英語美文：Late Summer晚夏

英語美文：Late Summer晚夏

　　Late Summer

　　Ernest Hemingway

　　In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.

　　The plain was rich with crops; there were many orchards of fruit trees and beyond the plain the mountains were brown and bare. There was fighting in the mountains and at night we could see the flashes from the artillery. In the dark it was like summer lightning, but the nights were cool and there was not the feeling of a storm coming.

　　Sometimes in the dark we heard the troops marching under the window and guns going past pulled by motor-tractors. There was much traffic at night and many mules on the roads with boxes ofammunition on each side of their pack-saddles and gray motor-trucks that carried men,: and other trucks with loads covered with canvas that moved slower in the traffic. There were big guns too mat passed in the day drawn by tractors, the long barrels of the guns covered with green branches and green leafy branches and vines laid over the tractors. To the north we could look across a valley and see a forest of chestnut trees and behind it another mountain on this side of the river. There was fighting for that mountain too, but it was not successful, and in the fall when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain. The vineyards were thin and bare, branched too and all the country wet and brown and dead with the autumn.There were mists over the river and clouds on the mountain and trucks splashed mud on the road and the troops were muddy and wet in their capes; their rifles were wet and under their capes the two leather cartridge-boxes on the front of belts, gray leather boxes heavy with the packs of clips of thin, long 6.5mm. cartridges, bulged forward under the capes so that the men, passing on the road, marched as though they were six months gone with child.

　　晚夏

　　[美]厄內斯特·海明威

　　那年晚夏，我們住在鄉間的一棟房子里，隔著河流和平原可以望見高山。河床里的鵝卵石和圓石，在陽光的照耀下干燥白皙，清澈的河水湍急地流過，河道里一汪蔚藍。部隊沿著房子向大路挺進，揚起滾滾塵土，覆蓋了樹葉和枝干。樹葉那年落得早，我們看著部隊行進在路上，所過之處，塵土飛揚。微風吹得樹葉紛然而落，士兵們踏過的路上只剩下嘩嘩的落葉，一眼望去白晃晃、空蕩蕩的。

　　平原上的莊稼長勢良好，有許多果園;而平原外的山巒，則是滿目褐黃，光禿禿一片。山谷里戰斗打得正緊，夜里我們還能看到炮火。黑暗中，這番情景酷似夏季的閃電，只是現在夜里涼快些，人們覺察不到夏天暴風雨來臨前的那種悶熱罷了。

　　有時在夜色中，我們能聽見部隊從窗下走過，摩托牽引機拖著大炮發出的聲響聲聲入耳。夜里的交通頗為繁忙，路上有很多馱著彈藥箱的騾子，運送士兵的灰色卡車，還有一種開得稍緩慢的卡車，運載的東西被帆布蓋著。白天也有用牽引車運送的重炮，翠綠的樹枝遮蓋著長長的炮管，郁郁蔥蔥、繁茂的枝條和葡萄藤把整個車身都覆蓋了。朝北望是片山谷，山谷后面有一片栗樹樹林，林子后面，也就是在河的這一邊，又有一座高山。這座高山里也曾經發生過交戰，只是沒有成功。一到秋天，雨水就連綿而至，山上栗樹的葉子掉得精光，只剩下赤裸的樹枝，還有那被雨水打得漆黑的樹干。葡萄園中也是枯枝敗葉，稀疏光禿;鄉間的每一樣東西都是濕潤的，目光所至，皆是一片蕭瑟的秋意。霧氣彌漫著河流，浮云在山澗縈繞，路上卡車駛過處泥漿飛濺，士兵們頂著濕漉漉的披肩，渾身都是爛泥;他們的來復槍也被淋濕了，每個人身前的皮帶都掛著兩個灰皮子彈盒，里面排滿了又長又窄的6.5毫米口徑的子彈，鼓鼓囊囊地蓋在披肩下，走在路上，乍一看，他們就像是一群懷胎六月的婦人。