大学英语课程3-2The Woman Who Would Not Tell不肯告发的女人.doc

3.2★★★★★★★★★★ ★★★★★★★★★★ ★★★★★★★★★★ Aunt Bettie is faced with a difficult decision. A wounded Union soldier is found hiding in a farmhouse near her home. She has to decide whether to help him or let him be captured. What will she choose to do? The Woman Who Would Not Tell不肯告发的女人 Janice Keyser Lester I never did hate the Yankees. All that hated was the war.…… “我从来就不恨北方佬，我所恨的只是战争……” Thats how my great-aunt Bettie began her story. I heard it many times as a child, whenever my family visited Aunt Bettie in the old house in Berryville, Virginia. Aunt Bettie was almost 80 years old then. But I could picture her as she was in the story she told me —— barely 20, pretty, with bright blue eyes. 我的姨婆贝蒂一讲起她的故事来，总是用这样的话开头。她的故事，在我还小的时候就听过多遍。姨婆住在弗吉尼亚贝利维尔一所旧房子里。每逢我们一家去看望她，她都要讲讲她的故事，那时姨婆贝蒂都快80岁了。但我可以想象到故事里她的容貌——刚刚20岁，长着一双亮晶晶的蓝眼睛，非常漂亮。 Bettie Van Metre had good reason to hate the Civil War. One of her brother was killed at Gettysburg, another taken prisoner. Then her young husband, James, a Confederate officer, was captured and sent to an unknown prison camp somewhere. 贝蒂·范·米特完全有理由憎恨内战。她有个兄弟死在葛底斯堡战场上，还有一位当了俘虏。接着，她年轻的丈夫詹姆斯——南部邦联的一名军官——也被俘虏，关到某地一所不为人知的俘虏营里。 One hot day in late September Dick Runner, a former slave, came to Bettie with a strange report. He had been checking a farmhouse half a mile away from the Van Metre home, a farmhouse he thought was empty. But inside, he heard low groans. Following them to the attic, he found a wounded Union soldier, with a rifle at his side. 9月下旬的一个热天，贝蒂家以前的奴隶迪克·朗纳来到贝蒂处，告诉她一件奇怪的事。他在察看离范·米特家半英里处的一所农舍时，本以为那是所空房子，但在屋里，他听到有人低声呻吟。他随着呻吟声来到顶楼，发现了一名受伤的联邦政府士兵，在他的身边放着一支步枪。 When Aunt Bettie told me about her first sight of the bearded man in the stained blue uniform, she always used the same words. It was like walking into a nightmare: those awful bandages, that dreadful smell. Thats what war is really like, child: no bugles and banners. Just pain and filth, futility and death. 贝蒂姨婆跟我讲起她第一次看到那个身着污渍斑斑的蓝军服、长着胡须的人时，她总是说，“我就像步入一场梦境：可怕的绷带，吓人的气味。孩子，那才是战争的真实写照：没