英語短篇美文：三個紐約
摘要:每個人都懷着初戀的激情擁抱紐約，每個人都以冒險家的新奇目光審視紐約，每個人散發出的光和熱，足以令愛迪生聯合電氣公司相形見絀。The Three New Yorks三個紐約
By Elwin Brooks White
There are roughly three New Yorks. There is, first, the New York of the man or woman who was born here, who takes the city for granted and accepts its size and its turbulences as natural and inevitable. Second, there is the New York of the commuter—the city that is devoured by locusts each day and spat out each night. Third, there is the New York of the person who was born somewhere else and came to New York in quest of something.
大致說來有三個紐約。首先是那些土生土長的男男女女的紐約，他們對這座城市習以爲常，認爲它有這樣的規模和喧囂，乃是自然而然、不可避免的。其次是家住郊區、乘公交車到市內上班的人們的紐約--這座城市每到白天就被如蝗的人羣吞噬進去，每到晚上又給吐出來。第三是外來人的紐約，他們生於他鄉，到紐約來尋求機緣。
Of these three trembling cities the greatest is the last—the city of final destination, the city that is a goal. It is this third city that accounts for New York’s high-strung disposition, its poetic deportment, its dedication to the arts, and its incomparable achievements.
在這三座充滿騷動的城市中，最了不起的是最後一座--那座被視爲最終歸宿的城市，視爲追尋目標的城市。正是由於這第三座城市，紐約纔有了緊張的秉性、詩人的氣質、對藝術的執着追求、無與倫比的成就。
Commuters give the city its tidal restlessly; natives give it solidity and continuity; but the settlers give it passion. And whether it is a farmer arriving from Italy to set up a small grocery store in a slum, or a young girl arriving from a small town in Mississippi to escape the indignity of being observed by her neighbors, or a boy arriving from the Corn Belt with a manuscript in his suitcase and a pain in his heart, it makes no difference; each embraces New York with the intense excitement of first love, each absorbs New York with the fresh eyes of an adventurer, each generates heat and light to dwarf the Consolidated Edison Company.
上班族給紐約帶來了潮汐般時漲時落的騷動，當地人保證了紐約的穩固和持續發展，而外來人則賦予紐約以激情。無論是從意大利來到貧民窟開小雜貨店的農夫，還是從密西西比州某小鎮跑出來躲避鄰居的淫穢目光的年輕姑娘，還是從玉米地帶1滿懷酸楚地拎着手稿跑來的小夥子，情況都沒有什麼兩樣：每個人都懷着初戀的激情擁抱紐約，每個人都以冒險家的新奇目光審視紐約，每個人散發出的光和熱，足以令愛迪生聯合電氣公司相形見絀。
