CHAPTER I KAPITEL I CHAPTER I CAPÍTULO I CHAPITRE I CAPITOLO I 第一章 제1장 I SKYRIUS ROZDZIAŁ I CAPÍTULO I ГЛАВА I BÖLÜM I 第一章 第一章

During a portion of the first half of the present century, and more particularly during the latter part of it, there flourished and practised in the city of New York a physician who enjoyed perhaps an exceptional share of the consideration which, in the United States, has always been bestowed upon distinguished members of the medical profession. خلال جزء من النصف الأول من القرن الحالي ، وبشكل أكثر تحديدًا خلال الجزء الأخير منه ، ازدهر ومارس في مدينة نيويورك طبيبًا ربما كان يتمتع بنصيب استثنائي من الاعتبار الذي ، في الولايات المتحدة ، لطالما تم تكريمها لأعضاء مهنة الطب المتميزين. Během části první poloviny tohoto století, a zejména v jeho druhé části, v městě New York vzkvétala a praktikovala lékař, který měl možná výjimečný podíl na úplatě, která ve Spojených státech amerických vždy byla udělena významným členům lékařské profese. Während eines Teils der ersten Hälfte des gegenwärtigen Jahrhunderts und insbesondere während des letzten Teils davon blühte und praktizierte in der Stadt New York ein Arzt, der vielleicht einen außergewöhnlichen Anteil an der Beachtung genoss, die in den Vereinigten Staaten wurde schon immer angesehenen Mitgliedern der Ärzteschaft verliehen. Durante una parte de la primera mitad del presente siglo, y más particularmente durante la última parte del mismo, floreció y practicó en la ciudad de Nueva York un médico que gozó quizás de una parte excepcional de la consideración que, en los Estados Unidos, siempre se ha otorgado a miembros distinguidos de la profesión médica. 今世紀の前半の一部、とりわけ後半に、ニューヨーク市で栄え、開業していた医師がいた。この医師は、おそらく、米国では常に医学界の名士に与えられる特別な配慮を享受していた。 В течение части первой половины нынешнего века, а особенно во второй его половине, в городе Нью-Йорке процветал и практиковал врач, который пользовался, возможно, исключительной долей внимания, которое в Соединенных Штатах всегда даровалась выдающимся представителям медицинской профессии. Trong một phần của nửa đầu thế kỷ hiện tại, và đặc biệt hơn là trong phần sau của thế kỷ này, đã có một bác sĩ phát triển mạnh mẽ và hành nghề ở thành phố New York, người có lẽ được hưởng một sự quan tâm đặc biệt mà ở Hoa Kỳ, luôn được trao tặng cho những thành viên xuất sắc của ngành y tế. 在本世纪上半叶的一部分时间里，尤其是在本世纪后半叶，有一位医生在纽约市蓬勃发展并执业，他可能享有特别多的考虑，在美国，一直被授予医学界的杰出成员。

This profession in America has constantly been held in honour, and more successfully than elsewhere has put forward a claim to the epithet of “liberal.” In a country in which, to play a social part, you must either earn your income or make believe that you earn it, the healing art has appeared in a high degree to combine two recognised sources of credit. تم تكريم هذه المهنة في أمريكا باستمرار ، وقد نجحت أكثر من أي مكان آخر في طرح شعار "الليبرالية". في بلد تلعب فيه دورًا اجتماعيًا ، يجب عليك إما كسب دخلك أو الاعتقاد بأنك تكسبه ، فقد ظهر فن العلاج بدرجة عالية ليجمع بين مصدرين معترف بهما للائتمان. Dieser Beruf wurde in Amerika ständig in Ehren gehalten und hat erfolgreicher als anderswo den Beinamen „liberal“ in Anspruch genommen. In einem Land, in dem man, um eine soziale Rolle zu spielen, sein Einkommen entweder verdienen oder vorgeben muss, es zu verdienen, hat sich die Heilkunst in hohem Maße als Verbindung zweier anerkannter Kreditquellen erwiesen. Esta profesión en Estados Unidos ha sido constantemente honrada y, con más éxito que en otros lugares, ha reclamado el epíteto de “liberal”. En un país en el que, para desempeñar un papel social, uno debe ganar sus ingresos o fingir que los gana, el arte de curar ha aparecido en alto grado para combinar dos reconocidas fuentes de crédito. В Америке эта профессия всегда была в почете и успешнее, чем в других странах, претендовала на эпитет "либеральная". В стране, где, чтобы играть роль в обществе, нужно либо зарабатывать, либо делать вид, что зарабатываешь, искусство врачевания в значительной степени сочетает в себе два признанных источника кредита. 这个职业在美国一直受到尊重，并且比其他地方更成功地宣称自己拥有“自由”的称号。在一个要想发挥社会作用，你必须赚取收入或假装自己赚到收入的国家，治疗艺术已经在很大程度上结合了两种公认的信用来源。 It belongs to the realm of the practical, which in the United States is a great recommendation; and it is touched by the light of science — a merit appreciated in a community in which the love of knowledge has not always been accompanied by leisure and opportunity. إنها تنتمي إلى عالم العملي ، وهي توصية عظيمة في الولايات المتحدة ؛ وهو يتأثر بنور العلم - وهي ميزة تحظى بتقدير في مجتمع لا يكون فيه حب المعرفة دائمًا مصحوبًا بوقت فراغ وفرصة. Es gehört in den Bereich des Praktischen, was in den Vereinigten Staaten eine große Empfehlung ist; und es wird vom Licht der Wissenschaft berührt – ein Verdienst, das in einer Gemeinschaft geschätzt wird, in der die Liebe zum Wissen nicht immer von Freizeit und Gelegenheit begleitet wurde. It was an element in Dr. Sloper’s reputation that his learning and his skill were very evenly balanced; he was what you might call a scholarly doctor, and yet there was nothing abstract in his remedies — he always ordered you to take something. Es war ein Element von Dr. Slopers Ruf, dass sein Lernen und seine Fähigkeiten sehr ausgeglichen waren; er war, was man einen gelehrten Arzt nennen könnte, und doch war nichts Abstraktes in seinen Heilmitteln – er befahl einem immer, etwas zu nehmen. Though he was felt to be extremely thorough, he was not uncomfortably theoretic, and if he sometimes explained matters rather more minutely than might seem of use to the patient, he never went so far (like some practitioners one has heard of) as to trust to the explanation alone, but always left behind him an inscrutable prescription. Obwohl er als äußerst gründlich empfunden wurde, war er nicht unangenehm theoretisch, und wenn er manchmal Dinge ausführlicher erklärte, als es dem Patienten nützlich erscheinen mag, ging er nie so weit (wie manche Praktiker, von denen man gehört hat), zu vertrauen allein auf die Erklärung, hinterließ aber immer ein unergründliches Rezept. There were some doctors that left the prescription without offering any explanation at all; and he did not belong to that class either, which was, after all, the most vulgar. Es gab einige Ärzte, die das Rezept beließen, ohne überhaupt eine Erklärung abzugeben; und er gehörte auch nicht zu dieser Klasse, die schließlich die vulgärste war. It will be seen that I am describing a clever man; and this is really the reason why Dr. Sloper had become a local celebrity. Man wird sehen, dass ich einen klugen Mann beschreibe; und das ist wirklich der Grund, warum Dr. Sloper zu einer lokalen Berühmtheit geworden war. At the time at which we are chiefly concerned with him, he was some fifty years of age, and his popularity was at its height. He was very witty, and he passed in the best society of New York for a man of the world — which, indeed, he was, in a very sufficient degree. He was very witty, and he passed in the best society of New York for a man of the world — which, indeed, he was, in a very sufficient degree. I hasten to add, to anticipate possible misconception, that he was not the least of a charlatan. He was a thoroughly honest man — honest in a degree of which he had perhaps lacked the opportunity to give the complete measure; and, putting aside the great good-nature of the circle in which he practised, which was rather fond of boasting that it possessed the “brightest” doctor in the country, he daily justified his claim to the talents attributed to him by the popular voice. He was an observer, even a philosopher, and to be bright was so natural to him, and (as the popular voice said) came so easily, that he never aimed at mere effect, and had none of the little tricks and pretensions of second-rate reputations. It must be confessed that fortune had favoured him, and that he had found the path to prosperity very soft to his tread. He had married at the age of twenty-seven, for love, a very charming girl, Miss Catherine Harrington, of New York, who, in addition to her charms, had brought him a solid dowry. Mrs. Sloper was amiable, graceful, accomplished, elegant, and in 1820 she had been one of the pretty girls of the small but promising capital which clustered about the Battery and overlooked the Bay, and of which the uppermost boundary was indicated by the grassy waysides of Canal Street. Even at the age of twenty-seven Austin Sloper had made his mark sufficiently to mitigate the anomaly of his having been chosen among a dozen suitors by a young woman of high fashion, who had ten thousand dollars of income and the most charming eyes in the island of Manhattan. These eyes, and some of their accompaniments, were for about five years a source of extreme satisfaction to the young physician, who was both a devoted and a very happy husband. The fact of his having married a rich woman made no difference in the line he had traced for himself, and he cultivated his profession with as definite a purpose as if he still had no other resources than his fraction of the modest patrimony which on his father’s death he had shared with his brothers and sisters. This purpose had not been preponderantly to make money — it had been rather to learn something and to do something. To learn something interesting, and to do something useful — this was, roughly speaking, the programme he had sketched, and of which the accident of his wife having an income appeared to him in no degree to modify the validity. He was fond of his practice, and of exercising a skill of which he was agreeably conscious, and it was so patent a truth that if he were not a doctor there was nothing else he could be, that a doctor he persisted in being, in the best possible conditions. Of course his easy domestic situation saved him a good deal of drudgery, and his wife’s affiliation to the “best people” brought him a good many of those patients whose symptoms are, if not more interesting in themselves than those of the lower orders, at least more consistently displayed. He desired experience, and in the course of twenty years he got a great deal. It must be added that it came to him in some forms which, whatever might have been their intrinsic value, made it the reverse of welcome. His first child, a little boy of extraordinary promise, as the Doctor, who was not addicted to easy enthusiasms, firmly believed, died at three years of age, in spite of everything that the mother’s tenderness and the father’s science could invent to save him. Two years later Mrs. Sloper gave birth to a second infant — an infant of a sex which rendered the poor child, to the Doctor’s sense, an inadequate substitute for his lamented first-born, of whom he had promised himself to make an admirable man. The little girl was a disappointment; but this was not the worst. A week after her birth the young mother, who, as the phrase is, had been doing well, suddenly betrayed alarming symptoms, and before another week had elapsed Austin Sloper was a widower. For a man whose trade was to keep people alive, he had certainly done poorly in his own family; and a bright doctor who within three years loses his wife and his little boy should perhaps be prepared to see either his skill or his affection impugned.

Our friend, however, escaped criticism: that is, he escaped all criticism but his own, which was much the most competent and most formidable. He walked under the weight of this very private censure for the rest of his days, and bore for ever the scars of a castigation to which the strongest hand he knew had treated him on the night that followed his wife’s death. The world, which, as I have said, appreciated him, pitied him too much to be ironical; his misfortune made him more interesting, and even helped him to be the fashion. It was observed that even medical families cannot escape the more insidious forms of disease, and that, after all, Dr. Sloper had lost other patients beside the two I have mentioned; which constituted an honourable precedent. His little girl remained to him, and though she was not what he had desired, he proposed to himself to make the best of her. He had on hand a stock of unexpended authority, by which the child, in its early years, profited largely. She had been named, as a matter of course, after her poor mother, and even in her most diminutive babyhood the Doctor never called her anything but Catherine. She grew up a very robust and healthy child, and her father, as he looked at her, often said to himself that, such as she was, he at least need have no fear of losing her. I say “such as she was,” because, to tell the truth — But this is a truth of which I will defer the telling.