Jack London
...I was not afraid of work. I loved hard work.
...as luck would have it,1 I found an employer. ...I thought I was learning a trade. In reality, I had displaced two men. I thought he was making an electrician out of me;2 as a matter of fact, he was making fifty dollars per month out of me. The two men I had displaced had received forty dollars each per month; I was doing the work of both for thirty dollars per month.
This employer worked me nearly to death. ...Too much work sickened me. I did not wish ever to see work again. I fled from work. I became a tramp, begging my way from door to door,3 wandering over the United States and sweating bloody sweats in slums and prisons.
— Jack London
rade n. 手藝
electrician n. 電工
fled (flee) v. 逃走
sweat v/n. 流汗；汗
bloody adj. 血汙的
slum n. 貧民窟
中譯 流浪漢（傑克·倫敦）
……我不怕幹活，我喜歡幹艱苦的活兒。
……我還算走運，找到了一位雇主。我以為我要學一門手藝了。事實上我幹了兩個人的活。我想，他要培養我成為一名電工。而實際上，他每月從我身上賺取五十美元。我頂替的那兩個人的工資是每人每月四十美元。我幹的是兩個人的活，每月隻得三十美元。
這個雇主讓我幹得差點累死。過於沉重的工作使我厭煩。
我不想再碰工作了。我逃走不幹了，成了流浪漢，挨戶乞討，浪跡整個美國。血腥的汗水流淌在貧民窟和監獄裏。
——〔美〕傑克·倫敦
原來如此！
Jack London（傑克·倫敦，1876-1916），美國作家，出身於貧窮家庭，小時候上學時就不得不做工謀生。他當過水手、洗衣店小工、金礦工人等，飽嚐顛沛流離之苦。他曾以流浪罪被投入監獄。作品以浪漫主義手法描寫爭取生存的原始鬥爭。有自傳體小說《馬丁·伊登》（Martin Eden, 1909）及小說《荒野的呼喚》（The Call of the Wild, 1903）、《鐵蹄》（The Iron Heel, 1907）等。