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The Loons
潜水鸟
Margarel Laurence
玛格丽特劳伦斯
Just below Manawaka, where the Wachakwa River ran brown and noisy over the pebbles,the scrub oak and grey-green willow and chokecherry bushes grew in a dense thicket.
马纳瓦卡山下有一条小河，叫瓦恰科瓦河，浑浊的河水沿着布满鹅卵石的河床哗哗地流淌着，河边谷地上长着无数的矮橡树、灰绿色柳树和野樱桃树，形成一片茂密的丛林。
In a clearing at the centre of the thicket stood the Tonnerre family's shack.
坦纳瑞家的棚屋就座落在丛林中央的一片空地上。
The basis at this dwelling was a small square cabin made of poplar poles and chinked with mud, which had been built by Jules Tonnerre some fifty years before, when he came back from Batoche with a bullet in his thigh, the year that Riel was hung and the voices of the Metis entered their long silence.
这住所的主体结构是一间四方形木屋，系用一根根白杨木涂以灰泥建成，建造者是儒勒坦纳瑞。大约五十年前，也就是里尔被绞杀、法印混血族遭到彻底失败的那一年，儒勒坦纳瑞大腿上带着一颗枪弹从巴托什战场回到这里后便建造了那间小木屋。
Jules had only intended to stay the winter in the Wachakwa Valley, but the family was still there in the thirties, when I was a child.
儒勒当初只打算在瓦恰科瓦河谷里度过当年的那个冬天，但直到三十年代，他们家仍住在那儿，当时我还是个孩子。
As the Tonnerres had increased, their settlement had been added to, until the clearing at the foot of the town hill was a chaos of lean-tos, wooden packing cases, warped lumber, discarded car types, ramshackle chicken coops , tangled strands of barbed wire and rusty tin cans.
坦纳瑞家人丁兴旺，他们的木屋慢慢地扩建，越来越大，到后来，那片林中空地上小披屋林立，到处乱七八糟地堆放着木板包装箱、晒翘了的木材、废弃的汽车轮胎、摇摇欲坠的鸡笼子、一卷一卷的带刺的铁丝和锈迹斑斑的洋铁罐。
The Tonnerres were French half breeds, and among themselves they spoke a patois that was neither Cree nor French.
坦纳瑞一家是法裔混血儿，他们彼此之间讲话用的是一种土话，既不像克里印第安语，也不像法语。
Their English was broken and full of obscenities.
他们说的英语字不成句，还尽是些低级下流的粗话。
They did not belong among the Cree of the Galloping Mountain reservation, further north, and they did not belong among the Scots-Irish and Ukrainians of Manawaka, either.
他们既不属于北方跑马山保留地上居住的克里族，也不属于马纳瓦卡山上居住的苏格兰爱尔兰人和乌克兰人群体。
They were, as my Grandmother MacLeod would have put it, neither flesh, fowl, nor good salt herring.
用我祖母爱用的词来说，他们简直就是所谓的"四不像"。
