mutes： 胡適譯"樓梯上" 〔英國〕莫理孫

https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/m/morrison/arthur/tales-of-mean-streets/chapter10.html

討論中西喪制、幣制：
本篇有7處用到mutes。這是西方喪禮中雇用來保持哀淒的氣氛。胡先生先翻譯成護喪的執事，之後以"執事"稱呼。雖然詞典中的護喪解釋稍不同，不過可接受：

• 送喪，執事， 喪，護喪，號喪，執喪

• 送喪，執事， 喪，護喪，號喪，執喪

At a cheap funeral mutes cost half a sovereign 半鎊and their liquor. Mrs. Manders said as much. 不用令人迷糊的"索維林（Sovereign）"很好。

Tales of Mean Streets, by Arthur Morrison

On the Stairs

The house had been “genteel.” When trade was prospering in the East End, and the shipfitter or block-maker thought it a shame to live in the parish where his workshop lay, such a master had lived here. Now, it was a tall, solid, well-bricked, ugly house, grimy and paintless in the journey, cracked and patched in the windows; where the front door stood open all day long, and the womankind sat on the steps, talking of sickness and deaths and the cost of things; and treacherous holes lurked in the carpet of road-soil on the stairs and in the passage. For when eight families live in a house, nobody buys a door-mat, and the secret was one of those streets that are always muddy. It smelled, too, of many things, none of them pleasant (one was fried fish); but for all that it was not a slum.

Three flights up, a gaunt woman with bare forearms stayed on her way to listen at a door which, opened, let out a warm, fetid waft from a close sick-room. A bent and tottering old woman stood on the threshold, holding the door behind her.

“An’ is ‘e no better now, Mrs. Curtis?” the gaunt woman asked, with a nod at the opening.

The old woman shook her head, and pulled the door closer. Her jaw waggled loosely in her withered chaps: “Nor won’t be, till ‘e’s gone.” Then after a certain pause: “‘E’s goin’,” she said.

“Don’t doctor give no ‘ope?”

“Lor’ bless ye, I don’t want to ast no doctors,” Mrs. Curtis replied, with something not unlike a chuckle. “I’ve seed too many on ’em. The boy’s a-goin’ fast; I can see that. An’ then”— she gave the handle another tug, and whispered —“he’s been called.” She nodded again. “Three seprit knocks at the bed-head lasnight; an’ I know what that means!”

The gaunt woman raised her brows, and nodded. “Ah, well,” she said, “we all on us comes to it some day, sooner or later. An’ it’s often a ‘appy release.”

The two looked into space beyond each other, the elder with a nod and a croak. Presently the other pursued: “‘E’s been a very good son, ain’t he?”

“Ay, ay — well enough son to me,” responded the old woman, a little peevishly; “an’ I’ll ‘ave ’im put away decent, though there’s on’y the Union for me after. I can do that, thank Gawd!” she added, meditatively, as, chin on fist, she stared into the thickening dark over the stairs.

“When I lost my pore ‘usband,” said the gaunt woman, with a certain brightening, “I give ’im a ‘andsome funeral. ‘E was a Odd Feller, an’ I got twelve pound. I ‘ad a oak caufin an’ a open ‘earse. There was kerridge for the fam’ly an’ one for ‘is mates — two ‘orses each, an’ feathers, an’ mutes; an’ it went the furthest way round to the cimitry. ‘Wotever ‘appens, Mrs. Manders,’ says the undertaker, ‘you’ll feel as you’re treated ’im proper; nobody can’t reproach you over that.’ An’ they couldn’t. ‘E was a good ‘usband to me, an’ I buried ’im respectable.”

The gaunt woman exulted. The old, old story of Mander’s funeral fell upon the other one’s ears with a freshened interest, and she mumbled her gums ruminantly. “Bob’ll ‘ave a ‘ansome buryin’ too,” she said. “I can make it up, with the insurance money, an’ this, an’ that. On’y I dunno about mutes. It’s a expense.”

In the East End, when a woman has not enough money to buy a thing much desired, she does not say so in plain words; she says the thing is an “expense,” or a “great expense.” It means the same thing, but it sounds better. Mrs. Curtis had reckoned her resources, and found that mutes would be an “expense.” At a cheap funeral mutes cost half a sovereign and their liquor. Mrs. Manders said as much.

“Yus, yus, ‘arf a sovereign,” the old woman assented. Within, the sick man feebly beat the floor with a stick. “I’m a-comin’,” she cried, shrilly; “yus, ‘arf a sovereign, but it’s a lot, an’ I don’t see ‘ow I’m to do it — not at present.” She reached for the door-handle again, but stopped and added, by after-thought: “Unless I don’t ‘ave no plooms.”

“It ‘ud be a pity not to ‘ave plooms. I ‘ad —”

There were footsteps on the stairs; then a stumble and a testy word. Mrs. Curtis peered over into the gathering dark. “Is it the doctor, sir?” she asked. It was the doctor’s assistant; and Mrs. Manders tramped up to the next landing as the door of the sick-room took him in.

For five minutes the stairs were darker than ever. Then the assistant, a very young man, came out again, followed by the old woman with a candle. Mrs. Manders listened in the upper dark. “He’s sinking fast,” said the assistant. “He must have a stimulant. Doctor Mansell ordered port wine. Where is it?” Mrs. Curtis mumbled dolorously. “I tell you he must have it,” he averred with unprofessional emphasis (his qualification was only a month old). “The man can’t take solid food, and his strength must be kept up somehow. Another day may make all the difference. It is because you can’t afford it?”

“It’s a expense — sich a expense, doctor,” the old woman pleaded. “An’ wot with ‘arf-pints o’ milk an’—” She grew inarticulate, and mumbled dismally.

“But he must have it, Mrs. Curtis, if it’s your last shilling; it’s the only way. If you mean you absolutely haven’t the money —” And he paused a little awkwardly. He was not a wealthy young man — wealthy young men do not devil for East End doctors — but he was conscious of a certain haul of sixpences at nap the night before; and, being inexperienced, he did not foresee the career of persecution whereon he was entering at his own expense and of his own motion. He produced five shillings: “If you absolutely haven’t the money, why — take this and get a bottle — good. Not at a public-house. But mind, at once. He should have had it before.”

It would have interested him, as a matter of coincidence, to know that his principal had been guilty of the self-same indiscretion — even the amount was identical — on that landing the day before. But, as Mrs. Curtis said nothing of this, he floundered down the stair and out into the wetter mud, pondering whether or not the beloved son of a Congregational minister might take full credit for a deed of charity on the proceeds of sixpenny nap. But Mrs. Curtis puffed her wrinkles, and shook her head sagaciously as she carried in her candle. From the room came a clink as of money falling into a teapot. And Mrs. Manders went about her business.

The door was shut, and the stair a pit of blackness. Twice a lodger passed down, and up and down, and still it did not open. Men and women walked on the lower flights, and out at the door, and in again. From the street a shout or a snatch of laughter floated up the pit. On the pavement footsteps rang crisper and fewer, and from the bottom passage there were sounds of stagger and sprawl. A demented old clock buzzed divers hours at random, and was rebuked every twenty minutes by the regular tread of a policeman on his beat. Finally, somebody shut the street-door with a great bang, and the street was muffled. A key turned inside the door on the landing, but that was all. A feeble light shone for hours along the crack below, and then went out. The crazy old clock went buzzing on, but nothing left that room all night. Nothing that opened the door . . .

When next the key turned, it was to Mrs. Manders’s knock, in the full morning; and soon the two women came out on the landing together, Mrs. Curtis with a shapeless clump of bonnet. “Ah, ‘e’s a lovely corpse,” said Mrs. Manders. “Like wax. So was my ‘usband.”

“I must be stirrin’,” croaked the old woman, “an’ go about the insurance an’ the measurin’ an’ that. There’s lot to do.”

“Ah, there is. ‘Oo are you goin’ to ‘ave — Wilkins? I ‘ad Wilkins. Better than Kedge, I think; Kedge’s mutes dresses rusty, an’ their trousis is frayed. If you was thinkin’ of ‘avin’ mutes —”

“Yus, yus”— with a palsied nodding —“I’m a-goin’ to ‘ave mutes; I can do it respectable, thank Gawd!”

“And the plooms?”

“Ay, yus, and the plooms too. They ain’t sich a great expense, after all.”

胡適譯短篇小說

第一集
譯者自序
最後一課（La Derniére Chasse）〔法國〕都德
柏林之圍（Le Siege de Berlin）〔法國〕都德

　及予退出，遇其孫女于戶外，容色若死灰。餘執其手，語之日：“勿再哭。若祖父有起色矣。”女乃語予以雷舒賀墳之確耗，麥馬洪力竭退走，我軍大敗矣。餘與女相對無語。女蓋念其父，余則但念其祖，若老人聞此敗耗必死無疑。然則奈何？將聽其沉湎於此起死神丹之中耶？是誑之也。女含淚日：“決矣。余非誑老人不可。”語已，收淚強笑，人侍其祖。
　　余與女之紿老人也，初尚易易，以老人病中易欺也。及老人病日瘥，則吾二人之事日益不易。老人之望消息甚殷，我軍進兵之一舉一動老人皆欲知之。故女日必坐床頭，讀其假造之軍中新聞，手持普魯士地圖，筆劃我軍進取之道。巴遜大將軍趣柏林也，滑煞大將軍進巴維亞也，麥馬洪大將軍佔領巴羅的海上諸省也。女不曉軍事，每乞助于餘。餘亦未親疆場，但盡吾力告之。餘則老人親助之。老人嘗隨拿破崙皇帝數次征服德意志，故知其地理甚詳，餘與女所假造，不如老人之精警合軍事方略也。老人每以小針指地圖，大呼雲：“汝乃不知我軍所志何在耶？彼等已至此，將向此折而東矣。”其後餘與女亦循老人所料告之，謂我軍果至某地，果向某地折而東矣。老人益大喜。
　　占地也，戰勝也，追奔逐北也，而老人望捷之心，終不可饜。余每日至老人所，輒聞新捷。余入門，未及開言，女每奔入室告餘日：“我軍取梅陽矣。”餘亦和之日：“然，余今晨已聞之。”有時女自戶外遙告餘。老人則大笑日：“我軍進取矣，進取矣。七日之內，可抵柏林矣！”
　　餘與女皆知普軍日迫，且近巴黎。余與女議，令老人去巴黎，顧終不敢發。蓋一出巴黎，則道上所見，皆足令老人生疑。且老人病體猶弱，一聞確耗，病或轉劇，故終留巴黎。
　　巴黎被圍之第一日，余至老人所，道上但見深閉之門，城下微聞守禦之聲，餘心酸楚不已。既至，老人顏色甚喜，謂餘日：“城已被圍矣！”餘大駭，問日：“大佐已知之耶？”女在側，急答日：“然，此大好消息。柏林城已被圍矣。”女語時，手弄針線不輟若無事然。嗟夫，老人又何從而生疑耶？老人病後重聽，不能聞城外炮聲，又不得見門外慘澹之巴黎。老人臥處所可望見者，僅有凱旋門之一角。

百愁門（The Gate of the Hundred Sorrows）〔英國〕吉百齡
決鬥 〔俄國〕泰來夏甫
梅呂哀 〔法國〕莫泊三
二漁夫 〔法國〕莫泊三
殺父母的兒子 〔法國〕莫泊三
一件美術品 〔俄國〕契訶夫
愛情與麵包 〔瑞典〕史特林堡
一封未寄的信 〔義大利〕卡德奴勿
她的情人（Her Lover） 〔俄國〕Maxim Gorky

第二集
譯者自序
米格兒 〔美國〕哈特
撲克坦趕出的人 〔美國〕哈特
戒　酒 〔美國〕哦亨利
洛斯奇爾的提琴 〔俄國〕契訶夫
苦惱 〔俄國〕契訶夫
樓梯上 〔英國〕莫理孫