My struggle with the German tongue began in mid-October and lasted nearly the full academic year. As the mostprominent figure in Hitler studies in North America, I had long tried to conceal1 the fact that I did not know German.
I could not speak or read it, could not understand the spoken word or begin to put the simplest sentence on paper. Theleast of my Hitler colleagues knew some German; others were either fluent in the language or reasonably conversant2.
No one could major in Hitler studies at the College-on-the-Hill without a minimum of one year of German. I wasliving, in short, on the edge of a landscape of vast shame.
The German tongue. Fleshy, warped3, spit-spraying, purplish and cruel. One eventually had to confront it. Wasn'tHitler's own struggle to express himself in German the crucial subtext of his massive ranting4 autobiography5, dictatedin a fortress7 prison in the Bavarian hills? Grammar and syntax. The man may have felt himself imprisoned8 in moreways than one.
I'd made several attempts to learn German, serious probes into origins, structures, roots. I sensed the deathly powerof the language. I wanted to speak it well, use it as a charm, a protective device. The more I shrank from learningactual words, rules and pronunciation, the more important it seemed that I go forward. What we are reluctant to touchoften seems the very fabric9 of our salvation10. But the basic sounds defeated me, the harsh spurting11 northernness of thewords and syllables12, the command delivery. Something happened between the back of my tongue and the roof of mymouth that made a mockery of my attempts to sound German words.
I was determined13 to try again.
Because I'd achieved high professional standing14, because my lectures were well attended and my articles printed inthe major journals, because I wore an academic gown and dark glasses day and night whenever I was on campus,because I carried two hundred and thirty pounds on a six-foot three-inch frame and had big hands and feet, I knewmy German lessons would have to be secret.
I contacted a man not affiliated15 with the college, someone Murray Jay Siskind had told me about. They were fellowboarders in the green-shingled house on Middlebrook. The man was in his fifties, a slight shuffle16 in his walk. He hadthinning hair, a bland17 face and wore his shirtsleeves rolled up to his forearms, revealing thermal18 underwear beneath.
His complexion19 was of a tone I want to call flesh-colored. Howard Dunlop was his name. He said he was a formerchiropractor but didn't offer a reason why he was no longer active and didn't say when he'd learned German, or why,and something in his manner kept me from asking.
We sat in his dark crowded room at the boarding house. An ironing board stood unfolded at the window. There werechipped enamel20 pots, trays of utensils21 set on a dresser. The furniture was vague, foundling. At the borders of theroom were the elemental things. An exposed radiator22, an army-blanketed cot. Dunlop sat at the edge of a straightchair, intoning generalities of grammar. When he switched from English to German, it was as though a cord had beentwisted in his larynx. An abrupt23 emotion entered his voice, a scrape and gargle that sounded like the stirring of somebeast's ambition. He gaped24 at me and gestured, he croaked25, he verged26 on strangulation. Sounds came spewing fromthe base of his tongue, harsh noises damp with passion. He was only demonstrating certain basic pronunciationpatterns but the transformation27 in his face and voice made me think he was making a passage between levels ofbeing.
I sat there taking notes.
The hour went quickly. Dunlop managed a scant28 shrug29 when I asked him not to discuss the lessons with anyone. Itoccurred to me that he was the man Murray had described in his summary of fellow boarders as the one who nevercomes out of his room.
I stopped at Murray's room and asked him to come home with me for dinner. He put down his copy of AmericanTransvestite and slipped into his corduroy jacket. We stopped on the porch long enough for Murray to tell thelandlord, who was sitting there, about a dripping faucet30 in the second-floor bathroom. The landlord was a large floridman of such robust31 and bursting health that he seemed to be having a heart attack even as we looked on.
"He'll get around to fixing it," Murray said, as we set out on foot in the direction of Elm. "He fixes everythingeventually. He's very good with all those little tools and fixtures32 and devices that people in cities never know thenames of. The names of these things are only known in outlying communities, small towns and rural areas. Too badhe's such a bigot.""How do you know he's a bigot?""People who can fix things are usually bigots.""What do you mean?"'Think of all the people who've ever come to your house to fix things. They were all bigots, weren't they?""I don't know.""They drove panel trucks, didn't they, with an extension ladder on the roof and some kind of plastic charm danglingfrom the rearview mirror?""I don't know, Murray.""It's obvious," he said.
He asked me why I'd chosen this year in particular to learn German, after so many years of slipping past the radar33. Itold him there was a Hitler conference scheduled for next spring at the College-on-the-Hill. Three days of lectures,workshops and panels. Hitler scholars from seventeen states and nine foreign countries. Actual Germans would be inattendance.
At home Denise placed a moist bag of garbage in the kitchen compactor. She started up the machine. The ramstroked downward with a dreadful wrenching34 sound, full of eerie35 feeling. Children walked in and out of the kitchen,water dripped in the sink, the washing machine heaved in the entranceway. Murray seemed engrossed36 in theincidental mesh37. Whining38 metal, exploding bottles, plastic smashed flat. Denise listened carefully, making sure themangling din6 contained the correct sonic elements, which meant the machine was operating properly.
Heinrich said to someone on the phone, "Animals commit incest all the time. So how unnatural39 can it be?"Babette came in from running, her outfit40 soaked through. Murray walked across the kitchen to shake her hand. Shefell into a chair, scanned the room for Wilder. I watched Denise make a mental comparison between her mother'srunning clothes and the wet bag she'd dumped in the compactor. I could see it in her eyes, a sardonic41 connection. Itwas these secondary levels of life, these extrasensory flashes and floating nuances of being, these pockets of rapportforming unexpectedly, that made me believe we were a magic act, adults and children together, sharingunaccountable things.
"We have to boil our water," Steffie said.
"Why?""It said on the radio.""They're always saying boil your water," Babette said. "It's the new thing, like turn your wheel in the direction of theskid. Here comes Wilder now. I guess we can eat."The small child moved in a swaying gait, great head wagging, and his mother made faces of delight, happy andoutlandish masks, watching him approach.
"Neutrinos go right through the earth," Heinrich said into the telephone.
"Yes yes yes," said Babette.
收听单词发音 |
1
conceal
|
|
| v.隐藏，隐瞒，隐蔽 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
2
conversant
|
|
| adj.亲近的，有交情的，熟悉的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
3
warped
|
|
| adj.反常的；乖戾的；（变）弯曲的；变形的v.弄弯，变歪( warp的过去式和过去分词 )；使（行为等）不合情理，使乖戾， | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
4
ranting
|
|
| v.夸夸其谈( rant的现在分词 )；大叫大嚷地以…说教；气愤地)大叫大嚷；不停地大声抱怨 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
5
autobiography
|
|
| n.自传 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
6
din
|
|
| n.喧闹声，嘈杂声 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
7
fortress
|
|
| n.堡垒，防御工事 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
8
imprisoned
|
|
| 下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
9
fabric
|
|
| n.织物，织品，布；构造，结构，组织 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
10
salvation
|
|
| n.（尤指基督）救世，超度，拯救，解困 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
11
spurting
|
|
| （液体，火焰等）喷出，（使）涌出( spurt的现在分词 )； （短暂地）加速前进，冲刺； 溅射 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
12
syllables
|
|
| n.音节( syllable的名词复数 ) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
13
determined
|
|
| adj.坚定的；有决心的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
14
standing
|
|
| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
15
affiliated
|
|
| adj. 附属的, 有关连的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
16
shuffle
|
|
| n.拖著脚走，洗纸牌；v.拖曳，慢吞吞地走 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
17
bland
|
|
| adj.淡而无味的，温和的，无刺激性的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
18
thermal
|
|
| adj.热的，由热造成的；保暖的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
19
complexion
|
|
| n.肤色；情况，局面；气质，性格 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
20
enamel
|
|
| n.珐琅，搪瓷，瓷釉；(牙齿的)珐琅质 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
21
utensils
|
|
| 器具，用具，器皿( utensil的名词复数 )； 器物 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
22
radiator
|
|
| n.暖气片，散热器 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
23
abrupt
|
|
| adj.突然的，意外的；唐突的，鲁莽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
24
gaped
|
|
| v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的过去式和过去分词 )；张开，张大 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
25
croaked
|
|
| v.呱呱地叫( croak的过去式和过去分词 )；用粗的声音说 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
26
verged
|
|
| 接近，逼近（verge的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
27
transformation
|
|
| n.变化；改造；转变 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
28
scant
|
|
| adj.不充分的，不足的；v.减缩，限制，忽略 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
29
shrug
|
|
| v.耸肩(表示怀疑、冷漠、不知等) | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
30
faucet
|
|
| n.水龙头 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
31
robust
|
|
| adj.强壮的，强健的，粗野的，需要体力的，浓的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
32
fixtures
|
|
| （房屋等的）固定装置( fixture的名词复数 )； 如（浴盆、抽水马桶）； 固定在某位置的人或物； （定期定点举行的）体育活动 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
33
radar
|
|
| n.雷达，无线电探测器 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
34
wrenching
|
|
| n.修截苗根，苗木铲根（铲根时苗木不起土或部分起土）v.（猛力地）扭( wrench的现在分词 )；扭伤；使感到痛苦；使悲痛 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
35
eerie
|
|
| adj.怪诞的；奇异的；可怕的；胆怯的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
36
engrossed
|
|
| adj.全神贯注的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
37
mesh
|
|
| n.网孔，网丝，陷阱；vt.以网捕捉，啮合，匹配；vi.适合； [计算机]网络 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
38
whining
|
|
| n. 抱怨，牢骚 v. 哭诉，发牢骚 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
39
unnatural
|
|
| adj.不自然的；反常的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
40
outfit
|
|
| n.（为特殊用途的）全套装备，全套服装 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
|
41
sardonic
|
|
| adj.嘲笑的，冷笑的，讥讽的 | |
参考例句： |
|
|
|
| 欢迎访问英文小说网 |