综合教程第五册课文翻译

The Fourth of July

The first time I went to Washington D.C. was on the edge of the summer when I was supposed to stop being a child. At least that’s what they said to us all at graduation from the eighth grade. My sister Phyllis graduated at the same time from high school. I don’t know what she was supposed to stop being. But as graduation presents for us both, the whole family took a Forth of July trip to Washington D.C., the fabled and famous capital of our country.

我第一次到华盛顿的时候是初夏那时我想我不应该再当一个孩子。至少这是他们在八年级 的毕业典礼上对我们说的。我的姐姐菲利斯在同一时间从高中毕业。我不知道她应该不再当 一个什么。但当作是送给我们俩的毕业礼物,我们全家在国庆日前往华盛顿旅游,那是传奇而 著名的我国首都。

It was the first time I’d ever been on a railroad train during the day. When I was little, and we used to go to the Connecticut shore, we always went at night on the milk train, because it was cheaper.

这是我第一次真正意义上在白天时乘坐火车。当我还小的时候我们总是在夜晚乘坐运奶火 车去康涅狄格海岸,因为它更便宜。

Preparations were in the air around our house before school was over. We packed for two weeks. There were two large suitcases that my father carried, and a box filled with food. In fact, my first trip to Washington was a mobile feast; I started eating as soon as we were ensconced in our seats, and did not stop until somewhere after Philadelphia. I remember it was Philadelphia because I was disappointed not to have passed by the Liberty Bell. 学期还没结束前家里就开始忙着准备旅行的事。我们准备了两个星期。父亲拿了两个大箱子 和一个装满食物的盒子。事实上,我第一次到华盛顿的旅途可以说是一个移动盛宴一在位 子上安顿下来我就开始吃东西直到我们到了费城往后的某个地方才停下来。我记得那是费 城,是因为我们没有经过自由之钟对此我很失望。

My mother had roasted two chickens and cut them into dainty bite-size pieces. She packed slices of brown bread and butter, and green pepper and carrot sticks. There were little violently yellow iced cakes with scalloped edges called “marigolds,” that came from Cushman’s Bakery. There was a spice bun and rock- cakes from Newton’s, the West Indian bakery across Lenox Avenue from St. Mark’s school, and iced tea in a wrapped mayonnaise jar. There were sweet peaches for us and dill pickles for my father, and peaches with the fuzz still on them, individually wrapped to keep them from bruising. And, for neatness, there were piles of napkins and a little tin box with a washcloth dampened with rosewater and glycerine for wiping sticky mouths.

母亲烤了两只鸡,然后把它们切成恰好一口一片的大小。她打包了黑面包和黄油切片,青椒和 胡萝卜条。有来自Cushman面包店的亮黄色的周围有一圈扇贝形状的小冰蛋糕叫做“金 盏花“。有来自牛顿面包店的香辛小面包和岩皮饼,还有包裹着蛋黄酱的冰茶那是一家雷 诺克斯大街上圣马可学校对面的西印度面包店。还有母亲为我们准备的蜜桃和给父亲准备 的莳萝腌菜,桃子上还有绒毛,单独包装,以免它们碰伤。为了干净,母亲还准备了成堆的餐巾纸 和一个小锡盒子里面装有浸了玫瑰水和甘油的毛巾,可以用来擦拭发粘的嘴巴。

I wanted to eat in the dinning car because I had read all about them, but my mother reminded me of umpteenth time that dinning car food always cost too much money and besides, you never could tell whose hands had been playing all over that food, nor where those same hands had been

just before. My mother never mentioned that Black people were not allowed into dining cars headed south in 1947. As usual, whatever my mother did not like and could not change, she ignored. Perhaps it would go away, deprived of her attention.

我想要在餐车吃饭,因为我已经从书上读到过关于它们的一切,但母亲提醒了我无数次,餐车 食品太贵,而且,你根本没法辨别那些食物上有谁的手在上面动过,也不知道, 之前他们的手碰 过什么地方。我的母亲从未提及过直到1947年黑人还是不被允许进入前往南部的火车餐 车。通常,无论母亲是不喜欢的或无法改变的事她都会忽视。可能她觉得如果把注意力转 开事情就会过去。

I learned latter that Phyllis’s high school senior class trip had been to Washington, but the nuns had given her back her deposit in private, explaining to her that the class, all of whom were white, except Phyllis, would be staying in a hotel where Phyllis “would not be happy,” meaning, Daddy explained to her, also in private, that they did not rent rooms to Negroes. “We still take among-you to Washington, ourselves,” my father had avowed, “and not just for an overnight in some measly fleabag hotel.

后来我知道菲利斯的高中班级旅行去的就是华盛顿,但老师们私底下又把费用还回给了她,跟她解释说,班上的孩子除了菲利斯都是白人他们将住的那家旅馆会让菲利斯不高兴。这句话后来父亲对她私下里解释的意思就是,他们不租房间给黑人。父亲承诺说“我们仍然会带着你们到华盛顿去,就我们自己。而不是只是在便宜破旧的小旅馆里住一晚。“

In Washington D.C., we had one large room with two double beds and an extra cot for me. It was a back-street hotel that belonged to a friend of my father’s who was in real estate, and I spent the whole next day after Mass squinting up at the Lincoln Memorial where Marian Anderson had sung after D.A.R. refused to allow her to sing in their auditorium because she was black. Or because she was “Colored”, my father said as he told us the story. Except that what he probably said was ”Negro”, because for his times, my father was quite progressive.

在华盛顿,我们住一间有两张双人床的房间我还有一张额外的小床。这是一家后街的旅馆是我父亲的一个朋友的房产。次日弥撒过后我花了整个一天的时间眯着眼看林肯纪念堂。在D.A.R.因玛丽安?安德森是个黑人而拒绝她在他们的礼堂唱歌后她曾在林肯纪念堂唱过歌。父亲在告诉我们这个故事的时候说也许是因为她是“有色人种”。除此之外父亲说的可能就是“黑人”,他当时相当激进。

I was squinting because I was in that silent agony that characterized all of my childhood summers, from the time school let out in June to the end of July, brought about by my dilated and vulnerable eyes exposed to the summer brightness.

我眯着眼是因为我一直处于无声的痛苦中那一直是我从童年的夏天的特征,从学校放假的 六月到七月底,导致我扩张和脆弱的眼睛曝晒在夏天的强光下。

I viewed Julys through an agonizing corolla of dazzling whiteness and I always hated the Fourth of July, even before I came to realize the travesty such a celebration was for Black people in this country.

6月在我看来就是令人极度痛苦晕眩的白色。我讨厌国庆日,甚至在我开始意识到这荒谬的现实—这对美国黑人来说也算是个庆典--之前就开始讨厌了。 My parents did not approve of sunglasses, nor of their expense. 我的父母不赞成戴墨镜,他们也花费不起。

I spent the afternoon squinting up at monuments to freedom and past presidencies and democracy, and wondering why the light and heat were both so much stronger in Washington D.C., than back home in New York City. Even the pavement on the streets was a shade lighter in color than back

home.

我花了一下午的时间眯眼看自由纪念碑、历届总统和民主政治,不知道为什么华盛顿的光和 热要比家乡纽约强得多。甚至街道上的人行道路面都比家乡的颜色略浅。

Late that Washington afternoon my family and I walked back down Pennsylvania Avenue. We were a proper caravan, mother bright and father brown, the three of us girls step-standards in-between. Moved by our historical surroundings and the heat of early evening, my father decreed yet another treat. He had a sense of history, a flair for the quietly dramatic and the sense of specialness of an occasion and a trip.

后来在华盛顿的那个下午我和我的家人沿着宾夕法尼亚大道走回去。我们可以算是个严格意 义上的旅行团,母亲是白人、父亲是黑人,我们三个女孩介于黑白之间渐变。受历史建筑和傍 晚的炎热影响,父亲宣布去另一个地方。他有种很强的历史感,懂得制造戏剧化的场面,懂得如 何让旅行变得更有趣。

“Shall we stop and have a little something to cool off, Lin?“ “我们要停下来喝点东西降降温么,林?”

Two blocks away from our hotel the family stopped for a dish of vanilla ice cream at a Breyer’s ice cream and soda fountain. Indoors, the soda fountain was dim and fan-cooled, deliciously relieving to my scorched eyes.

我们一家来到离旅馆两个街区远的拜尔冰激凌冷饮小卖部吃香草冰激凌。小卖部里又昏暗又 凉爽很好地缓解了我焦灼的眼睛。

Corded and crisp and pinafored, the five of us seated ourselves one by one at the counter. There was I between my mother and father, and my two sisters on the other side of my mother. We settled ourselves along the white mottled marble counter, and when the waitress spoke at first no one could understand what she was saying and so the five of us just sat there. 我们五个衣着整洁一个挨着一个坐在的柜台边。我坐在母亲和父亲中间我的两个姐姐坐 在母亲的另一边。我们沿着白色斑点的大理石柜台就坐,起先没人听明白那个女服务员说的 是什么于是我们就这么坐在那。

The waitress moved along the line of us closer to my father and spoken again”I said I kin give you to take out, but you can't eat her, sorry.\" Then she dropped her eyes looking very embarrassed, and suddenly we heard what it was she was saying all at the same time, loud and clear.

那个女服务员朝我们走来靠近父亲再一次说“我说了我可以让你们外带但是抱歉 你们不能坐在这儿吃。” 然后她垂下双眼看起来十分尴尬。瞬间我们同时都听到了她说了 什么响亮且清楚。

Straight-backed and indignant, one by one, my family and I got down from the counter stools and turned around and marched out of the store, quiet and outraged, as if we had never been Black before. No one would answer my emphatic questions with anything other than a guilty silence. “But we hadn’t done anything!” This wasn’t right or fair! Hadn’t I written poems about freedom and democracy for all?

我和我的家人挺直了背、义愤填膺,一个接一个从柜台凳子上下来转身走出了小卖部,安静 并愤怒着,就好像我们从来不是黑人。没有人会用除了内疚的沉默以外的什么来回答我所强 调的问题。“但是我们什么都没做!”这是不正确的不公平的!难道我没有写过关于自由和 民主的诗歌吗?

My parents wouldn’t speak of this injustice, not because they had contributed to it, but because they felt they should have anticipated it and avoided it. This made me even angrier. My fury was not going to be acknowledged by a like fury. Even my two sisters copied my parents’ pretense that

nothing unusual and anti-American had occurred. I was left to write my angry letter to the

president of the United States all by myself, although my father did promise I could type it out on the office typewriter next week, after I showed it to him in my copybook diary.

我的父母不会谈及这种歧视,不是因为他们导致了这种歧视,而是因为他们觉得他们应当预料 到并且避免它。这使得我更加的生气。我的愤怒将不会被其他家庭成员所认同尽管他们同 样愤怒。甚至我的两个姐姐也学着我父母假装没有什么不正常的和反美的事发生过。虽然 在我给父亲看了我写在本子上的日记后他答应过我下周能用办公室的打字机但是他还是留我独自一人写信寄给美国总统。

The waitress was white, and the counter was white, and the ice cream I never ate in Washington D.C., that summer I left childhood was white, and the white heat and the white pavement and the white stone monuments of my first Washington summer made me sick to my stomach for the whole rest of that trip and it wasn’t much of a graduation present after all.

那个女服务员是白人的,那个柜台是白色的,我从来不曾在华盛顿吃到的冰淇淋,以及我离开 的童年的那个夏天是白色的,白色的热浪和白色的人行道,那个夏天我第一次华盛顿之旅看到 的白色纪念碑让我在余下的整个旅程中极为恶心反胃。这次旅行实在算不上是毕业礼物。

UNIT 2

The Struggle to Be an All-American Girl by Elizabeth Wong

It’s still there, the Chinese school on Yale Street where my brother and I used to go. Despite the new coat of paint and the high wire fence, the school I knew 10 years ago remains remarkably, stoically the same.

我和哥哥过去常常去的中文学校还在耶鲁街。尽管刷了新油漆和围了高铁丝网,我十年前就 熟知的这所学校仍明显没有丝毫改变。

Every day at 5 P.M., instead of playing with our fourth- and fifth-grade friends or sneaking out to the empty lot to hunt ghosts and animal bones, my brother and I had to go to Chinese school. No amount of kicking, screaming, or pleading could dissuade my mother, who was solidly determined to have us learn the language of our heritage.

每天下午5点,我和哥哥不得不去中文学校而不是和四、五年级的朋友们一起玩或溜出去 到空地捉鬼寻骨。再多的乱踢,乱叫,或请求都不能劝阻我的母亲她坚决要我们学习中文。 Forcibly, she walked us the seven long, hilly blocks from our home to school, depositing our defiant tearful faces before the stern principal. My only memory of him is that he swayed on his heels like a palm tree, and he always clasped his impatient twitching hands behind his back. I recognized him as a repressed maniacal child killer, and knew that if we ever saw his hands we’d be in big trouble.

她强行把我们从家里带到学校有七个街区的路程又长又崎岖。她将面带挑衅、含着泪的我 们带到严厉的校长面前。我对他的唯一记忆是他就像一棵棕榈树一样摇动,他总是将他那双 不停抽搐的手紧紧扣在背后。我把他当成是一个抑郁疯狂的儿童杀手,还认为如果我们看到 他的手,就会遇到大麻烦。

We all sat in little chairs in an empty auditorium. The room smelled like Chinese medicine, an imported faraway mustiness. Like ancient mothballs or dirty closets. I hated that smell. I favored crisp new scents. Like the soft French perfume that my American teacher wore in public school.

我们都坐在一个空旷的礼堂里的小椅子上。这房间闻起来就像中药有一股进口的遥远的腐 臭。像古老的卫生球或肮脏的衣柜。我讨厌那气味。我喜爱清新的气味。就像我在公立学校 的美国老师喷的轻柔的法国香水。

Although the emphasis at the school was mainly language-speaking, reading, writing-the lessons always began with an exercise in politeness. With the entrance of the teacher, the best student would tap a bell and everyone would get up, kowtow, and chant, “Sing san ho,” the phonetic for “How are you, teacher?”

尽管在学校重点主要是语言—口语、阅读、写作—课程总是从练习礼貌开始。随着老师进来, 最好的那个学生会敲击铃铛,然后每个人都站起来,磕头并齐道,“先生好,“意思是“老师好。” Being ten years old, I had better things to learn than ideographs copied painstakingly in lines that ran right to left from the tip of a moc but, a real ink pen that had to be held in an awkward way if blotches were to be avoided. After all, I could do the multiplication tables, name the satellites of Mars, and write reports on Little Women and Black Beauty. Nancy Drew, my favorite heroine, never spoke Chinese.

十岁的时候,我还有比象形文字更重要的东西要学而不是用毛笔痛苦地一行行地从左往右 抄写汉字那是一支真正的墨水笔,必须以一种极别扭的方式拿着,才能避免弄出斑驳的痕迹。毕竟,我可以背出乘法表,说出火星的卫星的名字,写关于《小女人》和《黑美人》的读后感。南茜朱尔是我最喜欢的女主人公,她从来不说汉语。

The language was a source of embarrassment. More times than not, I had tried to disassociate myself from the nagging loud voice that followed me wherever I wandered in the nearby American supermarket outside Chinatown. The voice belonged to my grandmother, a fragile woman in her seventies who would outshout the best of street vendors. Her humor was raunchy, her Chinese rhythmless and patternless. It was quick, it was loud, it was unbeautiful. It was not like the quiet, lilting romance of French or the gentle refinement of the American South. Chinese sounded pedestrian. Public.

汉语对我来说是一个尴尬的来源。我曾不止一次试图让自己摆脱那喋喋不休的声音,无论我 走在附近唐人街外的美国超市那声音都会一直跟着我。那声音属于我的祖母,一个脆弱的妇 女却能吼出比街头小贩还响的声音。她的笑话粗俗下流,她的汉语没有韵律和花样。她语 速很快,声音很大,一点儿也不优美。她的汉语不像那安静轻快而浪漫的法语或柔和精致的南 美语。汉语听起来通俗、大众。

In Chinatown, the comings and goings of hundreds of Chinese on their daily tasks sounded chaotic and frenzied. I did not want to be thought of as mad, as talking gibberish. When I spoke English, people nodded at me, smiled sweetly, said encouraging words. Even the people in my culture would cluck and say that I?d do well in life. “My, doesn?t she move her lips fast,” they would say, meaning that I?d be able to keep up with the word outside Chinatown.

进进出出数以百计的中国人在日常工作中说着汉语让唐人街听起来混乱而嘈杂。我不想被 认为是在像疯子一样胡扯。当我讲英文的时候人们会对我点头微笑说一些鼓励的话。甚 至和我有着相同文化背景的人都会咯咯笑着说我将来会有出息。他们会说“哇她的嘴唇 动的好快啊”意思说我能够跟得上唐人街外面的世界。

My brother was even more fanatical than I about speaking English. He was especially hard on my mother, criticizing her, often cruelly, for her pidgin speech—smatterings of Chinese scattered like chop suey in her conversation. “It?s not ?What it is,? Mom,” he?d say in exasperation.“It?s ?What is it, what is it, what is it! Sometimes Mom might leave out an occasional “the” or “a”, or perhaps a verb of being. He would stop her in mid-sentence: “Say it again, Mom. Say it

right.” When he tripped over his own tongue, he’d blame it on her: “See, Mom, it’s all your fault. You set a bad example.”

对于说英语这件事情我哥哥比我更狂热。他对母亲尤其苛刻,经常残忍地批评她的洋泾浜 口语——在谈话中夹杂中文就像炒杂碎一样。他会恼羞成怒地说“不是‘What it is,’妈妈, 是‘What is it, what is it, what is it!’ ”有时候母亲可能偶尔会遗漏冠词,或者一个be动词。他就会在母亲说到一半时打断她:“再说一次,妈妈。说对来”每当他绊了一下舌头,他就会责怪她:“看哪,妈妈,这都是你的错。你做了一个坏榜样。”

What infuriated my mother most was when my brother cornered her on her consonants, especially “r”. My father had played a cruel joke on Mom by assigning her an American name that her tongue wouldn’t allow her to say. No matter how hard she tried, “Ruth” always ended up “Luth”or “Roof”.

最激怒母亲的是当我哥哥逼她念辅音,尤其是“r”这个音。“我的父亲开了母亲一个残酷的 玩笑给她登记了一个她根本念不出来的英文名字。不管她怎么努力,她总是把” Ruth “说 成“Luth”或者“Roof”。

After two years of writing with a moc but and reciting words with multiples of meanings, I finally was granted a cultural divorce. I was permitted to stop Chinese school.

用毛笔抄写了两年的拥有大量词义的汉字我的“文化”终于得到了许可。我可以不用 再去上中文学校了。

I thought of myself as multicultural. I preferred tacos to egg rolls; I enjoyed Cinco de Mayo more than Chinese New Year.

我觉得自己是多元文化的。我更喜欢蛋卷玉米饼;我喜欢五月节胜于春节。 At last, I was one of you; I wasn’t one of them.

到最后,我以为自己是一个美国人,而不是一个中国人。 Sadly, I still am. 可悲的是,我始终都是中国人。

UNIT3 A Hanging

It was in Burma, a sodden morning of the rains. We were waiting outside the condemned cells, a row of sheds fronted with double bars, like small animal cages. Each cell measured about ten feet by ten and was quite bare within except for a plank bed and a pot of drinking water. In some of them brown silent men were squatting at the inner bars, with their blankets draped round them. These were the condemned men, due to be hanged within the next week or two.

那是在缅甸，一个泡在雨水中的清晨。我们侯在死牢外面，这是一排正面安了

两重铁栅栏的小房子，象关动物的小笼子。每间牢房十英尺见方，除了一张光板床和一只饮水罐，里面什么东西也没有。其中有几间关着肤色棕黑、一声不响的犯人，一律裹着毯子，蹲在里层的栅栏跟前。这些都是一两周之内就会被送上绞架的死刑犯。

One prisoner had been brought out of his cell. He was a Hindu, a puny wisp of a man, with a shaven head and vague liquid eyes. Six tall Indian warders were guarding him and getting him ready for the gallows. Two of them stood by with rifles and fixed bayonets, while the others handcuffed him, passed a chain through his handcuffs and fixed it to their belts, and lashed his arms tight to his sides. They crowded very close about him,

with their hands always on him in a careful, caressing grip, as though all the while feeling him to make sure he was there. But he stood quite unresisting, yielding his arms limply to the ropes, as though he hardly noticed what was happening.

一个死囚已经被带出他的牢房。这是个瘦瘦小小的印度北方人，瘦得能一把攥起来，他的头发给剃掉了，但却长着浓密的胡茬子，特别像电影里滑稽角色的那种胡子，真不敢相信这么一付小身板能长出这么大一把胡子。他眼睛里噙满泪水，但他的目光却是一片茫然。六个大个子印度籍看守围着他，替他做上绞架的准备工作。其中两位端着上了刺刀的步站在一边，其他几位忙着给他上手铐，之后把一根链子穿过他的手铐，绑在他们自己的腰带上，他的胳膊被紧紧地绑在身体两侧。那几个人把他围得严严实实，七八只手在他身上细心地用着力，像是在爱抚他、无时无刻都要感觉到他的存在。这场景颇似几个人在对付一条活蹦乱跳的鱼，生怕它随时可能跳回水里去一般。但他只是站着，毫无反抗之意，任凭双臂被绳子摆布，似乎他根本注意不到正在发生的事情。

Eight o’clock struck and a bugle call floated from the distant barracks. The superintendent of the jail, who was standing apart from the rest of us, moodily prodding the gravel with his stick, raised his head at the sound. ‘For God’s sake hurry up, Francis,’ he said irritably. ‘The man ought to have been dead by this time. Aren’t you ready yet?’

钟敲了八响，远处兵营里响起一阵军号，若隐若现，煞是凄清。监狱长正独自站在一旁，心神不定地用手杖刺着地面的砂砾层，听见军号，他抬起头发话了。“务必得抓紧了，弗兰西斯，”他不耐烦地说。“这家伙这时候早该死了。你们还没准备好吗？”

Francis, the head jailer, a fat Dravidian in a white drill suit and gold spectacles, waved his black hand. ‘Yes sir, yes sir,’ he bubbled. ‘All is satisfactorily prepared. The hangman is waiting. We shall proceed.’

看守长弗兰西斯，一个身着白色斜纹布制服、戴了副金边眼镜的德拉维胖子，动作夸张地举起他那只黑爪子报告。“是的长官，是的长官，”他发音有点不清楚。“全部肿备好了，您会满意的。刽知手已经债等了。我们可以肘了。”

‘Well, quick march, then. The prisoners can’t get their breakfast till this job’s over.’

“很好，那就马上出发。这活儿不干完就没法给别的犯人开早饭。”

We set out for the gallows. Two warders marched on either side of the prisoner, with their rifles at the slope; two others marched close against him, gripping him by arm and shoulder, as though at once pushing and supporting him. The rest of us, magistrates and the like, followed behind.

于是我们动身向绞刑场进发。犯人两侧各走着两个斜端着步的看守，另外两个看守抓着犯人的肩膀和手臂，说不上是在推着他走还是在扶着他走。我们其他人——文职人员等等，跟在队伍后面。

It was about forty yards to the gallows. I watched the bare brown back of the prisoner marching in front of me. He walked clumsily with his bound arms, but quite steadily. At each step his

muscles slid neatly into place, the lock of hair on his scalp danced up and down, his feet printed themselves on the wet gravel. And once, in spite of the men who gripped him by each shoulder, he stepped slightly aside to avoid a puddle on the path.

到绞刑场有大约四十码远。那个犯人光着背，我看着他褐色的脊背在我前面晃动。由于胳膊被绑着，他走路的样子有点费劲，不过却很稳健，每跨出一步，他那些肌肉便优美地消失又现形，他头皮上有一绺头发飘起再荡落，他的双脚都会在潮湿的砂砾地上印下足迹。有一下他甚至不顾两边有看守架着他，脚下稍微向旁边闪了一步，以躲开路上的一个水坑。

It is curious, but till that moment I had never realized what it means to destroy a healthy, conscious man. When I saw the prisoner step aside to avoid the puddle, I saw the mystery, the unspeakable wrongness, of cutting a life short when it is in full tide. This man was not dying, he was alive just as we were alive. All the organs of his body were working – bowels digesting food, skin renewing itself, nails growing, tissues forming – all toiling away in solemn foolery. His nails would still be growing when he stood on the drop, when he was falling through the air with a tenth of a second to live. His eyes saw the yellow gravel and the grey walls, and his brain still remembered, foresaw, reasoned – reasoned even about puddles. He and we were a party of men walking together, seeing, hearing, feeling, understanding the same world; and in two minutes, with a sudden snap, one of us would be gone – one mind less, one world less.

这让我有些讶异，直到这一刻我才认识到毁灭一个健康的、有意识的人意味着什么。当我看到那个犯人往旁边闪了一步以躲开路上的那个水坑时，我看到了一个充满生机的生命，而这个生命即将戛然而止，这是个神秘而又无法言说的谬误。这不是一个奄奄一息的人，他活得和在场的其他人一样状态良好。他身上的所有器官都在工作：肠道在消化食物、皮肤在新陈代谢、指甲在生长、各类组织在形成——所有这一切的劳碌此刻仍在进行，即便等着它们的是场一本正经的愚蠢仪式。当他站在绞架踏板上的时候，他的指甲还在生长；甚至在他坠入空气中的那十分之一秒之内，他的指甲也还在生长。他的眼中还看得见黄色的砂砾和灰色的院墙；他的大脑还有记忆力、预见力和支配力——比如支配他躲开路上的水坑。他和我们同样是人类，我们走在一起，我们看到、听到、感受到以及理解的是同一个世界；但是要不了两分钟，也就突然“啪”的一下，我们中间的一个就撒手人寰了——少了一颗心灵，少了一个世界。

The gallows stood in a small yard.The hangman, a gray-haired convict in the white uniform of the prison, was waiting beside his machine. He greeted us with a servile crouch as we entered. At a word from Francis the two warders, gripping the prisoner more closely than ever, half led, half pushed him to the gallows and helped him clumsily up the ladder. Then the hangman climbed up and fixed the rope round the prisoner’s neck.

绞刑场设在一个小院子里。刽子手是个头发灰白、穿白色囚服的犯人，正等在他的设备一旁，见我们进去，他赶忙跪在地上，奴颜婢膝地给我们请安。这时弗兰西斯发布了一道命令，于是押着死囚的那两个看守把他抓得更紧了，连推带

拉把他架到绞台跟前，挤挤挨挨地架着他爬上楼梯。接着刽子手也爬上绞台，把绳套挂到死囚脖子上扣紧。

We stood waiting, five yards away. The warders had formed in a rough circle round the gallows. And then, when the noose was fixed, the prisoner began crying out on his god. It was a high, reiterated cry of ‘Ram! Ram! Ram! Ram!’, not urgent and fearful like a prayer or a cry for help, but steady, rhythmical, almost like the tolling of a bell.

我们站在五码以外的地方等着。看守们围着绞架站成一圈。绳扣绑好了，这时那个死囚忽然开始放声呼喊他的神明。他声音高亢，反复呼喊着一个名字：“罗摩！罗摩！罗摩！罗摩！”，既听不出紧迫也听不到恐惧，既不像是祷告也不像是祈求，那就是一种坚定的、有节律的声音，如钟鸣般不绝于耳。

The hangman climbed down and stood ready, holding the lever. Minutes seemed to pass. The steady, muffled crying from the prisoner went on and on, ‘Ram! Ram! Ram!’ never faltering for an instant. The superintendent, his head on his chest, was slowly poking the ground with his stick; perhaps he was counting the cries, allowing the prisoner a fixed number – fifty, perhaps, or a

hundred. Everyone had changed colour. The Indians had gone grey like bad coffee, and one or two of the bayonets were wavering.

刽子手爬下绞台站好，手里把着他的机关。似乎好几分钟过去了。那个死囚坚定的、裹在布里的呼喊声在继续，还在继续，“罗摩！罗摩！罗摩！……”没有片刻的踌躇。监狱长勾着脑袋，慢慢地在地上戳着他的手杖，他大概是在给那声音计数吧，好让死囚能喊个整数什么的，五十声？或许吧，也可能是一百声。每个人的脸色都变得很难看。印度人脸上失了血色，变得灰白灰白的，让人联想到坏咖啡，甚至有一两把刺刀也在跟着发抖了。

Suddenly the superintendent made up his mind. Throwing up his .head he made a swift motion with his stick. ‘Chalo!’ he shouted almost fiercely.

突然间监狱长下了决心。他扬起脑袋，斩钉截铁地挥了下手杖。“查洛！”他几乎是恶狠狠地喊道。

There was a clanking noise, and then dead silence. The prisoner had vanished, and the rope was twisting on itself. We went round the gallows to inspect the prisoner’s body. He was dangling with his toes pointed straight downwards, very slowly revolving, as dead as a stone.

一阵“康郎”声响过，随后归于死一般的沉寂。死囚消失了，只有绳子兀自在那里打着绞。我们也绕到绞台后面去检视这个死囚的尸体。他正吊在绳子上摇摆不定，脚尖垂向地面，身体缓缓转动，已经像块石头一样没有生命了。

The superintendent reached out with his stick and poked the bare body; it oscillated, slightly. ‘He’s all right,’ said the superintendent. He backed out from under the gallows, and blew out a deep breath. The moody look had gone out of his face quite suddenly. He glanced at his wrist-watch. ‘Eight minutes past eight. Well, that’s all for this morning, thank God.’

监狱长抬起他的手杖捅了捅那具赤裸的尸体，它微微荡向一边。“他了啦，”监狱长宣布。他从绞台底下退出来，长出了一口气。忽然之间他脸上的闷闷不乐便一扫而光。他瞄了一眼腕表。“八点过八分。好了，今天早上就这样吧，感谢上帝！”

The warders unfixed bayonets and marched away. We walked out of the gallows yard,past the condemned cells with their waiting prisoners, into the big central yard of the prison. The convicts were already receiving their breakfast. They squatted in long rows, each man holding a tin pannikin, while two warders with buckets marched round ladling out rice; it seemed quite a homely, jolly scene, after the hanging. An enormous relief had come upon us now that the job was done. One felt an impulse to sing, to break into a run, to snigger. All at once everyone began chattering gaily.

看守们卸下刺刀，整队回去了。我们走出绞刑场，走过那排死牢和里面等死的人，走进位于监狱的大院子。犯人们已经在打早饭了，每个犯人都手持一个铁盘子，他们蹲成长长一队，两个看守提着饭桶沿队伍移动，往盘子里一勺一勺扣着米饭，看起来是一派安宁祥和的气象——尤其是在一次绞刑之后。那活儿忙完了，这让我们每个人都如释重负，都有想干点什么的冲动，比如唱两嗓子或者疯跑一通，哪怕是能偷着乐两声也不赖。于是忽然之间每个人都好像成了快活的小鸟，嘁嘁喳喳个没完没了。

The Eurasian boy walking beside me nodded towards the way we had come, with a

knowing smile: ‘Do you know, sir, our friend (he meant the dead man), when he heard his appeal had been dismissed, he pissed on the floor of his cell. From fright. – Kindly take one of my cigarettes, sir. Do you not admire my new silver case, sir? Classy European style.’

那个年轻的欧亚混血儿走在我身边，他把脑袋朝我们来的路歪了一下，脸上带着知情人的笑容：“您知道吗长官，咱们那位朋友（他说的是刚被处死的那个人），听说他的上诉被取消以后，在牢房里尿了一地。把他给吓得！——您赏个脸尝尝我的烟吧长官。您不觉得我这个银烟盒很漂亮吗长官？上等的欧洲货色。”

Several people laughed – at what, nobody seemed certain.

有几个人在笑，至于在笑什么，好像也没谁搞清楚。

Francis was walking by the superintendent, talking garrulously. ‘Well, sir, all has passed off with the utmost satisfactoriness. It was all finished – flick! like that. It is not always so – oh, no! I have known cases where the doctor was obliged to go beneath the gallows and pull the prisoner’s legs to ensure decease. Most disagreeable!’

弗兰西斯跟在监狱长旁边，边走边唠叨。“是的，长官，一切都完成得让人满意得不能债满意了。这件事干得——喀嚓！真是干净利硕。并不总是这样的——啊，不是的！我知道有几赤法医不得不专到绞台底下去拽犯人的大腿，不然都不知道他们史没史。真是太麻烦了！”

‘Wriggling about, eh? That’s bad,’ said the superintendent.

“要扭两下吗，呃？那可太糟糕了，”监狱长说。

‘Ach, sir, it is worse when they become refractory! One man, I recall, clung to the bars of hiss cage when we went to take him out. You will scarcely credit, sir, that it took six warders to dislodge him, three pulling at each leg.

“噢呵，长官，遇到腊种垂史挣扎的家伙柴叫昭糕呢！我记得有一次，我们去带一个蓝犯，可腊家伙抓着他牢房的栏杆史活不砂手。您肯定不相信，长官，我们找了六个看守柴把他弄出来，山个人抱他一条大腿。

I found that I was laughing quite loudly. Everyone was laughing. Even the superintendent grinned in a tolerant way. ‘You’d better all come out and have a drink,’ he said quite genially. ‘I’ve got a bottle of whisky in the car. We could do with it.’

我听见我在笑，而且笑得很大声。每个人都在笑。甚至监狱长也在咧着嘴笑，很大度的样子。“你们都跟我出来喝一杯吧，”他非常和蔼地说。“我车上有瓶威士忌。我们去把它喝掉。”

We went through the big double gates of the prison, into the road. ‘Pulling at his legs!’ exclaimed a Burmese magistrate suddenly, and burst into a loud chuckling. We all began laughing again. At that moment Francis’s anecdote seemed extraordinarily funny. We all had a drink together, native and European alike, quite amicably. The dead man was a hundred yards away.

我们走过监狱双扇大门，来到路上。“抱他的大腿！”一个缅甸籍文官突然大声重复了一句，然后就笑得上气不接下气。于是所有人又开始笑起来。那一分钟弗兰西斯的段子似乎格外好笑。后来我们相当友善地在一起喝酒，完全没有本地人和欧洲人之分。至于那个死去的男人嘛——离我们有一百码之遥呢！

UNIT 5

Force of Nature

While I was a teenager growing up in New Rochelle, New York, I had up on my bulletin board a photo of Marie Curie sitting under an elm tree, her arms wrapped around her daughters, two-year-old Eve and nine-year-old Irene. I didn’t know very much about Curie beyond the basics: She and her husband had discovered radioactivity. She was the first person to win two Nobel prizes. She was brilliant, single-minded, a legend. I was just a girl with little direction, more drawn to words and made-up stories than to formulas and lab experiments.

我在纽约州新罗谢尔市成长,那时我还是个十几岁的少女我在我的公告栏上贴上一张照片是居里夫人坐在榆树下,用手臂环抱着她的女儿,2岁的伊芙和9岁的艾琳。除了一些基本的 事以外我并不十分了解居里夫人:她和她的丈夫发现放射性。她是第一位赢得两次诺贝尔 奖的人。她非常出色,率直,她是一个传奇。而我只是个小女孩对未来一无所知,我更着迷于 文学而不是自然科学。

Looking back, I think I admired that photo so much, not because of Marie Curie and what she stood for but because she seemed so exotic—or maybe because of how her arms encircled her girls. My own mother lay in the hospital, recovering from a grave injury in a car crash. I wanted her to hold me, but she couldn’t. So, instead, I idolized Marie, who in my mind became the strongest and most capable woman in the world.

回想起来,我想我喜欢那张照片不是因为那上面是玛丽居里也不是因为她是一位多么伟 大的女性而仅仅是因为她的那张照片吸引了我——或者说是因为在那张照片上她用手臂环抱着她的女儿们。我的母亲躺在医院里,正从车祸造成的严重受伤中恢复过来。我希望她能抱抱我,但是她不能。所以,相反,我把玛丽当成是自己的偶像,她是我心目中这世界上最强最能干的女人。

Like any girl’s fantasy, mine contained at least a shred of truth. Marie Curie’s own daughters grew into accomplished women in their own right, though their mother was obsessively engaged in her research before they were born. Curie was what we might today call a super-competent multitasker. Her work revolutionized the study of atomic energy and radioactivity, and she’s one of a pitiful female scientists whom schoolchildren ever study. Also she was a woman driven by passions, fighting battles much of her life with what a doctor now would probably diagnose as severe depression. In the end, her most brilliant discover proved fatal for both her and her husband.

像所有的女孩的幻想一样,我的至少有那么点真实。玛丽?居里的女儿们依靠自己的力量成长 为成功的女性尽管她们的母亲在她们出生前就完全沉浸与她的研究中。今天我们可能称居 里夫人为一个全能的女超人。她的研究工作给原子能和放射性研究带来了性的变革,她 是我们学童时期都要向之学习的少的可怜的一位女科学家。同时她也是一名受感情影响的女 性,她生命里很大一部分时间都在与如今可能被医生诊断为严重抑郁症的疾病抗争。而最终, 她最辉煌的发现使她和她的丈夫丧了命。

When Curie was 10 years old, in 1878, her mother died of tuberculosis. The Polish girl then known as Manya Sklodowska carried on with her schoolwork as if nothing had happened, but for months she’d find places to hide so she could cry her eyes out. 1878年居里夫人10岁她的母亲死于肺结核。这个被称为玛丽娅斯克洛多夫斯卡的波兰 女孩继续自己的学习,好像什么也没有发生过一样。但几个月后她就找地方躲起来,伤心地 哭泣。

At age 18, she landed a job as governess to a wealthy family near Warsaw. She wound up falling love with Casimir Zorawski, an accomplished student of 19 with whom she shared a love of nature and science. But when Casimir announced that he and Manya wanted to marry, his father threatened to disinherited him. She was beneath his station, a poor, a common nursemaid. Definitely no. Four years dragged by. Finally, Manya told Casimir, “If you cannot decided, I cannot decide for you.” In what still seems to me a remarkable act of courage, Manya then gathered her meager savings and took a train to Paris, where she changed her name, enrolled at the Sorbonne—and walked into history.

十八岁时,她找到了一份工作,在华沙附近的一个富裕家庭做女家庭教师。最后她爱上了 Casimir Zorawski,一个多才多艺的19岁学生他们分享对大自然和科学的热爱。但当Casimir 宣称他要和玛丽娅结婚时,他的父亲威胁说要剥夺他的继承权。玛丽娅的社会地位要比

Casimir低,她只不过是个可怜的、普通的女佣罢了。毫无疑问他们之间是不可能的。四年时 光匆匆过去。最终,玛丽娅对Casimir说,“如果你不能决定,我也无法替你作出决定。“然后 玛丽娅做出了一个即使对我来说也是一个需要非凡勇气的决定,她拿着自己微薄的积蓄登

上了去巴黎的火车,在那里她改了名,进入巴黎大学就学——同时也走进了历史。

In 13, she became the first woman to earn a degree in physics at the Sorbonne. If you have ever seen the 1943 film Madame Curie, you known the broad brush strokes of her early experiments to find a mysterious, hidden new element. There’s a scene in which actress Greer Garson, as Marie, stirs a boiling vat, her face glistening with sweat. Late at night, Marie and her husband, Pierre, enter the lab to see a tiny luminous stain congealed in a dish. “Oh, Pierre! Could it be? ”exclaims Marie as tears roll down her cheeks. Yes, this was it – radium. 13年,她成为首位在巴黎大学获得物理学学位的女性。如果你曾看过1943年的电影“居里 夫人”,你就会知道,电影刻画了她早期实验,找到神秘的、隐藏的新元素的一幕。在一个戏中 饰演玛丽的女演员葛丽亚?嘉逊,搅拌着一个沸腾的大桶,她脸上闪烁着喜悦。深夜,玛丽和丈 夫皮埃尔,进入实验室,看到碟子里凝结出一个发光的小斑块。“哦,皮埃尔!这是什么?”玛丽呼 喊着泪水从脸颊上滚落下来。是的,这就是——镭。

The reality was a lot grittier – and a lot less romantic. Marie and Pierre, whom she married in 15, did indeed work side by side late into the night. But their lab was so shabby and dank that their daughter Irene, at age three, called it “that sad, sad place”. And one prominent scientist said that had he not seen the worktable, he would have thought he was in stable. 然而现实要残酷得多,远没有电影拍的那么浪漫。玛丽和皮埃尔于15年结婚,确实并肩工作 到深夜。但是他们的实验室实在是太破旧潮湿了,以至于他们三岁的女儿艾琳,称之为“那凄 惨,凄惨的地方”。一位著名科学家曾说要不是他看见了工作台,他还以为他是在马厩里。 In time, the Curies became world famous, especially after they won a Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 for the discovery of radioactivity. They were the toast of the European scientific community, feted lavishly and visited at home in Paris by acolytes who came from as far away as New Zealand to pay homage.

随着时间的推移,居里夫妇闻名于世,尤其是在他们因1903年发现放射性而获得诺贝尔物理 学奖后更是声名大噪。他们成了欧洲科学界的名人,受到了奢侈的款待远至新西兰的追随 者甚至拜访他们在巴黎的家向他们表达敬意。

For the Curies, though, their triumph contained the seeds of their tragedy. Remember, they worked around radioactivity nearly every day. Even before winning the Nobel, Pierre was severely ill from exposure to this fierce energy. He had open sores on his hands and fingers, and increasing difficulty walking. In 1906, he fell into the path of a wagon drawn by two huge draft horses, and a wheel ran over his head. He died instantly.

然而,对居里夫妇来说他们的成就包含了悲剧的种子。要记得,他们几乎每天都在放射性环 境中工作。甚至在获诺贝尔奖前夕,皮埃尔就因曝露在这种强烈的能量下病得非常严重。他 的手和手指上都是溃疡,渐渐地连走路都困难。1906年,他跌倒在由两匹巨大驮马拉着的一辆 货车途经的道路上车轮辗过他的头。他当场死亡。

Years later, Eve Curie, scarcely a year old when her father died, wrote that Pierre’s death marked the defining moment in her mother’s life:“ Marie Curie did not change from a happy young wife to an inconsolable widow. The metamorphosis was less simple, more serious. A cape of solitude and secrecy fell upon her shoulders forever. ” Marie was just 38. The Sunday after the funeral, instead of staying with family and friends, she retreated to the lab. In her diary she wrote Pierre:“ I want to talk to you in the silence of this laboratory, where I didn’t think I could live without you. ”

多年以后,在仅仅一岁时就失去父亲的伊芙?居里,写道,皮埃尔的死标志着母亲生活发生巨大 改变的关键一刻。“玛丽?居里没有从一个愉快的年轻的妻子变成一个伤心欲绝的寡妇。居里

先生的死对居里夫人造成的改变远没有那么简单,相反而是更加的深刻。孤独和隐秘的阴 影一直笼罩着她余下的半生。“那时玛丽年仅38岁。葬礼之后的那个星期日,她没有与家人 和朋友待在一起,而是回到了实验室。她在日记中写给皮埃尔:“我要在实验室的寂静里与你交谈,在那儿我想我绝不能生活在没有你的世界里。“

The work the Marie and Pierre had begun went on after his death. A second Nobel in chemistry went to Marie alone of isolating the elements radium and polonium. 玛丽在皮埃尔死后继续开展研究工作。玛丽因分离镭和钋元素获得了第二个诺贝尔奖—化学 奖。

With the onset of World War I in 1914, she recognized that mobile X-ray units could save lives in battlefield hospitals, so she established a fleet of these vehicles, known as petites Curies, or little Curies. She and Irene drove one themselves.

1914年第一次世界大战爆发,她发现移动x射线单位可以用于战地医院来拯救人们的性命, 所以她成立了一个由这些车辆组成的车队,被称为小居里。她和艾琳一人驾驶一辆。

Later she went back to the Radium Institute she established, teaching, traveling and lecturing until her death, at age 66, on July 4, 1943. The cause was aplastic pernicious anemia, most likely due to her long, devastating exposure to radium and other radioactive elements.

后来她回到她成立的镭研究所教学、游学及演讲,直到1943年7月4日她去世,享年66岁。 死因是再生障碍性恶性贫血最有可能是因她长时间曝露在镭和其他放射性元素环境下对她造成极大的伤害。

The Marie Curie that I discovered was no icon but a flesh-and-blood woman. She conquered huge professional obstacles but paid a terrible personal price. I know now how complex her life was – truly glorious and tragic.

我发现居里夫人不是一个偶像,而且是一个真正的女人。她克服了巨大的专业困难却付 出了巨大的个人代价。现在我明白了她的生命是多么复杂——真正的荣耀与悲剧并存。