5 Chapter 4 The Celebrated Jumping Frog

Chapter 4 The Celebrated Jumping Frog "The difference between the almost-right word & the right word is really a large matter—it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning." —Mark Twain After less than a year at the Enterprise, Sam wrote to his mother, "Everybody knows me, & I fare like a prince wherever I go."

“几乎正确的词和正确的词之间的区别确实是一个很大的问题——它就像闪电和闪电之间的区别。” 在企业号工作不到一年后，山姆在给母亲的信中写道:“每个人都认识我，我无论走到哪里都像个王子。”

Sam was growing famous as Mark Twain. His columns were reprinted in California papers and even sometimes in newspapers back East. Soon more people were calling him Mark instead of Sam. (His family and boyhood friends would always call him Sam; others called him Twain or Clemens. The man himself often signed his name "Samuel L. Clemens Mark Twain.") Mark Twain became known not only for his wit and wisecracks, but also for exposing injustice and fraud. In one column, Mark wrote about an undertaker who was charging sky-high prices for his funerals. The undertaker, Mark said, was taking advantage of families who were too sad to argue about money. Through his pen, Mark tried to correct the evils in society.

山姆以马克·吐温的名字而出名。 他的专栏在加利福尼亚的报纸上被转载，有时甚至在东部的报纸上也被转载。 很快，越来越多的人叫他马克而不是萨姆。 (他的家人和儿时的朋友总是叫他山姆;也有人叫他吐温或克莱门斯。 他自己也经常签上自己的名字“塞缪尔? 克莱门斯·马克·吐温。”)马克·吐温为人所知，不仅因为他的机智和俏皮话，还因为他揭露不公正和欺诈。 在一篇专栏文章中，马克写了一篇关于殡仪馆收取天价葬礼费用的文章。 马克说，殡仪馆老板是在利用那些太悲伤而不愿为钱争吵的家庭。 马克试图通过他的笔来纠正社会上的弊端。

Mark wrote freely at the Enterprise until a rival newspaperman he'd poked fun at in the news challenged him to a duel—a formal fight with weapons. Rather than risk his life, Mark skipped town for San Francisco. The beginning of 1865 found Mark Twain prospecting for gold in the hills outside the city. One night around the camp stove, he heard a story that would change his life. It was a tale of a gambler who had made a bet with a stranger. The gambler said his frog could out-jump the stranger's frog. The stranger had no frog; while the gambler went to find a frog for him, the stranger filled the gambler's frog with gunpowder.

马克在《企业报》上畅所欲言，直到一位他在新闻中取笑过的对手向他发起了一场决斗——一场正式的武器战斗。 为了不冒生命危险，马克离开小镇去了旧金山。 1865年初，马克·吐温在城外的山上寻找金矿。 一天晚上，在营地的火炉旁，他听到了一个改变他一生的故事。 这是一个赌徒与陌生人打赌的故事。 赌徒说他的青蛙比陌生人的青蛙跳得快。 陌生人没有青蛙;当赌徒去给他找青蛙的时候，陌生人在赌徒的青蛙里装满了火药。

You'll have to read the story to find out what happens! Mark wrote down his own version of the simple story, adding comic touches. Then he sent it to an editor in New York City. New York was the nation's literary capital—the big league. "Make your mark in New York," Mark wrote, "and you are a made man." Before year's end, "Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog" appeared in the New York Saturday Press. One critic said the story was the finest piece of humor ever written in the United States. The "Jumping Frog" was picked up by papers across the country. Within two years, the story became part of Mark Twain's first book, The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, and Other Sketches. Mark's success landed him a plum assignment: traveling to Hawaii for the Sacramento Union. At that time, Hawaii was not part of the United States. It was called the Sandwich Islands, and it was ruled by kings and queens. Mark told his readers about the islands' sugarcane plantations, native peoples, and bubbling crater of the volcano Kilauea.

你得读读这个故事才能知道发生了什么!马克把这个简单的故事写成了自己的版本，并加入了喜剧元素。 然后他把它寄给了纽约的一位编辑。 纽约是美国的文学之都——文学的大联盟。 “在纽约留下自己的印记，”马克写道，“你就成功了。” 年底前，《吉姆·斯迈利和他的跳蛙》出现在纽约星期六出版社上。 一位评论家说，这个故事是美国有史以来最幽默的作品。 《跳蛙》被全国各地的报纸报道。 两年内，这个故事成为马克·吐温的第一本书《卡拉维拉斯县著名的跳蛙和其他小品》的一部分。 马克的成功让他得到了一份美差:为萨克拉门托工会前往夏威夷。 当时，夏威夷还不是美国的一部分。 它被称为三明治群岛，由国王和王后统治。 马克向他的读者讲述了岛上的甘蔗种植园、土著居民和基拉韦厄火山冒着气泡的火山口。

When Mark returned to San Francisco, some friends suggested that his experiences on the trip would be perfect for the lecture circuit. In those days, before radio, television, and movies, people attended lectures to be informed and entertained. A lecturer was a one-man (or one-woman) show. Mark was terrified, but there was good money and prestige in lecturing, so he decided to give it a try. He rented a hall and printed posters to advertise the event:

马克回到旧金山后，一些朋友建议他这次旅行的经历对巡回演讲来说再合适不过了。 在那些没有广播、电视和电影的日子里，人们听讲座是为了获得知识和娱乐。 演讲是一场独角戏。 马克很害怕，但讲课既赚钱又有声望，所以他决定试一试。 他租了一个大厅，并印刷了海报来宣传这次活动。

The trouble did begin at eight, when Mark found himself "quaking in every limb with a terror that seemed like to take my life away. The house was full, aisles and all!" After two minutes on the platform, Mark's stage fright melted. He began speaking in his Southern drawl, pausing at just the right points in his stories to make the crowd laugh. All the while, he acted as if nothing he said was funny.

麻烦确实是从8岁开始的，当时马克发现自己“浑身发抖，恐惧似乎要夺走我的生命”。 屋子里挤满了人，走廊都挤满了人!”上台两分钟后，马克的怯场消失了。 他开始用他的南方口音慢吞吞地讲话，在故事中适当的地方停顿一下，逗大家笑。 在这段时间里，他表现得好像他说的话没什么好笑的。