歌词
--- lesson 57 Back in the old country
重返故里
--- Listen to the tape then answer the question below.
^听录音，然后回答以下问题。
--- Did the narrator find his mother's grave?
I stopped to let the car cool off and to study the map.
^我停下车，让汽车发动机冷却一下，同时查看一下地图。
I had expected to be near my objective by now, but everything still seemed alien to me.
^我本想离目的地已经不远，但周围一切对我仍很陌生。
I was only five when my father had taken me abroad, and that was eighteen years ago.
^我5岁那年，父亲就带我出了国，那是18年前的事了。
When my mother had died after a tragic accident, he did not quickly recover from the shock and loneliness.
^当时我母亲在一次事故中惨死，父亲未能很快从悲痛与孤独中恢复过来。
Everything around him was full of her presence, continually reopening the wound.
^他身边的一切都有母亲的影子不断地勾起他的伤感。
So he decided to emigrate.
^于是他决定移居他国。
In the new country he became absorbed in making a new life for the two of us, so that he gradually ceased to grieve.
^在这个新的国家里，父亲专心致志地为我们俩开创一种新的生活，慢慢地不伤心了。
He did not marry again and I was brought up without a woman's care;
^父亲没有再娶，因此，我在没有母亲的环境里长大成人。
but I lacked for nothing, for he was both father and mother to me.
^但我却什么都不缺，他既当父亲又当母亲。
He always meant to go back one day, but not to stay.
^他总想将来回国看看，但却不愿长期住下去，
His roots and mine had become too firmly embedded in the new land.
^因为他与我一样已经把根深深地扎在了异国的土地上。
But he wanted to see the old folk again and to visit my mother's grave.
^但是，他想看一看家乡父老乡亲，为我的母亲扫墓。
He became mortally ill a few months before we had planned to go and, when he knew that he was dying, he made me promise to go on my own.
^就在他计划回国的前几个月，他突然身患绝症。他知道自己已奄奄一息，于是他要我答应一定单独回故乡一趟。
I hired a car the day after landing and bought a comprehensive book of maps,
^我下飞机后租了一辆车，并买了一本详尽的地图册。
which I found most helpful on the cross-country journey, but which I did not think I should need on the last stage.
^在乡间行车途中，我觉得它非常有用，但快到家了，我倒觉得它没什么用了。
It was not that I actually remembered anything at all.
^这倒并非是我背熟了地图，
But my father had described over and over again what we should see at every milestone, after leaving the nearest town,
^而是父亲曾详细给我讲了，在过了离故乡最近的那个小镇后，在每一个路标处可见到些什么。
so that I was positive I should recognize it as familiar territory.
^因此，我相信这段路对我来说会是很熟悉的。
Well, I had been wrong, for I was now lost.
^唉，实际我错了，我现在迷路了。
I looked at the map and then at the milometer.
^我看了看地图，又查了一下里程表。
I had come ten miles since leaving the town,
^从小镇出来，我走了10英里。
and at this point, according to my father, I should be looking at farms and cottages in a valley,
^照父亲的说法，我面前应是一个山谷，有农场与村舍，
with the spire of the church of our village showing in the far distance.
^还可远远望见老家村子里的教堂的尖顶。
I could see no valley, no farms, no cottages and no church spire -- only a lake.
^可现在我却看不出山谷，看不见农舍，也看不见教学尖顶，看见只是一片湖泊。
I decided that I must have taken a wrong turning somewhere.
^我想一定是什么地方拐错了弯儿。
So I drove back to the town and began to retrace the route, taking frequent glances at the map.
^于是我驾车返回小镇，重新按路线行驶，一边频频地看地图。
I landed up at the same corner.
^结果又来到刚才那个拐弯处。
The curious thing was that the lake was not marked on the map.
^奇怪的是那个湖没有在地图上标出。
I felt as if I had stumbled into a nightmare country, as you sometimes do in dreams.
^我感到自己就像平时作梦那样迷迷糊糊地闯进了恶梦境地。
And, as in a nightmare, there was nobody in sight to help me.
^就像在恶梦里一样，见不到一个人可以帮助我。
Fortunately for me, as I was wondering what to do next, there appeared on the horizon a man on horseback, riding in my direction.
^不过，我是幸运的，正当我走投无路之时，从天边出现一个骑马的人向我骑来。
I waited till he came near, then I asked him the way to our old village.
^等他走近了，我问他去老家的路。
He said that there was now no village.
^他说那村子已经没有了。
I thought he must have misunderstood me, so I repeated its name.
^我想他一定误解了我的意思，于是又说一遍村庄的名字。
This time he pointed to the lake.
^这次他用手指了一下那个湖。
The village no longer existed because it had been submerged, and all the valley too.
^村庄已不复存在，因为已经为水所淹，山谷也被水淹没了。
The lake was not a natural one, but a man-made reservoir.
^这不是一个天然湖泊，是一座人工修建的水库。
专辑信息