Part One Chapter 2

In the month of July 1947, having saved about fifty dollars from old veteran benefits, I was ready to go to the West Coast. My friend Remi Bonc?ur had written me a letter from San Francisco, saying I should come and ship out with him on an around-the-world liner. He swore he could get me into the engine room. I wrote back and said I'd be sa- tisfied with any old freighter so long as I could take a few long Pacific trips  and come back with  enough money  to support myself in my aunt's house while I finished my book. He said he had a shack¹ in Mill City and I would have all the time in the world to write there while we went through the rigmarole of getting the ship. He was living with a girl called Lee Ann; he said she was a marvelous cook and everything would  jump.  Remi  was  an  old  prep-school  friend,   a  Frenchman brought up in Paris and a really mad guy--I didn't know how mad at this time. So he expected me to arrive in ten days. My aunt was all in accord with my trip to the West; she said it would do me good, I'd been  working so hard all winter and staying in too much; she even didn't  complain when I told her I'd have to hitchhike some. All she wanted was for me to come back in one piece. So, leaving my big half- manuscript sitting on top of my desk, and folding back my comfortable home sheets for the last time one morning, I left with my canvas bag in which a few fundamental things were packed and took off for the Pa- cific Ocean with the fifty dollars in my pocket. 
I'd been poring over maps of the United States in Paterson for months, even reading books about the pioneers and savoring² names like Platte and Cimarron and so on, and on the road-map was one long red line called Route 6 that led from the tip of Cape³ Cod⁴ clear to Ely, Nevada, and there dipped down to Los Angeles. I'll just stay on 6 all the way to Ely, I said to myself and confidently started. To get to 6 I had to go up to Bear Mountain. Filled with dreams of what I'd do in Chicago, in Denver, and  then finally in San Fran, I took the Seventh Avenue subway to the end of the line at 242nd Street, and there took a trolley⁵ into Yonkers; in downtown  Yonkers I transferred to an out- going trolley and went to the city limits on the east bank of the Hudson River. If you drop a rose in the Hudson River at its mysterious source in the Adirondacks, think of all the places it journeys by as it goes out to sea forever--think of that wonderful Hudson Valley. I started hitch- ing  up  the  thing.  Five scattered⁶ rides  took me to  the  desired  Bear Mountain Fridge, where Route 6 arched in from New England. It be- gan to rain in torrents⁷ when I was let off there. It was mountainous. Route 6 came over the river, wound around a traffic circle, and disap- peared into the wilderness⁸. Not only was there no traffic but the rain came down in buckets and I had no shelter. I had to run under some pines to take cover; this did no good; I began crying and swearing and socking myself on the  head for being such a damn fool. I was forty miles north of New York; all  the way up I'd been worried about the fact that on this, my big opening day, I was only moving north instead of the so-longed-for west. Now I was stuck on my northernmost han- gup. I ran a quarter-mile to an abandoned cute  English-style filling station and stood under the dripping eaves. High up over my head the great hairy Bear Mountain sent down thunderclaps that put the fear of God in me. All I could see were smoky trees and dismal⁹ wilderness rising to the skies. "What the hell am I doing up here?"
I cursed, I cried for Chicago. "Even now they're all having a big time,  they're doing this, I'm not there, when will I get there!"--and so on. Finally a car stopped at the empty filling station; the man and the two women in it wanted to study a map. I stepped right up and ges- tured in the rain; they consulted; I looked like a maniac¹⁰, of course, with my hair all  wet, my shoes sopping¹¹. My shoes, damn fool that I am, were Mexican huaraches, plantlike sieves¹² not fit for the rainy night of America and the raw road night. But the people let me in and rode me north to Newburgh, which I accepted as a better alternative than being trapped in the Bear Mountain wilderness all night. "Besides," said the man, "there's no traffic passes through 6. If you want to go to Chicago you'd do better going across the  Holland Tunnel in New York and head for Pittsburgh," and I knew he was right. It was my dream that screwed up, the stupid hearthside idea that it would be wonderful to follow  one  great  red line  across  America  instead  of  trying  various roads and routes.
In Newburgh it had stopped raining. I walked down to the riv- er,  and I had to ride back to New York in a bus with a delegation¹³ of schoolteachers coming back from a weekend in the mountains--chatter¹⁴- chatter blah-blah, and me swearing for all the time and the money I'd wasted, and telling myself, I wanted to go west and here I've been all day and into the night going up and down, north and south, like some- thing that can't get started. And I swore I'd be in Chicago tomorrow, and made sure of that, taking a bus to Chicago, spending most of my money, and didn't give a damn, just as long as I'd be in Chicago tomor row.

1 shack   

adj.简陋的小屋，窝棚

参考例句：

• He had to sit down five times before he reached his shack.在走到他的茅棚以前，他不得不坐在地上歇了五次。
• The boys made a shack out of the old boards in the backyard.男孩们在后院用旧木板盖起一间小木屋。

2 savoring   

v.意味，带有…的性质( savor的现在分词 )；给…加调味品；使有风味；品尝

参考例句：

• Cooking was fine but it was the savoring that he enjoyed most. 烹饪当然很好，但他最享受的是闻到的各种味道。 来自互联网
• She sat there for a moment, savoring the smell of the food. 她在那儿坐了一会儿，品尝这些食物的香味。 来自互联网

3 cape   

n.海角，岬；披肩，短披风

参考例句：

• I long for a trip to the Cape of Good Hope.我渴望到好望角去旅行。
• She was wearing a cape over her dress.她在外套上披着一件披肩。

4 cod   

n.鳕鱼；v.愚弄；哄骗

参考例句：

• They salt down cod for winter use.他们腌鳕鱼留着冬天吃。
• Cod are found in the North Atlantic and the North Sea.北大西洋和北海有鳕鱼。

5 trolley   

n.手推车，台车；无轨电车；有轨电车

参考例句：

• The waiter had brought the sweet trolley.侍者已经推来了甜食推车。
• In a library,books are moved on a trolley.在图书馆，书籍是放在台车上搬动的。

6 scattered   

adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的

参考例句：

• Gathering up his scattered papers,he pushed them into his case.他把散乱的文件收拾起来，塞进文件夹里。

7 torrents   

n.倾注；奔流( torrent的名词复数 )；急流；爆发；连续不断

参考例句：

• The torrents scoured out a channel down the hill side. 急流沿着山腰冲刷出一条水沟。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• Sudden rainstorms would bring the mountain torrents rushing down. 突然的暴雨会使山洪暴发。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

8 wilderness   

n.杳无人烟的一片陆地、水等，荒漠

参考例句：

• She drove the herd of cattle through the wilderness.她赶着牛群穿过荒野。
• Education in the wilderness is not a matter of monetary means.荒凉地区的教育不是钱财问题。

9 dismal   

adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的

参考例句：

• That is a rather dismal melody.那是一支相当忧郁的歌曲。
• My prospects of returning to a suitable job are dismal.我重新找到一个合适的工作岗位的希望很渺茫。

10 maniac   

n.精神癫狂的人；疯子

参考例句：

• Be careful!That man is driving like a maniac!注意！那个人开车像个疯子一样！
• You were acting like a maniac,and you threatened her with a bomb!你像一个疯子，你用炸弹恐吓她！

11 sopping   

adj. 浑身湿透的 动词sop的现在分词形式

参考例句：

• We are sopping with rain. 我们被雨淋湿了。
• His hair under his straw hat was sopping wet. 隔着草帽，他的头发已经全湿。 来自汉英文学 - 骆驼祥子

12 sieves   

筛，漏勺( sieve的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• This thesis emphasized on the preparation of mesoporous molecular sieves MSU. 中孔分子筛MSU是当今认为在稳定性方面很有发展前途的一种催化新材料。
• The mesoporous silica molecular sieves Zr-MCM-41 were synthesized in ethylenediamine. 以乙二胺为碱性介质合成了Zr-MCM-41介孔分子筛。

13 delegation   

n.代表团；派遣

参考例句：

• The statement of our delegation was singularly appropriate to the occasion.我们代表团的声明非常适合时宜。
• We shall inform you of the date of the delegation's arrival.我们将把代表团到达的日期通知你。

14 chatter   

vi.／n.喋喋不休；短促尖叫；(牙齿)打战

参考例句：

• Her continuous chatter vexes me.她的喋喋不休使我烦透了。
• I've had enough of their continual chatter.我已厌烦了他们喋喋不休的闲谈。