朋友今日得着预定已久的经典，祈克果的《清心志于一事》，颇为欣喜，发圈炫耀。我请他将此书的第一章开头3页随手拍照给我一观，继续我的“译怠译路”书评系列之二。
只有一件事不解，就是我对照的所以英文版都是这样开始的：
Father in heaven! What is a man without Thee! What is all that he knows, vast accumulation though it be, but a chipped fragment if he does not know Thee! What is all his striving, could it even encompass a world, but a half-finished work if he does not know Thee: Thee the One, who art one thing and who art all! So may Thou give to the intellect, wisdom to comprehend that one thing; to the heart, sincerity to receive this understanding; to the will, purity that wills only one thing. In prosperity may Thou grant perseverance to will one thing; amid distractions, collectedness to will one thing; in suffering, patience to will one thing. Oh, Thou that giveth both the beginning and the completion, may Thou early, at the dawn of day, give to the young man the resolution to will one thing. As the day wanes, may Thou give to the old man a renewed remembrance of his first resolution, that the first may be like the last, the last like the first, in possession of a life that has willed only one thing. Alas, but this has indeed not come to pass. Something has come in between. The separation of sin lies in between. Each day, and day after day something is being placed in between: delay, blockage, interruption, delusion, corruption. So in this time of repentance may Thou give the courage once again to will one thing. True, it is an interruption of our ordinary tasks; we do lay down our work as though it were a day of rest, when the penitent (and it is only in a time of repentance that the heavy-laden worker may be quiet in the confession of sin) is alone before Thee in self-accusation. This is indeed an interruption. But it is an interruption that searches back into its very beginnings that it might bind up anew that which sin has separated, that in its grief it might atone for lost time, that in its anxiety it might bring to completion that which lies before it. Oh, Thou that givest both the beginning and the completion, give Thou victory in the day of need so that what neither a man’s burning wish nor his determined resolution may attain to, may be granted unto him in the sorrowing of repentance: to will only one thing.
“To everything there is a season,” says Solomon.(Ecclesiastes 3:1) And in these words he voices the experience of the past and of that which lies behind us. For when an old man relives his life, he lives it only by dwelling upon his memories; and when wisdom in an old man has outgrown the immediate impressions of life, the past viewed from the quiet of memory is something different from the present in all its bustle. The time of work and of strain, of merrymaking and of dancing is over. Life requires nothing more of the old man and he claims nothing more of it. By being present, one thing is no nearer to him than another. Expectation, decision, repentance in regard to a thing do not affect his judgment. By being a part of the past, these distinctions all become meaningless, for that which is completely past has no present to which it may attach itself. Oh, the desolation of old age, if to be an old man means this: means that at any given moment a living person could look at life as if he himself did not exist, as if life were merely a past event that held no more present tasks for him as a living person, as if he, as a living person, and life were cut off from each other within life, so that life was past and gone, and he had become a stranger to it. Oh, tragic wisdom, if it were of everything human that Solomon spoke, and if the speech must ever end in the same manner, insisting that everything has its time, in the well-known words: “What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth” (Ecclesiastes 3:9)? Perhaps the meaning would have been clearer if Solomon had said, “There was a time for all, all had its time,” in order to show that, as an old man, he is speaking of the past and that in fact he is not speaking to someone but is talking to himself. For the person who talks about human life, which changes with the years, must be careful to state his own age to his listeners. And that wisdom which is related to such a changeable and temporal element in a man must, as with every frailty, be treated with caution in order that it shall not work harm.
Only the Eternal is always appropriate and the changeable exists, and when its time has passed it is changed. Therefore ……
中文译本的第一章的第一句话就是“独一的永恒者啊，你是一，你也是一切！……”
老实说，用了半个小时才想清楚，这并不是对原书第一句话的翻译。因为原书第一句话是这样的：
Father in heaven! What is a man without Thee! What is all that he knows, vast accumulation though it be, but a chipped fragment if he does not know Thee! What is all his striving, could it even encompass a world, but a half-finished work if he does not know Thee:
于是我无法定位原文和译文，只好跳到第二段， “To everything there is a season,” says Solomon.(Ecclesiastes 3:1) ，这是比较容易对应的，因为经文排成了楷体，“所罗门说，‘凡事都有定期‘（《传道书》3:1 ）’”。
既然定位到了这里，我就一点一点的往回观察，终于发现这么一段话，就在“所罗门”一句之前：
天父呀，人若没有你，算得了什么呢？人若不认识你，他所知道的算得了什么呢？虽然他储备浩瀚的知识，也不过一点琐屑微末而已！即使他所有的努力能包罗万象，若是不认识你，仍然是功亏一篑。
看起来，这才是对前面“Father in heaven! …”一句的翻译。
所以，这本书的中文译本，在第一章的第一句话，就放错了位置。这书应该是这样开头：
天父呀，人若没有你，算得了什么呢？人若不认识你，他所知道的算得了什么呢？虽然他储备浩瀚的知识，也不过一点琐屑微末而已！即使他所有的努力能包罗万象，若是不认识你，仍然是功亏一篑。 独一的永恒者啊，你是一，你也是一切！所以愿你赐我们的理性以智慧，以理解此一事……
按照我一贯的述而不作，我就不去猜测原因了。这一段是如何从一本书的开头，逃过了橡树、译者、三联的编辑，跑到了第二页的中间去，姑且成为一个未解之谜吧。
我简单给我的朋友说明了情况，他高兴地回答说，“我主要用来做碎片化阅读，这样正好！”
好吧，求仁得仁，又何怨。
**补充：**冠辉解释了原因，这句话是编辑为了过审有意调整到第二页的。国内出版环境之恶劣，可见一斑。而为了让好书出版，主内出版人的努力和辛苦，也求主记念。