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● sobbed：啜泣。slobbering：唾液直流或语无伦次的。reunion：校友返校重聚。drink：专指“喝酒”而言。老校友重聚时，饮酒过多，感怀今昔，鲜有不怆然涕下者，现在这位小姐忽然也像这种人一样，呜咽地哭起来了。
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现代英文选评注 Emergency Landing紧急着陆
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John Cheever (1912—1982)
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本文原题“The Country Husband”是一篇很长的短篇小说，和前面的“Bachelor of Arts”一样，原载《1955年美国短篇小说佳作选》。
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作者约翰·契弗是美国久享盛名的短篇小说作家，长篇小说也写了好几部。他是麻萨诸塞州人，曾在纽约Barnard College任教。
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本文主要是描写一个“乡村丈夫”的各种人生问题以及夫妇之间的关系。这里所选的几段，是全文的开头，读者拿它当作普通叙事文读可也。
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The airplane from Minneapolis in which Francis Weed was travelling East ran into heavy weather. The sky had been a hazy blue, with the clouds below the plane lying so close together that nothing could be seen of the earth. Then mist began to form outside the windows, and they flew into a white cloud of such density that it reflected the exhaust fires. The color of the cloud darkened to gray, and the plane began to rock.
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● Minneapolis：美国中西部明尼苏达州的一个大城。East：美国的东部，这里用作副词，等于eastward。heavy weather：阴沉沉的天气，恶劣气候。
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● The sky had been：注意动词时态。过去完成式表示此事已成“过去”。hazy：气象报告里的“昙”。
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● mist：比haze更进一层。hazy不过表示天气不够清明，视野不够远。mist是“雾气”。they flew中的they泛无所指（语法家是不赞成这种用法的），大约是代表这群旅客。
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● density：密度。exhaust fires：飞机后面排气管exhaust pipe里所喷出来的火。这种火旅客平常是看不见的，但是现在白云厚密，排气不甚舒畅，把火光反射回来，旅客也可以看见云中的隐隐红光了。exhaust在这里是名词，解作“排泄”，转作形容词用。
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● rock：摇摆。
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Francis had been in heavy weather before, but had never been shaken up so much. The man in the seat beside him pulled a flask out of his pocket and took a drink. Francis smiled at his neighbor, but the man looked away; he wasn’t sharing his painkiller with anyone.
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● flask：酒瓶。sharing：与人共享。painkiller：本解作“止痛剂”。这里是酒或解忧剂。
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The plane had begun to drop and flounder wildly. A child was crying. The air in the cabin was overheated and stale, and Francis’ left foot went to sleep. He read a little from a paper book that he had bought at the airport, but the violence of the storm divided his attention.
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● drop：往下落。flounder：颠簸。cabin：舱房。stale：混浊。went to sleep：麻木。
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● A child was crying：短句子，但有此一句增加了紧张的气氛，文章就特别有神。
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● a paper book：纸面小书。airport：机场。divided his attention：分散他的注意力。
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It was black outside the ports. The exhaust fires blazed and shed sparks in the dark, and, inside, the shaded lights, the stuffiness, and the window curtains gave the cabin an atmosphere of intense and misplaced domesticity. Then the lights flickered and went out. “You know what I’ve always wanted to do?” the man beside Francis said suddenly. “I’ve always wanted to buy a farm in New Hampshire and raise beef cattle.”
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● ports：窗洞。port或porthole本来是船上的窗洞，这里借作飞机上的窗洞。
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● blazed：发强烈的火光。shed sparks：发火花。shed是过去式。shaded lights：暗淡的灯光。shaded可能解作有“灯罩的”，但飞机上的灯据我所知，并无灯罩。stuffiness：闷气。domesticity：家庭风光。飞机上本来是地方宽畅，空气散漫，现在在昏暗的灯光之下，窗幔都拉上（文中未明言，但如未经拉满，这里不必特别提出window curtains二字），空气混浊，不像在空中旅行，反而有一种强烈（intense）的家庭气氛（atmosphere），可惜这种气氛是放错地方了（misplaced）。
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● lights：电灯。flickered：闪动一下。went out：熄灭。
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● the man beside Francis：就是喝酒的那个人。New Hampshire：美国东北部州名。raise：饲养。beef cattle：供食用之牛，与“供取乳之牛”（dairy cattle）不同。
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