Except for the tears in his eyes, I believe I would have said, "Well, good luck, Ralph," but the tears made that impossible.
要不是因为他眼睛里的泪水,我想我会对他说:“好吧,祝你好运,拉尔夫”,但泪水使我没能那么说。
He was as big as my father.
他已经和爸爸一样高大了。
The suit he was wearing was my father's, which my mother had altered for him.
他穿的那件外套就是爸爸的,只是妈妈为他改了一下。
What were the tears for?
他为何流泪呢?
Would I have them in my own eyes in a moment, too, after all the years of imitating him to never have them,
这么多年,我学他,从不掉泪,而且我成功地做到了这一点,
and having succeeded except for the two or three times I had let them go when I had been alone, and nobody knew?
除了有那么两三次我独自一人时流过泪,但是没有人知道。此时,我会马上就让自己掉眼泪吗?
And if the tears came into my eyes, too, what would they be for?
如果我也哭,那么理由是什么呢?
Everything I knew I'd learned from my brother, not from school, and everything he knew he'd learned from my father.
我所知道的一切都是从哥哥那里而不是从学校学来的,而他所知道的一切都是从爸爸那里学来的。
So now what did we know? What did my father know? What did my brother? What did I?
那么现在我们知道了什么?爸爸知道了什么?哥哥知道了什么?我又知道了什么呢?
I got out of bed and jumped into my clothes and went outside to the backyard.
我下了床,匆匆穿好衣服走到后院。
Under the old sycamore tree was the almost completed raft my brother and I had been making in our spare time,
在老梧桐树下放着即将做成的木筏,我和哥哥利用空闲时间一直在做。
to launch one day soon on Kings River.
我们原本准备不久后在金斯河划着它试水。
"I'll finish it alone," I thought. "I'll float down Kings River alone."
“我会自己完成它的,”我想,“我要自己划着木筏在金斯河上漂流而下。”
My brother came out of the house quietly, holding an old straw suitcase.
哥哥悄悄地走出家门,手里提着个旧的草编衣箱。
"I'll finish the raft," I said.
“我会把木筏做完的,”我说。
I believed my brother would say something in the same casual tone of voice, and then turn and walk away, and that would be that.
我相信哥哥也会以同样轻松的口吻跟我说些什么,然后转身而去,仅此而已。