介绍:
Moment in Peking
京 华 烟 云
作者：林语堂 译者：张振玉
Moment in Peking（1）—— Mannia’s Wedding Day
京华烟云（1）—— 曼娘出嫁的日子
The next day, May the twenty-fifth, was Mannia’s wedding day. While her mother was getting things ready with the assistance of Coral and Mulan, and they were waiting for the sedan chairs to come at the proper hour, the Tseng house was in a great turmoil. There were a thousand things to prepare for the bride, and red sashes and colored festoons of silk and big lanterns to be hung up, and the bridegroom’s rooms to be decorated. Everything had to be new, tables, candle stands, wash basins, spittoons, commodes, even the curtains and bedding on Pingya’s bed—practically everything except the bed itself on which he was sleeping. The leeks and mint herbs hung above the door by every family on the Dragon-Boat Festival at the onset of summer, had to be taken down, and red festoons hung in their place above the door and along the door jambs. A disinfection, to drive away evil air, was usually done by burning mint herbs in the house on the Dragon-Boat Festival and children carried beautiful colored silk pendants on their breasts, containing fragrant powder from herbs to ward disease for the summer, which was the usual season for epidemics. In this way Pingya’s room had been fumigated before he was moved in. The idea now however, was to make as great a change of atmosphere in the sickroom as possible, showing everywhere the red color of happiness to drive away any lurking evil air.
On top of all these preparations, Pingya had taken a turn转变 for the worse. He complained that he could not see clearly, and his bowels ['bauəlz]n.大肠,大便 would not function. His tongue showed a thick coating, and his limbs were cold while he felt hot inside. His pulse was weak and sluggish. The doctor had to press all three fingers on his wrist to feel the pulse beat, and this was a sign the volume of blood was decreasing. Upon the varied nuances [nju:'ɑ:nsiz]n.细微差别of the pulse beats and their undertones , the yun, the old doctor relied as the modern doctor relies upon the temperature chart; but it was something finely felt, to be recognized only by experience and impossible to state in figures. Although Pingya’s mind was clear, he was too weak to talk, and all morning and afternoon, he lay half-dormant, vaguely conscious that this was his wedding day. (Lin Yutang. Moment in Peking . Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2005 P117-118)
Moment in Peking （2）—— Yao Mulan’s Peking
京华烟云（2）——姚木兰眼中的北京城
But Mulan was a child of Peking. She had grown up there and had drunk in all the richness of life of the city which enveloped [in'veləp, 'envələup] its inhabitants like a great mother soft toward all her children’s requests, fulfilling all their whims and desires, or like a huge thousand-year-old tree in which the insects making their home in one branch did not know what the insects in the other branch were doing. She had learned from Peking its tolerance, geniality, and urbanity [ɜː'bænɪtɪ]n.文雅, as we all in our formative years catch something of the city and country we live in. She had grown up with the yellow-roofed palaces and the purple and greenroofed temples, the broad boulevards ['buːləvɑːd]n.林荫大道and the long, crooked alleys, the busy thoroughfares and the quiet districts that were almost rural ['rʊərəl]in their effect; the common man’s homes with their inevitable pomegranate ['pɒmɪgrænɪt]n.[植]石榴trees and jars of goldfish, no less than the rich man’s mansions and gardens; the open-air tea houses where men loll on rattan armchairs under cypress ['saɪprəs]n.[植]柏树tress, spending twenty cents for a whole afternoon in summer; the enclosed [in'kləuzd]adj.封闭的 teashops where in winter men eat steaming-hot mutton fried with onion and drink pehkan白干酒 and where the great rub shoulders with the humble; the wonderful theaters, the beautiful restaurants, the bazaars, the lantern streets and the curio streets; the temple fairs which register the days of the month; the system of poor man’s shop credits and poor man’s pleasures, the open-air jugglers, magicians, and acrobats of Shihshahai什刹海 and the cheap operas of Tienchiao天桥; the beauty and variety of the pedlars’ street-cries, the tuning forks of itinerant [ɪ'tɪnərənt] barbers, the drums of second-hand goods dealers working from house to house, the brass bowls of the sellers of iced dark plum drinks, each and every one clanging in the most perfect rhythm; the pomp of wedding and funeral processions [prəu'seʃən] half-a-mile long and official sedan chairs and retinues ['retɪnjuː].随行人员,扈从; the Manchu women contrasting with the Chinese camel caravans ['kærəvæn]n.商队from the Mongolian [mɔŋ'ɡuliən] desert and the Lama ['lɑːmə]n.喇嘛priests and Buddhist monks; the public entertainers, sword swallowers and beggars, each pursuing his profession with freedom and an unwritten code of honor sanctioned by century-old custom; the rich humanity of beggars and “beggar kings,” thieves and thieves’ protectors, mandarins and retired scholars, saints and prostitutes, chaste sing-song artists and profligate ['prɒflɪgət]adj.放荡的widows, monks’ kept mistresses and eunuchs’ ['juːnək]n.太监,宦官sons, amateur singers and “opera maniacs ['meɪnɪæk]京戏迷”; and the hearty and humorous common people.(Lin Yutang. Moment in Peking . Beijing: Foreign Language Teaching and Research Press, 2005 P143-144)
Moment in Peking (8) Peking University
北京大学
Chancellor Tsai, that gentle, courteous ['kɜːtjəs]adj.有礼貌的,谦恭的old gentleman who could not hurt a fly, had by his policy of tolerance and liberalism turned the university into a home of hostile groups, fighting each other with complete freedom. Peking University was then truly alive, because it was truly liberal. Lin, the translator of Conan ['kəunən] Doyle [dɔil] and Sir Walter Scott, was the leader of the classical group. Ku, the old philosopher and wit智者 and a whole-hearted supporter of oriental culture, was another. Lin wrote a long letter, calling the vernacular [və'nækjʊlə]adj.本国的the language of “rickshaw pullers and pickle vendors” and compared the revolution to a deluge ['deljuːdʒ]n.洪水and a letting forth of wild beasts into human society. There were four leaders of the “Renaissance [ri'neisəns]n.文艺复兴”: Chen, Chien, Hu, and Liu. Chien, who wore enormous glasses and was afraid of women and dogs, replied by calling the whole classical school “seeds of sin” and “literary bastards.” Professor Hu, a young man just returned from America, who talked and wrote in a professorial [,prɔfə'sɔ:riəl] academic manner with typical Anglo-Saxon “decency” and “gentlemanliness” —claimed that it was not a revolution but a step in evolution, and he supplied to the movement the prestige [pre'sti:ʒ]n.声望,威望of the most up-to-date West. Professors Chen and Chien, having been trained in Japan and so being less well-mannered ['wel'mænəd]adj.有礼貌的, provided the revolutionary ammunition [æmjʊ'nɪʃən]n.军火,弹药of fiery denunciation and outright [aʊt'raɪt]adj.彻底的,完全的abusiveness that shocked the old and amused the young and created the literary commotion.
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