1、这解释起来有点困难。就好比这样）You as a reader will, some evening or some afternoon, be reading in my book and put it down. You will go out of your house and into the street.（你作为一名读者，有些晚上或者下午可能会读我的书，读完后把它放下。你可能会离开家，走到街上） The sun is shinning and you meet people you know. There are certain facts of your life just th
2、e same as of mine（太阳在照耀着大地，你遇到你认识的人。这些就是我跟你生活中的一些确切的事实）. If you are a man, you go from your house to an office and sit at a desk where you pick up a telephone and begin to talk about some matter of business with a client or a customer of your house. （如果你是一个男人，离开家到办公室上班，坐在桌子边接电话，开始跟你的客户或公司的顾客讨论一些关于生意
3、上的问题）If you are an honest housewife, the ice man has come or there drifts into your mind the thought that yesterday you forgot to remember some detail concerned with running your house.（如果你是个老实的家庭主妇，那个看起来酷酷的男人已经来过，或者你突然想起来你忘记了那个男人昨天来过这里） Little outside thoughts come and go in your mind, and it is so
4、 with me too. （几乎很少外在的想法会钻进你的脑子里，我也不例外）For example when I have written the above sentence, I wonder why I have written the words “honest housewife.”A housewife I suppose can be as dishonest as I can. （比如说，当我写完上面那些句子时，会很惊讶自己为什么要写“老实的家庭主妇。”我假设的家庭主妇也可以像自己一样一点都不老实）What I am trying to make clear is that,
5、 as a writer, I am up against the same things that confront you, as a reader.（我想弄清楚的是一个作家与读者面对的是同样的事情）What I want to do is to express in my book a sense of the strangeness that has gradually , since I was a boy , been creeping more and more into my feeling about everyday life .（我想做的就是表达日常生活中所表现出来的陌生
6、冷淡，这种感觉从我小时候开始渐渐地爬进我的内心）（在我心里，这种感觉可能在我小时候就开始萌芽了。） It would all be very simple if I would write of life in an interior city of China or in an African forest .（如果我写在中国的其中一个城市或一个非洲森林里面的生活，一切就变得简单多了） A man I know has recently told me of another man who , wanting to write a book about Parisian life and h
7、aving no money to go to Paris to study the life there , went instead to the city of New Orleans whose ancestors were French .（最近一个我认识的人告诉我说，有一个人想写一本关于巴黎人生活的书，但是没有钱去巴黎感受当地的生活，无奈选择去了新奥尔良，因为他们的祖先是法国人）They will have retained enough of the flavor of Parisian life for me to get the feeling , he said to hi
8、mself . The man told me that the book turned out to be very successful and that the life of Paris read with delight a translation of his work as a study of French life , and I am only sorry I cant as simple a way out of my own job .（“对我来说，巴黎人的生活将会保持足够的风味，这点让我有自己的灵感。”他自言自语说。那个人告诉我说那本书非常成功，很出人意料，而且人们把
9、它翻译出来作为研究法国人生活的作品，但是我很抱歉，因为在我看来不能对自己的工作如此地草草了事） （“他们会沿袭着法国人生活的独特韵味，这点对于我来说，我非常有感觉，”他对自己说到。）The whole point with me is that my wish to write this book springs from a somewhat different notion . If I can write everything out plainly , perhaps I will myself understand better what has happened , （我的整个中心
10、就是我写这本书的意愿来自于一个不一样的概念。“如果我能够把任何事都写得明明白白地，也许自己会更好地理解发生了什么） I said to myself and smile . During these days I spend a good deal of time smiling at nothing . It bothers people . What are you smiling about now they ask , and I am up against as hard a job trying to answer as I am trying to underway my boo
11、k . （我自言自语，微笑着。这几天我大多数时候都会无缘无故地微笑。这烦扰到别人。“你现在在笑什么”他们问我，而我此时面对的就好像在工作中努力寻找答案，自己一直尝试写书的情况一样）Sometimes in the morning I sit down at my desk and begin writing , taking as my subject a scene from my own boyhood . Very well , I am coming home from school .（有时候，早上我坐在桌子旁，开始写作，仿佛回到自己的童年时代。恰巧的是，我正从学校回家）The to
12、wn in which I was born and raised was a dreary , lonely little place in the far western section of the state of Nebraska , and I imagine myself walking along one of its streets .（我出生和成长在内布拉斯加州往西很远的一个沉闷，孤寂的小镇，我想象自己沿着其中一条街道走） Sitting upon a curbing before a store is a sheep herder who has left his flo
13、ck many miles away in the foothills at the base of the western mountains and has come into our town , for what purpose he himself does not seem to know . （在一个羊群牧人商店前面的石头坐着，那个牧人把他的羊群丢在距离很远的西边高山底下的山麓小丘，然后来到我们小镇，至于有什么目的，他也不知道）He is a bearded man without a hat and sits with his mouth slightly open , sta
14、ring up and down the street .（他长着胡须，没有戴帽子，就坐在那里，嘴巴微微张开，盯着街上看） There is a half-wild uncertain look in his eyes and his eyes has awakened a creepy feeling in me.（他的眼睛透出一种不确定的眼神，并唤醒了我那令人毛骨悚然的想法） I hurry away with a kind of dread of some unknown thing cating at my vital organs. Old men are great talkers
15、. It may be that only kids know the real terror of loneliness.（我赶紧跑开，感觉在自己重要的器官里有着一些害怕却又不知道的东西。上了年纪的人都是比较健谈的。也许只有小孩子才能真正懂得孤独寂寞使人恐怖的原因） （感觉有些自己不知道的东西在紧逼着自己重要器官）I have tried, you see, to start my book at that particular point in my own life. ”（你看，我已经以我生活中一种特定的视野作为出发点来开始写作。）If I can catch exactly the f
16、eeling of that afternoon of my boyhood, I can give the reader the key to my character,” I tell myself.（“如果我能准确地把握孩提时代那个下午的感觉，就能够给出了解我性格的关键点。”我告诉自己。The plan wont work. When I have written five, ten, fifteen hundred words, I stop writing and look out at my window.（计划失效了。当我写下500个，1000个，1500个单词时，我停了下来，望
17、着窗外。） A ma is diving a team of horses hitched to a wagon-load of coal along my street and is swearing at another man who drives a Ford. （有个人开着一辆载着煤的四轮运货马车从街道经过，马被钩套住，排成一排，驾驶人正在咒骂另外一个开着福特汽车的人）They have both stopped and are cursing each other. The coal wagon drivers face is black with coal dust but an
18、ger has reddened his cheeks and the red and black have produced a dusky brown like the skin of a Negro.（他们都停了下来，互相咒骂着。四轮运货马车的司机像煤一般黑，但是怒气使他的脸颊变得通红，跟黑人几乎没区别）（由于煤灰的原因，四轮运货马车司机的脸是黑的，但是怒气使他的脸颊变得通红，而红黑相加就显得有点像黑人一样的颜色）I have got up from my typewriter and walk up and down in my room smoking cigarettes. My
19、fingers pick up little things on my desk and then put them down.（从趴在打字机的发呆状态醒过来，抽着雪茄在房间里踱来踱去。手指从桌子上拿起一点东西，又把它放下）I am nervous like the race horses I used to be with at one period of my boyhood. （童年时代曾经有一段时间我很害怕与比赛用马呆在一起）Before a race and when they have been brought out on the tracks before all the pe
20、ople and before the race started, their legs quivered. （在比赛开始前，或者它们在观众面前的跑道上留下自己的痕迹，它们的腿在抖动）Sometimes there was a horse got into such a state that when the race started he would do nothing. “Look at him. He cant untrack himself,” we said.（有时候一匹马也会出现这样一种状态：当比赛开始后，什么也不做。“看，它输给了自己”。我们说）Right now I am i
21、n that state about my book. I run to the typewriter, write for a time, and then walk nervously about. I smoke a whole package of cigarettes during the morning.（现在，当我写作的时候就处于这种状态。我走到打字机旁，写一会儿，然后很紧张似的走来走去。整个上午，我抽了一整盒雪茄。）（香烟）And then suddenly I have again torn up all I have written. “It wont do,” I hav
22、e told myself.（然后我突然撕碎写作的纸张。“写得太烂了。”我对自己说。In this book I am not intending to try to give you the story of my life. “What of life, any mans lifeforked radishes running about, writing declarations of independence, telling themselves little lies, having dreams, getting puffed now and then with what is
23、called greatness. （在这本书里，我并不打算给你们讲我生活的故事。“什么是生活什么是男人的生活-经常出现的叉状小萝卜，撰写独立宣言，讲一些小小的谎言，拥有自己的梦想，放轻松，知道什么叫伟大。）Life begins, runs its course and ends,” a man I once knew told me one evening, and it is true. Even as I write these words a hearse is going through my street. （“生活开始了，有它自己的经过，然后结束。”这是一天晚上有个算认识的人告
24、诉我的，很相信他。当我写到这里时一辆灵车正在从街道经过。）Two young girls, who are going off with two young men to walk I suppose in the fields where the city ends, stop laughing for a moment and look up at the hearse. It will be a moment before they forget the passing hearse and begin laughing again.（两个年轻男人扶着两个年轻女孩子走，我在想只有当这个城
25、市末日了，他们才不会笑，才会认真地看着灵车。也有可能他们忘记了刚经过不久的灵车，又开始笑起来。“A life is like that, it passes like that,” I say to myself as I tear up my sheets and begin again walking and smoking my cigarettes.（“生活就是这样子，时间在慢慢地流去。”我对自己说，撕碎了纸张，开始抽着雪茄走来走去。If you think I am sad, having these thoughts about the brevity and insignific
26、ance of a life, you are mistaken. In the state I am in such things do not matter. “Certain things last,” I say to myself.（如果你有觉得我伤心这样简洁，没有意义的想法，你就错了。在我所处于的状态中有些事情显得没那么重要。“某些事情在持续着。） “One might make things a little clear. One might even imagine a man, say a Negro, going along a city street and hummin
27、g a song. It catches the ear of another man who repeats it on the next day. A thin strand of song, like a tiny stream far up in some hill, begins to flow down into the wide plains. It waters the fields. It freshens the air above a hot stuffy city.”（“有人可能把事情变得简单。有人可能想象出一个男人，在城市的街道上行走，嘴里哼唱着歌。歌声走进另外一个男
28、人的耳朵，并使他第二天重复哼唱。歌曲中的一小部分就好像高山上一条小小的河流，慢慢地流下宽阔的平原。它湿润了田野。它给这个闷热枯燥的城市净化了空气。Now I have got myself worked up into a state. I am always doing that these days. I write again and again tear up my words. I go out of my room and walk about.（如今我已经使自己进入到那种状态工作。这些天我都这么做。我反复写作，又反复撕碎纸张。我走出房间，到处走走。I have been with a woman I have found and who loves me. It has happened that I am a man who has not been loved by women and have all my life been awkward and a little mixed up when in their presence. Perhaps I have had too much respect for them, have wanted them too much. That may be. Anyw
