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.

1705003987

1705003988 ● 以后发生些什么可怕的事，当事人自己都说不清楚呢。这事在第三句方才说明，现在先看第一二句。

1705003989

1705003990 ● 他们到了山区高处，见到冰雪之后，只是觉得奇寒难忍，狂风难当，此外景色还和下面差不多：高处山坡在毫无暖气的日光底下，隐隐约约地晶晶发光，他们的眼睛睁不大开，看不清楚，可是前面的确有这么一块地方，似乎伸了手就摸得到的（palpably there），有形有体（substance），宛然可睹，分明是大地的一部分。一阵轻烟似的雪风过处，灰色的岩石便露了出来，还有前人以手堆植用以山行标路的石堆（cairns），也看得见了。这些都是大地尽处的前哨（outposts），前哨外面，便是一片碧空，看了心中也曾觉得安慰。

1705003991

1705003992 ● 注意这两句的动词时态：had glistened和had given（过去完成式）是表示“过去”的事，接着第三句从But now起，就是叙述眼前的事了。

1705003993

1705003994 ● cataract：瀑布。gale：大风（gust是突然发作随时可停的疾风，故常用复数gusts。gale则是劲吹不已的大风）。

1705003995

1705003996 ● 现在忽然大块雪团袭来，风势既猛，水气又多结成冰雪，故竟予人以坚硬（solid）的感觉。日光照处，冷光耀目，特别可怕；然云团低洼罅隙（hollows and rifts）之处，则又深暗作浓灰乌黑之色。

1705003997

1705003998 ● 云团的碎片（Tatters）先到，John在前，首当其冲，只见前面丝丝碎云，像飞箭似的，射过他拱首隆背（hunched）模糊的身形，然后大块云团，表面银光闪闪，其凹处黝暗，复如岩洞，挟生杀之威，如雪崖崩落（avalanche），御风而至，当头落下。

1705003999

1705004000 ● 这种惊心动魄的奇丽景色，不过是几秒钟的事，John即为当头罩住，先是身形不清，继则全身掩没（go under），消失不见。我要换口气的工夫都没有，招呼Tommy也来不及了，我们两人立刻都被罩住。

1705004001

1705004002 No beauty then. Nothing but wind and our hunched selves. The very rock we stood on lost substance. Air, earth, all reality, was turned into this gray force. I had felt fear like a blade when the cloud charged against us; now in the gray my feelings like my body grew numb.

1705004003

1705004004 ● No beauty then呼应上段的terrifying beauty。

1705004005

1705004006 ● lost substance：化为虚无（脚头站不住了）。

1705004007

1705004008 ● blade：利刃。charged：突袭。云团初来袭击时，我觉得恐惧万状，心头刺痛；现在置身云团之中，周身既然僵化，感觉亦复麻木。

1705004009

1705004010 “Time to move!” Tommy yelled.

1705004011

1705004012 In ten steps we had lost the trail, so we had to work cautiously over unknown ledges. Visibility, we figured, was ten feet, though it was hard to get our eyes open enough to see at all. We kept the wind square on our backs. It pummeled our bodies and spirits with solid blows, and I felt the life slowly going out of me as a man might who is being beaten by rubber truncheons.

1705004013

1705004014 ● lost the trail：走出山径之外，找不到路了。因此只好小心翼翼地在不知深浅高低的石壁边缘上爬行。“爬行”原文是work，走路成了“做工”了，其用心与费力可想而知。

1705004015

1705004016 ● figured：估计。Visibility：可视度。十尺以外即不能辨物。

1705004017

1705004018 ● square（副词）：恰当。

1705004019

1705004020 ● pummeled：（用拳）打。as a man might后面省去feel等字。一个人背上给橡皮棍子（truncheons）不断地打着，会慢慢地给打死的，现在我觉得我的三魂六魄慢慢地都给打得跑掉了。

1705004021

1705004022 But before we quite knew it, the slope dipped steeply downward. Tommy took a little sliding step, then both feet went together. He sprawled out on his side and slid off feet first, flashing his grin at me and saying something I couldn’t hear. At once he vanished in the white below.

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