【转载翻译】Quality by John Galsworthy （品质 约翰·高尔斯华绥）

德式英文用蓝色标出
I knew him from the days of my extreme youth, because he made my father's boots; inhabiting with his elder brother two little shops let into one, in a small by-street -- now no more, but then most fashionably placed in the West End.
我很年轻时就认识他了，因为他承做我父亲的靴子。他和他哥哥合开一家店，店房有两间打通的铺面，开设在一条横街上——这条街现在已经不存在了，但是在那时，它却是坐落在伦敦西区的一条新式街道。
That tenement had a certain quiet distinction; there was no sign upon its face that he made for any of the Royal Family -- merely his own German name of Gessler Brother’s; and in the window a few pairs of boots. I remember that it always troubled me to account for those unvarying boots in the window; for he made only what was ordered, reaching nothing down, and it seemed so inconceivable that what he made could ever have failed to fit. Had he bought them to put there? That, too, seemed inconceivable. He would never have tolerated in his house leather on which he had not worked himself. Besides, they were too beautiful -- the pair of pumps, so inexpressibly slim, the patent leathers with cloth tops, making water come into one's mouth, the tall brown riding-boots with marvelous sooty glow, as if, though new, they had been worn a hundred years. Those pairs could only have been made by one who saw before him the Soul of Boot -- so truly were they prototypes incarnating the very spirit of all foot-gear. These thoughts, of course, came to me later, though even when I was promoted to him, at the age of perhaps fourteen, some inkling haunted me of the dignity of himself and brother. For to make boots -- such boots are he made -- seemed to me then, and still seemed to me, mysterious and wonderful.