT. That is true, Larry: I admit it. Her voice has a most extraordinary effect on me. That Irish voice!
LARRY [ sympathetically]. Yes, I know. When I first went to London I very nearly proposed to walk out with a waitress in an Aerated Bread shop because her Whitechapel accent was so distinguished, so quaintly touching, so pretty--
BROADBENT [ angrily]. Miss Reilly is not a waitress, is she?
LARRY. Oh, come! The waitress was a very nice girl.
BROADBENT. You think every Englishwoman an angel. You really have coarse tastes in that way, Larry. MissReilly is one of the finer types: a type rare in England, except perhaps in the best of the aristocracy.
LARRY. Aristocracy be blowed! Do you know what Nora eats?
BROADBENT. Eats! what do you mean?
LARRY. Breakfast: tea and bread-and-butter, with an occasional rasher, and an egg on special occasions: say on her birthday. Dinner in the middle of the day, one course and nothing else. In the evening, tea and bread-and-butter again. You compare her with your Englishwomen who wolf down from three to five meat meals a day; and naturally you find her a sylph. The difference is not a difference of type: it's the difference between the woman who eats not wisely but too well, and the woman who eats not wisely but too little.
falsetto /fɔːlˈsetəʊ/ n. 假音；假聲歌手；[耳鼻喉] 男性女聲 adj. 用假聲的 adv. 用假聲
blithering /ˈblɪðərɪŋ/ adj. 胡扯的；嘮叨不已的
rasher /ˈræʃə(r)/n. 薄片；燻肉薄片；鹹肉的薄片
sylph/sɪlf/ n. 空氣精靈；身材苗條的女人
04
LARRY [ coming down on Mat promptly]. I'll tell you, Mat. I always thought it was a stupid, lazy, good-for-nothing sort of thing to leave the land in the hands of the old landlords without calling them to a strict account for the use they made of it, and the condition of the people on it. I could see for myself that they thought of nothing but what they could get out of it to spend in England; and that they mortgaged and mortgaged until hardly one of them owned his own property or could have afforded to keep it up decently if he'd wanted to. But I tell you plump and plain, Mat, that if anybody thinks things will be any better now that the land is handed over to a lot of little men like you, without calling you to account either, they're mistaken.
MATTHEW [ sullenly]. What call have you to look down on me? I suppose you think you're everybody because your father was a land agent.
LARRY. What call have you to look down on Patsy Farrell? I suppose you think you're everybody because you own a few fields.
MATTHEW. Was Patsy Farrll ever ill used as I was ill used? tell me dhat.
LARRY. He will be, if ever he gets into your power as you were in the power of your old landlord. Do you think, because you're poor and ignorant and half-crazy with toiling and moiling morning noon and night, that you'll be any less greedy and oppressive to them that have no land at all than old Nick Lestrange, who was an educated travelled gentleman that would not have been tempted as hard by a hundred pounds as you'd be by five shillings? Nick was too high above Patsy Farrell to be jealous of him; but you, that are only one little step above him, would die sooner than let him come up that step; and well you know it.
05
LARRY [ now thoroughly roused]. Then let them make room for those who can. Is Ireland never to have a chance? First she was given to the rich; and now that they have gorged on her flesh, her bones are to be flung to the poor, that can do nothing but suck the marrow out of her. If we can't have men of honor own the land, lets have men of ability. If we can't have men with ability, let us at least have men with capital. Anybody's better than Mat, who has neither honor, nor ability, nor capital, nor anything but mere brute labor and greed in him, Heaven help him!
gorge /ɡɔːdʒ/ n. 峽谷；胃；暴食；咽喉；障礙物 vt. 使吃飽；吞下；使擴張 vi. 拚命吃；狼吞虎咽
06
LARRY. For modern industrial purposes you might just as well be, Barney. You're all children: the big world that I belong to has gone past you and left you. Anyhow, we Irishmen were never made to be farmers; and we'll never do any good at it. We're like the Jews: the Almighty gave us brains, and bid us farm them, and leave the clay and the worms alone.
07
BROADBENT [ rising so as to address them more imposingly]. I really cannot tell you what I feel about HomeRule without using the language of hyperbole.
hyperbole /haɪˈpɜːbəli/ n. 誇張的語句；誇張法
<ACT IV>
01
There is a strong contrast of emotional atmosphere between the two sides of the room. Keegan is extraordinarily stern: no game of backgammon could possibly make a man's face so grim. Aunt Judy is quietly busy. Nora it trying to ignore Doran and attend to her game.
On the other hand Doran is reeling in an ecstasy of mischievous mirth which has infected all his friends.They are screaming with laughter, doubled up, leaning on the furniture and against the walls, shouting,screeching, crying.
backgammon /ˈbækɡæmən; ˌbækˈɡæmən/ n. 西洋雙陸棋戲
mirth /mɜːθ/ n. 歡笑；歡樂；高興
02
KEEGAN [grimly]. Why not? There is danger, destruction, torment! What more do we want to make us merry? Goon, Barney: the last drops of joy are not squeezed from the story yet. Tell us again how our brother was tornasunder.
DORAN [ puzzled]. Whose bruddher?
KEEGAN. Mine.
NORA. He means the pig, Mr Doran. You know his way.
03
Cornelius comes in hastily from the garden, pushing his way through the little crowd.
CORNELIUS. Whisht your laughin, boys! Here he is. [ He puts his hat on the sideboard, and goes to the fireplace, where he posts himself with his back to the chimneypiece].
AUNT JUDY. Remember your behavior, now.
Everybody becomes silent, solemn, concerned, sympathetic. Broadbent enters, roiled and disordered as to his motoring coat: immensely important and serious as to himself. He makes his way to the end of the table nearest the garden door, whilst Larry, who accompanies him, throws his motoring coat on the sofa bed, and sits down, watching the proceedings.
BROADBENT [ taking off his leather cap with dignity and placing it on the table]. I hope you have not been anxious about me.
04
BROADBENT. May I say how deeply I feel the kindness with which I have been overwhelmed since my accident? I can truthfully declare that I am glad it happened, because it has brought out the kindness and sympathy of the Irish character to an extent I had no conception of.
05
BROADBENT. Since this morning, Miss Doyle. I have had a lesson [ he looks at Nora significantly] that I shall not forget. It may be that total abstinence has already saved my life; for I was astonished at the steadiness of my nerves when death stared me in the face today. So I will ask you to excuse me. [ He collects himself for a speech]. Gentlemen: I hope the gravity of the peril through which we have all passed--for I know that the danger to the bystanders was as great as to the occupants of the car--will prove an earnest of closer and more serious relations between us in the future. We have had a somewhat agitating day: a valuable and innocent animal has lost its life: a public building has been wrecked: an aged and infirm lady has suffered an impact for which I feel personally responsible, though my old friend Mr Laurence Doyle unfortunately incurred the first effects of her very natural resentment. I greatly regret the damage to MrPatrick Farrell's fingers; and I have of course taken care that he shall not suffer pecuniarily by his mishap. [ Murmurs of admiration at his magnanimity, and A Voice "You're a gentleman, sir"]. I am glad to say that Patsy took it like an Irishman, and, far from expressing any vindictive feeling, declared his willingness to break all his fingers and toes for me on the same terms [subdued applause, and "More power toPatsy!"]. Gentlemen: I felt at home in Ireland from the first [rising excitement among his hearers]. In every Irish breast I have found that spirit of liberty [A cheery voice "Hear Hear"], that instinctive mistrust of the Government [ A small pious voice, with intense expression, "God bless you, sir!"], that loveof independence [ A defiant voice, "That's it! Independence!"], that indignant sympathy with the cause of oppressed nationalities abroad [ A threatening growl from all: the ground-swell of patriotic passion], and with the resolute assertion of personal rights at home, which is all but extinct in my own country. If it were legally possible I should become a naturalized Irishman; and if ever it be my good fortune to representan Irish constituency in parliament, it shall be my first care to introduce a Bill legalizing such an operation. I believe a large section of the Liberal party would avail themselves of it. [Momentary scepticism]. I do. [ Convulsive cheering]. Gentlemen: I have said enough. [ Cries of "Go on"]. No: I have as yet no right to address you at all on political subjects; and we must not abuse the warmhearted Irish hospitality of Miss Doyle by turning her sitting room into a public meeting.
DORAN [ energetically]. Three cheers for Tom Broadbent, the future member for Rosscullen!
pecuniarily /pɪ'kjʊnɪ,ɛrɪli/ adv. 在金錢上；在金錢方面
magnanimity /ˌmæɡnəˈnɪməti/ n. 寬宏大量；慷慨
pious /ˈpaɪəs/ adj. 虔誠的；敬神的；可嘉的；盡責的
convulsive /kənˈvʌlsɪv/ adj. 抽搐的；驚厥的；震動的；起痙攣的
06
CORNELIUS. It's all up with his candidature. He'll be laughed out o the town.
LARRY [ turning quickly from the doorway]. Oh no he won't: he's not an Irishman. He'll never know they're laughing at him; and while they're laughing he'll win the seat.
CORNELIUS. But he can't prevent the story getting about.
LARRY. He won't want to. He'll tell it himself as one of the most providential episodes in the history of England and Ireland.
AUNT JUDY. Sure he wouldn't make a fool of himself like that.
LARRY. Are you sure he's such a fool after all, Aunt Judy? Suppose you had a vote! which would you rathergive it to? the man that told the story of Haffigan's pig Barney Doran's way or Broadbent's way?
AUNT JUDY. Faith I wouldn't give it to a man at all. It's a few women they want in parliament to stop their foolish blather.
BROADBENT [ bustling into the room, and taking off his damaged motoring overcoat, which he put down on the sofa]. Well, that's over. I must apologize for making that speech, Miss Doyle; but they like it, you know.Everything helps in electioneering.
Larry takes the chair near the door; draws it near the table; and sits astride it, with his elbows folded on the back.
AUNT JUDY. I'd no notion you were such an orator, Mr Broadbent.
BROADBENT. Oh, it's only a knack. One picks it up on the platform. It stokes up their enthusiasm.
providential /ˌprɒvɪˈdenʃl/ adj. 幸運的
knack /næk/ n. 訣竅；本領；熟練技術；巧妙手法
07
BROADBENT [ stiffly]. I hope I have said or done nothing that calls for any such observation, Mr Doyle. If there is a vice I detest--or against which my whole public life has been a protest--it is the vice of hypocrisy. I would almost rather be inconsistent than insincere.
KEEGAN. Do not be offended, sir: I know that you are quite sincere. There is a saying in the Scripture which runs--so far as the memory of an oldish man can carry the words--Let not the right side of your brain know what the left side doeth. I learnt at Oxford that this is the secret of the Englishman's strange power of making the best of both worlds.
BROADBENT. Surely the text refers to our right and left hands. I am somewhat surprised to hear a member of your Church quote so essentially Protestant a document as the Bible; but at least you might quote it accurately.
LARRY. Tom: with the best intentions you're making an ass of yourself. You don't understand Mr Keegan's peculiar vein of humor.
BROADBENT [ instantly recovering his confidence]. Ah! it was only your delightful Irish humor, Mr Keegan. Of course, of course. How stupid of me! I'm so sorry. [ He pats Keegan consolingly on the back]. John Bull's wits are still slow, you see. Besides, calling me a hypocrite was too big a joke to swallow all at once, you know.
KEEGAN. You must also allow for the fact that I am mad.
NORA. Ah, don't talk like that, Mr Keegan.
BROADBENT [ encouragingly]. Not at all, not at all. Only a whimsical Irishman, eh?
LARRY. Are you really mad, Mr Keegan?
AUNT JUDY [ shocked]. Oh, Larry, how could you ask him such a thing?
LARRY. I don't think Mr Keegan minds. [ To Keegan] What's the true version of the story of that black man you confessed on his deathbed?
KEEGAN. What story have you heard about that?
LARRY. I am informed that when the devil came for the black heathen, he took off your head and turned it three times round before putting it on again; and that your head's been turned ever since.
NORA [ reproachfully]. Larry!
KEEGAN [ blandly]. That is not quite what occurred. [ He collects himself for a serious utterance: they attend involuntarily]. I heard that a black man was dying, and that the people were afraid to go near him.When I went to the place I found an elderly Hindoo, who told me one of those tales of unmerited misfortune,of cruel ill luck, of relentless persecution by destiny, which sometimes wither the commonplaces of consolation on the lips of a priest. But this man did not complain of his misfortunes. They were brought upon him, he said, by sins committed in a former existence. Then, without a word of comfort from me, he died with a clear-eyed resignation that my most earnest exhortations have rarely produced in a Christian, and left me sitting there by his bedside with the mystery of this world suddenly revealed to me.
BROADBENT. That is a remarkable tribute to the liberty of conscience enjoyed by the subjects of our Indian Empire.
LARRY. No doubt; but may we venture to ask what is the mystery of this world?
KEEGAN. This world, sir, is very clearly a place of torment and penance, a place where the fool flourishes and the good and wise are hated and persecuted, a place where men and women torture one another in the name of love; where children are scourged and enslaved in the name of parental duty and education; where the weak in body are poisoned and mutilated in the name of healing, and the weak in character are put to the horrible torture of imprisonment, not for hours but for years, in the name of justice. It is a place where the hardest toil is a welcome refuge from the horror and tedium of pleasure, and where charity and good works are done only for hire to ransom the souls of the spoiler and the sybarite. Now, sir, there is only one place of horror and torment known to my religion; and that place is hell. Therefore it is plain to me that this earth of ours must be hell, and that we are all here, as the Indian revealed to me--perhaps he was sent to reveal it to me to expiate crimes committed by us in a former existence.
AUNT JUDY [ awestruck]. Heaven save us, what a thing to say!
reproachfully /rɪˈprəʊtʃfəli/ adv. 責備地
blandly /ˈblændli/ adv. 溫和地；殷勤地；溫柔地
utterance /ˈʌtərəns/ n. 表達；說話；說話方式
exhortation /ˌeɡzɔːˈteɪʃn/ n. 講道詞，訓詞；勸告
penance /ˈpenəns/ n. 懺悔；苦修；苦差事 v. 使懺悔；使苦修
scourge /skɜːdʒ/ n. 災禍；鞭子；苦難的根源 v. 折磨；鞭打；斥痛
sybarite /sɪbəˌraɪt/ n. 愛奢侈享樂的人
expiate /ˈekspieɪt/ vt. 贖罪；補償 vi. 贖罪；補償
awestruck /ˈɔːstrʌk/ adj. 敬畏的；驚奇不已的（等於awestricken）
08
BROADBENT. As a reasonable man, yes. I see no evils in the world--except, of course, natural evils--that can not be remedied by freedom, self-government, and English institutions. I think so, not because I am an Englishman, but as a matter of common sense.
KEEGAN. You feel at home in the world, then?
09
Larry and Nora are left together for the first time since his arrival. She looks at him with a smile that perishes as she sees him aimlessly rocking his chair, and reflecting, evidently not about her, with his lips pursed as if he were whistling. With a catch in her throat she takes up Aunt Judy's knitting, and makes a pretence of going on with it.
NORA. I suppose it didn't seem very long to you.
LARRY [starting]. Eh? What didn't?
NORA. The eighteen years you've been away.
LARRY. Oh, that! No: it seems hardly more than a week. I've been so busy--had so little time to think.
NORA. I've had nothin else to do but think.
LARRY. That was very bad for you. Why didn't you give it up? Why did you stay here?
NORA. Because nobody sent for me to go anywhere else, I suppose. That's why.
LARRY. Yes: one does stick frightfully in the same place, unless some external force comes and routs one out. [ He yawns slightly; but as she looks up quickly at him, he pulls himself together and rises with an air of waking up and getting to work cheerfully to make himself agreeable]. And how have you been all this time?
NORA. Quite well, thank you.
LARRY. That's right. [ Suddenly finding that he has nothing else to say, and being ill at ease inconsequence, he strolls about the room humming a certain tune from Offenbach's Whittington].
NORA [ struggling with her tears]. Is that all you have to say to me, Larry?
LARRY. Well, what is there to say? You see, we know each other so well.
NORA [ a little consoled]. Yes: of course we do. [ He does not reply]. I wonder you came back at all.
LARRY. I couldn't help it. [ She looks up affectionately]. Tom made me. [ She looks down again quickly to conceal the effect of this blow. He whistles another stave; then resumes]. I had a sort of dread of returning to Ireland. I felt somehow that my luck would turn if I came back. And now here I am, none the worse.
NORA. Praps it's a little dull for you.
LARRY. No: I haven't exhausted the interest of strolling about the old places and remembering and romancing about them.
NORA [ hopefully]. Oh! You DO remember the places, then?
LARRY. Of course. They have associations.
NORA [ not doubting that the associations are with her]. I suppose so.
LARRY. M'yes. I can remember particular spots where I had long fits of thinking about the countries I meant to get to when I escaped from Ireland. America and London, and sometimes Rome and the east.
NORA [ deeply mortified]. Was that all you used to be thinking about?
LARRY. Well, there was precious little else to think about here, my dear Nora, except sometimes at sunset, when one got maudlin and called Ireland Erin, and imagined one was remembering the days of old, and so forth. [ He whistles Let Erin Remember].
NORA. Did jever get a letter I wrote you last February?
LARRY. Oh yes; and I really intended to answer it. But I haven't had a moment; and I knew you wouldn't mind.You see, I am so afraid of boring you by writing about affairs you don't understand and people you don't know! And yet what else have I to write about? I begin a letter; and then I tear it up again. The fact is,fond as we are of one another, Nora, we have so little in common--I mean of course the things one can put in a letter-- that correspondence is apt to become the hardest of hard work.
NORA. Yes: it's hard for me to know anything about you if you never tell me anything.
LARRY [ pettishly]. Nora: a man can't sit down and write his life day by day when he's tired enough with having lived it.
NORA. I'm not blaming you.
LARRY [ looking at her with some concern]. You seem rather out of spirits. [ Going closer to her, anxiously and tenderly] You haven't got neuralgia, have you?
NORA. No.
pettishly /ˈpetɪʃli/ adv. 任性地；易怒地；怒氣衝衝地
neuralgia /njʊəˈrældʒə/ n. [內科] 神經痛
10
NORA [ bitterly]. Rosscullen isn't such a lively place that I am likely to be bored by you at our first talk together after eighteen years, though you don't seem to have much to say to me after all.
LARRY. Eighteen years is a devilish long time, Nora. Now if it had been eighteen minutes, or even eighteen months, we should be able to pick up the interrupted thread, and chatter like two magpies. But as it is, I have simply nothing to say; and you seem to have less.
NORA. I--[ her tears choke her; but the keeps up appearances desperately].
LARRY [ quite unconscious of his cruelty]. In a week or so we shall be quite old friends again. Meanwhile, as I feel that I am not making myself particularly entertaining, I'll take myself off. Tell Tom I've gone for a stroll over the hill.
NORA. You seem very fond of Tom, as you call him.
11
BROADBENT. Miss Reilly. Miss Reilly. What's the matter? Don't cry: I can't stand it: you mustn't cry. [ She makes a choked effort to speak, so painful that he continues with impulsive sympathy] No: don't try to speak: it's all right now. Have your cry out: never mind me: trust me. [ Gathering her to him, and babbling consolatorily] Cry on my chest: the only really comfortable place for a woman to cry is a man's chest: a real man, a real friend. A good broad chest, eh? not less than forty-two inches--no: don't fuss: never mind the conventions: we're two friends, aren't we? Come now, come, come! It's all right and comfortable and happy now, isn't it?
NORA [ through her tears]. Let me go. I want me hankerchief.
BROADBENT [ holding her with one arm and producing a large silk handkerchief from his breast pocket]. Here's a handkerchief. Let me [ he dabs her tears dry with it]. Never mind your own: it's too small: it's one of those wretched little cambric handkerchiefs--
NORA [ sobbing]. Indeed it's a common cotton one.
BROADBENT. Of course it's a common cotton one--silly little cotton one--not good enough for the dear eyes of Nora Cryna--
NORA [ spluttering into a hysterical laugh and clutching him convulsively with her fingers while she tries to stifle her laughter against his collar bone]. Oh don't make me laugh: please don't make me laugh.
BROADBENT [ terrified]. I didn't mean to, on my soul. What is it? What is it?
NORA. Nora Creena, Nora Creena.
BROADBENT [ patting her]. Yes, yes, of course, Nora Creena, Nora acushla [ he makes cush rhyme to plush].
NORA. Acushla [she makes cush rhyme to bush].
BROADBENT. Oh, confound the language! Nora darling--my Nora--the Nora I love--
NORA [ shocked into propriety]. You mustn't talk like that to me.
BROADBENT [ suddenly becoming prodigiously solemn and letting her go]. No, of course not. I don't mean it--at least I do mean it; but I know it's premature. I had no right to take advantage of your being a little upset; but I lost my self-control for a moment.
NORA [ wondering at him]. I think you're a very kindhearted man, Mr Broadbent; but you seem to me to have no self-control at all [ she turns her face away with a keen pang of shame and adds] no more than myself.
BROADBENT [ resolutely]. Oh yes, I have: you should see me when I am really roused: then I have TREMENDOUS self-control. Remember: we have been alone together only once before; and then, I regret to say, I was in adisgusting state.
NORA. Ah no, Mr Broadbent: you weren't disgusting.
BROADBENT [ mercilessly]. Yes I was: nothing can excuse it: perfectly beastly. It must have made a most unfavorable impression on you.
NORA. Oh, sure it's all right. Say no more about that.
BROADBENT. I must, Miss Reilly: it is my duty. I shall not detain you long. May I ask you to sit down. [ He indicates her chair with oppressive solemnity. She sits down wondering. He then, with the same portentous gravity, places a chair for himself near her; sits down; and proceeds to explain]. First, Miss Reilly, may I say that I have tasted nothing of an alcoholic nature today.
NORA. It doesn't seem to make as much difference in you as it would in an Irishman, somehow.
BROADBENT. Perhaps not. Perhaps not. I never quite lose myself.
NORA [ consolingly]. Well, anyhow, you're all right now.
BROADBENT [ fervently]. Thank you, Miss Reilly: I am. Now we shall get along. [ Tenderly, lowering his voice] Nora: I was in earnest last night. [ Nora moves as if to rise]. No: one moment. You must not think I am going to press you for an answer before you have known me for 24 hours. I am a reasonable man, I hope; and I am prepared to wait as long as you like, provided you will give me some small assurance that the answer will not be unfavorable.
NORA. How could I go back from it if I did? I sometimes think you're not quite right in your head, Mr Broadbent, you say such funny things.
BROADBENT. Yes: I know I have a strong sense of humor which sometimes makes people doubt whether I am quite serious. That is why I have always thought I should like to marry an Irish woman. She would always understand my jokes. For instance, you would understand them, eh?
NORA [ uneasily]. Mr Broadbent, I couldn't.
BROADBENT [ soothingly]. Wait: let me break this to you gently, Miss Reilly: hear me out. I dare say you have noticed that in speaking to you I have been putting a very strong constraint on myself, so as to avoid wounding your delicacy by too abrupt an avowal of my feelings. Well, I feel now that the time has come to be open, to be frank, to be explicit. Miss Reilly: you have inspired in me a very strong attachment. Perhaps, with a woman's intuition, you have already guessed that.
NORA [ rising distractedly]. Why do you talk to me in that unfeeling nonsensical way?
BROADBENT [ rising also, much astonished]. Unfeeling! Nonsensical!
NORA. Don't you know that you have said things to me that no man ought to say unless--unless--[ she suddenly breaks down again and hides her face on the table as before] Oh, go away from me: I won't get married at all: what is it but heartbreak and disappointment?
BROADBENT [ developing the most formidable symptoms of rage and grief]. Do you mean to say that you are going to refuse me? that you don't care for me?
NORA [ looking at him in consternation]. Oh, don't take it to heart, Mr Br--
BROADBENT [ flushed and almost choking]. I don't want to be petted and blarneyed. [ With childish rage] I love you. I want you for my wife. [ In despair] I can't help your refusing. I'm helpless: I can do nothing. You have no right to ruin my whole life. You--[ a hysterical convulsion stops him].
NORA [ almost awestruck]. You're not going to cry, are you? I never thought a man COULD cry. Don't.
BROADBENT. I'm not crying. I--I--I leave that sort of thing to your damned sentimental Irishmen. You think I have no feeling because I am a plain unemotional Englishman, with no powers of expression.
NORA. I don't think you know the sort of man you are at all. Whatever may be the matter with you, it's not want of feeling.
BROADBENT [ hurt and petulant]. It's you who have no feeling. You're as heartless as Larry.
NORA. What do you expect me to do? Is it to throw meself at your head the minute the word is out o your mouth?
BROADBENT [ striking his silly head with his fists]. Oh, what a fool! what a brute I am! It's only your Irish delicacy: of course, of course. You mean Yes. Eh? What? Yes, yes, yes?
NORA. I think you might understand that though I might choose to be an old maid, I could never marry anybody but you now.
BROADBENT [ clasping her violently to his breast, with a crow of immense relief and triumph]. Ah, that's right, that's right: That's magnificent. I knew you would see what a first-rate thing this will be for both of us.
NORA [ incommoded and not at all enraptured by his ardor]. You're dreadfully strong, an a gradle too free with your strength. An I never thought o whether it'd be a good thing for us or not. But when you found me here that time, I let you be kind to me, and cried in your arms, because I was too wretched to think of anything but the comfort of it. An how could I let any other man touch me after that?
BROADBENT [ touched]. Now that's very nice of you, Nora, that's really most delicately womanly [ he kisses her hand chivalrously].
NORA [ looking earnestly and a little doubtfully at him]. Surely if you let one woman cry on you like that you'd never let another touch you.
BROADBENT [ conscientiously]. One should not. One OUGHT not, my dear girl. But the honest truth is, if a chap is at all a pleasant sort of chap, his chest becomes a fortification that has to stand many assaults: at least it is so in England.
NORA [ curtly, much disgusted]. Then you'd better marry an Englishwoman.
BROADBENT [ making a wry face]. No, no: the Englishwoman is too prosaic for my taste, too material, too much of the animated beefsteak about her. The ideal is what I like. Now Larry's taste is just the opposite: he likes em solid and bouncing and rather keen about him. It's a very convenient difference; for we've never been in love with the same woman.
NORA. An d'ye mean to tell me to me face that you've ever been in love before?
BROADBENT. Lord! yes.
NORA. I'm not your first love?
BROADBENT. First love is only a little foolishness and a lot of curiosity: no really self-respecting woman would take advantage of it. No, my dear Nora: I've done with all that long ago. Love affairs always end in rows. We're not going to have any rows: we're going to have a solid four-square home: man and wife: comfort and common sense--and plenty of affection, eh [ he puts his arm round her with confident proprietorship]?
NORA [ coldly, trying to get away]. I don't want any other woman's leavings.
BROADBENT [ holding her]. Nobody asked you to, ma'am. I never asked any woman to marry me before.
NORA [ severely]. Then why didn't you if you're an honorable man?
BROADBENT. Well, to tell you the truth, they were mostly married already. But never mind! there was nothing wrong. Come! Don't take a mean advantage of me. After all, you must have had a fancy or two yourself, eh?
NORA [ conscience-stricken]. Yes. I suppose I've no right to be particular.
BROADBENT [ humbly]. I know I'm not good enough for you, Nora. But no man is, you know, when the woman is a really nice woman.
NORA. Oh, I'm no better than yourself. I may as well tell you about it.
BROADBENT. No, no: let's have no telling: much better not. I shan't tell you anything: don't you tell ME anything. Perfect confidence in one another and no tellings: that's the way to avoid rows.
NORA. Don't think it was anything I need be ashamed of.
BROADBENT. I don't.
NORA. It was only that I'd never known anybody else that I could care for; and I was foolish enough once to think that Larry--
HROADBENT [ disposing of the idea at once]. Larry! Oh, that wouldn't have done at all, not at all. You don't know Larry as I do, my dear. He has absolutely no capacity for enjoyment: he couldn't make any woman happy. He's as clever as be-blowed; but life's too earthly for him: he doesn't really care for anything or anybody.
NORA. I've found that out.
BROADBENT. Of course you have. No, my dear: take my word for it, you're jolly well out of that. There![ swinging her round against his breast] that's much more comfortable for you.
NORA [ with Irish peevishness]. Ah, you mustn't go on like that. I don't like it.
BROADBENT [ unabashed]. You'll acquire the taste by degrees. You mustn't mind me: it's an absolute necessity of my nature that I should have somebody to hug occasionally. Besides, it's good for you: it'll plump out your muscles and make em elastic and set up your figure.
NORA. Well, I'm sure! if this is English manners! Aren't you ashamed to talk about such things?
BROADBENT [ in the highest feather]. Not a bit. By George, Nora, it's a tremendous thing to be able to enjoy oneself. Let's go off for a walk out of this stuffy little room. I want the open air to expand in. Come along. Co-o-o-me along. [ He puts her arm into his and sweeps her out into the garden as an equinoctial gale might sweep a dry leaf].
cambric /ˈkæmbrɪk/ n. 麻紗；細棉布；細亞麻布
plush /plʌʃ/ adj. 豪華的；長毛絨做的；舒服的 n. 長毛絨
avowal /əˈvaʊəl/ n. 聲明，公開表示；公開宣布
consternation /ˌkɒnstəˈneɪʃn/ n. 驚愕；驚惶失措；恐怖
blarney /ˈblɑːni/ n. 奉承話；諂媚；胡扯 vt. 奉承；哄騙 vi. 拍馬屁；用好話勸誘
convulsion /kənˈvʌlʃn/ n. [醫] 驚厥；動亂；震撼；震動
incommode /ˌɪnkəˈməʊd/vt. 添麻煩；使感不便；妨礙
ardor /'ɑːdə/ n. 熱情；狂熱；灼熱
chivalrously /ˈʃɪvlərəsli/ adv. 象騎士一樣地；俠義地
conscientiously /ˌkɒnʃiˈenʃəsli/ adv. 良心上
fortification /ˌfɔːtɪfɪˈkeɪʃn/ n. [軍] 設防；[軍] 防禦工事；加強；配方
peevishness /'pi:viʃnis/ n. 脾氣不好；愛發牢騷
equinoctial /ˌiːkwɪˈnɒkʃl; ˌekwɪˈnɒkʃl/ adj. 晝夜平分的；春分或秋分時的；赤道的 n. 赤道；春分或秋分時的暴風雨
12
BROADBENT. Just wait and say something nice to Keegan. They tell me he controls nearly as many votes as Father Dempsey himself.
NORA. You little know Peter Keegan. He'd see through me as if I was a pane o glass.
BROADBENT. Oh, he won't like it any the less for that. What really flatters a man is that you think him worth flattering. Not that I would flatter any man: don't think that. I'll just go and meet him. [ He goes down the hill with the eager forward look of a man about to greet a valued acquaintance. Nora dries her eyes, and turns to go as Larry strolls up the hill to her].
13
LARRY. Nora. [ She turns and looks at him hardly, without a word. He continues anxiously, in his most conciliatory tone]. When I left you that time, I was just as wretched as you. I didn't rightly know what I wanted to say; and my tongue kept clacking to cover the loss I was at. Well, I've been thinking ever since;and now I know what I ought to have said. I've come back to say it.
NORA. You've come too late, then. You thought eighteen years was not long enough, and that you might keep me waiting a day longer. Well, you were mistaken. I'm engaged to your friend Mr Broadbent; and I'm done with you.
LARRY [ naively]. But that was the very thing I was going to advise you to do.
NORA [involuntarily]. Oh you brute! to tell me that to me face.
LARRY [ nervously relapsing into his most Irish manner]. Nora, dear, don't you understand that I'm an Irishman, and he's an Englishman. He wants you; and he grabs you. I want you; and I quarrel with you and have to go on wanting you.
NORA. So you may. You'd better go back to England to the animated beefsteaks you're so fond of.
LARRY [ amazed]. Nora! [ Guessing where she got the metaphor] He's been talking about me, I see. Well, nevermind: we must be friends, you and I. I don't want his marriage to you to be his divorce from me.
NORA. You care more for him than you ever did for me.
LARRY [ with curt sincerity]. Yes of course I do: why should I tell you lies about it? Nora Reilly was a person of very little consequence to me or anyone else outside this miserable little hole. But Mrs Tom Broadbent will be a person of very considerable consequence indeed. Play your new part well, and there will be no more neglect, no more loneliness, no more idle regrettings and vain-hopings in the evenings by the Round Tower, but real life and real work and real cares and real joys among real people: solid English life in London, the very centre of the world. You will find your work cut out for you keeping Tom's house and entertaining Tom's friends and getting Tom into parliament; but it will be worth the effort.
NORA. You talk as if I were under an obligation to him for marrying me.
LARRY. I talk as I think. You've made a very good match, let me tell you.
NORA. Indeed! Well, some people might say he's not done so badly himself.
LARRY. If you mean that you will be a treasure to him, he thinks so now; and you can keep him thinking so if you like.
14
BROADBENT [ reassuringly]. Oh no: it won't do that: not the least danger. You know, a church bell can make a devil of a noise when it likes.
KEEGAN. You have an answer for everything, sir. But your plans leave one question still unanswered: how to get butter out of a dog's throat.
15
KEEGAN. It may have no future at all. Have you thought of that?
BROADBENT. Oh, I'm not afraid of that. I have faith in Ireland, great faith, Mr Keegan.
KEEGAN. And we have none: only empty enthusiasms and patriotisms, and emptier memories and regrets. Ah yes: you have some excuse for believing that if there be any future, it will be yours; for our faith seems dead,and our hearts cold and cowed. An island of dreamers who wake up in your jails, of critics and cowards whom you buy and tame for your own service, of bold rogues who help you to plunder us that they may plunder you afterwards. Eh?
BROADBENT [ a little impatient of this unbusinesslike view]. Yes, yes; but you know you might say that of any country. The fact is, there are only two qualities in the world: efficiency and inefficiency, and only two sorts of people: the efficient and the inefficient. It don't matter whether they're English or Irish. Ishall collar this place, not because I'm an Englishman and Haffigan and Co are Irishmen, but because they're duffers and I know my way about.
KEEGAN. Have you considered what is to become of Haffigan?
duffer /ˈdʌfə(r)/ n. 笨蛋；不明道理的人；騙人貨 vt. 使淘金失敗 vi. 淘金失敗
16
LARRY. Pah! what does it matter where an old and broken man spends his last days, or whether he has a million at the bank or only the workhouse dole? It's the young men, the able men, that matter. The real tragedy of Haffigan is the tragedy of his wasted youth, his stunted mind, his drudging over his clods and pigs until he has become a clod and a pig himself--until the soul within him has smouldered into nothing but a dull temper that hurts himself and all around him. I say let him die, and let us have no more of his like. And let young Ireland take care that it doesn't share his fate, instead of making another empty grievance of it. Let your syndicate come--
17
KEEGAN [ with polished irony]. I stand rebuked, gentlemen. But believe me, I do every justice to the efficiency of you and your syndicate. You are both, I am told, thoroughly efficient civil engineers; and I have no doubt the golf links will be a triumph of your art. Mr Broadbent will get into parliament most efficiently, which is more than St Patrick could do if he were alive now. You may even build the hotel efficiently if you can find enough efficient masons, carpenters, and plumbers, which I rather doubt.[ Dropping his irony, and beginning to fall into the attitude of the priest rebuking sin] When the hotel becomes insolvent [ Broadbent takes his cigar out of his mouth, a little taken aback], your English business habits will secure the thorough efficiency of the liquidation. You will reorganize the scheme efficiently; you will liquidate its second bankruptcy efficiently [ Broadbent and Larry look quickly at one another; for this, unless the priest is an old financial hand, must be inspiration]; you will get rid of its original shareholders efficiently after efficiently ruining them; and you will finally profit very efficiently by getting that hotel for a few shillings in the pound. [ More and more sternly] Besides those efficient operations, you will foreclose your mortgages most efficiently [his rebuking forefinger goes up in spite of himself]; you will drive Haffigan to America very efficiently; you will find a use for Barney Doran's foul mouth and bullying temper by employing him to slave-drive your laborers very efficiently; and [ low and bitter] when at last this poor desolate countryside becomes a busy mint in which we shall all slave to make money for you, with our Polytechnic to teach us how to do it efficiently, and our library to fuddle the few imaginations your distilleries will spare, and our repaired Round Tower with admission six pence, and refreshments and penny-in-the-slot mutoscopes to make it interesting, then no doubt your English and American shareholders will spend all the money we make for them very efficiently in shooting and hunting, in operations for cancer and appendicitis, in gluttony and gambling; and you will devote what they save to fresh land development schemes. For four wicked centuries the world has dreamed this foolish dream of efficiency; and the end is not yet. But the end will come.
BROADBENT [ seriously]. Too true, Mr Keegan, only too true. And most eloquently put. It reminds me of poor Ruskin--a great man, you know. I sympathize. Believe me, I'm on your side. Don't sneer, Larry: I used to read a lot of Shelley years ago. Let us be faithful to the dreams of our youth [ he wafts a wreath of cigars moke at large across the hill].
KEEGAN. Come, Mr Doyle! is this English sentiment so much more efficient than our Irish sentiment, after all? Mr Broadbent spends his life in efficiently admiring the thoughts of great men, and efficiently serving the cupidity of base money hunters. We spend our lives efficiently sneering at him and doing nothing. Which of us has any right to reproach the other?
insolvent /ɪnˈsɒlvənt/ adj. 無力償還債務的，破產的；有關破產的 n. 無力償還債務者，破產者
liquidation /ˌlɪkwɪˈdeɪʃn/ n. 清算；償還；液化；清除
fuddle /'fʌd(ə)l/ vt. 灌醉；使混亂 n. 混亂；酗酒 vi. 酗酒
mutoscope /'mju:təskəup/ n. 早期電影放映機
gluttony /ˈɡlʌtəni/ n. 暴食，暴飲暴食；貪食，貪吃
eloquently /ˈeləkwəntli/ adv. 善辯地；富於表現力地
waft /wɒft/ v. 使飄蕩，吹拂；吹送，飄蕩；平滑地移動，飄過 n. 一陣，一股；（船舶展示作為信號的）結狀信號旗，結狀衣服
cupidity /kjuːˈpɪdəti/ n. 貪心，貪婪
18
KEEGAN. Sir: when you speak to me of English and Irish you forget that I am a Catholic. My country is not Ireland nor England, but the whole mighty realm of my Church. For me there are but two countries: heaven and hell; but two conditions of men: salvation and damnation. Standing here between you the Englishman, so clever in your foolishness, and this Irishman, so foolish in his cleverness, I cannot in my ignorance be sure which of you is the more deeply damned; but I should be unfaithful to my calling if I opened the gates of my heart less widely to one than to the other.
19
KEEGAN [ turning quietly to the Englishman] You see, Mr Broadbent, I only make the hearts of my countrymen harder when I preach to them: the gates of hell still prevail against me. I shall wish you good evening. I am better alone, at the Round Tower, dreaming of heaven. [ He goes up the hill].
20
KEEGAN [ halting and turning to them for the last time]. Every dream is a prophecy: every jest is an earnest in the womb of Time.
21
BROADBENT. Oh tut, tut, Larry! They improved my mind: they raised my tone enormously. I feel sincerely obliged to Keegan: he has made me feel a better man: distinctly better. [ With sincere elevation] I feel nowas I never did before that I am right in devoting my life to the cause of Ireland. Come along and help me to choose the site for the hotel.