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1、 英语美文：尽在不言中 When I read a book from my mothers shelves, its not unusual to come across a gap in the text. A paragraph, or maybe just a sentence, has been sliced out, leaving a window in its place, with words from the next page peeping through. The chopped up page looks like a nearly complete jigsaw
2、puzzle waiting for its missing piece. But the piece isnt lost, and I always know where to find it. Dozens of quotations, clipped from newspapers, magazinesand booksplaster one wall of my mothers kitchen. What means the most to my mother in her books she excises and displays. 当我翻看妈妈书架上的书时，经常会发觉其中的文字缺
3、了一局部。其中的一个段落，或可能只是一个句子，被剪了下来，在原来的位置上留下了一扇窗户，让后一页上的文字探头探脑地露了出来。被挖掉一块的那一页看上去就像是一幅几乎就要完成的拼图作品，等待着缺失的那一块拼图。但那一块拼图并没有丢，而且我总是知道在哪儿能找到它。在我妈妈的厨房里，从报纸上、杂志上还有书上剪下的纸片贴满了一面墙。在她的书里，那些她最喜爱的句子和段落都被她剪了下来，贴在墙上。 Ive never told her, but those literary amputations appall me. I know Ann Patchett and Dorothy Sayers, and
4、Somerset Maugham would fume alongside me, their careful prose severed from its rightful place. She picks extracts that startle me, too: “Put your worst foot forward, because then if people can still stand you, you can be yourself.” Sometimes I stand reading the wall of quotations, holding a scissors
5、-victim novel in my hand, puzzling over what draws my mother to these particular words. 我从未当面和她说过，但她对文学作品的这种“截肢手术”确实让我感到震动。我知道，安帕契特、多萝西塞耶斯和萨默塞特毛姆也在我身旁气得冒烟呢，怎么能把这些他们呕心沥血写出来的文字就这样从它们原来的位置上“截肢”了呢！她挑出来的那些段落也着实吓了我一跳，比方：“以你最糟糕的一面示人，由于假如那样人们也能容忍你的话，你就能做真正的自己了。”有时候，我会站在那儿读墙上那些书摘，手里拿着一本备受剪刀“*”的小说，心里布满困惑，不知道究
6、竟是什么驱使妈妈剪下了这样一些稀奇奇怪的句子。 My own quotation collection is more hidden and delicate. I copy favorite lines into a spiral-bound journal-a Christmas present from my mother, actuallyin soft, gray No. 2 pencil. This means my books remain whole. The labor required makes selection a cutthroat process: Do I re
7、ally love these two pages of On Chesil Beach enough to transc ribe them, word by finger-cramping word? (The answer was yes, the pages were that exquisite.) 我也摘录和保藏文字，不过我的保藏更为隐秘和精巧。我会用灰色的二号软芯铅笔把我最喜爱的句子摘抄到一个活页日记本里事实上，这还是我妈妈送我的一份圣诞礼物呢。也就是说，我的书都是完整的。但由于摘抄需要工夫，因此选择哪些文字摘抄就成了一个苦痛的过程：我是不是真的喜爱在切瑟尔海滩上里的这两页文字？
8、喜爱到我情愿一个字一个字地把它们抄下来，直抄到手指头都抽筋？（答案为“是”，由于这两页文字写得实在太美了。） My mother doesnt know any of this. She doesnt know I prefer copying out to cutting out. Ive never told her that I compile quotations at all. 我妈妈一点也不知道这件事。她不知道与剪贴相比，我更喜爱抄录。我压根就没告知过她我也收集自己喜爱的文字。 Theres nothing very shocking about that; for all our
9、 chatting, we dont have the words to begin certain conversations. My mother and I talk on the phone at least once a week, and in some ways, we are each others most dedicated listener. She tells me about teaching English to the leathery Russian ladies at the library where she volunteers; I tell her a
10、bout job applications, cover letters, and a grant Id like to win. We talk about my siblings, her siblings, the president, and Philip Seymour Hoffman movies. We make each other laugh so hard that I choke and she cries. But what we dont say could fill up rooms. Fights with my father. Small failures in
11、 school. Anything, really, that pierces us. 其实这一点没什么值得大惊小怪的；尽管我们总是谈天，但对于某些特定的话题，我们总是不知道该怎么开口。妈妈和我一个星期至少会通一次电话，从某些方面来说,我们是对方最用心的听众。她会告知我她在图书馆做志愿者教那些强悍的俄罗斯妇女英语时发生的事；而我会和她谈谈我找工作的事、我的求职信，还有我想要争取的补助什么的。我们会聊我的兄弟姐妹、她的兄弟姐妹、总统，还有菲利普塞默霍夫曼的电影。我们经常逗得对方大笑，笑得我喘不过气来，笑得她眼泪都流出来了。但我们不聊的东西也许多，多得几个房间都装不下。譬如她和我爸吵架了，又譬如我
12、在学校遇到一些小挫折了。事实上，全部让我们难过的事，我们都避而不谈。 I like to say that my mother has never told me “I love you.” Theres something reassuring in its self-pitying simplicityas if the three-word absence explains who I am and wins me sympathy-so I carry it with me, like a label on my back. I synthesize our cumbersome re
13、lationship with an easy shorthand: my mother never said “I love you”. The last time my mother almost spoke the words was two years ago, when she called to tell me that a friend had been hospitalized. 我经常说，妈妈从来没和我说过“我爱你”。这句有点自怜的简洁话语听起来颇有些自我劝慰的味道仿佛这三个字的缺失就为我为什么成为现在的我供应了借口，还为我赢得了怜悯于是，我总是把这句话挂在嘴边，就像把它贴在
14、背上当标签一样。对于我和妈妈之间的这种微妙关系，我总是简洁地用一句“谁让她从来不说我爱你”来总结。上一次妈妈差点说出这几个字是在两年前，当时她给我打电话，告知我她有个朋友住院了。 I said, “I love you, Mom.” She said, “Thank you.” I havent said it since, but Ive thought about it, and Ive wondered why my mother doesnt. A couple of years ago, I found a poem by Robert Hershon called “Sentime
15、ntal Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road?” that supplied words for the blank spaces I try to understand in our conversations: 我对她说：“我爱你，妈妈。” 而她说:“感谢。” 这件事后来我再没提过，但却始终在我的脑海里回旋不去，我始终想知道为什么我妈妈从来不说这几个字。几年前，我读到罗伯特赫尔希写的一首诗，诗名叫感伤的时刻或面包为什么要过公路？，这首诗填补了我和妈妈的对话中很多我不能理解的空白： Dont fill up on bread. I say absent-mindedly. The servings here are huge. My son, whose hair may be receding a bit, says: Did you really just say that to me? What he doesnt knowis that when were walking together, when we get to the curb. I sometimes start to reachfor his hand. 别用面包把肚子塞满了。我心不在焉地说。这儿的菜量大得很，我的儿
