英语经典美文:假如给我三天光明(2)
The Third Day
第三天
The following morning,I should again greet the dawn,anxious to discover new delights, for I am sure that, for those who have eyes which really see, the dawn of each day must be a perpetually new revelation of beauty.
接下来这一天的早上,怀着对发现新的快乐的渴望,我再次迎接黎明,因为我确信,对那些眼睛能真正看得见的人来说,每个黎明都会展现出无尽的美丽。
This, according to the terms of my imagined miracle, is to be my third and last day of sight. I shall have no time to waste in regrets or longings;there is too much to see. The first day I devoted to my friends,animate and inanimate. The second revealed to me the history of man and nature. Today I shall spend in the workaday world of the present, amid the haunts of men going about the business of life. And where can one find so many activities and conditions of men as in New York? So the city becomes my destination.
按我设想出现奇迹的期限,这将是我能看见的第三天,也是最后的一天。我不能把时间浪费在后悔或渴望中,我要看的东西太多了。第一天我献给了我的有生命的和无生命的朋友们,第二天向我展示了人类和自然的历史。今天我将在当今的平凡世界里度过,在为生活事务忙碌的人们常去的地方度过。除了纽约,何处人们还能找到这样多的活动和纷繁的景象呢?所以,纽约便成了我的去处。
I start from my home in the quiet little suburb of Forest Hills, Long Island. Here, surrounded by green lawns,trees,and flowers, are neat little houses, happy with the voices and movements of wives and children,havens of peaceful rest for men who toil in the city. I drive across the lacy structure of steel which spans the East River, and I get a new and startling vision of the power and ingenuity of the mind of man. Busy boats chug and scurry about the river-racy speedboat, stolid,snorting tugs. If I had long days of sight ahead,}should spend many of them watching the delightful activity upon the river.
学习啦在线学习网 我从我在长岛森林山静静的小郊区的家出发,这里,芳草绿树鲜花环绕着整洁的小住房,妇女和孩子们欢声笑语,其乐融融,是城里辛劳的人们安宁的避风港。驾车通过那跨越东河的带花饰的钢铁大桥,我惊奇地发现人脑中巨大的创造力和潜质。船只在繁忙的河上鸣叫着来来往往—高速快艇和笨头笨脑喘着气的拖船。如果我能看见的日子更长些,我要花更多的时间看看这河上快乐的景象。
I look ahead, and before me rise the fantastic towers of New York, a city that seems to have stepped from the pages of a fairy story. What an awe-inspiring sight, these glittering spires. These vast banks of stone and steel-structures such as the gods might build for themselves! This animated picture is a part of the lives of millions of people every day. How many, I wonder, give it so much as a second glance? Very few, I fear, their eyes are blind to this magnificent sight because it is so familiar to them.
放眼望去,面前林立着的纽约的高楼大厦,似乎是从童话故事的篇章中出现的一座城市,多么令人敬畏的景象,这些闪闪发光的尖塔,这些巨大的石头与钢铁的建筑群,就像众神为他们自己而建的!这幅生机蓬勃的图景是千百万人每天生活的一部分。我不知道,到底有多少人会对它回头再多看一眼?只怕寥容无几,他们对这辉煌的景象视而不见,因为这对他们太熟悉了。
I hurry to the top of one of those gigantic structures,the Empire State Building,for there,a short time ago;I "saw"the city below through the eyes of my secretary. I am anxious to compare my fancy with reality. I am sure[should not be disappointed in the panorama spread out before me, for to me it would be a vision of another world.
我匆匆来到这些巨大建筑之一的帝国大厦的顶端,因为在那里,不久以前,我通过我的秘书的眼睛’‘俯视”过这座城市。我渴望把我的想象同现实作一番比较。我确信,我对展现在我面前的景观不会失望,因为它对我来说是另一个世界的景象。
学习啦在线学习网 Now I begin my rounds of the city. First, I stand at a busy corner, merely looking at people,trying by sight of them to understand something of their lives. I see smiles, and I am happy. I see serious determination, and I am proud, I see suffering, and I am compassionate.
学习啦在线学习网 现在我开始亲历这座城市。首先,我站在一个热闹的角落,仅仅是看着人们,试图以审视他们来理解他们生活中的某些东西。看到笑容,我感到高兴;看到果敢,我感到骄傲;看到苦难,我就同情。
I stroll down Fifth Avenue. I throw my eyes out of focus, so that I see no particular object but only a seething kaleidoscope of colors. I am certain that in the colors of women's dresses moving in a throng must be a gorgeous spectacle of which I should never tire. But perhaps if I had sight I should be like most other women-too interested in styles and the cut of individual dresses to give much attention to the splendor of color in the mass. And I am convinced;too, that I should become an inveterate window shopper, for it must be a delight to the eye to view the myriad articles of beauty on display.
学习啦在线学习网 我漫步在第五大道上(译注:第五大道是纽约曼哈顿区的最繁华最壮观的商业大道,有许多高档精品商店,洛克菲勒中心就在该大道附近),我的目光没有焦点,我没有看特别的目标,只是看那彩色万花筒般川流不息的人群。我相信那成群女人的服装颜色一定是一种华丽的奇观,我会百看不厌的。或许,如果我能看得见,我也会像其他大多数女人一样—也对个人服装的式样和剪裁很感兴趣,而不去注意其色彩。我也相信,我也会成为一个有瘾的橱窗浏览者,因为看那陈列的无数美好的商品一定是赏心悦目之事。
From Fifth Avenue I make a tour of the city-to Park Avenue, to the slums, to factories, to parks where children play. I take a stay-at-home trip abroad by visiting the foreign quarters. Always my eyes are open wide to all the sights of both happiness and misery so that I may probe deep and add to my understanding of how people work and live. My heart is full of the images of people and things. My eye passes lightly over no single trifle;it strives to touch and hold closely each thing its gaze rests upon. Some sights are pleasant, filling the heart with happiness;but some are miserably pathetic. To these latter I do not shut my eyes, for they, too, are part of life. To close the eye on them is to close the heart and mind.
从第五大道起我开始浏览这座城市—到公园大道,到贫民窟,到工厂区,到儿童游乐园去。我通过参观外国居民区来进行一次不出国的国外旅行。我总是睁大眼睛看所有的景象,既看幸福的,也看悲哀的,以便我可以深入探究和加深理解人们是如何工作和生活的。我心中充满了人和事物的形象,我的眼睛不轻易放过任何一件小事,它力求触及并紧紧抓住所见的每件事。有些景象是愉快的,让心里充满快乐,而有些是悲惨的,对这些事,我并不闭上我的眼睛,因为这也是生活的一部分,闭起双眼就是关闭了心灵与思想。
学习啦在线学习网 My third day of sight is drawing to an end. Perhaps there are many serious pursuits to which I should devote the few remaining hours, but I am afraid that on the evening of that last day I should again run away to the theater, to a hilariously funny play, so that I might appreciate the overtones of comedy in the human spirit.
我能看得见的第三天即将结束了。也许还有许多强烈的愿望我应花费最后的几个小时去实现,但是,我怕这最后一天的晚上我又溜到戏院去,去看一部欢快有趣的戏剧以便能欣赏人类精神世界里喜剧的含蓄意义。
学习啦在线学习网 At midnight my temporary respite from blindness would cease,and permanent night would close in on me again. Naturally in those three short days I should not have seen all I wanted to see. Only when darkness had again descended upon me should I realize how much I had left unseen. But my mind would be so crowded with glorious memories that I should have little time for regrets. Therefore the touch of every object would bring a glowing memory of how that object looked.
学习啦在线学习网 午夜,我摆脱盲人苦境的短暂时刻就要结束了,永恒的黑夜又回到我身上。当然,在这短短的3天中,我并没有看到我想看的所有事情,唯有在黑暗重新降临在我身上之时,我才意识到我还有多少事情没有看到。但我的脑海里充满了这么多美好的记忆,以至我没有时间去后悔。此后,对每个东西的触摸都将使我想起那东西看起来是什么样的。
Perhaps this short outline of how I should spend three days of sight does not agree with the program you would set for yourself if you knew that you were about to be stricken blind.lam,however, sure that if you actually faced that fate your eyes would open to things you had never seen before,storing up memories for the long night ahead. You would use your eyes as never before. Everything you saw would become dear to you.Your eyes would touch and embrace every object that came within your range of vision. Then,at last, you would really see,and a new world of beauty would open itself before you.
学习啦在线学习网 也许,这篇简短的关于怎样度过这能看得见的3天的概述,和你们自己在遭致失明的情况下所设想的不一致。然而,我确信,如果你真的面临那不幸的命运,你的目光将会尽量投向你过去从未看见过的事物,为你今后的漫漫长夜保存下回忆,你将以过去从未有过的方式去利用你的眼睛。你所看到的每件事会变得珍贵起来,你的眼睛会触及并抓住在进入你视线范围之内的每件事物。然后,你最终真正地看见了,于是,一个美丽的新世界在你面前展开了。
I who am blind can give one hint to those who see-one admonition to those who would make full use of the gift of sight: Use your eyes as if tomorrow you would be stricken blind. And the same method can be applied to the other senses. Hear the music of voices, the song of a bird,the mighty strains of an orchestra,as if you would be stricken deaf tomorrow. Touch each object you want to touch as if tomorrow your tactile sense would fail. Smell the perfume of flowers, taste with relish each morsel,as if tomorrow you could never smell and taste again. Make the most of every sense:glory in all the facets of pleasure and beauty which the world reveals to you through the several means of contact which nature provides. But of all the senses, I am sure that sight must be the most delightful.
我,一个盲人,可以给那些能看得见的人一个提示—对想充分利用视力天赋的人的一个忠告:善用你的双眼吧,就好像你明天就会遭致失明一样。这同样的方法也能用于其他的感官上,去听悦耳的乐声,鸟儿的鸣唱,乐队的强劲旋律,就好像你明天就遭致失聪一样;去触摸你想摸的每个物体,就像你明天会失去触觉一样;去闻花朵的芳香,津津有味地去尝美味佳肴,就好像你明天会再也不能闻到、尝到一样。充分利用每一个感官,通过自然提供给你的几种接触方式,为世界向你显示的所有愉快而美好的一切而自奋吧。但是,在所有的感觉之中,我相信视觉一定是最令人赏心悦目的。
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