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Nature's pleasures are much qualified in New York.
在紐約所能欣賞到的自然美景非常有限。
You never see a star-filled sky; the city’s bright glow arrogantly obscures the heavens.
你從來看不到一片繁星點點的夜空，城里的萬家燈火交相輝映使得天空黯然失色。
Sunsets can be spectacular: oranges and reds tinting the sky over the Jersey meadows and gaudily reflected in a thousand windows on Manhattan’s jagged skyline.
唯有日落時分的景色尚可謂壯觀：澤西市草地上的天空染上了一塊塊深淺不一的橙紅色，在曼哈頓那些高高矮矮、大大小小的建筑物上的萬千扇玻璃窗的反射下，更顯得絢麗多彩。
Nature constantly yields to man in New York: witness those fragile sidewalk trees gamely struggling against encroaching cement and petrol fumes.
大自然對紐約人總是低頭服輸。只須看看人行道上那些脆弱的樹木迎著四面進逼的水泥路面和陣陣襲來的石油煙氣拚命掙扎的樣子，就足以說明問題了。
Central Park, which Frederick Law Olmsted designed as lungs for the city’s poor, is in places grassless and filled with trash,
由弗雷德里克·勞·奧姆斯特德設計的紐約中央公園本應是城市貧民休養身體、呼吸新鮮空氣的場所，但如今園內有些地方已寸草不生，垃圾遍地，
no longer pristine yet lively with the noise and vivacity of people, largely youths, blacks, and Puerto Ricans, enjoying themselves.
無復當年的清新質樸之氣，然而依舊人聲嘈雜，生意盎然，許多人一一多數為年輕人、黑人和波多黎各人，仍在其間自得其樂。
On park benches sit older people, mostly white, looking displaced.
公園中的長條椅上則坐著一些上了年紀的人，其中以白人居多，看樣子都是一些流離失所的人。
It has become less a tranquil park than an untidy carnival.
這里已經不是什么靜造的公園了，倒更像是一個亂哄哄的狂歡場所。
Not the glamour of the city, which never beckoned to me from a distance, but its opportunity – to practice the kind of journalism I wanted – drew me to New York.
吸引著我來到紐約的不是這個城市的魅力--它從沒有在遠方向我遙遙招手呼喚，而是它給我提供了一個從事我夢寐以求的新聞事業的機會。
I wasn’t even sure how I’d measure up against others who had been more soundly educated at Ivy League schools,
我當時甚至拿不準自己的能力如何能比得上那些在東北部一些名牌大學受過更好教育的人，
or whether I could compete against that tough local breed, those intellectual sons of immigrants,
又怎能競爭得過紐約那些意志堅強的本地人，那些才華橫溢的移民子弟.
so highly motivated and single-minded, such as Alfred Kazin, who for diversion (for heaven’t sake!) played Bach’s Unaccompanied Partitas on the violin.
他們是那樣的目標明確，用心專一，比如那個艾爾弗雷德?卡津，他作為業余消遣(真是不可思議j)競能用小提琴演奏巴赫的無伴奏組曲。
