1705002641
1705002642
● calm当名词用，英文中颇常见，但似和中国人思想习惯不合。我们常常只把它当形容词用：“安静的环境”或“安静的地方”，很少会说“从那个地方的安静里面听来”这一类的话。
1705002643
1705002644
● acacia：树名，译名金合欢。swinging canopy seat：上有天幕遮阳的悬空摇椅。这篇小说的背景甚简单，一开头点明了大树和摇椅，全文的活动范围即不离此大树之下与摇椅之上。
1705002645
1705002646
● with growing impatience：愈听愈难受。croquet balls：槌球。chock似为槌击球之声音，普通字典上并无此义，但按上下文语气，似应作此解。cracking the silence：打破沉寂。cracking之意义，除“打破”之外，在修辞上同chock一样另有“模声作用”（onomatopoeia），即模仿实际的“噼拍”之声。
1705002647
1705002648
● chime：（钟之）鸣声。wooden clock：木钟（槌球之槌与球皆为木制）。setting off：引起（笑声）。peals：钟声；连续的洪亮的响声。exhausting：伤人精神的。这里恐怕并不指使笑的人伤精神，而是使听的人伤精神，因为一切心理活动，皆由这位太太出发也。
1705002649
1705002650
● how anyone could be so energetic or so furiously amused：竟然有人（在这种大热天气）会如此精神焕发，如此狂欢高兴。即使年轻人有这种精神，她也无法理解。heat与第一句calm相类似，中国人惯说the hot month或hot afternoon的。
1705002651
1705002652
● Couldn’t you please？加重前面的please（请）。Melanie和Fay当是她的children的名字。
1705002653
1705002654
● 用斜体字排印的两个字应重读。shout：瞎叫。madhouse：疯人院。
1705002655
1705002656
She supposed that if they could hear her they were taking no notice. Or if they were taking no notice it was because of that old habit of hers of calling them children when they were nineteen and twenty.
1705002657
1705002658
“Fay—don’t shriek like that! I won’t have that shrieking, Melanie—stop her!”
1705002659
1705002660
● 母亲要安静，厉声告诫之后，孩子们还在闹。这可能是她们没有听见她的话，也许是她们听见了，故意不作理会（taking no notice）。她也知道她们为什么不理会。女儿已经一个十九，一个二十（至于哪一个十九，哪一个是二十，下文自有分晓），做母亲的习惯（habit）不改，还是叫她们。“孩子们”。她们自己不承认是孩子们了，无怪她们只当不听见。
1705002661
1705002662
● shriek：尖声怪叫。stop her之her指Fay；母亲命令Melanie去制止Fay的怪叫。
1705002663
1705002664
She was cut off from the main lawn of the house by a semicircular bank of azaleas and guelder-rose, so that she could not see the figures of her daughters and the three young men. She did not think she had ever been allowed to shriek like that as a girl. It irritated her exactly as if someone had started to fire off rockets in midafternoon.
1705002665
1705002666
● main lawn：（园里的）大草坪。azalea：杜鹃花。guelder-rose：绣球花。花树密集，种在半圆形的土堆（bank）之上，她视线被阻，因此看不见草地上是什么情形了。figures：身形。daughters就是上段的Melanie和Fay，笑声无疑也是这群青年男女所发出来的。
1705002667
1705002668
● had been allowed（过去完成式，被动语态）：她做小姑娘的时候，大人不许她这样尖声怪叫的。
1705002669
1705002670
● rockets：火箭（一种焰火）。下午三点钟左右（midafternoon）放焰火，使人难受，今他们的笑声恼人，亦复如此。
1705002671
1705002672
“I shall have to stop it. I shall go and speak to them. I won’t have that sort of thing.”
1705002673
1705002674
Then she remembered that going to speak to them would be awkward because she had suggested croquet herself. She had remembered, after lunch, the old croquet box in the stable loft. It struck her as being just the sort of quiet and companionable game that did not require energy on hot afternoons and she thought that perhaps it would keep them out of mischief.
1705002675
1705002676
● I shall have to stop it中之have to解作“非……不可”。
1705002677
1705002678
● going to speak中之going为动名词，作从句的主语。awkward：怪不好意思的，因为打槌球还是她自己建议的。
1705002679
1705002680
● croquet box：盛槌球用具的盒子。stable loft：马厩的阁楼。连用两个过去完成式的动词had suggested和had remembered，把时间推前了两三个钟头。这一段都是倒叙午饭甫罢以后的事，不是她在摇椅里的所见所闻了。
1705002681
1705002682
● It代表croquet。struck：忽然使她觉得。这个动作的发生也在午饭方罢之时，动词似乎也应该用过去完成式，为什么这里用简单过去式呢？这一点可以这样说明：过去完成式本是用来同过去式比先后的，表示“过去的前面还有过去”，当这种对比的需要已经不复存在，事情又是顺着次序讲下去了，就不必再用这种念起来很别扭的时态了。这里用了两个过去完成式动词之后，时间已经表示明白，接着再用简单过去式，也不致引起误会。以下几段大多倒叙，时态过去完成与简单过去杂用，请注意。
1705002683
1705002684
● 她那时忽然想起了槌球这种游戏很安静，可以使大家一起来玩（companionable），热天下午玩起来，也不大需要多少精神；她还这样想：她们有了这个玩也免得去淘气（out of mischief）了。她怕她们淘气，无形中还当她们是小孩子。
1705002685
1705002686
For the same reason she had invited three young men to lunch instead of two. That was also companionable. She wanted her daughters to have companions. She was not after all so very old herself, not so very far removed from the time when those things filled your head. But children grew up so quickly. They flashed through childhood. They whisked through adolescence into young womanhood and you did not know where you were. You felt you did not know at times what was best for them.
1705002687
1705002688
● For the same reason之reason 即本段第二句：That was also companionable，人多了更宜于社交。
1705002689
1705002690
● after all：此一成语作为“话得说回来”或“说来说去”。“话得说回来了，她自己也不好算很老。”removed（过去分词）：离开得远。those things：男女社交之事。your head之your泛指一般人。人在青春时期，脑筋里所想的总是这些事情，她自己的年龄距青春也还不远。
[
上一页 ]
[ :1.705002641e+09 ]
[
下一页 ]