精美英文欣赏:爱的小纸条(上)

爱的小纸条

Love Notes

It's been over eleven years now. It was a wintry afternoon, the snow swirling¹ around the cedar² trees outside, forcing little icicles to form at the tips of the deep green foliage³ clinging to the branches.

11年前，那是一个寒冬的下午，窗外，大片的雪花绕着雪松盘旋飞舞，枝头深绿色的叶尖上挂着小小的冰柱。

My older son, Stephen, was at school, and Reed , my husband, at work .My three little ones were clustered around the kitchen counter, the tabletop piled high with crayons and markers.

我的大儿子史蒂芬去上学了，丈夫里德去上班了，三个小孩挤在厨柜旁，桌面上堆着蜡笔和记号笔。

Tom was perfecting a paper airplane, creating his own insignia with stars and dtripes,while Sam worked on a self-portrait, his chubby⁴ hands drawing first a head, then legs and arms sticking out where the body should have been.

汤姆正画着星条旗徽章，为纸飞机做漂亮的装饰。汤姆正忙着画自画像，他胖乎乎的小手先画了一个头，然后在应当画身体的位置画了腿和胳膊。

The children mostly concentrated on their work, Tom occasionally tutoring his younger brother on excatly how to make a plane that would fly the entire length of the room.

孩子们都全神贯注地忙着手上的活儿，汤姆不时地告诉弟弟怎样正确地制作一架能够穿行于整间屋子的飞机。

But Laura, our only daughter, sat quietly, engrossed⁵ in her project. Every once in a while she would ask how to spell the name of someone in our family, then painstakingly⁶ form the letters one by one.

我们唯一的女儿劳拉静静地坐在那里，聚精会神地忙着她的事。她偶尔也会问如何拼写我们家庭某成员的名字，然后极为困难地逐个字母拼写出来。

Next , she would add flowers with smaill green stems, complete with grass lining⁷ the bottom of the page.

接着，她画了一些有着嫩绿小茎的花朵，在纸张的底部添些草边。

She finished off each with a sun in the upper right hand corner,surrounded by an inch or two of blue sky. Holding them at eye level, she let out a long sigh of satisfaction.

每完成一页，她都会在右上角处画一片蓝天，中间是太阳。然后把它们举到眼前欣赏一番，心满意足地长舒一口气。

"What are you making, Honey?" I asked.

“宝贝，你干什么呢？”我问道。

She glanced at her brothers beofre looking back at me:

看我之前她瞥了一眼她的兄弟们。

"It's a surprise," she said, covering up her work with her hands.

“这是一个惊喜。”她双手捂住了作品。

Next , she taped the top two edges of each sheet of paper together trying her best to create a cylinder⁸. When she had finished, she disappered up the stairs with her treasure.

接着，她把每张纸的上下两边粘贴起来，尽量做成一个圆筒。做好后，她带着那些宝贝跑上楼梯，消失不见了。

1 swirling   

v.旋转，打旋( swirl的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Snowflakes were swirling in the air. 天空飘洒着雪花。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• She smiled, swirling the wine in her glass. 她微笑着，旋动着杯子里的葡萄酒。 来自辞典例句

2 cedar   

n.雪松，香柏(木)

参考例句：

• The cedar was about five feet high and very shapely.那棵雪松约有五尺高,风姿优美。
• She struck the snow from the branches of an old cedar with gray lichen.她把长有灰色地衣的老雪松树枝上的雪打了下来。

3 foliage   

n.叶子，树叶，簇叶

参考例句：

• The path was completely covered by the dense foliage.小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。
• Dark foliage clothes the hills.浓密的树叶覆盖着群山。

4 chubby   

adj.丰满的，圆胖的

参考例句：

• He is stocky though not chubby.他长得敦实，可并不发胖。
• The short and chubby gentleman over there is our new director.那个既矮又胖的绅士是我们的新主任。

5 engrossed   

adj.全神贯注的

参考例句：

• The student is engrossed in his book.这名学生正在专心致志地看书。
• No one had ever been quite so engrossed in an evening paper.没人会对一份晚报如此全神贯注。

6 painstakingly   

adv. 费力地 苦心地

参考例句：

• Every aspect of the original has been closely studied and painstakingly reconstructed. 原作的每一细节都经过了仔细研究，费尽苦心才得以重现。
• The cause they contrived so painstakingly also ended in failure. 他们惨淡经营的事业也以失败而告终。

7 lining   

n.衬里，衬料

参考例句：

• The lining of my coat is torn.我的外套衬里破了。
• Moss makes an attractive lining to wire baskets.用苔藓垫在铁丝篮里很漂亮。

8 cylinder   

n.圆筒，柱(面)，汽缸

参考例句：

• What's the volume of this cylinder?这个圆筒的体积有多少？
• The cylinder is getting too much gas and not enough air.汽缸里汽油太多而空气不足。