译文里的“呀、吧、哎呀”

我很喜欢《一间属于自己的房间》的某个译本里伍尔夫说话的感觉。她把一个刚冒出来的想法比作钓上来的小鱼，这里写：I love the way Woolf sounds in one Chinese translation of A Room of One’s Own. She compares a newly emerging thought to a little fish she has caught. The passage reads:

“然后你小心翼翼地、用力地把它拖拽过来，再小心翼翼地把它拉出水面这种感觉吧？哎呀，躺在草地上显得那么渺小，那么微不足道的，正是我的想法呀。”“Then you draw it towards you, carefully, with effort, and carefully pull it out of the water—that sort of feeling, you know? Ah, lying there on the grass, so tiny, so insignificant: that’s my thought.”

我特别喜欢“这种感觉吧？”和后面的“哎呀”。“这种感觉吧？”其实有点奇怪，甚至不是一句特别规整的中文。“把它拉出水面这种感觉吧？”单独拎出来看，我可能还会觉得有点绕。但放在这里就很可爱，因为她好像根本没打算把这句话好好说完。讲着讲着突然转过来问你一句：就是这种感觉吧？你懂吧？然后马上又自己接下去：“哎呀。”I especially like “that sort of feeling, you know?” and the “ah” that follows. The first phrase is a little strange; it isn’t even particularly neat Chinese. Taken on its own, “pull it out of the water—that sort of feeling, you know?” might strike me as rather tangled. Here, though, it’s lovely, because she doesn’t seem to have intended to finish the sentence properly at all. Midway through speaking, she suddenly turns to ask you: that’s the feeling, isn’t it? You know? Then she immediately carries on: “Ah.”

我觉得这个“哎呀”特别好。前面又是“小心翼翼”，又是“用力地”，好不容易把一个想法从水里拖出来，搞得很郑重。结果往草地上一放——哎呀，怎么这么小。还是我的想法呀。它一下就把伍尔夫从“作者”变成了一个在我耳边碎碎念的人。That “ah” is particularly good. First there is all that care and effort, all the solemn business of finally dragging a thought out of the water. Then you put it on the grass—ah, how can it be so small? And it’s my thought, too. In an instant, Woolf stops being “the author” and becomes someone murmuring beside my ear.

我以前会觉得语气词在翻译里是很危险的东西，因为“吧”“呀”“哎呀”都太有中文自己的脾气了。稍微多一点，就很容易让我觉得译者在替作者说话。但这里我反而很喜欢。它没有让我觉得伍尔夫突然变成了一个中国人，而是把原文里那种想到哪里讲到哪里的声音翻了出来。而且这种东西很难说是“意思”。把“哎呀”删掉，把最后的“呀”也删掉，信息一点没少：I used to think particles were dangerous things in translation, because “ba,” “ya” and “aiya” carry so much of Chinese’s own temperament. A few too many, and I easily feel that the translator is speaking for the author. Here, though, I like them. They don’t make me feel that Woolf has suddenly become Chinese; they bring across that voice in the original which follows a thought wherever it goes. And it is hard to call this “meaning.” Remove the “ah,” remove that final particle too, and none of the information is lost:

“躺在草地上显得那么渺小，那么微不足道的，正是我的想法。”“Lying there on the grass, so tiny, so insignificant, is my thought.”

更利落，但我就是没那么喜欢了。我读小说和散文的时候，有时候并不只是在读一句话“说了什么”。我还很在意说话的人离我有多远。这里几个几乎没什么实际意义的语气词，把那个距离一下拉得很近。像伍尔夫不是在书里写给一个不知道是谁的读者，而是坐在我旁边碎碎念，讲到一半还要碰碰我：你懂那种感觉吧？It’s neater, but I simply don’t like it as much. When I read fiction and essays, I’m not always reading only for what a sentence “says.” I also care about how far away the speaker feels. These few particles, with almost no concrete meaning of their own, suddenly close that distance. It is as if Woolf isn’t writing a book for some unknown reader, but sitting beside me, murmuring, and nudging me halfway through: you know that feeling, don’t you?