2019年经济学人 太空行走第一人阿里克谢·列昂诺夫(1)

 

Alexei Leonov, the first man to walk in space and create art there, died on October 11th, aged¹ 85.

阿里克谢·列昂诺夫是首位在太空行走并在那里创造了艺术的人类。他于10月11日去世，享年85岁。

Climbing from the open airlock of Voskhod-2, Alexei Leonov felt quite calm. He was cool-headed, focused. This often disappointed people. "What!" they would exclaim. "The door into the universe had been opened, and you felt nothing?" They forgot that he had been through all that training at the Star City cosmonaut school, jumping into deep water, acrobatics², and the rest. They forgot that his head was full of data and instructions.

阿里克谢·列昂诺夫爬出上升2号载人飞船的气闸，感觉很平静。他很冷静，精神集中。这个表现经常令人失望。“什么！”他们会喊道。“进入宇宙的大门已经打开了，你竟然没有感觉？”他们忘记了他曾在星城宇航员学校接受过所有的训练，包括跳进深水、杂技等等。他们忘记了他的脑子里都是数据和指令。

All the same, as he released one hand, then one foot, then the whole of him, until only a 5.5-metre rope held him to the world of men, he could feel as mile starting on his face and spreading. He was calm mostly because he was enthralled³. He spread his bulky suited arms, kicked his legs and floated, free. In the silence he could hear only his heartbeat and his heavy breathing.

在他放开一只手，一只脚，然后整个身体时，直到一个5.5米长的绳子把他拉回人世间，他都是很平静。他能感受到广阔的空间出现在面前，无限延伸。他感到平静主要是因为他被迷住了。他伸开他那穿得很厚的胳膊，两脚蹬开，自由自在地飘浮着。在寂静中，他只能听到心跳声和他沉重的呼吸声。

Stars were all around him against a coal-black sky. They did not blink⁴. Below him, 500km below, lay the Black Sea. He knew it well, notonly as a Russian patriot⁵, but because he had visited its shores dozens of times. Now, on March 18th 1965, he saw it whole, gun-metal grey, with a tiny dot of a ship on it that seemed caught from all sides in a flow of light. He too was a dot, a grain of sand in the near-blinding dazzle⁶ of the unobscured sun. It came through his visor like a welder's torch. He saw the Earth revolve⁷, the only moving thing apart from himself. What struck him most forcibly was how round it was, how beautiful, and how blue. His reverie ended in near-disaster.

他在煤炭般漆黑的空间里，周围都是星星。星星没有闪耀。他下面的500千米处是黑海。他很清楚这一点，不仅是因为他是一名俄罗斯宇航员，而且因为他去黑海的海岸参观过几十次。在1965年3月18日，他看到了它的整个外观，炮铜灰色，上面有一艘船的一个小点，它似乎被从四面八方射来的光捕获了。他也是一个点，一粒沙子，在没有被遮挡的太阳的几乎要闪瞎眼的耀眼光芒下。它像焊工的焊接炬一样照射进他的面罩。他看到地球在转动，除了他自己以外唯一在动的东西。最让他迷恋的是地球是那么圆，那么漂亮，那么蓝。他的遐想几乎以灾难告终。

1 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

2 acrobatics   

n.杂技

参考例句：

• Acrobatics is hard to learn but beautiful to watch.杂技不好学，但很好看。
• We watched a performance which included a puppet show and acrobatics.我们观看了一场演出，内容有木偶和杂技。

3 enthralled   

迷住，吸引住( enthrall的过去式和过去分词 )； 使感到非常愉快

参考例句：

• The child watched, enthralled by the bright moving images. 这孩子看着那明亮的移动的影像，被迷住了。
• The children listened enthralled as the storyteller unfolded her tale. 讲故事的人一步步展开故事情节，孩子们都听得入迷了。

4 blink   

vi.眨眼睛，闪烁；vt.眨（眼睛），使闪烁

参考例句：

• In a blink of an eye he had disappeared.一眨眼的工夫他就没影了。
• The boy disappeared around the corner in a blink of an eye.一眨眼，这男孩就在拐角处不见了。

5 patriot   

n.爱国者，爱国主义者

参考例句：

• He avowed himself a patriot.他自称自己是爱国者。
• He is a patriot who has won the admiration of the French already.他是一个已经赢得法国人敬仰的爱国者。

6 dazzle   

vt.使昏眩，使惊奇，使赞叹不已，使倾倒

参考例句：

• The dazzle of the spotlights made him ill at ease.聚光灯的耀眼强光使他局促不安。
• Fame did not dazzle him.他没有被名望冲昏头脑。

7 revolve   

vi.(使)旋转；循环出现

参考例句：

• The planets revolve around the sun.行星绕着太阳运转。
• The wheels began to revolve slowly.车轮开始慢慢转动。