英语美文：Late Summer 晚夏

Late Summer

Ernest Hemingway

In the late summer of that year we lived in a house in a village that looked across the river and the plain to the mountains. In the bed of the river there were pebbles and boulders, dry and white in the sun, and the water was clear and swiftly moving and blue in the channels. Troops went by the house and down the road and the dust they raised powdered the leaves of the trees. The trunks of the trees too were dusty and the leaves fell early that year and we saw the troops marching along the road and the dust rising and leaves, stirred by the breeze, falling and the soldiers marching and afterward the road bare and white except for the leaves.

The plain was rich with crops; there were many orchards of fruit trees and beyond the plain the mountains were brown and bare. There was fighting in the mountains and at night we could see the flashes from the artillery. In the dark it was like summer lightning, but the nights were cool and there was not the feeling of a storm coming.

Sometimes in the dark we heard the troops marching under the window and guns going past pulled by motor-tractors. There was much traffic at night and many mules on the roads with boxes ofammunition on each side of their pack-saddles and gray motor-trucks that carried men,: and other trucks with loads covered with canvas that moved slower in the traffic. There were big guns too mat passed in the day drawn by tractors, the long barrels of the guns covered with green branches and green leafy branches and vines laid over the tractors. To the north we could look across a valley and see a forest of chestnut trees and behind it another mountain on this side of the river. There was fighting for that mountain too, but it was not successful, and in the fall when the rains came the leaves all fell from the chestnut trees and the branches were bare and the trunks black with rain. The vineyards were thin and bare, branched too and all the country wet and brown and dead with the autumn.There were mists over the river and clouds on the mountain and trucks splashed mud on the road and the troops were muddy and wet in their capes; their rifles were wet and under their capes the two leather cartridge-boxes on the front of belts, gray leather boxes heavy with the packs of clips of thin, long 6.5mm. cartridges, bulged forward under the capes so that the men, passing on the road, marched as though they were six months gone with child.

晚夏

[美]厄内斯特·海明威

那年晚夏，我们住在乡间的一栋房子里，隔着河流和平原可以望见高山。河床里的鹅卵石和圆石，在阳光的照耀下干燥白皙，清澈的河水湍急地流过，河道里一汪蔚蓝。部队沿着房子向大路挺进，扬起滚滚尘土，覆盖了树叶和枝干。树叶那年落得早，我们看着部队行进在路上，所过之处，尘土飞扬。微风吹得树叶纷然而落，士兵们踏过的路上只剩下哗哗的落叶，一眼望去白晃晃、空荡荡的。

平原上的庄稼长势良好，有许多果园;而平原外的山峦，则是满目褐黄，光秃秃一片。山谷里战斗打得正紧，夜里我们还能看到炮火。黑暗中，这番情景酷似夏季的闪电，只是现在夜里凉快些，人们觉察不到夏天暴风雨来临前的那种闷热罢了。

有时在夜色中，我们能听见部队从窗下走过，摩托牵引机拖着大炮发出的声响声声入耳。夜里的交通颇为繁忙，路上有很多驮着弹药箱的骡子，运送士兵的灰色卡车，还有一种开得稍缓慢的卡车，运载的东西被帆布盖着。白天也有用牵引车运送的重炮，翠绿的树枝遮盖着长长的炮管，郁郁葱葱、繁茂的枝条和葡萄藤把整个车身都覆盖了。朝北望是片山谷，山谷后面有一片栗树树林，林子后面，也就是在河的这一边，又有一座高山。这座高山里也曾经发生过交战，只是没有成功。一到秋天，雨水就连绵而至，山上栗树的叶子掉得精光，只剩下赤裸的树枝，还有那被雨水打得漆黑的树干。葡萄园中也是枯枝败叶，稀疏光秃;乡间的每一样东西都是湿润的，目光所至，皆是一片萧瑟的秋意。雾气弥漫着河流，浮云在山涧萦绕，路上卡车驶过处泥浆飞溅，士兵们顶着湿漉漉的披肩，浑身都是烂泥;他们的来复枪也被淋湿了，每个人身前的皮带都挂着两个灰皮子弹盒，里面排满了又长又窄的6.5毫米口径的子弹，鼓鼓囊囊地盖在披肩下，走在路上，乍一看，他们就像是一群怀胎六月的妇人。