out of step课文全文翻译.pdf

Unit 3 Out of Step Bill Bryson 1 After living in England for 20 years, my wife and I decided to move back to the United States. We wanted to live in a town small enough that we could walk to the business district, and settled on Hanover, N.H., a typical New England town — pleasant, sedate and compact. It has a broad central green surrounded by the venerable buildings of Dartmouth College, an old-fashioned Main Street and leafy residential neighborhoods. 2 It is, in short, an agreeable, easy place to go about one’s business on foot, and yet as far as I can tell, virtually no one does. 3 Nearly every day, I walk to the post office or library or bookstore, and sometimes, if I am feeling particularly debonair, I stop at Rosey Jekes Café for a cappuccino. Occasionally, in the evenings, my wife and I stroll up to the Nugget Theatre for a movie or to Murphy’s on the Green for a beer, I wouldn’t dream of going to any of these places by car. People have gotten used to my eccentric behavior, but in the early days acquaintances would often pull up to the curb and ask if I wanted a ride. 4 “I’m going your way,” they would insist when I politely declined. “Really, it’s no bother.” 5 “Honestly, I enjoy walking.” 6 “Well, if you’re sure,” they would say and depart reluctantly, even guiltily, as if leaving the scene of an accident without giving their name. 7 In the United States we have become so habituated to using the car for everything that it doesn’t occur to us to unfurl our legs and see what those lower limbs can do. We have reached an age where college students expect to drive between classes, where parents will drive three blocks to pick up their children from a friend’s house, where the letter carrier takes his van up and down every driveway on a street. 8 We will go through the most extraordinary contortions to save ourselves from walking. Sometimes it’s almost ludicrous. The other day I was waiting to bring home one of my children