温馨夜读 PART4 07 The Crying Place 伤心之地

 

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[00:00.86]The Crying Place 伤心之地

[00:06.55]In the early ’60s, when I was fourteen years old 

[00:10.64]and living in a small town in southern Indiana, my father died.

[00:15.96]While my mother and I were out of town visiting relatives, 

[00:19.57]an unexpected and very sudden heart attack took him.

[00:23.84]We returned home to find that he was gone.

[00:27.12]No chance to say “I love you” or even “Good-bye”. He was just gone, forever.

[00:34.01]With my older sister going away to college, our home went from a bustling¹,

[00:39.82]happy family of four to a house where two stunned² people lived in quiet grief.

[00:45.50]I struggled terribly with the pain and loneliness of my loss, 

[00:49.59]but I was also very worried about my mother.

[00:52.84]I feared that if she saw me crying for my father, her pain would be even more intense.

[00:58.41]And, as the new “man” of the house, 

[01:01.62]I felt a responsibility to protect her from greater hurt.

[01:05.20]So I devised a plan that would allow me to grieve without causing more pain for my mother.

[01:11.98]In our town, people took the trash from their houses out to large barrels 

[01:17.74]in the alleys⁴ behind their backyards.

[01:20.18]There, it would be burned or picked up by the trash men once a week.

[01:25.54]Every evening after dinner, I would volunteer to take out the trash.

[01:30.30]I would rush around the house with a bag, 

[01:33.58]collecting scraps⁵ of paper or whatever else I could find,

[01:38.28]and then go out to the alley³ and put it in the trash barrel.

[01:41.74]I’d hide in the shadows of the dark bushes,

[01:44.94]and that’s where I would stay until I had cried myself out.

[01:49.07]After recovering enough to be certain that my mother couldn’t tell what I’d been doing,

[01:54.10]I would return to the house and get ready for bed.

[01:57.71] This subterfuge⁶ went on for weeks.

[02:01.43]One evening after dinner, when it was time for chores,

[02:04.17]I collected trash and went out to my usual hiding place in the bushes. 

[02:09.28]I didn’t stay very long.

[02:11.06]When I returned to the house, 

[02:13.77]I went to find my mother to ask if she needed me to do anything else.

[02:17.62]After searching through the entire house, I finally found her.

[02:22.44]She was in the darkened basement, behind the washer and dryer⁷, crying by herself.

[02:27.69]She was hiding her pain, to protect me.

[02:31.52]I’m not sure which is greater: 

[02:34.09]the pain you suffer openly or the pain you endure alone to protect someone you love.

[02:39.18]I do know that on that night, in the basement,

[02:43.00]we held each other and poured out the misery 

[02:45.74]that had driven us both to our separate, lonely, crying places.

[02:48.58]And we never felt the need to cry alone again.

1 bustling   

adj.喧闹的

参考例句：

• The market was bustling with life. 市场上生机勃勃。
• This district is getting more and more prosperous and bustling. 这一带越来越繁华了。

2 stunned   

adj. 震惊的，惊讶的 动词stun的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• The fall stunned me for a moment. 那一下摔得我昏迷了片刻。
• The leaders of the Kopper Company were then stunned speechless. 科伯公司的领导们当时被惊得目瞪口呆。

3 alley   

n.小巷，胡同；小径，小路

参考例句：

• We live in the same alley.我们住在同一条小巷里。
• The blind alley ended in a brick wall.这条死胡同的尽头是砖墙。

4 alleys   

胡同，小巷( alley的名词复数 )； 小径

参考例句：

• I followed him through a maze of narrow alleys. 我紧随他穿过一条条迂迴曲折的窄巷。
• The children lead me through the maze of alleys to the edge of the city. 孩子们领我穿过迷宫一般的街巷，来到城边。

5 scraps   

油渣

参考例句：

• Don't litter up the floor with scraps of paper. 不要在地板上乱扔纸屑。
• A patchwork quilt is a good way of using up scraps of material. 做杂拼花布棉被是利用零碎布料的好办法。

6 subterfuge   

n.诡计；藉口

参考例句：

• European carping over the phraseology represented a mixture of hypocrisy and subterfuge.欧洲在措词上找岔子的做法既虚伪又狡诈。
• The Independents tried hard to swallow the wretched subterfuge.独立党的党员们硬着头皮想把这一拙劣的托词信以为真。

7 dryer   

n.干衣机，干燥剂

参考例句：

• He bought a dryer yesterday.他昨天买了一台干燥机。
• There is a washer and a dryer in the basement.地下室里有洗衣机和烘干机。