Unit-2The roots of my ambition
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2021年01月20日 05:28
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托马斯教学-迫不及待的近义词是什么
The roots of my ambition
“
If there
’
s one thing I can
’
t stand, Russell, it
’
s a quitter.
”
“罗素，假如有一件事我不能容忍的话，那就是做轻易放弃的人”。
My mother, dead now to this world but still roaming free in my mind, wakes me
some mornings before daybreak.
quitter.
我的母亲虽然已经离开这个世界，
但是她的形象常浮现在我的脑海里，
在破晓前
提醒我黎明即将到来。
“
如果我 不能承担一件事，那么就是懦夫
”
I have heard her say that all my life. Now, lying in bed, coming awake in the
dark, I feel the fury of her energy fighting the good-for-nothing idler within me
who wants to go back to sleep instead of tackling the brave new day.
我一辈子老是听到他说这句话 。现在，在黑暗中醒过来，躺在床上，在我想回去
在睡觉而不是勇敢的面对新的一天时，
我便能 感受到她与一无是处的懒汉的对抗
是如此激烈
Silently I protest: I am not a child anymore I have made something of myself. I
am entitled to sleep late.
我暗暗抗议道：
我已经不是小孩子了，
我可以自己处理一些事情的，我有权利睡
迟些的
“
罗素，你还没有原木上的凸起那么进取
”
She has hounded me with these battle cries since I was a boy in short pants.
当我还是个穿着开裆裤的孩子时，他就已经用这些口号来敦促我
“
试着自己完成一些事情
”
“
不要做一个轻易放弃的人
”
“
要有一些小志向
”
The civilized man of the world within me scoffs at materialism and strivers after
success: He has read the philosophers and social critics. He thinks it is vulgar
and unworthy to spend one's life pursuing money, power, fame, and -
blow you up with.
这世界上有教养的人包括我在内，
在成功之后便嘲笑唯物 主义：
他读懂哲学家和
社会评论家。他认为穷其一生去追求金钱，权利，名声，以及
— —“
有时你表现
得你不该被这些子弹所摧毁
”
，是很肤浅也很不值得的
Life had been hard for my mother ever since her father died, leaving nothing
but debts. The family house was lost, the children scattered. My mother's
mother, fatally ill with tubercular infection, fell into a suicidal depression and
was institutionalized. My mother, who had just started college, had to quit and
look for work.
自从我父亲去世后，
生活便变得 很困难，
因为我父亲除了一笔债务什么都没有留
下。房子没有了，孩子们被分散了。我母亲的母 亲，不幸的患上了结核病，意气
消沉的想自杀并且遭受收容机构所产生的不良影响。
刚上大学的 母亲不得不辍学
去找工作
Then, after five years of marriage and three babies, her husband died in 1930,
leaving my mother so poor that she had to give up her baby Audrey for
adoption. Maybe the bravest thing she did was give up Audrey, only ten
months old, to my Uncle Tom and Aunt Goldie. Uncle Tom, one of my father's
brothers, had a good job with the railroad and could give Audrey a comfortable
life.
然后，维持五年的婚姻，她的丈夫死于
1930
年，留下和三个孩子，我的母亲很
贫 苦，
以至于他不得不把小奥德丽送给别人收养。
或许他做过最勇敢的事就是放
弃只有十 个月大的奥黛丽，
把她送给汤姆叔叔和歌迪亚婶婶。
汤姆叔叔，
我父亲
的一个 兄弟，在铁道局有一份好工作，可以提供奥黛丽舒适的生活
My mother headed off with my other sister and me to take shelter with her
brother Allen, poor relatives dependent on his goodness. She eventually found
work patching grocers' smocks at ten dollars a week in a laundry.
我母亲带着我姐姐和我去投奔他的哥哥阿伦，这个善良的穷亲戚。
他后来在一家
洗衣店找到一份工作，是缝补食品杂货商的工作服，一周 十美元
Mother would have like it better if I could have grown up to be President or a
rich businessman, but much as she loved me, she did not deceive herself.
Before I was out of primary school, she could see I lacked the gifts for either
making millions or winning the love of crowds. After that she began nudging
me toward working with words.
母亲希望我长大后可以成为总统或者富商，但是她是如此的爱我，
所以他并没有
擅自决定。
在我小学毕业前，
他就看 出了我没有能力赚上百万也没有能力万人景
仰。自此之后他便开始将我引向从事文字工作这条路
Words ran in her family. There seemed to be a word gene that passed down
from her maternal grandfather. He was a school-teacher, his daughter Lulie
wrote poetry, and his son Charlie became New York correspondent for the
Baltimore, Maryland, Herald. In the turn-of-the-century American South, still
impoverished by the Civil War, words were a way out.
文学为他的家人所 共有。好像是他母系外祖父的文学基因一代一代遗传了下来。
他是一名教师，
他的女儿陆莉写过 诗，
他的儿子查理是纽约驻马里兰州巴尔的摩
港市的先驱特约记者。世纪之交的南美，
因为民族战争而穷困潦倒，
然而从事文
字工作依然是条出路
The most spectacular proof was my mother's first cousin Edwin. He was
managing editor of the New York Times. He had traveled all over Europe,
proving that words could take you to places so glorious and so far from the
place you came from that your own kin could only gape in wonder and envy.
My mother used Edwin as an example of how far a man could go without much
talent.
最显著的证明是我母亲的大表哥爱德温。他是《纽约泰晤士报》的 总编辑。他曾
经游历整个欧洲，
证明了文学可以带你遨游壮丽的地方，
也可以带你远离 你的所
在地，是你的亲戚只有张口结舌和嫉妒的份。我母亲以爱德温为例，告诉我，一
个人就算 没有什么天资也可以很出色
my mother said, and said, and said again, so that I finally grew up thinking
Edwin James was a dull clod who had a lucky break. Maybe she left that way
about him, but she was saying something deeper. She was telling me I didn't
have to be brilliant to get where Edwin had go to, that the way to get to the top
was to work, work, work.
“
爱德温
·
詹姆斯没有比别人聪明多少，但是你看看他今天的成就。
”
我的母亲说，
说 ，反复的说，以至于我长大后，认为爱德温
·
詹姆斯是个迟钝的呆子，只不过
运气比较 好而已。
他就以这种方式来讲述他，
但是他还有更深层的意思。
他要告
诉我的 ，
不是要我像爱德温那样那么辉煌，
而是想让我知道到达顶峰的途径是工
作，工作，工 作
When my mother saw that I might have the word gift, she started trying to
make it grow. Though desperately poor, she signed up for a deal that supplied
one volume of
当我的母亲看到我拥 有文学天分时，
他开始尝试着使它有所发展。
虽然极其贫困，
但是他签了一份协议，这 份协议是每个月花
39
分供一卷名为《世界上最伟大的
文学》的书
I respected those great writers, but what I read with joy were newspapers. I
lapped up every word about monstrous crimes, dreadful accidents and
hideous butcheries committed in faraway wars. Accounts of murderers dying in
the electric chair fascinated me, and I kept close track of last meals ordered by
condemned men.
我很尊敬那些伟大的作家，
但是我喜欢的读的是报纸。
我逐字逐 句的研读那些骇
人听闻的犯罪活动，令人恐惧的事件以及可怕的杀人案。大量的凶手死于电椅，
这使我很着迷，我还记录死刑囚犯点的最后的晚餐