17

17

00:00
03:19

Chapter 3


There was music from my neighbor’s house through the summer nights. 整个夏天的夜晚都有音乐声从我邻居家传过来。In his blue gardens men and girls came and went like moths among the whisperings and the champagne and the stars. 在他蔚蓝的花园里, 男男女女像飞蛾一般在笑语、香摈和繁垦中间来来往往。At high tide in the afternoon I watched his guests diving from the tower of his raft or taking the sun on the hot sand of his beach while his two motor-boats slit the waters of the Sound, drawing aquaplanes(划水板) over cataracts of foam(泡沫). 下午涨潮的时候,我看着他的客人从他的木筏的跳台上跳水,或是躺在他私人海滩的热沙上晒太阳,同时他的两艘小汽艇破浪前进,拖着滑水板驶过翻腾的浪花。


On week-ends his Rolls-Royce became an omnibus, bearing parties to and from the city, between nine in the morning and long past midnight, while his station wagon scampered like a brisk yellow bug to meet all trains. 每逢周末,他的罗尔斯一罗伊斯轿车就成了公共汽车,从早晨九点到深更半夜往来城里接送客人,同时他的旅行车也像一只轻捷的黄硬壳虫那样去火车站接所有的班车。


And on Mondays eight servants including an extra gardener toiled all day with mops and scrubbing-brushes and hammers and garden-shears, repairing the ravages of the night before. 每星期一,八个仆人,包括一个临时园丁,整整苦于一天,用许多拖把、板刷、榔头、修技剪来收拾前一晚的残局。


Every Friday five crates of oranges and lemons arrived from a fruiterer in New York—every Monday these same oranges and lemons left his back door in a pyramid of pulpless halves. 每星期五,五箱橙子和柠檬从纽约一家水果行送到。每星期一,这些 橙子和柠檬变成一座半拉半拉的果皮堆成的小金字塔从他的后门运出去。


There was a machine in the kitchen which could extract the juice of two hundred oranges in half an hour, if a little button was pressed two hundred times by a butler’s thumb. 他厨房里有一架榨果汁机,半小时之内可以榨两百只橙子,只要男管家用大拇指把一个按钮按两百次就行了。


At least once a fortnight a corps of caterers came down with several hundred feet of canvas and enough colored lights to make a Christmas tree of Gatsby’s enormous garden. 至少每两周一次,大批包办筵席的人从城里下来,带来好几百英尺帆布帐篷和无数的彩色电灯,足以把盖茨比巨大的花园布置得像一棵圣诞树。


On buffet tables, garnished with glistening horsd’oeuvre, spiced baked hams crowded against salads of harlequin designs and pastry pigs and turkeys bewitched to a dark gold. 自助餐桌上各色冷盘琳琅满目,一只只五香火腿周围摆满了五花八门的色拉、烤得金黄的乳猪和火鸡。


In the main hall a bar with a real brass rail was set up, and stocked with gins and liquors and with cordials so long forgotten that most of his female guests were too young to know one from another. 大厅里面,设起了一个装着一根真的铜杆的酒 吧,备有各种杜松子酒和烈性酒,还有各种早已罕见的甘露酒,大多数女客 年纪太轻,根本分不清哪个是哪个。


By seven o’clock the orchestra has arrived—no thin five piece affair but a whole pitful of oboes and trombones and saxophones and viols and cornets and piccolos and low an high drums. 七点以前乐队到达,决不是什么五人小乐队,而是配备齐全的整班人 马,双簧管、长号、萨克斯管、大小提琴、短号、短笛、高低音铜鼓,应有 尽有。


The last swimmers have come in from the beach now and are dressing upstairs; the cars from New York are parked five deep in the drive, and already the halls and salons and verandas are gaudy with primary colors and hair shorn in strange new ways and shawls beyond the dreams of Castile. 最后一批游泳的客人已经从海滩上进来,现在正在楼上换衣服。纽约 来的轿车五辆一排停在车道上,同时所有的厅堂、客室、阳台已经都是五彩缤纷,女客们的发型争奇斗妍,披的纱巾是卡斯蒂尔人做梦也想不到的。


The bar is in full swing and floating rounds of cocktails permeate the garden outside until the air is alive with chatter and laughter and casual innuendo and introductions forgotten on the spot and enthusiastic meetings between women who never knew each other’s names. 酒吧那边生意兴隆,同时一盘盘鸡尾酒传送到外面花园电的每个角落,到后 来整个空气里充满了欢声笑语,充满了脱口而出、转眼就忘的打趣和介绍, 充满了彼此始终不知姓名的太太们之间亲热无比的会见。


The lights grow brighter as the earth lurches away from the sun and now the orchestra is playing yellow cocktail music and the opera of voices pitches a key higher. 大地蹒跚着离开太阳,电灯显得更亮,此刻乐队正在奏黄色鸡尾酒会 音乐,于是大合唱般的人声又提高了一个音凋。Laughter is easier, minute by minute, spilled with prodigality,tipped out at a cheerful word. 笑声每时每刻都变得越来越 容易,毫无节制地倾泻出来,只要一句笑话就会引起哄然大笑。


The groups change more swiftly, swell with new arrivals, dissolve and form in the same breath—already there are wanderers, confident girls who weave here and there among the stouter and more stable, become for a sharp, joyous moment the center of a group and then excited with triumph glide on through these achange of faces and voices and color under the constantly changing light. 人群的变化越来越快,忽而随着新来的客人而增大,忽而分散后又立即重新组合。已经有一些人在东飘西荡——脸皮厚的年轻姑娘在比较稳定的人群中间钻进钻出,一会儿在片刻的欢腾中成为一群人注意的中心,一会儿又得意洋洋在不断变化的灯光下穿过变幻不定的面孔、声音和色彩扬长而去。


以上内容来自专辑
用户评论
  • 南柯太守_AD

    咦,换人了,不过也很好听

    LindaPan_46 回复 @南柯太守_AD: You're so good, I didn't realize it's from different voice until I saw your message. They sound so similar

  • HHB2020

    怎么只上线了18集?没完呀,后面的呢?

  • 1891629scgk

    如梦似幻

  • 听友56455186

    加油

  • 1352093wqll

    加油