新视野大学英语第四册unit6ATheweightmencarry.docVIP

--- --- The weight men carry 男人背负的重担 When I was a boy growing up off the grid in the Commonwealth of Virginia, the men I knew labored with their bodies from the first rooster crow in the morning to sundown. They were marginal farmers, shepherds, just scraping by, or welders, steelworkers, carpenters; they built cabinets, dug ditches, mined coal, or drove trucks, their forearms thick with muscle. They trained horses, stocked furnaces, made tires, stood on assembly lines, welding parts onto refrigerators or lubricating car engines. In the evenings and on weekends, they labored equally hard, working on their own small tract of land, fixing broken-down cars, repairing broken shutters and drafty windows. In their little free time, they drowned their livers in beer from cheap copper mugs at a bar near the local brewery or racecourse. 当我还是个小男孩时，我住在弗吉尼亚州一 个偏远的地区，那时我所认识的男人们从清晨的第一声公鸡啼鸣一直劳作 到日落。他们都是些不起眼的农民、牧羊人，勉强度日，或是焊接工、钢 铁工或木匠；他们制作橱柜、挖掘沟渠、开采煤炭，或驾驶卡车，这使他 们拥有肌肉结实的上臂。他们训练马匹、填塞炉膛、制造轮胎，站在装配 线上将零件焊接到冰箱，或是给汽车发动机上润滑剂。到了傍晚或周末， 他们也要同样辛苦地劳作，在自己的一小片土地上耕作，修理出了问题的 汽车，修复坏掉的百叶窗和漏风的窗户。在仅剩的闲暇时间里，他们会在 当地的啤酒作坊或赛马场附近的酒馆里用盛在廉价铜杯中的啤酒将自己 灌得烂醉。 The bodies of the men I knew were twisted and wounded in ways visible and invisible. Heavy lifting had given many of them spinal problems and appalling injuries. Some had broken ribs and lost fingers. Racing against conveyor belts had given some ulcers. Their ankles and knees ached from years of standing on concrete. Some had partial vision loss as the glow of the welding flame damaged their optic receptors. There were times, studying them, when I dreaded growing up. All around us, the fathers always seemed older than the mothers. Men wore out sooner, being martyrs of constant work. Only women lived into old age. 我所认识的那些男人的身躯遭受着种种看得见或看不也的扭曲和伤痛。 搬运沉重的物品给他们很多人造成了脊柱病和可怕的伤痛。有些人断了肋 骨，掉了手指。在传输带上不停地工作使他们有些人患了溃疡。他们的脚 踝和膝盖由于经年累月站立在水泥地上疼痛不已。有些人由于焊接火光损 伤视觉感官而遭受部分视觉缺失的折磨。有些时候，打量着他们，我会害 怕长大。在我们周围的人中，父亲们看上去总是比母亲们要老。男人衰老 得更早，长期遭受着因持续劳作带来的病痛。只有女人才活到年老。 There were also so