01 One

One Until he was four years old, James Henry Trotter had a happy life. He lived peacefully with his mother and father in a beautiful house beside the sea. There were always plenty of other children for him to play with, and there was the sandy beach for him to run about on, and the ocean to paddle in. It was the perfect life for a small boy. Then, one day, James's mother and father went to London to do some shopping, and there a terrible thing happened. Both of them suddenly got eaten up (in full daylight, mind you, and on a crowded street) by an enormous angry rhinoceros which had escaped from the London Zoo. Now this, as you can well imagine, was a rather nasty experience for two such gentle parents. But in the long run it was far nastier for James than it was for them. Their troubles were all over in a jiffy. They were dead and gone in thirty-five

在四岁之前，詹姆斯·亨利·特罗特一直过着幸福的生活。 他和爸爸妈妈平静地住在海边一所漂亮的房子里。 总是有很多其他的孩子和他一起玩，有沙滩让他在上面跑来跑去，有海洋让他在里面划桨。 对一个小男孩来说，这是完美的生活。 然后，有一天，詹姆斯的妈妈和爸爸去伦敦买东西，发生了一件可怕的事情。 他们俩突然被一头从伦敦动物园逃出来的愤怒的大犀牛吃掉了(注意，是在光天化日之下，而且是在拥挤的街道上)。 现在，你可以想象，这对两个温柔的父母来说是一种相当糟糕的经历。 但从长远来看，这对詹姆斯来说比对他们来说更糟糕。 他们的麻烦一下子就解决了。 35年后，他们就死了

seconds flat. Poor James, on the other hand, was still very much alive, and all at once he found himself alone and frightened in a vast unfriendly world. The lovely house by the seaside had to be sold immediately, and the little boy, carrying nothing but a small suitcase containing a pair of pyjamas and a toothbrush, was sent away to live with his two aunts. Their names were Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spiker, and I am sorry to say that they were both really horrible people. They were selfish and lazy and cruel, and right from the beginning they started beating poor James for almost no reason at all. They never called him by his real name, but always referred to him as 'you disgusting little beast' or 'you filthy nuisance' or 'you miserable creature', and they certainly never gave him any toys to play with or any picture books to look at. His room was as bare as a prison cell. They lived – Aunt Sponge, Aunt Spiker, and now James as well – in a queer ramshackle house on the top of a high hill in the south of England. The hill was so high that from almost anywhere in

秒平的。另一方面，可怜的詹姆斯还活得好好的，突然间，他发现自己在一个巨大的不友好的世界里孤独而恐惧。 海边那幢可爱的房子必须马上卖掉，小男孩除了一个装着一套睡衣和一把牙刷的小手提箱外，什么也没带，被送去和他的两个阿姨住在一起。 她们的名字是海绵阿姨和斯派克阿姨，我很遗憾地说，她们两个都是非常可怕的人。 他们自私、懒惰、残忍，从一开始就毫无理由地殴打可怜的詹姆斯。 他们从不叫他的真名，总是叫他“你这个恶心的小畜生”、“你这个讨厌鬼”、“你这个可怜的家伙”，当然也从不给他玩具玩，也不给他看图画书。 他的房间空得像个牢房。 他们——海绵姑妈、斯派克姑妈，现在还有詹姆斯——住在英国南部一座高山顶上的一所古怪的摇摇欲坠的房子里。 这座山很高，几乎从任何地方看去

the garden James could look down and see for miles and miles across a marvellous landscape of woods and fields; and on a very clear day, if he looked in the right direction, he could see a tiny grey dot far away on the horizon, which was the house that he used to live in with his beloved mother and father. And just beyond that, he could see the ocean itself – a long thin streak of blackish-blue, like a line of ink, beneath the rim of the sky. But James was never allowed to go down off the top of that hill. Neither Aunt Sponge nor Aunt Spiker could ever be bothered to take him out

詹姆斯往下看，可以看到数英里之外一片奇妙的树林和田野;在一个非常晴朗的日子里，如果他朝正确的方向看，他可以看到远处地平线上有一个小小的灰点，那就是他过去和他亲爱的父母住过的房子。 再往前，他就能看到海洋本身了——在天空的边缘下，有一条细长的蓝黑色条纹，就像一条墨水线。 但是詹姆斯从来没有被允许从山顶下来。 海绵姨妈和斯派克姨妈都懒得带他出去

herself, not even for a small walk or a picnic, and he certainly wasn't permitted to go alone. 'The nasty little beast will only get into mischief if he goes out of the garden,' Aunt Spiker had said. And terrible punishments were promised him, such as being locked up in the cellar with the rats for a week, if he even so much as dared to climb over the fence. The garden, which covered the whole of the top of the hill, was large and desolate, and the only tree in the entire place (apart from a clump of dirty old laurel bushes at the far end) was an ancient peach tree that never gave any peaches. There was

她自己，即使是散步或野餐也不行，他当然也不被允许单独去。 “这个讨厌的小畜生只有走出花园才会捣蛋，”斯派克姑妈说。 他得到了可怕的惩罚，比如，如果他胆敢爬过栅栏，就和老鼠一起关在地窖里一个星期。 整个山顶上的花园又大又荒凉，整个地方唯一的一棵树(除了尽头有一丛肮脏的老月桂树丛)是一棵老桃树，从来不出桃子。 有

no swing, no seesaw, no sand pit, and no other children were ever invited to come up the hill to play with poor James. There wasn't so much as a dog or a cat around to keep him company. And as time went on, he became sadder and sadder, and more and more lonely, and he used to spend hours every day standing at the bottom of the garden, gazing wistfully at the lovely but forbidden world of woods and fields and ocean that was spread out below him like a magic carpet.

没有秋千，没有跷跷板，没有沙坑，也没有其他孩子被邀请上山和可怜的詹姆斯一起玩。 周围连一只狗或一只猫都没有陪伴他。 随着时间的流逝，他变得越来越悲伤，越来越孤独。他每天都要花好几个小时站在花园的尽头，渴望地凝视着像魔毯一样在他下面展开的可爱但却被禁止的森林、田野和海洋的世界。