評論
打印
"They don't come from the same culture. Why, they even have their own language. That's okay with me. I like hearing them talk."
“他們文化不同，甚至語言也不同。但這對我來說無所謂，我喜歡聽他們說話。”
"But you wouldn't like to marry a black person, is that it?" she asked.
“但是你不愿意與一個黑人結婚，是不是？”她問。
"But that's different. A person from their culture and a person of our culture could never really know each other."
“但結婚就不同了，有著黑人文化背景的人和有我們文化背景的人是永遠不可能真正了解對方的。”
"Like you know me?" his wife asked.
“就像你了解我那樣，對嗎？”他的妻子問。
"Yes. Like I know you."
“是的，就像我了解你一樣。”
"But if they love each other," she said.
“但是如果他們彼此相愛呢？”她說。
Oh boy, he thought. He said, "Don't take my word for it. Look at the statistics. Most of those marriages break up."
哦，天啊，他感到無可奈何。他說：“你可以不信我的話。看看數據吧，那樣的婚姻大多數都不能長久。”
"Statistics." She was piling dishes on the draining-board at a terrific rate. Many of them were still greasy. "All right," she said, "what about foreigners? I suppose you think the same thing about two foreigners getting married."
“數據。”她以極快的速度將盤子摞在滴水板上，許多盤子上還有油漬。“好吧，”她說，“如果是外國人呢？我猜你對于兩個來自不同國家的人結婚也有相同的看法吧。”
"Yes," he said, "as a matter of fact I do. How can you understand someone who comes from a completely different background?"
“你猜對了，”他說，“我就是這么看的。你怎么能理解一個有著完全不同背景的人呢？”
"Different," said his wife. "Not the same, like us."
“背景不同，”他妻子說，“不像我們，來自相同的背景？”
"Yes, different," he snapped, angry with her for resorting to this trick of repeating his words so that they sounded hypocritical. "These are dirty," he said, and threw all the silverware back into the sink.
“是的，背景不同，”他厲聲說。她采用這樣的方式重復他說的話，使他的話聽起來非常虛偽，他對此感到非常生氣。“這些還沒洗干凈，”他說著，把所有的銀制餐具都扔回水池里。
She stared down at it, her lips pressed tight together, then plunged her hands under the surface. "Oh!" she cried, and jumped back. She took her right hand by the wrist and held it up. Her thumb was bleeding.
她低頭看著水槽，雙唇緊閉，然后把雙手伸進水里，“啊！”她尖叫起來，向后跳了一下。她抓住右手腕并把它舉了起來，大拇指在流血。
