高级英语第一单元翻译

Unit1

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

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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, explaini

ng to her that the class, all of whom were white, except Phyllis, would be staying in a hotel where Phyllis

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would not be happy,‖ meaning, Daddy explained to her, also in private, that they did not rent rooms to Negroes.

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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

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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

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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

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