为你读英语美文 · 第460期

主播：永清

Rocket Boys

第二章 Sputnik节选

作者：Homer Hickam，翻译：永清

“Look, look!” O'Dell suddenly cried jumping up and down and pointing skyward. “Sputnik!”

“快看，快看！”奥德尔突然喊道，上蹿下跳，指向天空，“伴侣号！”

Roy Lee sprang to his feet and yelled, “I see it too! “and then Sherman whooped and pointed. I stumbled off the steps and squinted in the general direction everybody was looking. All I could see were millions of stars. “There” Mom said, taking my head and sighting my nose at a point in the sky.

罗伊·李跳了起来，喊道：“我也看到了！”然后谢尔曼大叫着指了指。我跌跌撞撞地走下台阶，眯着眼睛朝大家盯着的方向看去。我能看到的只是满天繁星。“在那”，妈妈说着，我抬起了头，对着天空中那个点的方向。

Then I saw the bright little ball moving majestically across the narrow star field between the ridge lines. I stared at it with no less rapt attention than if it had been God Himself in a golden chariot riding overhead. 

然后，我看到一个明亮的小光球神圣地在漫天繁星的缝隙间略过。我目不转睛地盯着它，仿佛上帝乘坐着金色马车，从头顶飞过。

It soared with what seemed to me inexorable and dangerous purposes if there were no power in the universe that could stop it.

它翱翔在苍穹，对我来说，势不可挡又带着危险，仿佛宇宙中没有任何力量能够阻挡它。

All my life everything important that had ever happened had always happened somewhere else. But Sputnik was right there in front of my eyes in my back yard in Coalwood, McDowell County, West Virginia, U.S.A.. 

在我的一生中，似乎所有重要的事情都发生在别处。但就在我家后院，美国西弗吉尼亚州麦克道尔县梅林镇，伴侣号就在我眼前。

I couldn't believe it. I felt that if I stretched out enough I could touch it. Then, in less than a minute, it was gone.

我简直不敢相信，仿佛触手可及。然后，不到一分钟，它就消失在天际。

在Rocket Boys这本里，开篇的一句话便是“All one can really leave one’s childhood is what’s inside their heads. Education, in other words, and not earthly possessions, is the ultimate legacy, the only thing that cannot be taken away. 能让一个人真正能脱离原生环境的只有他们头脑中的东西。换句话说，教育，而不是世俗的财产，才是最终的遗产，是唯一不能被夺走的东西。”

主播介绍

永清：英语专业八级，毕业于西安外国语大学

公众号：为你读英语美文

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