本人喜欢英文，更喜欢红楼梦，希望在简书，中英文的红楼梦能给你带来别样的阅读体验~
"The trouble with this last kind of romance is that it only gets written in the first place because the author requires a framework in which to show off his love-poems.He goes about constructing this framework quite mechanically, beginning with the names of his pair of young lovers and invariably adding a third character, a servant or the like, to make mischief between them, like the chou in a comedy."
不过作者要写出自己的那两首情诗艳赋来，故假拟出男女二人名姓，又必旁出一小人其间拨乱，亦如剧中之小丑然。
"what makes these romances even more detesttable is the stilted, bombastic language- inanities dressed in pompous rhetoric, remote alike from nature and common sense and teeming with grossest absurdities."
且鬟婢开口即者也之乎，非文即理。
"Surely my "nubmers of females", whom I spent half a lifetime studying with my own eyes and ears, are preferable to this kind of stuff? I do not claim that they are better people than the ones who appear in books written before my time; I am only saying that the contemplation of their actions and motives may prove a more effective antidote to boredom and melancholy. And even the inelegant verses with which my story is interlarded could serve to entertain and amuse on those convivial occasions when rhymes and riddles are in demand."
故逐一看去，悉皆自相矛盾、大不近情理之话，竟不如我半世亲睹亲闻的这几个女子，虽不敢说强似前代书中所有之人，但事迹原委，亦可以消愁破闷；也有几首歪诗熟话，可以喷饭供酒。
"My only wish is that men in the world below my sometimes pick up this tale when they are recovering from sleep or drunkenness, or when they wish to escape from business worries or a fit of the dumps, and in doing so find not only mental refreshment but even perhaps, if they will heed its lesson and abandon their vain and frivolous pursuites, some small arrest in the deterioration of their vital forces. What does your reverence say to that?"
今之人，贫者日为衣食所累，富者又怀不足之心，纵一时稍闲，又有贪淫恋色、好货寻愁之事，那里去有工夫看那理治之书？所以我这一段故事，也不愿世人称奇道妙，也不定要世人喜悦检读，只愿他们当那醉淫饱卧之时，或避世去愁之际，把此一玩，岂不省了些寿命筋力？就比那谋虚逐妄，却也省了口舌是非之害，腿脚奔忙之苦。再者，亦令世人换新眼目，不比那些胡牵乱扯忽离忽遇，满纸才人淑女、子建文君红娘小玉等通共熟套之旧稿。我师意为何如？”
#题外话#
看英文版的红楼梦，有些时候发现对照原文非常困难，大段的篇幅对不上，在红楼梦后面的章回也非常明显，采取的意译比较多，再此还请读者海涵一下，在更新时，我会尽量先提供中英文的阅读对照，后续在加上白先勇老师的评论，这个工程也不会很快结束，手稿还在完善中~
#Vocabulary#
mechanically
When you do something mechanically, you do it in a routine, automatic way, without much thought or feeling. If you have to get up unusually early in the morning, you might get dressed mechanically, still half-asleep.
People who are tired, stunned, or deeply upset will sometimes do things mechanically, working or performing tasks without emotion. When you act mechanically, you're machine-like. The adverb mechanically comes from the adjective mechanical, which since the 1600's has been used to describe people who "resemble machines." The Greek root is mekhane, "device."
mischief
People who pull pranks, make jokes, and do things that annoy other people — but aren't really awful — are good at mischief.
Mischief is a word for things that are a little bad or reckless but ultimately harmless. Hitting someone with a spitball is mischief. Hitting them with a rock is dangerous and therefore much worse than mischief. Making mischief can be fun, as long as it doesn't get out of hand. People who do a lot of mischief are called "mischievous."
