全新版大学英语5 TEXT B 翻译 UNIT4

Carl Rowan grew up to be appointed as an ambassador for his country. And yet he came from a poor family and was raised at a time and in a place where black Americans were denied many of the advantages enjoyed by whites. How did he manage to rise so high from such a disadvantaged background? Much of the credit must go to Miss Bessie.

卡尔·罗旺长大成人后被任命为代表国家的大使。可是，他出生在一个贫穷的家庭里，生长在美国黑人被剥夺了白人享有的许多权益这样一个时代，这样一个地方。他是如何从这样低的社会阶层升到这样高的地位的呢？这很大程度上得归功于贝西小姐。

Unforgettable Miss Bessie

Carl T. Rowan

1 She was only about five feet tall and probably never weighed more than 110 pounds, but Miss Bessie was a towering presence in the classroom. She was the only woman tough enough to make me read Beowulf and think for a few foolish days that I liked it. From 1938 to 1942, when I attended Bernard High School in McMinnville, Tenn., she taught me English, history, civics—and a lot more than I realized.

难忘恩师贝西小姐

卡尔·T·罗旺

她身高不过5英尺上下，体重可能从来不超过110磅，但贝西小姐在教室里形象极其高大。她是个厉害女人，只有她能逼得我去读《贝奥武甫》，而且有那么几天，我还真傻乎乎地觉得自己挺喜欢这首史诗。从1938年到1942年，我在田纳西州麦克敏维尔的伯纳德高中上学，她教我英语、历史、公民学，还有许多当时我未能领悟的东西。

2 I shall never forget the day she scolded me into reading Beowulf.

我永远忘不了她训斥着要我读《贝奥武甫》的那一天。

3 "But Miss Bessie," I complained, "I ain't much interested in it."

"可是，贝西小姐，"我抱怨说，"我对它不怎么感兴趣。"

4 Her large brown eyes became daggerish slits. "Boy," she said, "how dare you say 'ain't' to me! I've taught you better than that."

她那双褐色的大眼睛眯成一条缝，射出的目光犀利如刀。"小伙子，"她说，"你竟敢对我说'ain't'!我教过你该怎么说。"

5 "Miss Bessie," I pleaded, "I'm trying to make first-string end on the football team. And if I go around saying 'it isn't' and 'they aren't,' the guys are gonna laugh me off the squad."

"贝西小姐，"我恳求道，"我正在努力争取当上橄榄球队的正式边锋。要是我老是说'it isn't'和'they aren't'，那帮人会嘲笑我，把我撵出球队的。"

6 "Boy," she responded, "you'll play football because you have guts. But do you know what really takes guts? Refusing to lower your standards to those of the crowd. It takes guts to say you've got to live and be somebody fifty years after all the football games are over."

"小伙子，"她回答说，"你打橄榄球是因为你有勇气。可你是不是知道什么事情真正需要勇气？那就是决不把你的做人标准降低到和那帮子人一样。你要鼓起勇气对他们说，橄榄球比赛全部结束后你还想出人头地生活50年呢。"

7 I started saying "it isn't" and "they aren't," and I still made first-string end—and class valedictorian—without losing my buddies' respect.

我开始说"it isn't"和"they aren't"了，而且照样当上了正式边锋——还成为班级里致告别辞的毕业生代表——却一点也没有失去伙伴们的尊重。

8 During her remarkable 44-year career, Mrs. Bessie Taylor Gwynn taught hundreds of economically deprived black youngsters—including my mother, my brother, my sisters and me. I remember her now with gratitude and affection—especially in this era when Americans are so wrought-up about a "rising tide of mediocrity" in public education and the problems of finding competent, caring teachers. Miss Bessie was an example of an informed, dedicated teacher, a blessing to children and an asset to the nation.

在她44年不平凡的教学生涯中，贝西·泰勒·格温太太教过许多穷困的黑人孩子——其中有我的母亲、兄弟、姐妹，还有我本人。今天，我怀着热爱和感激之情记住她——尤其在今天这个时代，在国人对公共教育"日益平庸化"，对称职的、有爱心的教师难觅等问题深感不安之时，我更是忘不了她。贝西小姐有见识、有奉献精神，堪称教师楷模，有她这样的老师是孩子们的福分，对国家来说她是宝贵的人才。

9 Born in 1895, in poverty, she grew up in Athens, Ala., where there was no public school for blacks. She attended Trinity School, a private institution for blacks run by the American Missionary Association, and in 1911 graduated from the Normal School (a "super" high school) at Fisk University in Nashville. Mrs. Gwynn, the essence of pride and privacy, never talked about her years in Athens; only in the months before her death did she reveal that she had never attended Fisk University itself because she could not afford the four-year course.

她于1895年出生在贫苦人家，在亚拉巴马的阿森斯长大。当时那里没有黑人公立学校。她上的是三一学堂，一所美国传教士协会为黑人开设的私立学校。1911年她毕业于纳什维尔的菲斯克大学附属师范学校(一所"极棒的"高级中学)。格温太太是个自尊心很强、很想维护隐私的人，从来不提她在阿森斯读过的岁月。直到她去世前几个月，她才透露说，她从来没上过菲克斯大学本部，因为她付不起4年的学费。

10 At Normal School she learned a lot about Shakespeare, but most of all about the profound importance of education—especially, for a people trying to move up from slavery. "What you put in your head, boy," she once said, "can never be pulled out by the Ku Klux Klan, the Congress or anybody."

在师范学校求学时，她学到许多关于莎士比亚的知识，但更重要的是她认识了教育的极端重要性——对一个正试图摆脱奴隶地位的民族尤为重要。"你装进脑袋的东西，小伙子，"她说过，"三K党夺不走，国会夺不走，谁都夺不走。"

11 Miss Bessie's bearing of dignity told anyone who met her that she was "educated" in the best sense of the word. There was never a discipline problem in her classes. We didn't dare to mess with a woman who knew about the Battle of Hastings, Magna Carta and the Bill of Rights—and who could also play the piano.

见过贝西小姐的人都从她端庄的举止中看出她是绝对"有学识的"。她任课的班上从来没有纪律问题。我们不敢跟一个知道黑斯廷斯战役、英国大宪章、权利法案——又能弹钢琴的女教师捣乱。

12 This frail-looking woman could make sense of Shakespeare, Milton, Voltaire, and bring to life Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. DuBois. Believing that it was important to know who the officials were that spent taxpayers' money and made public policy, she made us memorize the names of everyone on the Supreme Court and in the President's Cabinet. It could be embarrassing to be unprepared when Miss Bessie said, "Get up and tell the class who Frances Perkins is and what you think about her."

这位看似弱不禁风的女子能读懂莎士比亚、弥尔顿、伏尔泰的作品，能把布克尔·T·华盛顿和W·E·B·杜波伊斯说得栩栩如生。她深信了解花纳税人的钱并制定维护公共利益政策的官员是非常重要的，因此她要我们记住最高法院全体法官以及总统内阁全体成员的名字。要是贝西小姐说："站起来，告诉大家弗朗西丝·珀金斯是谁，你觉得她怎么样"，而你却毫无准备，那真够窘的。

13 Miss Bessie knew that my family, like so many others during the Depression, couldn't afford to subscribe to a newspaper. She knew we didn't even own a radio. Still, she prodded me to "look out for your future and find some way to keep up with what's going on in the world." So I became a delivery boy for the Chattanooga Times. I rarely made a dollar a week, but I got to read a newspaper every day.

贝西小姐知道，跟大萧条时期许多人家一样，我家订不起报纸。她知道我家连收音机也没有。但她还是敦促我"要为自己的未来着想，设法了解天下大事。"于是我成了查塔努加《查塔努加时报》的送报员。我一星期挣不满1美金，但我每天都能读到报纸。

14 Miss Bessie noticed things that had nothing to do with schoolwork, but were vital to a youngster's development. Once a few classmates made fun of my frayed, hand-me-down overcoat, calling me "Strings." As I was leaving school, Miss Bessie patted me on the back of that old overcoat and said, "Carl, never fret about what you don't have. Just make the most of what you do have—a brain."

贝西小姐十分关注某些虽与功课无关，但对孩子的成长却至关重要的事。一次几个同学拿我那件穿烂了的旧大衣开玩笑，叫我"破烂"。放学回家时，贝西小姐拍拍我穿着那件旧大衣的背部说："卡尔，千万别为你没有的东西而烦恼。要充分利用你拥有的东西——脑子。"

15 Among the things that I did not have was electricity in the little frame house[ frame house: a house constructed from a wooden skeleton, typically covered with timber boards[木板屋]that my father had built for $400 with his World War I bonus. But because of her inspiration, I spent many hours squinting beside a kerosene lamp reading Shakespeare and Thoreau, Samuel Pepys and William Cullen Bryant.

我没有的东西包括我家小木板屋没有电，那屋是父亲从他一战退伍军人补助金里拿出400美元盖的。但由于她的鼓励，我花了大量时间在煤油灯下眯着眼阅读莎士比亚、梭罗、塞缪尔·佩皮斯和威廉·科伦·布赖恩特的作品。

16 No one in my family had ever graduated from high school, so there was no tradition of commitment to learning for me to lean on. Like millions of youngsters in today's ghettos and barrios, I needed the push and stimulation of a teacher who truly cared. Miss Bessie gave plenty of both, as she immersed me in a wonderful world of similes, metaphors and even onomatopoeia. She led me to believe that I could write sonnets as well as Shakespeare, or iambic-pentameter verse to put Alexander Pope to shame.

我家从来没有过高中毕业生，因此没有用功读书的先例供我学习。如同今天贫民窟里和西裔聚居区里千百万的孩子一样，我需要一个真正关心人的老师的督促和激励。贝西小姐既随时督促我，又经常激励我，她让我沉浸在一个由明喻、暗喻，甚至拟声词构成的奇妙世界里。她使我相信，我能写出不比莎士比亚逊色的十四行诗，能写出让亚历山大·蒲柏感到羞愧的抑扬格五音步诗。

17 In those days the McMinnville school system was rigidly "Jim Crow," and poor black children had to struggle to put anything in their heads. Our high school was only slightly larger than the once-typical little red schoolhouse, and its library was outrageously inadequate—so small, I like to say, that if two students were in it and one wanted to turn a page, the other one had to step outside.

在那个时代，麦克敏维尔所有的学校对黑人实行严格的种族歧视，穷苦的黑人小孩要想学到一点东西得发奋努力。我们的高中只比南方曾经特有的那种红色小校舍稍大一点，它的图书馆差透了——它是如此之小，我可以说，要是有两个学生在里面看书，一个学生想翻一下书页，另一个学生就得让开。

18 Negroes, as we were called then, were not allowed in the town library, except to mop floors or dust tables. But through one of those secret Old South[ Old South: the South before the Civil War] arrangements between whites of conscience and blacks of stature, Miss Bessie kept getting books smuggled out of the white library. That is how she introduced me to the Brontёs, Byron, Coleridge, Keats and Tennyson. "If you don't read, you can't write, and if you can't write, you might as well stop dreaming," Miss Bessie once told me.

那时候，我们这些黑人(当时人们称我们"Negro")是不准进市图书馆的，除非是去拖地板或擦桌子。但是，贝西小姐利用南北战争前有良知的白人和有影响的黑人之间所达成的某种秘密安排，设法不断地将书从白人图书馆偷运过来。她用这个办法使我读到勃朗特三姐妹、拜伦、科勒律治、济慈和丁尼生的作品。"你要是不读书，你就不会写，要是你不会写，那你就不要再有什么梦想了，"贝西小姐曾经这样告诫我。

19 So I read whatever Miss Bessie told me to, and tried to remember the things she insisted that I store away. Forty-five years later, I can still recite her "truths to live by," such as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's lines from "The Ladder of St. Augustine": The heights by great men reached and kept Were not attained by sudden flight. But they, while their companions slept, Were toiling upward in the night.

所以，贝西小姐要我读什么，我就读什么，并努力记住她要我一定要记住的东西。到现在45年了，我仍背得出她推崇的"立身至理名言"，譬如亨利·沃兹华斯·朗费罗写的《圣奥古斯丁的梯子》中的诗句： 伟人们登上高山之顶， 并非一蹴而就。 而是当同伴们酣睡时， 他们仍不辞辛劳摸黑向上攀爬。

20 Years later, her inspiration, prodding, anger, cajoling and almost osmotic infusion of learning finally led to that lovely day when Miss Bessie dropped me a note saying, "I'm so proud to read your column in the Nashville Tennessean."

许多年之后，她的激励和敦促、她的发怒、她的劝诱，她那差不多是潜移默化式的知识传授，终于化作一个美好的日子，那天贝西小姐给我写了封短信："我在纳什维尔出版的《田纳西人》上读到你的专栏文章，我深感骄傲。"

21 Miss Bessie was a spry 80 when I went back to McMinnville and visited her in a senior citizens' apartment building. Pointing out proudly that her building was racially integrated, she reached for two glasses and a pint of bourbon. I was momentarily shocked, because it would have been scandalous in the 1930s and '40s for word to get out that a teacher drank, and nobody had ever raised a rumor that Miss Bessie did.

我回到麦克敏维尔前往一个老年公寓看望她的时候，她已八十高龄了，但仍精神矍铄。她自豪地告诉我，这个公寓里黑人白人都有，说着她取出两个杯子和一品脱波旁威士忌酒。我顿时感到震惊，因为在二十世纪三、四十年代，要是有传言说当老师的喝酒，那就会成为丑闻，那时候也从来没有谁说过贝西小姐会喝酒。

22 I felt a new sense of equality as she lifted her glass to mine. Then she revealed a softness and compassion that I had never known as a student.

她和我碰杯，我不由产生一种从未有过的平等感。当时她流露出的温柔和怜爱是我当学生时从未感受过的。

23 "I've never forgotten that examination day," she said, "when Buster Martin held up seven fingers, obviously asking you for help with question number seven, 'Name a common carrier,' I can still picture you looking at your exam paper and humming a few bars of 'Chattanooga Choo Choo.' I was so tickled, I couldn't punish either of you."

"我一直记得那天考试，"她说，"巴斯特·马丁伸出七根手指，显然是问你怎么回答第七题，'说出一种常见的运输工具'，我现在还能想象，当时你看着自己的试卷，哼了《查塔努加车--车》中的几节。我真给逗乐了，你俩我哪个都没法罚。”

24 Miss Bessie was telling me, with bourbon-laced grace, that I never fooled her for a moment.

贝西小姐是借着威士忌的酒力在告诉我，我什么事都没能蒙过她。

25 When Miss Bessie died in 1980, at age 85, hundreds of her former students mourned. They knew the measure of a great teacher: love and motivation. Her wisdom and influence had rippled out across generations.

1980年，贝西小姐以85岁高龄辞世时，她教过的许多学生前来哀悼。他们知道衡量一位杰出教师的标准：爱与动力。她的智慧和影响惠及几代人。

26 Some of her students who might normally have been doomed to poverty went on to become doctors, dentists and college professors. Many, guided by Miss Bessie's example, became public-school teachers.

她的一些学生，原本也许注定要一生贫困，但后来成长为医生、牙医、大学教授。贝西小姐的不少学生受她榜样的影响，都成为公立学校教师。

27 "The memory of Miss Bessie and how she conducted her classroom did more for me than anything I learned in college," recalls Gladys Wood of Knoxville, Tenn., a highly respected English teacher who spent 43 years in the state's school system. "So many times, when I faced a difficult classroom problem, I asked myself, How would Miss Bessie deal with this? And I'd remember that she would handle it with laughter and love."

"对贝西小姐以及她的课堂教学方式的回忆，比我在大学里所学到的任何东西都更有帮助，"在公立学校系统任教43年、备受尊敬的英语教师，来自田纳西州诺克斯维尔的格拉迪斯·伍德回忆道。"多少次，当我在课堂上遇到难题时，我就自问，贝西小姐对这事会怎么处理？我总记起她总是用笑声，用爱来解决问题。"

28 No child can get all the necessary support at home, and millions of poor children get no support at all. This is what makes a wise, educated, warm-hearted teacher like Miss Bessie so vital to the minds, hearts and souls of this country's children.

孩子不可能从家里得到所有必要的帮助，千百万穷孩子根本得不到帮助。正因为如此，像贝西小姐那样有智慧、有知识、有热情的教师对我国儿童智力、心灵的发展有着重大的意义。

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