Unit 04 The man in the water 译文.doc

Lesson SixText A水里那个人The Man in the Water和一般灾难相比，这次灾难非常可怕，但并不特殊，肯定也不是美国有记录的最悲惨的堕机事件之一。As disasters go, this one was terrible, but not unique, certainly not among the worst U. S. air crashes on record.当然，不同寻常的有那座桥，还有飞机是在交通高峰期撞到桥上。另外，还有这个事件发生的地点。There was the unusual element of the bridge, of course, and the fact that the plane hit it at a moment of high traffic. Then, too, there was the location of the event.华盛顿这个布局合理、井然有序的城市，由于寒冬一阵突如其来的强劲气流和金属之间的剧烈碰撞而陷入混乱之中。Washington, the city of form and rules, turned chaotic by a blast of real winter and a single slap of metal on metal.从华盛顿国家机场起飞的喷气客机，通常会像饥饿的海鸥一样绕着总统纪念建筑物飞过。眼下，这架坠落的飞机成了它们的代表。The jets from Washington National Airport that normally fly around the presidential monuments like hungry gulls are, for the moment represented by the one that fell.而且还有给人以美感的撞击蓝绿相间的佛罗里达航空公司（“佛罗里达航空公司”字面意思是“飞翔的花园”）的飞机，沉入了黑色的河流中，被灰色的巨大冰块所包围。And there was the aesthetic clash as wellblue-and-green Air Florida, the name of a flying garden, sunk down among grey chunks of ice in a black river.Florida出自词根flo(u)r-，意为“花”。例如：floral花的，floret小花，florid华丽的，florist花匠，florescence花期，floriculture花的培养，flourish繁荣herb=grass草：herbicide除草剂佛罗里达州的名称来自西班牙语Florida，其意义是“多花的地方”。佛罗里达州的名称来自西班牙语，西班牙航海家胡安庞塞德莱昂在1513年4月2 日，发现这片地方。时值西班牙人称为Pascua Florida（花的复活节）的节日，所以此地被德莱昂命名为La Florida。确实，所有那些事情都值得注意。All that was worth noticing, to be sure.然而，除了死亡，事件中没有什么很特别的。死亡虽然总是很特别，但也不是一定会引起成千上万的人哭泣或注意。Still, there was nothing very special in any of it, except death, which, while always special, does not necessarily bring the nation to tears or to attention. 那么，为什么这次事件中我们受到巨大的震动呢？Why, then, the shock here?也许是因为在这场灾难里面，全国人民所看到的不仅仅是机器故障。Perhaps because the nation saw in this disaster something more than a mechanical failure.也许是因为在里面人们看到的根本不是失败（故障），而是他们自己的成功。Perhaps because people saw in it no failure at all, but rather something successful about themselves.这次事件中，毕竟有两种形式的自然力量相撞了，那就是恶劣的天气和人的品质。Here, after all, were two forms of nature in collision: the elements and human character.上周三，与平时一样冷漠的恶劣天气，将90次班机击落下来。Last Wednesday, the elements, indifferent as ever, brought down Flight 90.在同一个下午，人的品质搜索着，挣扎着奋起应对这个（艰难）时刻。On that same afternoon, human naturegroping and strugglingrose to the occasion.（牛津）rise to the occasion, challenge, task, etc挺身而出处理危机、迎接挑战、完成任务等的能力这次事件中公认的四位英雄里，有三位能够为他们的行为做出解释。Of the four acknowledged heroes of the event, three are able to account for their behavior.公园巡警直升机机组人员唐纳德厄舍和尤金温莎每一次将飞机的起落架贴近水面，拉起幸存者时，都要冒着失去生命的危险。Donald Usher and Eugene Windsor, a park police helicopter team, risked their lives every time they dipped their skids into the water to pick up survivors.在电视节目里，他们肩并肩地坐着，把自己的勇气完全描绘成是职责所在。On television, side by side, they described their courage as all in the line of duty.勒尼斯库尼克是一名28岁的国会预算办公室的雇员，他说：“那样的事我从来没想过会去做”他指的是跳入水中将一个受伤的妇女拖到岸上。Lenny Skutnik, a 28-year-old employee of the Congressional Budget Office, said, Its something I never thought I would doreferring to his jumping into the water to drag an injured woman to shore.斯库尼克又说道：“总是有人要下水的”。他说了每个英雄都会说得话，这话并不因为重复多遍而不受敬仰。Skutnik added that somebody had to go in water, delivering every heros line that is no less admirable for being repeated.I did not marry her because I loved her. 因为爱她，我没和她结婚。/ 我和她结婚并不是因为爱她。（两个译文都可以，要看上下文决定）He is very sad not because his younger sister disappeared.他很悲伤，并不是因为他妹妹失踪了。/ 他并不是因为妹妹失踪了而悲伤。 这句话也可以说成：He is not very sad because his younger sister disappeared.A：他很悲伤，并不是因为他妹妹失踪了。（）B：因为妹妹失踪了，他不是很悲伤。（X）He was not absent from the meeting because he was ill.A：他没来开会并不是因为病了。（）B：因为他病了，所以没缺席会议。（X）She is not learning English very well because she is slow-witted.A：她英语学得很好，并不是因为她脑子迟钝。（X）B：她英语学得不很好，因为她脑子迟钝。（）Dont give up because it is difficult.We should not despise a man because he is poor.Please do not look down upon your classmate because he is backward in learning.Dont be vain because youre good-looking.The seed does not complain because there are stones in its way.（谚）种子不因有石头挡路而抱怨。实际上，没有人必须跳入水中。有人确实这样做了，这就是这个特殊的悲剧能铭刻在人们心中的部分原因。In fact, nobody had to go into the water. That somebody actually did so is part of the reason this particular tragedy sticks in the mind.但是，有一个人是这次灾难带来的情感冲击的最重要原因，最初，他仅仅被叫做“水里的那个人”。But the person most responsible for the emotional impact of the disaster is the one known at first simply as the man in the water.他正在谢顶，可能是50多岁，上唇留着浓密的胡子。Balding, probably in his 50s, a huge mustache.人们看见他与另外五个幸存者紧紧地抓着机尾部分。He was seen clinging with five other survivors to the tail section of the airplane据厄舍和温莎的描述，这个人看上去非常警觉、镇定。This man was described by Usher and Windsor as appearing alert and in control.他们每次放下救生索和救生圈的时候，他都把它传递给其他的乘客。Every time they lowered a lifeline and flotation ring to him, he passed it on to another of the passengers.在伤亡惨重的事故中，你能发现像他那样的人，但我从未见过具有那样的奉献精神的人。In a mass casualty, youll find people like him, but Ive never seen one with that commitment.直升飞机飞回来救他时，他已经沉到了水下。When the helicopter came back for him the man had gone under.他的无私精神是这个故事受到全国关注的一个原因，而另一个原因是大家都不知道他的名字。His selflessness was one reason the story held national attention; his anonymity another.他不为大家所知这样一个事实，赋予他一种带有普遍性的特征。The fact that he went unidentified gave him a universal character.一时间，他成了每一个普通人的化身，这样便证明（好像人们需要这个证明）没有人是普通的。For a while he was Everyman, and thus proof (as if one needed it) that no man is ordinary.然而，他可能从没想象过自己身上具有这样的能力。Still, he could never haveimagined such a capacity in himself.就在他的品质被考验的几分钟前，他正与普通的乘客一起，坐在这架普通的飞机上，听着空姐告诉他系好安全带，说一些关于“禁止吸烟”的标志的事。Only minutes before his character was tested, he was sitting in the ordinary plane among the ordinary passengers, listening to the stewardess telling him to fasten his seat belt and saying something about the no smoking sign.于是，我们说的这个人和其他人一起放松下来，而他们中间的一些人将要因为他而保住了性命。So our man relaxed with the others, some of whom would owe their lives to him.也许，他开始看起书来，或者开始打盹，或者为那天早上他在办公室里说的严厉的话而后悔。Perhaps he started to read, or to doze, or to regret some harsh remark made in the office that morning.接着，他突然意识到这次旅行将会不同寻常。Then suddenly he knew that the trip would not be ordinary. 像航班上的所有其他人一样，他也拼命地想活下来，这使得他最后的行为那么令人震惊。Like every other person on that flight, he was desperate to live, which makes his final act so stunning.在水里的某个时间里，他肯定意识到了，如果他继续把绳子和救生圈让给别人的话，他将不会活下来。For some moment in the water he must have realized that he would not live if he continued to hand over the rope and ring to others.他必须意识到了这一点，不管寒冷的作用是多么缓慢。他感觉自己别无选择。He had to know it, no matter how slow the effect of the cold.He felthe had no choice.当直升飞机带着最后一个幸存者离开时，他看着这个世界的一切离他而去，他任由这一切发生了。When the helicopter tookoff with what was to be the last survivor, he watchedeverything in the worldmove awayfrom him, and he let it happen.但是，在我们这个人身上，还有一些事情让我们当时对他念念不忘，现在仍然念念不忘。Yet there was something else about our man that kept our thoughts on him, and which keeps our thoughts on him still.他就在那里，那种重要的、典型的情况中。是人在自然中。是那个人在那一片水中。He was there, in the essential, classic circumstance. Man in nature. The man in the water.就大自然而言，它根本不关心那五位乘客。而另一方面，我们的那个人却把他们都放在心上。For its parts, nature cared nothing about the five passengers. Our man, on the other hand, cared totally.于是，人与自然的古老战斗在波托马克河上又一次开始了。So the age-old battle began again in the Potomac.只要那人还有一口气，他们就会厮打在一起，一方是大自然，另一方是人。一方不分善恶，不根据原则行事，不管人的死活，而另一方则完全明辨是非，遵循原则，或许还坚持信仰。For as long as that man could last, they went at each other, nature and man; the one making no distinction of good and evil, acting on no principles, offering no lifelines; the other acting wholly on distinctions, principles and, perhaps, on faith.既然他输掉了这场战斗，我们会再次得出结论，认为人在这个地球上是无能为力的。Since it was he who lost the fight, we ought to come again to the conclusion that people are powerless in the world.而实际上，我们所相信的恰恰相反。正是水里那个人的行为，让我们想起了这个事件中我们真实的感觉。In reality, we believe the opposite, and it takes the act of the man in the water to remind us of our true feelings in this matter.take：需要It takes two men to do this.做这项工作需要两个人。Itll take a long time for her to recover from the illness. 她的病要很长时间才能痊愈. It would take a strong man to lift that weight. 身强力壮的人才能举得起那么重的东西. That cut is taking a long time to heal. 那伤口要很长时间才能愈合. 这并不是说，每个人都会像他那样做，或者像厄舍、温莎和斯库尼克那样做。It is not to say that everyone would have acted as he did, or as Usher, Windsor and Skutnik.然而，无论是什么力量驱使这些人代表同胞们去挑战死亡，这力量都不为他们所独有。Yet whatever moved these men to challenge death on behalf of their fellows is not peculiar to them.每个人都能感到自己身上有这种可能性。这就是这个故事的永久魅力。这就是我们不会忘记它的原因。Everyone feels the possibility in himself. Thatistheenduring wonder of the story.That i