欧亨利的《绿色之门》

前几段写得实在精彩啊精彩，好久没有读到如此令人激动的文字了...
我看的是译林出版社出版的《欧亨利短篇小说精选》
地摊买到的，10元精装本，原价似乎有18文那么多。
在网上找了半天没找到译文，
找到了英文，恩恩，没有中文那么让我激动矣。

Suppose you should be walking down Broadway after dinner, with ten minutes allotted to the consummation of your cigar while you are choosing between a diverting tragedy and something serious in the way of vaudeville. Suddenly a hand is laid upon your arm. You turn to look into the thrilling eyes of a beautiful woman, wonderful in diamonds and Russian sables. She thrusts hurriedly into your hand an extremely hot buttered roll, flashes out a tiny pair of scissors, snips off the second button of your overcoat, meaningly ejaculates the one word, "parallelogram!" and swiftly flies down a cross street, looking back fearfully over her shoulder.

That would be pure adventure. Would you accept it? Not you. You would flush with embarrassment; you would sheepishly drop the roll and continue down Broadway, fumbling feebly for the missing button. This you would do unless you are one of the blessed few in whom the pure spirit of adventure is not dead.

True adventurers have never been plentiful. They who are set down in print as such have been mostly business men with newly invented methods. They have been out after the things they wanted--golden fleeces, holy grails, lady loves, treasure, crowns and fame. The true adventurer goes forth aimless and uncalculating to meet and greet unknown fate. A fine example was the Prodigal Son--when he started back home.

Half-adventurers--brave and splendid figures--have been numerous. From the Crusades to the Palisades they have enriched the arts of history and fiction and the trade of historical fiction. But each of them had a prize to win, a goal to kick, an axe to grind, a race to run, a new thrust in tierce to deliver, a name to carve, a crow to pick--so they were not followers of true adventure.

In the big city the twin spirits Romance and Adventure are always abroad seeking worthy wooers. As we roam the streets they slyly peep at us and challenge us in twenty different guises. Without knowing why, we look up suddenly to see in a window a face that seems to belong to our gallery of intimate portraits; in a sleeping thoroughfare we hear a cry of agony and fear coming from an empty and shuttered house; instead of at our familiar curb, a cab-driver deposits us before a strange door, which one, with a smile, opens for us and bids us enter; a slip of paper, written upon, flutters down to our feet from the high lattices of Chance; we exchange glances of instantaneous hate, affection and fear with hurrying strangers in the passing crowds; a sudden douse of rain--and our umbrella may be sheltering the daughter of the Full Moon and first cousin of the Sidereal System; at every corner handkerchiefs drop, fingers beckon, eyes besiege, and the lost, the lonely, the rapturous, the mysterious, the perilous, changing clues of adventure are slipped into our fingers. But few of us are willing to hold and follow them. We are grown stiff with the ramrod of convention down our backs. We pass on; and some day we come, at the end of a very dull life, to reflect that our romance has been a pallid thing of a marriage or two, a satin rosette kept in a safe-deposit drawer, and a lifelong feud with a steam radiator.

生活的陀螺  巫宁坤译
他一般写城市贫民和小资产阶级的人,而这里,背景是农村,主要人物是一对农民夫妇和一个当地的小法官.
这在欧·亨利是不同寻常的.但是他那幽默笔调却表现出一贯的特色,故事的末尾的突变也是他典型的写法.只是这一对农民夫妇之间的又埋怨又体贴的关系写得很细腻,特别是那个妻子写得很动人,而且一切是愉快的.没有欧·亨利某些其他作品中拌在幽默中的抑郁情绪.小说篇幅甚短而结构完整,也是一个优点.

加点知识性的 编者序—王佐良
美国短篇小说是一个极为丰富的园地,这里有一些物质的原因,例如在美国,登载短篇小说的杂志多,读者多,奖金多,选本多,一般性的杂志如〈大西洋月刊〉、〈纽约人〉都以精选短篇小说出名,就连上层知识分子读的季刊如〈西旺尼评论〉、〈党人评论〉也登短篇小说也有历史、环境的原因,如在美国资本主义发展过程中,大批白人涌向西部去淘金,去拓荒,就在旅途上营火房或小镇酒店里的互相闲扯中,产生了所谓边境故事,其中既有幽默,又有夸张和恶作剧.………………
     大致说来,从十九世纪到现在的欧美文坛上,短篇小说写得出色的主要是三个国家:以莫泊桑传统著称的法国,以契诃夫传统为特色的俄国,然后就是美国,而以美国为最有活力.英国作家毛姆说：“没有一个欧洲国家能象美国那样殷勤地培养短篇小说,也没有任何别的地方象美国那样专心致志地钻研短篇小说的写作方法、技巧和发展可能性.……毛姆本人也是写短篇小说的名手,他这里说的是内行话.值得注意的是:他没有特别提到自己国家英国的短篇小说.
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