UNIT 1 One Writer’s Beginnings
1 I learned from the age of two or three that any room in our house, at any time of day, was there to read in, or to be read to. My mother read to me. She’d read to me in the big bedroom in the mornings, when we were in her rocker together, which ticked in rhythm as we rocked, as though we had a cricket accompanying the story. She’d read to me in the dining room on winter afternoons in front of the coal fire, with our cuckoo clock ending the story with “Cuckoo,”and at night when I’d got in my own bed. I must have given her no peace. Sometimes she read to me in the kitchen while she sat churning, and the churning sobbed along with any story. It was my ambition to have her readto me while I churned; once she granted my wish, but she read off my story before I brought her butter. She was an expressive reader. When she was reading “Puss in Boots,” for instance, it was impossible not to know that she distrusted all cats.
我从两三岁起就知道,家中随便在哪个房间里,白天无论在什么时间,都可以念书或听人念书。母亲念书给我听。上午她都在那间大卧室里给我念,两人一起坐在她那把摇椅里,我们摇晃时,椅子发出有节奏的滴答声,好像有只唧唧鸣叫的蟋蟀在伴着读故事。冬日午后,她常在餐厅里烧着煤炭的炉火前给我念,布谷鸟自鸣钟发出“咕咕”声时,故事便结束了;晚上我在自己床上睡下后她也给我念。想必我是不让她有一刻清静。有时她在厨房里一边坐着搅制黄油一边给我念,故事情节就随着搅制黄油发出的抽抽搭搭的声响不断展开。我的奢望是她念我来搅拌;有一次她满足了我的愿望,可是我要听的故事她念完了,她要的黄油我却还没弄好。她念起故事来富有
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情。比如,她念《穿靴子的猫》时,你就没法不相信她对猫一概怀疑。
2、It had been startling and disappointing to me to find out that story books had been written by people, that books were not natural wonders, coming up of themselves like grass. Yet regardless of where they came from, I cannot remember a time when I was not in love with them— with the books themselves, cover and binding and the paper they were printed on, with their smell and their weight and with their possession in my arms, captured and carried off to myself. Still illiterate, I was ready for them, committed to all the reading I could give them.
当我得知故事书原来是人写出来的,书本原来不是什么大自然的奇迹,不像草那样自生自长时,真是又震惊又失望。不过,姑且不论书本从何而来,我不记得自己有什么时候不爱书——书本本身、封面、装订、印着文字的书页,还有油墨味、那种沉甸甸的感觉,以及把书抱在怀里时那种将我征服、令我陶醉的感觉。还没识字,我就想读书了,一心想读所有的书。
4、Neither of my parents had come from homes that could afford to buy many books, but though it must have been something of a strain on his salary, as the youngest officer in a young insurance company, my father was all the while carefully selecting and ordering away for what he and Mother thought we children should grow up with. They bought first for the future.
我的父母都不是来自那种买得起许多书的家庭。然而,虽然买书准得花去他不少薪金,作为一家成立不久的保险公司最年轻的职员,父亲一直在精心挑选、不断订购他和母亲认为儿童成长应读的书。他们购书首先是为了我们的前程。
5、Besides the bookcase in the living room, which was always called “the library,” there were the encyclopedia tables and dictionary stand under windows in our dining
room. Here to help us grow up arguing around the dining room table were the Unabridged Webster, the Columbia Encyclopedia, Compton’s Pictured Encyclopedia, the Lincoln Library of Information, and later the Book of Knowledge. In “the library,” inside the bookcase were books I could soon begin on —and I did, reading them all alike and as they came, straight down their rows, top shelf to bottom. My mother read secondarily for information; she sank as a hedonist into novels. She read Dickens in the spirit in which she would have eloped with him. The novels of her girlhood that had stayed on in her imagination, besides those of Dickens and Scott and Robert Louis Stevenson, were Jane Eyre, Trilby, the Woman in White, Green Mansions, King Solomon’s Mines.
除了客厅里有一向被称作“图书室”的书橱,餐厅的窗子下还有几张摆放百科全书的桌子和一个字典架。这里有伴随我们在餐桌旁争论着长大的《韦氏大词典》、《哥伦比亚百科全书》、《康普顿插图百科全书》、《林肯资料文库》,以及后来的《知识库》。“图书馆”书橱里的书没过多久我就能读了——我的确读了,全都读了,按着顺序,一排接着一排读,从最上面的书架一直读到最下面的书架。母亲读书最重要的不在获取信息。她是为了享受快乐而埋头读小说。她读狄更斯时的神情简直就像要跟他私奔似的。她少女时代读的小说印在了她心头的,除了狄更斯、司各特和罗伯特?路易斯?斯蒂文森等人的作品之外,还有《简?爱》、《切尔比》、《白衣女士》、《绿厦》和《所罗门王的矿藏》。
6、To both my parents I owe my early acquaintance with a beloved Mark Twain. There was a full set of Mark Twain and a short set of Ring Lardner in our bookcase, and those were the volumes that in time united us all, parents and children.
多亏了我的父母,我很早就接触了受人喜爱的马克?吐温。书橱里有一整套马克?吐温文集和一套不全的林?拉德纳作品集,这些书最终将父母和孩子联结在一起。
7、Reading everything that stood before me was how I came upon a worn old book that had belonged to my father as a child. It was called Sanford and Merton. Is there anyone left who recognizes it, I wonder? It is the famous moral tale written by Thomas Day in the 1780s, but of him no mention is made on the title page of this book; here it is Sanford and Merton in Words of One Syllable by Mary Godolphin. Here are the rich boy and the poor boy and Mr. Barlow, their teacher and interlocutor, in long discourses alternating with dramatic scenes — anger and rescue allotted to the rich and the poor respectively. It ends with not one but two morals, both engraved on rings: “Do what you ought, come what may,” and “If we would be great, we must first learn t o be good.”
我一本接一本阅读摆在我面前的书,读着读着便发现一本又破又旧的书,是我父亲小时候的。书名是《桑福徳与默顿》。我不相信如今还有谁会记得这本书。那是托玛斯?戴在18世纪80年代撰写的一本著名的进行道德教育的故事书,可该书的扉页上并没有提及他;上面写的是《桑福徳与默顿简易本》,玛丽?戈多尔芬著。书中讲的是一个富孩子和一个穷孩子与他们老师巴洛先生之间的冗长的谈话,其间穿插着戏剧性场面——分别写了富孩子和穷孩子如何发火、如何获救。书末讲的道德寓意不是一条,而是两条,都印在环形图案里:“不管发生什么,该做的就去做”,还有“想做伟人,必须先学会做个好人”。
8、This book was lacking its front cover, the back held on by strips of pasted paper, now turned golden, in several layers, and the pages stained, flecked, and tattered around the edges; its garish illustrations had come unattached but were preserved, laid in. I had the feeling even in my heedless childhood that this was the only book my
father as a little boy had had of his own. He had held onto it, and might have gone to sleep on its coverless face: he had lost his mother when he was seven. My father had never made any mention to his own children of the book, but he had brought it along with him from Ohio to our house and shelved it in our bookcase.
这本书没了封面,封底用几条纸片粘牢,有好几层,如今都泛黄了,书页上污迹斑斑,边角处都破碎了;书中花哨的插图脱了页,但都保存良好,夹在书里。即使在少不更事的童年,我就觉得那是我父亲小时候拥有的惟一一本书。他一直珍藏着这本书,或许还枕着这本没了封面的书睡觉:他7岁时就没了母亲。我父亲从来没跟自己的孩子提起过这本书,但他从俄亥俄一路把它带到我们的家,把它放进我们的书橱。
10、My mother had brought from West Virginia that set of Dickens: those books looked sad, too — they had been through fire and water before I was born, she told me, and there they were, lined up — as I later realized, waiting for me.
母亲则从西弗吉尼亚带来了那套狄更斯:那套书看上去也惨不忍睹——她告诉我,我还没出生,这些书就历经水火之灾,可现在它们还是整齐地排列在那儿——后来我意识到,是等着我去读。
11、I was presented, from as early as I can remember, with books of my own, which appeared on my birthday and Christmas morning.
Indeed, my parents could not give me books enough. They must have sacrificed to give me on my sixth or seventh birthday —it was after I became a reader for myself — the ten-volume set of Our Wonder World. These were beautifully made, heavy books I would lie down with on the floor in front of the dining room hearth, and more often than the rest volume 5, Every Child’s Story Book, was under my eyes. There were the fairy tales — Grimm, Andersen, the English, the French, “Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves”; and there was
Aesop and Reynard the Fox; there were the myths and legends, Robin Hood, King Arthur, and St. George and the Dragon, even the history of Joan of Arc; a whack of Pilgrim’s Progress and a long piece of Gulliver. They all carried their classic illustrations. I located myself in these pages and could go straight to the stories and pictures I loved; very often “The Yellow Dwarf” was first choice, with Walter Crane’s Yellow Dwarf in full color making his terrifying appearance flanked by turkeys. Now that volume is as worn and backless and hanging apar t as my father’s poor Sanford and Merton. One measure of my love for Our Wonder World was that for a long time I wondered if I would go through fire and water for it as my mother had done for Charles Dickens; and the only comfort was to think I could ask my mother to do it for me.
从记事起我就收到给自己的书了,那是在生日时,还有圣诞节早晨。我父母真的是送给我再多的书都嫌不够。在我6岁或7岁生日时——那是在我自己能读书之后——他们送我一套10卷本的《我们的神奇世界》,为此,准是作了不少牺牲。那套书真漂亮,厚厚的,我总是带着它躺在餐厅壁炉前的地板上,读得最多的是第5卷:《儿童故事》。那都是些童话故事——格林的、安徒生的、英国童话、法国童话,“阿里巴巴和四十大盗”;还有伊索寓言和列那狐的故事;还有神话和传奇故事,如罗宾汉、亚瑟王、圣乔治和龙,甚至还有历史故事圣女贞德;还有一部分《天路历程》,以及一长段《格列佛游记》。每篇故事都有精彩的插图。我早已让自己走进这些故事中去了,一翻就能翻到自己喜爱的故事和插图;《黄肤色小矮人》常常是我的首选,沃尔特?克莱恩绘的彩色插图中黄肤色小矮人看着令人害怕,他
左右还有火鸡侍立。如今这册书已经跟父亲那本损坏的《桑福徳与默顿》一样,又破又旧,最后几页掉了,书页散了。有很长一段时间,我一直想自己能不能像母亲为查尔斯?狄更斯做的那样,为《我们的神奇世界》这套书赴汤蹈火,从这一点也可想见我对这套书是多么珍爱;惟一令人安慰的是我相信我可让母亲为我这么做。
13、I believe I’m the only child I know of who grew up with this treasure in the house.
I used to ask others, “Did you have Our Wonder World?” I’d have to tell them the Book of Knowledge could not hold a candle to it.
I live in gratitude to my parents for initiating me — as early as I begged for it, without keeping me waiting — into knowledge of the word, into reading and spelling, by way of the alphabet. They taught it to me at home in time for me to begin to read before to starting school.
在所有认识的孩子们当中,我想自己是惟一有家藏宝库伴随着长大的孩子。过去我常常问别人:“你有《我们的神奇世界》吗?”我常常得跟人解释,《知识库》根本没法跟这套书比。
我感激父母通过认识字母对我——早在我要求之时,而没有让我等待——进行文字启蒙,教我阅读和拼写。他们在家里教我,我得以在上学前就开始了阅读。
14、Ever since I was first read to, then started reading to myself, there has never been a line read that I didn’t hear. As my eyes followed the sentence, a voice was saying it silently to me. It isn’t my mother’s voice, or the voice of any person I can identify, certainly not my own. It is human, but inward, and it is inwardly that I listen to it. It is to me the voice of the story or the poem itself. The cadence, whatever it is that asks you to believe, the feeling that resides in the printed word, reaches me throughthe reader-voice: I have supposed, but never found out, that this is the case with all readers — to read as listeners — and with all writers, to write as listeners. It may be part of the desire to write. The sound of what falls on the page begins the process of testing it for truth, for me. Whether I am right to trust so far I don’t know. By now I don’t know whe ther I could do either one, reading or writing, without the other.
从最初听故事,到后来自己开始读书,从来没有一行读过的字我不闻其声。当我的目光扫过一个句子时,就会有个声音默念给我听。那不是母亲的声音,也不是我能辨认的某个人的声音,当然也不是我本人的声音。那是人的声音,但是内在的,我倾听的正是内心深处的声音。对我而言,那就是故事本身的声音,就是诗本身的声音。那抑扬顿挫的声音,不论它要你相信的是什么,那印刷文字中蕴含的情感,通过诵读者的声音传递给我:我一直猜想,却始终没能证实,所有的读者都如此——边读边听,所有的作者都如此——边写边听。那或许是写作欲望的一部分。对我而言,落在纸页上的声音可帮助测试写下来的是否是实事真情。我不知道我相信到这个程度是否对头。如今我也不知道自己能不能做到只读不写,或只写不读。
16、My own words, when I am at work on a story, I hear too as they go, in the same voice that I hear when I read in books. When I write and the sound of it comes back to my ears, then I act to make my changes. I have always trusted this voice.
在写小说时,我也能听见文字落纸的声音,与我读书时听到的声音一样。我写着,那声音传入耳内,于是我闻声而动,加以修改。我一直信赖这一声音。
UNIT 2 Let’s Go Veggie!
Joseph Pace
1 If there was a single act that would improve your health, cut your risk of food-borne illnesses, and help preserve the environment and the welfare of millions of animals, would you do it?
2 The act I’m referring to is the choice you make every time you sit down to a meal.
咱们吃素吧!
如果有一件事,既能增进健康、减少患上食物引起的疾病的危险,又有助于保护环境、保护千万动物安全生存,你做不做?
我说的这件事就是每次坐下来就餐时挑选菜肴。
3、More than a million Canadians have already acted: They have chosen to not eat meat. And the pace of change has been dramatic.
Vegetarian food sales are showing unparalleled growth. Especially popular are meat-free burgers and hot dogs, and the plant-based cuisines of India, China, Mexico, Italy and Japan.
一百多万加拿大人已经行动起来:他们决定不吃肉。变化速度之快令人惊叹。
素食品的销售额大大增加,前所未有。尤受欢迎的是无肉汉堡包和热狗,以及以蔬为主的印度、中国、墨西哥、意大利和日本的菜肴。
5、Fuelling the shift toward vegetarianism have been the health recommendations of medical research.Study after study has uncovered the same basic truth: Plant foods lower your risk of chronic disease; animal foods increase it.
6 The American Dietetic Associ ation says: “Scientific data suggest positive relationships between a vegetarian diet and reduced risk for several chronic degenerative diseases.”
推动人们转向素食的是医学研究提出的关于如何增进健康的建议。一项又一项的研究都揭示了同样的基本事实:果蔬降低患慢性病的危险;肉类食品则增加这种危险。
美国饮食学协会指出,“科学资料表明,素食与降低多种慢性变性疾病的患病危险肯定有关系。”
7 This past fall, after reviewing 4,500 studies on diet and cancer, the World Cancer Research Fund flatly stated: “We’ve been running the human biological engine on the wrong fuel.”
8 This “wrong fuel” has helped boost the cost of d egenerative disease in Canada to an estimated $400 billion a year, according to Bruce Holub, a professor of nutritional science at the University of Guelph.
去年秋天,在检验了4500个饮食与癌症的研究
报告
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之后,世界癌症研究基金会直截了当地指出:“我们一向利用不合适的养料来维持人类生理引擎的运转。”
据威尔夫大学营养科学教授布鲁斯?霍拉勃称,这一“不合适的养料”致使加拿大每年用于治疗变性疾病的费用高达4000亿(加)元。
9 Animal foods have serious nutritional drawbacks: They are devoid of fiber, contain far too much saturated fat and cholesterol, and may even carry traces of hormones, steroids and antibiotics. It makes little difference whether you eat beef, pork, chicken or fish.
Animal foods are also gaining notoriety as breeding grounds for E. coli,
campylobacter and other bacteria that cause illness. According to the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, six out of ten chickens are infected with salmonella. It’s like playing Russian roulette with your health.
肉类食品存在严重的营养缺陷:它们不含纤维,含有过多的饱和脂肪和胆固醇,甚至可能含有微量的激素、类固醇和抗菌素。牛肉、猪肉、鸡肉或鱼肉都一样。
肉类食品也是越来越广为人知的大肠杆菌、弯曲菌以及其他致病细菌的孳生地。据加拿大食品检验机构称,十分之六的鸡染有沙门氏菌。吃肉无异于玩俄式轮盘赌,拿你的健康做赌资。
11、So why aren’t governments doing anything about this? Unfortunately, they have bowed to pressure from powerful lobby groups such as the Beef Information Center, the Canadian Egg Marketing Agency and the Dairy Farmers of Canada.According to documents retrieved through the Freedom of Information Act, these groups forced changes to Canada’s latest food guide before it was released in 1993.
This should come as no surprise: Even a minor reduction in recommended intakes of animal protein could cost these industries billions of dollars a year.
既然如此,政府为什么不采取任何措施?很遗憾,政府屈服于强有力的院外活动集团的压力,如牛肉信息中心、加拿大禽蛋营销公司、加拿大乳牛场场主协会等。根据信息自由法案获得的有关文件记载,这些集团迫使加拿大最新食品指南在1993年公布前作出修改。
这并不奇怪。即使建议动物蛋白质的摄入量减少一丁点儿都会给这些企业带来每年数十亿元的损失。
13、While health and food safety are compelling reasons for choosing a vegetarian lifestyle, there are also larger issues to consider. Animal-based agriculture is one of the most environmentally destructive industries on the face of the Earth.
Think for a moment about the vast resources required to raise, feed, shelter, transport, process and package the 500 million Canadian farm animals slaughtered each year. Water and energy are used at every step of the way. Alberta Agriculture calculates that it takes 10 to 20 times more energy to produce meat than to produce grain.
健康和食品安全是选择素食生活方式令人信服的理由,但此外还有更为重大的因素要考虑。以饲养动物为基础的农业是世界上对环境破坏最严重的产业之一。
想一想培育、饲养、建牲畜栏、运输、加工和包装加拿大每年宰杀的5亿头牲畜所需的巨大资源。其中的每一个环节都耗费水和能源。阿尔伯达农业署估计,生产肉耗费的能源比生产谷物多10-20倍。
15、Less than a quarter of our agricultural land is used to feed people directly. The rest is devoted to grazing and growing food for animals. Ecosystems of forest, wetland and grassland have been decimated to fuel the demand for land. Using so much land heightens topsoil loss, the use of harsh fertilizers and pesticides, and the need for irrigation water from dammed rivers. If people can shift away from meat, much of this land could be converted back to wilderness.
用于直接为人们提供食物的土地还不到农业用地的四分之一。其余的都用来放牧和种饲料。森林、湿地和草原的生态系统遭受相当严重的破坏,以满足对土地的需求。土地的大量利用加剧了表土的流失,增加了会带来负面作用的化肥和杀虫剂的施用,增加了从筑有水坝
的河流中引水灌溉的需求。如果人们能摒弃肉食,许多土地就能回复到未开垦状态。
16 The problem is that animals are inefficient at converting plants to edible flesh. It takes, for example, 8.4 kilograms of grain to produce one kilogram of pork, the U. S. government estimates.
After putting so many resources into animals, what do we get out? Manure — at a rate of over 10,000 kilograms per second in Canada alone, according to the government. Environment Canada says cattle excrete 40 kilograms of manure for every kilogram
of edible beef. A large egg factory can produce 50 to 100 tonnes of waste per week, the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture estimates.
问题在于,动物在把植物转化为可食用的肉类这方面的效率很低。举例来说,美国政府估测,生产1公斤猪肉需要耗费8.4 公斤的谷物。
我们把这么多资源耗费在动物身上,又得到什么回报呢?粪肥——据官方资料,仅加拿大,就以每秒10,000多公斤的速度排出。加拿大环境部称,牛每产1公斤可食牛肉需排出40公斤粪便。安大略省农业部估测,一家大型禽蛋工厂每星期可产出50-100吨禽粪。
18、And where does it go? In the 1992 Ontario Groundwater Survey, 43 per cent of tested wells were contaminated with agricultural run-off containing fecal coliform bacteria and nitrates. Earlier this month, charges were laid against a large Alberta feedlot operator for dumping 30 million litres of cattle manure into the Bow River, “killing everything in its path,” as a news story described it.
这些粪便都到哪儿去了?1992年安大略省地下水调查发现,43%的被测试水井都受到含有粪便大肠杆菌和硝酸盐等农业生产排出的废物的污染。本月初,阿尔伯达一家大型围栏肥育地经营者被指控将3千万升牛粪排入博河,“沿途生灵悉数被毁”,一则新闻这么报道。
19、And then there is methane, a primary contributing gas in global warming and ozone layer deplet ion. Excluding natural sources, 27 per cent of Canada’s and 20 per cent of the world’s methane comes from livestock.
20 John Robbins, author of the Pulitzer prize-nominated book Diet for
a New America (Group West), said it best when he stated: “Ea ting lower on the food chain is perhaps the most potent single act we can take to halt the destruction of our environment and preserve our natural resources.”
此外还有沼气,那是促使全球气候变暖和臭氧层减少的主要气体。不把天然沼气资源包括在内,加拿大27%的沼气、全世界20%的沼气都来自牲畜。
获普利策提名奖的《新美洲饮食》一书作者约翰?罗宾斯说得好:“食用食物链较低部分的食物或许是我们可用以阻止环境破坏、保护自然资源的最最有效的行动。”
21、Our environment also includes the animals killed for their meat. It has become an accepted fact that today’s factory-farmed animals live short, miserable, unnatural lives.
As part of my research at the U niversity of Waterloo, I toured some of the country’s largest “processing” plants. The experience has left me with recurring nightmares.
我们的环境也包括为食其肉而被宰杀的动物。当今工厂化农场的牲畜寿命极短,过着悲惨的、不正常的生活,这已是公认的事实。
作为我在沃特卢大学研究工作的一部分,我参观过一些全国最大的“加工”厂。这个经历让我日后尽做噩梦。
23、I saw “stubborn” cows being beaten and squealing pigs chased around the
killing floor with electric calipers.
I looked on in utter shock as a cow missed the stun gun and was hoisted fully conscious upside down by its hind leg and cut to pieces, thrashing until its last breath. Noticing my shock, the foreman remarked: “Who cares? They’re going to die anyway.”
我见到“固执”的牛被打、尖叫着的猪在屠宰室被人用电卡钳追逐。
我万分震惊地目睹一头牛躲过了眩晕枪,结果被缚住后腿倒挂起来,惨遭活剐,一直挣扎到断气。
工头见我惊骇不已,便说:“管它呢!它们反正得死。
26、Because it can cost hundreds of dollars per minute
to stop the conveyor line, animal welfare comes second to profit. Over 150,000 animals are “processed” every hour
of every working day in Canada, according to Agriculture Canada.
The picture gets uglier still. En route to slaughter,
farm animals may legally spend anywhere from 36 to 72 hours without food, water or rest. They’re not even afforded the “luxury” of temperature controlled trucks in extreme summer heat or sub-zero cold.
由于传送线停转一分钟就要损失好几百元,家畜的利益就变得不如利润重要。据加拿大农业署称,在加拿大,每个工作日,每小时有150,000多头家畜被“加工”。
情况变得甚至更可怕。家畜在宰杀前的运输途中,法律允许在36-72小时内不给进食、进水,不让休息。即使在炎夏或零度以下的严冬,它们连乘温控卡车的“奢侈”也不让享受。
28、Agriculture Canada has estimated that more than 3 million Canadian farm animals die slow and painful deaths en route to slaughter each year.
29 I’ve also visited typical Canadian farms. Gone are the days when piglets snorted and roosters strutted their way about the barnyard. Most of today’s modernized farms have long, windowless sheds in which animals live like prisoners their entire lives. I have seen chickens crammed four to a cage, nursing pigs separated from their young by iron bars and veal calves confined to crates so narrow they couldn’t turn around. Few of these animals ever experience sunlight or fresh air —
and most of their natural urges are denied.
加拿大农业署估计,加拿大每年有3百多万头家畜在宰杀前的运输途中痛苦地慢慢死去。
本人还参观过一些典型的加拿大农场。猪崽喷着鼻息、公鸡在粮仓的空场上昂首行走的日子已经一去不复返。而今大多数的现代化农场都有一个个狭长的、没有窗户的牲畜棚,牲畜一生关在棚里,如囚犯一般。我见到过四只鸡挤在一个笼里,喂奶的母猪与猪崽被铁条隔开,肉用小牛关在狭窄得转不过身来的板条箱里。这些牲畜几乎都终年不见阳光,呼吸不到新鲜空气——它们天生的欲望大都得不到满足。
30、Although it is difficult to face these harsh realities,
it is even more difficult to ignore them. Three times a day, you make a decision that
not only affects the quality of your life, but the rest of the living world. We hold in our knives and forks the power to change this world.
Consider the words of Albert Einstein: “Nothing will benefit human health
and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as the Evolution to a vegetarian diet.”
Bon appetite.
面对这种严峻的现实固然困难,置之不理更是难上加难。一日三次,你要做出不仅影响自身生活质量、更是事关整个有生命世界的决定。我们手里的餐刀餐叉拥有改变这个世界的力量。
让我们想一想阿尔伯特?爱因斯坦的话吧:“没有什么比转向素食更有益于人类健康,更能增加世间万物的生存机会。”
祝君胃口好。
UNIT 3 The Truth about Lying
Judith Viorst
1、I’ve been wanting to write on a subject that intrigues and challenges me: the subject of lying. I’ve found it very difficult to do. Everyone I’ve talked to has
a quite intense and personal but often rather intolerant point of view about what we can — and can never never — tell lies about. I’ve finally reached the conclusion that I can’t present any ultimate conclusions, for too many people would promptly disagree. Instead, I’d like to present a series of moral puzzles, all concerned with lying. I’ll tel l you what I think about them. Do you agree?
关于说谎的真相
朱迪斯?维奥斯特
我一直想写一个令我深感兴趣的话题:关于说谎的问题。我觉得这个题目很难写。所有我交谈过的人都对什么事情可以说谎——什么事情绝对不可以说谎——持有强烈的、常常不容别人分说的个人意见。最后我得出结论,我不能下任何定论,因为这样做就会有太多的人立即反对。我想我还是提出若干都与说谎有关的道义上的难题吧。我将向读者阐明我对这些难题的个人看法。你们觉得对吗?
2、Social Lies 社交性谎言
Most of the people I’ve talked with say that they find social lying acceptable and necessary. They think it’s the civilized way for folks to behave. Without these
little white lies, they say, our relationships would be short and brutish and nasty.
It’s arrogant, they say, to insist on being so incorruptible and so brave that you cause other people unnecessary embarrassment or pain by compulsively assailing them with your honesty. I basically agree. What about you?
和我交谈过的大多数人都说,他们认为旨在促进社会交际的谎言是可以接受的,也是必要的。他们认为这是一种文明的行为。他们说,要不是这类无关紧要的谎言,人与人之间的关系就会变得粗野不快,无法持久。他们说,如果你要做到十二分正直、十二分无畏,不由自主地用你的诚实使他人陷入不必要的窘境或痛苦之中,这只能说你是傲慢自大。对此,我基本赞同。你呢?
3、Will you say to people, when it simply isn’t true, “I like your new hairdo,” “You’re looking much bet ter,” “it’s so nice to see you,” “I had a wonderful time”?
4、Will you praise hideous presents and homely kids?
5、Will you decline invitations with “We’re busy that night —so sorry we can’t come,” when the truth is you’d rather stay home than dine with th e so-and-sos?
6、And even though, as I do, you may prefer the polite evasion of “You really cooked up a storm” instead of “The soup” — which tastes like warmed-over coffee —“is wonderful,” will you, if you must, proclaim it wonderful?
你会不会跟人说:“我喜欢你的新发型,”“你气色好多了,”“见到你真高兴,”“我玩得很尽兴,”而实际上根本不是这么回事儿?
你会不会对令人憎厌的礼物,或相貌平平的孩子称赞有加?
你婉辞邀请时会不会说“那天晚上我们正好没空——真对不起,我们不能来,”而实际上你是宁肯呆在家里也不想跟某某夫妇一起进餐?
虽然像我那样,你也想用“太丰盛了”这种委婉的托辞,而不是盛赞“那汤味道好极了”(其实味同重新热过的咖啡),但如果你必须赞美那汤,你会说它鲜美吗?
7、There’s one man I know who absolut ely refuses to tell social lies. “I can’t play that game,” he says; “I’m simply not made that way.” And his answer to the argument that saying nice things to someone doesn’t cost anything is, “Yes, it does —it destroys your credibility.” Now, he won’t, unsolicited, offer his views on the painting you just bought, but you don’t ask his frank opinion unless you want frank, and his silence at those moments when the rest of us liars are muttering, “Isn’t it lovely?” is, for the most part, eloquent enough.
8、My friend does not indulge in what he calls “flattery, false praise and mellifluous comments.” When others tell fibs he will not go along. He says that social lying is lying, that little white lies are still lies. And he feels that telling lies is morally wrong. What about you?
我认识一个人,他完全拒绝说这类社交性谎言。“我不会那一套,”他说,“我生来就不会那一套。”讲到对人家说几句好听的话并不失去什么,他的回答是:“不对,当然有损失——那会损害你的诚信度。”因此你不问他,他不会对你刚买来的画发表意见,但除非你想听老实话,否则你也不会去问他的真实想法。当我们这些说谎者轻声称赞着“多美啊”的时候,他的沉默往往是极能说明问题的。
我的这位朋友从来不讲他所说的“奉承话、虚假的赞美话和动听话”。别人说些无伤大雅的谎言,他则不。他说社交性谎言还是谎言,无关紧要的小小谎言还是谎言。他认为说谎不合道德。你呢?
9、Peace-Keeping Lies 息事宁人的谎言
Many people tell peace-keeping lies: lies designed to avoid irritation or argument, lies designed to shelter the liar from possible blame or pain; lies (or so it is rationalized) designed to keep trouble at bay without hurting anyone. 10、I tell these lies at times, and yet I always feel they’re wrong. I understand why we tell them, but still they feel wrong. And whenever I lie so that someone won’t disapprove of me or think less of me or holler at me, I feel I’m a bit of a coward, I feel I’m dodging responsibility, I feel … guilty. What about you?
不少人为了息事宁人而说谎:那种意在避免生气或争吵的谎言,意在使说谎者免受可能的责备或烦恼的谎言;意在(或据认为理应)不伤害他人而又能帮助避免麻烦的谎言。
我有时也说这种谎,不过我总觉得不该说。我知道为什么要说这种谎,但说这种谎终究不对。每当我为了不让别人讨厌自己、看轻自己、或冲着自己嚷嚷而说谎时,我总觉得自己有点像个懦夫,觉得自己是在逃避
责任
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,觉得……愧疚。你呢?
Do you, when you’re late for a date because you overslept, say that you’re late because you got caught in a traffic jam?
Do you, when you forget to call a friend, say that you called several times but the
line was busy?
Do you, when you didn’t remember that it was your father’s birthday, say that his present must be delayed in the mail?
你由于睡过头赴约会迟到了,会不会说是因为碰上堵车才晚到的?
你忘了给朋友打电话,会不会谎称打过好几次,可电话老占线?
你忘了父亲的生日,会不会说寄给他的礼物准是给耽搁了?
13、And when you’re planning a weekend in New York City and you’re not in the mood to visit your mother, who lives there, do you conceal — with a lie,
if you must —the fact that you’ll be in New York? Or do you have the courage —or is it the cruelty? —to say, “I’ll be in New York, but sorry —I don’t plan on seeing you”?
(Dave and his wife Elaine have two quite different points of view on this very subject. He calls her a coward. She says sh e’s being wise. He says she must assert her right to visit New York sometimes and not see her mother. To which she always patiently replies: “Why should we have useless fights? My mother’s too old to change. We get along much better when I lie to her.”)
你打算去纽约市度周末,但又不想去看望住在那里的母亲,你会——必要的话用谎言——隐瞒你将到纽约的事实,还是会勇敢地——或者说狠心地——说:“我要来纽约,可是抱歉,我不打算来看望你”?
(戴夫和妻子伊莱恩正是在这个问题上有两种颇不相同的观点。他称她为懦夫。她说自己处理这事是明智的。他说她应该维护自己有的时候去纽约但不去看望母亲的权利。对此她总是耐心地回答说:“我们何必无谓地争吵呢?我母亲年纪大了,不会改了。我对她说个谎,我们相处得就更好。”)
14、Finally, do you keep the peace by telling your husband lies on the subject of money? Do you reduce what you really paid for your shoes? And in general do you find yourself ready, willing and able to lie to him when you make absurd mistakes or lose or break things?
15、“ I use d to have a romantic idea that part of intimacy was confessing every dumb thing that you did to your husband. But after a couple of years of that,” says Laura, “have I changed my mind!”
最后一点,你会不会在钱的问题上对丈夫说谎,以求太平?你会不会少报买鞋子的钱?你出了什么荒唐的错误或丢失了物品打碎了器皿时是不是常常想对他撒谎,而且会对他撒谎?
“过去我往往不切实际地以为亲密关系的一个组成部分就是把自己做的每件蠢事都如实告诉丈夫。可这么过了几年之后,”劳拉说,“我就改了主意!”
16、And having changed her mind, she finds herself telling peace-keeping lies. And yes, I tell them too. What about you?
改主意后,她在不知不觉中说谎话求太平了。没错,我也说这种谎。你呢?
17、Protective Lies 保护性谎言
Protective lies are lies folks tell — often quite serious lies —because they’re convinced that the truth would be too damaging. They lie because they feel there are certain human values that supersede the wrong of having lied. They lie, no t for personal gain, but because they believe it’s for the good of the person they’re lying to. They lie to those they love, to those who trust them most of all, on the
grounds that breaking this trust is justified.
保护性谎言就是因为人们认为事实真相危害性太大而说的谎言,这类谎言通常事关重大。他们说谎,因为他们认为,人的某些价值观念压倒了说谎这一错误行为本身。他们说谎不是为个人私利,而是因为他们相信,那是为他们对之说谎的人好。他们对自己所爱的人撒谎,对最信任自己的人撒谎,就是因为他们认为这样做是有正当理由的。
18、They may lie to their children on money or marital matters.
They may lie to the dying about the state of their health.
21、They may lie to their closest friend because the truth about her talents or son or psyche would be — or so they insist — utterly devastating.
I sometimes tell such lies, but I’m aware that it’s quite presumptuous to claim I know what’s best for others to know. That’s called playing God.That’s called manipulation and control. And we never can be sure, once we start to juggle lies, just where they’ll land, exactly where they’ll roll.
他们会在金钱或婚姻问题上对子女说谎。
他们会对垂死者隐瞒真实病情。
他们会对密友说谎,因为关于其才能、其爱子或其精神状态的实话会——不妨说他们坚持这么认为——使其身心受到极大伤害。
有时我也说这种谎,可我明白,声称自己懂得什么事他人应该知道,这未免太自以为是了。这无异于充当上帝。这无异于操纵和控制他人。而我们一旦开始玩起谎言戏法,就再也无法知道谎言何时会收场,究竟会滑向何方。
22、And furthermore, we may find ourselves lying in order to back up the lies that are backing up the lie we initially told.
And furthermore —let’s be honest — if conditions were reversed, we certainly wouldn’t want anyone lying to us.
Yet, having said all that, I still believe that there are times when protective lies must nonetheless be told. What about you?
而且,我们会不知不觉地为了圆先前说的谎言而说谎。
而且——我们不妨直说——如果情形倒过来,我们当然不愿意别人对自己说谎。
不过,话虽如此,我还是觉得有时保护性谎言还非说不可。你呢?
25、Trust-Keeping Lies 信守承诺的谎言
Another group of lies are trust-keeping lies, lies that involve triangulation, with A (that’s you) telling lies to B on behalf of C (whose trust you’d promised to keep). Most people concede that once you’ve agreed not to betray a friend’s confidence, you can’t betray it, even if you must lie. But I’ve talked with people who don’t want you telling the m anything that they might be called on to lie about.
“I don’t tell lies for myself,” says Fran, “and I don’t want to have to tell them for other people.” Which means, she agrees, that if her best friend is having an affair, she absolutely doesn’t want to know about it.
另一类谎言是信守承诺的谎言,涉及三方的谎言,即A(你)为了C(你答应为其信守承诺者)而对B说谎。大多数人承认,一旦你答应不背叛朋友的信任,你就不能背叛,哪怕你必须说谎。但我与之交谈过的人中也有人不想听那些他们也许得为之说谎的事。
“我不为自己说谎,”弗兰说,“我也不愿为别人说谎。”她承认,这就意味着如果她最好的朋友有风流韵事的话,她绝对不想知道。
27、“Are you saying,” her best friend asks, “that you’d betray me?”
Fran is very pained but very adamant. “I wouldn’t want to betray you, so … don’t tell me anything about it.”
Fran’s best friend is shocked. What about you?
“你是说,”她最好的朋友问,“你会出卖我?”
弗兰心里很为难,但态度十分坚决。“我不想出卖你,所以……别跟我说这事。”
弗兰最好的朋友深感震惊。你呢?
Do you believe you can have close friends if you’re not prepared to receive their deepest secrets?
Do you believe you must always lie for your friends?
Do you believe, if your friend tells a secret that turns out to be quite immoral or illegal, that once you’ve promised to keep it, you must keep it?
你是不是认为,如果你不愿意了解朋友最深的隐密,你仍会有好朋友?
你是不是认为你必须一直为朋友说谎?
你是不是认为,如果朋友透露的一个秘密是违反道德或法律的,而一旦你答应保密,你就得真的保密?
33、And what if your friend were your boss — if you were perhaps one of the President’s men — would you betray or lie for him over, say, Watergate?
As you can see, these issues get terribly sticky.
It’s my belief that once we’ve promised to keep a trust, we must tell lies to keep it. I also believe that we can’t tell Watergate lies. And if these two statements strike you as quite contradictory, you’re right —they’re quite contradictory. But for now they’re the best I can do. What about you?
如果你的朋友正好是你的上司——如果你恰好就是总统班底的人——比如说在水门事件这个问题上,你是背叛他还是为他说谎?
可以想见这些问题非常棘手。
我以为,一旦我们答应信守承诺,我们就是说谎也得信守承诺。同时我也认为,在水门事件这类事情上我们不能说谎。如果你觉得这两点自相矛盾,那你就对了——这两者的确自相矛盾。但目前我只能如此。你呢?
37、There are those who have no talent for lying.
“Over the years, I tried to lie,” a friend of mine explained, “but I always got found out and I always got punished. I guess I gave myself away because I feel guilty about any kind of lying. It looks as if I’m stuck with telling the truth.”
For those of us, however, who are good at telling lies, for those of us who lie and don’t get caught, the question of whether or not to lie can be a hard and serious moral problem. I liked the remark of a friend of mine who said, “I’m willing to lie. But just as a last resort —the truth’s always better.”
有些人不擅说谎。
“许多年来,我一直试图说谎,”一位朋友解释说,“可我总是露馅,总是为此受罚。我想人家看出我说谎是因为我一说谎就觉得内疚。看来我只能说真话了。”
可是,对我们这种擅于说谎的人来说,对我们这种说谎又不露馅的人来说,说谎还是不说谎会成为一个严肃的道德难题。我颇为赞同一位朋友的话,他说,“我愿意说谎。但只把这作为最后一手——真话总比谎话好。”
40、“Because,” he explained, “though others may completely accept the lie I’m telling, I don’t.”
I tend to feel that way too.
What about you?
“因为,”他解释说,“哪怕别人对我的谎话完全信以为真,我自己可无法相信。”
本人也有同感。
你呢?
UNIT 6 Grant and Lee格兰特和李
Bruce Catton布鲁斯?卡顿
When Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee met in the parlor of a modest house at Appomattox Court House, Virginia, on April 9, 1865, to work out the terms for the surrender of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, a great chapter in American life came to a close, and a great new chapter began.
1、These men were bringing the Civil War to its virtual finish. To be sure, other armies had yet to surrender, and for a few days the fugitive Confederate government would struggle desperately and vainly, trying to find some way to go on living now that its chief support was gone. But in effect it was all over when Grant and Lee signed the papers. And the little room where they wrote out the terms was the scene of one of the poignant, dramatic contrasts in American history.
1865年4月9日,当尤利西兹?S?格兰特和罗伯特?E?李在弗吉尼亚州阿珀马特科斯县城一所不太大的房子的客厅里会面,商讨李所率的北弗吉尼亚军队投降条件时,美国人生活中一个伟大的篇章结束了,一个崭新的重要篇章开始了。
此二人是在实质上终止内战。诚然,其他军队尚未投降,已失去主要支柱的逃亡的邦联政府仍将绝望地徒然挣扎数日,想法寻觅生机。其实,在格兰特和李签署文件之时,一切都已结束。他们拟定投降条件时用的那间小客厅成了见证美国史上强烈的戏剧性对照的场所。
They were two strong men, these oddly different generals, and they represented the strengths of two conflicting currents that, through them, had come into final collision.
这两位截然不同的将军都是强有力的人物,他们代表着两股相互冲突的力量的潮流,那两股潮流通过他们最终发生碰撞。
2、Back of Robert E. Lee was the notion that the old aristocratic concept might somehow survive and be dominant in American life.
罗伯特?E?李所仰仗的信念是,古老的贵族观念或许能以某种方式继续存在下去,并左右美国人的生活。
Lee was tidewater Virginia, and in his background were family, culture, and tradition … the age of chivalry transplanted to a New World which was making its own legends and its own myths. He embodied a way of life that had come down t h r o u g h t h e a g e o f k n i g h t h o o d a n d the English country squire. America was a land that was beginning all over again, dedicated to nothing much more complicated than the rather hazy belief that all men had equal rights and should have an equal chance in the world. In such a land Lee stood for the feeling that it was somehow of advantage to human society to have a pronounced inequality in the social structure. T here should be a leisure class,
backed by ownership of land; in turn, society itself should be keyed to the land as the chief source of wealth and influence. It would bring forth (according to this ideal) a class of men with a strong sense of obligation to the community; men who lived not to gain advantage for themselves, but to meet the solemn obligations which had been laid on them by the very fact that they were privileged. From them the country would get its leadership; to them it could look for the higher values —of thought, of conduct, of personal deportment — to give it strength and virtue.
李是弗吉尼亚州沿海低地人氏,他的生活背景是家庭、文化、传统……,是被移植到这个正在形成自身的传说与神话的新世界的骑士时代。他体现了从骑士和英格兰乡绅时代流传下来的一种生活方式。美国是个一切从头开始的国度,信奉的只不过是一种颇为模糊的信念,即人人拥有平等的权利,在世间应有平等的机会,如此而已。在这样一个国度里,李代表着这样一种情感,即社会结构中保留一种明显的不平等多少有利于人类社会。理应存在一个拥有土地的有闲阶级;反过来,社会本身应以土地为本,视其为财富与势力的主要来源。(根据这一理想)这样一个社会会造就一个对社会有着强烈责任感的阶级,他们不是为自己获利活着,而是为了承担自己的特权所赋予的重大责任活着。国家从他们中觅得领导人员;国家可依靠他们产生更加高尚的价值观念——思想方面的,行为方面的,个人风度方面的——以求国兴德盛。
Lee embodied the noblest elements of this aristocratic ideal. Through him, the landed nobility justified itself. For four years, the Southern states had fought a desperate war to uphold the ideals for which Lee stood. In the end, it almost seemed as if the Confederacy fought for Lee; as if he himself was the Confederacy … the best thing that the way of life for which the Confederacy stood could ever have to offer. He had passed into legend before Appomattox. Thousands of tired, underfed, poorly clothed Confederate soldiers, longsince past the simple enthusiasm of the early days of the struggle, somehow considered Lee the symbol of everything for which they had been willing to die. But they could not quite put this feeling into words. If the Lost Cause, sanctified by so much heroism and so many deaths, had a living justification, its justification was General Lee.
李体现了这一贵族理想的最高尚的部分。拥有土地的贵族通过他获得存在的理由。四年间,南方各州拼死战斗,以捍卫李所代表的理想。到后来,南部邦联似乎是为李而战;李本人似乎就是南部邦联……似乎是南部邦联所代表的生活方式能提供的菁华。还在来到阿珀马特科斯之前,他已经成为传奇人物了。成千上万疲于征战、忍饥挨饿、征衣褴褛的邦联士兵早已失去了战争伊始的单纯的热情,他们把李视作自己甘愿为之献身的一切的象征。只是他们不善表述这种情感。这一被无数英雄行为、无数阵亡将士神圣化了的注定失败的事业若有其现实的理由证明其是正确的话,那这理由就是李将军。
Grant, the son of a tanner on the Western frontier, was everything Lee was not. He had come up the hard way and embodied nothing in particular except the eternal toughness and sinewy fiber of the men who grew up beyond the mountains. He was one of a body of men who owed reverence and obeisance to no one, who were self-reliant to a fault, who cared hardly anything for the past but who had a sharp eye for the future.
格兰特是西部边远地区一个制革工人的儿子,他与李截然不同。他历经艰难才出人头地,他并不代表哪种特别的信念,所体现的只是在边远山区长大的人所具有的永远能吃苦耐劳、坚忍不拔的品质。他不敬畏任何人,不顺从任何人,过分讲求自力更生,他不追怀既往,但
能用敏锐的目光看未来。
7、These frontier men were the precise opposite of the tidewater aristocrats. Back of them, in the great surge that had taken people over the Alleghenies and into the opening Western country, there was a deep, implicit dissatisfaction with a past that had settled into grooves. They stood for democracy, not from any reasoned conclusion about the proper ordering of human society, but simply because they had grown up in the middle of democracy and knew how it worked. Their society might have privileges, but they would be privileges each man had won for himself. Forms and patterns meant nothing. No man was born to anything, except perhaps to a chance to show how far he could rise. Life was competition.
这些西部边民与东部沿海低地的贵族恰恰相反。在他们的心目中,在爬过阿勒格尼山脉、进入辽阔的西部的人潮中,存在着对因循守旧的过去的不直接言明的深深不满。他们拥护民主制度,不是经缜密分析后推断出了适合人类社会的管理形式,而仅仅是由于他们生长在民主政体之中,懂得民主制度如何运作。他们的社会或许也存在特权,但那是每个人自己赢得的特权。惯例与固有模式不起任何作用。也许除了都有一个可以展示自己有多少发展空间的机会外,没有人生来就享有什么。生活就是竞争。
/9、Yet along with this feeling had come a deep sense of belonging to a national community. The Westerner who developed a farm, opened a shop, or set up in business as a trader, could hope to prosper only as his own community prospered —and his community ran from the Atlantic to the Pacific and from Canada down to Mexico. If the land was settled, with towns and highways and accessible markets, he could better himself. He saw his fate in terms of the nation’s own destiny. As its horizons expanded, so did his. He had, in other words, an acute dollars-and-cents stake in the continued growth and development of his country.
然而,伴随着这种情感的是对国家的深深的归属感。那些开垦农场、开店或从事贸易的西部人只有在所属的社会富起来时自己才有希望富起来——他们所属的社会从大西洋一直到太平洋,从加拿大一直到墨西哥。如果人们前来定居,建立起城镇、公路和近便的市场,他们自己也就能改善生活。他们从国家的命运出发看自身的命运。国家的疆域拓展了,他们自身的天地也会随之拓展。换言之,他们的利益与国家的兴旺发达紧紧相连,息息相关。
And that, perhaps, is where the contrast between Grant and Lee becomes most striking. The Virginia aristocrat, inevitably, saw himself in relation to his own region. He lived in astatic society which could endure almost anything except change. Instinctively, his first loyalty would go to the locality in which that society existed. He would fight to the limit of endurance to defend it, because in defending it he was defending everything that gave his own life its deepest meaning.
The Westerner, on the other hand, would fight with an equal tenacity for the broader concept of society. He fought so because everything he lived by was tied to growth, expansion, and a constantly widening horizon. What he lived by would survive or fall with the nation itself. He could not possibly stand by unmoved in the face of an attempt to destroy the Union. He would combat it with everything he had, because he could only see it as an effort to cut the ground out from under his feet.
而这,或许正是格兰特与李之间最大差异之所在。那位弗吉尼亚贵族必然要将自己与他生活的地区相联系。他生活在一个几乎容得一切,惟独容不得变化的静止的社会里。出于天
性,他的第一忠诚归于这一社会所在的地域。他会不惜一切地捍卫自己的地域,因为捍卫它,也就是捍卫赋予他生命最深刻意义的一切。
而西部人则以同样的执着捍卫自己更为开明的社会观。他为此而战,因为他赖以为生的都与发展、开拓以及不断拓宽的地平线密切相连。他所赖以为生的一切与国家同存共亡。面对颠覆联邦的企图他不可能无动于衷,袖手旁观。他将竭尽所能与之斗争,因为他只能将这一企图视为挖他墙脚的举动。
11、So Grant and Lee were in complete contrast, representing two diametrically opposed elements in American life. Grant was the modern man emerging; beyond him, ready to come on the stage, was the great age of steel and machinery, of crowded cities and a restless burgeoning vitality. Lee might have ridden down from the old age of chivalry, lance in hand, silken banner fluttering over his head. Each man was the perfect champion of his cause, drawing both his strengths and his weaknesses from the people he led.
因此格兰特和李两人截然相反,代表着美国人生活中两种完全对立的要素。格兰特是初露锋芒的现代人;他身后准备登场的是钢铁和机器的伟大时代,是拥挤的城市时代,是永不满足、欣欣向荣、生机勃勃的时代。李则手握长矛从古老的骑士时代一路策马奔来,旌旗在头上飘扬。两人都是各自事业的杰出捍卫者,从所率的民众中汲取长处,同时也承袭了他们的弱点。
/12、Yet it was not all contrast, after all. Different as they were — in background, in personality, in underlying aspiration — these two great soldiers had much in common. Under everything else, they were marvelous fighters. Furthermore, their fighting qualities were really very much alike.
然而,存在于两人之间的也不完全是差异。虽然他们很不一样——如背景、个性、胸怀的抱负——但这两位杰出的军人却也有着许多的共同之处。最根本的是,两人都是优秀的斗士。再者,两人在战场上显示出的品质也极为相似。
13、Each man had, to begin with, the great virtue of utter tenacity and fidelity. Grant fought his way down the Mississippi Valley in spite of acute personal discouragement and profound military handicaps. Lee hung on in the trenches at Petersburg after hope itself had died. In each man there was an indomitable quality … the born fighter’s refusal to give up as long as he can still remain on his feet and lift his two fists.
Daring and resourcefulness they had, too; the ability to think faster and move faster than the enemy. These were the qualities which gave Lee the dazzling campaigns of Second Manassas and Chancellorsville and won Vicksburg for Grant.
首先,两人都具有极其顽强和忠诚的崇高品格。格兰特不顾巨大的个人伤痛和重大的军事失利,沿密西西比河流域一路打过来。李在完全丧失希望的情况下死守彼得斯堡战壕。两人都具有一种百折不挠的个性……一种与生俱来的斗士精神:一息尚存,就战斗到底。
两人还都既勇敢又足智多谋;都有比敌手思考敏捷、行动迅速的能力。正是这些品质为李赢得了世人赞叹的第二次默纳塞斯战役和桑塞勒兹维尔战役,为格兰特赢得了维科斯堡大捷。
Lastly, and perhaps greatest of all, there was the ability, at the end, to turn quickly from war to peace once the fighting was over. Out of the way thesetwo men behaved at Appomattox came the possibility of a peace of reconciliation. It was a possibility not wholly realized, in the years to come, but which did, in the end, help
the two sections to become one nation again … after a war whose bitterness might have seemed to make such a reunion wholly impossible. N o part of either man’s life became him more than the part he played in their brief meeting in the McLean house at Appomatox. Their behavior there put all succeeding generations of Americans in their debt. Two great Americans, Grant and Lee — very different, yet under everything very much alike. Their encounter at Appomattox was one of the great moments of American history.
最后,或许也是最重要的,是战事一旦结束,有能力迅速化干戈为玉帛。两人在阿珀马特科斯的行事方式带来了和平修好的可能。这一可能并没有在以后的几年中完全成为现实,但在经历了势不两立、恢复联邦似乎根本无望的战争之后,这一可能最终还是促使两大阵营重新合为一个国家。两人的生活中再没有比在阿珀马特科斯马克莱恩住宅里的简短会面中所起的作用更能体现其个性了。他们当时这样做,一代又一代美国人都对他们感恩。两位杰出的美国人,格兰特和李,如此不同,却又在几乎所有方面都如此相像。两人在阿珀马特科斯的会晤是美国历史上一个辉煌的时刻。
UNIT 7 Going for Broke
Matea Gold and David Ferrell
1 Rex Coile's life is a narrow box, so dark and confining he wonders how he got trapped inside, whether he'll ever get out.
孤注一掷
马泰娅·戈尔德戴维·费雷尔雷克斯·科勒好像生活在一个狭窄的箱子里,伸手不见五指,空间又狭小,他不知道自己是怎么陷进去的,也不知道自己还能不能走出来。
2 He never goes to the movies, never sees concerts, never lies on a sunny beach, never travels on vacation, never spends Christmas with his family. Instead, Rex shares floor space in cheap motels with other compulsive gamblers, comforting himself with delusional dreams of jackpots that will magically wipe away three decades of wreckage. He has lost his marriage, his home, his Cadillac, his clothes, his diamond ring. Not least of all, in the card clubs of Southern California, he has lost his pride.
他从不看电影,从不听音乐会,从不躺在沙滩上晒太阳,从不在假日去旅游,从不和家人一起过圣诞节。相反,雷克斯在廉价汽车旅馆和别的嗜赌成癖的赌徒一起住,幻想着赢大钱,好魔术般地把30年的晦气厄运一扫而光。他失去了婚姻,失去了家,失去了卡迪拉克牌轿车,失去了衣物和钻戒。尤其是,在南加州的纸牌俱乐部,他还失去了自尊心。
3 Rex no longer feels sorry for himself, not after a 29-year losing streak that has left him scrounging for table scraps to feed his habit. Still, he agonizes over what he has become at 5
4 and what he might have been.
雷克斯不再为自己哀叹,他都输了29年了,输到了在赌桌上偷零钱以满足自己嗜好的地步。尽管如此,他还是对自己54岁时的境况深感痛苦,对自己未能成就可能会成就的事业而深感痛苦。
4 Articulate, intellectual, he talks about existential philosophy, the writings of Camus and Sartre. He was once aneditor at Random House. His mind is so jam packed with tidbits about movies, television, baseball and history that card room regulars call him " Rex Trivia," a name he cherishes for the remnant of self-respect it gives him. "There's a lot of Rexes around these card rooms," he says in a whisper of resignation and sadness.
他能说会道,善于思考,喜谈存在主义哲学,谈加缪和萨特的作品。他曾是兰登出版社的编辑。他脑子里装满有关电影、电视、棒球和历史的趣闻,因此那些纸牌室的常客都叫他“趣闻大王雷克斯”,他珍惜这个带给自己些许自尊的名字。“这些纸牌室里有不少雷克斯,”他无奈而又悲伤地低声说道。
5 And their numbers are soaring as gambling explodes across America, from the mega-resorts of Las Vegas to the gaming parlors of Indian reservations, from the riverboats along the Mississippi to the corner mini-marts selling lottery tickets. With nearly every state in the union now sanctioning some form of legalized gambling to raise revenues, evidence is mounting that society is paying a steep price, one that some researchers say must be confronted, if not reversed.
美国各地赌博盛行,从拉斯维加斯的特大型度假胜地,到印第安人居留地的小赌场,从密西西比河上的内河船,到街角处出售彩票的便利店,赌博随处可见,因此赌徒人数正在剧增。由于全国几乎每个州都批准某种合法化的赌博形式以增加税收,越来越多的事实表明,整个社会正在付出巨大的代价,不少研究者指出,对此现象如果不能彻底改变,那就必须严肃面对。
6 Never before have bettors blown so much money — a whopping $50.9 billion last year —five times the amount lost in 1980. That's more than the public spent on movies, theme parks, recorded music and sporting events combined. A substantial share of those gambling losses —an estimated 30% to 40% — pours from the pockets and purses of chronic losers hooked on the adrenaline rush of risking their money, intoxicated by the fast action of gambling's incandescent world.
赌徒以前从来不曾花费如此多的赌金——去年的赌输金额高达509亿美元,是1980年赌输金额的5倍,高出公众在电影、主题公园、唱片音乐以及运动项目等方面的消费总额。输掉的赌金中有相当一部分——约占30%-40%——是从那些常输的赌徒的钱包里掏出来的,赌博带来的兴奋令他们入迷,瞬息万变的赌博世界令他们如痴如醉。
7 Studies place the total number of compulsive gamblers at about 4.4 million, about equal to the nation's ranks of hard-core drug addicts. Another 11 million, known as problem gamblers, teeter on the verge. Since 1990, the number of Gamblers Anonymous groups nationwide has doubled from about 600 to more than 1,200.
据研究,嗜赌成瘾者的总数约有440万,与美国毒瘾大的瘾君子的人数大致相同。另有1100万所谓有问题的赌徒,已濒临深渊摇摇欲坠。自1990年以来,全国戒赌组织的总数翻了一番,从600个上升到1200多个。
8 Compulsive gambling has been linked to child abuse, domestic violence, embezzlement, bogus insurance claims, bankruptcies, welfare fraud and a host of other social and criminal ills. The advent of Internet gambling could lure new legions into wagering beyond their means.
嗜赌成瘾总是与虐待儿童、家庭暴力、盗用钱款、伪造保险索赔、破产、福利救济欺骗,以及其他许多社会问题与犯罪行为联系在一起。网上赌博的出现会诱使更多的人无节制地狂赌。
9 Every once in a while, a case is so egregious it makes headlines: A 10-day-old baby girl in South Carolina dies after being left for nearly seven hours in a hot car while her mother plays video poker. A suburban Chicago woman is so desperate for a bankroll to gamble that she allegedly suffocates her 7-week-old daughter 11 days after obtaining a $200,000 life-insurance policy on the baby.
每过一段时间,总有一则令人震惊的案子成为头条社会新闻:南卡罗来纳州一名出
生10天的女婴被放在闷热的汽车里几乎达7个小时后死去,其间女婴的母亲在电脑上打扑克。芝加哥郊区一名妇女急于觅得赌资,据说,她在为她出生仅7周的女婴购买了20万美元的人寿保险后11天将其窒息致死。
10 Science has begun to uncover clues to compulsive gambling —genetic predispositions that involve chemical receptors in the brain, the same pleasure pathways implicated in drug and alcohol addiction. But no amount of knowledge, no amount of enlightenment, makes the illness any less confounding, any less destructive. What the gamblers cannot understand about themselves is also well beyond the comprehension of family members, who struggle for normality in a world of deceit and madness.
科学研究开始揭示形成嗜赌成癖恶习的线索——与大脑中的化学感受器有关的,即与嗜毒、嗜酒同一个快感途径有关的遗传特性。但无论对这一顽症有多少了解有多少认识,人们对它的困惑一点也没有减少,它的破坏性也一点也没有减少。赌徒不明白自己的地方也正是家人所难以理解的地方,他们在一个充满欺骗与疯狂的世界中苦苦追求正常生活。
11 Money starts vanishing: $500 here, $200 there, $800 a couple of weeks later. Where is it? The answers come back vague, nonsensical. It's in the desk at work. A friend borrowed it. It got spent on family dinners, car repairs, loans to in-laws. Exasperated spouses play the sleuth, combing through pockets, wallets, purses, searching the car. Sometimes the incriminating evidence turns up — a racing form, lottery scratchers, a map to an Indian casino. Once the secret is uncovered, spouses usually fight the problem alone, bleeding inside, because the stories are too humiliating to share.
钱突然就不知去向:这里用了500美元,那儿花了200美元,两三个星期之后又少了800美元。钱哪去了?回答很含糊,不知所云。在单位的办公桌抽屉里。朋友借去了。家人聚餐花了,修车用了,借给姻亲了。怒不可遏的配偶充当起侦探,把衣袋、皮夹子、钱包翻了个遍,还搜了汽车。有时犯罪证据会暴露——赛马小报、刮刮乐、去一家印第安赌场的地图。秘密一旦被揭穿,配偶通常都单独面对问题,独自承受心头巨痛,因为这种事太丢人,没法跟别人说。
12 "Anybody who is living with a compulsive gambler is totally overwhelmed," says Tom Tucker, president of the California Council on Problem Gambling. "They're steeped in anger, resentment, depression, confusion. None of their personal efforts will ever stop a person from their addiction. And they don't really see any hope because compulsive gambling in general is such an under-recognized illness."
“与嗜赌成瘾者一起生活的人都会陷入绝望,”加利福尼亚问题赌博委员会主任汤姆·塔克说。“他们沉浸在愤怒、怨恨、沮丧、困惑之中。他们怎么苦心规劝也无法使浪子回头。他们真的看不到丝毫希望,因为人们通常并不真正懂得嗜赌成瘾的严重性。”
13 One Los Angeles woman, whose husband's gambling was tearing at her sanity, says she slept with her fists so tightly clenched that her nails sliced into her palms. She had fantasies of death — first her own, thinking he'd feel sorry for her and stop gambling. Later, she harbored thoughts of turning her rage on her husband. She imagined getting a gun, hiding in the closet and blasting him out of her life.
一个洛杉矶妇女,由于丈夫嗜赌成瘾,自己几乎神经崩溃。她说自己晚上睡觉时双手紧紧握成拳头,指甲把手掌都掐破了。她常常想到死——起初是想自己去死,觉得他会为自己伤心,会戒赌。后来,她又想到把怒气转到丈夫身上。她设想自己弄到一支枪,藏在壁橱里,一枪把他从自己的生活中扫出去。
14 "The hurt was so bad I think I would have pulled the trigger," she says. "There were
times the pain was so much I thought being in jail, or being in the electric chair, would be less than this."
“那种伤害太痛苦了,我想自己真的会扣动扳机,”她说。“有时真的痛苦不堪,觉得哪怕坐牢、上电椅,也不至于那么痛苦。”
15 With drug or alcohol abusers, there is the hope of sobering up, an accomplishment in itself, no matter what problems may have accompanied their addictions. Compulsive gamblers often see no way to purge their urges when suffocating debts suggest only one answer: a hot streak (suicide?). David Phillips, a UC San Diego sociology professor, studied death records from 1982 to 1988 — before legalized gambling exploded across America — and found that people in Vegas, Atlantic City and other gambling meccas showed significantly higher suicide rates than people in non-gambling cities.
吸毒者或酗酒者尚有清醒起来的希望,不管他们的毒瘾、酒瘾造成了什么麻烦,会清醒起来本身就是一项成就。嗜赌成癖的赌徒高筑的债台意味着只有一条出路:赢大奖(或自杀?)。这时,他们往往无法戒除赌瘾。加利福尼亚大学圣地亚哥分校社会学教授戴维·菲利普斯研究了1982-1988年间——合法赌博在美国蔓延之前——的死亡档案,发现拉斯维加斯、大西洋城和其他赌城的居民的自杀率明显高于没有赌场的城市的居民。
16 Rex Trivia is not about to kill himself, but like most compulsive gamblers, he occasionally thinks about it. Looking at him, it's hard to imagine he once had a promising future as a smart young New York book editor. His pale eyes are expressionless, his hair yellowish and brittle. In his fifties, his health is failing: emphysema, three lung collapses, a bad aorta, rotting teeth.
趣闻大王雷克斯尚未打算自杀,但和众多嗜赌成瘾的赌徒一样,偶尔他会闪过这个念头。望着他,难以相信他曾经是一位前途无量、年轻聪颖的纽约书籍编辑。他那灰色的双眸呆滞无神,淡黄的头发显得枯萎。才50多岁,健康状况已经每况愈下:肺气肿、3次肺萎陷、主动脉有问题,牙齿也损坏了。
17 His plunge has been so dizzying that at one point he agreed to aid another desperate gambler in a run of bank robberies— nine in all, throughout Los Angeles and Orange counties. When the FBI busted him in 1980, he had $50,000 in cash in a dresser drawer and $100,000 in traveler's checks in his refrigerator's vegetable crisper. Rex, who ended up doing a short stint in prison, hasn't seen that kind of money since.
他一直狂赌,结果走投无路,竟然答应协助另一个因绝望而不顾一切的赌徒实施银行抢劫——在洛杉矶和桔县共抢了9家银行。1980年联邦调查局逮捕他时,他五斗橱抽屉里有50,000美元现金,还有100,000美元的旅行支票藏在冰箱的蔬菜保鲜格内。结果雷克斯在监狱服了一段时间刑,从此再也没见到过那么多的钱了。
18 At 11 P. M. on a Tuesday night, with a bankroll of $55 — all he has — he is at a poker table in Gardena. With quick, nervous hands he stacks and unstacks his $1 chips. The stack dwindles. Down $30, he talks about leaving, getting some sleep. Midnight comes and goes. Rex starts winning. Three aces. Four threes. Chips pile up — $60, $70. "A shame to go when the cards are falling my way." He checks the time: "I'll go at 2. Win, lose or draw."
一个星期二晚上11点,他揣着55美元——这是他的全部家产——坐在了加德纳的一张牌桌前。他两手紧张地把那些1美元的筹码迅速地堆起又弄散。筹码渐渐少了。到剩下30美元时,他说要走了,去睡一会儿。午夜稍纵即逝。雷克斯开始赢了。三张A牌,四张3点。筹码多起来了——60美元,70美元。“我牌运那么好,怎么能走。”他看了看时间:“到2点就走,不管是输是赢还是平。”
19 Fate, kismet, luck —the cards keep falling. At 2 A. M., Rex is up $97. He stands,
leaves his chips on the table and goes out for a smoke. In the darkness at the edge of the parking lot, he loiters with other regulars, debating with himself whether to grab a bus and quit.
命运,天命加牌运——一路顺势。到了凌晨2点,雷克斯赢了97美元。他站起身,把筹码留在桌上,出去抽烟。他在停车场边上黑暗的地方与别的常客闲站着,心里盘算着要不要坐公共汽车回去算了。
20 "I should go back in there and cash in and get out of here," he says. "That's what I should do."
“我该进去把筹码兑换成现金就离开这儿,”他说。“我该这么做。”
21 A long pause. Crushing out his cigarette, Rex turns and heads back inside. He has made his decision.
一阵长长的沉默。雷克斯摁灭烟蒂,转身走了进去。他作出了决定。
22 "A few more hands."
“再玩几副。”
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