《中国翻译》第一届“青年有奖翻译比赛”（1986）竞赛原文及参考译文（英译汉）

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Elizabeth Best

Every Sunday was the same.

“I must have a bath today,” our father would say. This was after he became ill, of course. He didn’t have a bath every day as he had done when he was well because Muzz (that was what we all called our mother) had to help him with it and it was really quite a business. Not easy at all.

Then, after his bath...

“I’ll have the tie with the yellow line through it,” he would say.

Or:

“That new shirt, the one we bought just before my illness. I want to look my best and I might as well use it.”

He knew that he would never work again.

And after that:

“Jimmie, would you clean my shoes for me?” Even though he hadn’t left the house since the last time they were cleaned.

But Jimmie would do it and not say a word.

Then, at last, everything was finished. He was bathed and dressed and seated in his own high-backed chair.

“Now I am ready for my visitors,” he would say, making half a joke of it.

And he would sit there, waiting.

We would all wait.

Every now and then he would call to one or another of us to check his watch with the kitchen clock which was electronic and couldn’t go wrong.

Muzz would be walking around, pretending to be busy, all the time praying desperately under her breath.

And no one would come.

When he was first ill they had come but not now.

After the clock passed five, he would slump a little lower in his chair but still give a smile of sorts.

“Muzz,” he would say. (He called her Muzz too.) “Could you give me a hand back to bed. I think I’ll have an early night. A little extra sleep never hurt anyone.” (As if going to bed early was something unusual for him!)

Afterwards, Muzz would walk around, keeping softly. You couldn’t call it crying; it was more like a high, early soundless wail with no visible tears.

“I hate them!” I would cry.

“You mustn’t hate them.” She would stop and look at me as if she had come back a long distance. “You must try and understand them. I think they’re afraid... You see, they’re afraid it could happen to them. I think that’s what it is...”

Every Sunday was the same.

For some, hope dies slowly.