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现代英文选评注 Her Graduation Day毕业的那一天
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Nancy G. Chaikin
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本文作者南珊·蔡金，1945年毕业于密西根大学。她的作品不多，但是她的短篇小说曾两度选入《美国短篇小说佳作选》。
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本文原题“Bachelor of Arts”，刊载于The Best American Short Stories 1955，长达六七千字，这里所选的只是短短的几段。蔡金女士的作风，大抵属于“婉约”一派。本文描写一个大学女生毕业那一天的种种心理变化，细腻熨贴，丝丝入扣。这一派作家可以说都是私淑Henry James的。
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In the morning, with the sun slanting across the floor of her room, she put on her cap and gown and stood before the mirror looking at herself, pleased with how right they looked on her. She could never remember which way the tassel went, but she’d see when she got down to the procession. Now she would only have to come back to this room to collect her bags—they were all packed—and they stood alone in the middle of the floor of the half empty room.
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● slanting：斜（照），斜（射）。此字为动词的分词形式。cap and gown：学士帽与学士服。美国大学生通常只在举行毕业典礼那天，才戴方帽子，穿学士袍。how right they looked on her：这种衣帽给她穿戴了（on her），看来是多么的合适。名词性从句，是with的宾语。（她看了心里很高兴。）
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● the tassel：流苏。学士帽顶上的那束丝穗，该披（went）在左边，还是右边呢？别人也许指教过她，但是她是永远记不得的。she’d see=she would see。the procession：行列，由校长、教授所率领的毕业生行列。他们排队进入大礼堂，是毕业仪式的一部分。流苏管它偏左还是偏右，她走到队伍里，看见别人的样式，自己也就知道了。
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● she would only have to：所要做的只有这么一件事。（have to：必须）。to collect her bags：检取行李。collect有“一件一件检起来，归聚在一处”之意。bags：凡是皮包衣箱等，都可称为bags。packed：装好，理好。
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She thought of calling the Union, where her parents had presumably spent the night after arriving very late, but decided, instead, to go directly over there and meet them for breakfast.
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● calling：打电话。the Union即下文的the Union Building。美国大学校园里很多有这样一座座大楼，大楼里有餐厅，有各种社交娱乐设备，也有旅馆房间。来参观毕业典礼的学生家长和校友大多借住在里面。（Union是Students’ Union的简称。）
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● presumably：可以这么假定。arriving very late：晚上到得太晚，来不及和女儿见面，直接到“招待所”去投宿了。instead：不打电话了。
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She knew they would expect her to be excited and pleased and loving, that they would not understand. She was their only child—the next best thing to a son; if she could not be a professional she could at least be a Bachelor of Arts. They were unbearably proud of her, and she was embarrassed by their open, unashamed pride, their overstated affection, their naive conviction that in giving her a college education they had attained the peak of parental obligation. Instead, she thought sadly, they had driven her further and further from them—with their strange emotional way of life, their pathetic ignorance of everything she had come to love.
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● 这一段描写父母与女儿间心理上的距离。父母看见女儿大学毕业，一定非常高兴；可是女儿自己前途茫茫，心事重重。（一方面舍不得离开学校，一方面回到家里又怎么样？）实在提不起兴致，可是又不得不陪着父母高兴。父母和女儿之间竟然还有这种隔膜吗？这种隔膜的确是存在的，这就是“现实”，小说家假如要描写现实，一定不会忽略这种现象的。
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● excited：兴奋。loving：（看见父母）表示亲热。她知道在她父母意料之中，她一定是这样高兴的；她知道父母是不会了解的。（understand这里作不及物动词用。）
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● 按用法习惯，假如有一个以上的名词性从句作为宾语之用，第一个从句的连接词that可以省掉，但是第二个第三个名词性从句一定要用连接词that。在这里，She knew后面有两个名词性从句，第一个名词性从句they would expect…前面没有that，但是第二个名词性从句they would not understand前面就有that。第一个从句没有that，读者不难判知它的语法地位；假如第二个从句没有that，读者怎么知道它是knew的宾语呢？
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● the next best thing to a son：她是独生女儿；在她父母心目之中，女儿虽然比不上儿子，但是比儿子也仅差一级。儿子算是the best thing，女儿就算是the next best thing了。to a son的to是连next的。
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● a professional：专门职业人才。美国的父母大多希望儿子成为一专门职业人才（enter a profession），如医生、律师、教授、牧师等。
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● 女儿虽然成不了专门职业人才，她至少也可以成为一个文学士（B. A.），父母也可以聊以自慰了。
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● unbearably：父母引女儿以自豪，但是女儿忍受不了。open, unashamed pride：父母讲起女儿来，其骄傲自得之状，溢于辞表（open），不知害羞为何物。overstated affection：父母爱子女，本出天性，但是爱（affection）不必放在嘴上讲，这两位父母把爱说得有点肉麻了。naive conviction：天真的想法（信念）。他们以为把女儿栽培到大学毕业，他们已经尽了最大的责任——达到尽父母之责（parental obligation）的最高峰。他们这种态度是使她很窘迫难受（embarrassed）的。
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● she thought sadly是插入的说明（parenthetic），在本句语法结构中没有地位。Instead：此字在本段中第二次出现。这里的意思大约是：她的父母“非但没有”尽父母的责任，反而使她疏远起来了。他们把她“赶得愈来愈远”。
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● 父母的骄傲得意，他们的过分亲爱，这就是他们的以情感为主的“奇怪的生活方式”。
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● pathetic：可怜的。everything she had come to love：文学、思想、美术等，她本来也不一定能欣赏，进了大学以后，她就喜欢这些东西了。（had come to表示今昔之间的变迁。）可是这些东西，她父母可怜地仍是一无所知。with their strange…是形容词短语，形容前面的them。
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She walked slowly over to the Union Building, feeling the unfamiliar folds of the black robe about her legs, the pressure of the four-cornered hat upon her brow. And they were there in the lobby of the tall white building, huddled close to one another on a leather sofa, watching anxiously for her through the crowds of noisy alumni and polished, expectant looking fathers and mothers, and eager black-gowned graduates.
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● unfamiliar：不习惯的。学士服下半截有好多道“褶子”，包在腿部周围（about her legs），走起路来，觉得很不习惯。four-cornered hat：方帽子。
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● lobby：前厅。huddled是过去分词，形容主语they：父母二人正紧紧（close）地依偎着，坐在皮沙发上，在人群之中，焦急地张望着他们的女儿。
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