Unit-Out-of-step課文翻譯綜合教程三

1、Unit 3Out of StepBill Bryson1 After living in England for 20 years, my wife and I decided to move back to the United States. We wanted to live in a town small enough that we could walk to the business district, and settled on Hanover, N.H., a typical New England town - pleasant, sedate and compact.

2、It has a broad central green surrounded by the venerable buildings of Dartmouth College, an old-fashioned Main Street and leafy residential neighborhoods.2 It is, in short, an agreeable, easy place to go about o ne' s business on foot, and yet as far as I can tell, virtually no one does.3 Nearly

3、 every day, I walk to the post office or library or bookstore, and sometimes, if I am feeling particularly debonair, I stop at Rosey Jekes Caf e for a cappuccino. Occasionally, in the evenings, my wife and I stroll up to the Nugget Theatre for a movie or to Murphy ' s on the Green for a beer, I

4、wouldn' t dream of going to any of these places bycar. People have gotten used to my eccentric behavior, but in the early days acquaintances would often pull up to the curb and ask if I wanted a ride.4 "I ' going your way, “ they would insist when I politely declined. "Really, it &

5、#39; nobother.”5 "Honestly" enjoy walking.”6 ”Well, if you' re>ure, “they would say and depart reluctantly, even guiltily, as ifleaving the scene of an accident without giving their name.7 In the United States we have become so habituated to using the car for everything that it does

6、n ' t occur to us to unfurl our legs and see what those lower limbs can do. We have reached an age where college students expect to drive between classes, where parents will drive three blocks to pick up their children from a friend s house, where theletter carrier takes his van up and down ever

7、y driveway on a street.8 We will go through the most extraordinary contortionsto save ourselves fromwalking. Sometimes it s almost ludicrous. The other day I was waiting to bring home one of my children from a piano lesson when a car stopped outside a post office, and a man about my age popped out a

8、nd dashed inside. He was in the post office for about three or four minutes, and then came out, got in the car and drove exactly 16 feet (I had nothing better to do, so I paced it off) to the general store 6 next door.9 And the thing is, this man looked really fit. I ' m sure he jogs extravagant

9、 distances and plays squash and does all kinds of healthful things, but I am just as sure that he drives toeach of these undertakings.10 An acquaintance of ours was complaining the other day about the difficulty of finding a place to park outside the local gymnasium. She goes there several times a w

10、eek to walk on a treadmill. The gymnasium is, at most, a six-minute walk from her front door.11 I asked her why she didn ' t walk to the gym and do six minutes less on the treadmill.12 She looked at me as if I were tragically simple- minded and said, “But I have a program for the treadmill. It r

11、ecords my distance and speed and calorie burn rate, and I can adjust it for degree of difficulty.”13 I confess it had not occurred to me how thoughtlessly deficient nature is in this regard.14 According to a concerned and faintly horrified 1997 editorial in theBoston Globe , theUnited States spent l

12、ess than one percent of its transportation budget on facilities for pedestrians. Actually, I' m surp iwasl that much. Go to almost any suburb developedin the last 30 years, and you will not find a sidewalk anywhere. Often you won' t find asingle pedestrian crossing.15 I had this brought home

13、 to me one summer when we were driving across Maine and stopped for coffee in one of those endless zones of shopping malls, motels, gas stations and fast-food places. I noticed there was a bookstore across the street, so I decided to skip coffee and head over.16 Although the bookshop was no more tha

14、n 70 or 80 feet away, I discovered that there was no way to cross on foot without dodging over six lanes of swiftly moving traffic. In the end, I had to get in our car and drive across.17 At the time, it seemed ridiculous and exasperating, but afterward I realized that I was possibly the only person

15、 ever to have entertained the notion of negotiating that intersection on foot.18 The fact is, we not only don' t walk anywhere anymore in this country, we won' t walkanywhere, and woe to anyone who tries to make us, as the city of Laconia, N.H., discovered. In the early 1970s, Laconia spent

16、millions on a comprehensive urban renewal project, which included building a pedestrian mall to make shopping more pleasant. Esthetically it was a triumph - urban planners came from all over to coo and take photos-but commercially it was a disaster. Forced to walk one whole block from a parking gara

17、ge, shoppers abandoned downtown Laconia for suburban malls.19 In 1994 Laconia dug up its pretty paving blocks, took away the tubs of geraniums and decorative trees, and brought back the cars. Now people can park right in front of the stores again, and downtown Laconia thrives anew.20 And if that isn

18、t sad.I dont know what is.不合拍比爾布里森1 .在英格蘭住了 20年之后，我和妻子決定搬回美國。因?yàn)橄胱≡?二-個(gè)可以步行到商業(yè)區(qū)的小城鎮(zhèn)，所以我們決定定居在新罕布什爾州的漢諾威，一個(gè)典型的新英格蘭城鎮(zhèn)， 令人愉快、寧靜而緊湊。城鎮(zhèn)中心有一大塊寬闊的綠地，周圍是達(dá)特茅斯學(xué)院那莊嚴(yán)的建筑、一條老式的主干道和綠樹成蔭的住宅區(qū)。2 .總之，這是一個(gè)怡人、舒適的地方，適合步行去上班。不過據(jù)我所知，實(shí)際上沒有 什么人這樣做。3 .我?guī)缀趺刻於疾叫腥ム]局、圖書館或書店，有時(shí)，如果心情極好，我會(huì)在羅斯杰克 斯咖啡店喝上一杯卡布奇諾咖啡。 有時(shí)，我會(huì)和妻子在晚上漫步到納吉特劇院看上一

19、場電影， 或是到格林街的莫菲店喝杯啤酒。我做夢都沒想過開車去這些地方。人們對(duì)我的古怪行為已經(jīng)習(xí)以為常，但是開始的時(shí)候，熟人們會(huì)將車停在路邊，問我是否要搭車。4 .我和你同路，”他們堅(jiān)持道， 真的，一點(diǎn)也不麻煩?！倍彝裱灾x絕。5 .說實(shí)話，我喜歡步行?！? .哦，那隨你吧，"他們這么說著然后不情愿地離開了，甚至帶著點(diǎn)負(fù)罪感，就好像 離開了事故現(xiàn)場卻沒有留下姓名。7 .在美國，我們已經(jīng)習(xí)慣于事事用車，時(shí)時(shí)開車，我們都沒想過伸展雙腿，看看自己 的下肢到底能做些什么。 我們已經(jīng)進(jìn)入了這樣一個(gè)時(shí)代，大學(xué)生希望課間開車去上課， 父母會(huì)開車去三個(gè)街區(qū)外的朋友家接孩子，郵遞員在街上開車在每一條私人

20、車道上進(jìn)進(jìn)出出。8 .為了不走路，我們?cè)敢馊淌茏羁膳碌纳眢w扭曲。有時(shí)甚至到了愚蠢可笑的地步。一 天，我正在等著接上鋼琴課的孩子回家，這時(shí)一輛汽車停在了郵局I"1 口，車門砰地一聲打開了，一位男士和我年齡相仿，他走下車沖進(jìn)郵局。只在郵局里呆了三四分鐘，他就出了郵局，鉆進(jìn)汽車，開了 16英尺（我也沒什么事可干，正好用步子量了量）到隔壁的百貨商店。9 .情況是這樣的，這個(gè)人看上去身體健康。我相信他會(huì)長跑、會(huì)打壁球，參與其他各 種有益于健康的運(yùn)動(dòng)，但是我也相信他會(huì)開車前往這些運(yùn)動(dòng)場所。10 .某日我們的一位熟人抱怨本地健身會(huì)所外很難找到停車的地方，她一周有幾次會(huì)去 那里在走步機(jī)上鍛煉身體。從這個(gè)健身會(huì)所走路到她家前門最多6分鐘。11 .我問她為什么不步行到健身房，這樣在走步機(jī)上少走6分鐘就行了。12 .她看著我，好像我是個(gè)可憐的傻瓜似的，然后說，但是步行機(jī)上有我的鍛煉程序。它記錄我鍛煉的距離、時(shí)間和卡路里的消耗量，我還可以利用它調(diào)整鍛煉的難易程度。”13 .我承認(rèn)，過去我從來沒有意識(shí)到我對(duì)這個(gè)問題是多么地思慮不周。14 . 1997年波士頓環(huán)球報(bào) 刊