Gerald Warner Brace (1901—1978)
本文选自《贾氏家传》（The Garretson Chronicle, by Gerald Warner Brace, W. W. Norton & Co., 1947）之第二十六章。《贾氏家传》是一部传记体的长篇小说，作者白瑞斯，是美国作家，其文字明净洗炼，瘦硬遒劲，铸字炼句，具见功力，堪与本世纪任何大家相比。《贾氏家传》全书于描写人物，讨论思想之处，亦皆陈义深远、语句精警，论者比之于Santayana的The Last Puritan（按:两书题材体例亦颇相近）。
My friend Tommy Tucker was a senior at Harvard. I used to go to some of the football games with him, and one day we made a plan to go off together with Tommy's roommate John Somes, to climb Mount Washington. John Somes was a veteran mountaineer and had been up Washington several years before. He said that out west they'd hardly call it a mountain.
● senior：大学四年级生。Mount Washington：在美国东北部之New Hampshire，为白山山脉（White Mts.）之最高峰，高达6,293尺，约台湾玉山最高峰之半。
● veteran：老资格。mountaineer：登山专家。out west：在（美国）西部。they：泛指美国西部的人。照文法的规定，“代名词”一定要明确地代表“名词”，像这样含混的they是悬为禁忌的；但是这种说法在日常会话中常听得到，写小说的要传状说话的人的口吻，只好不顾文法书的规定了。
● 美国西部一万尺以上的高峰很多，这种六千多尺的山，算不了什么山。they'd之'd为would之缩写，隐含虚拟语气：假如他们看见了这座山，也不会叫它是山的。
We loaded sweaters and windbreakers and knapsacks into the Ford and started north on a bright October afternoon. Motoring twenty years ago was a more rugged adventure than it is now: we had to force a passage through cobbled streets and jammed-up traffic and then jounce everlastingly over the high-crowned washboard roads in the open country, determined to maintain a twenty-five-mile-an-hour average.
● loaded：装，放。sweaters：羊毛衫。windbreakers：厚夹克（jacket），防风御寒运动外套。knapsacks：背包，可背在肩上的帆布包或皮包。
● Motoring：坐汽车长途旅行。rugged：艰苦。
● 在二十年代坐汽车旅行，比今日苦得多。（这里的adventure，不作“探险”解，只是一种不平凡的经历而已。）他们三人坐车从波士顿出发，先经过的是市区，市区的街道是用石卵铺的（cobbled），行人车马（traffic）很挤（jammed-up），我们非冲出一条路来不可（force a passage）。市区过后，进入乡区，乡区开阔（in the open country），然而道路崎岖，路中间凸起（high-crowned），若有棱骨，好像搓衣服的板（washboard）似的。jounce：颠簸。everlasting：不停的。
● determined是过去分词，形容主语we。车子假如慢慢地开，也许可以平稳得多，但是他们决心要保持平均（average）每小时廿五英里的速度，只好先在市区里直冲，后在乡区颠簸着走了。
To achieve a hundred miles in four hours in a Model T was fine work, but exhausting. Yet on this day the air lay sweetly over the golden countryside, full of balm and peace and the faint taste of leaf smoke. We sang and laughed and drank the rare and mellow distillations of Indian summer, our hearts grew light, our heads giddy with joy: the flames of the northern maples made great chords of splendid music in our spirit. We hailed the northward adventure, the lifting of each higher hill, the spreading miles of forest, the coming of dark spruce, the first glint of rock peaks in the silvery blue, and then the long slow waning of the sun, the golden flow of light from the southwest level across the colored land, the intensity of it, deepening and brightening toward night, the palpable gold on the leaves and grasses, the blue wells of shadows, valleys lost now in dusk and high hills still glowing in smokeless mantles of fire. We turned silent and watched the slow evening climb the slopes of brightness. In the far north a peak gleamed like a luminescent spearhead of pearl, purer than white itself.
● Model T：福特公司的T型车，三四十年前在美国很流行。achieve：做成功。exhausting：使人筋疲力尽。
● 车行虽吃力，好在道旁景物很美：时已深秋，田野中满目金色。空气中似含香味（sweetly），笼罩大地，一片温馨（balm原义是止痛的油膏）宁静之气，充塞宇宙之间，还可以淡淡地闻到乡民焚烧落叶的清香。
● Indian summer：秋天里的亢爽温暖的天气，中文所谓十月小阳春。distillations：蒸馏所得的液体；精华（有许多的酒也是蒸馏出来的，这里还使读者联想到酒）。rare：稀薄的。mellow：圆熟的；和醇的。drank：吸收，领略，享受。“我们唱着笑着，欣逢这种亢爽温暖的秋天好天气，更领略到一种清淡醇和的味道，中人欲醉，似乎天气的精华也给我们吸收进去了。”
● light：轻松的。giddy：眩晕（照应上句的“酒”）。
● maples：枫树。northern：长在北方的（车子正往北开）。flames：枫树不是红似火吗？chords：音乐里的和弦（如do, mi, so三个音便成和弦）。音乐里几声雄壮的和弦，很有撼人心魄的力量，现在火红似的枫叶，在他们心里所起的效果，亦复如此。
● hailed：向（人或物）欢呼；这里未必叫出声音来，只是心里非常高兴而已。他们驾车北上，渐入佳境，如入山阴道上，应接不暇，触目所及，无非美景奇观，他们每看见一样新的景致，心里就要喝一声彩。这一句很长，列举眼前的各种景致，精彩的phrases一个一个出现，汽车就向山区迈进，而时间也渐近黄昏了。
● the lifting of each higher hill：山一个比一个高，一个一个地抬头显露出来。spruce：虎尾枞。这种树出现，恐怕是已近山区了。glint：发晶光。peak：山峰。先看见的还是些小山，现在初次看见蒙着一层银色的碧空之中，露出一排山峰，峰尖岩石闪闪发光。
● the long slow waning of the sun：日光渐渐转弱。slow前面有一long字，此字意义与slow相仿，不过有了此字，更可把slow衬托出来。the southwest level：深秋黄昏时候的太阳，应该在西南方；level大约是地平线。太阳从那边照过来，凡经照耀之处，犹如金光流注；地上本自有其色彩（colored），经此一照，更显得鲜艳夺目。
● the intensity of it：日色渐暮，金光更显浓盛。deepening：色彩更深更浓。brightening：日落前的回光返照，特别显得明亮。palpable：手可以摸得出来的。草上叶上的金光，本是幻象，可是现在看来，宛然真金。well：井。回光返照将过，黑夜渐临，低洼之处，黑影渐浓，作深青之色，望之黝然如井。dusk：暮色。mantles：外罩。暮色降临，山谷已消失不见，唯霞光照处，山头仍通体透红，如披火袍，唯不发烟耳。
● 这句很长，可是只要仔细一看它里面所叙景物之多，这样一句话能包括这许多东西，描写这么长的一段路程，笔墨可说十分经济。
● We turned silent：黑夜已临，人亦转趋沉寂，没有刚才那么高兴了。黑夜来时，先从山脚下黑起，沿坡而上（climb），最后太阳西沉，山头上也是一片黑暗。
● 可是他们还没有算正式入山。远望极北之处，尚有一峰矗立，状甚尖锐，犹如矛锋（spearhead），隐隐发光，色润如珠，其皎洁胜过一般之所谓白色也。
Snow, we said.
Snow already? Winter up there in that far point in the sky?
Several peaks—a range of shining pearl like a shimmer of unearthly light. The land below, ourselves, everything, fell away and vanished in the dark.
We plunged into forest and the headlights made a small tunnel in the night ahead.
● 长句长段之后，忽来这么短短三个字的一段，自然令人耳目一新。而文章的内容，亦已转换：远处白峰，乃是雪山。山下天气，犹如暖和阳春三月，峰上竟已积雪，未免令人难信。
● 先看见孤峰一座，后来又看见数峰横列，远处看不真切，仅见珠光耀目，如有天际异光（unearthly light），在空中闪耀（shimmer）而已。
● plunged：深入。现在汽车开入森林，林中更是漆黑一团，全凭汽车的车灯（headlights），射出一条狭长的光衖（tunnel：隧道），冲破前面的黑暗，往前开去。
The day and evening remained as warm as summertime. We stopped at Conway for supper in a restaurant, continued on to a place John knew of where we got rooms for the night.
● John knew of是定语从句。John所认识的那个地方。got rooms for the night：借宿。Conway：地名。
Warm in the morning too; but at first foggy and sunless, even drizzly. The forests were wet, the sky dark and low. John Somes, the mountaineer, said he thought it would clear. Anyway, unless it really poured we might as well try it.
● 第一晚在山脚下歇过，第二天起来，天还是很温暖，可是起先雾多天暗，甚至于略有濛濛细雨（drizzly是形容词）。第一句主语it，动词was，都经省略。
● John Somes是三人中爬山最内行的一个，见前文。clear是动词，=become clear。
● poured：倾盆大雨，雨下如注。除非雨真下大了，否则我们还是不妨一试。as well：试与不试反正一样，还是一试的好。it指登山之事。
Then, as we stood waiting and gazing, a vast piece of mountain pageantry occurred. In the overhead darkness a ragged blue hole showed itself, then splashes of pale sun. Mountain shoulders suddenly took shape high among the curtains of light and cloud. The west wind came down over Tuckerman's Ravine and moved the whole cloud-mass before it.
● pageantry：壮观，奇景。我们正在守候眺望之际，忽然一幕山景奇观，浩瀚雄伟，在我们面前展开了。
● 顶上天空，色本浓重，现在忽然裂出青色一角，在此破碎不整（ragged）的裂孔之中，淡淡的阳光，像水花（splashes）似的飞溅下来。
● 云破天青，在光幕云层之中，群峰（Mountain shoulders：山隆起如肩状者）突然显露，耸立高空。took shape：成形，现形。本来虚无缥缈，渐渐轮廓显明。
● Tuckerman's Ravine：为华盛顿山中一峡谷之名。西风从峡谷上方吹来，滚滚白云，俱为吹开。before it：云在前面，风在后面，风吹云动。
We jumped and scurried like starters in a gold rush. Knapsacks were stuffed with food and sweaters and cameras. Matches? Pocket knives? Compass? Yes, all those in spite of a certain disdain on the part of John Somes, who was accustomed to Canadian Rockies. Light of foot, tireless, happy as puppies, we started at midmorning up the Tuckerman trail.
● 天既已转晴，我们可以正式登山了。scurried：快跑，急行，仓皇而走。gold rush：淘金热。我们上山之前的匆忙与兴奋，好像是一窝蜂地出发去开采金矿的人。
● Compass：指南针。登山以前，各物都检点一下，看看有什么遗漏的没有。
● all those：要带的东西全带了。disdain：鄙夷不屑的神气。Somes是爬山老手，看见我们出发之前，这样小题大做的紧张，脸上似乎露出一种（a certain）瞧不起的神气。Rockies即Rocky Mountains，通常译作落矶山脉，从美国南部新墨西哥州起，纵贯美国、加拿大以迄阿拉斯加。其在加拿大的一部分，高峰甚多，远在这座华盛顿山之上。
● Light of foot：脚步轻快。tireless：精神抖擞。puppies：小狗。midmorning:上午九、十点钟。Tuckerman trail：山上小径之名。
Of the three who stepped so lightly up the steep trail that brightening October morning, one would not return. But we went in innocence and immense confidence. The sun came out and filled the glades with yellow warmth. Blood ran joyfully in our veins, and we could have climbed to the moon. The cool breeze lifted our damp hair and refreshed the skin under our open shirts. Clouds rolled up over the mountain wall and fanned out into the high blue. The mountain torrents sang through the forests.
● innocence：天真，无知。一行三人，有一个是不能生还的了，但是出发的时候，我们怎么会知道？只是糊里糊涂高兴而已。immense：极大的。confidence：自信。我们深信力能应付，前途平安。
● glades：森林中的空旷草地。yellow warmth：和煦的金光。
● veins：（狭义）静脉，（广义）血管；这里宜译作血管。could have climbed（虚拟语气）：照我们那天的兴致，我们会一直爬到月亮上去的。
● lifted：吹起。damp hair：湿的头发。（山中雾气重，头发易湿。）mountain wall：峭壁。fanned out：像扇子状地展开。云块冉冉上升，卷过崖壁，散入碧空之中。
● torrents：急湍，激流。sang：水声潺潺。
Up out of the woods we came, to the rocks of the Little Headwall, and stood in a lee in the noon sun to look eastward across the bottomless valley to Carter Dome and Wildcat. All earth and air rang with clear autumn brilliance. White cumulus marched away through the blue to the pale southeastward rim of the world, but the sun kept its warm blaze against us, partly drying our wet skin. In the thin air the white vapor of our breathing took shape.
"Colder than you'd think," John said.
● 他们走出林区，登上Little Headwall（峰名）的乱石山头。Up out of the woods we came=we came up out of the woods。lee：背风之处，风力所不及之处。他们从九、十点钟开始爬山，到中午已经穿越森林，攀登一小山头，那天吹西风（前面已经说过），他们背西面东而立，身后山石将风挡住，纵目东望，下临无底深谷，前面Carter Dome与Wildcat两峰矗立。
● 其时秋高气爽，天色明净，clear autumn brilliance三字自不难了解，可是动词rang一字，则大见功夫。rang者，铿锵有声也；大地太空满目清朗，秋气飒爽，似作金石之声。其有声耶？其无声耶？有待读者之妙悟矣。
● cumulus：积云（云之成朵状者，晴朗天气时见之）。白云为西北风所吹，飞过（原文用marched，声势雄壮，犹如天马行空）碧空，飘向苍茫杳霭（pale）西南方地平线（rim of the world：地球之边缘）而去。
● blaze：光辉。
● the white vapor of our breathing：呼吸时所吐出之气。人大抵于寒冷之处，始能“嘘气成云”。该地日光照及之处虽仍觉热，然空气实已稀薄而冷，已是高空景象。
● Colder than you'd think：you'd之'd为would的缩写，隐含虚拟语气。我不知道你们对这边天气有什么想法，你们也许以为它是热，是不冷不热，是冷，总之，实际上比你们所想象的要冷些。
I remember how Tommy Tucker danced on the rocky ledge, grinning and making whooping sounds. "I bet that's where God lives," he said, waving up to where the crags of the great headwall dissolved into the silver edge of a rolling cloud. "He sits up on one of those pinnacles and feels like the boss of all creation." Then he cocked his head at John. 'Just a dinky little foothill—I realize that. Out west God does things up much bigger—but of course he's a much bigger guy out there than he is here."
"Well, you do get the effect of high mountains, I must admit,"said John.
● rocky ledge：山崖之向外凸出部分。grinning：露齿而笑。whooping sounds：怪声大叫。
● waving up to：手挥舞着向上指。crags：壁立巨石。the great headwall：他们所在之处是the Little Headwall；the great headwall应该是另一较大山峰，可是拼法不用大写，似为普通名词，并非专门名词，但虽为普通名词，作者心目中亦必专指某一山峰。headwall此字普通字典不载，想是山峰这一类的东西。dissolved：融解。巨石为浮云所掩，终消失于云边银光之中。I bet：我敢打赌。pinnacles：尖峰，“我敢说上帝就住在那边。他就坐在那边一座山峰之上，俯瞰万物，自己觉得真像是个万物之主。”
● cocked his head：侧着头（这样说话，有讽刺之意）。
● dinky（俚语）：微不足道，小意思。foothill：山麓之小丘。I realize that：这个我明白。John老说这座山不算一座山，而Tommy已经叹为观止，怕他又要来讥笑，赶快再向John说明一句：“我知道这不过是一座小土墩而已。在西部上帝做什么事情，气派都大得多——可是当然上帝在那边，当然也是大一号的人物，这里只好算是个小人物。”do up原义是“包扎、清理备用”，这里转作“创造”。请注意对白语气逼肖说话人的口吻，相当粗俗，与描写风景文章的典雅大不相同。
● effect：效果；味道。“你能说得出这两句话来，我得承认你已经领略到高山的味道了。”
We ate our lunch there where it was warm. Once a cloud-mass obscured the sun, and the shroud of winter settled over us—the harsh and purple cold; I remember how the chill touched my heart and sent a tremor through me of something deeper than cold.
● there where it was warm=at the place where it was warm。他们挑暖和一点的地方，把午饭吃了。足见山上的冷已经相当可怕。
● obscured：遮住。shroud：尸衣（给人阴森可怕的联想）。太阳一被遮住，立刻冬季降临，我们身上好像罩了一件死人袍子。我们感觉到一种严厉的冷，紫色的冷。太阳忽然隐去，大地景物，是会变成紫色的；又，紫色使人联想到冻僵的手足。注意前文的yellow warmth，与此地的purple cold正好遥遥相对，而一秋一冬，一日之内，气候之变化大矣。
● chill：寒气。tremor：战栗。“我犹记得，寒气侵袭心头，全身一阵战栗，而所以致此之故，似犹不止寒冷也。”through me=through my body。of something deeper than cold形容tremor。“比冷更深的东西”是什么？是宇宙的神秘？是死亡的凶兆？作者并未明言，但当时确有此种感觉，现在照实写下而已。
But the sun blazed again, and we pushed up against the funneled wind to the ravine and began the long climb to the top of the vast wall. And wondrous climbing it was, with sun still on our shoulders and small whirls and gusts of mountain wind, and the ocean of space deepening below us. John's boots clashed on the rock, but he went up powerfully, muttering a chant of joy to himself and watching for the turns of the trail.
● pushed up：向上爬。funnel：漏斗；funneled：四围约束，像在漏斗里漏过似的。山风为峡谷所制，势更猛烈，我们顶风而上，先过峡谷，然后开始向一座大山顶爬去。
● whirls：旋风。gusts：疾风。ocean of space：开阔的空间。
● clashed：（鞋钉与山石相接触）叮叮发声。chant：歌。watching for the turns of the trail：留意山路转折之处。
Ice appeared in shaded hollows. Some of the north rock faces were enameled with it.
"Maybe you guys shouldn't have sneakers," John said. "They're no good on ice."
"Clouds are lifting!" we shouted. Far ahead through a rift appeared a small dark nub that might have been the top itself.
● rock faces：岩石的表面。enameled：像是涂珐琅似的结了一层冰。
● sneakers（美国俗语）：橡皮底帆布鞋。他自己穿的是皮靴，上段已说过。
● rift：云的缝隙。nub：馒头状地隆起一块，他们现在立足之处，已然见冰，可是主峰还是刚刚在云端里隐隐约约露出一小块而已。然而那里是不是就是主峰，现在还没有十分把握。
But the wind had us. Not the gusty autumnal wind, nor the tree-bending, whirling blasts of earth—not anything known to men or the world of men; rather, it was the released power of all creation, the one irresistible force, a nothing so intensified and materialized and charged that up there on the high cone of the mountain it became the all. In wind like that, no other life existed.
● 第一句的have（俗语）=hold at a disadvantage（此解根据The American College Dictionary）。风把我们“制住”了，或“吃住”了。
● 山顶上的风非同小可，它不是劲疾的秋风，也不是地面上普通把树吹弯盘旋作势的狂风（blasts），这种风是人类从未见识过，人世也从未吹过的。它是宇宙万物所郁结的力量的总发泄（released），它是一种不可抵抗的力量，它本身空洞，并无一物（a nothing），可是在山顶尖峰（cone）高处，它的声势增强（intensified）了，它成了有形有体（materialized），它充满了活力（charge：充电），以致这种空无一物的风，在这里成宇宙间一切生命力量的总汇（the all）。在这种风底下，别无他种生物（草木鸟兽），风就是一切。
We tried to duck back out of it and prepare. Caps, sweaters, jackets—we fumbled them on, feeling the touch of ice on our skin, in fingers and toes.
Turn back? No one said it. Give it a try, anyway. There's the top, right ahead—a straight and easy slope.
● duck：低头闪避。prepare：准备应付。
● fumbled them on：把它们瞎摸瞎拉地戴上穿上。
● Give it a try, anyway：不管有风没风，还是往前走着瞧吧。主峰就在前面，山坡很平，不难走。
We crouched, waiting and beginning to shiver. The wind blast would have to relent, we thought; nothing like that could keep on and on. Sun still shone and the sight of it warmed us. We couldn't feel it.
● crouched：佝偻着身子，等风过去，可是身上已经颤抖不已了。
● relent：缓和。would：表示“将来”；have to：表示“一定”；风一定会缓和下来的，像这样猛烈的东西，不会永久维持下去的。
● the sight of it warmed us：看见了太阳，心里还觉得有点温暖，可是实际上一点暖气都觉不到。
So the plunge across the rock fields. Tommy shouted, and from the hiss of syllables I decided he was trying to say "excelsior!" Blood and sinews responded, pushed us buoyantly against the wall of wind. We had to bend low and breathe in quick gulps, turning our mouths under the lee of our shoulders. Our lungs felt the raw cold.
● 笫一句不完整，完整的形式大约是“So we started the plunge…”。plunge：往前直冲。rock fields：乱石岗。
● 风大得连话都说不清楚了。Tommy在叫，听不清楚他在说些什么，只是他的音节里丝丝音很多，猜想上去，他一定是想说“excelsior”（=still higher，再往上爬呀！加油！）。
● sinews：肌肉（常用复数形式）。responded：响应；努力以赴。buoyantly：满怀希望地（此字本有“往上浮”之意）。wall of wind：风之阻力极大，犹如墙壁挡路。
● breathe in quick gulps：很快地用嘴咽气，鼻子已经无能为力。under the lee of our shoulders：拿肩膀挡住风，嘴才可以呼吸。
● raw cold：极冷。寒冷彻骨，连肺里都感觉到了。
The old notion that it was a cold autumn day still persisted; the gust, we felt, would pass, and our working muscles would spread warmth and life through our bodies. We kept pushing upward with slow and fumbling steps, slipping on ice surfaces like old men. It took a half hour or so for the thought to settle in my mind that we ought not to be there, that the windwall was coming at us more relentlessly, that we were stooping lower and fighting to stay on our feet, and especially that all warmth had withdrawn from feet and legs and hands.
● old notion：旧观念。persisted：不退，仍在心头。天虽冷，究竟不过是秋天，冷不到哪里去的。我们觉得疾风就会过去，我们的肌肉活动之后（working muscles），暖气生机，即能布满全身。
● the thought to settle in my mind：瞎爬了大约半个钟头之后，我方才认清了——第一，我们根本不应该到这里来的；第二，风墙给我们的压力是更汹涌可怕了；第三，我们身子愈俯愈低，拼了命才勉强把脚头站住；第四，我们尤其觉得脚上腿上手上的暖气已经全给吹跑了。
I tried to speak, then to yell, but made no sound. John Somes went on ahead. Tommy had dropped behind and seemed hardly to be moving. I crouched and waited.
When he came close he put his mouth to my ear and shouted, "I think we're damn fools." The words came faintly and stiffly, but I heard them and nodded. Back to the wind, we looked down the rough slope. My watery eyes were closed slits, and a fine spindrift of snow blew like white smoke over the rocks, but I could still see where the headwall fell away into cold space.
● dropped behind：落在后面。crouched：佝偻。
● faintly and stiffly：声音模糊而僵硬。
● Back to the wind：背对着风。watery eyes：眼睛流泪，不能睁开，仅成细缝（slit）。fine spindrift：很细的浪花。雪为风所吹，如浪花似的凌空飞溅，雪质很细，望之乃如烟雾。fell away：人在高处下望，原驻足之山头，渐渐消失。
"We better get back down there," I yelled.
John had not turned. We saw him dimly in the smoke, a hundred yards above us.
"Can't feel my feet any more," Tommy said—still shouting.
The truth broke suddenly. We are in deadly danger. The illusion of "October" vanished forever and I faced the facts of arctic winter and the ice-created hurricane.
● the smoke：烟状的雪风。
● The truth broke suddenly：我这才恍然大悟。
● The illusion of "October"：假如还拿平地的眼光，认为天气应该是十月天气，这便成了痴想了，现在这种痴想已经消除净尽；我所面对的事实，乃是北极的酷寒，和冰雪所造成的暴风。
But there was still John Somes—we ought to stick together. Tommy, I thought, could start back, and I could still keep on and get hold of John. I leaned to yell in his ear, glancing up once more to see if John had turned yet. What happened from that point on is so mingled with my fear and increasing desperation that I can re-create it only as a terrible dream.
● John一个人走在前头，我们现在要掉头回去，应该把他叫来，三人团结一起（stick together）。我认为Tommy可以径自回去，我再往上爬，把John追回来。
● I leaned to yell in his ear…：我俯身过去把我的意思高声地对准Tommy的耳朵里嚷，一面往高处望，看看John是否已经转身回来了。
● 从那时候起，我就记不清楚了。我心中恐惧、惶急之情，与时俱增（increasing desperation），以后的事情，就和我这种情绪混淆在一起，真幻难分，于今思之（re-create：把当时情形重演或叙述一遍），犹如恶梦一场。
The mountain slope had glistened remotely above us in the cold sun—not clear to our half-blinded eyes, but palpably there, a visible part of earth's substance. The smoke of snow revealed gray rock and even the cairns set by human hands to mark the trail; and beyond those outposts of earth the blue of sky had given us comfort. But now white and gray masses of cloud came like a cataract, solid, vast, silent in the gale. The sun flashed against it with cold and terrible brightness, but in the hollows and rifts it deepened to dark gray and black. Tatters of it came first like flying arrows, and I saw them flash past the dim, hunched figure of John Somes; then the mass came down like a solid avalanche of death itself, silver above and black in its caverns, riding the wind. A few seconds of terrifying beauty, and I saw John Somes fade, go under, vanish; and then before I could draw breath or warn Tommy it happened to us too.
● 以后发生些什么可怕的事，当事人自己都说不清楚呢。这事在第三句方才说明，现在先看第一二句。
● 他们到了山区高处，见到冰雪之后，只是觉得奇寒难忍，狂风难当，此外景色还和下面差不多：高处山坡在毫无暖气的日光底下，隐隐约约地晶晶发光，他们的眼睛睁不大开，看不清楚，可是前面的确有这么一块地方，似乎伸了手就摸得到的（palpably there），有形有体（substance），宛然可睹，分明是大地的一部分。一阵轻烟似的雪风过处，灰色的岩石便露了出来，还有前人以手堆植用以山行标路的石堆（cairns），也看得见了。这些都是大地尽处的前哨（outposts），前哨外面，便是一片碧空，看了心中也曾觉得安慰。
● 注意这两句的动词时态：had glistened和had given（过去完成式）是表示“过去”的事，接着第三句从But now起，就是叙述眼前的事了。
● cataract：瀑布。gale：大风（gust是突然发作随时可停的疾风，故常用复数gusts。gale则是劲吹不已的大风）。
● 现在忽然大块雪团袭来，风势既猛，水气又多结成冰雪，故竟予人以坚硬（solid）的感觉。日光照处，冷光耀目，特别可怕；然云团低洼罅隙（hollows and rifts）之处，则又深暗作浓灰乌黑之色。
● 云团的碎片（Tatters）先到，John在前，首当其冲，只见前面丝丝碎云，像飞箭似的，射过他拱首隆背（hunched）模糊的身形，然后大块云团，表面银光闪闪，其凹处黝暗，复如岩洞，挟生杀之威，如雪崖崩落（avalanche），御风而至，当头落下。
● 这种惊心动魄的奇丽景色，不过是几秒钟的事，John即为当头罩住，先是身形不清，继则全身掩没（go under），消失不见。我要换口气的工夫都没有，招呼Tommy也来不及了，我们两人立刻都被罩住。
No beauty then. Nothing but wind and our hunched selves. The very rock we stood on lost substance. Air, earth, all reality, was turned into this gray force. I had felt fear like a blade when the cloud charged against us; now in the gray my feelings like my body grew numb.
● No beauty then呼应上段的terrifying beauty。
● lost substance：化为虚无（脚头站不住了）。
● blade：利刃。charged：突袭。云团初来袭击时，我觉得恐惧万状，心头刺痛；现在置身云团之中，周身既然僵化，感觉亦复麻木。
"Time to move!" Tommy yelled.
In ten steps we had lost the trail, so we had to work cautiously over unknown ledges. Visibility, we figured, was ten feet, though it was hard to get our eyes open enough to see at all. We kept the wind square on our backs. It pummeled our bodies and spirits with solid blows, and I felt the life slowly going out of me as a man might who is being beaten by rubber truncheons.
● lost the trail：走出山径之外，找不到路了。因此只好小心翼翼地在不知深浅高低的石壁边缘上爬行。“爬行”原文是work，走路成了“做工”了，其用心与费力可想而知。
● figured：估计。Visibility：可视度。十尺以外即不能辨物。
● square（副词）：恰当。
● pummeled：（用拳）打。as a man might后面省去feel等字。一个人背上给橡皮棍子（truncheons）不断地打着，会慢慢地给打死的，现在我觉得我的三魂六魄慢慢地都给打得跑掉了。
But before we quite knew it, the slope dipped steeply downward. Tommy took a little sliding step, then both feet went together. He sprawled out on his side and slid off feet first, flashing his grin at me and saying something I couldn't hear. At once he vanished in the white below.
I crawled from rock to rock after him, and realized that I was holding now to a steep wall. Tommy had gone.
● dipped：倾斜。steeply：险峻地。
● took a little sliding step：向前滑了一下。
● sprawled out：四肢没有着落地（跌下）。on his side：侧着身子。feet first：脚朝下。flashing his grin at me：猛地朝我惨笑了一下。
From then on my memory grows less clear. There are isolated pictures, such as my sudden awareness of the torn whitened flesh of my hands—hardly mine any more, for all feeling had gone from them. And I remember finally the first vague sense of darkness coming on. I had felt forever lost there among the gray rock shapes, as though my small human mechanism had been locked up in everlasting ice; but the fear had grown numb and cold like my body. Now suddenly night meant death itself, as sure as the eastward roll of the mountain.
I started downward at last. I gave up Tommy—abandoned him to wind and night.
● From then on：从那时候开始。
● isolated：孤立的，不相联贯的。sudden awareness：突然发觉我手上的肉已割裂，色如白纸，而且双手知觉全失，好像不是自己的了。
● vague sense of darkness coming on：模模糊糊地觉得黑夜来临。
● rock shapes：岩石似乎只余形状，不具实体了。my small human mechanism：我的身体这具小小的机构，看来已是封锁在万古不消的冰雪之中了。可是我的身体固然冻僵麻木，我心头的恐惧也已经冻僵麻木——我的恐惧已经不能发生什么作用。可是现在突然醒悟……。请注意动词时态的变换：先是过去完成式had felt和had grown，表示过去；一转而为meant，表示现在。
● as sure as：山岭起伏，滚滚向东而去，本山形势如此，绝无问题；现在如在山间过夜，必定丧生，这也是没有问题的。
The dusk came fast. Whether wind blew harder and colder I couldn't tell, but I remember groping down into the dark stone crevices. And then after a while a new wave of light seemed to roll up from below and shone against the curtains of mist and roof of dark. And at once I rushed downward into the visible world and saw it stretched out clear and free in the evening light.
● dusk：黄昏暮色。groping：摸索而行。crevices：隙缝。
● a new wave of light：俄而一阵光浪，似自下界涌起，照耀上方；顶上虽云雾结幕，天宇暗黑，下界各物，反清晰可辨，我乃奋身下奔，脱离黑暗世界。夜色清朗，俯视大地山河，历历在目，无遮无拦，向四方伸展焉。
Below the snow level I tried to move faster, but made only shambling progress. Some parts of me were frozen, and there were more bruises and wrenched joints than I had any notion of.
Then a figure appeared in the trail below, and a voice called sharply. John Somes came up in a steady lope, his glistening face all tense and eager.
"Ralph? Is Tommy there?"
● snow level：雪线；这个高度以下就没有雪。shambling：蹒跚的，踉跄的。
● bruises：青紫肿伤（此字i不发音）。wrenched joints：关节扭伤。我身上青一块紫一块的，关节也扭坏了好几处，我自己本来以为没有受这么多伤。
● lope：缓步而跑。steady：步履稳定。John不愧经验丰富，反而先赶到下面去了。Ralph：即书中主人翁Ralph Garretson。
They found him on the mountain next morning. He had fallen about fifty feet, had broken both legs and perished from cold.
Meanwhile I had been bundled into a closed car and driven a hundred miles to a hospital, where I was kept for three days.
● bundled：捆起，扎起。closed car：门窗关紧的汽车，想是救护车（ambulance）。