1705002009
1705002010
● wagon doors：顶层连接wagon ramp的大门，他们走大路下去，大门没有关，为下文伏笔。the last rays of the sun：落日余晖。
1705002011
1705002012
It was late that night that Phoebe woke up suddenly with her heart pounding heavily. She heard a terrible bawling cry from somewhere. “Joe, Joe,” she cried, shaking him frantically, “somebody’s crying terribly.”
1705002013
1705002014
“It’s the heifer,” Joe said, leaping out of bed and searching in the dark for his clothes. “Please light the lamp first so I can get down there first.”
1705002015
1705002016
● pounding：（心）怦怦地跳。bawling：高声大叫。frantically：狂乱地（拿他乱摇）。light（动词）：点燃。
1705002017
1705002018
Dressing as fast as she could, shivering with cold and fear, she heard Joe rush out into the night. In a minute she was dressed herself and running for the barn, a lantern in her hand, through the clear, chill blackness.
1705002019
1705002020
● 第二句的herself用以加强主语she。她的丈夫穿好衣服，她也穿好了。
1705002021
1705002022
● 她的丈夫是往外冲进黑夜里去（rush out into the night），她自己也在黑夜里奔，夜清明（clear）而冷（chill），正是秋夜也。
1705002023
1705002024
The bellowing grew closer, more localized, and she headed up the wagon ramp and through the wide door of the barn’s upper story. Joe was kneeling beside the open trapdoor, the trapdoor for forking hay down to the stable. Phoebe saw the opening filled with a grotesque, meaningless shape, and then she saw it was the heifer, hanging head down in the narrow stairwell. From below, the gasping came up in rhythmic agony, hushed a little but not stopped by Joe’s quiet voice talking and talking to her as he crouched at the opening, trying to see how she was caught.
1705002025
1705002026
● bellowing：牛鸣。localized：方位可以确定的，可以确定声音出自何方。headed up=moved up。
1705002027
1705002028
● forking：以叉来挑或拨。
1705002029
1705002030
● 小牛从梯道上楼，一失足身陷活门。它现在前半身跌在活门下面，后半身还搁在上面。已经身受重伤。stairwell=well-hole：楼梯口，即trapdoor，亦即opening或aperture（缺口）。
1705002031
1705002032
● a grotesque, meaningless shape：一个四不像的、不成形状的东西。楼梯口里塞了一个奇形怪状的东西，那东西就是小牛的后半身。
1705002033
1705002034
● 小牛的头在下面，还在连吁带喘地叫（gasping cries），叫声抑扬有致（rhythmic：有节奏的），然而痛苦极矣（agony）。
1705002035
1705002036
● cries有两个过去分词形容：一是hushed（使寂静），一是stopped。Joe蹲伏（crouched）在楼梯口，轻声抚慰，然小牛不能就此忍痛不叫，惨号只是稍歇而已。caught：卡住，挂住，绊住，牵住。
1705002037
1705002038
“The apples,” Phoebe moaned, flinging herself down beside him, “she smelled the apples and came to find them.” But Joe had jumped up, taking the flashlight, and was running out and around to the stable door below. Phoebe ran after, her heart hammering, the lantern swinging insanely from her hand.
1705002039
1705002040
● moaned：呜咽地说。flinging herself down：扑倒地上。
1705002041
1705002042
● Phoebe的话说明小牛是怎么上来的：它嗅到了香味，从梯道大门进来找苹果的。
1705002043
1705002044
● flashlight：手电筒。hammering：原意是“锤击”，此处亦作“怦怦地跳”。insanely：（似乎是）疯狂地。swinging：摆动。
1705002045
1705002046
The low, oak-beamed ceiling and thick stone walls of the stable made a warm, cozy cave, and in it the heifer hung crazily upside down, her head and one foreleg wedged between two treads of the heavy, ladder-like stairs. The wedged foreleg was broken, bone thrusting through the skin. In the lantern light her eyes rolled whitely, blindly, and the helpless, rasping cries grew steadily fainter.
1705002047
1705002048
● 第一句描写楼下马厩中所见。马厩不高，顶上橡木作梁（oak-beam），周围石砌厚墙，处身其间，温暖舒适（cozy），犹如洞穴。
1705002049
1705002050
● crazily：荒唐地。牛头倒悬空中，为反常之事，犹如疯人所为。
1705002051
1705002052
● wedged：卡住。foreleg：前腿。treads：梯级。ladder-like stairs：ladder是可搬动之梯，stairs是楼梯。但马厩里的stairs 比之ladder亦相差无几。
1705002053
1705002054
● 在灯光之中，可以看见牛的眼睛在转，然而白多黑少（whitely），眼珠失神（blindly），已是奄奄待毙之状。其鸣声粗沙（rasping）凄婉（helpless），亦渐趋微弱矣。
1705002055
1705002056
“If we could saw the stair!” Phoebe cried in anguish. “Wouldn’t that free her?”
1705002057
1705002058
“It’s no use,” Joe said. “The weight of her fall would snap her back, Phoebe, you’d better get the gun.”
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