张保红文学翻译作业6(小说EC)-原文

Nephew from Turkey Ilyas Halil One day last year, there was a sudden knock on the door. Without warning, my nephew had arrived from Turkey! When I had last seen him, he was knee-high to a grasshopper, with timid eyes, ears like two fans, two front teeth missing, short hair and continually dirty hands. You know, the look that fits every nephew. I liked and was closely attached to him. With that knee-high-to-a-grasshopper size, he used to look up at me as if viewing a telephone pole, his amber eyes smiling and secretly making fun of me. The legs sticking out of his short pants were a little crooked. Though his eyes were straight, he appeared a bit cross-eyed. I felt sorry when I looked at himand I never got angry with him or hit him. When we talked, he seemed to have a weight on his shoulders and appeared offended. When he was guilty, this attribute definitely worsened. His eyes grew moist and his voice softened to where he could hardly be heard; it trembled like a leaf. Those who saw him, thought him an orphan and felt sorry. They felt like putting their hands in their pockets and giving him some spending money or candy. In spite of my hitting my other nephews for any old thing, this one I couldnt touch. I loved the little son of a gun!At home, no matter who got angry, our nephew managed to keep his distance. If you spoke to him, he didnt reply. If he did answer, it was quietly. Even if you hit him, he was quiet. When taking a beating, instead of increasing, his wailing decreased. Thus, the anger of who ever was beating him turned to compassion and the boy was saved from further punishment. Only much later did I come to this conclusion. When talking with others I observed that our lad had neither crooked legs, cross-eyes nor big ears hanging like fig leaves. Furthermore, when he got mad, he knew how to yell his head off. It was only when he detected danger that his legs went crooked, his ears grew and his eyes crossed.I hadnt seen my nephew for the fifteen years since I had emigrated to Canada. He had become a strapping young man, handsome and strong! After bidding him welcome, I asked a few questions about what he planned to do.“What job will you take, Nephew?“Golly, Uncle, Ill do any job there is. Nothing will get away from me. Just say it, Ill do it. Ive done everything! Ive been a carpenter, electrician, peddler, shoemaker, tailor, auto mechanic; you want more? Ive been all of these!”“Too bad! So you didnt get the chance to go to college?”“What kind of talk is that, Uncle! I finished law school.”“Very well, my boy, but how did you find time to do all these things? Youre only twenty-three years old! How did you manage all these jobs and still go to college?”“Uncle, dont worry about the details! Just eat the grapes and dont ask about the vineyard! If you dont believe me, show me a broken electric sewing machine, radio, electric shaver or a juicer and Ill repair it. You cant tell a suit Ive reversed the cloth on from a new one. If I turn that handkerchief pocket over it will look real sharp! Its not hard to sell old clothes for new! If its food you want, let me cook for you today! See if what I cook isnt so delicious you cant eat enough of it? The flavor will stay on your palate a hundred years! Theres nothing I dont know, Uncle!”I saw that our boy certainly had learned “to shoot the bull.” Ive heard of all types but never one like this. The boy was a walking trades guild! Furthermore, he had studied law! Be logical, I thought to myself. If a person spent two years learning each job, it would take fifty years to learn all these professions. “Somethings rotten in Denmark.” Itll probably surface later!“What job can you get here? Forget law for now. The source of Canadian law is not Roman law. Napoleonic Civil Law isnt in effect here, either, ” I told him.“Napoleonic Law? Whats that? We didnt study such law.”“You mean you dont know who Napoleon was?”“No,” replied our nephew.“So-o-o, what kind of history did you study?“Ordinary history, Uncle! Only we didnt have a history teacher. A captain came to our class, a history buff from the nearby regiment. He gave us lots of lessons on soldiering and the repair of weapons. Because of him, I became a Number One gunsmith. Bring whatever you want! Blindfolded, I can take apart a machine gun and assemble it again, I can even repair heavy tanks. If you want, Ill make you a pistol form a water pipe! I know lots about weapons. Our captain used to say, “After you know weapons, you make history yourself. Theres no need to learn history someone else has made!” I dont know who defeated whom in battle nor what year. What do I care? Would that make me powerful? Its hot air! Nah! If this right arm is strong, OK, forget the rest!”“Very well, Nephew! Tomorrow, lets go to the capital and register you at the embassy.”“Are we going to Washington, Uncle?”“Come on, is Washington the capital of Canada？Who taught you geography, my boy?”“O-hoh, Uncle, look at the question you asked. Gee, in a lifetime, who is going to ask me the capital of Canada? Instead of that, I learned more useful things! If your coat gets torn today will knowledge about Canada save you expense? Or is knowledge of sewing needed? Tell me, Uncle! The things our geography teacher taught us are always useful. After our schools geography teacher, Omer Temel, left to open a grocery store, the town tailor, Kasim Effendi, who knew how to read and write, came to teach the geography class. He taught us for six years. We learned a lot! Every year, we turned the cloth on two suits of clothes. We patched and learned to press! We learned how to sew trousers. Our teacher said, “Learn this and in life youll never go hungry. Instead of memorizing the names of infidel foreign cities, or learning their rivers, learn something useful! Whats that knowledge good for except to climb mountains and tear up your shoes? For what God-awful reason do you learn the population of Berlin or London? Doesnt the number change every year? Not only every year, it changes every day, every hour! Thousands of people die, are born, come and goDont those geographers have any brains? They never get tired of giving false figures to the students.”“Tailor Kasim Effendi used to say, “Now see! Look at Haydar, the literature teachers house, then mine! Tell me now, whose knowledge is the most useful? Haydar Bey writes poetry, but hes hungry; so whats the use of this knowledge? Come and see whose knowledge provides more bread, butter and honey. Come and see who lives more comfortably. Pay attention to what I say! Learn what I show you and you wont eat bread without butter and honey!”I listened to my nephew in amazement. What he said was probably true. I compared my situation with his. There was a chasm between us! I was a graduate history teacher, fifty-three years old. For the past fifteen years Ive continued at the university every winter learning new things. Every year, I realize how far behind I am! In spite of this, in the same place, like a donkeys tail, I teach on and on, hoping for better things! With this way of life it seems Im getting nowhere.“Very well, my boy, hows your mathematics?” I asked.“Hot as a pistol, Uncle. Not a thing wrong with it! We learned mathematics from its origin. There was no one better than our teacher. If you searched all of Turkey, you truly couldnt find a better teacher. Mison came to us for math. He was the accountant for a big institution. He taught us how to count money, put the excess in the safe and to bargain.“He impressed on us the fine points of addition and subtraction. For example: when buying a product, addition is one thing when selling, something else. Its the same with subtraction! Not everyone knows these fine points. Mison is a man who gives the government the run-around. He prepares tax returns every year and its impossible to find a mistake in them. The government offered him thousands of lira: Come and be our Minister of Finance! He didnt accept. Im just a servant to free principles! he replied. Truly, he was a modest man. Its too bad we couldnt learn multiplication and division form him. But never mind, Ill handle the situation with addition and subtraction. Thank God, I havent been cheated yet.”“All right, son, didnt you have difficulty in college with such a two-bit education?“What difficulty, Uncle? The teachers had the difficulty from us. It was really easy for us. At this time I learned auto repair. In the second year of law, our professor of International Law was sick and didnt come to class the whole year. During those class periods, I went to the garage across from the university and worked. I did auto repairs. American tourists used to bring their cars to the garage. So I learned foreign money and exchange in addition to improving my knowledge of English. That year I earned as much as a professor.”I was becoming more and more interested. This was a philosophy of education unfamiliar to me. They were educating students in an atmosphere conforming to the goings-on in the world.“OK, son, what did you learn carpentry in place of?“I didnt learn it in place of anything, Uncle! When our professor of Civil Law suddenly died at the beginning of the school year, I worked at a carpentry shop to fill my spare time. Uncle, I have no regrets that I learned this. I built our house. Foundation, walls, ceiling, furniture-I made everything. Too bad I didnt stay there longer.“Six months later, a teacher came to our college of Medicine, a specialist in internal medicine. From him, I picked up many facts related to civil law. Hed been in the College of Medicine when one of his teachers died; a professor of Civil Law then came to teach them. So thats how he learned a great deal about law. That year he also increased our knowledge of health. If someone gets sick at home, I understand their condition, more or less. I know how to administer aspirin and quinine. Working on cruise ships, I measured blood pressure for two seasons and made lots of money. I was just about to become a doctor!”My nephews treasury of knowledge knew no bounds. He had learned something about everything. In Canada, he worked on and off He couldnt hold a job anywhere. Everything he did was third-rate, so they gave him the gate. One day, we found that hed packed up his stuff and returned to Turkey. According to our latest news, in one year the boy became a millionaire.We correspond. In every letter he says, “Work hard on your university courses, Ha!”The Lemon LadyKatitiWe called her the Lemon Lady because of the sour-puss face she always presented to the public and because she grew the finest lemons we had ever seen, on two huge trees in her front garden. We often wondered why she looked so sour and how she grew such lemons -but we could find out nothing about her. She was an old lady-at least 70 years of age, at a guess, perhaps more. One day we answered an advertisement for a flat to rent, as we had been asked to leave ours as soon as we could, and when we went to the address given, it was the house of the Lemon Lady.She didnt unfreeze during the whole of our interview. She said the flat would not be ready for occupation for about a month; that she had 45 names on her list and might add more before it was ready and then she would just select the people to suit her best. She was not antagonistic, just firm and austere, and I gathered that we were not likely to be the ones selected. As my husband and I were leaving, I said, How do you grow those wonderful lemons? She gave a wintry smile, which transformed her whole expression and made her look sweet and somehow pitiful. I do grow nice lemons, she replied. We went on to tell her how much we had always admired them every time we had passed, and she opened up and told us quite a lot about this fruit. “You know the general theory of pruning, I suppose? She asked. Oh, said my husband, I understand about pruning fruit trees and roses, but you must not prune lemons, or so I understand. He added these last words when he saw from the Lemon Ladys expression that he had said the wrong thing. No, said the Lemon Lady, you must not prune lemons unless you want them to grow like mine. What is the reason for pruning? Well, to cut off dead or diseased wood; to prevent one branch chafing another; to let the sunlight into the center of the bush and to promote the growth of the more virile buds. Very nicely put, said the Lemon Lady. And why do you think that lemons are better with dead or diseased wood on them; why should you not let sunlight into them; why should allowing many sickly buds to develop make it a healthier tree? I hadnt thought about it at all, confessed my husband rather shame-facedly, as he prides himself on being an original thinker, and here he was allowing an old lady to out-think him. Everyone here said you mustnt prune lemons, so I thought it must be right. We thanked her for the information and left, on much better terms with her than we would have ever thought possible. We even felt quite a degree of affection towards her. In the course of the next three weeks we saw several places that might have been to let but which for various reasons we could not get. Eventually we got a place that suited us very well and I returned to tell the Lemon Lady that we would not be needing her flat. She was very nice and gave me afternoon tea. She said in her precise and careful style, Im glad you have a house for your own sake and for the sake of your little boy, because a flat is no place for a child, especially a boy. But for my own sake, Im very sorry. I had decided to let you have the flat because I think we could have got on very well together and because you liked my lemons. As I left, she handed me a bag with two huge lemons in it. They were the most magnificent I have ever seen-huge and without blemish, and two were all the load I would care to carry. As I looked back from the gate and saw her sweet smile, I wondered why we had called her the Lemon Lady. As my husband said to me afterwards, No one could do anything so well as she grew those lemons, without being very proud of the accomplishment, and our touching on them was a good point in psychology. We have used that idea to good effect several times since then. At the house we did rent was a decayed, dying old lemon tree with the woodlice playing havoc with the remnant of its body. My husband shook his head sadly as he gazed at it. Too late for treatment, Im afraid, he said, but he set to and pruned it ruthlessly. We were in that house for four years and from the second year onward, we each had the juice of a lemon every morning, and when we left we took with us two 60-pound cases of lemons from the tree, and after we left a friend wrote and asked why we had not picked the lemons before we left. We still call her the Lemon Lady, but the term is now one of pure affection. Hate (Excerpt)Hendrik Willem Van LoonSuddenly the war was over, and Hitler was captured and brought to Amsterdam. A military tribunal condemned him to death. But how should he die? To shoot or hang him seemed too quick, too merciful. Then someone uttered what was in everybodys mind: the man who had caused such incredible suffering should be burned to death.But, objected one judge, our biggest public square in Amsterdam holds only 10,000 people, and 7,000,000 Dutch men, women and children will want to be there to curse him during his dying moments.Then another judge had an idea. Hitler should be burned at the stake, but the wood was to be ignited by the explosion of a handful of gunpowder set off by a long fuse which should start in Rotterdam and follow the main road to Amsterdam by way of Delft, The Hague, Leiden and Haarlem. Thus millions of people crowding the wide avenues which connect those cities could watch the fuse burn its way northward to Herr Hitlers funeral pyre.A plebiscite was taken as to whether this was a fitting punishment. There was 4,981,076 yeas and one nay. The nay was voted by a man who preferred that Hitler be pulled to pieces by four horses.At last the great day came. The ceremony commenced at four oclock on a June morning. The mother of three sons who had been shot by the Nazis for an act of sabotage they did not commit set fire to the fuse while a choir sang a solemn hymn of gratitude. Then the people burst forth into a shout of triumph.The spark slowly made its way from Rotterdam to Delft, and on toward the great square in Amsterdam. People had come from every part of the country. Special seats had been provided for the aged and the lame and the relatives of murdered hostage.Hitler, clad in a long yellow shirt, had been chained to the stake. He preserved a stoical silence until a little boy climbed upon the pile of wood surrounding the former Fuhrer and placed there a placard which read, This is the worlds greatest murderer. This so aggravated Hitlers pent-up feelings that he burst into one of his old harangues.The crowd gaped, for it was a grotesque sight to see this little man ranting away just as if he were addressing his followers. Then a terrific howl of derision silenced him.Now came the great moment of the day. About three oclock in the afternoon the spark reached the outskirts of Amsterdam. Suddenly there was a roll of drums. Then, with an emotion such as they had never experienced before, the people sang the Wilhelmus, the national anthem. Hitler, now ashen-gray, futilely strained at his chains.Wh