英语阅读精彩片段

《飘》的畅销盛况一度成为出版史上的一段佳话。下面是我带来的外国名著经典英语段落 ，欢迎阅读!

Gerald had come to America from Ireland when he was twenty-one. He had come hastily, as many a better and worse Irishman before and since, with the clothes he had on his back, twoshillings above his passage money and a price on his head that he felt was larger than his misdeed warranted. There was no Orangeman this side of hell worth a hundred pounds to the British government or to the devil himself; but if the government felt so strongly about the death of an English absentee landlord’s rent agent, it was time for Gerald O’Hara to be leaving and leaving suddenly. True, he had called the rent agent “a bastard of an Orangeman,” but that, according to Gerald’s way of looking at it, did not give the man any right to insult him by whistling the opening bars of “The Boyne Water.”

21岁那年杰拉尔德来到美国。他是匆匆而来像以前或以后许多好好坏坏的爱尔兰人那样，因为他只带着身上穿的衣服和买船票剩下的两个先令，以及悬赏捉拿他的那个身价，而且他觉得这个身价比他的罪行所应得的还高了一些。世界上还没有一个奥兰治派分子值得英国政府或魔鬼本身出一百镑的;但是如果政府对于一个英国的不在地主地租代理人的死会那么认真，那么杰拉尔德·奥哈拉的突然出走便是适时的了。的确，他曾经称呼过地租代理人为"奥兰治派野崽子"不过，按照杰拉尔德对此事的看法，这并不使那个人就有权哼着《博因河之歌》那开头几句来侮辱他。

The Battle of the Boyne had been fought more than a hundred years before, but, to the O’Haras and their neighbors, it might have been yesterday when their hopes and their dreams, as well as their lands and wealth, went off in the same cloud of dust that enveloped a frightened and fleeing Stuart prince, leaving William of Orange and his hated troops with their orangecockades to cut down the Irish adherents of the Stuarts.

博因河战役是一百多年以前的事了，但是在奥哈拉家族和他们的邻里看来，就像昨天发生的事，那时他们的希望和梦想，他们的土地和钱财，都在那团卷着一位惊惶逃路的斯图尔特王子的魔雾中消失了，只留下奥兰治王室的威廉和他那带着奥兰治帽徽的军队来屠杀斯图尔特王朝的爱尔兰依附者了。

For this and other reasons, Gerald’s family was not inclined to view the fatal outcome of thisquarrel as anything very serious, except for the fact that it was charged with seriousconsequences. For years, the O’Haras had been in bad odor with the English constabulary onaccount of suspected activities against the government, and Gerald was not the first O’Hara totake his foot in his hand and quit Ireland between dawn and morning. His two oldest brothers,James and Andrew, he hardly remembered, save as close-lipped youths who came and went atodd hours of the night on mysterious errands or disappeared for weeks at a time, to theirmother’s gnawing anxiety. They had come to America years before, after the discovery of asmall arsenal of rifles buried under the O’Hara pigsty. Now they were successful merchants inSavannah, “though the dear God alone knows where that may be,” as their mother alwaysinterpolated when mentioning the two oldest of her male brood, and it was to them thatyoung Gerald was sent.

由于这个以及别的原因，杰拉尔德的家庭并不想把这场争吵的毁灭结果看得十分严重，只把它看作是一桩有严重影响的事而已。多年来，奥哈拉家与英国警察部门的关系很不好，原因是被怀疑参与了反政府活动，而杰拉尔德并不是奥哈拉家族中头一个暗中离开爱尔兰的人。他几乎想不其他的两个哥哥詹姆斯和安德鲁，只记得两个闷声不响的年轻人，他们时常在深夜来来去去，干一些神秘的钩当，或者一走就是好几个星期，使母亲焦急万分。他们是许多年前人们在奥哈拉家猪圈里发现在一批理藏的来福枪之到美国的。现在他们已在萨凡纳作生意发了家，"虽然只有上帝才知道那地方究竟在哪里"----他们母亲提起这两个大儿子时老是这样说，年轻的杰拉尔德就是给送到两位哥哥这里来的。

He left home with his mother's hasty kiss on his cheek and her fervent Catholic blessing in his ears, and his father's parting admonition, “Remember who ye are and don’t be taking nothing off no man.” His five tall brothers gave him good-by with admiring but slightly patronizingsmiles, for Gerald was the baby and the little one of a brawny family.

离家出走时，母亲在他脸上匆匆吻了一下，并贴着耳朵说了一声天主教的祝福，父亲则给了临别赠言，"要记住自己是谁，不要学别人的样。"他的五位高个子兄弟羡慕而略带关注地微笑着向他道了声再见，因为杰拉尔德在强壮的一家人中是最小和最矮的一个。

His five brothers and their father stood six feet and over and broad in proportion, but littleGerald, at twenty-one, knew that five feet four and a half inches was as much as the Lord in Hiswisdom was going to allow him. It was like Gerald that he never wasted regrets on his lack ofheight and never found it an obstacle to his acquisition of anything he wanted. Rather, it wasGerald’s compact smallness that made him what he was, for he had learned early that littlepeople must be hardy to survive among large ones. And Gerald was hardy.

他父亲和五个哥哥都身六英尺以上，其粗壮的程度也很相称，可是21岁的小个子杰拉尔德懂得，五英尺四英寸半便是上帝所能赐给他的最大高度了。对杰拉尔德来说，他从不以自己身材矮小而自怨自艾，也从不认为这会阻碍他去获得自己所需要的一切。更确切些不如说，正是杰拉尔德的矮小精干使他成为现在这样，因为他早就明白矮小的人必须在高大者中间顽强地活下去。而杰拉尔德是顽强的。

His tall brothers were a grim, quiet lot, in whom the family tradition of past glories, lost forever,rankled in unspoken hate and crackled out in bitter humor. Had Gerald been brawny, he wouldhave gone the way of the other O’Haras and moved quietly and darkly among the rebels againstthe government But Gerald was “loud-mouthed and bullheaded,” as his mother fondly phrasedit, hair trigger of temper, quick with his fists and possessed of a chip on his shoulder so largeas to be almost visible to the naked eye. He swaggered among the tall O’Haras like a struttingbantam in a barnyard of giant Cochin roosters, and they loved him, baited him affectionatelyto hear him roar and hammered on him with their large fists no more than was necessary tokeep a baby brother in his proper place.

他那些高个儿哥哥是些冷酷寡言的人，在他们身上，历史光荣的传统已经永远消失，沦落为默默的仇恨，爆裂出痛苦的幽默来了。要是杰拉尔德也生来强壮，他就会走上向奥哈拉家族中其他人的道路，在反政府的行列中悄悄地、神秘地干起来。可杰拉尔德像他母亲钟爱地形容的那样，是个"高嗓门，笨脑袋"，嬷嬷暴躁，动辄使拳头，并且盛气凌人，叫人见人怕。他在那些高大的奥哈拉家族的人中间，就像一只神气十足的矮脚鸡在满院子大个儿雄鸡中间那样，故意昂首阔步，而他们都爱护他，亲切地怂恿地高声喊叫，必要时也只伸出他们的大拳头敲他几下，让这位小弟弟不要太得意忘形了。