现代大学英语精读第二版（第四册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——2A - Spring Sowing（春播）

Unit 2A -Spring SowingSpring SowingLiam O'FlahertyIt was still dark when Martin Delaney and his wife Mary got up. Martin stood in his shirt by the window, rubbing his eyes and yawning, while Mary rake

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Unit 2A - Spring Sowing

Spring Sowing

Liam O'Flaherty

It was still dark when Martin Delaney and his wife Mary got up. Martin stood in his shirt by the window, rubbing his eyes and yawning, while Mary raked out the live coals that had lain hidden in the ashes on the hearth all night. Outside, cocks were crowing and a white streak was rising from the ground, as it were, and beginning to scatter the darkness. It was a February morning, dry, cold and starry.

The couple sat down to their breakfast of tea, bread and butter, in silence. They had only been married the previous autumn and it was hateful leaving a warm bed at such an early hour. Martin, with his brown hair and eyes, his freckled face and his little fair moustache, looked too young to be married, and his wife looked hardly more than a girl, red-cheeked and blue-eyed, her black hair piled at the rear of her head with a large comb gleaming in the middle of the pile, Spanish fashion. They were both dressed in rough homespuns, and both wore the loose white shirt that Inverara peasants use for work in the fields.

They ate in silence, sleepy and bad-humored and yet on fire with excitement, for it was the first day of their first spring sowing as man and wife. And each felt the glamour of that day on which they were to open up the earth together and plant seeds in it. But somehow the imminence of an event that had been long expected, loved, feared and prepared for made them dejected. Mary, with her shrewd woman's mind, thought of as many things as there are in life as a woman would in the first joy and anxiety of her mating. But Martin's mind was fixed on one thought. Would he be able to prove himself a man worthy of being the head of a family by doing his spring sowing well?

In the barn after breakfast, when they were getting the potato seeds and the line for measuring the ground and the spade, Martin fell over a basket in the half-darkness of the barn. He swore and said that a man would be better off dead than... But before he could finish whatever he was going to say, Mary had her arms around his waist and her face to his. "Martin" she said, "let us not begin this day cross with one another." And there was a tremor in her voice. And somehow, as they embraced, all their irritation and sleepiness left them. And they stood there embracing until at last Martin pushed her from him with pretended roughness and said: "Come, come, girl, it will be sunset before we begin at this rate."

Still, as they walked silently in their rawhide shoes through the little hamlet, there was not a soul about. Lights were glimmering in the windows of a few cabins. The sky had a big grey crack in it in the east, as if it were going to burst in order to give birth to the sun. Birds were singing somewhere at a distance. Martin and Mary rested their baskets of seeds on a fence outside the village and Martin whispered to Mary proudly: "We are first, Mary." And they both looked back at the little cluster of cabins that was the centre of their world, with throbbing hearts. For the joy of spring had now taken complete hold of them.

They reached the little field where they were to sow. It was a little triangular patch of ground under an ivy-covered limestone hill. The little field had been manured with seaweed some weeks before, and the weeds had rotted and whitened on the grass. And there was a big red heap of fresh seaweed lying in a corner by the fence to be spread under the seeds as they were laid. Martin, in spite of the cold, threw off everything above his waist except his striped woolen shirt. Then he spat on his hands, seized his spade and cried: "Now you are going to see what kind of a man you have, Mary."

"There, now," said Mary, tying a little shawl closer under her chin.

"Aren't we boastful this early hour of the morning? Maybe I'll wait till sunset to see what kind of a man I have got."

The work began. Martin measured the ground by the southern fence for the first ridge, a strip of ground four feet wide, and he placed the line along the edge and pegged it at each end. Then he spread fresh seaweed over the strip. Mary filled her apron with seeds and began to lay them in rows. When she was a little distance down the ridge, Martin advanced with his spade to the head, eager to commence.

"Now in the name of God,' he cried, spitting on his palms, "let us raise the first sod!"

"Oh, Martin, wait till I'm with you!" cried Mary, dropping her seeds on the ridge and running up to him. Her fingers outside her woolen mittens were numb with the cold, and she couldn't wipe them in her apron. Her cheeks seemed to be on fire. She put an arm round Martin's waist and stood looking at the green sod his spade was going to cut, with the excitement of a little child.

"Now for God's sake, girl, keep back!" said Martin gruffly. "Suppose anybody saw us like this in the field of our spring sowing, what would they take us for but a pair of useless, soft, empty-headed people that would be sure to die of hunger? Huh!" He spoke very rapidly, and his eyes were fixed on the ground before him. His eyes had a wild, eager light in them as if some primeval impulse were burning within his brain and driving out every other desire but that of asserting his manhood and of subjugating the earth.

"Oh, what do we care who is looking?" said Mary; but she drew back at the same time and gazed distantly at the ground. Then Martin cut the sod, and pressing the spade deep into the earth with his foot, he turned up the first sod with a crunching sound as the grass roots were dragged out of the earth. Mary sighed and walked back hurriedly to her seeds with furrowed brows. She picked up her seeds and began to spread them rapidly to drive out the sudden terror that had seized her at that moment when she saw the fierce, hard look in her husband's eyes that were unconscious of her presence. She became suddenly afraid of that pitiless, cruel earth, the peasant's slave master that would keep her chained to hard work and poverty all her life until she would sink again into its bosom. Her short-lived love was gone. Henceforth she was only her husband's helper to till the earth. And Martin, absolutely without thought, worked furiously, covering the ridge with block earth, his sharp spade gleaming white as he whirled it sideways to beat the sods.

参考译文——春播

春播

利亚姆·奥弗莱厄蒂

当马丁·德莱尼和妻子玛丽起床时，天色仍然很暗。马丁穿着衬衫站在窗前，揉着双眼，打着哈欠；而玛丽把整夜埋在炉灰里还未烧尽的煤块扒了出来。屋外，公鸡在啼叫，一道白光正从地平线上升起，一如既往，开始驱散黑暗。这是一个二月的清晨，干燥、寒冷、满天星斗。

这对夫妇坐下默默地吃早餐：茶、面包和黄油。他们头年的秋天刚结婚，真不情愿这么早就从温暖的被窝里出来。马丁的头发和眼睛都是褐色的，脸上长着雀斑，稀松的八字须颜色淡淡的，这都使他看起来很年轻，好像还不到该结婚的年纪，而他的妻子几乎跟小姑娘没什么两样，红红的脸蛋，蓝蓝的眼睛，黑黑的头发盘在脑后，盘发的中央别着一个闪闪发亮的梳簪，这是西班牙式的发型。他们俩都穿着用家纺粗布缝制的衣服，并且都穿着一件宽松的白衬衣——那是印弗拉拉的农民下地干活时穿的衣服。

他们一言不发地吃着早餐，睡意犹存，情绪低落，但仍感到兴奋不已，因为这是他们结为夫妇后第一场春播的头一天。他们各自都感受到了这天的强烈诱惑力——他们将开垦土地并一起播种。但是不知怎地，当一件很久以来就期待、热爱、担心和为之精心准备的事情就要来临时，他们的情绪反倒低落起来。像许多女人初次体验新婚的喜悦与焦虑一样，玛丽以其精明的女人头脑想到女人一生中会遇到的种种事情。而马丁却只在想一件事。他能在春播中表现出色，证明自己是无愧为一家之主的男人吗？

吃完早餐，他们来到谷仓，正当他们准备拿土豆种子、丈量用的绳子和铁锹时，马丁在昏暗的谷仓中被一只篮子绊倒了。便骂骂咧咧地说，一个男人死了也比……但是还没等他把话说完，玛丽就用胳膊挽住他的腰，把脸贴了过来。“马丁，”她说，“我们不要这样发着脾气开始这头一天吧。”她的声音带着一丝颤抖。不知怎地，当他们拥抱时，所有的烦躁和睡意都不见了。他们就这样抱着站在那里，最后，马丁假装粗鲁地把她从身边推开，说道：“快来吧，丫头，以这种速度，我们开工的时候太阳恐怕要下山了。”

可是，当他们穿着生牛皮鞋静静地走过小村庄时，周围空无一人。有几间小木屋的窗户上闪烁着灯光。东方的天空有一道灰色的大裂缝，好像要突然断开，让太阳喷发出来。鸟儿们在远处鸣唱着。马丁和玛丽把土豆种的篮子放在村外的围墙上，马丁骄傲地小声对玛丽说：“我们是第一个到的，玛丽。”他们都回头看了看那一群小木屋，那是他们生活的中心，心怦怦直跳。因为此刻春天的喜悦已经完全占据了他们的心。

他们来到了要播种的那一小块地里。这是一小块三角形的土地，位于长满青藤的石灰岩小山下。这一小块地几星期前用海草施过肥，而现在海草在草地上已经腐烂变白。栅栏的角落里还堆了一大堆新鲜的红海草，准备在播种时铺在种子下面作底肥。马丁不畏寒冷，脱掉了上衣，只剩一件毛质的条纹衬衫。他往掌心吐口唾沫，抓起铁锹，大声喊：“玛丽，现在你会看到你嫁给了一个什么样的男人。”

“好嘞，来吧。”玛丽说着，将下巴下的小围巾系紧了些。

“我们一大早来就该自夸吗？也许我要等到太阳落山才能看到我究竟嫁了个什么样的男人。

”开始干活了。马丁从南面的栅栏边开始丈量第一条垄，这块地是一条4英尺宽的狭长地，然后他沿着边缘放好线绳，并在两头用桩固定住。接着，他把新鲜的海草铺在那条地上。玛丽用围裙兜着土豆种，开始一排排地播撒。她刚顺着垄撒了一小段，马丁便拿锹站到了垄头，迫不及待地要开始了。

“现在以上帝的名义，”他大声喊道，往掌心吐了口唾沫，“让我们铲起第一锹！”

“哦，马丁，等一下，我要和你一起干！”玛丽叫道，把种子丢到垄上，向他跑了过来。她那露在羊毛手套外的手指已被冻僵了，她无法把手放到围裙里面揉揉它们。她的双颊激动得涨红了。她用一只胳膊挽住了马丁的腰，站在那儿看着他就要用铁锹翻起的绿色草皮，像小孩子似的兴奋不已。

“好了，看在上帝的份上，丫头，靠后点！”马丁粗声说道。“想想要是有人看见我们这样在地里春播，他们会把我们当作什么？肯定以为我们只不过是一对软弱无能、没有头脑的家伙，一定会饿死的。啊！”他说得很快，眼睛紧盯着面前的土地。双眼中闪着一种狂野、热切的光芒，好像某种原始的冲动在大脑中燃烧，驱走了其他的任何欲望，只想表现自己的男子气概，征服这块土地。

“哦，我们干嘛介意别人怎么看？”玛丽说着还是后退了几步，远远地盯着地面。接着，马丁铲断草皮，用脚将铁锹深深地踏进土里，伴随着草根被拽出土地时发出的嘎吱声，他翻起了第一块草皮。玛丽叹了口气，皱紧眉梢，匆忙回到原处播种。她拿起种子，开始飞快播撒起来，想以此驱散那突然袭来的恐惧感，那是她看到丈夫那双无视她存在的眼睛里露出凶猛、严厉的神情时感到的恐惧。她突然害怕这块冷酷无情的土地，这是农民的奴隶主，她的一生都会被束缚在辛劳和贫穷中，直到她老死，重返大地的怀抱。她那短暂的爱情已经远去。从此以后，她只不过是丈夫耕田种地的一个帮手。而马丁此时完全没有多想，只是在拼命地干着活，不断地往垄沟上培土，当他侧旋着铁锹拍打草皮时，锋利的铁锹泛着白光。

Key Words:

streak [stri:k]

n. 条理，斑纹，倾向，少许，痕迹

irritation [.iri'teiʃən]

n. 刺激，烦恼，刺激物

tremor ['tremə]

n. 震动，颤动，战栗，兴奋，地震

limestone ['laimstəun]

n. 石灰石

spat [spæt]

n. 贝卵，蚝卵，蚝仔 n. 鞋罩 n. 小争吵，轻打声

boastful ['bəustfəl]