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1705041423 [4]莎士比亚剧作《无事生非》中的警吏。本段所涉典故在剧中第四幕第二场。此处引用朱生豪译文。

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1705041427 [5]此句典出《创世记》第43章30—31节。

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1705041429 西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033860]

1705041430 36 THE PHILOSOPHER

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1705041432 By W. Somerset Maugham

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1705041434 THE PHILOSOPHER, by W. Somerset Maugham, from his On a Chinese Screen , pp. 147-158.

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1705041436 The Philosopher is undoubtedly Ku Hung-ming，辜鸿铭（汤生） （1847-1928）, who was then living in Peking. Maugham would have us believe that the interview took place in some such city as Chengtu, Szechwan. Ku had worked under Chang Chi-tung （张之洞）, one of the Empress Dowager’s greatest viceroys （line 18, p. 152）. This essay has already been translated into Chinese. See 人间世，二十三年九月二十日，第二十期，三十二至三十七页，辜鸿铭访问记，黄嘉音译 （惟黄先生未翻译篇后的两首诗）． 在该期内亦有人证明 Somerset’s Philosopher 是辜先生．

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1705041438 It was surprising to find so vast a city in a spot that seemed to me so remote. From its battlemented gate towards sunset you could see the snowy mountains of Tibet. It was so populous that you could walk at ease only on the walls and it took a rapid walker three hours to complete their circuit. There was no railway within a thousand miles and the river on which it stood was so shallow that only junks of light burden could safely navigate it. Five days in a sampan were needed to reach the Upper Yangtze. For an uneasy moment you asked yourself whether trains and steamships were as necessary to the conduct of life as we who use them every day consider;for here, a million persons throve, married, begat their kind, and died; here a million persons were busily occupied with commerce, art, and thought.

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1705041440 And here lived a philosopher of repute the desire to see whom had been to me one of the incentives of a somewhat arduous journey. He was the greatest authority in China on the Confucian learning. He was said to speak English and German with facility. He had been for many years secretary to one of the Empress Dowager’s greatest viceroys, but he lived now in retirement. On certain days in the week, however, all through the year he opened his doors to such as sought after knowledge, and discoursed on the teaching of Confucius. He had a body of disciples, but it was small, since the students for the most part preferred to his modest dwelling and his severe exhortations the sumptuous buildings of the foreign university and the useful science of the barbarians; with him this was mentioned only to be scornfully dismissed. From all I heard of him I concluded that he was a man of character.

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1705041442 When I announced my wish to meet this distinguished person my host immediately offered to arrange it; but the days passed and nothing happened. I made inquiries and my host shrugged his shoulders.

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1705041444 “I sent him a chit and told him to come along,” he said. “I don’t know why he hasn’t turned up. He’s cross-grained old fellow.”

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1705041446 I did not think it was proper to approach a philosopher in so cavalier a fashion and I was hardly surprised that he had ignored a summons such as this. I caused a letter to be sent asking in the politest terms I could devise whether he would allow me to call upon him and within two hours received an answer making an appointment for the following morning at ten o’clock.

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1705041448 I was carried in a chair. The way seemed interminable. I went through crowded streets and through streets deserted till I came at last to one, silent and empty, in which at a small door in a long white wall my bearers set down my chair. One of them knocked and after a considerable time a judas was opened; dark eyes looked through; there was a brief colloquy;and finally I was admitted. A youth, pallid of face, wizened, and poorly dressed motioned me to follow him. I did not know if he was a servant or a pupil of the great man. I passed through a shabby yard and was led into a long low room sparsely furnished with an American roll-top desk, a couple of blackwood chairs and two little Chinese tables. Against the walls were shelves on which were a great number of books:most of them, of course, were Chinese; but there were many philosophical and scientific works in English, French and German; and there were hundreds of unbound copies of learned reviews. Where books did not take up the wall space hung scrolls on which in various calligraphies were written, I suppose, Confucian quotations. There was no carpet on the floor. It was a cold, bare, and comfortless chamber. Its somberness was relieved only by a yellow chrysanthemum which stood by itself on the desk in a long vase.

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1705041450 I waited for some time and the youth who had shown me in brought a pot of tea, two cups, and a tin of Virginian cigarettes. As he went out the philosopher entered. I hastened to express my sense of the honor he did me in allowing me to visit him. He waved me to a chair and poured out the tea.

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1705041452 “I am flattered that you wished to see me,” he returned.“Your countrymen deal only with coolies and with compradores; they think every Chinese must be one or the other.”

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1705041454 I ventured to protest. But I had not caught his point. He leaned back in his chair and looked at me with an expression of mockery.

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1705041456 “They think they have but to beckon and we must come.”

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1705041458 I saw then that my friend’s unfortunate communication still rankled. I did not quite know how to reply. I murmured something complimentary.

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1705041460 He was an old man, tall, with a thin gray queue, and bright large eyes under which were heavy bags. His teeth were broken and discolored. He was exceedingly thin, and his hands, fine and small, were withered and clawlike. I had been told that he was an opium smoker. He was very shabbily dressed in a black gown, a little black cap, both much the worse for wear, and dark gray trousers gartered at the ankle. He was watching. He did not quite know what attitude to take up, and he had the manner of a man who was on his guard. Of course the philosopher occupies a royal place among those who concern themselves with the things of the spirit and we have the authority of Benjamin Disraeli that royalty must be treated with abundant flattery. I seized my trowel. Presently I was conscious of a certain relaxation in his demeanor. He was like a man who was all set and rigid to have his photograph taken, but hearing the shutter click lets himself go and eases into his natural self. He showed me his books.

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1705041462 “I took the Ph.D. in Berlin, you know,” he said. “And afterwards I studied for some time in Oxford. But the English, if you will allow me to say so, have no great aptitude for philosophy.”

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1705041464 Though he put the remark apologetically it was evident that he was not displeased to say a slightly disagreeable thing.

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1705041466 “We have had philosophers who have not been without influence in the world of thought,” I suggested.

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1705041468 “Hume and Berkeley? The philosophers who taught at Oxford when I was there were anxious not to offend their theological colleagues. They would not follow their thought to its logical consequences in case they should jeopardize their position in university society.”

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