2019年翻译资格考试英语口译初级模拟题：拓荒者

　　In his classic novel, “The Pioneers”, James, Feminore Cooper has his hero, a land developer, take his cousin on a tour of the city he is building. He describes the broad streets, rows of houses, a teeming metropolis. But his cousin looks around bewildered. All she sees is a forest, “Where are the beauties and improvements which you were to show me?” she asks. He’s astonished she can’t see them. “Where! Why everywhere,” he replies. For though they are not yet built on earth, he has built them in his mind, and they are as concrete to him as if they were already constructed and finished.// Cooper was illustrating a distinctly American trait, future-mindedness: the ability to see the present from the vantage point of the future; the freedom to feel unencumbered by the past and more emotionally attached to things to come. As Albert Einstein once said, “Life for the American is always becoming, never being.”

　　参考译文

　　詹姆斯·费尼莫尔·库柏在其经典小说《拓荒者》中，记述了主人公—— 一位土地开发商——带着表妹游览一座他将要建造的城市的情景。他向表妹描绘了宽阔的街道，排排的房屋，俨然一座熙来攘往的大都市。// 然而，表妹环顾四周，却一脸迷茫，她所看到的只是一片森林。于是她问：“你要给我看的美景和改观在哪里啊?”他很惊讶，她居然还不能心领神会。便回答说：“还问哪里?这不到处都是嘛。”因为尽管他还没有把它们真正建成，他却早已在心中构想好了。它们对他来说是如此真实具体仿佛它们早已建成。

　　库柏在这里揭示了一种美国人独有的特征，即前瞻性：他们能够站在未来的高度来看现在的一切;摆脱过去束缚而更加心系未来。正如埃尔伯特?爱因斯坦曾言：“对美国人来说，生活总是进取，而非守成。”