A Tale of Two Cities — Page 5

在他们中间，刽子手永远忙碌，却永远比无用还要糟糕，时刻都有人需要他；有时将一长排形形色色的罪犯一一绞死；有时将一个周二被捕的破门盗贼在周六就送上绞架；有时在纽盖特监狱门前将人的手一打一打地烙印，有时又在威斯敏斯特大厅门口焚烧小册子；今天夺取一个穷凶极恶的杀人犯的性命，明天又处死一个可怜的小偷——那人不过是抢了一个农家男孩的六便士。

In the midst of them, the hangman, ever busy and ever worse than useless, was in constant requisition; now, stringing up long rows of miscellaneous criminals; now, hanging a housebreaker on Saturday who had been taken on Tuesday; now, burning people in the hand at Newgate by the dozen, and now burning pamphlets at the door of Westminster Hall; to-day, taking the life of an atrocious murderer, and to-morrow of a wretched pilferer who had robbed a farmer's boy of sixpence.

所有这些事情，以及千百件与此相似的事，都发生在亲爱的旧年——一七七五年，或就在其前后。在这一切的环绕之中，樵夫和农夫默默劳作，无人理会；那两张大嘴和另外那两副或朴素或姣好的面孔，却大摇大摆地踏步而行，高举着他们所谓的神圣权利。就这样，一七七五年引领着那些权贵们，以及无数的小人物——包括这部编年史中的人物在内——沿着横陈在他们面前的道路，一路走去。

All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon the dear old year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Environed by them, while the Woodman and the Farmer worked unheeded, those two of the large jaws, and those other two of the plain and the fair faces, trod with stir enough, and carried their divine rights with a high hand. Thus did the year one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five conduct their Greatnesses, and myriads of small creatures--the creatures of this chronicle among the rest--along the roads that lay before them.