The Great Gatsby — Page 200
那就是我心中的中西部——不是麦田,不是大草原,不是那些被遗忘的瑞典移民小镇,而是我青春岁月里令人心潮澎湃的归途列车,是寒夜里的街灯和雪橇铃声,是灯火通明的窗户将冬青花环的影子投射在雪地上的景象。
That's my Middle West—not the wheat or the prairies or the lost Swede towns, but the thrilling returning trains of my youth, and the street lamps and sleigh bells in the frosty dark and the shadows of holly wreaths thrown by lighted windows on the snow.
我是那片土地的一部分,带着那些漫长冬日留下的几分凝重,也带着几分在卡拉韦家的老宅里长大的自得——那是一座城市里的老宅,几十年来人们仍用家族的名字来称呼那里的房子。
I am part of that, a little solemn with the feel of those long winters, a little complacent from growing up in the Carraway house in a city where dwellings are still called through decades by a family's name.
我现在明白了,这毕竟是一个关于西部的故事——汤姆和盖茨比,黛西、乔丹和我,我们都是西部人,也许我们共同拥有某种缺陷,使我们难以真正融入东部的生活。
I see now that this has been a story of the West, after all—Tom and Gatsby, Daisy and Jordan and I, were all Westerners, and perhaps we possessed some deficiency in common which made us subtly unadaptable to Eastern life.
即便是在东部最令我兴奋的时候,即便是在我最深切地感受到它优越于俄亥俄河彼岸那些令人厌倦、漫无边际、臃肿不堪的小镇的时候——那些小镇有着无休无止的盘问,只有孩子和老人才能幸免——即便如此,东部在我眼中始终带着一种扭曲变形的感觉。
Even when the East excited me most, even when I was most keenly aware of its superiority to the bored, sprawling, swollen towns beyond the Ohio, with their interminable inquisitions which spared only the children and the very old—even then it had always for me a quality of distortion.
尤其是西卵,至今仍常常出现在我那些光怪陆离的梦境之中。
West Egg, especially, still figures in my more fantastic dreams.
我眼中的它犹如格列柯笔下的一幅夜景画:一百栋房屋,既循规蹈矩又奇形怪状,蜷缩在阴沉低垂的天空和暗淡无光的月亮之下。
I see it as a night scene by El Greco: a hundred houses, at once conventional and grotesque, crouching under a sullen, overhanging sky and a lustreless moon.
画面前景中,四个身穿礼服的严肃男人沿着人行道走着,他们抬着一副担架,担架上躺着一个穿白色晚礼服的醉酒女人。
In the foreground four solemn men in dress suits are walking along the sidewalk with a stretcher on which lies a drunken woman in a white evening dress.
Vocabulary
- wheat
- 小麦,一种重要的粮食作物
- prairies
- 大草原,北美内陆广阔平坦的草地
- Swede
- 瑞典人,来自瑞典的人
- thrilling
- 令人激动的,使人兴奋的
- youth
- 青春,年轻时期
- sleigh
- 雪橇,在雪地上滑行的车
- frosty
- 严寒的,覆盖霜冻的
- shadows
- 阴影,黑暗中的轮廓
- holly
- 冬青树,圣诞节常用的装饰植物
- wreaths
- 花环,圆形装饰环,常用于节日
- solemn
- 庄严的,严肃认真的
- complacent
- 自满的,对现状过于满足的
- dwellings
- 住宅,人们居住的房屋
- decades
- 数十年,每十年为一个单位
- Westerners
- 西部人,来自西部地区的人
- possessed
- 拥有,具有某种特质
- deficiency
- 缺陷,不足,欠缺之处
- subtly
- 微妙地,不易察觉地
- unadaptable
- 难以适应的,无法调整的
- keenly
- 敏锐地,强烈地感受到
- aware
- 意识到,察觉到
- superiority
- 优越性,优于他者的特质
- bored
- 感到无聊的,厌倦的
- sprawling
- 杂乱蔓延的,无序扩张的
- swollen
- 膨胀的,过度扩大的
- beyond
- 超越,在……之外
- interminable
- 无休止的,漫长得令人厌倦的
- inquisitions
- 严厉盘问,深入审查的行为
- spared
- 免除,使免受某种痛苦
- quality
- 特质,品质,特性
- distortion
- 扭曲,变形,失真
- especially
- 尤其,特别地
- figures
- 人物,形象,数字
- fantastic
- 奇幻的,离奇的
- scene
- 场景,景象
- conventional
- 传统的,符合惯例的
- grotesque
- 怪诞的,奇异丑陋的
- crouching
- 蜷缩的,弯腰俯伏的
- sullen
- 阴沉的,郁郁不乐的
- overhanging
- 悬垂的,从上方伸出覆盖的
- lustreless
- 无光泽的,暗淡无色的
- foreground
- 前景,画面或场景的前部
- suits
- 西装,成套正式服装
- sidewalk
- 人行道,供行人行走的道路
- stretcher
- 担架,运送伤病人的器具
- drunken
- 醉酒的,喝醉的
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