I am home for my daughter's first birthday. By "home" I do not mean the house in Los Angeles where my husband and I and the baby live, but the place where my family is, in the Central Valley of California. It is a vital although troublesome distinction. My husband likes my family but is uneasy in their house, because once there I fall into their ways, which are difficult, oblique, deliberately inarticulate, not my husband's ways. We live in dusty houses ("D-U-S-T," he once wrote with his finger on surfaces all over the house, but no one noticed it) filled with mementos quite without value to him (what could the Canton dessert plates. mean to him? How could he have known about the assay scales, why should he care if he did know?), and we appear to talk exclusively about people we know who have been committed to mental hospitals, about people we know who have been booked on drunk-driving charges, and about property, particularly about property, land, price per acre and C-2 zoning and assessments and freeway access. My brother does not understand my husband's inability to perceive the advantage in the rather common real-estate transaction known as "sale-leaseback," and my husband in turn does not understand why so many of the people he hears about in my father's house have recently been committed to mental hospitals or booked on drunk-driving charges. Nor does he understand that when we talk about sale-leasebacks and right-of-way condemnations we are talking in code about the things we like best, the yellow fields and the cottonwoods and the rivers rising and falling and the mountain roads closing when the heavy snow comes in. We miss each other's points, have another drink and regard the fire. My brother refers to my husband, in his presence, as "Joan's husband." Marriage is the classic betrayal.
【参考译文】
我回家给女儿过周岁生日。我所说的“家”，并非指丈夫，我和小宝宝在洛杉矶的家，而是指位于加州中央谷地的娘家。这样区分，尽管麻烦，却很重要。丈夫不是不喜欢我娘家的人，但是在我娘家却颇不自在。因为我一回去，就染上了娘家人的习惯，说起话来故意吞吞吐吐、拐弯抹角、令人费解，完全有别于丈夫的习惯。我们住在灰蒙蒙的屋子里(丈夫曾用手指在落满灰尘的地方都写上了“灰——尘”两个大字，只是没人注意)，里面还摆满了纪念品，可在丈夫眼里这些东西毫无价值(粤式细瓷点心盘对他来说能有什么意义?他怎么可能了解分析天平?即使他了解，他又何必在意?)。在他看来，我们好像尽在那谈熟人，哪个被送进了精神病院，哪个被控酒后驾车。还谈财产，特别是地产、土地和地价，C-2区制规划及评估，还有高速公路的出入口，等等。弟弟弄不明白，我丈夫怎么连很平常的“售后回租”这种房地产交易的好处也不懂?丈夫也觉得奇怪，在我娘家为何听到这么多人最近被送进了精神病院，或是因酒后开车被控?其实丈夫不明白，我们谈售后回租和依法征用公共用地的时候，是在用娘家人特有的语言谈论最来劲的东西，像金黄色的田野、棉白杨、时涨时落的河水，以及下大雪时封闭的山路。话不投机，索性接着喝酒，默默注视着炉火。弟弟当着我丈夫的面，称他为“琼的丈夫”。结婚啊，从古到今，都意味着背叛。
热点试题1：2019-2011年翻译资格考试高级笔译真题 
热点试题2：翻译资格考试英语笔译高级模拟题（21篇）
热点试题3：2019年CATTI高级笔译模拟试题10篇
想获得更多试题？欢迎加入交流群432919366， 
或者扫描下面的二维码进群。
