内容发布更新时间 : 2024/5/18 21:14:41星期一 下面是文章的全部内容请认真阅读。

Unit1

The Fourth of July

The first time I went to Washington D.C. was on the edge of the summer when I was supposed to stop being a child. At least that’s what they said to us all at graduation from the eighth grade. My sister Phyllis graduated at the same time from high school. I don’t know what she was supposed to stop being. But as graduation presents for us both, the whole family took a Forth of July trip to Washington D.C., the fabled and famous capital of our country.

我第一次到华盛顿的时候是初夏那时我想我不应该再当一个孩子。至少这是他们在八年级 的毕业典礼上对我们说的。我的姐姐菲利斯在同一时间从高中毕业。我不知道她应该不再当 一个什么。但当作是送给我们俩的毕业礼物,我们全家在国庆日前往华盛顿旅游,那是传奇而 著名的我国首都。

It was the first time I’d ever been on a railroad train during the day. When I was little, and we used to go to the Connecticut shore, we always went at night on the milk train, because it was cheaper.

这是我第一次真正意义上在白天时乘坐火车。当我还小的时候我们总是在夜晚乘坐运奶火 车去康涅狄格海岸,因为它更便宜。

Preparations were in the air around our house before school was over. We packed for two weeks. There were two large suitcases that my father carried, and a box filled with food. In fact, my first trip to Washington was a mobile feast; I started eating as soon as we were ensconced in our seats, and did not stop until somewhere after Philadelphia. I remember it was Philadelphia because I was disappointed not to have passed by the Liberty Bell. 学期还没结束前家里就开始忙着准备旅行的事。我们准备了两个星期。父亲拿了两个大箱子 和一个装满食物的盒子。事实上,我第一次到华盛顿的旅途可以说是一个移动盛宴一在位 子上安顿下来我就开始吃东西直到我们到了费城往后的某个地方才停下来。我记得那是费 城,是因为我们没有经过自由之钟对此我很失望。

My mother had roasted two chickens and cut them into dainty bite-size pieces. She packed slices of brown bread and butter, and green pepper and carrot sticks. There were little violently yellow iced cakes with scalloped edges called “marigolds,” that came from Cushman’s Bakery. There was a spice bun and rock- cakes from Newton’s, the West Indian bakery across Lenox Avenue from St. Mark’s school, and iced tea in a wrapped mayonnaise jar. There were sweet peaches for us and dill pickles for my father, and peaches with the fuzz still on them, individually wrapped to keep them from bruising. And, for neatness, there were piles of napkins and a little tin box with a washcloth dampened with rosewater and glycerine for wiping sticky mouths.

母亲烤了两只鸡,然后把它们切成恰好一口一片的大小。她打包了黑面包和黄油切片,青椒和 胡萝卜条。有来自Cushman面包店的亮黄色的周围有一圈扇贝形状的小冰蛋糕叫做“金 盏花“。有来自牛顿面包店的香辛小面包和岩皮饼,还有包裹着蛋黄酱的冰茶那是一家雷 诺克斯大街上圣马可学校对面的西印度面包店。还有母亲为我们准备的蜜桃和给父亲准备 的莳萝腌菜,桃子上还有绒毛,单独包装,以免它们碰伤。为了干净,母亲还准备了成堆的餐巾纸 和一个小锡盒子里面装有浸了玫瑰水和甘油的毛巾,可以用来擦拭发粘的嘴巴。

I wanted to eat in the dinning car because I had read all about them, but my mother reminded me of umpteenth time that dinning car food always cost too much money and besides, you never could tell whose hands had been playing all over that food, nor where those same hands had been

just before. My mother never mentioned that Black people were not allowed into dining cars headed south in 1947. As usual, whatever my mother did not like and could not change, she ignored. Perhaps it would go away, deprived of her attention.

我想要在餐车吃饭,因为我已经从书上读到过关于它们的一切,但母亲提醒了我无数次,餐车 食品太贵,而且,你根本没法辨别那些食物上有谁的手在上面动过,也不知道, 之前他们的手碰 过什么地方。我的母亲从未提及过直到1947年黑人还是不被允许进入前往南部的火车餐 车。通常,无论母亲是不喜欢的或无法改变的事她都会忽视。可能她觉得如果把注意力转 开事情就会过去。

I learned latter that Phyllis’s high school senior class trip had been to Washington, but the nuns had given her back her deposit in private, explaining to her that the class, all of whom were white, except Phyllis, would be staying in a hotel where Phyllis “would not be happy,” meaning, Daddy explained to her, also in private, that they did not rent rooms to Negroes. “We still take among-you to Washington, ourselves,” my father had avowed, “and not just for an overnight in some measly fleabag hotel.

后来我知道菲利斯的高中班级旅行去的就是华盛顿,但老师们私底下又把费用还回给了她,跟她解释说,班上的孩子除了菲利斯都是白人他们将住的那家旅馆会让菲利斯不高兴。这句话后来父亲对她私下里解释的意思就是,他们不租房间给黑人。父亲承诺说我们仍然会带着你们到华盛顿去,就我们自己。而不是只是在便宜破旧的小旅馆里住一晚。“

In Washington D.C., we had one large room with two double beds and an extra cot for me. It was a back-street hotel that belonged to a friend of my father’s who was in real estate, and I spent the whole next day after Mass squinting up at the Lincoln Memorial where Marian Anderson had sung after D.A.R. refused to allow her to sing in their auditorium because she was black. Or because she was “Colored”, my father said as he told us the story. Except that what he probably said was ”Negro”, because for his times, my father was quite progressive.

在华盛顿,我们住一间有两张双人床的房间我还有一张额外的小床。这是一家后街的旅馆是我父亲的一个朋友的房产。次日弥撒过后我花了整个一天的时间眯着眼看林肯纪念堂。在D.A.R.因玛丽安?安德森是个黑人而拒绝她在他们的礼堂唱歌后她曾在林肯纪念堂唱过歌。父亲在告诉我们这个故事的时候说也许是因为她是“有色人种”。除此之外父亲说的可能就是“黑人”,他当时相当激进。

I was squinting because I was in that silent agony that characterized all of my childhood summers, from the time school let out in June to the end of July, brought about by my dilated and vulnerable eyes exposed to the summer brightness.

我眯着眼是因为我一直处于无声的痛苦中那一直是我从童年的夏天的特征,从学校放假的 六月到七月底,导致我扩张和脆弱的眼睛曝晒在夏天的强光下。

I viewed Julys through an agonizing corolla of dazzling whiteness and I always hated the Fourth of July, even before I came to realize the travesty such a celebration was for Black people in this country.

6月在我看来就是令人极度痛苦晕眩的白色。我讨厌国庆日,甚至在我开始意识到这荒谬的现实—这对美国黑人来说也算是个庆典--之前就开始讨厌了。 My parents did not approve of sunglasses, nor of their expense. 我的父母不赞成戴墨镜,他们也花费不起。

I spent the afternoon squinting up at monuments to freedom and past presidencies and democracy, and wondering why the light and heat were both so much stronger in Washington D.C., than back home in New York City. Even the pavement on the streets was a shade lighter in color than back

home.

我花了一下午的时间眯眼看自由纪念碑、历届总统和民主政治,不知道为什么华盛顿的光和 热要比家乡纽约强得多。甚至街道上的人行道路面都比家乡的颜色略浅。

Late that Washington afternoon my family and I walked back down Pennsylvania Avenue. We were a proper caravan, mother bright and father brown, the three of us girls step-standards in-between. Moved by our historical surroundings and the heat of early evening, my father decreed yet another treat. He had a sense of history, a flair for the quietly dramatic and the sense of specialness of an occasion and a trip.

后来在华盛顿的那个下午我和我的家人沿着宾夕法尼亚大道走回去。我们可以算是个严格意 义上的旅行团,母亲是白人、父亲是黑人,我们三个女孩介于黑白之间渐变。受历史建筑和傍 晚的炎热影响,父亲宣布去另一个地方。他有种很强的历史感,懂得制造戏剧化的场面,懂得如 何让旅行变得更有趣。

“Shall we stop and have a little something to cool off, Lin?“ “我们要停下来喝点东西降降温么,林?”

Two blocks away from our hotel the family stopped for a dish of vanilla ice cream at a Breyer’s ice cream and soda fountain. Indoors, the soda fountain was dim and fan-cooled, deliciously relieving to my scorched eyes.

我们一家来到离旅馆两个街区远的拜尔冰激凌冷饮小卖部吃香草冰激凌。小卖部里又昏暗又 凉爽很好地缓解了我焦灼的眼睛。

Corded and crisp and pinafored, the five of us seated ourselves one by one at the counter. There was I between my mother and father, and my two sisters on the other side of my mother. We settled ourselves along the white mottled marble counter, and when the waitress spoke at first no

我们五个衣着整洁一个挨着一个坐在的柜台边。我坐在母亲和父亲中间我的两个姐姐坐 在母亲的另一边。我们沿着白色斑点的大理石柜台就坐,起先没人听明白那个女服务员说的 是什么于是我们就这么坐在那。

The waitress moved along the line of us clo you to take out, but you can't eat her, sorry.\ and suddenly we heard what it was she was saying all at the same time, loud and clear.

那个女服务员朝我们走来靠近父亲再一次说我说了我可以让你们外带但是抱歉 你们不能坐在这儿吃。” 然后她垂下双眼看起来十分尴尬。瞬间我们同时都听到了她说了 什么响亮且清楚。

Straight-backed and indignant, one by one, my family and I got down from the counter stools and turned around and marched out of the store, quiet and outraged, as if we had never been Black before. No one would answer my emphatic questions with anything other than a guilty silence. “But we hadn’t done anything!” This wasn’t right or fair! Hadn’t I written poems about freedom and democracy for all?

我和我的家人挺直了背、义愤填膺,一个接一个从柜台凳子上下来转身走出了小卖部,安静 并愤怒着,就好像我们从来不是黑人。没有人会用除了内疚的沉默以外的什么来回答我所强 调的问题。“但是我们什么都没做!”这是不正确的不公平的!难道我没有写过关于自由和 民主的诗歌吗?

My parents wouldn’t speak of this injustice, not because they had contributed to it, but because they felt they should have anticipated it and avoided it. This made me even angrier. My fury was not going to be acknowledged by a like fury. Even my two sisters copied my parents’ pretense that