1705003937

1705003938 ● 笫一句不完整，完整的形式大约是“So we started the plunge…”。plunge：往前直冲。rock fields：乱石岗。

1705003939

1705003940 ● 风大得连话都说不清楚了。Tommy在叫，听不清楚他在说些什么，只是他的音节里丝丝音很多，猜想上去，他一定是想说“excelsior”（=still higher，再往上爬呀！加油！）。

1705003941

1705003942 ● sinews：肌肉（常用复数形式）。responded：响应；努力以赴。buoyantly：满怀希望地（此字本有“往上浮”之意）。wall of wind：风之阻力极大，犹如墙壁挡路。

1705003943

1705003944 ● breathe in quick gulps：很快地用嘴咽气，鼻子已经无能为力。under the lee of our shoulders：拿肩膀挡住风，嘴才可以呼吸。

1705003945

1705003946 ● raw cold：极冷。寒冷彻骨，连肺里都感觉到了。

1705003947

1705003948 The old notion that it was a cold autumn day still persisted; the gust, we felt, would pass, and our working muscles would spread warmth and life through our bodies. We kept pushing upward with slow and fumbling steps, slipping on ice surfaces like old men. It took a half hour or so for the thought to settle in my mind that we ought not to be there, that the windwall was coming at us more relentlessly, that we were stooping lower and fighting to stay on our feet, and especially that all warmth had withdrawn from feet and legs and hands.

1705003949

1705003950 ● old notion：旧观念。persisted：不退，仍在心头。天虽冷，究竟不过是秋天，冷不到哪里去的。我们觉得疾风就会过去，我们的肌肉活动之后（working muscles），暖气生机，即能布满全身。

1705003951

1705003952 ● the thought to settle in my mind：瞎爬了大约半个钟头之后，我方才认清了——第一，我们根本不应该到这里来的；第二，风墙给我们的压力是更汹涌可怕了；第三，我们身子愈俯愈低，拼了命才勉强把脚头站住；第四，我们尤其觉得脚上腿上手上的暖气已经全给吹跑了。

1705003953

1705003954 I tried to speak, then to yell, but made no sound. John Somes went on ahead. Tommy had dropped behind and seemed hardly to be moving. I crouched and waited.

1705003955

1705003956 When he came close he put his mouth to my ear and shouted, “I think we’re damn fools.” The words came faintly and stiffly, but I heard them and nodded. Back to the wind, we looked down the rough slope. My watery eyes were closed slits, and a fine spindrift of snow blew like white smoke over the rocks, but I could still see where the headwall fell away into cold space.

1705003957

1705003958 ● dropped behind：落在后面。crouched：佝偻。

1705003959

1705003960 ● faintly and stiffly：声音模糊而僵硬。

1705003961

1705003962 ● Back to the wind：背对着风。watery eyes：眼睛流泪，不能睁开，仅成细缝（slit）。fine spindrift：很细的浪花。雪为风所吹，如浪花似的凌空飞溅，雪质很细，望之乃如烟雾。fell away：人在高处下望，原驻足之山头，渐渐消失。

1705003963

1705003964 “We better get back down there,” I yelled.

1705003965

1705003966 John had not turned. We saw him dimly in the smoke, a hundred yards above us.

1705003967

1705003968 “Can’t feel my feet any more,” Tommy said—still shouting.

1705003969

1705003970 The truth broke suddenly. We are in deadly danger. The illusion of “October” vanished forever and I faced the facts of arctic winter and the ice-created hurricane.

1705003971

1705003972 ● the smoke：烟状的雪风。

1705003973

1705003974 ● The truth broke suddenly：我这才恍然大悟。

1705003975

1705003976 ● The illusion of “October”：假如还拿平地的眼光，认为天气应该是十月天气，这便成了痴想了，现在这种痴想已经消除净尽；我所面对的事实，乃是北极的酷寒，和冰雪所造成的暴风。

1705003977

1705003978 But there was still John Somes—we ought to stick together. Tommy, I thought, could start back, and I could still keep on and get hold of John. I leaned to yell in his ear, glancing up once more to see if John had turned yet. What happened from that point on is so mingled with my fear and increasing desperation that I can re-create it only as a terrible dream.

1705003979

1705003980 ● John一个人走在前头，我们现在要掉头回去，应该把他叫来，三人团结一起（stick together）。我认为Tommy可以径自回去，我再往上爬，把John追回来。

1705003981

1705003982 ● I leaned to yell in his ear…：我俯身过去把我的意思高声地对准Tommy的耳朵里嚷，一面往高处望，看看John是否已经转身回来了。

1705003983

1705003984 ● 从那时候起，我就记不清楚了。我心中恐惧、惶急之情，与时俱增（increasing desperation），以后的事情，就和我这种情绪混淆在一起，真幻难分，于今思之（re-create：把当时情形重演或叙述一遍），犹如恶梦一场。

1705003985

1705003986 The mountain slope had glistened remotely above us in the cold sun—not clear to our half-blinded eyes, but palpably there, a visible part of earth’s substance. The smoke of snow revealed gray rock and even the cairns set by human hands to mark the trail; and beyond those outposts of earth the blue of sky had given us comfort. But now white and gray masses of cloud came like a cataract, solid, vast, silent in the gale. The sun flashed against it with cold and terrible brightness, but in the hollows and rifts it deepened to dark gray and black. Tatters of it came first like flying arrows, and I saw them flash past the dim, hunched figure of John Somes; then the mass came down like a solid avalanche of death itself, silver above and black in its caverns, riding the wind. A few seconds of terrifying beauty, and I saw John Somes fade, go under, vanish; and then before I could draw breath or warn Tommy it happened to us too.

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