纽约时报 如果没有所谓的结束呢?(1)

 

 

    When I first visited Pauline Boss in late May, Minneapolis was on the cusp of fully¹ reopening.

    5月底，当我第一次访问波林·波斯时，明尼阿波利斯市正处于全面重新开放的边缘。

    Boss, who is 87, greeted me in her building’s lobby wearing thick-framed glasses, her light blonde hair short and an Apple Watch clasped on her left wrist.

    87岁的波斯在她所在大楼的大厅里迎接我，她戴着一副厚框眼镜，一头浅金色短发，左手腕上戴着一只苹果手表。

    She cautiously extended a hand toward me. “Can we shake hands?” she asked, smiling. “Dare we?” We did.

    她小心翼翼地向我伸出一只手。 “我们能握手吗?” 她笑着问。“我们敢吗?” 我们敢。

    The apartment was bright, with two walls of windows pouring sky into the space.

    这套公寓很明亮，两面墙带有窗户，将天空引入室内空间。

    Bookshelves were filled with works of sociology, psychology² and history;书架上摆满了社会学、心理学和历史学的著作;a section was devoted³ primarily to Sigmund Freud, and another to Boss’s hometown, New Glarus, Wis.

    书架的一部分主要是西格蒙德·弗洛伊德，另一部分是波斯的家乡威斯康星州的纽格拉鲁斯。

    Out the window, the Mississippi River churned under bridges, past the tangle⁴ of downtown.

    窗外，密西西比河在桥下剧烈翻滚，流经错综的市区。

    The view, however spectacular, was not the apartment’s selling point. The elevators were.

    无论景色多么壮观，这都不是这套公寓的卖点。电梯才是卖点。

    Boss, an emeritus⁵ professor of family social science — the study of families and close relationships — chose the place seven years ago波斯是家庭社会科学(研究家庭和亲密关系的学科)的荣誉退休教授。七年前，她选择了这个地方because her husband’s declining health had made it difficult for him to climb the stairs of their house near the University of Minnesota, where she taught.

    因为她丈夫的健康状况不断恶化，爬上他们在明尼苏达大学附近的房子的楼梯很困难。她在明尼苏达大学任教。

    His decline was gradual.

    他病情恶化是逐渐的。

    In 2000, he was using a cane⁶; by last year, when he was 88, rheumatoid arthritis⁷ had rendered him unable to walk.

    2000年，他还在使用手杖; 去年，他88岁，风湿性关节炎使他无法行走。

    Vascular⁸ issues resulted in open wounds on his legs.

    血管问题导致他的腿上有开放性伤口。

    Despite his illness, the couple maintained a semblance⁹ of normalcy, entertaining guests, going for drives and attending the theater, until last year, when the pandemic isolated¹⁰ them in the apartment.

    尽管他生病了，这对夫妇仍保持着正常的生活，招待客人，开车兜风，去剧院，直到去年，疫情把他们隔离在公寓里。

    Then, their only visitors were home health aides; once they left, Boss would take care of her husband, changing the dressing¹¹ on his bandages and administering his medications.

    那时，他们唯一的访客是家庭健康助理; 一旦他们离开，波斯就会照顾丈夫，给他换绷带，给他用药。

    “It sneaks¹² up on you,” Boss said of the burden of caregiving and its attendant emotional struggles.

    “它会悄悄靠近你，”波斯谈到照顾丈夫的负担和随之而来的情感斗争时说。

    She felt a range of contradictory¹³ feelings: gratitude¹⁴ for their time together, grief over the loss of their old rhythms and anxiety at the inevitability¹⁵ of his death.

    她感到一系列矛盾的感情:对他们在一起的时光心怀感恩，为失去过去的生活节奏而悲伤，为他不可避免的离去而焦虑。

    Boss was also confused about her role in their partnership¹⁶.

    波斯也对自己在伴侣关系中扮演的角色感到困惑。

    Once solely¹⁷ his wife, she was now also his caregiver.

    她曾经只是他的妻子，现在也是他的照顾者。

    With her husband’s drawn-out illness, Boss’s life came to resemble the cases she’d spent her career studying.

    她丈夫久病不愈，波斯的生活变得与她花了整个职业生涯研究的案例很相似。

    Nearly 50 years ago, as a doctoral student in child development and family studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, she researched families with at least one member who was either physically¹⁸ or psychologically absent.

    大约50年前，作为威斯康星大学麦迪逊分校儿童发展和家庭研究的博士生，她研究了至少有一名成员在生理或心理上缺席的家庭。

    Her initial studies in the 1970s focused on families in which fathers were too busy working to spend time with their children, and later on the wives of fighter pilots who were missing in action during the Vietnam War.

    20世纪70年代，她最初的研究集中在父亲工作太忙而没有时间陪伴孩子的家庭，后来研究了在越南战争中失踪的战斗机飞行员的妻子。

    The fathers were psychologically absent but physically present, while the fighter pilots were the reverse.

    父亲们心理上缺席，但生理上并没有，而战斗机飞行员则相反。

1 fully   

adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地

参考例句：

• The doctor asked me to breathe in,then to breathe out fully.医生让我先吸气，然后全部呼出。
• They soon became fully integrated into the local community.他们很快就完全融入了当地人的圈子。

2 psychology   

n.心理，心理学，心理状态

参考例句：

• She has a background in child psychology.她受过儿童心理学的教育。
• He studied philosophy and psychology at Cambridge.他在剑桥大学学习哲学和心理学。

3 devoted   

adj.忠诚的，忠实的，热心的，献身于...的

参考例句：

• He devoted his life to the educational cause of the motherland.他为祖国的教育事业贡献了一生。
• We devoted a lengthy and full discussion to this topic.我们对这个题目进行了长时间的充分讨论。

4 tangle   

n.纠缠；缠结；混乱；v.(使)缠绕；变乱

参考例句：

• I shouldn't tangle with Peter.He is bigger than me.我不应该与彼特吵架。他的块头比我大。
• If I were you, I wouldn't tangle with them.我要是你，我就不跟他们争吵。

5 emeritus   

adj.名誉退休的

参考例句：

• "Perhaps I can introduce Mr.Lake Kirby,an emeritus professor from Washington University?"请允许我介绍华盛顿大学名誉教授莱克柯尔比先生。
• He will continue as chairman emeritus.他将会继续担任荣誉主席。

6 cane   

n.手杖，细长的茎，藤条；v.以杖击，以藤编制的

参考例句：

• This sugar cane is quite a sweet and juicy.这甘蔗既甜又多汁。
• English schoolmasters used to cane the boys as a punishment.英国小学老师过去常用教鞭打男学生作为惩罚。

7 arthritis   

n.关节炎

参考例句：

• Rheumatoid arthritis has also been linked with the virus.风湿性关节炎也与这种病毒有关。
• He spent three months in the hospital with acute rheumatic arthritis.他患急性风湿性关节炎，在医院住了三个月。

8 vascular   

adj.血管的，脉管的

参考例句：

• The mechanism of this anomalous vascular response is unknown.此种不规则的血管反应的机制尚不清楚。
• The vascular changes interfere with diffusion of nutrients from plasma into adjacent perivascular tissue and cells.这些血管变化干扰了营养物质从血浆中向血管周围邻接的组织和细胞扩散。

9 semblance   

n.外貌，外表

参考例句：

• Her semblance of anger frightened the children.她生气的样子使孩子们感到害怕。
• Those clouds have the semblance of a large head.那些云的形状像一个巨大的人头。

10 isolated   

adj.与世隔绝的

参考例句：

• His bad behaviour was just an isolated incident. 他的不良行为只是个别事件。
• Patients with the disease should be isolated. 这种病的患者应予以隔离。

11 dressing   

n.(食物)调料；包扎伤口的用品，敷料

参考例句：

• Don't spend such a lot of time in dressing yourself.别花那么多时间来打扮自己。
• The children enjoy dressing up in mother's old clothes.孩子们喜欢穿上妈妈旧时的衣服玩。

12 sneaks   

abbr.sneakers (tennis shoes) 胶底运动鞋（网球鞋）v.潜行( sneak的第三人称单数 )；偷偷溜走；（儿童向成人）打小报告；告状

参考例句：

• Typhoid fever sneaks in when sanitation fails. 环境卫生搞不好，伤寒就会乘虚而入。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Honest boys scorn sneaks and liars. 诚实的人看不起狡诈和撒谎的人。 来自辞典例句

13 contradictory   

adj.反驳的，反对的，抗辩的；n.正反对，矛盾对立

参考例句：

• The argument is internally contradictory.论据本身自相矛盾。
• What he said was self-contradictory.他讲话前后不符。

14 gratitude   

adj.感激，感谢

参考例句：

• I have expressed the depth of my gratitude to him.我向他表示了深切的谢意。
• She could not help her tears of gratitude rolling down her face.她感激的泪珠禁不住沿着面颊流了下来。

15 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。

16 partnership   

n.合作关系，伙伴关系

参考例句：

• The company has gone into partnership with Swiss Bank Corporation.这家公司已经和瑞士银行公司建立合作关系。
• Martin has taken him into general partnership in his company.马丁已让他成为公司的普通合伙人。

17 solely   

adv.仅仅，唯一地

参考例句：

• Success should not be measured solely by educational achievement.成功与否不应只用学业成绩来衡量。
• The town depends almost solely on the tourist trade.这座城市几乎完全靠旅游业维持。

18 physically   

adj.物质上，体格上，身体上，按自然规律

参考例句：

• He was out of sorts physically,as well as disordered mentally.他浑身不舒服，心绪也很乱。
• Every time I think about it I feel physically sick.一想起那件事我就感到极恶心。