Natural Environment(1).doc

（1）Natural EnvironmentNew York As I See it纽约之我见My first impressions of the skyscrapers in New York were a definite anticlimax. Like the pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt they are over publicized and take fantastic proportion in the minds of people who have seen them. My first impressions of both are identical: “Not bigger than that!” But soon I was caught by the special fascination of New York, that strange city with its Mediterranean faces and its cold, efficient, Nordic soul. In no other city do the human types more remind one of Naples, Tel Aviv or Cairo. But these Mediterranean faces are without the warm, sensitive and passionate Mediterranean soul. The predominantly dark faces are, as it were, a disguise, for the soul behind them remind one of London and Berlin. The soul of New York is cold and indifferent, and brutally efficient, like the soul of Northern Europe. Cities like Rome or Paris or Vienna somehow seem to return ones love but New York does not. And yet it seems to me, paradoxically, eminently lovable and sometimes painfully beautiful, like a dazzling but aloof woman.There is no other city in the world where one can feel more delightfully and absolutely alone in New York, for in no other city are people more indifferent toward each other. In other great cities in the world there are people who are at least interested in other peoples wallets, or curious about each other for various reasons. Not so in New York, where the inhabitants not only ignore each other, but seem to look through each other, which is still a step father in the gradations of indifference. If somebody ignores you, he is still somehow ware of you, and you have at least a negative importance. But if he looks straight through you, as though you were invisible, you eventually begin to wonder if you really still cast a shadow.（from Selected Readings in English by Gunnar D. Kumlien）anticlimax 令人扫兴，兴趣骤降，虎头蛇尾over publicize过度宣传proportion比例，部分identical同一的，不变的，相似的Mediterranean地中海式的Nordic北欧日耳曼民族的sensitive敏感的passionate热情奔放的predominantly绝大多数地，普遍地disguise伪装，假装indifferent冷漠的，无动于衷的brutally残忍地，蛮横地paradoxically自相矛盾地，似是而非地eminently出众地，超凡的dazzling漂亮迷人的，令人眩惑的aloof冷淡的，清高的absolutely绝对地inhabitant居住者gradation等级，程序Sphinx狮身人面像Naples那不勒斯Tel Aviv特拉维夫Cairo开罗Which is still a step farther in the gradations of indifference. 就冷漠程度而论是更进了一步。Kirkwall柯克沃尔Kirkwall was a town of ineffable delight. By comparison with the isolation of the Island it was all bustle and excitement.The narrow paved streets on which pedestrians, horse drawn vehicles and cars all made their way together were lined with brightly lit shop windows. In the harbor great ships lay at anchor bearing the names of faraway places like Aberdeen and even Leith; and, most exciting of all, up at the far end of the main street, sheltered by the buildings, there grew a tree! A tree was something so exotic in our experience that whenever we visited Kirkwall we could hardly wait to rush up the street to see if it was still there. It would not have surprised us if a panther had lurked among its branches waiting to pounce down on an unwary passer-by or if brightly plumaged parrots had hopped from twig to twig.(From Against the Wind by Douglas Sutherland)ineffable无法表达的，不可言喻的bustle忙碌，熙熙攘攘at anchor抛锚泊定船只exotic奇异的，异乎寻常的panther豹lurk潜伏，埋伏pounce猛扑，突然袭击unwary不注意的，不警惕的plumage长有羽毛hop齐足跳Piccadilly before Dawn黎明前的皮卡迪利大街Piccadilly before dawn. After the stir and ceaseless traffic of the day, the silence of Piccadilly early in the morning, in the small hours, seems barely credible. It is unnatural and rather ghostly. The great street in its emptiness has a sort of solemn broadness, descending in a majestic sweep with the assured and stately ease of a placid river. The are is pure and limpid, but resonant, so that a solitary cab suddenly sends the whole street ringing, and the heavy pace of the horse resounds with long reverberations. Impressive because of their regularity, the electric lights, self-assertive and brazen, flood the surroundings with a strong and snowy brightness; with a kind of indifferent violence they cast their light upon the huge silent houses, and lower down throw into distinctness the long evenness of the park railings and the nearer trees. And between, outshone, like an uneven string of discolored gems, twinkles the yellow flicker of the gas jets.There is silence everywhere, but the houses are quiet and still with a different silence form the rest, standing very white but for the black gaping of the many windows. In their sleep, closed and bolted, they line the pavement, helplessly as it were, disordered and undignified, having lost all significance without the busy hum of human voices and the hurrying noise of persons passing in and out.(Adapted for Piccadilly Before Dawn by W. Somerset Maugham)ceaseless不停的，无休止的ghostly如同幽灵般的majestic雄伟的，壮丽的sweep范围，区域stately庄严的，雄伟的placid平静温和的limpid清澈透明的resonant回响的，共鸣的resound回响，充满声音reverberation回声self-assertive自作主张的brazen黄铜色的gem宝石twinkle闪烁，闪耀flicker忽隐忽现gaping洞开bolted上了闩的undignified不威严的，不庄重的Lisbon, Portugal葡萄牙里斯本The cleanness of Lisbon is dazzling. In January, the steep stone streets are washed several times daily by sudden tropical showers, and Nature is assisted by street-cleaners with brooms made of twigs. The Portuguese have a green thumb. Lisbon, in winter, is brilliant with orange calendulas, blooming everywhere, together with geraniums and succulents; oranges and lemons dangle form trees in the walled gardens like bright Christmas balls, the orange matching the orange sails of the little fishing boats on the blue Tagus. The seasons at this time of year are all awry. Autumn is present in the calendulas and oranges; spring in the first wicker baskets of camellias that come down form the nearby mountains to the florist shops; summer lingers in a few exhausted petunias; winterlast January, at leastcame for a day in a fall of snow, which brought the population, marveling, out into the streets to touch it. As the new year gets under way, everything is growing, all at once; even the old tile roofs have windfall crops of grass and yellow mustard, which, if you look down from a window, over the rooftops to the Tagus, make the whole city seem fertile a sort of semitropical paradise that combines the exuberance of the south, with the huge palms in the public squares, the oranges and the monumental statuary, and the neatness and precision of the north, seen in the absence of dirt and litter, the perfectly kept public gardens and belvederes, the black-and-white mosaic patterns (ships and ropes and anchors) of the sidewalks, and the bright tiles of so many house fronts, painted in green-and-white diamond or pink roses or solid Dutch blues and yellows.Lisbon is a city built on hills, like San Francisco, and it is full of beautiful prospects, of which every advantage has been taken. It is designed, so to speak, for a strolling tourist, at sunset, to ensconce himself in a belvedere and gaze out over the Tagus, down to the pink-and-white dome of the Basilica of Estrela, or across a ravine of buff and pink and gold building to the old fortress of Sao Jorge.(from On the Contrary by Mary McCarthy)calendula金盏花geranium天竺葵花succulent肉质植物dangle悬垂awry歪曲的，不对头的wicker柳条编制的camellia山茶花florist花商petunia矮牵牛花windfall被风吹落的exuberance繁茂，茂盛statuary雕像，塑像belvedere观景台，了望台mosaic马赛克的ensconce隐蔽，置身于ravine沟壑，深谷buff暗黄色的，米色的fortress堡垒，要塞Oxford Street after Bombing轰炸后的牛津街Early September morning in Oxford Street. The smell of charred dust hangs on what should be crystal pure air. Sun, just up, floods the once more innocent sky, strikes silver balloons and the intact building-tops. The whole length of Oxford Street, west to east, is empty, looks polished like ballroom, glitters with smashed glass. Down the distances, natural mists of morning are brown with the last of smoke. Fumes still come from the shell of a shop. At this is now the enormous thing it appears to amaze the street. Sections and blocks have been roped off; there is no traffic; the men in the helmets say not a person may pass (but some sneak through). Besides the high explosives that did the work, this quarter has been seeded with time bombs so we are headed, waiting for those to go off. This is the top of Oxford Street, near where it joins the corner of Hyde Park at Marble Arch.We people have come up out of the ground, or out from the bottom floors of the damaged houses: we now see what we heard happen throughout the night.(from London, 1940 by Elizabeth Bowen)charred烧成炭的crystal如水晶般清澈的，透明的intact未受损的，完整的polished打磨过的，发光的ballroom舞厅glitter闪耀，发光smashed砸碎的fume烟雾shell骨架，建筑处壳gas main煤气总管道rope off用强围起helmet头盔explosive炸药，爆炸物quarter住宅区，地区time bomb定时炸弹herd聚集在一起，成群Dusk黄昏小景Norman Cortsby sat on a bench in the Park, with his back to strip of bush-planted sward, fenced by the park carriage drive. Hyde Park Corner, with its rattle and hoot of traffic, lay immediately to his right. It was some thirty minutes past six on an early March evening, and dusk had fallen heavily over the scene, dusk mitigated by some faint moonlight and many street lamps. There was a wide emptiness over road and sidewalk, and yet there were many unconsidered figures moving silently through the half-light or dotted unobtrusively on bench and chair, scarcely to be distinguished from the shadowed gloom in which they sat.The scene pleased Gortsby and harmonized with his present mood. Dusk, to his mind, was the hour of the defeated. Men and women, who had fought and lost, who hid their fallen fortunes and dead hopes as far as possible form the scrutiny of the curious, came forth in this hour of gloaming, when their shabby clothes and bowed shoulders and unhappy eyes might pass unnoticed, or, at any rate, unrecognized.The wanderers in the dusk did not choose to have strange looks fasten on them, therefore they came out in this bat-fashion, taking their pleasure sadly in a pleasure-ground that had emptied of its rightful occupants. Beyond the sheltering screen of bushed and palings came a realm of brilliant light and noisy, rushing traffic. A blazing, many-tiered stretch of windows shone through the dusk and almost dispersed it, marking the haunts of those other people, who held their own in lifes struggle, or at any rate had not had to admit failure. So Gortsbys imagination pictured things as he sat on his bench in the almost deserted walk.（Adapted from Dusk by Saki）sward草地，草皮rattle吵闹，喧嚣声hoot汽车喇叭声mitigate缓和，减轻unobtrusively不显眼地，不引人注目地harmonize with与。一致，和谐scrutiny仔细查看gloaming黄昏，薄暮shabby破旧的，褴褛的bat-fashion蝙蝠式昼伏夜出occupant占有者，享用者palings栅栏，篱笆blazing灯火辉煌的many-tiered多层的disperse驱散的，使分流A Dry World干旱之地Pale, dry, baked earth, that blows into dust of fine sand. Low hills of baked pale earth, sinking heavily, and speckled sparsely with dark dots of cedar bushes. A river on the plain of drought, just a cleft of dark, reddish-brown water, almost a flood. And over all, the blue, uneasy, alkaline sky.A pale, uneven, parched world, where a motor-car rocks and lurches and churns in sand. A world pallid with dryness, in human with a faint taste of alkali. Like driving in the bed of a great sea that dried up unthinkable ages ago, and now is drier than any other dryness, yet still reminiscent of the bottom of the sea, sand hills sinking, and straight, cracked mesas, like cracks in the dry-mud bottom of the sea.So the mud church standing discreetly outside, just outside the pueblo, not to see too much. And on its faade of mud, under the timbered mud-eaves, two speckled horses rampant,