Shelley to Elizabeth Hitchhiker

雪萊致伊麗莎白-西琴勒

Your letter of the 1st hath this moment reached me. I answer it according to our agreement, which shall be inviolable. Truly did you say that, at our arising in the morning, Nature assumes a different aspect.

我剛才收到您1號的來信，按我們之間的約定給您復信，這一約定是不可違背的。你確實說過，在我們早起的時候，大自然總是有不同的面貌。

Who could have conjectured the circumstances of my last letter? Friend of my soul, this is terrible, dismaying: it makes one's heart sink, it withers vital energy...

誰能猜想到我上次寫信的境況呢?我心靈的知己，這太可怕，太令人沮喪了。我的心為之一沉，渾身的銳氣消磨殆盡……

Dear being, I am thine again; the happiness shall again predominate over this fleeting tribute to self-interest. Yet who would not feel now? Oh'twere as reckless a task to endeavor to annihilate perception while sense existed, as to blunt the sixth sense to such impressions as these! ...

親愛的心，我又是您的了，這幸福又將壓倒我這短暫的孤芳自賞。然而在這種時候，誰又不會有相同的感受呢? 啊，如果一息尚存而欲對其不聞不問豈非與使第六感覺對這樣一些印象變得遲鈍同樣的不顧后果了嗎?

Forgive me, dearest friend? I pour out my whole soul to you. I write by fleeting intervals: my pen runs away with my senses. The impassionateness of my sensations grows upon me. Your letter, too, has much affected me.

最親愛的朋友，能寬恕我嗎? 我把整個心都掏給您了。幾度舉筆，筆不從心。但我理智的情感終于又涌現上我的心頭，您的信也深深地影響著我。

Never, with my consent, shall that intercourse cease which has been the day-dawn of my existence, the sun which has shed warmth on the cold drear length of the anticipated prospect of life. Prejudice might demand the sacrifice, but she is an idol to whom we bow not.

我從不認為我們之間的交往會永遠終止，您與我的交往給我帶來了生命的曙光，是灑在我冰涼而漫長的人生旅途上的期待的溫暖陽光。偏見可能要求人們以犧牲為代價，那只不過是幽靈，您我都不會向這個幽靈屈服。

The world might demand it; its opinion might require; but the cloud which flees over yon mountain were as important to our happiness, to our usefulness. This must never be, never whilst this existence continues; and when time has enrolled us in the list of the departed, surely this friendship will survive to bear our identity to heaven.

世俗可能要我們做出犧牲，輿論也會提出要求;但遙望飄過遠方山嶺的云彩，不是也樂在其中，有益于我們的身心嗎?這決不可能，只要一息尚存，決不屈服，決不低頭;即使時光把我們列入告別的名單中，毫無疑問，我們這般友情在天國中也一同相聚。