大学英语精读第三册课文翻译

I teach because I like the pace of the academic calendar. June, July, and August offer an opportunity for reflection, research, and writing.

我教书，是困为教学是建立在“变”这一基础上的职业。教材还是原来的教材，但我自身却变了——更重要的是，我的学生变了。

I teach because teaching is a profession built on change. When the ma- terial is the same, I change - and, more important, my students change.

我教书，是因为我喜欢有让自己犯错误的自由，有自己吸取教训的自由，有激励自己和激励学生的自由。作为教师，我可以自行作主。如果我想要求一年级学生通过自行编写课本的办法来学习写作，谁能说我不可以那样做呢？这样的课程也许会彻底失败，但我们都可以从失败的尝试中获得教益。

I teach because I like the freedom to make my own mistakes, to learn my own lessons, to stimulate myself and my students. As a teacher, I'm my own boss. If I want my freshmen to learn to write by creating their own textbook, who is to say I can't? Such courses may be huge failures, but we can all learn from failures. 我教书，是因为我喜欢向学生提出必须绞尽脑汁才能回答的问题。我们这个世界有无穷无尽的正确答案来对付拙劣的问题。何况我在教学过程中有时也会想到一些出色的问题。 I teach because I like to ask questions that students must struggle to answer. The world is full of right answers to bad questions. While teach- ing, I sometimes find good questions.

我教书，是因为我喜欢想方设法使自己和我的学生从象牙塔里走出来，步入现实世界。我曾经开过一门叫做“在工业技术社会里如何自力更生”的课程。我教的1 5位学生读了爱默生、梭洛和赫胥黎的作品，记了日记，还写了学期论文。

I teach because I enjoy finding ways of getting myself and my students

out of the ivory tower and into the real world. I once taught a course called \Thoreau, and Huxley. They kept diaries. They wrote term papers.

但除此而外，我们还办起一个公司，借钱买下一所破旧的房屋，通过对这一建筑物的整修翻新，我们就自力更生这一课题进行了一次实践活动。在期末我们把房子卖掉，还清贷款，缴了税，佘下的收益分给了参加实践的学生。

But we also set up a corporation, borrowed money, purchased a run-

down house and practiced self-reliance by renovating it. At the end of the semester, we sold the house, repaid our loan, paid our taxes, and distribut- ed the profits among the group.

所以说，教学使我的工作进程有了规律，使我的生活变得丰富多采，教学向我提出了挑战，也给了我不断学习的机会。

So teaching gives me pace, and variety, and challenge, and the oppor- tunity to keep on learning.

不过，我要教书的最重要的几个原困还没有讲到呢。

其中一个原因与维基有关。维基是我的第一个博士生。她精力充沛，孜孜不倦地撰写她那篇论述14世纪一位不知名诗人的学位论文。她写过一些文章，寄给了学术刊物。这一切都由她独立完成，我偶尔从旁略加指J点。我亲眼看到了她完成论文，看到了她得悉自己的文章被采用，亲眼目睹她找到了工作并获得了在哈佛大学当研究员的职位，著书论述她在做我学生时萌发的思想。

One is Vicky. My first doctoral student, Vicky was an energetic stu-

dent who labored at her dissertation on a little-known l4th century poet. She wrote articles and sent them off to learned journals. She did it all

her-self, with an occasional nudge from me. But I was there when she finished her dissertation, learned that her articles were accepted, got a job and won a fellowship to Harvard working on a book developing ideas she'd first had as my student.

再一个原因与乔治有关。他开始学的是工程学，后来他深信自己爱人胜过爱物，所以改学英语。

Another reason is George, who started as an engineering student, then switched to English because he decided he liked people better than things.

还有珍妮。她中途辍学，但是她的同学把她拉了回来，困为他们想让她看到自力更生整修旧房这一项目的结果。我亲眼看到她回来了。我亲耳听到她对我说，她后来对城市贫民产生了兴趣，继而成了捍卫公民权的律师

There is Jeanne, who left college, but was brought back by her class-

mates because they wanted her to see the end of the self-reliance house pro- ject. I was there when she came back. I was there when she told me that she later became interested in the urban poor and went on to become a civil rights lawyer.

还要提一提清洁女工杰基。她凭直觉了解的事情比我们多数人通过分析弄清的东西还要多。杰基已经决定读完中学，然后还要上太学。

There is Jacqui, a cleaning woman who knows more by intuition than most of us learn by analysis. Jacqui has decided to finish high school and go to college.

这些在我眼前成长、变化的人，便是我要当教师的真正原因。当一名教师意味着是创造的见证人，他目睹人体开始呼吸，开始了生命

These are the real reasons I teach, these people who grow and change in front of me. Being a teacher is being present at the creation, when the clay begins to breathe. “提升了”，不再教书了，也许会给我带来金钱和权力。可是我现在也有钱c我拿了薪金去做自己乐意做的事：读书、交谈、提问，比如问：“做个富翁有什么意思呢？” A \have money. I get paid to do what I enjoy: reading, talking with people, and asking questions like, \

我现在还有权呢。我有权启迪，有权激发才智9有权开出书目，有权指矽支迷津。还有其他什么权力更值得考虑呢？

但教书还会带来金钱和权力以外的东西：那便是爱。不仅是爱学习、爱书本、爱思想，而且还有老师对出类拔萃的学生的爱。这样的学生走进了老师的生活，自己也开始成长了。爱这个字也许用得不恰当：说是魔力可能更为贴切。

But teaching offers something besides money and power: it offers love. Not only the love of learning and of books and ideas, but also the love that a teacher feels for that rare student who walks into a teacher's life and be-gins to breathe. Perhaps love is the wrong word: magic might be better.

我教书，是因为与开始戚长的学生朝夕相处，我有时感到自己也和他们一起开始成长了。

第四单元

潦而不倒的女隐士们

每一个大城市都有一批漂泊不定的流浪者。但他们大多是男人，通常嗜酒成癖。看来只有纽约例外，它吸引了一群奇特的无家可归的孤独女人。这些女人生活在一个多疑的、与世隔绝的自己的小天地里。

携带购物袋的流浪女士们不酗酒。她们不像无业游民那样麋集为伴，互寻温暖。她们彼此之间似乎也合不来。她们也不爱接近普通人。一位社会学家把这些人称之为都市里的隐士。她们会一连数月在同一街坊度过她们的日日夜夜，然后便像突然出现一样突然消失不见了。她们知道饭馆在什么时间将残羹剩饭倒入泔脚桶，她们就在那里寻找食物。当地的居民每天在同一个街角看到同一个流浪女士，便常在路过时悄悄地塞给她一些零钱。 流浪女士们并不公开行乞，但她们也不拒绝别人的施舍。一旦某个流浪女士成了你那街坊的常客，你就很难在走过她身边的时候不给她点钱，这就如同在教堂里走过募捐箱而不得不捐献一样。虽然你未必喜欢，但如果她选中你的门廊作为她夜间栖息之所，从道义上来讲，你就很难将她赶走，就像你很难赶走一条丧家之犬一样。

有各种各样的流浪女士：有的栖身街头，声称喜欢自由自在，不受社会的约束；有的因亲属去世或因无力继续支付房租而变得无家可归，而她们又不知道到哪里或如何申请救济；也有些是准流浪女士，她们有个落脚点——有个兄弟或姊妹，偶尔可以去他们那儿洗个澡。 大多数流浪女士的年龄介于40到65岁之间。她们穿着一层又一层的衣服，即使在夏天也是如此。衣服之间塞满报纸，遇上坏天气，可以多一丁点抵挡。一般来说，这些女士们带的袋袋越多，她们应付街头流浪生活的能力也越强。 “你可能以为我这些袋袋里是一堆垃圾，”一位流浪女士在一个教堂的施汤处一边吃饭一边主动说道，“可这都是我所需要的东西。替换的衣服啦，御寒的报纸啦。”流浪女士们不爱多说话，常把一般的交谈当成一种侵扰。但过了一会，喝了鸡汤身子暖和了，她开始讲了起来。 “这个地方不错，”她主动说道，“这里的人挺友好。大多数的纽约人很冷淡。我城里有姊妹，但长大成人之后，就各走各的路了。对不对？”

“我因牙齿坏了，经常出去。你知道这是怎么回事：只要你在饭馆里拣点吃的，牙齿就会被搞坏，你再当心都没有用。人家才不管你呢。饭馆也不把杯子洗干净。还没有等你弄清是怎么回事儿，就挨上了。我就遇上了这种事。在我把牙齿补好之前，我不想见人。所以我就出去，试图忘掉这些倒霉事儿。我常找个地方坐一会儿，弄点吃的，然后再去那些非去不可的地方。我把所有的东西都带在身边，因为你没法相信别人。”

所谓补牙云云，是典型的流浪女士的幻想。精神病学家们说，即使长时间交谈之后，流浪女士们仍然不能区别事实与想象。

有一个准流浪女士尽管在附近一家便宜旅馆里租有一间房间，每天却在火车站的中央自动楼梯下呆8个小时。附近教堂的一位牧师发现她有权享受一份小小的残疾人津贴，而她却从未去要过。于是，他便替她找了这一住处。但是每天大约从9点到5点，她仍然带着一只装牛奶瓶的提篮，坐在车站自动楼梯旁，不做任何事，也不与任何人交谈。她就像上班一样。 谁也不知道在纽约有多少流浪女士。她们的人数正在增加。一些牧师、修女和研究人员⒙费大量的时间照管或观察流浪女士们，并尽其所能努力改善这些穷因的女隐士们的生活。

In big cities Like New York, you can find homeless women with shopping bags wandering on the streets. They choose to live in an isolated, mistrustful world of their own. They are called lady hermits or just shop- ping-bag ladies.

LADY HERMITS WHO ARE DOWN BUT NOT OUT

Every large city has its shifting population of vagrants. But in most

cases these are men, usually with an unhealthy appetite for alcohol. Only New York, it seems, attracts this peculiar populace of lone and homeless women who live in an isolated, mistrustful world of their own.

Shopping-bag ladies do not drink. They do not huddle together for

warmth and companionship like bums. They do not seem to like one anoth- er very much . Neither, are they too keen on conventional people. Urban hermits, one sociologist has called them. They will spend their days and nights in the same neighbourhood for months on end, then disappear as in explicably as they came. They know the hours when restaurants put their leftovers in the garbage cans where they search for food And local resi- dents, seeing the same bag lady on the same corner every day, will slip her some change as they pass.

Shopping-bag ladies do not overtly beg, but they do not refuse what is

offered. Once a shopping-bag lady becomes a figure of your neighbourhood, it is as hard to pass her by without giving her some money as it is to ignore the collection box in church. And although you may not like it, if she chooses your doorway as her place to sleep in the night, it is as morally hard to turn her away as it is a lost dog.

There are various categories of bag ladies: those who live on the

streets, claiming they enjoy the freedom from constraints of society; those who became homeless because a relative died or because they couldn't keep up rent payments, and they didn't know where to go or how to apply for relief; and quasi bag ladies who have an anchor point-a sister or brother whom they can visit once in a while to take a bath.

Most shopping-bag ladies seem to be between the ages of 40 and 65.

They wear layers of clothes even in summer time, with newspapers stuffed between the layers as further protection against bad weather. In general, the more bags the ladies carry the better organised they are to cope with life on the streets.