名人小故事文人骚客7：Mark Twain in Hannibal 马克·吐温在汉尼堡

Mark Twain in Hannibal

马克·吐温在汉尼堡

The relationship between Hannibal and Twain began in November 1839, when Twain’s father, John Clemens, decided to leave the hamlet of Florida, Missouri, and move east about 35 miles to the somewhat larger and more prosperous Hannibal, on the banks of the Mississippi River. Twain marked his fourth birthday about a week after the family settled there. He showed little promise of becoming a long-term resident. However, because his health was so poor that his parents probably feared he would not survive childhood.

汉尼堡与马克·吐温的关系始于1893年，当时马克·吐温的父亲，约翰·克莱门斯，决定离开密苏里州佛罗里达的小村子，迁往东35英里、位于密西西比河岸边那座大点儿的、繁荣些的汉尼堡。当一家人在那里住了大约一个星期后，马克·吐温度过了4岁的生日。然而他差点儿没能成为那儿的长期居民，因为他的身体很差，父母担心他可能会夭折。

During the family’s first few years in Hannibal, Twain was too young to understand fully the changes going on around him. John Clemens, though trained as a lawyer, tried to support his family by running a store and speculating in real estate. When those ventures failed. Clemens was forced to postpone his plans to establish a permanent home for the family.

在全家人住在汉尼堡的头几年里，马克·吐温太小还不能完全理解他周围发生的变化。约翰·克莱门斯尽管受过做律师的训练，可还是要靠开店铺和做房地产的投机买卖来养家糊口。当这些生意失败后，克莱门斯不得不推迟了他为家人建一个长久安乐窝的计划。

About 1843, he began concentrating on the practice of law, a decision that brought some stability to the family finances and enabled him to have a house built. Construction began in 1843, and the family moved into the new house the next year. Situated on Hill Street, near the center of town, the modest two-story frame house attracted little attention during the years when the family called it home. The kitchen, dining room and parlor were on the first floor, and three bedrooms, along with a small wardrobe room, were upstairs.

大概到了1843年，他的注意力开始转向法律行业， 这个决定为全家带来了一些经济保障并且使他盖了一栋房子。房子是1843年开始盖的，第二年全家乔迁新居。 这栋两层的简易木板房座落在临近镇中心的希尔街，当时几乎没有人去注意这栋被全家人称作家的房子。厨房、餐厅和起居室在一层，三间卧室和一间小藏衣室在楼上。

About the time the family moved into their new home. Twain’s health improved dramatically. Instead of having to lead a quiet indoor life, he could roam the streets of Hannibal. Climb the surrounding hills, explore the area’s caves and splash about in local swimming holes. He reveled in his newfound freedom, spending nearly all his free time playing outdoors with the other boys in town and soon becoming a leader.

也就在全家乔迁新居时，马克·吐温的身体戏剧般地好转了。他不再被迫过着安静的室内生活，而可以在汉尼堡的街道上随处闲逛，攀爬周围的小山，探寻这里的洞穴以及在当地的水潭里嬉戏。他陶醉在新获得的自由中，几乎所有的空闲时间他都在外面和镇子里的其他们孩子玩耍，并且很快就成了小头头儿。

Twain’s carefree days did not last long. His father used their house as collateral for a friend’s loan, and the creditor took possession when the loan failed. A physician who lived diagonally across the street from the family offered to let them live in his home. The Clemens family moved into that house sometime in late 1846. On March 24, 1847， John Clemens died. His wife and their oldest son, Orion, managed to regain possession of the little house on Hill Street, and the family moved back into it that summer. These events dampened but did not extinguish Twain’s cheerful disposition.

马克·吐温无忧无虑的日子没过多久，父亲将他们的房子做了抵押，以便向一个朋友贷款，当贷款还不上后这个债主占了这所房子。一位住在他家斜对面的医生主动提出让他们住在他家。在1846年末的一个时候克莱门斯一家搬进了那栋房子。1847年3月24日，约翰·克莱门斯去世。其妻和长子奥利翁，设法重新得到了希尔街那栋房屋的产权，并在那年夏天举家搬了回去。 这些事很丧气，但并没有改变马克·吐温快乐的个性。

For the next six years, Twain, his brother Henry, and his sister Pamela live with their mother in the family home. Twain began taking odd jobs after school to bring in extra cash. Within a year of his father’s death, he quit school and became an apprentice printer, and when his brother Orion bought the Hannibal Journal in 1851，Twain went to work for him as a printer and editorial assistant. The stories he wrote for Orion’s paper, his first publications, taught him that he much preferred writing to typesetting.

以后的6年间，马克·吐温、他的哥哥亨利、妹妹帕梅拉及母亲住在自己的家里。马克·吐温在放学后开始打零工来挣些钱贴补家用。父亲去世一年后，他辍了 学并在印刷厂当起学徒，1851年当他哥哥奥利翁买下 《汉尼堡杂志》时，马克·吐温去那里给他干活，当了 一名印刷工兼编辑助理。他为奥利翁的报纸写故事，这 也是他的处女作，使他明白与排字工作相比，自己更喜 欢写作。

As early as 1870 Twain had experienced with a story about the boyhood adventures of a lad he named Billy Rogers. Two years later, he changed the name to Tom, and began shaping his adventures into a stage play. Then the story began developing in earnest. After its publication, Tom Sawyer quickly became a classic tale of American boyhood. Nine years after Tom Sawyer swept the nation, Huck was given a life of his own, in a book often considered the best ever written about Americans.

早在1870年，马克·吐温便尝试着写故事，讲述一个叫比利·罗格斯的小伙子少年时代的探险经历。两年后，他把主人公的名字改为汤姆，并把他的冒险经历改 写成舞台剧。然后，作者又把它完善成一个故事。发表 后，《汤姆·索亚》迅速成为美国经典的少年故事。《汤姆·索亚》一书风行美国9年之后，哈克成为另一部小说的主人公，而这部小说通常被认为是描写美国人的最佳小说。

Even though “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” and “The adventures of Tom Sawyer” are still read and studied around the world, their writer was faced with bitterness more than once.

《哈克贝利·费恩历险记》和《汤姆·索亚历险记》至今仍在世界上广为传诵，而纵观马克·吐温的一生却是多灾多难。

One might wonder what makes him an American guru in literature when he encountered so many tragedies in his lifetime. Perhaps the best explanation to his success finds its way to one of Mark Twain’s quotes: “By trying we can easily endure adversity.”

人们会问，生命中遭遇了这么多的不幸，马克·吐温是如何把自己造就成美国的文学大师的呢？ 或许在他的这句话里可以找到答案：“经历磨难，人就能耐得住逆境的考验。”