了不起的盖茨比 （尼克对黛西、贝克的初次印象）

    We talked for a few minutes on the sunny porch.

  “I’ve got a nice place here,” he said, his eyes flashing about restlessly.

    Turning me around by one arm, he moved a broad flat hand along the front vista, including in its sweep a sunken Italian garden, a half acre of deep, pungent roses, and a snub-nosed motor-boat that bumped the tide off shore.[ in its sweep:挥手间。 pungent :味道(或气味)强烈的。snub-nosed：鼻子扁平的.]

    “It belonged to Demaine, the oil man.” He turned me around again, politely and abruptly. “We’ll go inside.”

       We walked through a high hallway into a bright rosy-colored space, fragilely bound into the house by French windows at either end. The windows were ajar and gleaming white against the fresh grass outside that seemed to grow a little way into the house. A breeze blew through the room, blew curtains in at one end and out the other like pale flags, twisting them up toward the frosted wedding-cake of the ceiling, and then rippled over the wine-colored rug, making a shadow on it as wind does on the sea.【bound ：bind,嵌入。French window：落地长窗。ajar:半开的】

       The only completely stationary object in the room was an enormous couch on which two young women were buoyed up as though upon an anchored balloon.【像浮在一个停泊在地面的大气球上】 They were both in white, and their dresses were rippling and fluttering as if they had just been blown back in after a short flight around the house.[衣裙在风中飘荡]I must have stood for a few moments listening to the whip and snap of the curtains and the groan of a picture on the wall. [whip:拍击。Snap：劈啪声。Groan：嘎吱声]Then there was a boom as Tom Buchanan shut the rear windows and the caught wind died out about the room, and the curtains and the rugs and the two young women ballooned slowly to the floor.【窗帘、地毯和两位少妇也都慢慢地降落地面】

     The younger of the two was a stranger to me. She was extended full length at the end of the divan, completely motionless, and with her chin raised a little, as if she were balancing something on it which was quite likely to fall.[ 她平躺在长沙发的一头，身子一动也不动，下巴稍微向上仰起，仿佛她在上面平衡着一件什么东西，生怕它掉下来似的。] If she saw me out of the corner of her eyes she gave no hint of it—indeed, I was almost surprised into murmuring an apology for having disturbed her by coming in.

      The other girl, Daisy, made an attempt to rise—she leaned slightly forward with a conscientious expression—then she laughed, an absurd, charming little laugh, and I laughed too and came forward into the room.

    [另外那个少妇，黛西，想要站起身来--她身子微微向前倾，一脸诚心诚意的表情--接着她噗嗤一笑，又滑稽又可爱地轻轻一笑，我也跟着笑了，接着就走上前去进了屋子。]

　　“I’m p-paralyzed with happiness.” She laughed again, as if she said something very witty, and held my hand for a moment, looking up into my face, promising that there was no one in the world she so much wanted to see. [暗示]That was a way she had. She hinted in a murmur that the surname of the balancing girl was Baker. (I’ve heard it said that Daisy’s murmur was only to make people lean toward her; an irrelevant criticism that made it no less charming.)

     【那是她特有的一种表情。她低声告诉我那个在搞平衡动作的姑娘姓贝克;我听人说过，黛西的喃喃低语只是为了让人家把身子向她靠近，这是不相干的闲话，丝毫无损于这种表情的魅力。】

　　At any rate, Miss Baker’s lips fluttered, she nodded at me almost imperceptibly, and then quickly tipped her head back again—the object she was balancing had obviously tottered a little and given her something of a fright. Again a sort of apology arose to my lips. 【tip：倾斜。totter：蹒跚。】Almost any exhibition of complete self-sufficiency draws a stunned tribute from me.【这种几乎是完全我行我素的神情总是使我感到目瞪口呆，满心赞佩】

      I looked back at my cousin, who began to ask me questions in her low, thrilling voice. It was the kind of voice that the ear follows up and down, as if each speech is an arrangement of notes that will never be played again. Her face was sad and lovely with bright things in it, bright eyes and a bright passionate mouth, but there was an excitement in her voice that men who had cared for her found difficult to forget: a singing compulsion, a whispered “Listen,” a promise that she had done gay, exciting things just a while since and that there were gay, exciting things hovering in the next hour.【一种抑扬动听的魅力，一声喃喃的"听着"，一种暗示，说她片刻以前刚刚干完一些赏心乐事，而且下一个小时里还有赏心乐事。】