It was even more bitter to find that their old jobs had been taken by the stay-at-homes,
更令他们痛苦的是,他们发现自己原来的工作已被留在家里的人夺占了。
that business was suffering a recession that prevented the opening up of new jobs, and that veterans were considered problem children and less desirable than non-veterans for whatever business opportunities that did exist.
而当时又正值经济萧条时期,新的工作无法找到,现有的工作机会本就为数不多,而且人们又宁愿聘用非退伍军人,而把退伍军人看作难对付的孩子,不愿聘用。
Their very homes were often uncomfortable to them; they had outgrown town and families and had developed a sudden bewildering world-weariness which neither they nor their relatives could understand.
就连他们自己的家对他们来说也常常是不舒服的;他们再也不能适应家乡和家庭了,并且萌生出一种突如其来的、迷惘的厌世之感。这种感觉不论是他们自己还是他们的亲友都不能理解。战争激起了他们的劲头,打掉了他们的天真幼稚。
Their energies had been whipped up and their naivete destroyed by the war and now, in sleepy Gopher Prairies all over the country,
而现在,在遍布全国的沉睡的、落后的地方,到处都要求他们抑制他们的劲头,
they were being asked to curb those energies and resume the pose of self-deceiving Victorian innocence that they now felt to be as outmoded as the notion that their fighting had made the world safe for democracy.
并恢复那种自欺欺人的、维多利亚式的天真无邪的态度。但是他们现在觉得这种态度同那种说什么他们的战斗已使民主在这个世界有了保障的论调一样,都是陈旧过时的。
And, as if home town conditions were not enough, the returning veteran also had to face the sodden, Napoleonic cynicism of Versailles, the hypocritical do-goodism of Prohibition, and the smug patriotism of the war profiteers.
再者,似乎家乡的情况还不够受的,退伍军人还得面对凡尔赛和约那种愚蠢的、拿破仑式的犬儒主义、禁酒法令那种虚伪的行善主义,以及那些发了战争财的人们的洋洋自得的爱国主义。那些气鼓鼓的美国青年的不满迟早要爆发出来。
Something in the tension-ridden youth of America had to give and, after a short period of bitter resentment, it gave in the form of a complete overthrow of genteel standards of behavior.
在经过一段短暂的强烈的怨忿之后,它终于以一种彻底推翻温文尔雅的行为规范的形式而爆发出来了。