Then there was the bad weather. It would come in one day when the fall was over. We would have to shut the windows in the night against the rain and the cold wind would strip the leaves from the trees in the place Contrescarpe. The leaves lay sodden in the rain and the wind drove the rain against the big green autobus at the terminal and the Cafe des Amateurs was crowded and the windows misted over from the heat and the smoke inside. It was a sad,evilly run cafe where the drunkards of the quarter crowded together and I kept away from it because of the smell of dirty bodies and the sour smell of drunkenness. The men and women who frequented the Amateurs stayed drunk all of the time, or all of the time they could afford it; mostly on wine which they bought by the half-litre or litre. Many strangely named aperitifs were advertised, but few people could afford them except as a foundation to build their wine drunks on. The women drunkards were called poivrottes,which meant femalerummies.

那时的天气很糟糕，终有一天秋天将会过去。我们将不得不为了挡雨而在夜晚把窗户关上，冷风将会剥去护墙广场里树木身上的叶子。那些树叶在雨中湿透了，风驱使着雨敲打着停靠在车站的绿色大巴。爱好者咖啡馆里挤满了人，窗户因店里面的暖气和香烟而变得模糊不清，这一带的酒鬼们簇拥在这家悲哀堕落的咖啡馆，我因为坑脏的身体散发出的恶臭以及醉酒后的酸臭味而刻意避开他们。那些时常出入爱好者咖啡馆的人们每时每刻，或者说在所有他们能够付得起酒钱的时刻，都在醉生梦死中度过；通常他们买半升或事一升的葡萄酒。有许多命名古怪的开胃酒被推荐着，但除了被用作葡萄酒的基酒来喝以外，很少有人能够买得起。女酒鬼们被叫作poivrottes，是女酒鬼的意思。

The Cafe des Ameteurs was the cesspool of the rue Mouffetard, that wonderful narrow crowded market street which led into the place Contrescarpe. The squat toilets of the old apartment houses, one by the side of the stairs on each floor with the two cleated cement shoe-shaped elevations on each side of the aperture so a lacataire would not slip,emptied into cesspools which were emptied by pumping into horse drawn tank wagons at night. In the summer-time,with all of windows open, we would hear the pumping and the odour was very strong. The tank wagons were painted brown and saffron-colour and in the moonlight when they worked the rue du Cardinal Lemoine  their wheeled, horse-drawn cylinders looked like Braque paintings. No one emptied the Cafe des Amateurs, though, and its yellowed poster stating the terms and penalties of the law against public drunkenness was as flyblown and disregarded as its clients were constant and ill-smelling.

过去，爱好者咖啡馆是那条通往护墙广场的美妙却又狭窄拥挤的牧夫塔市场大街的化粪池。那些老式公寓的蹲式马桶们，

被倾倒至化粪池中，而化粪池又将在夜里被抽入马拉罐车而清空。在夏天，所有的窗户都开着，我们可以听到泵吸的声音，而那臭味也是非常强烈。那池塘的手推车被涂成棕色以及橙黄色，在月光下，当他们在主教路工作时，它们那马拉罐车，看起来就像是布拉克的画一样。没有人来倒空爱好者咖啡馆，尽管，它那标明了公共场所醉酒的条款以及罚金的黄色告示被忽视着，并且已经面部全非，它的受理对象本性难移，并且臭气熏天。

All of the sadness of the city came suddenly with th first cold rains of winter, and there were no more tops to the high white houses as you walked but only the wet blackness of the street and the closed doors of the small shops, the herb sellers, the stationery and the newspaper shops, the midwife-second class-and the hotel where Verlaine had died, where I had a room on the top floor where I worked.

这座城市所有的悲哀在冬季的第一场冷雨中突然降临，当你在街道上行走时，那里不再有，只有漆黑的街道、小商店关上的门，草药贩子、文具店、报亭，二流的助产士，以及那个魏尔伦逝世的酒店。我在那里工作时，在酒店的最高层有一个房间。

It was either six or eight flights up to the top floor and it was very cold and I knew how much it would cost for a bundle of small twigs, three wire-wrapped packets of short, half-pencil-length pieces of split pine to catch fire from the twigs, and then the bundle of half-dried lengths of hard wood that I must buy to make a fire that would warm the room. So I went to the far side of the street to look up at the roof in the rain and see if any chimneys were going , and how the smoke blew. There was no smoke, and I thought about how the chimney would be cold and might not draw and of the room possibly filling with smoke, and the fuel wasted, and the money gone with it, and I walked on in the rain. I walked down past theLycée Henri Quatre and the ancient church of St-Germain until I came to a good cafe that I knew on the place St-Michel.

通往房顶的楼梯不知是有六节还是八节，当时天气非常寒冷，我明白一小束细枝能花掉我多少钱，三小捆用线绑着的，只有一半铅笔长度的劈开的松树枝从细枝上接过火，这火将温暖整个房间。因此我去到街道的远端，去看在雨中的屋顶上的烟囱是否仍在运作，它们的烟被吹向何方。那里并没有烟，我想着烟囱将会多么的寒冷，房间里可能乌烟瘴气的。燃料因此被浪费了，钱也一块儿被浪费了。我在雨中走着，穿过亨利四世中学，以及古老的圣日尔曼教堂，直到我来到米歇尔广场上我知道的那家好咖啡馆。

It was a pleasant cafe, warm and clean and friendly, and I hung up my old waterproof on the coatrackto dry and put mywornand weathered felt hat on the rack above the bench and ordered a cafe aulait. The waiter brought it and I took out a notebook from the pocket of the coat and a pencil and started to write. I was writing about up in Michigan and since it was a wild, cold, blowing day it was that sort of day in the story. I had already seen the end of fall come through boyhood, youth and young manhood, and in one place you could write about it better than in another. That was called transplanting yourself, I thought, and it could be as necessary with people as with other sorts of growing things. But in the story the boys were drinking and this made me thirsty and I ordered a rum St James. This tasted wonderful on the cold day and I kept on writing , feeling very well and feeling the good Martinique rum warm me all through my body and my spirit.

这是一家令人满意的咖啡馆，温暖、清洁并且友好。我脱下我的旧雨衣放在衣架上晾着，把我用旧褪色的帽子放在长凳上的架子上，然后点了一杯欧蕾咖啡。服务生端来了咖啡，我从口袋里拿出一本本子和一支铅笔，开始写作。我当时正在写到密歇根，故事里的那天是一个荒凉寒冷的大风天。我已经分别在童年、青年以及成年早期看过晚秋的来临。而在某一个地方你可以比在其他地方写出更美的晚秋，我认为这是一种对自我的转接。

在故事中，男孩们正在喝酒，这让我感到口干舌燥，于是我点了杯圣詹姆斯朗姆酒。这酒在这样的大冷天喝着味道好极了，我继续着写作，感觉非常棒，仿佛马提尼克朗姆酒把我从里到外温暖了一遍。

A girl came in the cafe and sat by herself at a table near the window. She was very pretty with a face fresh as a newly minted coin if they minted coins in smooth flesh with rain-freshened skin, and her hair was black as a crow's wing and cut sharply and diagonally across her cheek.

一个女孩走进咖啡馆，独自一人坐在靠窗的位子上。她长得十分好看，如果铸币厂用光滑的雨后更显清新的肉体来铸币的话，她的脸蛋就像一枚新鲜出炉的新币。她的头发就像是乌鸦的翅膀一样乌黑，锐利地剪断，斜穿过她的脸颊。

I looked at her and she disturbed me and made me very excited. I wished I could put her in the story, or anywhere, but she had placed herself so she could watch the street and the entry and I knew she was waiting for someone. So I went on writing.

我望着她，她扰乱了我的心智，使我非常兴奋。我希望我可以把她放进故事当中，或者其他任何地方。但她已经把自己放在了靠窗的位置上，因此她可以望着街道以及入口。我知道她正在等人，于是我继续埋头写作。

The story was writing itself and I was having a hard time keeping up with it. I ordered another rum S James and I watched the girl whenever I looked up, or when I sharpened the pencil with a pencil-sharpener with shavings curling into the saucer under my drink.

故事仿佛自己顺着情节展开，留我在后面艰难地跟随。我点了第二杯圣詹姆斯朗姆酒，每当我抬头张望，或是用卷笔刀打磨我的铅笔时我都会看着她，刨花卷进了我酒杯下的茶碟里。

I've seen you, beauty, and you belong to me now, whoever you are waiting for and if I never see you again, I thought. You belong to me and all Paris belongs to me and I belong to this notebook and this pencil.

我看到你了，美女，你现在属于我，无论你正在等谁，即使我认为我再也见不到你了。你和整个巴黎都属于我，而我则属于这本子和铅笔。

Then I went back to writing and entered far into the story and was lost in it. I was writing it now and it was not writing itself and I did not look up nor know anything about the time nor think where I was nor oder any more rum St James. I was tired of rum St. James without thinking about it. Then the story was finished and I was very tired. I read the last paragraph and then  I looked up and looked for the girl and she had gone. I hope she's gone with a good man, I thought. But I felt sad.

然后我回到写作中去，并且完全沉浸其中。现在故事不再自顾自地展开而是被我掌控着。我不再抬头张望，忘记了时间，忘记了自己身在何处，我厌倦了圣詹姆斯郎姆酒于是不再续杯。然后故事写完了，我感到非常疲倦。我读了读最后一个段落，然后抬头望向那个女孩，她已经走了。我盼望她是跟着一个好男人走的。但我感到悲伤。

I closed up the story in the notebook and put it in my inside pocket and I asked the waiter for a dozenportugaisesand a half-carafe of the dry white wine they had there. After writing a story I was always empty and both sad and happy, as though I had made love, and I was sure this was a very good story although I would not know truly how good until I read it over the next day.

我合上了笔记本里的故事，把它放进了我的内兜里，向服务生要来他们这有的一打葡萄牙的半瓶干白葡萄酒。每当我写完一个故事，我都会感到精疲力竭，即悲伤又快乐，就好像刚做完一场爱。我确定这将是一篇好故事，尽管直到明天我通读它之前我都无法真正地了解它有多么的好。

As I ate oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.

我吃了咖啡店里的带有强烈海味的牡蛎，冰白葡萄酒洗去了轻微的金属味，使得它们只剩下了海味以及多汁的肉质。我把每一个贝壳里的冷汁都喝光了，伴随着味道新鲜的葡萄酒一起下肚。空虚感因此消失了，我感到高兴并且开始制定计划。

Now that the bad weather had come, we could leave Paris for a while for a place where this rain would be snow coming down through the pines and covering the road and the high hillsides and at an altitude where we would hear it creak as we walked home at night. Below Les Avants there was a chalet where the pension was wonderful and where we would be together and have our books and at night be warm in bed together with the windows open and the stars bright. That was where we could go. Travelling third class on the train was not expensive. Then pension cost very little more than we spent in Paris.

现在坏天气已经来临，我们可以离开巴黎一阵子，去一个正在下雪的地方，雪花穿过松树落在马路和山路上，在山上的某一高度，我们在夜晚回家的路上可以听见咯吱咯吱的声音。在瑞士的一个小镇下面，有一个价格很好的农舍。我们可以一起戴上我们的书去那里，晚上一起躺在温暖的被窝里，开着窗，星星一闪一闪地。那本是我们可以同去的地方。三等座的火车价铬并不贵，农舍的房费只比我门在巴黎住的要高一点点。

I would give up the room in the hotel where I wrote and there was only the rent of 74 rue du CardinalLemon which was nominal. I had written journalism for Toronto and the cheques for that were due. I could write that anywhere under any circumstances and we had money to make the trip.

我将放弃我正在写作的酒店房间， 我过去为多伦多写报道，而稿费即将到账，我可以在任何地方任何情况下完成那些稿件，而且我门有足够的钱来旅行。

Maybe away from Paris I could write about Paris as in Paris I could write about Michigan. I did not know it was too early for that because I did not know paris well enough. But that was how it worked out eventually. Anyway we would go if my wife wanted to, and I finished the oysters and the wine and paid my score in Montagne Ste-Genvieve through the rain, that was now only local weather and not something that changed your life, to the flat at the top of the hill.

或许远离巴黎可以让我写些巴黎的故事，就如同我可以在巴黎写密歇根一样。我不知道实际上这为时尚早，因为我对巴黎的了解还不够深入。但最终它还是发生了。无论如何只要我的妻子愿意，我们就可以动身。我吃完了牡蛎喝完了葡萄酒，在雨中的的圣嘎瓦纳山上付了账回到了山顶的公寓。这只是一场普通的雨，而非可以改变你的生活的什么事情。

'I think it would be wonderful, Tatie,' my wife said. She had a gently modelled face and her eyes and her smile lighted up at decisions as though they were rich presents.'When should we leave?'

“我认为这将非常美妙，Tatie。”我的妻子说。她有一张温柔的模范般的脸，她的眼睛与微笑在结论出亮了起来，就好像它们是丰盛的礼物一般。“我门什么时候动身呢？”

'Whenever you want.'

“任何时候，只要你想。”

‘Oh, I want to right away. Didn't you know?’

“噢，你不知道吗我现在就想离开。”

'Maybe it will be fine and clear when we come back. It can be very fine when it is clear and cold.'

“或许在我门回来后这里会变得清洁而美好。当这里清洁而寒冷时还是很不错的。”

'I am sure it will be,' she said.'Weren't you good to think ofgoing, too.'

“我确信是这样的，”她说。