《了不起的盖茨比·Chapter IV》第7节
With an effort I managed to restrain my incredulous laughter. The very phrases were worn so threadbare that they evoked no image except that of a turbaned “character” leaking sawdust at every pore as he pursued a tiger through the Bois de Boulogne. “Then came the war, old sport. It was a great relief, and I tried very hard to die, but I seemed to bear an enchanted life. I accepted a commission as first lieutenant when it began. In the Argonne Forest I took the remains of my machine-gun battalion so far forward that there was a half mile gap on either side of us where the infantry couldn’t advance. We stayed there two days and two nights, a hundred and thirty men with sixteen Lewis guns, and when the infantry came up at last they found the insignia of three German divisions among the piles of dead. I was promoted to be a major, and every Allied government gave me a decoration—even Montenegro, little Montenegro down on the Adriatic Sea!” Little Montenegro! He lifted up the words and nodded at them—with his smile. The smile comprehended Montenegro’s troubled history and sympathized with the brave struggles of the Montenegrin people. It appreciated fully the chain of national circumstances which had elicited this tribute from Montenegro’s warm little heart. My incredulity was submerged in fascination now; it was like skimming hastily through a dozen magazines.
注释摘要
尼克这段心理活动，是在盖茨比讲完“我像个年轻的王公一样在欧洲各国首都生活”那段话之后。盖茨比刚才那番自述——收集红宝石、打猎、画画、试图忘记一件非常悲伤的事——听起来太过陈腐，简直就是从廉价冒险小说里直接撕下来的句子。尼克写道：“这些措辞本身已经磨损得如此破旧，以至于它们唤起的唯一形象，就是一个头戴穆斯林头巾的‘角色’在布洛涅森林里追老虎，浑身上下每个毛孔…