纽约时报 我从未想过堕胎(2)

 

    I remember the moment I learned of the pregnancy¹ so clearly — as if it has always been happening and will continue to be happening until the end of my life, as if it rang a heavy bell and the deafening² note reverberates³ still.

    我清楚地记得我得知怀孕的那一刻——仿佛那一刻一直在发生，而且将继续发生，直到我生命的尽头，仿佛那一刻敲响了沉重的钟声，震耳欲聋的音调仍在回响。

    I took the pregnancy test in a restroom in the Biblical Studies Building.

    我在圣经研究楼的厕所里做了验孕。

    I had received my bachelor’s degree in English the week before but had stayed in town to guest-teach the literature unit of a monthlong course on women’s spirituality, led by one of my professors.

    上个星期，我拿到了英语学士学位，但我留在城里作为客座教师教授一个月时间的文学单元课程---女性的精神，这些课程由我的一位教授负责。

    At the break, after talking to the students about a poem by Marge Piercy —课间休息时，在和学生们谈论了一首玛姬·皮尔斯的诗之后In nightmares she suddenly recalls

    在恶梦中她突然回忆起来

    a class she signed up for

    这是她报的一门课程

    but forgot to attend

    却忘记参加

    Now it is too late.

    现在已经太晚了。

    — I took the test. The two pink lines appeared.

    -我做了验孕测试。 出现了两条粉红色的线。

    I felt a line sear its way through the middle of my body. I felt a physical splitting.

    我感觉有一条线烧过了我的身体中部。 我感到身体分裂了。

    Now it is time for finals: losers will be shot.

    现在是决赛的时候了:失败者将被枪毙。

    I was wearing a delicate pink sweater, a long dark green silk skirt and pretty sandals.

    我穿着一件精致的粉红色毛衣，一条深绿色的丝质长裙和一双漂亮的凉鞋。

    I remember realizing I had never been up against such a true moment of inevitability⁴, of mandatory⁵ decision-making, before.

    我记得我以前从未遇到过如此真实的不可避免的时刻，被迫做出决定的时刻。

    I had never understood incontrovertible.

    毫无疑问，我从来没有理解过。

    In this way, it was my first encounter with the meaning of death.

    就这样，这是我第一次体验了死亡的意义。

    I went back to class. I was teaching from an anthology called “Cries of the Spirit.”

    我回到教室。 我在教一本叫做《灵魂的呐喊》的选集I pointed⁶ out a line in the preface in which the editor describes attending the lecture of a teacher she respected deeply,我在前言中指出了其中的一行，在这一行中，编辑描述了他参加了一位她非常尊敬的老师的讲座，relating that “throughout his presentation, he quoted from his teachers, from books, from the founders⁷ of Western thought — everyone from Aristotle to Auden — and not once did he mention a woman’s name or recall the words of a woman.”

    讲述了“在他的演讲中，他引用了他的老师、书籍、西方思想的创始人——从亚里士多德到奥登——的话。 他一次也没有提到过一个女人的名字，或者回忆起一个女人说过的话。”

    Next, Mary Oliver:

    接下来是玛丽·奥利弗:

    One day you finally knew

    有一天，你终于知道，

    what you had to do, and began,

    什么是你必须得做，并开始去做，

    though the voices around you

    虽然你周围的声音，

    kept shouting

    一直喊出，

    their bad advice —

    其各种糟糕的建议——

    though the whole house

    虽然整个房子，

    began to tremble …

    开始颤抖...

    I didn’t know. I didn’t know what I was doing, what I had done, what I would do.

    我不知道。 我不知道我在做什么，我做了什么，我将做什么。

    I had only recently, within those past few months, for the first time, come near the idea that the words of a woman could matter.

    直到最近，在过去的几个月里，我才第一次有了这样的想法，即女人的话可能很重要。

    I had only begun to see that they hadn’t, my whole life.

    我的一生中，我才开始意识到他们并没有。

    … as you strode deeper and deeper

    伴你步步，

    into the world,

    深入世途，

    determined⁸ to do

    决心去做，

    the only thing you could do —

    你唯一能做的事——

    determined to save

    决定去拯救，

    the only life you could save.

    你唯一能拯救的生命。

1 pregnancy   

n.怀孕，怀孕期

参考例句：

• Early pregnancy is often accompanied by nausea.怀孕早期常有恶心的现象。
• Smoking during pregnancy increases the risk of miscarriage.怀孕期吸烟会增加流产的危险。

2 deafening   

adj. 振耳欲聋的, 极喧闹的 动词deafen的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• The noise of the siren was deafening her. 汽笛声震得她耳朵都快聋了。
• The noise of the machine was deafening. 机器的轰鸣声震耳欲聋。

3 reverberates   

回响，回荡( reverberate的第三人称单数 )； 使反响，使回荡，使反射

参考例句：

• His voice reverberates from the high ceiling. 他的声音自天花板顶处反射回来。
• No single phrase of his reverberates or penetrates as so many of La Bruyere's do. 他没有一个句子能象拉布吕耶尔的许多句子那样余音回荡，入木三分。

4 inevitability   

n.必然性

参考例句：

• Evolutionism is normally associated with a belief in the inevitability of progress. 进化主义通常和一种相信进步不可避免的看法相联系。
• It is the tide of the times, an inevitability of history. 这是时代的潮流，历史的必然。

5 mandatory   

adj.命令的；强制的；义务的；n.受托者

参考例句：

• It's mandatory to pay taxes.缴税是义务性的。
• There is no mandatory paid annual leave in the U.S.美国没有强制带薪年假。

6 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

7 founders   

n.创始人( founder的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• He was one of the founders of the university's medical faculty. 他是该大学医学院的创建人之一。 来自辞典例句
• The founders of our religion made this a cornerstone of morality. 我们宗教的创始人把这看作是道德的基石。 来自辞典例句

8 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。