1 / 35 句0 词已学
【短文】The Orchard Keeper's Daughter
【短文】果园守护者的女儿
Mira was the daughter of an orchard keeper in a village of two hundred inhabitants.
米拉是村里果园看守人的女儿，这个村子只有两百个居民。
Her father, a man of few words, said the land was hospitable only to those who listened.
她的父亲是个寡言少语的人，他说土地只对懂得倾听的人慷慨。
That principle, he claimed, was the primary element of any good life.
他声称，这条原则是任何美好生活的首要元素。
Every morning before school she would congregate with other children by the well.
每天上学前，她都会和其他孩子聚集在井边。
The chorus of their voices carried across the fields.
他们的合唱声越过田野。
She had a natural attraction to detail: the density of leaves, the sheer height of the old pear tree, its spectacular and picturesque limbs.
她对细节有一种天生的敏感：叶片的疏密，老梨树的绝对高度，它那壮观而如画的枝干。
Her perception was acute.
她的感知十分敏锐。
She could capture the particular way light fell on a fossil stone near the fence.
她能捕捉到光线落在篱笆附近一块化石上的独特方式。
Neighbours said she would undoubtedly become an artist, albeit a poor one.
邻居们说，她无疑会成为艺术家，尽管是个穷艺术家。
At seventeen she left for the city, drawn by its opulence and its promise of leisure.
十七岁那年，她去了城市，被它的富庶和闲暇的许诺所吸引。
The contrast was brutal.
反差是残酷的。
She encountered noise, haste, and a widespread indifference.
她遭遇了噪音、匆忙和普遍的冷漠。
The city seemed to trivialize everything she had once held sacred.
城市似乎把她曾视为神圣的一切都变得微不足道。
Its industrialised outlook, she wrote home, would prove detrimental to any conception of harmony.
她写信回家说，它那种工业化的观念，将被证明有害于任何和谐的概念。
Her letters grew shorter.
她的信越来越短。
She felt like an optional extra in a machine she could not coordinate.
她觉得自己像一台她无法协调的机器上一个可有可无的附件。
Then her father fell ill.
后来她父亲病了。
She returned, and the reversal was total.
她回来了，转变是彻底的。
Standing again among the trees, she felt a vigorous arousal of memory.
再次站在树林中，她感到记忆被有力地唤醒。
The old impressions came bouncing back.
旧日的印象纷纷弹回。
She began to recapture what maturity had almost erased.
她开始重新捕捉那些几乎被成熟抹去的东西。
She started a small school for local children, using the orchard as a stage.
她为当地孩子办了一所小学校，把果园当作舞台。
She would depict each season, and the children would inform her of what they saw.
她会描绘每一个季节，孩子们则告诉她他们看到了什么。
Their participation was voluntary, their questions urgent and generative.
他们的参与是自愿的，他们的问题迫切而富有生成力。
Her project was not symbolic.
她的项目不是象征性的。
It was, she said, a means of curbing exploitation of the land and of the young.
她说，这是一种遏制对土地和对年轻人进行剥削的手段。
She wanted to strengthen the link between the village and its surroundings, to decouple profit from destruction.
她想加强村庄与其周边环境的联系，把利润与破坏分离开来。
Visitors came, drawn by coverage in a regional paper.
游客来了，是被一家地区报纸的报道吸引来的。
She boasted of nothing.
她什么也不吹嘘。
She simply said the work was a contribution to a fragile, precarious balance.
她只是说，这项工作是对一种脆弱、不稳定的平衡的贡献。
Her father, sitting under the pear tree, said only that she had learned to listen.
她的父亲坐在梨树下，只说她学会了倾听。
The orchard, once a place of labour, had become a place of learning.
果园，曾经是劳作之地，已经变成了学习之地。
That, for her, was the overall point.
对她来说，这就是全部的意义。
Reference note
参考外刊特稿的短篇人物素描体例，以单一人物、线性时间线和一处转折承载抽象词汇，内容原创。