双语：《生命咏叹》（上）

Slow Down

Hey, Take It Easy…

生命咏叹

It’s never too late to slow down

——慢一点儿，来得及

Adele Angle

阿德莱·安格尔

I heard the noise first – the sound of screeching tyres. A car, obviously out of control, was racing straight towards me and my four-year-old son as we stood on the footpath waiting to cross a busy street. There was no time to do anything; it all happened in a millisecond.

我先听到刺耳的声响——轮胎发出的声音。一辆汽车，显然是失去了控制，冲着我和我四岁的儿子飞驰而来。当时我们正站在人行道上，等着穿过车来人往的马路。没有时间做任何反应；一切都发生在转瞬之间。

The vision of that big black car hitting the footpath a few meters from us will never be erased from my memory. I don’t know how close the car came to us, because I turned away at the last second, but it was close. People stopped their cars and asked if we were OK.

那辆黑色大轿车撞在离我们几米远的人行道上。那情景永远不会从我的记忆中抹去。我不知道汽车离我们有多近，因为我在最后一刹那把身子转开了，但它确实很近。人们停下车问我们伤着没有。

“It didn’t hit us,” I remember saying, as though that weren’t obvious. Then I bent down and hugged my son.

记得当时我说：“没碰着我们，”就好像人家谁也没看见似的。随后，我弯下腰紧紧地搂住了我儿子。

“Mum, that car nearly boomed us,” Scott said brightly, still clutching the cardboard cat he’d made at preschool that morning. He has no idea what a ton of metal going 80 kilometers an hour can do to 18 kilos of a little boy. His worldview is admittedly distorted. Much of it comes from cartoons, especially Spiderman, who he believes can swoop down and fly anyone out of danger.

“妈妈，那辆车差点儿把我们轰隆了。”斯科特眉飞色舞地说着，手中还拿着上午在幼儿园用硬纸片做的小猫。一个一吨重的铁家伙，以每小时80公里的速度冲向一个18公斤重的小孩儿，他不知道这意味着什么。不可否认，他的世界观是混乱的。他的许多认识来自于卡通片，尤其是《蜘蛛人》。他认为蜘蛛人会从天而降，并可以把任何人救出险境。

I found myself walking to the car, which had come to a halt a few meters from a building. A woman in her sixties sat inside, still clutching the steering wheel.

我身不由己地走向那辆汽车，车已停在一幢楼前的几米远处。一个60多岁的妇女坐在车里，手还紧紧攥着方向盘。

“Are you all right?” I asked. Translation: did you just have a heart attack? Why did you just try to kill me and my little boy?

“你没事吧？”我问她，言外之意是说：你刚才犯心脏病了吗？为什么偏偏要跟我和我的孩子过不去呢？

“Someone cut me off…” she started. Interrupting her in midsentence, I said maybe we’d both better say our prayers that night. The anger didn’t set in until later.

她开口道：“有人挡住了我……”。我打断她的话说，也许我们晚上都该祈祷。我的火气直到后来才发泄出来。

Since that day, I’ve planted over a hundred bulbs in my yard – irises, crocuses, narcissus – those miracles of early spring. “A contract with the future,” a gardener friend calls them.

从那天起，我在院中种了上百棵球茎植物——蝴蝶花、番红花、水仙花——都是早春的神奇。一个搞园艺的朋友把这些花叫做“与未来的合约”。

（王振平 译）