（译者：长春金译佳翻译公司实习译员）
汉语译文：
海龟湾之夏
E• B• 怀特
夏夜一到，蚊子大军也悉数登台，我们的卧室就是它们的星光剧场。为此，我整夜都不得不辗转反侧，手里攥一条面巾不停挥舞，抵抗它们的进攻；我还将面巾的一头用水沾湿，好增加力道。这下可好，今天整个上午我就因昨夜的无眠奋战而感到头脑轻飘飘的——貌似一种酒醉状态。这倒利于随意挥毫，管它什么世俗责任，全都可以抛诸脑后了。昨晚，内人带着几码丝网如约而至，我们于是一起跪在壁炉旁，给它遮上一块想象中的面纱——此时的壁炉看起来多像一位半遮半掩的新娘（我们偶尔会认为，蚊子没准儿是经由烟囱飞进屋里来的）。我曾在第三大道的一家软件店里买到几块可伸缩式遮板用来挡窗，当时它们正好安然处于店家橱窗里。然可叹这座楼宇的窗扇如此老旧而扭歪，以致铠甲蚊军不费灰毫之力便可由窗扇和遮板之间的空隙登堂入室（除非哪只蚊子携带象皮病，那倒也许会肿得挤不进来了）。而且，当上窗扇抬升接住遮板时，和下窗扇之间就会产生更大的缝隙——对蚊子来说是天赐良机，公寓居户当然是视若不见。我还曾花25美元买到一台过时空调，价格实惠，自觉甚为满意。可不是——这空调干起活来枉自徒劳，功力也许聊胜于无，约略可摧毁零星热气；然其噪音整日不歇，竟使我产生乘坐地铁之感，干脆“啪”地把灯关掉，合上眼，湿面巾备在身旁，任回忆弥漫——当年在拥挤的地铁里第一次挨戳，谁会想到年轻女孩儿们因为被碰到而如此大动干戈，竟然用胸针作武器回敬我。长春金译佳翻译公司提供多语种口笔译
我对海龟湾蚊军还有另一种看法：它们是空调被带入卧室的。蚊子军团驾乘内吹的冷气流，好似雄鹰迎接煦风翱翔而上。这想法有点不着边际，但对一个整晚无法安睡的可怜人来说，总是可以自娱自乐，聊以慰藉吧。想起自己曾经想买一些老式杀虫剂，还因此跑到商店，叫店员给我一只Flit牌喷雾器和其备用杀虫剂，他当时就流露出怪异不已的神情，似乎在纳闷：这些年我究竟躲在哪里过活了。“我们这儿有威力强得多的牌子”，他答道，一面拿出一罐瓶子，里面含有氯丹和某些说不上来的化学成分。我当即回绝，表示使用氯丹过敏。“别找不自在”，我边说边示以恶狠狠的一瞥。
公寓的早晨最是宜人。吃饱喝足的蚊子们变得懒洋洋的，大都停歇在天花板和墙壁上，消化前夜里饱享的美餐。卧室里被褥凌乱，衣服堆得到处都是，这种景象弄得大张旗鼓，连清晨强烈的光线空间也遭到入侵。空调机这时也偃旗息鼓了，似乎是为配合蚊子大军的鸣金收兵。从第三大道传来热火朝天的鸣响，那是疯狂的建筑工——美洲蝉在正午艳阳下的拿手好戏。麻雀又开始歌唱——谈婚论嫁的时候又来临了，好像是由于酷暑的缘故，它们在夏日里的爱情故事也变得倦怠随意，漫不经心了。而夏季一旦远去，我想我该怀念这座公寓的一切，因为秋天一到，我们就要弃它于不顾，转而奔向草场的怀抱。我常常试图简化生活中的一切繁缛，比如随手烧掉过时的书籍，卖掉不常用的闲置椅，亦或是丢掉堆积的杂物。尽管我发现，自己这些“清零”行动通常暂时会获得内人勉强许可，不过在长远看来，更大的麻烦往往都等在后边呢。这次也一样。对于此种情况，我心里有点没底，怀疑自己作为一个经验丰富之人，所采取的第一步也只是改良草场而已。或许我甚至该加入某个草场改良协会。我的最近一次清零行动是通过火来实现的，由此得以建造一个动物园，到现在还在建设中。我还会担起沉甸甸的水桶，给园中的动物们饮用——这任务看似轻松，有时做起来还真是煞费周章呢。
（选自 An E. B. White Reader, pp. 198~200, New York Harper & Row, 1966）
英语原文：
At Turtle Bay
By E. B. White
Mosquitoes have arrived with the warm nights, and our bedchamber is their theater under the stars. I have been up and down all night, swinging at them with a face towel dampened at one end to give it authority. This morning I suffer from the lightheadedness that comes from no sleep—a sort of drunkenness, very good for writing because all sense of responsibility for what the words say is gone. Yesterday evening my wife showed up with a few yards of netting, and together we knelt and covered the fireplace with an illusion veil. It looks like a bride. (One of our many theories is that mosquitoes come down chimneys.) I bought a couple of adjustable screens at the hardware store on Third Avenue and they are in place in the windows; but the window sashes in this building are so old and irregular that any mosquito except one suffering from elephantiasis has no difficulty walking into the room through the space between sash and screen. (And then there is the even larger opening between upper sash and lower sash when the lower sash is raised to receive the screen—a space that hardly ever occurs to an apartment dweller but must occur to all mosquitoes.) I also bought a very old air-conditioning machine for twenty-five dollars, a great bargain, and I like this machine. It has almost no effect on the atmosphere of the room, merely chipping the edge off the heat, and it makes a loud grinding noise reminiscent of the subway, so that I can snap off the lights, close my eyes, holding the damp towel at the ready, and imagine, with the first stab, that I am riding in the underground and being pricked by pins wielded by angry girls.
Another theory of mine about the Turtle Bay mosquito is that he is swept into one’s bedroom through the air conditioner, riding the cool indraft as an eagle rides a warm updraft. It is a feeble theory, but a man has to entertain theories if he is to while away the hours of sleeplessness. I wanted to buy some old-fashioned bug spray, and went to the store for that purpose, but when I asked the clerk for a Flit gun and some Flit, he gave me a queer look, as though wondering where I had been keeping myself all these years. “We got something a lot stronger than that,” he said, producing a can of stuff that contained chlordane and several other unmentionable chemicals. I told him I couldn’t use it because I was hypersensitive to chlordane. “Gets me right in the liver,” I said, throwing a wild glance at him.
The mornings are the pleasantest times in the apartment, exhaustion having set in, the sated mosquitoes at rest on ceiling and walls, sleeping it off, the room a swirl of tortured bedclothes and abandoned garments, the vines in their full leafiness filtering the hard light of day, the air conditioner silent at last, like the mosquitoes. From Third Avenue comes the sound of the mad builders—American cicadas, out in the noonday sun. In the garden the sparrow chants—a desultory second courtship, a subdued passion, in keeping with the great heat, love in summertime, relaxed and languorous. I shall miss this apartment when it is gone; we are quitting it come fall, to turn ourselves out to pasture. Every so often I make an attempt to simplify my life, burning my books behind me, selling the occasional chair, discarding the accumulated miscellany. I have noticed, though, that these purifications of mine—to which my wife submits with cautious grace—have usually led to even greater complexity in the long pull, and I have no doubt this one will, too, for I don’t trust myself in a situation of this sort and suspect that my first act as an old horse will be to set to work improving the pasture. I may even join a pasture-improvement society. The last time I tried to purify myself by fire, I managed to acquire a zoo in the process and am still supporting it and carrying heavy pails of water to the animals, a task that is sometimes beyond my strength.
（选自 An E. B. White Reader, pp. 198~200, New York Harper & Row, 1966）
（本站原创性文章为长春金译佳翻译公司首发，转载请注明，谢谢！）