现代英文选评：Emergency Landing 紧急着陆

Emergency Landing 紧急着陆

John Cheever (1912—1982)

本文原题“The Country Husband”是一篇很长的短篇小说，和前面的“Bachelor of Arts”一样，原载《1955年美国短篇小说佳作选》。

作者约翰·契弗是美国久享盛名的短篇小说作家，长篇小说也写了好几部。他是麻萨诸塞州人，曾在纽约Barnard College任教。

本文主要是描写一个“乡村丈夫”的各种人生问题以及夫妇之间的关系。这里所选的几段，是全文的开头，读者拿它当作普通叙事文读可也。

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：美国中西部明尼苏达州的一个大城。East：美国的东部，这里用作副词，等于eastward。heavy weather：阴沉沉的天气，恶劣气候。

● The sky had been：注意动词时态。过去完成式表示此事已成“过去”。hazy：气象报告里的“昙”。

● mist：比haze更进一层。hazy不过表示天气不够清明，视野不够远。mist是“雾气”。they flew中的they泛无所指（语法家是不赞成这种用法的），大约是代表这群旅客。

● density：密度。exhaust fires：飞机后面排气管exhaust pipe里所喷出来的火。这种火旅客平常是看不见的，但是现在白云厚密，排气不甚舒畅，把火光反射回来，旅客也可以看见云中的隐隐红光了。exhaust在这里是名词，解作“排泄”，转作形容词用。

● rock：摇摆。

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：与人共享。painkiller：本解作“止痛剂”。这里是酒或解忧剂。

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：颠簸。cabin：舱房。stale：混浊。went to sleep：麻木。

● A child was crying：短句子，但有此一句增加了紧张的气氛，文章就特别有神。

● a paper book：纸面小书。airport：机场。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本来是船上的窗洞，这里借作飞机上的窗洞。

● blazed：发强烈的火光。shed sparks：发火花。shed是过去式。shaded lights：暗淡的灯光。shaded可能解作有“灯罩的”，但飞机上的灯据我所知，并无灯罩。stuffiness：闷气。domesticity：家庭风光。飞机上本来是地方宽畅，空气散漫，现在在昏暗的灯光之下，窗幔都拉上（文中未明言，但如未经拉满，这里不必特别提出window curtains二字），空气混浊，不像在空中旅行，反而有一种强烈（intense）的家庭气氛（atmosphere），可惜这种气氛是放错地方了（misplaced）。

● lights：电灯。flickered：闪动一下。went out：熄灭。

● the man beside Francis：就是喝酒的那个人。New Hampshire：美国东北部州名。raise：饲养。beef cattle：供食用之牛，与“供取乳之牛”（dairy cattle）不同。

● 灯光忽灭，危机将临，机上人士自必紧张万分，可是作者于百忙中偏来此闲笔。一个取瓶独饮之人，忽然讲起他生平志愿，乃是退隐农场，畜牧为生。如今飞机安危莫卜，万一因失事丧生，则平生志愿，无从实现，岂非抱憾终身？借这两句淡淡的话，作者明白表示：机上乘客已经意识到他们面临生死关头了。

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：女侍应生，空中小姐。

● the child：想必就是刚才哭的那个孩子。小孩不知道死之将临。the Angel of Death：中国人好称“死神”，西洋人信基督教者，只相信一神，“死”并不是神。又angel可善可恶，魔鬼即fallen angel也。中国人一讲到安琪儿，即有美丽温柔的联想，但基督教神学中，angel的含意甚广。善学英文者，非但把每一个字的意义要弄清楚，而且把每一个字可能引起的联想，都要把握得住。spreading wings：安琪儿据说是有翅膀的。pilot：驾驶员。could be heard：被动语态，旅客们可以模模糊糊地听见他在唱小调。这支歌的名字待考。jolly（俗语）：非常之好的。to last me all my life：够我用一辈子。

● There was no other sound：飞机即将紧急着陆，机上寂无声息，唯有驾驶员唱歌之声。这也是用“闲笔”来反衬紧张之法。作者当然可以描写机上各人紧张之状，但这样费墨多，而效果恐未必能及这里淡淡的几笔也。

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：用液体控制的活门。groaning：本来解作“呻吟之声”，这里应该是“沉重的轰隆之声”。swallowed up：吞没。shrieking：尖声怪叫。high in the air：在高空中。automobile brakes：汽车的制动机（刹车）。cornfield：玉蜀黍田。up forward：坐在很远的前排。

● Me kidneys!：Me想是My之误，说话的老人可能犯了语法错误。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：把门用劲推开。emergency door：紧急时应用之门，太平门。

● mortality：这个字在这里应译作“生命”。原意是“早晚必死的”。西洋哲学里最有名的三段论法是：“凡人必死，苏格拉底是人，苏格拉底必死。”“必死”成了人的一种特性了。continuing mortality：“必然要死”的性质还是继续存在着，那就是说人还没有死，人还活着。

● letting in：让（声音）传进来。noise：就是横线后面的雨声。sweet：听见外面雨声，知道自己没有死，这是使人觉得安慰的。

● splash：水花四溅之声。idle：雨“懒洋洋地”下着？smell：splash和前面的noise是同位语。但是乘客在飞机上已经气闷了好久，一旦机门打开，他们一定也会嗅得到雨的气息。这个字放在这里虽然在语法上说不大通（因为smell并不和noise同位），但是仍旧是好的描写。

● filed out：鱼贯而出。the thread：英文有Their life hangs by a thread这样的成语（“生命系于一线”）。hold在这里是不及物动词，解作“维系不断”。旅客从飞机里出来，在玉蜀黍田里四散逃命，一面祷告上苍，不要再出乱子。

● It did=the thread did hold。

● it was clear中的it代替后面的“that”clause。explode：爆炸。the crew：飞机（或船舶）上工作人员的总称（集合名词）。shelter：隐蔽。barn：在美国是“草料房和马棚”合用的一座大房屋。

● Philadelphia：美国东部大城，有名的“费城”。a string of taxis：一队出租汽车（想必是航空公司去叫来的）。