翻译At Turtle Bay

At Turtle Bay
By E. B. White
M
osquitoes have arrived with the warm nights, and our bedchamber is their theater under the stars. I have been up and down all night, swinging at them with a
伴随着一个温和的夜晚蚊子们到来了，在星空下我们的卧室是它们的手术室。

整晚我都翻来覆去的，用打湿了的洗脸帕鞭打着蚊子
face towel dampened at one end to give it authority. This morning I suffer from the lightheadedness头晕that comes from no sleep—a sort of drunkenness
最终还是让它们在我们的卧室内活动了一整晚。

因为昨晚失眠了今天早上我忍受着头晕的折磨，这种醉醺醺的感觉，醉醉态酩酊, very good for writing because all sense of responsibility for what the words say is gone. Yesterday evening my wife showed up with a few yards
对写作非常好，因为所有想说的话的责任感都消失了。

昨晚我的妻子拉了几英尺的蚊帐，
of netting网蚊帐,and together we knelt and covered the fireplace壁炉with an illusion 幻想错觉veil 面纱.It looks like a bride. (One of our many
并且我们俩跪下围着炉壁。

看起来像新娘。

（在我们众多的看法中有一个是说蚊子们是从烟囱里进来的。

）
theories 学说理论原理意见看法is that mosquitoes come down chimneys.) I bought a couple of adjustable screens at the hardware store on Third
在第三街道的五金器具店里我买了一对可以调整的屏风Avenue and they are in place in the windows; but the window sashes in this building are so old and irregular that any mosquito except one suffering from
并且把屏风安装在了窗户里;但是这栋楼的窗户框格太旧了而且不规则以致于任何一只蚊子除了有一只遭受象皮肿以外
elephantiasis 象皮肿has no difficulty walking into the room through the space between sash n. 腰带；肩带；饰带；框格and screen. (And then there is the even larger 通过窗户框格和屏风间的空间，蚊子们进来没有任何困难（而且
opening between upper sash and lower sash when the lower sash is raised to receive the screen—a space that hardly eve r occurs to an apartment dweller n. 居民，居住者
当把下面的框格举起来安装屏风的时候在上下框格之间的空间更大了这样的空间几乎不会在公寓里的居民身上发生但是肯定会在所有的蚊子身上发生的。

）
but must occur to all mosquitoes.) I also bought a very old air-conditioning machine for twenty-five dollars, a great bargain, and I like this machine. It has almost no 我用了25美元买了一台非常旧的空调，是一个非常不错的交易，并且我喜欢这台机器。

effect on the atmosphere of the room, merely chipping the edge off the heat, and it makes a loud grinding noise reminiscent of the subway, so that I can snap
这台空调对整个房间的空气有作用，只不过
off the lights, close my eyes, holding the damp towel at the ready, and imagine, with the first stab, that I am riding in the underground and being pricked by pins
wielded by angry girls.
Another theory of mine about the Turtle Bay mosquito is that he is swept into one’s bedroom through the air conditioner, riding the cool indraft as an eagle
rides a warm updraft. It is a feeble theory, but a man has to entertain theories if he is to while away the hours of sleeplessness.
I wanted to buy some
old-fashioned bug spray, and went to the store for that purpose, but when I asked the clerk for a Flit gun and some Flit, he gave me a queer look, as though
wondering where I had been keeping myself all these years. “We got something a lot stronger than that,” he said, producing a can of stuff that contained
chlordane and several other unmentionable chemicals. I told him I couldn’t u se it because I was hypersensitive to chlordane. “Gets me right in the liver,” I
said, throwing a wild glance at him.
The mornings are the pleasantest times in the apartment, exhaustion having set in, the sated mosquitoes at rest on ceiling and walls, sleeping it off, the room
a swirl of tortured bedclothes and abandoned garments, the vines in their full leafiness filtering the hard light of day, the air conditioner silent at last, like the
mosquitoes. From Third Avenue comes the sound of the mad builders—American cicadas, out in the noonday sun. In the garden the sparrow chants—a
desultory second courtship, a subdued passion, in keeping with the great heat, love in summertime, relaxed and languorous. I shall miss this apartment when
it is gone; we are quitting it come fall, to turn ourselves out to pasture. Every so often I make an attempt to simplify my life, burning my books behind me,
selling the occasional chair, discarding the accumulated miscellany. I have noticed, though, that these purifications of mine—to which my wife submits with
cautious grace—have usually led to even greater complexity in
the long pull, and I have no doubt this one will, too, for I don’t trust myself in a situation of this
sort and suspect that my first act as an old horse will be to set to work improving the pasture. I may even join a pasture-improvement society. The last time I
tried to purify myself by fire, I managed to acquire a zoo in the process and am still supporting it and carrying heavy pails of water to the animals, a task that is
sometimes beyond my strength.■
（选自An E. B. White Reader, pp. 198-200, New York Harper & Row, 1966）。