高等学校研究生英语系列教程综合英语上册课文原文+翻译(9)

这就是纽约E．B．怀特

1 On any person who desires such queer prices. New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gut of privacy. It is this largess that accounts for the presence within the city's walls of a considerable section of the population; for me residents of Manhattan are to a large extent strangers who have pulled up stakes somewhere and come to town seeking sanctuary or fulfillment or some greater or lesser grail. The capacity to make such dubious gifts is a

mysterious quality of New York. It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky. 1纽约将孤寂与独处当作赠礼，赐予所有向往这份奇特礼物的人们。纽约城内数量庞大的居民中，冲着这份赠礼而来此落脚的绝不在少数；曼哈顿也因此聚集了众多异乡客，他们背井离乡到此闯荡，有的为了寻求庇护，有的为了一展抱负，还有的为了实现心中或大或小的愿望。纽约之所以神秘，便在于它总能赐予这般扑朔迷离的馈赠，能使人万劫不复，也能让人飞黄腾达，皆为运气使然。如果有谁打算碰碰运气，不妨到纽约来。

2 New York is the concentrate of art and commerce and sport and religion and entertainment and finance, bringing to a single compact arena the gladiator, The evangelist, the promoter, the actor, the trader, and the merchant. It carries on its lapel the inexpugnable odor of the long past, so that no matter where you sit in New York you feel the vibrations of great times and tall deeds, of queer people and events and undertakings, I am sitting at the moment in a stifling hotel room in 90- degree heat, halfway down an air shaft, in midtown. No air moves in or out of the room, yet I am curiously affected by emanations from the immediate surroundings. I am 22 blocks from where Rudolph Valentino lay in state, eight blocks from where Nathan Hale was executed, five blocks from the publisher's office where Ernest Hemingway hit Max Eastman on the nose, four miles from where Walt Whitman sat sweating out editorials for the Brooklyn Eagle,34 blocks from the street Willa Cather lived in where she came to New York to write books about Nebraska, one block from where Marceline used to clown on the boards of the Hippodrome, 36 blocks from the spot where the historian Joe Gould kicked a radio to pieces in full view of the public, 13 blocks from where Harry Thaw shot Stanford White, five blocks from where I used to usher at the Metropolitan Opera and only 112 blocks from the spot where Clarence Day the elder was washed of his sins in the Church of the Epiphany (I could continue this list indefinitely); and for that matter I am probably occupying the very room that any number of exalted and somewise memorable characters sat in, some of them on hot, breathless afternoons, lonely and private and full of their own sense of emanations from without.

2纽约集艺术、商业、体育、宗教、娱乐和金融于一城，城内拳击手、传教士、推销员、演员、经纪人、商人齐聚一堂，同场竞技。纽约的领口上弥漫着绵延悠长、挥之不去的历史气息，不管坐在纽约城的哪个角落，你都能感受到那些辉煌时代和宏伟业绩的搏动，那些奇妙人物、事件和活动的余音。此时此刻，我正坐在市中心一问令人窒息的旅馆客房里，它位于通风井中部，屋内温度高达华氏90度。房间里没法子通风，但说来也怪，我还是捕捉到了周遭事物散发出来的讯息。离这儿22个街区之外，鲁道夫·瓦伦帝诺在长眠；8

个街区之外，内森·黑尔曾被处以极刑；5个街区之外的出版社办公室中，欧内斯特·海明威的拳头同马科斯·伊斯特曼的鼻子来了一次亲密接触；4英里外，沃尔特·惠特曼呕心沥血地为《布鲁克林之鹰》写作社论；34个街区之外，威拉·凯瑟刚来纽约时曾居住于此，创作了许多以内布拉斯加州为题材的作品；1个街区之外，玛尔瑟琳在纽约剧院大楼里演出过丑角笑剧；36个街区之外，历史学家乔·古尔德在众目睽睽之下将一个收音机踢得粉碎；13个街区之外，哈里·索开枪击毙了斯坦福·怀特；5个街区之外是我曾做过领座员的大都会剧院；112个街区之外则矗立着老克拉伦斯·戴洗去罪恶的主显节教堂(类似的例子，我可以无限制地罗列下去)。这样想来，或许有一些显赫的大人物也曾在我现在栖身的屋子里住过，有的也许就是在某个热得让人喘不过气来的下午安坐于此，形单影只，与世隔绝，脑子里却满是各自捕捉到的屋子外边散发出来的讯息。

3 When I went down to lunch a few minutes ago I noticed that the man sitting next to me (about eighteen inches away along the wall) was Fred Stone. The 18 inches are both the connection and the separation that New York provides for its inhabitants. My only connection with Fred Stone was that I saw him in The Wizard of Oz around the beginning of the century. But our waiter felt the same stimulus from being close to a man from Oz, and after Mr. Stone left the room the waiter told me that when he (the waiter) was a young man just arrived in this country and before he could understand a word of English, he had taken his girl for their first theater date to The Wizard of Oz. It was a wonderful show, the waiter recalled—a man of straw, a man of tin. Wonderful! (And still only eighteen inches away.) \Stone is a very hearty eater,\said the waiter thoughtfully, content with this fragile participation in destiny, this link with Oz. 3几分钟前，我下楼吃午饭，发现坐在我旁边的竟然是弗里德·斯通(他靠墙坐着，离我大约18英寸远)。18英寸是纽约为其居民之间设定的既联系又分隔的距离。我同弗里德·斯通之间的唯一联系就是我有幸在本世纪初上演的《绿野仙踪》里看过他的表演。没想到，招待我们的服务员竟也同我一样，为能同一个“绿野仙踪人士”如此亲密接触而兴奋不已；斯通离开后，他告诉我说，他(即服务员本人)刚到美国时年纪轻轻，甚至听不懂英语，但他同女朋友的首次剧院约会就是去看《绿野仙踪》。那是非常棒的演出，他回忆道——稻草人啊，铁皮人啊。真是棒极了!(还是在18英寸之外)“斯通先生的胃口总是那么好，”他还不无体贴地感叹，似乎为同“绿野仙踪”分享些许命运交集而心满意足呢。

4 New York blends the gift of privacy with the excitement of participation; and better than most dense communities it succeeds in insulating the individual (if he wants it, and almost everybody wants or needs it) against all enormous and violent and wonderful events that are taking place every minute. Since I have been sitting in …… 此处隐藏：3817字，全部文档内容请下载后查看。喜欢就下载吧 ……