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● bare：墙上不挂照片图画，也无糊墙花纸或其他装饰。
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● button：电铃之按钮。I’ll give you the letter：他读信稿，由秘书速记下来。studied：细细地看。
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“Gentlemen. I can truthfully say that I take the most sincere pleasure in recommending to you Mr. Thomas Howell. In my long career as a teacher I have never had a better student. He has an acute and penetrating intelligence, and, as is so often not the case with young men of his capacity, the patience and honesty of a true scholar. I am sure that if he is appointed to—” He hesitated, looking at the wall. “I am sure that—” he said at last, then stopped.
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● 引号内为米伦教授所读之信稿。照写信格式，gentlemen后面该用冒号，今用句号者，只表示教授读此字后，语气一顿而已。
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● In my long career as a teacher：自我任教以来。career as a teacher：担任教书这项职业。
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● intelligence：智力。penetrating意思比acute进一层。acute敏锐而已，并不一定深入；penetrating则能发幽探微，洞察根本矣。
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● 此句and以后，意思又进一层：聪明人每无恒，巧慧者鲜笃实，唯此君则“智者”、“仁者”兼于一身。patience和honesty，仍为has之宾语。as为关系代词=which fact，所代者即为(he has) the patience and honesty of a true scholar一从句。case：情形。capacity：才力。so=very。
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● I am sure之后似应跟着“如能出国深造，必能百尺竿头，更进一步”这一类的话。他用了appointed（勉强可解作“获选”）一字之后，句子很难往下做，故而停顿。学生的名字，前面是Tom，这里是Thomas，Tom是Thomas的较亲密的叫法，犹中国人的学名与小名之别。
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The secretary, her pencil poised above her pad, waited while Professor Millen seemed to withdraw, to sink within himself. Her foot made a slight reproachful scraping sound as she changed her position in the chair. She, too, began to look out the window, where Professor Millen’s gaze now was fixed.
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“That’s all—all for the present,” Professor Millen said, suddenly. “Just hold that and I’ll finish later. I’ve just thought—” he managed to look direct at her, “of something else I’ve got to do. There’s something else.”
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● her pencil poised above her pad：是nominative absolute。poised（过去分词）：悬空握在手里。above所表示的关系：笔不靠在纸上（否则要用on）；笔是悬空的，但也并不正在纸的上面（否则要用over）。pad：记速记用的拍纸簿。withdraw原意是“退出”，这里只是指“出神”。to sink within himself：陷入深思。
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● scraping sound：皮鞋底与地板的摩擦声。reproachful：声音中似带“责备”，不耐久候也。managed to look：似乎不愿或不敢看她，结果还是提起精神，对她直视。
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After the secretary had left the office, closing the door softly behind her, he did not move some time. Then he again looked out the window. The shadows were lengthening over the smooth lawn. The faintest premonitory flush was touching the puffs of white cloud visible toward the top of his window. Before long now he would be going home. He picked up the circular. He read it again, very carefully, dwelling on it almost painfully, as though he were an illiterate trying to extort some secret from the words. He lifted his eyes from the sheet to look at the chair where the boy had sat leaning forward, the pleasure shining on his clear, handsome face, the good coat riding easy on his shoulders, saying, “—you know how. Paris is, it sort of knocks you off your feet. You’ve been there?”
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● The shadows were lengthening：影子拉长，时间更晚。flush：霞光。faintest：极淡的。premonitory：预示的（预示黑夜来临）。
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● puffs of white cloud：朵朵白云。霞光自地平线上发出，照到在天空中的白云。toward=near。
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● he would be going home比he would go home更强调go的动作。
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● dwelling on it：长时间地想它。painfully：痛苦地。这字前面加了副词almost，分量已大为减轻。但是作者为什么要用“痛苦地”这样一个字呢？本段末一句中，隐约说明。illiterate：文盲。他并非文盲，故动词用虚拟式的were。extort：用力逼出来或找出来。
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● the pleasure shining on his…face和the good coat riding…on his shoulders都是nominative absolute phrase。riding on=hanging from，但用riding更见活泼。
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● 最后他想起学生问他的那句话；为了这句话，他撒了一次谎，他想起这件事，心里不免难过。据作者所描写，这个学生只是一个天真活泼的大孩子。但是他的天真活泼，似乎反惹教授之厌。他的活力与自信（前面本文里连用两次confident），似乎是给教授的一种威胁。他的不假思索地假定教授青年时期的生活，是同他自己的一样逍遥快乐，是给苦读出身的教授的一种讽刺。教授不愿向学生示弱，至少也不愿使学生失望，就随随便便地答应一声。等到他发现自己已经撒了一回谎的时候，他当然恨自己，而且很难避免地、连带地更讨厌那个不知不觉中逼他说谎的人。Tom无意中已经得罪了教授，而且很伤教授的心，这是Tom所绝对想象不到的，作者描写的精微（subtlety）也在此。人和人之间真是这样难处吗？人的心理真是这样变幻莫测吗？所谓写实主义作者像Warren恐怕相信真是这样的。浪漫主义作家笔下的人生就比较单纯，好人坏人也判然易分。这篇小说的主人公，快要自食其言，非但不去帮助那学生，而且要去破坏他了。我们看完了后觉得他是不是个坏人呢？（或者，凭了那几句话，教授对于学生的个性真有新认识了吗？）
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Professor Millen let the circular slip from his lap to the floor. Then, decisively, he reached into the drawer of his desk and took out a sheet of paper. He wrote rapidly in his large, firm script:
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GENTLEMEN:
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I have been asked to recommend Mr. Thomas Howell to you for a scholarship for study in France. As you will observe from a transcript of his academic record, with which no doubt you have been provided, he has made the grade of A in all of his work in the English department of this institution, and I understand that his grades in French (his major subject) have been very high. This achievement, of course, deserves consideration, but candor compels me to say that a superficial facility and cleverness seem to characterize his mind. I do not wish to prejudice the committee against his case, and I may be wrong in my estimate; certainly, I hope that the committee will consider him very carefully. But I do feel that he lacks solidity of character, the spirit of patient inquiry, and what might be termed the philosophical bent.
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Very respectfully yours,
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ROY MILLEN,
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Professor of English.
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