2022翻译硕士(MTI)考研复习:英译中国现代散文选(五十)
Though Paris has a better layout than London or Rome, it nevertheless cannot compare with Peiping, one always finds the natural in the midst of the artificial. The city as a whole is neither too crowded nor too secluded. Even houses tucked away in very small lanes have their own courtyards and trees. Even the most secluded places are situated within a stone’s throw of business or residential districts. Such a layout is, to my mind, without equal all over the world. However, what distinguishes Peiping is not the perfect layout, but the open spaces here and there where people can breathe freely not the many beautiful buildings, but the open grounds around each building which add to its architectural beauty. Each gate tower of the city wall and each pailou (decorated archway) can been seen from afar. And the Northern and Western hills are visible to people in the open streets.
Those who are fond of studying or collecting curios will naturally be drawn to Peiping, which is remarkable for its rich store of books and curios. Personally I am not given to studying, nor do I have spare money to buy curios. But I am keen on the flowers, vegetables and fruit which grow in rich abundance in Peiping. Gardening is something very expensive. But since flowers of herbaceous plants in Peiping are very cheap and each house has a courtyard of its own, it does not cost very much to plant a whole courtyard to such flowers which, though humble, are nevertheless lovely to look at, such as morning glories on the wall, china pinks at the foot of wall and marvels-of-Peru. Yes, cheap as they are, they attract butterflies! Green vegetables, cabbages, hyacinth beans, young soya beans, cucumbers, spinach, etc. are often carried straight form the suburbs to your residential quarters for marketing. Often, leeks from rural farms after a rain still have specks of mud on their leaves. The vegetables stalls are so colorful that they present a scene of poetic charm. Fruits come mainly from the western and northern suburbs, such as crab apples and cherry apples from the Western Hills, and jujubes and persimmons from the Northern Hills. Look, how they are still covered with frostlike bloom when they are put on the market! Indeed, America’s paper-wrapped oranges will pale beside Peiping’s plums bearing a thin coating of frostlike bloom!
The city of Peiping brings its residents into closer contact with nature by growing flowers, vegetables and fruit in large quantities. The city proper is not plagued by factory chimneys such as you find in London giving off volumes of smoke all day long. On the outskirts of the city lie numerous flower gardens, vegetables farms and villages. An ancient Chinese poet by the name of Tao Yuanming says aptly in one of his famous poems, “Plucking chrysanthemums under the eastern hedge, I calmly view the southern hills.” To adapt it to life in Peiping, I might as well substitute the word “western” or “northern” for the word “southern” in the line. Peiping is probably the only place for a man of limited means like me to live an easy and carefree life in.
Now, let me leave off writing, for I am on the point of shedding tears. How I miss Peiping.
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