red very much whether he would then be able to remember that he had once been a street lamp, and it troubled him exceedingly.

不管會發生什麼，有一件事似乎是確定的，那就是它會和那個守夜人以及他的妻子分開，它把他們一家當作自己的親人。

whatever might happen, one thing seemed certain, that he would be separated from the watchman and his wife, whose family he looked upon as his own.

這盞路燈最初被掛起來的那個晚上，那個守夜人當時還是一個身強力壯的年輕人，剛剛開始履行他的職責。

the lamp had first been hung up on that very evening that the watchman, then a robust young man, had entered upon the duties of his office.

啊，是啊，從一個人變成守夜人，另一個變成路燈，那已經是很久以前的事了。

Ah, well, it was a very long time since one became a lamp and the other a watchman.

那時他妻子有點傲氣；除了晚上路過時，她很少屈尊看一眼路燈，白天就更不會了。

his wife had a little pride in those days; she seldom condescended to glance at the lamp, excepting when she passed by in the evening, never in the daytime.

但在後來的歲月裡，當守夜人、他妻子和路燈都變老了的時候，她就會照料路燈，擦拭它，給它添油。

but in later years, when all these, — the watchman, the wife, and the lamp — had grown old, she had attended to it, cleaned it, and supplied it with oil.

這對老夫妻非常誠實，他們從未剋扣過給路燈的哪怕一滴油。

the old people were thoroughly honest, they had been never cheated the lamp of a single drop of the oil provided for it.

這是路燈在街上的最後一晚，明天它就得去市政廳了 —— 這兩件事想想都夠讓人鬱悶的。

this was the lamp’s last night in the street, and to-morrow he must go to the town-hall, — two very dark things to think of.

難怪它的燈光不那麼明亮了。

No wonder he did not burn b