英语阅读：探访故亲.doc

美联英语提供：英语阅读：A Visit with the Folks 探访故亲 两分钟做个小测试，看看你的英语水平 /test/kuaisu.aspx?tid=16-73675-0 A Visit with the Folks 探访故亲 periodically i go back to a churchyard cemetery on the side of an Appalachian hill in northern Virginia to call on family elders. it slows the juices down something marvelous. 弗吉尼亚北部阿巴拉契亚山脉的一个小山坡上， 有一处教堂墓地。每隔一段日子，我都要回到那里探望先辈们。这种 探访有一种奇妙的力量，能让人的心境归于平静。 they are all situated right behind an imposing brick church with a tall square brick bell-tower best described as honest but not flossy. some of the family elders did construction repair work on that church and some of them, the real old timer, may even have helped build it ,but i counldnt swear to that because its been there a long, long time. 先辈们的墓地全都在一座庄严醒目的砖石教堂后面。高高耸立的方形钟楼也是砖石结构的，说它“朴实而不粗糙”在再合适不过了。家族先辈中有些参与过教堂的修缮工作，另一些人，那些真正的老祖宗们，或许还为教堂的建造出过力，但对此我可没有绝对把握，因为教堂建在那里毕竟已经很久很久了。 The view, especially in early summer, is so pleasing that it’s a pity they can’t enjoy it. Wild roses blooming on fieldstone fences, fields white with daisies, that soft languorous air turning the mountains pastel blue out toward the West. 那儿的景色非常怡人，尤其是在初夏时节。石栅篱上的野蔷薇竞相开放，田野被雏菊染成一片白色，微醺的和风给群山抹上淡淡的蓝色，一直向西边延伸而去。先辈们无法欣赏这些美景，真是一桩憾事。 The tombstones are not much to look at. Tombstones never are in my book, but they do help in keeping track of the family and, unlike a family, they have the virtue of never chafing at you. 那些墓碑倒是没什么看的。在我看来，墓碑从来就没有什么好看的。但它们确实有助于寻根问祖，而绝不会像现在的家人，总跟你唠叨个没完。 This is not to say they don’t talk after a fashion. Every time I pass Uncle Lewis’s I can hear it say, “Come around to the barber shop, boy, and I’ll cut that hair.” Uncle Lewis was a barber. He left up here for a while and went to the city. Baltimore. But he came back after the end. Almost all of them came back finally, those that left, but most stayed right here all along. 但这儿并不是说他们总是“一声不吭”。每次走过刘易斯大叔的墓前，我都能听见这样的话：“回头到理发店来，孩子，我给你剪剪头。”刘易斯大叔是个理发的，有一段时间他曾离开家乡，到大都市巴尔的摩谋生，但最后还是回来了。几乎所有的人，我是说那些离开过的人们，最终都回来了，但大多数人——一辈子都呆在这里。 Well, not right here in the churchyard,