中文原文：

父　　亲　　
　　　　　　作者：鲁彦

　　“父亲已经上了六十岁了，还想做一点事业，积一点钱，给我造起屋子来。”一个朋友从北方来，告诉了我这样的话。

　　他的话使我想起了我的父亲。我的父亲正是和他的父亲完全一样的。

　　我的父亲曾经为我苦了一生，把我养大，送我进学校，为我造了屋子，买了几亩田地。六十岁那一年，还到汉口去做生意，怕人家嫌他老，只说五十几岁。大家都劝他不要再出门，他偏背着包裹走了。

　　“让我再帮儿子几年！”他只是这样说。

　　后来屋子被火烧掉了，他还想再做生意，把屋子重造起来，我安慰他说，三年以后我自己就可积起钱造屋了，还是等一等吧。他答应了。他给我留下了许多造屋的材料，告诉我这样可以做什么，那样可以做什么。他死的以前不久，还对我说：“早一点造起来吧，我可以给你监工。”

　　但是他终于没有看见屋子重造起来就死了。他弥留的时候对我说，一切都满足了。但是我知道他倘能再活几年，我把屋子造起来，是他所最乐意的。我听到他弥留时的呻吟和叹息，我相信那不是病的痛苦的呻吟和叹息。我知道他还想再活几年，帮我造起屋子来。

　　现在我自己已是几个孩子的父亲了。我爱孩子，但我没有前一辈父亲的想法，帮孩子一直帮到老，帮到死还不足。我赞美前一辈父亲的美德，而自己却不能跟着他们的步伐走去。

　　我觉得我的孩子累我，使我受到极大的束缚。我没有对他们的永久的计划，甚至连最短促的也没有。

　　“倘使有人要，我愿意把他们送给人家！”我常常这样说，当我厌烦孩子的时候。

　　唉，和前一辈做父亲的一比，我觉得我们这一辈生命力薄弱得可怜，我们二三十岁的人比不上六七十岁的前辈，他们虽然老的老、死的死了，但是他们才是真正的活着到现在、到将来。

　　而我们呢，虽然活着，却是早已死了。

英文翻译：

版本1（来源于网络）：

Father

    “My dad has been in his 60, but he still wants to take jobs to earn money so that he can pay for my house.” A friend from the north said to me.

    What he said reminds me of my dad. The thoughts of my dad are exactly the same as his.

My dad had a tough life. He raised me and paid for my school tuition, what is more he bought a few acre of land in order to build a house for me. At his 60, he decided to travel to Hankou to do business. Being afraid of that others might find him too old, he told them he was just 50. We all asked him to stay, instead he just packed and left.

    “Let me do things for our son for the last couple years!” He said when left.

    Later, our house got burnt. My dad still wanted to do business and earn enough money to rebuild the house. I comforted him that we can just wait three years and I will earn enough money to rebuild it. He agreed and left me many materials for the house, telling me how these materials should be used in rebuilding the house. Before he dead, he kept telling me, ”I can still be the supervisor if you build it earlier.”

    However, my dad didn`t make it until the house was built. He told me he was content with everything in last days he spent with me. But I knew it would his greatest wish if he could live a few more years until the house was built. I believed the sigh and groan were not about the sickness he was suffering but the regret that he could not live long enough to help build the house.

    And now I have been a father of several children. I love my children. But I am not going to help them until, even after, the last minute of my life like my father did. I appreciate the virtue of my father, but I am not going to follow his steps.

    I think the needing of my children bring me huge constraint. I don’t have a permanent plan for them, not even a temporary one.

    “I would be pleased to give them away, if someone may ask.” I will say this every time I was annoyed with my children.

    Comparing with the fathers of our generation, the vitality of us, in our 20 and 30, is much more fragile than those fathers in their 50 and 60. Although they were faded by time and age, they truly live in now and ever.

    However, we are still breathing, but we have been dead.

 

版本2（我们老师翻译）： 

"At sixty, father is still thinking of finding a job and saving some money so that he can build a home for me," a friend who had just come from North China conveyed his father's aspiration to me.

  His remarks refreshed memory of my father, who was not at all unlike his father.

  Father suffered a lot in his lifetime. Not only did he bring me up, he also sent me to school, built a home for me, and acquired a few acres of land. At age sixty, he still ventured on a business partnership with others in Hankou; fearing that his age might make him unwanted, he told them he was only fifty. Other members of the family dissuaded him from going, yet he went straight ahead, with a parcel on his back.

  "Let me work for my son a few more years," that was what he said.

  Later the house he built for me was destroyed in a fire. Father determined to enter into business again so that he could rebuild the house. I comforted him by assuring that I could save enough money in three years and that he'd better put it off a little. He agreed, but left me a whole stock of building materials while kept on telling me what was what. Shortly before he died, he was still urging me for a quick start:"If you can start early, I can supervise the construction for you."

  But at long last he did not live to see the new house built. At his deathbed, he told me that he was satisfied with what life had given him. But I was fully aware that he would have been happier had I built the house while he was still alive. And I knew clearly that his groans and sighs were not due to the pains of ill health that he suffered - he was longing for a few more years, to help build me a house.

  Now I am a father of several kids. I love my kids, but I am not like my father in working to death for them, trying to help them do what they can do for themselves. Much as I admire the fatherly virtue of preceding generations, I find it impossible to follow suit.

  In my eyes, the kids are a big burden, someone who keep you feeling tired. I have no long-term plan for them, not even a short-term one.

  "I'd rather send the kids away, i.e., if anyone is willing to adopt them," I keep saying that to other people, especially when the children are annoying.

  Alas! How languid and frail we are in comparison with our forefathers! Not more than thirty, we are no match for them in their sixties or even seventies. Although many of them are dead or dying, they surely had a life that will last, into the future.

  What about us? We are living, but long dead.