My Watch: An Instructive Little Tale

My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining, and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping. I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day, and to consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable. But at last, one night, I let it run down. I grieved about it as if it were a recognized messenger and forerunner of calamity. But by and by I cheered up, set the watch by guess, and commanded my bodings and superstitions to depart.

我那块漂亮的新表已经走了十八个月，既不快也不慢，机芯的任何部件都从未损坏，也从未停摆过。我渐渐相信它对时间的判断是万无一失的，认定它的构造和内部机件都坚不可摧。可是终于有一天晚上，我忘了给它上发条，让它停了下来。我为此难过得不得了，仿佛这是灾祸降临前公认的信使和先兆。可没过多久我便振作起来，凭猜测把表拨到大概的时间，命令心中的种种不祥预感和迷信念头统统退散。

Next day I stepped into the chief jeweler's to set it by the exact time, and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded to set it for me. Then he said, “She is four minutes slow—regulator wants pushing up.” I tried to stop him—tried to make him understand that the watch kept perfect time. But no; all this human cabbage could see was that the watch was four minutes slow, and the regulator must be pushed up a little; and so, while I danced around him in anguish, and implored him to let the watch alone, he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed.

第二天，我走进城里最大的钟表店，想把表对准精确的时间，店主一把从我手里接过表，动手替我调校。他随即说道：“这表慢了四分钟——调速器得往上推一推。”我想拦住他，想让他明白这块表走时准确无误。可是不行；这位活脱脱一棵人形卷心菜，眼里只看得见表慢了四分钟，调速器就非得往上推一点不可；于是，我在他身边急得团团转，苦苦哀求他别去动这块表，他却不动声色、冷酷无情地做出了这桩可耻的事。

My watch began to gain. It gained faster and faster day by day. Within the week it sickened to a raging fever, and its pulse went up to a hundred and fifty in the shade. At the end of two months it had left all the timepieces of the town far in the rear, and was a fraction over thirteen days ahead of the almanac. It was away into November enjoying the snow, while the October leaves were still turning. It hurried up house rent, bills payable, and such things, in such a ruinous way that I could not abide it.

我这块表从此开始变快了。而且一天比一天快得更厉害。不出一星期，它便病入膏肓，发起高烧来，脉搏在阴凉处都跳到了一百五十下。两个月后，它已经把全城所有的钟表远远甩在了身后，比历书还要快出整整十三天多一点。落叶还在十月纷纷飘落，它却早已一头扎进十一月，尽情享受起了大雪纷飞的光景。它把房租、应付账单之类的事情统统提前催逼过来，闹得我实在没法忍受下去。

I took it to the watchmaker to be regulated. He asked me if I had ever had it repaired. I said no, it had never needed any repairing. He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch open, and then put a small dice-box into his eye and peered into its machinery. He said it wanted cleaning and oiling, besides regulating—come in a week. After being cleaned and oiled, and regulated, my watch slowed down to that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell.

我把它拿去钟表匠那儿校准。他问我这表是否修理过。我说没有，它从来都不需要修理。他脸上闪过一丝阴险的得意之色，急切地把表盖撬开，又把一只小小的放大镜嵌进眼窝，凑近去细看里面的机件。他说这表除了要校准，还得清洗上油——一星期后再来取。清洗上油、校准过后，我这块表却慢了下来，慢到滴答作响，简直像是丧钟在敲。

I began to be left by trains, I failed all appointments, I got to missing my dinner; my watch strung out three days' grace to four and let me go to protest; I gradually drifted back into yesterday, then day before, then into last week, and by and by the comprehension came upon me that all solitary and alone I was lingering along in week before last, and the world was out of sight. I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow-feeling for the mummy in the museum, and a desire to swap news with him. I went to a watchmaker again.

我开始误了火车，误了一个又一个约会，甚至连晚饭都会错过；这表把三天的宽限期硬生生拖成了四天，害我票据都被拒付了；我渐渐倒退回了昨天，接着又倒退到前天，再倒退到上星期，等我明白过来时，才发现自己竟孤零零地滞留在上上星期，而整个世界早已把我远远抛在了后面。我似乎对博物馆里的木乃伊生出了一种偷偷摸摸的同病相怜之感，甚至想跟他交换点新闻。我又去找了一位钟表匠。

He took the watch all to pieces while I waited, and then said the barrel was “swelled.” He said he could reduce it in three days. After this the watch averaged well, but nothing more. For half a day it would go like the very mischief, and keep up such a barking and wheezing and whooping and sneezing and snorting, that I could not hear myself think for the disturbance; and as long as it held out there was not a watch in the land that stood any chance against it. But the rest of the day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until all the clocks it had left behind caught up again.

他当着我的面把表拆得七零八落，然后说表壳的发条盒“胀开了”。他说三天之内就能修复。这之后，这表倒是走得挺平均，可也仅此而已。半天时间里，它会走得飞快，简直像疯了一样，一路噼里啪啦、气喘吁吁、呼呼作响，闹得我脑子里连自己想什么都听不清；只要它这么走着，全国上下没有一块表能比得过它。可剩下的半天，它又会渐渐慢下来、磨磨蹭蹭地混日子，直到被它甩在后面的所有钟表都重新追了上来。

So at last, at the end of twenty-four hours, it would trot up to the judges' stand all right and just in time. It would show a fair and square average, and no man could say it had done more or less than its duty. But a correct average is only a mild virtue in a watch, and I took this instrument to another watchmaker. He said the king-bolt was broken. I said I was glad it was nothing more serious. To tell the plain truth, I had no idea what the king-bolt was, but I did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger.

于是到了最后，二十四小时过去后，它总能不偏不倚、正好准时地走到裁判台前。它交出的是一份公平合理的平均成绩，谁都说不出它做得多了还是少了。可对一块表来说，走时平均只不过是种平庸的美德罢了，于是我又把这表拿去了另一位钟表匠那儿。他说是主销螺栓断了。我说幸好不是什么更严重的毛病。老实说，我压根不知道主销螺栓是什么东西，可我也不愿在陌生人面前显出无知的样子。

He repaired the king-bolt, but what the watch gained in one way it lost in another. It would run awhile and then stop awhile, and then run awhile again, and so on, using its own discretion about the intervals. And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket. I padded my breast for a few days, but finally took the watch to another watchmaker. He picked it all to pieces, and turned the ruin over and over under his glass; and then he said there appeared to be something the matter with the hair-trigger. He fixed it, and gave it a fresh start.

他把主销螺栓修好了，可这表在这方面有所长进，在别的地方却又出了岔子。它会走一阵子，接着停一阵子，然后又走一阵子，如此循环往复，全凭自己的心意来决定间隔的长短。而且每次重新走动时，都会像枪支后坐力那样猛地一震。我忍气吞声地过了几天，最终还是把表拿去了另一位钟表匠那儿。他把表彻底拆开，用放大镜把这堆残骸翻来覆去地检查了一番；然后说似乎是擒纵机构的“发丝”出了问题。他修好之后，重新给表上了发条，让它走了起来。

It did well now, except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors, and from that time forth they would travel together. The oldest man in the world could not make head or tail of the time of day by such a watch, and so I went again to have the thing repaired. This person said that the crystal had got bent, and that the mainspring was not straight. He also remarked that part of the works needed half-soling.

这下表走得倒还不错，只是每逢差十分钟到十点的时候，两根指针便会像剪刀一样合拢到一起，从那以后就一直并排走动。就算是世上最年长的老人，看着这样一块表也别想分清楚到底是几点了，于是我又去把这毛病修理了一番。这位师傅说是表镜弯了，主发条也没上直。他还说机芯里有一部分零件需要“打半掌”修补一下。

He made these things all right, and then my timepiece performed unexceptionably, save that now and then, after working along quietly for nearly eight hours, everything inside would let go all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee, and the hands would straightway begin to spin round and round so fast that their individuality was lost completely, and they simply seemed a delicate spider's web over the face of the watch. She would reel off the next twenty-four hours in six or seven minutes, and then stop with a bang. I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker, and looked on while he took her to pieces.

他把这些都修好了，这之后我这块表便走得无可挑剔了，只不过偶尔会在安安静静地走了将近八个小时之后，内部所有零件突然一齐松脱，嗡嗡地响得像只蜜蜂，指针也随即飞快地打起转来，快得完全看不出各自的模样，表面上仿佛只蒙上了一层精巧的蛛网。它能在六七分钟内把接下来的二十四个小时统统转完，然后砰地一声停住。我怀着沉重的心情，又去找了一位钟表匠，看着他把表拆开。

Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly, for this thing was getting serious. The watch had cost two hundred dollars originally, and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand for repairs. While I waited and looked on I presently recognized in this watchmaker an old acquaintance—a steamboat engineer of other days, and not a good engineer, either. He examined all the parts carefully, just as the other watchmakers had done, and then delivered his verdict with the same confidence of manner.

这一次，我打算好好盘问他一番，因为事情已经变得严重起来了。这块表当初买来时花了两百美元，可修理它我似乎已经花掉了两三千美元。我一边等着一边看着，忽然认出这位钟表匠竟是我一位旧相识——从前的一名轮船轮机员，而且技术还不怎么样。他像先前那几位钟表匠一样，把各个零件仔仔细细地检查了一遍，然后用同样自信的口气宣布了他的诊断结果。

He said:

他说道：

“She makes too much steam—you want to hang the monkey-wrench on the safety-valve!”

“这表汽压太足了——你得把扳手挂到安全阀上才行！”

I brained him on the spot, and had him buried at my own expense.

我当场把他打得脑浆迸裂，还自掏腰包把他埋了。

My uncle William (now deceased, alas!) used to say that a good horse was, a good horse until it had run away once, and that a good watch was a good watch until the repairers got a chance at it. And he used to wonder what became of all the unsuccessful tinkers, and gunsmiths, and shoemakers, and engineers, and blacksmiths; but nobody could ever tell him.

我的威廉叔叔（唉，如今已经过世了！）生前常说，一匹好马只要还没跑丢过一次，便始终是匹好马；一块好表也是，只要修表匠还没碰过它，便始终是块好表。他还常常纳闷，那些手艺不精的补锅匠、枪械匠、鞋匠、轮机员和铁匠们后来都到哪儿去了；可谁也说不上来。