考无忧-----考霸整理版1. Eastward from Ashkhabad my train lumbered across a region of oases where rivers dropped out of Iran to die in the Turcoman desert. In one window the Kopet Dagh mountains lurched darkly out of haze, and repeated themselves in thinning colours far into the sky. Beyond the other rolled a grey-green savannah, gashed with poppies. Over this immensity the sky curved like a frescoed ceiling, where flotillas of white and grey clouds floated on separate winds.我乘坐的列车由阿什哈巴德驶出，一路向东，在土库曼沙漠中的绿洲地区中缓慢行驶，源自伊朗的数条河流便在这里汇集。
透过一扇车窗，可以看到考匹特塔克山脉在黑色的迷雾中蜿蜒前行，若隐若现，其颜色随着山势的增高而变得模糊起来另一扇车窗中，灰绿色草原绵延不绝，四处是凌乱的罂粟天空在无垠的大地上盘旋曲折，仿佛是一个刻有壁画的天花板，密集的白云和灰云在空中随着阵风飘移2. Once or twice under the foothills I glimpsed the mound of a kurgan, broken open like the lips of a volcano – the burial-place of a tribal chief, perhaps, or the milestone of some lost nomad advance. Along this narrow littoral, a century ago, the Tekke Turcomans had grazed their camels and tough Argamak horses, and tilled the soil around forty-three earthen fortresses. Now the Karakum canal ran down from the Oxus through villages with old, despairing names such as 'Dead-End' and 'Cursed-by-God', and fed collective farms of wheat and cotton.在山麓小丘之下，我瞥见了一两个坟头，坟头已经裂开，样子与火山口相仿——也许，它是部落首领的埋葬之地，或者就是某个迷失的游牧开拓者的一座里程碑。
一个世纪之前，在这个滨海地区的沿岸，提基亚土库曼人用泥土建立起 43 个堡垒，他们在周围放牧骆驼和凶悍的阿葛马克马，并耕种土地如今，卡拉库姆运河自阿姆河顺流而下，穿过那些以“死角”和“天谴”等古老、绝望的名字来命名的村子，灌溉着那些种有小麦与棉花的集体农场3. The train was like a town on the move. In its cubicles the close-tiered bunks were stacked with Russian factory workers and gangs of gossiping Turcomans. Grimy windows soured the world outside with their own fog, and a stench of urine rose from the washrooms. But a boisterous freedom was in the air. Everyone was in passage, lightly uprooted. They gobbled salads and tore at scraggy chicken, played cards raucously together and pampered each other's children, until the afternoon lunch-break lulled them into sleep. Then the stained railway mattresses were deployed over the bunks, and the corridor became a tangle of arms and projecting feet in frayed socks. From a tundra of sheets poked the beards of Turcoman farmers, and the weathered heads of soldiers resting on their caps. Matriarchs on their way to visit relatives in the next oasis lay mounded under blankets or quilted coats, and young women curled up with their children in their arms and their scarves swept over their faces.这列火车就像一个移动的城镇。
车厢单间内，上下铺位间的空间狭窄，上面全都挤满了俄罗斯工人和成群唧喳不停的土库曼人污秽的车窗布满了雾气，使外面的景色模糊不清，洗手间更是飘来了小便后的恶臭但空气中弥漫着放纵喧闹的气氛人们全都是在旅行，似乎有点漂泊在外的味道他们大口吞咽着沙拉，撕啃着骨多肉少的鸡，一起大声吆喝着玩着扑克，互相哄弄着彼此的小孩，直到下午，午休时间才使他们安静下来，开始睡觉之后，铺位上纷纷铺起污迹斑斑的列车床垫，走廊里顿时到处都是胳膊和露在外面、穿着破袜子的脚丫子所有被单仿佛就是一片苔原，土库曼农民把他们的胡子露在了被单外面，而枕着帽子的士兵则把他们那饱受风霜之苦的脑袋露了出来去下一个绿洲地区看亲戚的老妇人们躺在毛毯里或棉大衣中，好似一座座小山丘，而年轻的妇人则蜷着身子，怀里抱着孩子，并用她们的头巾盖住了自己的脸4. Two hundred miles east of Ashkhabad, where the soil shelved into ridges of scrub-speckled sand, a harsh wind sprang up. It whined against our windows and liquefied the plain and sky to a single, yellowed light. Suddenly ploughed tracts and irrigation channels appeared, and the glisten of flooded rice-fields; and cranes preceded the suburbs of Mari. I had time for a spy's glimpse into backyards – a view of cherished private plots and straggling geese – before we jolted to a halt.在阿什哈巴德以东 200 英里处，土地变成了长有稀松灌木的梯形沙地，狂风即时而起。
风沙击打着车窗，把平原和天空融合成一道昏黄的光线刹那间，犁耕田和灌溉渠出现了，水稻田也在闪闪发亮；到达马雷市考无忧-----考霸整理版郊区之前还看到了一些起重机在我们的列车摇晃着停下来之前，我还来得及迅速瞥一眼居民的后院——看到的是妥善照料的自耕地和乱窜的鹅5. Mari was a scrawl over the oasis, built piecemeal in a pallid, dead brick. Between flat-blocks and bungalows I tramped towards a heart which was not there. I found a bleak hotel. Towards evening, sitting in its hall before a black-and-white-television, I heard that Najibullah had been deposed in Afghanistan. But there was nobody in the lobby with whom to share this; and the news went on. With a dim dissociation, as if I were receiving reports from a distant planet, I heard that the Danes had rejected the European Exchange Rate Mechanism and that there was to be a memorial concert for Freddie Mercury at Wembley.马雷市是绿洲地区中一座凌乱的城市，是用白色的、死气沉沉的砖块一块块堆垒起来的。
我在居民楼和平房中大步行走，寻找一个原本不存在的市中心我找到了一家景象凄凉的旅馆快入夜的时候，坐在大厅中黑白电视机前的我听到了纳吉布拉（原阿富汗总统）在阿富汗被免职的消息但是，大厅中空无一人，无法与人分享这个消息；新闻还在继续播送我有点迷失，仿佛我正在一个遥远的星球接收报告，我听到丹麦人否决了欧洲汇率机制，以及要为弗雷迪•摩克瑞（“皇后乐队”主唱）在温布利举行纪念演唱会的消息6. But nothing from the outlandish present seemed real that night. It was the past which impinged. Somewhere on the fringe of this unlovely town lay the ruined caravan-city of Merv, lodestar of the Silk Road for two thousand years, and capital of the gifted and tragic Seljuk Turks: a rich city, sometimes cultivated and benignly powerful, which had nurtured its heterogeneous citizens in a common passion for trade.但是那晚，在那个奇异的现实中似乎没有一点是真实的。
回荡着的只是过去在这个丑陋的城镇边缘的某个地方，坐落着已沦为废墟的驿站城市——莫夫城，它作为丝绸之路的一颗明珠已有 2000 年的历史了，而且是拥有天赋、命运悲惨的塞尔柱突厥人的都城：一座富裕的城市，在某段时间里曾拥有过文明并且恃强而不凌弱，城中生活着对贸易有着同样激情的各族居民7. I wandered out into the warm night of Mari. The few street-lamps shed down squalor. The only open restaurant served coarse vegetable soups。