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西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033813]
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12 红蚂蚁大战黑蚂蚁
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有一天，我出门到我的木材堆去，更确切地说，是树根堆。我看见了两只大蚂蚁在争斗，一只红的，另一只是黑的，比红的大许多，差不多有半英寸那么长。双方一交手，就谁也不肯放松，搏斗着，扭打着，在木片上不停地滚来滚去。再向远处看去，我惊叹不已，木材堆上这样厮杀的勇士四处可见，看来不是“单挑”，而是“群架”，是一场发生在两个蚂蚁族群之间的战争。红蚂蚁总是挑战黑蚂蚁，通常是两只红蚂蚁对一只黑蚂蚁。我的堆木场上所有的斜坡和山谷上四处可见这些能征善战的弥尔弥冬军团，地上躺满已死的和快死了的蚂蚁，有红蚂蚁，也有黑蚂蚁。这是我亲眼目睹的唯一一场战役，是我第一次踏上正在酣战中的战地。这一场两败俱伤的生死对决，一方是红色的共和党，一方是黑色的保皇派。双方都在进行殊死搏斗，尽管耳畔不闻嘶吼，我从来没有看到人类的士兵这样奋不顾身。
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在一片阳光灿烂的木片小山谷里，一对蚂蚁死死地抱住了对方，此时正值正午，艳阳高照，它们准备战斗到日落，或者战斗到生命的最后一刻。那精瘦的红色勇士像老虎钳一样紧紧咬住死敌的额头不放。双方在战场上滚来滚去，红色勇士在咬断对方的一根触须以后，又咬定了对手另一根触须的根部，一刻也不肯放松。而更强壮的黑蚂蚁则把对手甩过来甩过去。我凑近了看个仔细，发现红蚂蚁的身体有几个部位已经被黑蚂蚁扯掉了。它们比斗牛犬斗得还要顽强。双方都没有一丝一毫的退却表现，显然他们的战争口号是“不成功便成仁”。
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在小山谷的山腰上出现一只红蚂蚁独行侠，显而易见，它斗志昂扬，要么是刚刚置一个对手于死地，要么就是刚刚投入战斗。大约是后者，因为它的四肢健全完好。它的母亲命令它要么手持盾牌胜利归来，要么躺在盾牌上被抬回来。它冲了过来，与对手拉开约半英寸的距离，等时机一到，就向黑武士扑了上去，一下咬住对方的右前腿，完全不顾对手会在自己身上哪个部位反咬一口。所以，此时是三只蚂蚁黏在一起生死搏命，好像产生出一种新的迷人的黏合剂似的，让所有的锁链和水泥都自愧不如。这时，我如果看到他们各自的军乐队，在突起的木片上演奏国歌来助阵，鼓舞那些奄奄一息的斗士，我也不会感到惊奇。甚至我自己都已经血脉偾张，把它们视为人类了。你越想就越觉得它们和人类没有什么不同。
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（张白桦 译）
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西南联大英文课（英汉双语版） [:1705033814]
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13 LIBERTY
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By Woodrow Wilson
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LIBERTY, from The New Freedom , by Woodrow Wilson, New York, Doubleday, Page and Company, 1919.
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Woodrow Wilson （1856-1924）, American political scientist and historian, president of the United States of America during the Great World War of 1914-1918, prime promoter of the League of Nations.
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In THE LIBERTY OF A PEOPLE’S VITAL ENERGIES is given the whole chapter from which these four paragraphs are taken.
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What is liberty?
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I have long had an image in my mind of what constitutes liberty. Suppose that I were building a great piece of powerful machinery, and suppose that I should so awkwardly and unskilfully assemble the parts of it that every time one part tried to move it would be interfered with by the others, and the whole thing would buckle up and be checked. Liberty for the several parts would consist in the best possible assembling and adjustment of them all, would it not? If you want the great piston of the engine to run with absolute freedom, give it absolutely perfect alignment and adjustment with the other parts of the engine, so that it is free, not because it is let alone or isolated, but because it has been associated most skilfully and carefully with the other parts of the great structure.
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What is liberty? You say of the locomotive that it runs free. What do you mean? You mean that its parts are so assembled and adjusted that friction is reduced to a minimum, and that it has perfect adjustment. We say of a boat skimming the water with light foot, “How free she runs,” when we mean, how perfectly she is adjusted to the force of the wind, how perfectly she obeys the great breath out of the heavens that fills her sails. Throw her head up into the wind and see how she will halt and stagger, how every sheet will shiver and her whole frame will be shaken, how instantly she is “in irons,” in the expressive phrase of the sea. She is free only when you have let her fall off again and have recovered once more her nice adjustment to the forces she must obey and cannot defy.
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Human freedom consists in perfect adjustments of human interests and human activities and human energies.
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Notes
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buckle, be out of adjustment; distort by bending.
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piston, the disk or short cylinder of wood or metal, fitting closely with the tube in which it moves up and down, used in steam engine or pump to impart or receive motion by means of a piston rod.
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alignment and adjustment, arrangement in a line or lines, until the parts are in the positions that they ought to assume.
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locomotive, the piece of powerful machinery that he has been using as illustration; any engine that moves about by the operation of its own mechanism, as a steam engine, for example.
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skimming … with light foot, gliding along the surface of the water smoothly and easily.
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the great breath out of the heavens, the wind or breeze.
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Throw her head up into the wind, turn the ship around so that the head of the ship will be directly against the direction of the wind.
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“in irons,” in nautical language, incapable of coming about or filling away—said of a sailing vessel when, in tacking, she comes up head to the wind and will not fill away on either tack.Irons is here used in the sense of iron fetters, chains, or shackles, which prevent the ship from moving about freely.