2020年经济学人 切尔迪好村长拉斯洛·波格丹(1)

Laszlo Bogdan, mayor of Cserdi, died on July 14th, aged¹ 46

拉斯洛·波格丹是切尔迪村村长，他于7月14日去世，享年46岁。

Along the walls of his office in Cserdi, a village of around 350 souls in the gentle hills of southern Hungary, Laszlo Bogdan strung several clothes lines. Pegged² to them were hundreds of messages written to “Laci”, as they called him: “People are good!” “Our parents have work”. “We have a good mayor”. These were the voices of the villagers, who since his election as mayor in 2006 had seen their world transformed.

在位于匈牙利南部丘陵地带的切尔迪村，有大约350名居民。拉斯洛·波格丹在他办公室的墙上挂起了好几根晾衣绳。上面挂着数百条写给“洛齐”(他们这样称呼他)的留言：“人们都很好！“我们的父母有工作”。“我们有一个好村长”。这是村民们的声音。自2006年他当选村长以来，村民们看到了他们的世界发生的变化。

Cserdi had once been strewn with rubble³ and dilapidated houses, with idle, jobless men brawling⁴ outside. Petty crime was rampant⁵: up to 300 cases a year, with neighbouring villages terrorised. Now everything was orderly. The houses were neat, and many had gained bathrooms. Small parks had appeared. Out in the fields women worked with hoes, and men with spades, to plant potatoes or dig wells.

曾经，切尔迪到处是瓦砾和破旧的房屋，无所事事的失业者在外面喧嚷。轻微犯罪很猖獗：每年多达300起案件，邻近的村庄也感到恐惧。现在一切都井然有序了。房子很整洁，很多都有浴室。小公园建成了。在田里，女人用锄头干活，男人用铁锹干活，种土豆或打井。

Four giant plastic greenhouses sheltered crops of peppers and tomatoes. In a good year the village could produce 160,000kg of quality vegetables, with the surplus going to the poor of the county. Officials from far and wide came to inspect this “Cserdi miracle”. But Mayor Laci, pacing up and down with his purple scarf knotted fashionably round his neck, was still dissatisfied. Was it really so special, so exotic, to see Gypsies working? He spoke⁶ as one, a proud Cigany (he hated “Roma”), who revelled⁷ in garish⁸ shirts that emphasised his Gypsyness, and delivered his vegetables in a red Zsiguli car with a swinging rosary of the sort only Gypsies drove.

四个巨大的塑料大棚庇护着辣椒和西红柿的作物。丰年的时候，这个村子能生产16万公斤优质蔬菜，富余的都给了郡里的穷人。四面八方的官员们都赶来视察这个“切尔迪奇迹”。但洛齐村长仍然不满意，脖子上围着时髦的紫色围巾的他来回踱步。看到吉普赛人工作真的很特别，很有异国情调吗？他像一个骄傲的罗姆人一样说话(他讨厌“Roma”)，他喜欢穿着彰显他的吉普赛精神的花哨的衬衫，他用一辆红色的Zsiguli轿车运送蔬菜，车上挂着一串摇曳的念珠。只有吉普赛人才开这种车。

1 aged   

adj.年老的，陈年的

参考例句：

• He had put on weight and aged a little.他胖了，也老点了。
• He is aged,but his memory is still good.他已年老，然而记忆力还好。

2 pegged   

v.用夹子或钉子固定( peg的过去式和过去分词 )；使固定在某水平

参考例句：

• They pegged their tent down. 他们钉好了账篷。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• She pegged down the stairs. 她急忙下楼。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》

3 rubble   

n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾

参考例句：

• After the earthquake,it took months to clean up the rubble.地震后，花了数月才清理完瓦砾。
• After the war many cities were full of rubble.战后许多城市到处可见颓垣残壁。

4 brawling   

n.争吵，喧嚷

参考例句：

• They were arrested for brawling in the street. 他们因在街上打斗而遭到拘捕。
• The officers were brawling commands. 军官们大声地喊口令。

5 rampant   

adj.(植物)蔓生的；狂暴的，无约束的

参考例句：

• Sickness was rampant in the area.该地区疾病蔓延。
• You cannot allow children to rampant through the museum.你不能任由小孩子在博物馆里乱跑。

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 revelled   

v.作乐( revel的过去式和过去分词 )；狂欢；着迷；陶醉

参考例句：

• The foreign guests revelled in the scenery of the lake. 外宾们十分喜爱湖上的景色。 来自辞典例句
• He revelled in those moments of idleness stolen from his work. 他喜爱学习之余的闲暇时刻。 来自辞典例句

8 garish   

adj.华丽而俗气的，华而不实的

参考例句：

• This colour is bright but not garish.这颜色艳而不俗。
• They climbed the garish purple-carpeted stairs.他们登上铺着俗艳的紫色地毯的楼梯。