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● weighing：权衡优劣，考虑。her decision：她所看中了的（那座墓碑）。
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● at her call：听她一叫。whatever he was doing：不论他在做什么（浇花或是收拾地上），他都得住了手，走过去帮老祖母读目录。
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● fine print：印得很小的字体。老祖母眼睛有病，视力不济，小字看不出，非请帮手不可。glossy：明亮光滑的。好的铜版纸上所印的图片，应该用这个字来形容。
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But each time it seemed that no final decision could be rendered. They would study the catalogue at length, and then his grandmother would send him back to the car. He would load the back seat, and then, while his grandmother remained at the grave alone, he would watch the long arcs of the water sprinklers shining in the last sunlight of the day. In such a light, the cemetery looked very plain to him: the trees simple and lofty in height, and all the tombstones austere in their carving. He tried to keep his head turned decently away, but sometimes, glancing back despite himself, he would see his grandmother above the mounded earth of the grave, her arms rising up in dark weaving shapes of despair and worship. In the coming dusk he would hear the sharp whispering outcries of her lament, above even the humming sound of the water-sprinklers. And though her eye bothered and afflicted her more month by month, that year when they started for home she still drove with lumbering and powerful speed.
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● 第一句的rendered，可以用made代替。前面的fashioned，也可以用made来代替，但是这只可以表示make一字用法之多，render和fashion两字是不可以互易的。
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● at length：很详细地。
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● load the back seat：带来的东西用过后，搬回到车子后座上去。
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● water-sprinklers：喷水机（这里指的是电动的不用人照顾的那一种，大花园中有）。arc：弧状曲线。
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● tombstones：（别家坟上的）墓碑。austere in their carving：碑上的雕刻看来很严肃。
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● keep his head turned away：故意把头转过去，不朝某一个方向看。decently：很有规矩地。祖母在墓前哭，他自以为他是不该看的。
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● despite himself：想控制自己而不可得，他的眼睛偶尔还要朝后看。mounded earth：坟堆。
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● her arms…以下为nominative absolute phrase。天色已晚，她的双臂在黑暗中举起，所作（weaving：织成）种种姿势，礼拜（worship）死者之外，亦正显示生者内心悲苦，因此颓然不支（despair）也。
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● coming dusk：暮色四合。lament：哀悼。the humming sound of the sprinklers：喷水机马达的轧轧之声。humming所代表的声音并不像水声，而是像电风扇马达所发出的声音那一类的。马达虽轧轧作响，可是老祖母的尖细的哭声他还听得见。
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● bothered and afflicted her：给她麻烦，也给她罪受。lumbering and powerful speed：车子开得很猛，可是笨重不稳。老祖母目疾虽与月俱增，那一年她精神还不减少壮，观其开车之“冲”，便知其内心激动，不可自已，如有力量，从后驱策，其悲痛亦不言可喻矣。
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现代英文选评注 Natives Don’t Cry亨利小姐的信
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Kay Boyle (1902—1992)
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作者凯·博伊尔为美国现代女作家，生于明尼苏达州之圣保罗（St. Paul），曾在欧洲各处寄居多年，著书有长篇及短篇小说集多种。
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博伊尔的文字很简单，故事亦不离奇曲折，然而轻描淡写之中，言似未尽而意亦未尽，颇耐人寻味。其描绘人生，凄怆处有含蓄，挖苦处存忠厚，哀而不怨，谑而不虐，皆深得“简约”之妙者。本文原题直译应为“土人是不哭的”，与全文有何关系，在下面注解中再研究，今姑且译为“亨利小姐的信”。原文见其短篇小说集《维也纳之白马》（The White Horses of Vienna），1937年出版，1949年收入英国“企鹅丛书”。
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We went to Austria that summer, and Miss Henley came to us the night before we left. She was not very pleased to come, but it was only for the month, so she came as a gift to us. She did not believe she would like us because of the hotel, where we were in London and because of the colour of mother’s hair. She did not say these things to us in the same words, but she said them in other ways so that we knew.
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● We：从下文看来，指的是一家到欧洲去旅行的美国人：父亲、母亲、两个女小孩、一个男小孩。全篇叙事都是用一个女小孩的第一人称的口气。that summer：某年夏天。年代可能隔得很远。
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● Miss Henley的职位是保姆兼家庭教师，所谓governess便是。她是英国人，临时在英国受那美国家庭之聘，随赴奥地利，照料孩子。
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● 第二句说她不大高兴来，可是因为好歹只有一个月，勉强答应的。由此可见亨利小姐是个架子相当大的人。
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● gift 本意是“礼物”：自己没有出钱、别人好意送来的东西谓之“礼物”。我们不好算是出钱雇她的，只好算是她来帮我们的忙的。
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