The Boys' Ambition

 

孩子们的志愿

When I was a boy, there was but one permanent ambition among my comrades in our village on the west bank of the Mississippi River. That was, to be a steamboatman.

在密西西比河西岸的小镇上，我还是个小孩子的时候，家乡的水手们都有一个远大的志向，这个志向就是当一名轮船上的水手。

We had transient ambitions of other sorts, but they were only transient.

我们也有过其他的愿望，但它们都不过是一时的想法。

When a circus came and went, it left us all burning to become clowns; the first negro minstrel show that came to our section left us all suffering to try that kind of life; now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.

马戏团在村子里表演过后，我们都积极踊跃地希望扮演小丑；第一次到附近看过黑人吟唱团的表演后，我们都及不可待地想要体验一下那种生活。我们还有一个愿望：如果我们本分地过日子，上帝就会允许我们成为海盗。

These ambitions faded out, each in its turn; but the ambition to be a steamboatman always remained.

没过多久，这些愿望都接二连三地被遗忘了。但在我们的内心深处，当水手的志愿没有改变。

Once a day a cheap, gaudy packet arrived upward from St. Louis, and another downward from Keokuk.

每天都有一艘廉价但外表艳丽的邮船从圣路易斯开过来，有另一艘从奇奥库克向下游驶去。

Before these events, the day was glorious with expectancy; after them, the day was a dead and empty thing.

船只抵达之前，人们翘首以盼，日子也变得津津有味。船只离开以后，日子又变得毫无生气、无聊至极了。

Not only the boys, but the whole village, felt this.

不单单是孩子们，整个镇子上的人们都说同样的感觉。