这一段很长，却只有三个句子，而且第三句的长度达到了惊人的188词。不过好在它不算传统意义上的长难句，而是用分号分割，读起来韵律十足，且言语辛辣尖锐，有种独特的流畅爽感。为了不打破这种完整感，我把第三句的译文和原文分别放在一张单独的图里。
我们都清楚，你们之中不乏艰难度日的穷人，有时可以说是穷得只剩下一口气。我并不怀疑有些读者其实付不出每日所吃的餐食费用，身上那磨损迅速甚至已经破烂不堪的大衣鞋子也并非真正购得。他们从债主处夺回一个钟头，在偷偷腾挪来的时光里读到此处。生活经历将我的目光打磨得雪亮，一眼便看穿你们大多数人过的是多么吝啬且卑微的生活；你们总是处在种种限制之下1，想方设法地经营买卖，意图摆脱债务；而债务是个古老的泥淖，拉丁人叫它“alienum”，意思是别人的铜板，因为他们有些钱币是由铜铸成；你们为别人的铜板而活，为别人的铜板而死，别人的铜板将你们埋葬；你们总是答应还钱，答应明天还钱，却在今天破产死去；你们竭力逢迎谄媚、迎来送往，在不犯重罪的前提下，用尽心机手段；你们违心撒谎、溜须拍马、投票选举，将自己龟缩进知礼的外壳2，或是把自己注入慷慨的薄雾之中3，只为了说服邻居雇你给他当鞋匠、做帽子、裁大衣、造马车、置办杂货；你积劳成疾，只为给来日的病体积攒些储蓄，不是存在旧箱子里，就是装进长袜藏入墙灰里，要么就更稳妥些，存入砖砌的银行4；你们不关心钱存在哪里，也不关心存得多还是存得少。
Some of you, we all know, are poor, find it hard to live, are sometimes, as it were, gasping for breath. I have no doubt that some of you who read this book are unable to pay for all the dinners which you have actually eaten, or for the coats and shoes which are fast wearing or are already worn out, and have come to this page to spend borrowed or stolen time, robbing your creditors of an hour. It is very evident what mean and sneaking lives many of you live, for my sight has been whetted by experience; always on the limits, trying to get into business and trying to get out of debt, a very ancient slough, called by the Latins as alienum, another’s brass, for some of their coins were made of brass; still living, and dying, and buried by this other’s brass; always promising to pay, promising to pay, to-morrow, and dying to-day, insolvent; seeking to curry favor, to get custom, by how many modes, only not state-prison offences; lying, flattering, voting, contracting yourselves into a nutshell of civility, or dilating into an atmosphere of thin and vaporous generosity, that you may persuade your neighbor to let you make his shoes, or his hat, or his coat, or his carriage, or import his groceries for him; making yourselves sick, that you may lay up something against a sick day, something to be tucked away in an old chest, or in a stocking behind the plastering, or, more safely, in the brick bank; no matter where, no matter how much or how little.
Footnotes
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原文on the limit，指的其实是梭罗生活的麻省康科德镇对于负债者的一种人身限制手段。在当时，负债的穷人被捕入狱，但是他们可以在地方执政官面前宣誓，法律会给予他们一定程度的自由（最开始只是在监狱范围内，后来扩展到监狱外），准许他们工作以谋生并偿还贷款。 ↩
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这句话原文可直译作“文明的果壳”，应该出自莎士比亚《哈姆雷特》中“即使把我关在一个果壳里，我也会把自己当作一个拥有着无限空间的君王的。”（译文出自中国文史出版社《莎士比亚全集》，朱生豪译） ↩
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与上一句并举，一个是收缩，一个是膨胀。让自己像气体一样充满象征着“慷慨”的薄雾之中，颇有中文里“打肿脸充胖子”的意思。 ↩
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很可能是影射1837年美国金融恐慌，那时有不少银行遭遇挤兑，终止铸币兑换。 ↩