原文
Above And Below
She'd been kept awake all night by the palm berries clattering on the roof, and when she woke to the sun blazing through the window she'd had enough. Goodbye to all that! she sang, moving the little she owned to the station wagon: her ex -boyfriend's guitar, the camping equipment they'd bought the first year of grad school (their single night on the Suwannee, they were petrified by the bellows of bull gators), a crate of books. Goodbye to the hundreds of others she was leaving stacked against the wall: Worthless, the man had told her when she tried to sell them.
Goodbye to the glass mountain of debt she was slithering out from underneath. Goodbye to the hunter-orange eviction notice. Goodbye to longing. She would be empty now, having chosen to lose.
The apartment was a shell, scoured to enamel. She breathed fully when she stepped out onto the porch. There was a brief swim of vertigo only when she shooed the cat out the door. Oh, you'll be all right, she said, and reached for the silky fur between his ears, but, as quick as a blink, he struck at her. When she looked up from the four jagged lines slowly beading with blood on the back of her hand, he had leaped away. Then he, too, was gone.
She drove past the brick university, where the first-years were already unloading their sedans, their parents hugging their own shoulders for comfort. Goodbye, she said aloud to the tune of the tires humming on the road.
After a summer with the power shut off, a summer of reading by the open window in her sweat-soaked underwear, the car's air-conditioner felt frigid. She opened the window and smelled the queer dank musk of deep-country Florida. Out here, people decorated their yards with big rocks and believed they could talk to God. Here, "Derrida" was only French for rear end.
She thrust her fist out the window and relaxed it slowly. She could almost see her hopes peeling from her palm and skipping down the road in her wake: the books with her name on them; the sabbatical in Florence; the gleaming modern house at the edge of the woods. Gone.
When she looked at her hand again, it was puffy and hot and oozing. She put it to her mouth. When she stopped at last at the edge of a little oceanside town and gazed over the dune grass at the sea, her tongue was coppery with the taste of blood.
Someone had left a cooler on the beach, and it still held a bag of apples, a half-eaten sandwich, two Cokes. She sat, watching the dusk turn mustard and watermelon, and ate everything. Seabirds clustered on the wet sand, then winged apart into the air. When it grew too dark for her to see, she took the cooler back to the car and walked up to A1A to a pay phone.
She was poised to hang up if her stepfather answered, but it was her mother, vague and slow, saying, Hello? Hello?
She couldn't speak. She imagined her mother in her nightgown in the kitchen, a sunset, the neighbor kids playing outside.
She couldn't speak. She imagined her mother in her nightgown in the kitchen, a sunset, the neighbor kids playing outside.
Honey, her mother said. What a treat to hear from you.
Mom, she said. I just wanted to let you know that I moved. I don't have a new number yet, though.
She waited, feeling the sunburn begin to prickle in her cheeks, but her mother said only, Is that so?, absently. Ever since she'd been remarried, she'd had chronic idiopathic pain, treated, also chronically, with painkillers. She hadn't remembered her daughter's birthday for three years; she'd sent empty care packages more than once. One hot July day, when the girl had stared at her sickening bank balance at the A.T.M., she'd considered calling for help. But she'd known, somehow, that the envelope would also arrive empty.
参考译文
上与下
昨夜里，棕桐浆果卡嗒卡嗒地落在房顶上，叫她不得安眠；醒来时，太阳又透过窗炽热地照射进来，叫她忍无可忍。“永别吧！”她唱着歌，把自己仅有的那点东西都搬到旅行车上：她前男友的吉他，他们读研第一年那会买的露 营装备（他们在苏旺尼河上唯一的那一夜，被雄鳄鱼的吼声吓呆的那一夜），还有一箱书。永别了，她离开时靠墙堆放的那些东西：一文不值一她想把东西卖掉的时候，那个男人这样对她说。
永别了，那玻璃山般的、她刚从之下逃脱的债务。永别了，那消防橙的拆迁通知。永别了，那渴望。她既然选择了失去，现在就应该空落落的。
这个公寓是一个被磨成法琅质的贝壳。跨出房门的那一刻，她深深地吸了一口气。只有将猫赶出房外时，才感到一阵短暂的眩晕。“你会没事的。”她说着，轻轻地抚摸着猫两耳之间光滑的毛，但就在眨眼间，猫挠了她一下。手背上的四条锯齿状伤口在缓缓地着滴血珠，她看向伤口时，猫就跳走了。那么，它也一样，离开了。
她开车路过布里克大学，那的新生都已下车，而他们的父母抱着自己的肩膀以示宽慰。永别了，她大声地说着，伴着轮胎在路上作响的嗡嗡声。
在整个断电的夏天里，她都穿着被汗浸透的内衣，在打开的窗户边读书。在那之后，车里的空调就感觉有点太冷了。她打开窗，闻着佛罗里达偏远地区奇特潮湿的麝香味。在这地方，人们用大石头装饰自己的院子，还相信自 己能和神说话。在这里，“德里达”也仅仅只是法语的“臀部”。
她将拳头伸出窗外，然后缓缓放开。她几乎可以看到希望从手掌上剥落，然后跳过她身后的路：那些写着她名字的书；佛罗伦萨的休假；树林边闪闪发光的现代建筑。都不再了。
再看自己的手时，她发现手又肿又热，还流着血。她把手放到了唇边。她最终在一个海滨小镇的边缘停了下来，越过沙丘草凝视大海，这时，她的舌头上早已满是血味。
有人把冷藏箱落在了海滩上，里面还有一袋苹果，一个吃剩一半的三明治和两瓶可乐。她坐着，看着黄昏变成芥末黄与西瓜红，然后把所有的东西都吃光。海鸟聚拢在潮湿的沙滩上，又展开翅膀四散飞去。直到天黑得看不见了，她才把冷藏箱拿回车里，走到A1A的付费电话边。
她想好了，如果是继父接的电话，她就挂掉。但电话另一头是她的母亲，含糊而缓慢地说：“喂？喂？”
她如鳗在喉，想象着母亲在厨房里穿着睡袍，日落，邻居家的孩子在外面玩耍。
“喂？”母亲又问了一次。然后她才终于说出了口：“喂，妈。”
“乖乖，”母亲说，“你能打电话过来我很开心。”
“妈，”她说，“我就是想跟你说一声，我搬家了。不过我暂时还没有新号码。”
她等着，直到脸上的晒伤慢慢开始刺痛，但母亲只是说：“这样呀？”仅此而已。她自再婚后就患上了长期的慢性特发性疼痛，也长期服用止痛药来治疗。她已经有三年都没能想起来自己女儿的生日了。她一次又一次地寄出了全空的爱心包裹。七月里很热的一天，女孩在自动取款机前盯着她那令人作呕的余额时，曾想过打电话求助。但不知怎么的，她就是知道，那个装着钱的信封寄过来的时候一定也是空的。
教授点评与寄语
本次译文题材为文学体裁，描述—位美国大学生在失恋和经济窘迫时的情景和沮丧的心理过程。故事通过与母亲的对话和背景的描述，说出了导致其窘迫的社会和家庭因素。对于同学们进行跨文化对比具有意义。故事情节简单，却令人深思。语言简洁，却很生动。情景描述栩栩如生，心理刻画感人至深。
获奖同学能够在不同程度上理解了原文，把握了主题，呈现了文学文体的特点。
建议：
1）结合所学的课程《翻译理论与实践》，《英汉翻译》，在阅读前了解作者的生平以及其作品的主题，并对文本做深入分析。
2）挖掘这篇简短故事背后的思想，对比中国大学生和美国大学生在家庭文化方面的差异。
3）就故事题目“Above and Below”而言 ,思考“上与下”指的是什么，即Above 代表什么，Below代表什么。（有的同学直译为“上与下”，有的同学意译为“天地之外”）。
4）对比英汉语言差异，体现文学语言，比如，汉语中的双声叠韵，ABAB，AABB的等语言特色，可以使用起来。