2018年8月北美(2017年10月亚太)SAT阅读翻译之《飞行行为》
2018-09-04 17:08阅读:
This passage is adapted from Barbara Kingsolver, Flight
Behavior. © 2012 by Barbara
Kingsolver.
Dellarobia is taking her son Preston to
see a large population of monarch butterflies that
has settled in a forest near their
house.
本文改编自Barbara
Kingsolver,飞行行为©2012年,Barbara
Kingsolver著。
黛拉罗比娅带儿子普雷斯顿到家附近的森林去看帝王斑蝶的大蝶群。
They neared the fir forest and found the air above the path
alive with butterflies.
他们接近冷杉林,发现小路上方的空中满是蝴蝶,生机盎然。
'Let's get off and walk from here,' she said, relieved to cut
the noisy engine and go on foot. She
wanted to watch his upturned face.
Despite the wet hair stuck to his forehead and raindrops stippling
his wire-framed glasses, Preston was in heaven.
'There-goes-King-Billy, there-goes-King-Billy!' he cried
again and again, rolling the sentence out
in the rapid-fire manner he used
for yelling 'Five-four- three-two-one-blastoff!' prior to launching
flying objects. Soon there were too many kings for each one to get
his own announcement, but Preston's mouth still moved
silently.
“我们在这儿下车,走过去吧,”她说,面露欣慰,熄掉嘈杂的引擎,转为步行。她想看他的脸庞仰起。普雷斯顿的头发贴在前额,湿漉漉的,丝框眼镜上也雨滴点点,却已置身天堂。“那有国王比利,那有国王比利!”他叫喊着,一遍又一遍,语速飞快,连珠炮一样,好似他在飞行器发射前,大喊“五-四-三-二-一-发射!”那般。顷刻,国王就太多了,多到数不过来,但普雷斯顿依然没停,仍默默念着。(Rambo&Peter出品,转载请注明出处)
Today there were not so many
flying around as before. Not a river of motion, but stragglers
adrift. Careening down the trail, they looked a little drunk or
crazed, somehow.
今天,飞舞的(蝴蝶)已不似以前多了。不复河流滚滚,而似影只形单。不知怎的,它们沿着小径疾飞,就像半醉,或是疯狂一般。
'They're probably hungry too,' Preston said. 'What do they
eat?'
“它们可能也饿了,”普雷斯顿说。“它们吃什么?”
'I have no idea,' she confessed. He was right, they would
surely need to eat, after hunkering in the rain for days without
cease. She was embarrassed that her five-year-old was asking
questions that had not occurred to
her.
But she refused to be first in the
long line of people who would shrug him off.
'We'll
have to look that
up.'
“我不知道,”她坦承道。他说得对,它们蹲在雨里,一连几天,肯定需要进食。五岁的儿子问到她没想过的问题,让她尴尬。但她不想当一众推卸者中的首位。“这我们得查查。”
'Look it up where?'
“上哪儿查?”
'Google it, I guess.'
“谷歌吧,我猜。”
'Okay,' he
said.
“好吧”他说。
Googling a butterfly. It sounded comical, like tickling a
catfish, but she knew it wouldn't
sound that way to Preston. He would
clamber up to the computer and
punch the keys, finding what he
needed in there. Having children was not
like people said. Forget training them in your footsteps;
the minute they put down the
teething ring and found the Internet, you were useless as a source
of anything but shoes and a winter
coat. But Preston still asked her
questions. That touched her, that they were a team. Here in the
looming forest he gripped her hand tightly, as if crossing a
street, as they approached the
trees where the butterflies hung in their droves. Wings littered
the ground. 'Look up, she said,
pointing at the brown clusters drooping from the branches. These
trees were completely filled now.
Even the tree trunks wore
butterfly pelts, all the way up, like the bristling hairy legs of
giants. It was a whole butterfly forest, magically
draped
with dark, pendulous clusters
masquerading as witchy tresses or dead foliage. She only knew what
they really were because her eyes had learned the secret. Preston's
had not. It all waited for him, perfectly still and active. She
watched his dark pupils dart up
and around, puzzling this out, looking without yet seeing. Mine,
ours, her heartbeat thumped, making promises from the
inside. This was
better than Christmas. She couldn't wait to give him his present:
sight.
谷歌搜蝴蝶。听着就好笑,像给鲶鱼挠痒,但她清楚普雷斯顿不会那么想。他会费劲爬到电脑前,敲敲键盘,查找他需要的。有了孩子,可不像人们说的那样。别用你的路线训练他们了,省省吧;当他们放下牙胶环,发现互联网那刻起,你就啥源头都不是了,也就能给他们买买鞋和冬装而已。但普雷斯顿仍然问她问题。她很感动,他们是个团队。在这影影绰绰的森林里,他紧抓住她的手,就像过街,走近那些蝴蝶成群的树。翅膀散落一地。“往上看,”她说,指着那从枝头垂下的褐色簇群。这些树现在全被占满。就连树干上也满是蝴蝶毛皮,一路向上看去,就像巨人的硬毛腿。这一整片蝴蝶森林,魔幻般覆盖着阴暗、松垂的簇群,伪装成女巫的长发,或枯死的枝叶。她知道真相,因为她的眼睛已发觉秘密。而普雷斯顿没看出来。它就在那等着他,静与动浑然一体。她看到他深色的瞳孔转个不停,思索头绪,看在眼里,还不明就里。我的,我们的,她的心砰砰跳动,暗暗许诺。这比过圣诞还好。她迫不及待地想送出礼物:见解。(Rambo&Peter出品,转载请注明出处)
'What is it?' he
asked.
“这是什么?”他问道。
'That's the King Billies too. I know it looks weird, how
they're all hanging down. But the whole thing is
butterflies.'
“也是国王比利。我知道,它们垂挂的样子,看着挺怪的。但这整个都是蝴蝶。”
'Gaaa!' he cried, breaking free of her grip. He
ran toward a monstrous bouquet that
reached nearly to the ground from above, some thirty feet
long, dwarfing a tiny boy. Before
she could warn him against it, he reached up to stroke it with his
hand, causing it to writhe and awaken. Wings
opened and jockeyed within the clump. The
lowest piece of the bristly string dropped off, landing with a plop
on the ground. In slow motion, it exploded, individual butterflies
flapping, lifting, dispersing.
“哈!”他叫着,挣脱了她的束缚。他跑向一个巨大花簇,都快从上方垂到地面了,约有三十英尺长,比个小男孩还高。她还没来得及告诫一声,他就上前伸手摸了一把,让它扭动苏醒了过来。花簇中的翅膀,纷纷展开,你争我抢。最低的那串粗毛,掉了下来,扑通落地。在慢动作中,爆了开来,一只只蝴蝶振翅,升起,飞散。
Preston looked back at her, expecting a
reprimand. 'It's okay. You can check them
out. Just be gentle, I guess.'
普雷斯顿回头望向她,等着挨训。“没事。你可以检查一下。温柔点。”
She walked closer so she could see this as her son was seeing
it. She hadn't examined the clumps at close range, and even now it
was hard to understand how they
were constructed. The butterflies didn't seem smashed or struck to
the wings of other butterflies, not like a hundred-car
pileup, it was so simple. They seemed to
be holding on by their needle-thin front legs to some part of
the tree itself, bark or branch or
needle, out to the very tips. The tree's basic shape was still
visible underneath, the column of trunk and broomlike sweep of the
branches, but all enlarged and
exaggerated by the hangers-on. Only at
the ends of the dangling clusters
90 did butterflies seem to be
clinging to the legs of other
butterflies. The insecure and the desperate, she thought. No world
can be without them.
她走近了些,这样她就能和儿子一起看着。她没有近距离研究过这些蝶群,即使现在也很难理解它们的构造。蝴蝶们不会重击或碰到彼此的翅膀,不像百车连环相撞,而是如此简单。它们似乎是用针状细瘦前腿抓住树的某一部位,树皮,树枝或针叶,直到尖端。树的基本形状仍依稀可见,柱子似的树干,还有扫帚似的枝叶,只是因为依附者的存在,统统扩大和夸张了些。只有在悬垂蝶群的末端,蝴蝶似乎才会抓住其他蝴蝶的腿。没安全感的一群,决绝拼命,她想着。世界离不开它们。(Rambo&Peter出品,转载请注明出处)