現(xiàn)代英文選評：A Visit to the Grandfather's Grave 掃墓

A Visit to the Grandfather's Grave 掃墓

James Turner Jackson

本文選自Mentor Books（木鐸叢書）出的New World Writing第一輯，原題“The Visit”，敘述一個老祖母拖了她的小孫兒上墳的故事。文中描寫著重之處，在那個行將就木的老祖母對于墳墓的變態(tài)的戀念，和小孫兒對于這個“苦差使”的厭惡和恐懼，以及老少二人之間心理關(guān)系的緊張。全文頗不易讀，這里所選幾段，約當原文篇幅的十分之一，雖然深刻不如原來那篇小說，但仍不失為一篇很好的敘事文。作者杰克遜是美國密西根州人，曾在華盛頓州立大學執(zhí)教，有短篇小說和論文多篇問世。

In the winter, three years ago, his grandfather died. For almost a year, then, his grandmother never left town. She kept up her garden, and tended the ceremonial plants growing in the bay windows of her house.

● keep up=keep in proper state：使園中花木茂盛。tended：照料，整修灌溉。ceremonial：禮節(jié)上應用的；預備供在墳前的（植物）。bay windows：凸窗；窗往外凸出，窗內(nèi)因此可多吸收陽光。

In the late afternoon, most often, the car was filled with flowers, and together they drove out to a nearby cemetery where his grandfather was. They were going to see (so she told him each time they went) how his grandfather's grave was getting on. After the car was unloaded, and the flowers and shears and transplanting pots arranged in orderly rows beside the grave, she would send him down to the standpipe with a pail for water. In this manner, his work began. And when he finished the watering, she would set him to picking up fallen leaves and twigs. Not a moment was wasted.

● drove out：駕車出去。cemetery：公墓。

● how…was getting on：情形怎么樣了。第二句的括弧中語：他們每次出去掃墓，祖母都要對他這樣說。

● unloaded：把車上的東西搬下來。shears：（刈花草用之）剪刀。pots：花盆。transplanting：移植用的；有些花得先種在盆里，然后再移植到地上去。arranged in orderly rows：整整齊齊地排列成行。arranged前面省去were一字。

● standpipe：豎管（直立于地上的自來水管）。pail：水桶。祖母差他下去打水去，打了水來澆花（watering），澆完了花，再去撿地上的枯枝敗葉。

● set him to…：使他去做某一件工作。注意：to的后面跟動名詞（或名詞）。

It was the year when his grandmother was still very clear, and very rigid about what she wanted. By her reckoning, every plot in the cemetery, save hers alone, was poorly tended. Each time a flower was cut or trimmed by her hand, she counted off the number of its blossoms. And pointing to an adjoining grave, she would often shake her head, and wonder how it was that people were so shiftless and lazy-minded and ignorant. She herself would be painstaking unto the last detail; and for this, if for no other reason, always brought with her a mail-order catalogue, to which she might have immediate recourse for pictures—together with complete descriptions—of monuments fashioned of enduring granite, perpetual marble.

● clear：神志清明。那年她的神志還好，以后就差了。rigid：嚴格的。她所要辦的，一定得辦到。

● by her reckoning：由她看來。plot：地段。墓里的地，一家一塊。她認為別家的地都照料得不好。save=except：除了她家的一塊以外。

● a flower：本來可解釋作“一朵花”，但這里應作“一棵花”，與its blossoms（它上面的花朵）相對。她每次親手修（trimmed）剪（cut）一棵花，她一定要把上面的花朵數(shù)清楚（counted off）。

● an adjoining grave：鄰近的一座墳。她常常指著邊上的一座墳，搖頭嘆息，奇怪別人怎么這樣地想不出主意（shiftless），不肯動腦筋（lazy-minded），而且沒有知識（ignorant）。how it was…中之it代表that所引起之名詞性從句“這到底是怎么一回事”。

● painstaking：非常仔細，決不馬虎。unto是to的較古的形式。

● for this, if for no other reason：為了這個，假如不是為了別個理由。理由可能還有別的，可是我們就拿這點理由來說吧：因為她決不馬虎，所以掃墓的時候她還要來研究墳前應該配什么樣的一塊墓碑（monuments也可能包括雕像、牌坊、墓亭等的意思，但這里只是墓碑而已）。

● mail-order catalogue：（商店之）函購目錄。美國有些大商店，印了很講究的函購目錄，附有詳細圖文說明。照本文看來，似乎連墓碑都可以函購的。

● to which之to照語法結(jié)構(gòu)應連在后面recourse之后。have recourse to：用來幫忙，用來參考。immediate：立刻（就用得著）。

● pictures應和of monuments相連。她要打開目錄來，看墓碑的圖畫。fashioned：制造。granite：花崗石。marble：大理石。enduring和perpetual在這里意義相仿：可以永垂不朽的。

● descriptions：說明文字。圖畫之外，另有詳細說明。

When the flowers had been placed to her exact liking, she stepped back a few paces, customarily, and with the catalogue open in her hand sought to envision which of the pictured memorials would be most seemly at her husband's grave. She walked back and forth, glancing at the catalogue, weighing her decision. Soon, at her call, he stopped whatever he was doing, and came to help her read the fine print beneath the glossy pictures.

● to her exact liking：恰如她所喜歡那樣的。placed：擺設，供奉。

● customarily：成了習慣的了。sought=tried。envision：從心目中看來。pictured：繪成圖畫的（也可能是攝成相片的）。memorials=monuments。seemly：合適的。她退后數(shù)步，目錄打開，拿在手里，心里在設想：目錄里所畫的墓碑，哪一座配在她丈夫的墳上才頂合適。

● weighing：權(quán)衡優(yōu)劣，考慮。her decision：她所看中了的（那座墓碑）。

● at her call：聽她一叫。whatever he was doing：不論他在做什么（澆花或是收拾地上），他都得住了手，走過去幫老祖母讀目錄。

● fine print：印得很小的字體。老祖母眼睛有病，視力不濟，小字看不出，非請幫手不可。glossy：明亮光滑的。好的銅版紙上所印的圖片，應該用這個字來形容。

But each time it seemed that no final decision could be rendered. They would study the catalogue at length, and then his grandmother would send him back to the car. He would load the back seat, and then, while his grandmother remained at the grave alone, he would watch the long arcs of the water sprinklers shining in the last sunlight of the day. In such a light, the cemetery looked very plain to him: the trees simple and lofty in height, and all the tombstones austere in their carving. He tried to keep his head turned decently away, but sometimes, glancing back despite himself, he would see his grandmother above the mounded earth of the grave, her arms rising up in dark weaving shapes of despair and worship. In the coming dusk he would hear the sharp whispering outcries of her lament, above even the humming sound of the water-sprinklers. And though her eye bothered and afflicted her more month by month, that year when they started for home she still drove with lumbering and powerful speed.

● 第一句的rendered，可以用made代替。前面的fashioned，也可以用made來代替，但是這只可以表示make一字用法之多，render和fashion兩字是不可以互易的。

● at length：很詳細地。

● load the back seat：帶來的東西用過后，搬回到車子后座上去。

● water-sprinklers：噴水機（這里指的是電動的不用人照顧的那一種，大花園中有）。arc：弧狀曲線。

● tombstones：（別家墳上的）墓碑。austere in their carving：碑上的雕刻看來很嚴肅。

● keep his head turned away：故意把頭轉(zhuǎn)過去，不朝某一個方向看。decently：很有規(guī)矩地。祖母在墓前哭，他自以為他是不該看的。

● despite himself：想控制自己而不可得，他的眼睛偶爾還要朝后看。mounded earth：墳堆。

● her arms…以下為nominative absolute phrase。天色已晚，她的雙臂在黑暗中舉起，所作（weaving：織成）種種姿勢，禮拜（worship）死者之外，亦正顯示生者內(nèi)心悲苦，因此頹然不支（despair）也。

● coming dusk：暮色四合。lament：哀悼。the humming sound of the sprinklers：噴水機馬達的軋軋之聲。humming所代表的聲音并不像水聲，而是像電風扇馬達所發(fā)出的聲音那一類的。馬達雖軋軋作響，可是老祖母的尖細的哭聲他還聽得見。

● bothered and afflicted her：給她麻煩，也給她罪受。lumbering and powerful speed：車子開得很猛，可是笨重不穩(wěn)。老祖母目疾雖與月俱增，那一年她精神還不減少壯，觀其開車之“沖”，便知其內(nèi)心激動，不可自已，如有力量，從后驅(qū)策，其悲痛亦不言可喻矣。