我在外出差了几个月,一回来就上街,期望再见到我的朋友。可是我到那儿时却发现门关着,一张小告示上写着“取鞋请到隔壁店”。 I went into the next shop, and what I heard pierced my heart. Yes, the old man had passed away. He was stricken with an infectious illness two weeks before and died two days later.
我走进隔壁店里,听到的消息让我心如刀绞。是的,这位老人已经过世了。两周前他突然患了传染病,两天后就去世了。
I went away with a wretched void in my heart. I would miss him,
terribly. But he had left me something, an important piece of wisdom I will invariably remember: \carry it on; if you haven't, then start building one now.\
离开时,我心里空落落的,痛苦不已。我会很怀念他,非常地怀念。不过他已给我留下了一些东西——一句我将永远牢记的隽语:“如果你继承了一个光荣传统,就必须把它传承下去;如果你没有,那现在就开始建立一个。”
Unit 6 War and Peace 课文A
Under the bombs:1945 1945:在炮火攻击下
Today, when I look back, I'm surprised that I recall the beginning so vividly; it's still clearly fixed in my mind with all its coloring and emotional intensity. It begins with my suddenly noticing 12 distant silver points in the clear brilliant sky filled with an unfamiliar abnormal hum. I'm seven years old, standing in a meadow, and staring at the points barely moving across the sky.
如今,当我回首往事,我很惊讶我居然能如此生动地回忆起轰炸开始的情况,那天的色彩和紧张的情绪仍然清晰地印在我的脑海中。那天,我突然发现在晴朗的天空中出现了 12 个银色的小点儿,离我很远,发
出不正常的嗡嗡声,这种声音我以前从来没听过。那年我七岁,就这样站在一片草地上,盯着天空中几乎不怎么移动的小点儿。
Suddenly, nearby, at the edge of the forest, there's the tremendous roar of bombs exploding. From my standpoint, I see gigantic fountains of earth spraying upward. I want to run toward this extraordinary spectacle; it terrorizes and fascinates me. I have not yet grown accustomed to war and can't relate into a single chain of causes and effects these airplanes, the roar of the bombs, the earth radiating out from the forest, and my seemingly inevitable death. Unable to conceive of the danger, I start running toward the forest, in the direction of the falling bombs. But a hand claws at me and tugs me to the ground. \\saying something that I don't yet know exists, whose meaning I don't understand: That way is death.
突然,就在附近,森林的边缘,我听到有巨大的炸弹爆炸的声音。在我这个小孩的眼里,我看到的是泥土像巨大的喷泉一样冲到天上。我想跑过去看看这个特别的景象,它让我感到害怕,但是也让我着迷。我还没有习惯战争,也不能把这些飞机、炸弹的轰鸣、森林那边飞溅开来的泥土以及我看似必然的死亡联系成单一的因果关系。没考虑有危险,我开始朝着投下炸弹的森林方向跑。这时一只手拉住了我,把我拽倒在地上。“趴下来,”我听到母亲发抖的声音,“不要动!”我还记得母亲把我紧紧贴在她身边,说的一些东西我并不知道,也并不理解其含义:那是一条死路。
It's night and I'm sleepy, but I'm not allowed to sleep. We have to evacuate the city and run away in the night like convicts. Where to, I don't know; but I do understand that flight has suddenly become some kind of higher necessity, some new form of life, because everyone is running away.