高级英语课文翻译

课文翻译

Once again, outside in the open air, I tore into little pieces a small notebook with questions that I'd

prepared in advance for inter views with the patients of the atomic ward. Among them was the que

stion: Do you really think that Hiroshima is the liveliest city in Japan? I never asked it. But I could

read the answer in every eye.

从医院出来，

我又一次地撕碎了一个小笔记本，

那上面记着我预先想好准备在采访原子病区

的病人时提问的一些问题，

其中有一个问题就是：

你是否真的认为广岛是日本最充满活力的

城市

?

我一直没问这问题，但我已能从每个人的眼神中体会出这个问题的答案。

Most Americans remember Mark Twain as the father of Huck Finn's idyllic cruise through eternal

boyhood and Tom Sawyer's endless summer of freedom and adventure. In-deed, this nation's best-

loved author was every bit as ad-venturous, patriotic, romantic, and humorous as anyone has ever i

magined. I found another Twain as well

–

one who grew cynical, bitter, saddened by the profound

personal tragedies life dealt him, a man who became obsessed with the frailties of the human race,

who saw clearly ahead a black wall of night.

在大多数美国人的心

目中，马克

?

吐温是位伟大作家，他描写了哈克

?

费恩永恒的童年时代

中充满诗情画意的旅程和汤姆

< br>?

索亚在

漫长的夏日里自由自 在历险探奇的故事。

的确，

这位

美国最 受人喜爱的作家的探索精神、爱国热情、浪漫

气质及幽默笔调 都达到了登峰造极的

程度。

但我发现 还有另一个不同的马克

?

吐温

——

一个由于深受人生悲

剧的打击而变得愤< /p>

世嫉俗、

尖酸刻薄的马克

?

吐温，

一个为人类品质上的弱点而忧心忡忡、

明显地 看到前途

是

一片黑暗的人

Personal tragedy haunted his entire life, in the deaths of loved ones: his father, dying of pneumoni

a when Sam was 12; his brother Henry, killed by a steamboat explosion; the death of his son, Lang

don, at 19 months. His eldest daughter, Susy, died of spinal meningitis , Mrs. Clemens succumbed

to a heart attack in Florence, and youngest daughter., Jean, an epileptic, drowned in an upstairs bat

htub .

马克

?

吐温的一生都笼罩在悲剧的阴影之中，自己的亲人一个接一个地去世：他的父 亲在他

十二岁那年死于肺炎，

他的兄弟亨利在一次汽船爆炸事故 中遇难；

他的儿子朗顿才满十九个

月即离开人世。

他的大女儿苏茜死于脊膜炎；

克莱门斯夫人在佛罗伦萨死于心脏病；

而他的

小女儿也因癫痫病的发作淹死在楼上的浴盆里。

< br>

Two and a half years later I slept under the midnight sun at the other end of our planet, in a small

tent pitched on a twelve-toot-thick slab of ice floating in the frigid Arctic Ocean. After a hearty

breakfast,

my

companions

and

I

traveled

by

snowmobiles

a

few

miles

farther

north

to

a

rendezvous point where the ice was thinner

–

only three and a half feet thick

–

and a nuclear

submarine hovered in the water below. After it crashed through the ice, took on its new passengers,

and

resubmerged,

I

talked

with

scientists

who

were

trying

to

measure

more

accurately

the

thickness of the polar ice cap, which many believe is thinning as a re-suit of global warming. I had

just negotiated an agreement between ice scientists and the U. S. Navy to secure the re-lease of

previously top secret data from submarine sonar tracks, data that could help them learn what is

happening to the north polar cap. Now, I wanted to see the pole it-self, and some eight hours after

we met the submarine, we were crashing through that ice, surfacing, and then I was standing in an

eerily

beautiful

snowcape,

windswept

and

sparkling

white,

with

the

horizon

defined

by

little

hummocks, or

sheets collide. But here too, CD, levels are rising just as rapidly, and ultimately temperature will

rise with them

–

indeed, global warming is expected to push temperatures up much more rapidly

in the polar regions than in the rest of the world. As the polar air warms, the ice her e will thin; and

since the polar cap plays such a crucial role in the world's weather system, the consequences of a

thinning cap could be disastrous.

两年半以后，

在地球的另一端，

在寒冷至极的北冰洋上漂浮的一块十二英尺厚的冰板上搭起

的小帐篷 里我又体验到了在午的阳光下睡觉的滋味。

饱吃了一顿早餐后，

我和同伴们一起乘

雪防滑汽车北行数英里，到了约定会合地点，那儿的冰层较薄

--

有三英尺半厚

--

水下有一艘

核潜艇在那儿徘徊着。

潜艇破冰上来，

载上新的乘客后又潜了下去。

我也就开始同那些正设

法以高的精确度测量极地冰帽厚度的科学家们进行交谈。

许多人认北极冰层由于地球气候 的

转暖而正在变薄。

此前我刚刚通过谈使美国海军方面与研究北 极冰层的科学家达成协议，

向

他们提由水下声纳系统探测得到的 本来属于最高机密的有关资料，

这资料有助于他们了解北

极冰层 所发生的情况。

现在我想实地考一下北极极点。

我们登上潜艇约 八个小时后，

潜艇冲

破冰层浮上面。

于 是，

我便置身于一片神奇瑰丽的冰雪世界中。

雪原上寒风劲扫，

银光闪耀，

其边缘则是一道由连绵起伏的小冰丘或由冰席相撞、

相互挤压而形成小型山脉的冰层

压脊< /p>

勾勒出的地平线。

但即使在这儿，

空气中二氧化碳的含量也在不断上升，

最后气温也必然会

随之上升

--

事实上，地球气候变暖会使南北极地区 在气温上升的速度上远高于世界的其他地

区。

随着极地气温的升 高，

这里的冰层会融化变薄。

由于南北极的冰帽对全球的气候有 着至

关重要的调节作用，它们的融化将会带来灾难性的后果。

But one doesn't have to travel around the world to witness humankind's assault (1.

攻击

,

猛袭

,

突

袭

)(1.

袭击

,

殴打

;

强暴

) on the earth. Images that signal the distress of our global environment

are

now

commonly

seen

almost

anywhere.

On

some

nights,

in

high

northern

latitudes,

the

sky

itself offers another ghostly image that signals the loss of ecological balance now in progress. If

the sky is clear after sunset -- and it you are watching from a place where pollution hasn't blotted

out the night sky altogether -- you can sometimes see a strange kind of cloud high in the sky. This

shimmering above us with a translucent whiteness, these clouds seem quite unnatural. And they

should: noctilucent clouds have begun to appear more often because of a huge buildup of methane

gas

in

the

atmosphere.

(Also

called

natural

gas,

methane

is

released

from

landfills

,

from

coal

mines

and

rice

paddies,

from

billions

of

termite(1.

白蚁

)s

that

swarm

through

the

freshly

cut

forestland,

from

the

burning

of

biomass

and

from

a

variety

of

other

human

activities.

)

Even

though noctilucent clouds were sometimes seen in the past., all this extra methane carries more

water

vapor

into

the

upper

atmosphere,

where

it

condense

s

at

much

higher

altitudes

to

form

more clouds that the sun's rays still strike long after sunset has brought the beginning of night to

the surface far beneath them.

人们也不一定非要周 游世界才能目睹人类对地球的破坏。

今天的世界上，

预示着地球 生

态危机的景象已是随处可见。

在北方高纬度地区，

球上日趋严重的生态失衡的阴森景 象。假如日落后天空明朗无云

--

而且你又置身于一个空气

污染还没有严重到足以完全遮蔽夜空的地方进行观察的话

--

你会看见天空高处有时会出现

一种奇异的云团。

这种

夜光云团

偶尔出现于夜幕开始笼罩大地的时候，

它呈半透明的白色，

在 高空中闪烁发光，

看起来颇不像自然之物。

其实，这种云团也确 非自然之物：近年来由于

大气中甲烷含量的大幅度增高，夜光云团的出现频率也随着上升 了。

(

甲烷又称天然气，它

产生于填土 、煤矿、

糠壳、

新砍伐的林地里群聚的白蚁、燃烧生物以及人类 许多其他的活动

过程中。

)

虽说过去天 空偶尔也出现过夜光云团，但大气层中所含的那些过量的甲烷会将更

多的水蒸气带到高层 大气中；

水蒸气在更高处凝结，

会形成更厚的云层，

这些位于高空的云层下方还在受着太阳光的照射。