原文：Limbo
文/ [美]朗达•卢卡斯
By Rhonda Lucas
My parents‟ divorce was final. The house had been sold and the day had come to move. Thirty years of the family‟s life was now crammed into the garage. The two-by-fours that ran the length of the walls were the only uniformity among the clutter of boxes, furniture, and memories. All was frozen in limbo between the life just passed and the one to come.
The sunlight pushing its way through the window splattered against a barricade of boxes. Like a fluorescent river, it streamed down the sides and flooded the cracks of the cold, cement floor. I stood in the doorway between the house and garage and wondered if the sunlight would ever again penetrate the memories packed inside those boxes. For an instant, the cardboard boxes appeared as tombstones, monuments to those memories.
The furnace in the corner, with its huge tubular fingers reaching out and disappearing into the wall, was unaware of the futility of trying to warm the empty house. The rhythmical whir of its effort hummed the elegy for the memories boxed in front of me. I closed the door, sat down on the step, and listened reverently. The feeling of loss transformed the bad memories into not-so-bad, the not-so-bad memories into good, and committed the good ones to my mind. Still, I felt as vacant as the house inside.
A workbench to my right stood disgustingly empty. Not so much as a nail had been left behind. I noticed, for the first time, what a dull, lifeless green it was. Lacking the disarray of tools that used to cover it, now it seemed as out of place as a bathtub in the kitchen. In fact, as I scanned the room, the only things that did seem to belong were the cobwebs in the corners.
A group of boxes had been set aside from the others and stacked in front of the workbench. Scrawled like graffiti on the walls of dilapidated buildings were the words “Salvation Army.” Those words caught my eyes as effectively as a flashing neon sign. They reeked of irony. “Salvation - was a bit too late for this family,” I mumbled sarcastically to myself.
The houseful of furniture that had once been so carefully chosen to complement and blend with the color schemes of the various rooms was indiscriminately crammed together against a single wall. The uncoordinated colors combined in turmoil and lashed out in the greyness of the room.
I suddenly became aware of the coldness of the garage, but I didn‟t want to go bac k inside the house, so I made my way through the boxes to the couch. I cleared a space to lie down and curled
up, covering myself with my jacket. I hoped my father would return soon with the truck so we could empty the garage and leave the cryptic silence of parting lives behind.
（选自Patterns: A Short Prose Reader, by Mary Lou Conlin, published by Houghton Mifflin, 1983.）
作者撰写此文时还是美国东洛杉矶学院（East Los Angeles College）的一名学生。
她这篇习
作被教育专家玛丽•卢•康林（Mary Lou Conlin）编入《范文：散文读本》（Patterns: A
Short Prose Reader）一书。
该书自1983年由霍顿米夫林公司（Houghton Mifflin）出版后又
一版再版，被美国许多大学用作低年级英文写作课教材。
译文：
意踟蹰记略
朗达.卢卡斯
余父去妻之念已决，已而鬻以故宅，戚戚然离期已至矣，吾家卅年之经营盈塞于车所，惟筑房之板木徒留四壁，且杂什诸物与余之念想横存其间矣！往来去日万念逡巡于心罔闻
其所也。
日光斜入牅，撒其辉于奁柜，洞然余壁；又蜂拥其罅，洒其辉于如霜硬地，灿灿然偌
星河也。
余孑立于居室与车所之门庭，其日光亦逾裹挟于奁柜之物之思念欤？俄而，纸箱
诸物之寄思亦幻化茔冢之碑堂馆之石矣。
昔置屋角之冬炉，展伸元管，而后隐之壁，徒燃其焰而暖无人之室也矣！炉管之音且
韵且声，如若吾前封存昔之忧思之唱和也！余掩其扉，下其阶而坐之，听之则肃肃然矣。
览物情之所失，其万物皆异焉？皆然也！余自郁郁而后释然已而欣欣然矣，其悦然之状名
于心也。
虽然，余意犹怅怅然偌室之空也。
余劳作之案几秃然兀立于右，其上不着一钉，余始观之其质，何昏昏然寂寂然如斯也！盖因其上无昔之器具散置，而譬偌乱致澡具于庖厨者乎？环视其室，惟檐之蛛丝暗结寥寥
然如斯如故矣！
又选些许箱箧另累叠于几前，残壁之上有书草曰“救世军”，其言宛若霓虹灯之耀目，
岂其意偌神祗反讽之讥也欤？余讪讪然忖度其文，“救世军”之于此残家破室不亦不效乎？
盈室家什累叠于孤垣，余忆备诸器物之端，每一物莫不谋其色征其质以筹与诸室之匹
比也，岂率尔为之哉？而今皆无虑物色之诡谲物序之端周而弃之寒室矣！
车所之何凄凄？余幡然悟之矣，且返故室之意已寥然，则逾箱箧而趋故床，净其地而
覆衣蜷卧焉。
余殷殷期父之御车旋还遽空室之器物，迢迢遥遥去别离之孤寂也。
1，关于文章标题的翻译：
对篇名Limbo的理解，Limbo指的是“limbo between the life just passed and the one to come”。
选收这篇文章的课本在该课生词表中对limbo解释为“an intermediate place or state;
a region or condition of oblivion or neglect”，而且课文后的思考题第1题就是“Why is the title of this essay …Limbo‟? Between which two stages of life is the writer?”。
这些都说明作者用Limbo做篇名是取该词的引申义，是一种精神上的对往事的怀念以及对未来生活的忧惧，但整体上主题却有积极向上意义的一篇小品文。
因此读这篇课文的美国学生都明白作者是在记叙她人生中一个特殊过度时段之所见所思，因此译为“意踟蹰记略”。
2，译文为古文文体的说明
译者无意复古或故弄玄虚，旨在进行一种文体尝试，探索译文的美学意义。