英语教师如何快速提升自己的口语（专业素质提升第3期）(1)

■ 编者按：本刊自2020年起特设“英美散文学习与赏析”栏目，精选经典篇目，搭配三种不同类型的英语学习任务，并辅以参考译文，希望读者可以在赏析经典文章的精神内涵的同时，感悟地道的英语表达和巧妙的篇章结构。本栏目旨在提升英语教师的语言能力，为教师专业素质提升助力！

Insouciance

*本文作者为D. H. Lawrence，建议您收藏文章认真阅读 练习哦！小编也贴心地在文末设置了全文下载链接，您可一键提取本次赏析文本 学习任务，需要的老师可以自行下载~

[Para. 1] My balcony is on the east side of the hotel, and my neighbours on the right are a Frenchman, white-haired, and his white-haired wife; my neighbours on the left are two little white-haired English ladies. And we are allmortallyshy of one another.

[Para. 2] When Ipeepout of my room in the morning and see the matronly French lady in a purple silk wrapper, standing like the captain on thebridgesurveyingthe morning, I pop in again before she can see me. And whenever Iemergeduring the day, I am aware of the two little white-haired ladies popping back like two white rabbits, so that literally I only see the whisk of their skirt-hems.

[Para. 3] This afternoon being hot andthundery, I woke up suddenly and went out on the balcony barefoot. There I satserenelycontemplatingthe world, and ignoring the two bundles of feet of the two little ladies whichprotrudedfrom their open door ways, upon the end of twochaise longues. A hot, still afternoon! the lake shining ratherglassyaway below, the mountains rathersulky, the greenness very green, all a little silent andlurid, and two mowers moving with scythes, downhill just near: slush! slush! sound the scythestrokes.

[Para. 4] The two little ladies become aware of my presence. I become aware of a certainagitationin the two bundles of feet wrapped in twodiscreetsteamer rugs and protruding on the end of twochaises longuesfrom the pair of doorways upon balcony next me. One bundle of feet suddenly disappears; so does the other. Silence!

[Para. 5] Then lo! with odd sliding suddenness a little white-haired lady in grey silk, with round blue eyes, emerges and looks straight at me, and remarks that it is pleasant now. A little cooler, say I, with false amiability. She quite agrees, and we speak of the men mowing; howplainlyone hears the long breaths of the scythes.

[Para. 6] By now we aretête-à-tête. We speak of cherries, strawberries, and thepromiseof the vine crop. This somehow leads to Italy, and to Signor Mussolini. Before I know where I am, the little white-haired lady has swept me off my balcony, away from the glassy lake, theveiled mountains, the two men mowing, and the cherry trees, away into the troubledetherof international politics.

[Para. 7] I am not allowed to sit like a dandelion on my own stem. The little lady in a breath blows me abroad. And I was so pleasantlymusingover the two men moving: the young one, with long legs in bright blue cotton trousers, and with bare black head, swinging solightlydownhill, and the other, in black trousers, ratherstoutin front, and wearing a new straw hat of the boatervariety, coming ratherstifflyafter,crunchingthe end of his stroke with a certain violent effort.

[Para. 8] I was watching the curiously different motions of the two men, the young thin one in bright blue trousers, the elderly fat one in shabbyblack trousers that stick out in front, the different amount of effort in their mowing, the lack of grace in the elderly one, his jerkyadvance, the unpleasant effect of the new ‘boater’ on his head—and I tried to interest the little lady.

[Para. 9] But it meant nothing to her. The mowers, the mountains, the cherry trees, the lake, all the things that were actually there, she didn’t care about. They even seemed to scare her off the balcony. But she held her ground, and instead of herself being scared away, shesnatchedme up like some ogress, and swept me off into the empty desert spaces of right and wrong, politics, Fascism and the rest.

[Para. 10] The worst ogress couldn’t have treated me morevillainously. I don’t care about right and wrong, politics, Fascism, abstract liberty, or anything else of the sort. I want to look at the mowers, and wonder why fatness, elderliness, and black trousers should inevitablywear a new straw hat of the boater variety, move in stiffjerks,shovethe end of the scythe-strokes with a certain violence, and win my heartydisapproval, as contrasted with young long thinness, bright blue cotton trousers, a bare black head, and a pretty lifting movement at the end of the scythe-stroke.

[Para. 11] Why do modern people almostinvariablyignore the things that are actually present to them? Why, having come out from England to find mountains, lakes, scythe-mowers and cherry trees, does the little blue-eyed ladyresolutely close her blue eyes to them all, now she’s got them, and gaze away to Signor Musolini, whom she hasn’t got, and to Fascism, which is invisible anyhow? Why isn’t she content to be where she is? Why can’t she be happy with what she’s got? Why must she care?

[Para. 12] I see now why her round blue eyes are so round, so noticeably round. It is because she ‘cares’. She ishauntedby that mysteriousbugbearof ‘caring’. For everything on earth that doesn’t concern her she ‘cares’. She cares terribly because far-off, invisible,hypothetical Italians wear black shirts, but she doesn’t care a rapthat one elderly mower whose stroke she can hear, wears black trousers instead of bright blue cotton ones. Now if she would descend from the balcony and climb the grassy slope and say to the fat mower: ‘Cher monsieur, pourquoi porlez-vous les pantalons noirs? Why, oh, why do you wear black trousers?’—then I should say: What an on-thespot little lady!—But since she only torments me with international politics. I can only remark: What a tiresome off-the-spot old woman!

[Para. 13] They care! They simply areeaten upwith caring. They are so busy caring about Fascism or Leagues of Nations or whether France is right or whether Marriage is threatened, that they never know where they are. They certainly never live on the spot. Theyinhabitabstract space, the desert voidof politics, principles, right and wrong, and so forth. They aredoomedto be abstract. Talking to them is like trying to have a human relationship with the letter x in algebra.

[Para. 14] There simply is adeadlybreach between actual living and this abstract caring. What is actual living? It is a question mostly of direct contact. There was a directsensuouscontact between me, the lake, mountains, cherry trees, mowers, and a certain invisible but noisy chaffinch in aclipped lime tree. All this was cut off by the fatalshearsof that abstract word Fascism, and the little old lady next door wasthe Atroposwho cut the thread of my actual life this afternoon. Shebeheadedme, and flungmy head into abstract space. Then we are supposed to love our neighbours!

[Para. 15] When it comes to living, we live through our instincts and our intuitions. Instinct makes me run from little over-earnest ladies; instinct makes mesniffthe lime blossom and reach for the darkest cheery. But it is intuition which makes me feel theuncannyglassiness of the lake this afternoon, the sulkiness of the mountains, the vividness of near green in thunder-sun, the young man in bright blue trousers lightlytossingthe grass from the scythe, the elderly man in a boater stiffly shoving his scythestrokes, both of them sweating in the silence of the intense light.

学习任务

1. Explain the following words and expressions in English.

(1) insouciance (title)

(2) peep, bridge (Para. 2)

(3) thundery, serenely, protrude, glassy, sulky (Para. 3)

(4) agitation (Para. 4)

(5) amiability (Para. 5)

(6) veil, ether (Para. 6)

(7) muse, stout, stiffly, crunch (Para. 7)

(8) shabby (Para. 8)

(9) snatch (Para. 9)

(10) villainously, inevitably, shove, hearty (Para. 10)

(11) invariably, resolutely (Para. 11)

(12) bugbear, hypothetical, rap, torment (Para. 12)

(13) eat up, inhabit, void, doomed (Para. 13)

(14) sensuous, clip, shear, the Atropos, behead, fling (Para. 14)

(15) sniff, uncanny, toss (Para. 15)

2. Look up the underlined words in your dictionary, examining their multiple meanings. (Note down the meaning of each word in the context, and another meaning that the word often expresses.)

(1) … we are all mortallyshy of one another. (Para. 1)

(2) … like the captain on the bridge surveyingthe morning… (Para. 2)

(3) … whenever I emergeduring the day… (Para. 2)

(4) There I sat serenely contemplatingthe world… (Para. 3)

(5) … all a little silent and lurid… (Para. 3)

(6) … wrapped in two discreetsteamer rugs… (Para. 4)

(7) … how plainlyone hears the long breaths… (Para. 5)

(8) … the promiseof the vine crop. (Para. 6)

(9) … swinging so lightlydownhill… (Para. 7)

(10) … a new straw hat of the boater variety… (Para. 7)

(11) … his jerky advance… (Para. 8)

(12) … move in stiff jerks… (Para. 10)

(13) She is haunted… (Para. 12)

(14) … a deadlybreach… (Para. 14)

3. Write brief responses to the following prompts, using as much original language from the text as possible.

(1) Describe the looks and actions of the author’s neighbours.

(2) Describe the looks and actions of the two mowers.

(3) Describe the psychology of the lady with whom the author had some unpleasant interaction.

* 本期学习任务的答案将于近期在公众号推送，敬请期待。

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以上内容摘自《英语学习》2020年第3期“英美散文学习与赏析”栏目，阅读完整内容请翻阅当期纸刊。文章版权归《英语学习》所有，欢迎分享本文到朋友圈，如需转载请回复“转载”。

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