現(xiàn)代英文選評：Emergency Landing 緊急著陸

Emergency Landing 緊急著陸

John Cheever (1912—1982)

本文原題“The Country Husband”是一篇很長的短篇小說，和前面的“Bachelor of Arts”一樣，原載《1955年美國短篇小說佳作選》。

作者約翰·契弗是美國久享盛名的短篇小說作家，長篇小說也寫了好幾部。他是麻薩諸塞州人，曾在紐約Barnard College任教。

本文主要是描寫一個“鄉(xiāng)村丈夫”的各種人生問題以及夫婦之間的關(guān)系。這里所選的幾段，是全文的開頭，讀者拿它當(dāng)作普通敘事文讀可也。

The airplane from Minneapolis in which Francis Weed was travelling East ran into heavy weather. The sky had been a hazy blue, with the clouds below the plane lying so close together that nothing could be seen of the earth. Then mist began to form outside the windows, and they flew into a white cloud of such density that it reflected the exhaust fires. The color of the cloud darkened to gray, and the plane began to rock.

● Minneapolis：美國中西部明尼蘇達(dá)州的一個大城。East：美國的東部，這里用作副詞，等于eastward。heavy weather：陰沉沉的天氣，惡劣氣候。

● The sky had been：注意動詞時態(tài)。過去完成式表示此事已成“過去”。hazy：氣象報告里的“曇”。

● mist：比haze更進(jìn)一層。hazy不過表示天氣不夠清明，視野不夠遠(yuǎn)。mist是“霧氣”。they flew中的they泛無所指（語法家是不贊成這種用法的），大約是代表這群旅客。

● density：密度。exhaust fires：飛機(jī)后面排氣管exhaust pipe里所噴出來的火。這種火旅客平常是看不見的，但是現(xiàn)在白云厚密，排氣不甚舒暢，把火光反射回來，旅客也可以看見云中的隱隱紅光了。exhaust在這里是名詞，解作“排泄”，轉(zhuǎn)作形容詞用。

● rock：搖擺。

Francis had been in heavy weather before, but had never been shaken up so much. The man in the seat beside him pulled a flask out of his pocket and took a drink. Francis smiled at his neighbor, but the man looked away; he wasn't sharing his painkiller with anyone.

● flask：酒瓶。sharing：與人共享。painkiller：本解作“止痛劑”。這里是酒或解憂劑。

The plane had begun to drop and flounder wildly. A child was crying. The air in the cabin was overheated and stale, and Francis' left foot went to sleep. He read a little from a paper book that he had bought at the airport, but the violence of the storm divided his attention.

● drop：往下落。flounder：顛簸。cabin：艙房。stale：混濁。went to sleep：麻木。

● A child was crying：短句子，但有此一句增加了緊張的氣氛，文章就特別有神。

● a paper book：紙面小書。airport：機(jī)場。divided his attention：分散他的注意力。

It was black outside the ports. The exhaust fires blazed and shed sparks in the dark, and, inside, the shaded lights, the stuffiness, and the window curtains gave the cabin an atmosphere of intense and misplaced domesticity. Then the lights flickered and went out. "You know what I've always wanted to do?" the man beside Francis said suddenly. "I've always wanted to buy a farm in New Hampshire and raise beef cattle."

● ports：窗洞。port或porthole本來是船上的窗洞，這里借作飛機(jī)上的窗洞。

● blazed：發(fā)強(qiáng)烈的火光。shed sparks：發(fā)火花。shed是過去式。shaded lights：暗淡的燈光。shaded可能解作有“燈罩的”，但飛機(jī)上的燈據(jù)我所知，并無燈罩。stuffiness：悶氣。domesticity：家庭風(fēng)光。飛機(jī)上本來是地方寬暢，空氣散漫，現(xiàn)在在昏暗的燈光之下，窗幔都拉上（文中未明言，但如未經(jīng)拉滿，這里不必特別提出window curtains二字），空氣混濁，不像在空中旅行，反而有一種強(qiáng)烈（intense）的家庭氣氛（atmosphere），可惜這種氣氛是放錯地方了（misplaced）。

● lights：電燈。flickered：閃動一下。went out：熄滅。

● the man beside Francis：就是喝酒的那個人。New Hampshire：美國東北部州名。raise：飼養(yǎng)。beef cattle：供食用之牛，與“供取乳之?！保╠airy cattle）不同。

● 燈光忽滅，危機(jī)將臨，機(jī)上人士自必緊張萬分，可是作者于百忙中偏來此閑筆。一個取瓶獨(dú)飲之人，忽然講起他生平志愿，乃是退隱農(nóng)場，畜牧為生。如今飛機(jī)安危莫卜，萬一因失事喪生，則平生志愿，無從實(shí)現(xiàn)，豈非抱憾終身？借這兩句淡淡的話，作者明白表示：機(jī)上乘客已經(jīng)意識到他們面臨生死關(guān)頭了。

The stewardess announced that they were going to make an emergency landing. All but the child saw in their minds the spreading wings of the Angel of Death. The pilot could be heard singing faintly, "I've got sixpence, jolly, jolly sixpence. I've got sixpence to last me all my life.…" There was no other sound.

● stewardess：女侍應(yīng)生，空中小姐。

● the child：想必就是剛才哭的那個孩子。小孩不知道死之將臨。the Angel of Death：中國人好稱“死神”，西洋人信基督教者，只相信一神，“死”并不是神。又angel可善可惡，魔鬼即fallen angel也。中國人一講到安琪兒，即有美麗溫柔的聯(lián)想，但基督教神學(xué)中，angel的含意甚廣。善學(xué)英文者，非但把每一個字的意義要弄清楚，而且把每一個字可能引起的聯(lián)想，都要把握得住。spreading wings：安琪兒據(jù)說是有翅膀的。pilot：駕駛員。could be heard：被動語態(tài)，旅客們可以模模糊糊地聽見他在唱小調(diào)。這支歌的名字待考。jolly（俗語）：非常之好的。to last me all my life：夠我用一輩子。

● There was no other sound：飛機(jī)即將緊急著陸，機(jī)上寂無聲息，唯有駕駛員唱歌之聲。這也是用“閑筆”來反襯緊張之法。作者當(dāng)然可以描寫機(jī)上各人緊張之狀，但這樣費(fèi)墨多，而效果恐未必能及這里淡淡的幾筆也。

The loud groaning of the hydraulic valves swallowed up the pilot's song, and there was a shrieking high in the air, like automobile brakes, and the plane hit flat on its belly in a cornfield and shook them so violently that an old man up forward howled, "Me kidneys! Me kidneys!"

● hydraulic valves：用液體控制的活門。groaning：本來解作“呻吟之聲”，這里應(yīng)該是“沉重的轟隆之聲”。swallowed up：吞沒。shrieking：尖聲怪叫。high in the air：在高空中。automobile brakes：汽車的制動機(jī)（剎車）。cornfield：玉蜀黍田。up forward：坐在很遠(yuǎn)的前排。

● Me kidneys!：Me想是My之誤，說話的老人可能犯了語法錯誤。他大叫：“我的腰子（快要震碎了）！”

The stewardess flung open the door, and someone opened an emergency door at the back, letting in the sweet noise of their continuing mortality—the idle splash and smell of a heavy rain. Anxious for their lives, they filed out of the doors and scattered over the cornfield in all directions, praying that the thread would hold. It did. Nothing happened. When it was clear that the plane would not burn or explode, the crew and the stewardess gathered the passengers together and led them to the shelter of a barn. They were not far from Philadelphia, and in a little while a string of taxis took them into the city.

● flung open the door：把門用勁推開。emergency door：緊急時應(yīng)用之門，太平門。

● mortality：這個字在這里應(yīng)譯作“生命”。原意是“早晚必死的”。西洋哲學(xué)里最有名的三段論法是：“凡人必死，蘇格拉底是人，蘇格拉底必死?！薄氨厮馈背闪巳说囊环N特性了。continuing mortality：“必然要死”的性質(zhì)還是繼續(xù)存在著，那就是說人還沒有死，人還活著。

● letting in：讓（聲音）傳進(jìn)來。noise：就是橫線后面的雨聲。sweet：聽見外面雨聲，知道自己沒有死，這是使人覺得安慰的。

● splash：水花四濺之聲。idle：雨“懶洋洋地”下著？smell：splash和前面的noise是同位語。但是乘客在飛機(jī)上已經(jīng)氣悶了好久，一旦機(jī)門打開，他們一定也會嗅得到雨的氣息。這個字放在這里雖然在語法上說不大通（因?yàn)閟mell并不和noise同位），但是仍舊是好的描寫。

● filed out：魚貫而出。the thread：英文有Their life hangs by a thread這樣的成語（“生命系于一線”）。hold在這里是不及物動詞，解作“維系不斷”。旅客從飛機(jī)里出來，在玉蜀黍田里四散逃命，一面禱告上蒼，不要再出亂子。

● It did=the thread did hold。

● it was clear中的it代替后面的“that”clause。explode：爆炸。the crew：飛機(jī)（或船舶）上工作人員的總稱（集合名詞）。shelter：隱蔽。barn：在美國是“草料房和馬棚”合用的一座大房屋。

● Philadelphia：美國東部大城，有名的“費(fèi)城”。a string of taxis：一隊出租汽車（想必是航空公司去叫來的）。