The Great Gatsby — Page 206

那些消逝的树木，那些为盖茨比的豪宅让路的树木，曾经在低语中迎合着人类所有梦想中最后也是最伟大的那个梦；在那短暂而令人心醉的一刻，人们一定屏住了呼吸，面对这片大陆，被迫陷入一种他们既不理解也不曾渴望的审美沉思，在历史上最后一次与某种足以匹配他们惊叹之心的事物面对面。

Its vanished trees, the trees that had made way for Gatsby's house, had once pandered in whispers to the last and greatest of all human dreams; for a transitory enchanted moment man must have held his breath in the presence of this continent, compelled into an aesthetic contemplation he neither understood nor desired, face to face for the last time in history with something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.

当我坐在那里沉思着那个古老而陌生的世界时，我想起了盖茨比第一次在黛西码头尽头发现那盏绿灯时的惊叹与向往。他跋山涉水来到这片蔚蓝的草坪，他的梦想一定曾近在咫尺，仿佛唾手可得。他不知道那个梦想早已在他身后，遗落在城市彼端那片浩瀚的幽暗之中，在那里，共和国黑暗的原野在夜色下绵延伸展。

And as I sat there brooding on the old, unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy's dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn, and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.

盖茨比信仰那盏绿灯，信仰那个年复一年在我们面前退却的、狂喜般的未来。它曾让我们可望而不可即，但这无关紧要——明天我们会跑得更快，将手臂伸得更远……总有一个美好的早晨——

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter—tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms further … And one fine morning—

于是我们奋力向前，如同逆水行舟，却被那水流不息地推回到过去。

So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.