高级英语第六课

1. When she was eleven, Clara, like her brother Alan before her, acquired a Grammar School place. Her mother, although of the mentality that refuses such places because of the price of the uniform, was luckily not in a social or financial position where she could reasonably do so, and although she was often unreasonable enough, she did not like to appear to be so in the eyes of the whole neighbourhood, so she constrained her parsimony and her innate distrust in education into selecting the less distinguished of the schools available, on the grounds that the bus fare was cheaper. It was a large, rather forbidding and gloomy building, called Battersby Grammar School, and it was on the fringe of that decayed, desolate, once-grand grey fringe that surrounds the centres of most cities; the houses in this area, large and terraced and of some dignity, had been long abandoned by the middle classes, and were now occupied by families who could not afford to live anywhere else. An occasional member of the fugitive genteel stuck it grimly out until death; once Clara was accosted by an old lady, battered and ragged and bent, who said as she walked along, and in accents of refined madness, that once the people that lived there had held their heads up high. Clara, a poor audience with her twisted knee socks, did not know what she meant.

克莱拉11岁时，像她哥哥艾伦一样，进入一所公立中学。按她母亲的想法，是反对她上这类学校的，因为学校制服费太贵。幸亏她的社会地位和经济情况都还过得去，她也就没有充足的理由反对女儿入学。她办事常常不讲情理，可又不愿意在左邻右舍的眼里看来是个不讲道理的人。因此，她终于抑制住她的吝啬和天生的对教育的怀疑，给她女儿选了一所不那么有声望的中学，理由是往返的公共汽车费比较便宜。学校叫巴特斯比中学。那是一幢高大、阴暗、令人望而生畏的建筑，坐落在市中心的边缘。这些围绕市中心建造起来一栋栋房屋，多少年前还巍巍壮观，如今却一片凋零、衰败、荒凉。那些高大的、建有路台、颇有气势的座座住宅早已被一度居住的中产阶级所遗弃。新来的这些住户嫌别处房租贵，住不起，才搬到这里来。偶尔，在逃离此地的上流家族中，也会有个把人在这里硬顶下去，直到老死。有一次，一个萎靡不振，衣衫褴褛，弯腰驼背的老妇同克莱拉搭话。她一边走一边用一种典雅的迷恋之情的口吻说，过去住在这一带的可都是些很神气的人。克莱拉，这个穿着一双扭歪了的长袜的不善于领会的听者，根本不明白她说的是什么意思。

P1

1. Jerusalem: 耶路撒冷板凳（伊斯兰教，犹太教和基督教的“圣地”）

2. mentality: characteristic attitude of mind; mind, understanding, judgment, perception, intelligence

3. unreasonable: irrational, illogical, absurd, nonsensical, stubborn

4. in the eyes of=in one’s eyes: in the judgment of 在……心目中，在……看来

5. constrain: to make someone do something by force or by strongly persuading, (of conscience, inner forces) compel

6. on the grounds of: (for saying, doing, or believing sth.) because of…

7. on the fringe of: edge, the part further from the center

8. stick it out: to continue in spite of, difficulties, refuse to yield

9. in accents of : in tender accents, in a kind of voice

10. battered: worn out or shapeless (clothes

11. parsimony: excessive carefulness in using money, careful use of money, ungenerousness, saving, thrift, miser

12. innate: (of a quality) in one’s Nature, possessed from birth; instinctive, natural, intuitive, inborn, inherent, intrinsic

13. decay: to go bad, to lose power

14. desolate: in a ruined, neglected state

15. fugitive: running away (from justice, danger, etc.)

16. genteel: upper classes of society

17. grim: stern, severe, without mercy; gloomy, sullen, unyielding

18. accost: to go up to and speak to (esp. a stranger)

19. madness: a state of being mad

20. Grammar school: Until the middle 1950’s there were 2 types of secondary school ( in U.K.). Children sat an exam at age 10 (called the Eleven Plus exam). The 20% who passed went to grammar school and had an academic education to age 16 or 18. The 80% failures went to modern school to age 16 and had a general, practical-oriented education. There were also a few secondary technical schools. From the 1950’s these schools were merged to form one comprehensive school for all children aged 11 to 16 or 18. The old grammar schools insisted on a quite expensive school uniform while the modern school usually didn’t. The comprehensive school does.

Note: public schools in Britain are private secondary schools, while public schools in US are local authority public schools and private schools are called private schools.

21. selecting the less distinguished of the schools available: schools have varying reputations. She had no respect for education so didn’t care about the quality of the school.

22. Long abandoned by the middle classes: It is a residential tendency in the course of urbanization for well-off middle class families to move out of the central part of the city to the suburbs, while the poorer families move into the once grand but now decayed and crowded city residential areas.

23. Clara was accosted by an old lady: The old lady stopped Clara in the street and started talking to her.

24. The people that lived here had held their heads up high: She referred to the middle class people who used to live in this area. They were confident people with unquestioned self-pride. Here was a bitter nostalgic feeling, for she had been one of them but was now poor.

25. Clara, a poor audience: Being a girl of eleven she didn’t know what the old lady was talking about and wasn’t interested.

26. her mother, though having the understanding that rejects these grammar schools because of the necessary spending, was fortunately able to pay for this and considering her social and financial situation and particularly her position and image in her neighbourhood, she did not refuse the idea and chose any ordinary grammar school for her daughter, Clara.