1705000620 ● stretch原意是一长条，stretches并不是几条，而是绵延不断的一块或一片：一片深林。leaf在这里是collective noun，即等于leaves。colorless：黑、白、灰，皆为无色。

1705000621

1705000622 ● the Mortons’在文法上称为absolute genitive，把后面应该跟的名词house（莫顿夫妇的家）省掉了。这一句是被动语态，又是虚拟式。我们不知道有没有一只眼睛，可以比月亮看得更仔细，更能洞察一切，假如有的话，莫顿家每一样东西都可“被”（即句首之By）它看见了。这只眼睛应该是小说家的眼睛。

1705000623

1705000624 ● 但是作者并没有列举他们家里的东西，在横线之后只举了一件东西：番茄田。替番茄防冻是本篇的主题，别的东西自可以不提，写短篇小说不得不注意描写上的经济。

1705000625

1705000626 ● even to的to=as far as：每样东西都可以看见，即小至小小的番茄秧，也可以看见。后面跟着几个形容tomato plants的字。featherlike：像羽毛似的，指番茄的茎叶而言。fragility：脆弱。exposed：暴露（在寒夜中）的，番茄这样暴露着，使人惊心（appalling）。

1705000627

1705000628 ● the farmhouse是the shape的同位语。

1705000629

1705000630 Inside, Jason and Sara Morton were lying between the quilts of a pallet which had been made up close to the fireplace. A fire still fluttered in the grate, making a drowsy sound now and then, and its exhausted light beat up and down the wall, across the rafters, and over the dark pallet where the old people lay, like a bird trying to find its way out of the room.

1705000631

1705000632 ● quilt：一床被。pallet：稻草所铺成的床。铺（made up）在火炉附近（close）。

1705000633

1705000634 ● grate：火炉里的铁格子。drowsy：催眠的。exhausted：无力的。把火炉里的光比作一只寻出路的鸟，可称妙绝。动词用beat也妙，譬喻还没有点明以前，单凭这个动词，已经显出有一样东西在东碰西撞了。fluttered：跳动，用于火可以，用于鸟也可以。rafters：屋椽。

1705000635

1705000636 The long-spaced, tired breathing of Jason was the only noise besides the flutter of the fire. He lay under the quilt in a long shape like a bean, turned on his side to face the door. His lips opened in the dark, and in and out he breathed, in and out, slowly and with a rise and fall, over and over, like a conversation or a tale—a question and a sigh.

1705000637

1705000638 ● long-spaced：两声鼾声之间停顿得很长。bean：这里是附有豆荚的豆子。turned on his side：侧着身。turned是过去分词。

1705000639

1705000640 ● in and out he breathed=he breathed in and out。rise and fall：起伏。最后一句句子的节奏，也模仿鼾声的起伏。

1705000641

1705000642 Sara lay on her hack with her mouth agape, silent, but not asleep. She was staring at the dark and indistinguishable places among the rafters. Her eyes seemed opened too wide, the lids strained and limp, like openings which have been stretched shapeless and made of no more use. Once a hissing yellow flame stood erect in the old log, and her small face and pale hair, and one hand holding to the edge of the cover, were illuminated for a moment, with shadows bright blue. Then she pulled the quilt clear over her head.

1705000643

1705000644 ● lay on her back：仰天而卧。agape：张着（嘴）。indistinguishable：分辨不清楚的。opened是过去分词，形容主语。the lids strained and limp是nominative absolute phrase。“眼皮绷紧的又是软软的（limp）”。她的眼睛就“像两个眶眶，张大得已经不成形状，而且给弄得不再有什么用处了”。在“which”clause里，有两个动词：have been stretched和（have been）made；shapeless和of no more use都形容主语which。

1705000645

1705000646 ● 第四句又是描写火光：一下子她的脸、头发和捏住被单边缘的一只手都给照亮了。火是嘶嘶作响（hissing）的黄色火焰，笔直地（erect）立在（炉子里的）陈旧的木柴（log）上。

1705000647

1705000648 ● hold作不及物动词用，有cling（紧附）的意义，所以holding to比holding（及物动词）可能捏得更紧。末一句的clear是副词，解作completely，把被单拉上，把头全盖没了。

1705000649

1705000650 Every night they lay trembling with cold, but no more communicative in their misery than a pair of window shutters beaten by a storm. Sometimes many days, weeks went by without words. They were not really old—they were only fifty; still, their lives were filled with tiredness, with a great lack of necessity to speak, with poverty which may have bound them like a disaster too great for discussion but left them still separate and undesirous of sympathy. Perhaps, years ago, the long habit of silence may have been started in anger or passion. Who could tell now?

1705000651

1705000652 ● communicative：喜与人交谈的，形容主语they。受暴风雨打击的两扇百叶窗，即使有个别的反应，也不会互相交谈，这一对老夫妇虽然生活困苦，也不互相交谈，两个活人的话并不比两扇窗的话更多一些（no more…than）。went by=passed。

1705000653

1705000654 ● 他们的生命充满了三件东西：第一是“疲倦”；第二是“没有说话的需要”（filled with a lack：充满了一种缺乏——好像是不通的，这样把两个意义相反的字联在一起，修辞学上称为“矛盾修饰法”[oxymoron]，中文也有这种说法，例如“公开的秘密”）；第三是“贫穷”。

1705000655

1705000656 ● poverty后跟着一个adjective clause。在这个子句里，作者就她写作的时候（故用现在式的辅助动词may），去猜想当时的情形（故用完成式不定词have bound和have left）。贫穷把他们老夫妻俩联系（bound是bind的过去分词）在一起，可能如同一个灾祸一样（同受灾者命运相同），灾祸太大了，用不着再去讨论它。但是贫穷使得他们俩仍旧是彼此分离的，而且是不希望别人来同情的。（separate和undesirous两个形容词都是objective complements。）

1705000657

1705000658 ● 末一句，作者猜想他们什么时候开始互相不交谈的。这个沉默的习惯可能很多年（years前面不必加many也可表示很多年）前就开始了。怎样开始的呢？可能有一次在生气的时候，两人不说话，以后就一直不说话了（passion=violent anger）。但是现在谁知道呢？

1705000659

1705000660 She was so tired of the cold! That was all it could do any more—make her tired. Year after year, she felt sure that she would die before the cold was over. Now, according to the Almanac, it was spring…. But year after year it was always the same. The plants would be set out in their frames, transplanted always too soon, and there was a freeze…. When was the last time they had grown tall and full, that the cold had held off and there was a crop?

1705000661

1705000662 ● 第二句的it代the cold。make是省去了to的不定式。

1705000663

1705000664 ● Almanac：历本。虽然交了春，天还是很冷。交了春，番茄苗要从苗圃里移植到田里去。但是年年总是如此，移植（transplanted）得太早了，一夜春寒，可能把番茄全冻死，辅助动词用would表示过去屡次发生的事。set out=planted（此解根据Thorndike-Barnhart: Comprehensive Desk Dictionary）。frames：番茄太重，番茄树枝支持不起，需搭架子来扶助。

1705000665

1705000666 ● 年年种的番茄，都在春天冻死，她已记不起哪一年的番茄是种活的。末一句是Sara自己问自己，上一回是什么时候，番茄苗（they）长得又高，结得又满；寒冷不来侵犯（hold off=keep at a distance）而有收获呢？

1705000667

1705000668 Like a vain dream, Sara began to have thoughts of the spring and summer. At first she thought only simply, of the colors of green and red, the smell of the sun on the ground, the touch of leaves and of warm ripening tomatoes. Then, all hidden as she was under the quilt, she began to imagine and remember the town of Dexter in the shipping season. There in her mind, dusty little Dexter became a theatre of almost legendary festivity, a place of pleasure. On every road leading in, smiling farmers were bringing in wagonloads of the most beautiful tomatoes. The packing sheds at Dexter Station were all decorated—no, it was simply that the May sun was shining. Mr. Perkins, the tall, gesturing figure, stood in the very centre of everything, buying, directing, waving yellow papers that must be telegrams, shouting with great impatience. And it was he, after all, that owned their farm now. Train after train of empty freight cars stretched away, waiting and then being filled. Was it possible to have saved out of the threat of the cold so many tomatoes in the world?

1705000669

[ 上一页 ]  [ :1.70500062e+09 ]  [ 下一页 ]