The company man课文的翻译

He worked himself to death, finally and precisely, at 3:00 A.M. Sunday morning. 最终,他于星期天凌晨3点工作致死。

The obituary didn't say that, of course. 当然,讣告上没有这样写。It said that he died of a coronary thrombosis--I think that was it--but everyone among his friends and acquaintances knew it instantly. 讣告上写的是死于冠状动脉血栓证,但他的好友和熟识的人都心知肚明。He was a perfect Type A, a workaholic, a classic, they said to each other and shook their heads--and thought for five or ten minutes about the way they lived. 他们互相握着手,摇头叹息地说他是一个追求完美的A型血人,一个典型的工作狂,然后用几分钟时间来反思自己的生活方式。

This man who worked himself to death finally and precisely at 3:00 A.M. 这个男人最终在星期天凌晨三点整工作致死。Sunday morning--on his day off--was fifty-one years old and a vice-president.星期天的早上,这天刚好是这个51岁的副总裁的休息日。 He was, however, one of six vice-presidents, and one of three who might conceivably--if the president died or retired soon enough--have moved to the top spot. Phil knew that. 他是公司六位副总裁之一,也是副总裁中三位最让人信任的人之一,如果总裁已经逝世或者退休的话,他已经成为了最高职位。菲尔清楚这一点。

He worked six days a week, five of them until eight or nine at night, during a time when his own company had begun the four-day week for everyone but the executives.他一周工作六天,其中五天工作到夜里八九点,他的公司里除了高级官员,其他人都已经开始四天工作制。 He worked like the Important People. 他工作起来像一个重要人物。He had no outside "extracurricular interests," unless, of course, you think about a monthly golf game that way. 当然,就像你想象中那样,他每月打一次高尔夫球,他没有其他的爱好。To Phil, it was work.对菲尔而言,高尔夫是工作。 He always ate egg salad sandwiches at his desk. He was, of course, overweight, by 20 or 25 pounds. 他总是在他的桌前吃着吃鸡蛋沙拉三明治,他难免有点发福,超重了20-25磅。He thought it was okay, though, because he didn't smoke. 他想这没什么关系,因为他从不抽烟。

On Saturdays, Phil wore a sports jacket to the office instead of a suit, because it was the weekend. 星期六,菲尔换下西服,穿着运动衫去上班,因为这是周末。

He had a lot of people working for him, maybe sixty, and most of them liked him most of the time.他有大约60个人为他效力,大部分人在大部分时候觉得他很不错。Three of them will be seriously considered for his job.其中三位紧盯着他的职位。The obituary didn't mention that. 讣告上没有提及这些。

But it did list his "survivors" quite accurately. 但是讣告详细地介绍了他的遗孀。He is survived by his wife, Helen, forty-eight years old, a good woman of no particular marketable skills, who worked in an office before marrying and mothering.他的妻子,海伦,一个48岁的好女人,没有什么特别的市场能力,在结婚生子之前在一家公司上班。 She had, according to her daughter, given up trying to compete with his work years ago, when the children were small. 她说,在女儿的记忆里,她很多年前,当孩子们还很小的时候,就放弃了和他工作的抗争。A company friend said, "I know how much you will miss him." And she answered, "I already have." 一个工作伙伴说,“我知道你将对他有多思念”,她回答到,“我一直都很想他。”

"Missing him all these years," she must have given up part of herself which had cared too much for the man. She would be "well taken care of." “想了他这么多年了,”她如此在乎的这个男人,必须放弃她,以后她将会被“好好的照顾”。

His "dearly beloved" eldest of the "dearly beloved" children is a hard-working executive in a manufacturing firm down South. 他的“最爱的”孩子们中“最爱的”长子是南方某制造公司努力工作的经理。In the day and a half before the funeral, he went around the neighborhood researching his father, asking the neighbors what he was like. They were embarrassed. 在葬礼前的一天半里,他走访邻居询问邻居们询问邻居对他的印象。他们很尴尬。

His second child is a girl, who is twenty-four and newly married.他的第二个孩子是一个女孩,24岁了,刚刚结婚。She lives near her mother and they are close, but whenever she was alone with her father, in a car driving somewhere, they had nothing to say to each other. 她和妈妈住的很近,很亲密,但是无论什么时候,当她和爸爸独处的时候,哪怕是在一辆车中,他们互相没有什么言语。

The youngest is twenty, a boy, a high-school graduate who has spent the last couple of years, like a lot of his friends, doing enough odd jobs to stay in grass and food. 最小的是一个男孩,20岁,高中毕业生,像很多他的朋友一样,做一些零工,吃喝玩乐。He was the one who tried to grab at his father, and tried to mean enough to him to keep the man at home.他是唯一一个能够抓住父亲的人,尝试把父亲留到家里。 He was his father's favorite. Over the last two years, Phil stayed up nights worrying about the boy.他是他父亲最喜欢的儿子,在生命的最后两年里,菲尔整夜担心这个孩子。

The boy once said, "My father and I only board here." 他曾说过,“父亲和我只是在这里寄宿”

At the funeral, the sixty-year-old company president told the forty-eight-year-old widow that the fifty-one-year-old deceased had meant much to the company and would be missed and would be hard to replace.在葬礼上,60岁的总裁安慰48岁的遗孀说,这位51岁的死者对公司的贡献巨大,没有人可以替代他的位置。 The widow didn't look him in the eye. 这位遗孀不敢直视他眼睛。She was afraid he would read her bitterness and, after all, she would need him to straighten out the finances--the stock options and all that. 她害怕他可以读出她的苦痛,毕竟,她需要他帮忙清理丈夫的财政—股票什么的。

Phil was overweight and nervous and worked too hard.菲尔超重、焦虑、工作强度太大。If he wasn't at the office he was worried about it. 如果他不在公司,就会担心公司的工作。Phil was a Type A, heart-attack natural. You could have picked him out in a minute from a lineup. 菲尔是一个A型血,先天易发心脏病。在人群中,你可以一眼就把他认出来。

So when he finally worked himself to death, at precisely 3:00 A.M. Sunday morning, no one was really surprised. 所以当他最终因工作死于星期天凌晨三点整,没人感到意外。

By 5:00 P.M. the afternoon of the funeral, the company president had begun, discreetly of course, with care and taste, to make inquiries about his replacement. One of three men. He asked around: "Who's been working the hardest?" 葬礼过后的下午5点,公司总裁已经开始谨慎地,带着小心和鉴赏,审视着三位可以代替他职位的人。他问到“谁工作最努力?”