译林絮谈

沙枫

基辛格谈“说话算数”

美国国务卿基辛格博士，是以能言善道著称的。

他一九七三年十一月第六次访问北京，在北京欢宴席上的讲话，话虽不多，却颇能显出他的才华。

他一开头就说：“This is the sixth time that I have had the privilege of visiting China, and today's journey retraced the secret trip that I took in July 1971.”

中译如下：“这是我第六次荣幸地访问中国。今天的旅程重复了我一九七一年七月份秘密访华的路线。”

他接着追述那次秘密访华：“None of us who took this trip can ever forget the sense of excitement when we entered China for the first time. It was not only that we were visiting a new country, and what we thought was the mysterious country until the Prime Minister pointed out to me that it was due more to our ignorance than to its mystery.”

译成中文如下：

“参加过那次旅行的所有的人都不会忘记我们初次进入中国境内时的兴奋心情，这不仅是因为我们来访一个新的国家，而且我们当时认为这是一个神秘的国土，一直到总理向我们指出，我们之所以这样认为，更多的是由于我们的无知，而不是由于她的神秘。”

词锋一转，基辛格说：“But it was above all because we knew that the normalization of relations between China and the United States was essential for the peace of the world.”

中译是：“但更重要的是我们知道中美两国关系的正常化对于世界和平是必不可少的。”

基辛格然后又说：“因此当我们第六次来访的时候，对我来说，中国已不再是神秘的国土了。我们已经懂得了中国说话是算数的。”

最后的一句话，原文为：“We have learned that the Chinese words count.”

“Words count”译作“说话是算数的”，中英文完全吻合，贴切得很。