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But after a while I begin to take brief glimpses, and at length I watch again with thirsty interest. My parents have passed a fortune-teller’s booth, and my mother wishes to go in, but my father does not. They begin to argue about it. My mother becomes stubborn, and then they begin to quarrel. My mother refuses to budge. She is near to tears, but she feels an uncontrollable desire to hear what the palm-reader will say. My father consents angrily, and they both go into a booth which is draped in black cloth and its light is shadowed. The fortune-teller, a fat, short woman, comes into the room from the back and greets them.
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● take brief glimpses：偶然偷瞧几眼。at length：终于。with thirsty interest：兴趣极大。
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● fortune-teller’s booth：算命术士的木棚。
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● budge：让步（本解作“细微的移动”，大多用在否定句中；相当于中文的“决不移动分毫”、“丝毫不肯移动”等说法）。
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● near to tears：要哭出来了。palm-reader：看手相的。
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● draped：（墙上）围（以黑布）。
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● greets：打招呼（如说“good evening”）。
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But suddenly my father feels that the whole thing is intolerable; he tugs at my mother’s arm, but my mother refuses to budge. And then, in terrible anger, my father lets go of my mother’s arm and strides out, leaving my mother stunned. She moves to go after my father, but the fortune-teller holds her arm tightly and begs her not to do so, and I in my seat am shocked more than ever, and I get up from my seat and begin to shout and once more the usher comes hurrying down the aisle flashing his searchlight, and the old lady pleads with me, and the shocked audience has turned to stare at me, and I keep shouting: “What are they doing? Don’t they know what they are doing? Why doesn’t my mother go after my father? If she does not do that, what will she do? Doesn’t my father know what he is doing now?”
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● intolerable：令人不能忍受。
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● lets go of my mother’s arm：把她手臂放走（注意中间的of）。strides out：大踏步跨将出去。stunned：怔住了。
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● pleads with me：恳求我。
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● 父亲求婚成功不久，就同母亲吵架了，此人看得大为着急，大嚷起来。“What are they doing?”“他们二人在干些什么呢？他们不知道他们在干什么吗？母亲为什么不追出去呢？她不追出去，她还想打算什么呢？父亲做事如此狠心，他自己知道不知道呢？”
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● 最后一句叙事很多，但是主要的连接词只用and一个，句子虽长，句法并不复杂。
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But the usher has seized my arm and is dragging me away and as he does so, he says: “What are you doing? Don’t you know that you can’t do whatever you want to do? Why should a young man like you, with your whole life before you, get hysterical like this? Why don’t you think of what you’re doing?” and he said that dragging me through the lobby of the theatre into the cold light, and I woke up into the bleak winter morning of my 21st birthday, the windowsill shining with its lip of snow, and the morning already begun.
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● 带座的已经抓住了他的臂膀，把他拖出去，一面拖，一面说道：“你在干什么？你知道不知道一个人做事不能爱闹就闹，爱嚷就嚷的？像你这样一个小伙子，前途正是远大得很，为什么偏这样疯疯癫癫（hysterical）的呢？为什么你不想你在干些什么呢？”他说着，把他拖过电影院穿堂（lobby），一直把他送到门外，门外既冷且亮（cold light：冷的光明？）和电影院的温暖黑暗大不相同。
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● 到了外面，人就惊醒了。醒来正是此人的二十一岁生辰，冬天的早晨，景物萧索（bleak），窗槛上面堆了一层雪（lip of snow），闪闪发光，黑夜已尽，时间已经早晨了。（begun：过去分词，形容morning。又请注意said和woke改用过去式，表示梦醒以后已进入另一境界。梦醒以前用的都是historical present。）
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● 一个人二十一岁初度，做这样一个怪梦，大约不算太离奇吧。弱冠之年已过，人生前途正是远大得很，但是人到那时，会起什么样的感慨呢？欢乐和希望，心里当然多少也有一点，但是主要的恐怕还是觉得童年之一去不复返，人生的担子非硬着头皮挑下去不可了。怅惘和恐惧之感恐怕是难免的。在这样情形之下，此人梦见了自己父母当年恋爱的情形。父母恋爱结婚，生儿育女，这事也平常得很，但是转瞬之间，儿子已经二十一岁。要说奇怪，人生的神秘恐莫大于此。这个青年，在生日前夕做了这样一个怪梦，一觉醒来，窗外积雪，晨曦初上，眼前为之一亮，但是被人从戏院里硬拖出来，身上又感觉得一阵寒冷。醒来了就不必做梦了，在此寒冷清明的清晨，还是坐起来吧。
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现代英文选评注 A Mountain Adventure登山遇险记
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Gerald Warner Brace (1901—1978)
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本文选自《贾氏家传》（The Garretson Chronicle, by Gerald Warner Brace, W. W. Norton & Co., 1947）之第二十六章。《贾氏家传》是一部传记体的长篇小说，作者白瑞斯，是美国作家，其文字明净洗炼，瘦硬遒劲，铸字炼句，具见功力，堪与本世纪任何大家相比。《贾氏家传》全书于描写人物，讨论思想之处，亦皆陈义深远、语句精警，论者比之于Santayana的The Last Puritan（按
:两书题材体例亦颇相近）。
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My friend Tommy Tucker was a senior at Harvard. I used to go to some of the football games with him, and one day we made a plan to go off together with Tommy’s roommate John Somes, to climb Mount Washington. John Somes was a veteran mountaineer and had been up Washington several years before. He said that out west they’d hardly call it a mountain.
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● senior：大学四年级生。Mount Washington：在美国东北部之New Hampshire，为白山山脉（White Mts.）之最高峰，高达6,293尺，约台湾玉山最高峰之半。
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● veteran：老资格。mountaineer：登山专家。out west：在（美国）西部。they：泛指美国西部的人。照文法的规定，“代名词”一定要明确地代表“名词”，像这样含混的they是悬为禁忌的；但是这种说法在日常会话中常听得到，写小说的要传状说话的人的口吻，只好不顾文法书的规定了。
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