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The Son from America
子由美歸來
Isaac Bashevis Singer
艾薩克·巴什維斯·辛格
The village of Lentshin was tiny. It was surrounded by fields and little huts with thatched roofs. In the fields, the owners planted vegetables or pastured their goats.
倫特欣是個很小的村莊。周圍都是一些蓋有茅草屋頂的小屋及田地。在田地里，主人們種菜或放羊。
In the smallest of these huts lived old Berl, a man in his eighties, and his wife Berlcha. Old Berl was one of the Jews driven out of Russia who had settled in Poland. He was short, broad-shouldered, and had a small white beard, and in summer and winter he wore a sheepskin hat, a padded cotton jacket, and stout boots. He had a half acre of field, a cow, a goat, and chickens.
最小的那個棚屋里住著80多歲的老伯爾和他的老伴兒伯爾莎。老伯爾是那些被驅離俄國而后定居在波蘭的猶太人中的一個。他個小肩寬，留著一小撮白胡子。不論冬夏，他都戴著一頂羊皮帽子，穿著一件棉夾克和一雙厚實的靴子。他有半英畝土地、一頭奶牛、一只山羊和一些雞。
The couple had a son, Samuel, who had gone to America forty years ago. It was said in Lentshin that he became a millionaire there. Every month, the Lentshin letter carrier brought old Berl a money order and a letter that no one could read because many of the words were English. How much money Samuel sent his parents remained a secret. They never seemed to use the money. What for? The garden, the cow, and the goat provided most of their needs.
這對夫婦有一個兒子叫塞繆爾，40年前去了美國。倫特欣的人都說他在那兒成了一個百萬富翁。每個月倫特欣的郵差都會給老伯爾帶來一張匯票和一封沒人能讀懂的信，因為里面有很多英語單詞。塞繆爾給他父母寄了多少錢一直是個謎。他們似乎從不花這些錢。花它干什么？菜園、奶牛和山羊為他們提供了大部分的生活所需。
