Back to the Dump

（单词翻译）

 

 

     When I was a boy, everybody urged me to get plenty of sunshine, so I got plenty of sunshine for a long time. One day while I was ¹⁾absorbing July sun as fast as I could, a doctor asked what I thought I was doing.

“Getting plenty of sunshine,” I said.

“Are you mad?“ he replied.

     No, I was not mad, just slow to catch up with my life’s ²⁾revisions. Getting plenty of sunshine had been declared dangerous while I was out to lunch. I revised my store of knowledge. Now I get only small ³⁾droppers of sunshine ⁴⁾extracted from the half hour just before sunset.

     When I was old enough to notice that girls were pleasantly different from boys, my mother told me the fact of life. “You must always treat a woman like a lady,” she said. So for a long time I went through life treating women like ladies.

     One day while I was helping¹ a woman into her coat, another woman asked me what I thought I was doing.

     “Treating a woman like a lady,” I said.

     “Are you mad?” she replied.

     No, I was not mad, but my ⁵⁾interrogator² was furious. I had been out to lunch during one of life’s revisions and missed the announcement that it was ⁶⁾swinish to treat a woman like a lady. I discarded another piece of my childhood education. Now I treat women like ⁷⁾ticking bombs.

     When I was 17 and for many years afterward³, I admired Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt as the ideal couple. One evening I had an ⁸⁾encounter with a ticking bomb, and ⁹⁾contemplated behaving like a fool, but rejected the ¹⁰⁾impulse because we weren’t married.

     “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked as I ¹¹⁾fled. I told her that someday I wanted to be half of a couple as ideal as Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt.

     “Are you mad?” she replied.

     No, not mad. I had been out to lunch during another of life’s revisions and, so had missed the ¹²⁾disclosure that Eleanor didn’t get along well with Franklin and that Franklin fooled around when she was out of town. Another part of my youthful education went to the ¹³⁾dump.

     Perhaps it was not age that defeated me, though. Maybe it was fatigue⁵ caused by the constant trips to the dump to discard everything I’d learned in the first half of my life. Life seemed to be an educator’s ¹⁴⁾practical joke in which you spent the first half learning and the second half learning that everything you learned in the first half was wrong. CE

 

04、回归垃圾堆

 

我还是个小男孩时，大家都劝我多晒晒太阳，因此，我晒了很长时间的太阳。七月的一天，我正在尽情地晒太阳，一位医生问我是否知道自己在做什么。

“晒太阳啊。”我说。

“你疯了吗？”他答道。

不，我没疯，只是没跟上世道的变化罢了。我出去吃午饭时，晒太阳被宣告为危险的事。我修正了自己的知识库。现在我只是在太阳下山前半小时稍微吸收点阳光。

长大后，我发现女孩与男孩不同，她们举止文雅，令人愉快。这时，母亲给我讲了些生活常识。“对女人，你必须始终如待贵妇。”她说。因此，很长一段时间里，我待所有女人如贵妇人。

一天， 当我正在帮一妇女穿外套时，另一位妇人问我是否知道自己在做什么。

“待女人如待贵妇啊。”我说。

“你疯了吗？”她答道。

不，我没疯，只是质问我的人却怒不可竭。我出去吃午饭时，又碰上这世道发生变化，没听到待女人如待贵妇是可鄙的行为这一宣告。我只好抛弃幼年接受的另一点教育。现在，我看待女人如同滴答响着的炸弹。

17岁以及以后的许多年中，我一直羡慕富兰克林和埃利诺·罗斯福，把他们作为最理想的一对来崇拜。一天晚上，我和一位滴答响的炸弹见面，期望在她面前装得傻一点，但最后还是放弃了这念头。毕竟我们还没结婚。

“你知道自己在做什么吗？”我逃走时她问道。我告诉她，将来一天我要成为富兰克林和埃利诺·罗斯福这对理想夫妇的一半。

“你疯了吗？”她答道。

不，我没疯。我出去吃午饭时，世道又发生了变化，没听到埃利诺和富兰克林相处不好的消息。据披露说，埃利诺出城时，富兰克林到处闲荡干蠢事。因而，我的这一部分早年教育又进了垃圾堆。

不过，击垮我的或许不是年龄原因。或许只是为了把我前半生所学的一切知识扔进垃圾堆，频繁的奔波从而令我心力交瘁。生活像是在跟教育者开玩笑，花了半辈子时间所学到的东西，到了后半辈子，发现都是错的。CE

 

1) absorb [Eb5sC:b] v. 吸收

2) revision [ri5viVEn] n. 修正

3)    droppers of 一小些

4) extract [ik5strAkt] v. 吸取

5) interrogator [in5terEgeitE] n. 质问人

6) swinish [5swainiF ]a. 卑鄙的，非常自私的

7) ticking [5tikiN] a. 滴答响的

8) encounter [in5kauntEr] v. 遇见

9) contemplate⁴ [5kCntempleit] v. 企图，期盼 

10) impulse [5impQls] n. 推动力

11) flee [fli:] v. 逃跑

12) disclosure [dis5klEuVEr] n. 揭露  

13) dump [dQmp] n. （垃圾）堆存处

14) practical joke 恶作剧

 

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