英文名著精講:The Kite Runner 追風箏的人(3)
12歲的阿富汗富家少爺阿米爾與僕人哈桑情同手足。然而，在一場風箏比賽後，發生了一件悲慘不堪的事，阿米爾爲自己的懦弱感到自責和痛苦，逼走了哈桑，不久，自己也跟隨父親逃往美國。
成年後的阿米爾始終無法原諒自己當年對哈桑的背叛。爲了贖罪，阿米爾再度踏上暌違二十多年的故鄉，希望能爲不幸的好友盡最後一點心力，卻發現一個驚天謊言，兒時的噩夢再度重演，阿米爾該如何抉擇？小說如此殘忍而又美麗，作者以溫暖細膩的筆法勾勒人性的本質與救贖，讀來令人蕩氣迴腸。
Upstairs was my bedroom, Baba's room, and his study, also known as "the smoking room", which perpetually smelled of tobacco and cinnamon. Baba and his friends reclined on black leather chairs there after Ali had served dinner. They stuffed their pipes—except Baba always called it "fattening the pipe"—and discussed their favorite three topics: politics, Business, soccer. Sometimes I asked Baba if I could sit with them, but Baba would stand in the doorway. "Go on, now," he'd say. "This is grown-ups time. Why don't you go read one of those books of yours?" He'd close the door, leave me to wonder why it was always grown-ups? time with him. I'd sit by the door, knees drawn to my chest. Sometimes I sat there for an hour, sometimes two, listening to their laughter, their chatter.
The living room downstairs had a curved wall with custombuilt cabinets. Inside sat framed family pictures: an old, grainy photo of my grandfather and King Nadir Shah taken in 1931, two years before the king's assassination; they are standing over a dead deer, dressed in knee-high boots, rifles slung over their shoulders. There was a picture of my parents' wedding night, Baba dashing in his black suit and my mother a smiling young princess in white. Here was Baba and his best friend and Business partner, Rahim Khan, standing outside our house, neither one smiling—I am a baby in that photograph and Baba is holding me, looking tired and grim. I'm in his arms, but it's Rahim Khan's pinky my fingers are curled around.
The curved wall led into the dining room, at the center of which was a mahogany table that could easily sit thirty guests—and, given my father's taste for extravagant parties, it did just that almost every week. On the other end of the dining room was a tall marble fireplace, always lit by the orange glow of a fire in the wintertime.
A large sliding glass door opened into a semicircular terrace that overlooked two acres of backyard and rows of cherry trees. Baba and Ali had planted a small vegetable garden along the eastern wall: tomatoes, mint, peppers, and a row of corn that never really took. Hassan and I used to call it "the Wall of Ailing Corn".
On the south end of the garden, in the shadows of a loquat tree, was the servants' Home, a modest little mud hut where Hassan lived with his father.
It was there, in that little shack, that Hassan was born in the winter of 1964, just one year after my mother died giving birth to me.
perpetually adv. 永恆地，持久地，不斷地
perpetual adj.
He was perpetual president of the country.
他是該國的終身總統。
She's tired of their perpetual chatter.
她對他們沒完沒了的閒談感到厭倦。
recline v. 躺，靠在，斜倚，倚靠，依賴
She reclined her head against my shoulder.
她把頭倚在我的肩上。
curved adj. 彎曲的
assassination n. 暗殺
The press disclosed an assassination attempt.
報界披露了一暗殺企圖。
dashing adj. 時髦的
She put the glasses on and felt very dashing, like an actress in the movies.
她戴上眼鏡,覺得時髦得很，很象電影裏的女明星。
grim adj. 嚴厲的，冷酷的，可怕的，不愉快的
His expression was grim when he told them they had lost their job.
當他告訴他們說他們已被解僱時，他的表情十分冷酷。
extravagant adj. 奢侈的，浪費的，過度的，大量的
She was pilloried in the press for her extravagant parties.
她的聚會十分鋪張，新聞界對她大加嘲弄。
overlook vt. 俯瞰，遠眺，沒注意到，忽視
My room overlooked the garden.
我的房間俯瞰花園。
He overlooked a spelling error on the first page.
他沒有看出第一頁中有個拼寫錯誤。
modest adj. 謙虛的，適度的，端莊的，有節制的
She continued to lead a quiet and modest life.
她仍然過着安靜、有節制的生活。
樓上是我的臥房，還有爸爸的書房，它也被稱爲“吸菸室”，總是瀰漫着菸草和肉桂的氣味。在阿里的服侍下用完晚膳之後，爸爸跟他的朋友躺在書房的黑色皮椅上。他們填滿煙管——爸爸總說是“餵飽煙管”，高談闊論，總不離三個話題：政治，生意，足球。有時我會求爸爸讓我坐在他們身邊，但爸爸會堵在門口。“走開，現在就走開，”他會說，“這是大人的時間。你爲什麼不回去看你自己的書本呢？”他會關上門，留下我獨自納悶：何以他總是隻有大人的時間?我坐在門口，膝蓋抵着胸膛。我坐上一個鐘頭，有時兩個鐘頭，聽着他們的笑聲，他們的談話聲。
樓下的起居室有一面凹壁，擺着專門訂做的櫥櫃。裏面陳列着鑲框的家庭照片：有張模糊的老照片，是我祖父和納迪爾國王NadirShah（1883～1933，阿富汗國王，1929年登基，1933年11月8日被刺殺。）在1931年的合影，兩年後國王遇刺，他們穿着及膝的長靴，肩膀上扛着來複槍，站在一頭死鹿前。有張是在我父母新婚之夜拍的，爸爸穿着黑色的套裝，朝氣蓬勃，臉帶微笑的媽媽穿着白色衣服，宛如公主。還有一張照片，爸爸和他最好的朋友和生意夥伴拉辛汗站在我們的房子外面，兩人都沒笑，我在照片中還是嬰孩，爸爸抱着我，看上去疲倦而嚴厲。我在爸爸懷裏，手裏卻抓着拉辛汗的小指頭。
凹壁可通往餐廳，餐廳正中擺着紅木餐桌，坐下三十人綽綽有餘。由於爸爸熱情好客，確實幾乎每隔一週就有這麼多人坐在這裏用膳。餐廳的另一端有高大的大理石壁爐，每到冬天總有橙色的火焰在裏面跳動。
拉開那扇玻璃大滑門，便可走上半圓形的露臺；下面是佔地兩英畝的後院和成排的櫻桃樹。爸爸和阿里在東邊的圍牆下闢了個小菜園，種着西紅柿、薄荷和胡椒，還有一排從未結實的玉米。哈桑和我總是叫它“病玉米之牆”。
花園的南邊種着枇杷樹，樹陰之下便是僕人的住所了。那是一座簡陋的泥屋，哈桑和他父親住在裏面。
在我母親因爲生我死於難產之後一年，也即1964年冬天，哈桑誕生在那個小小的窩棚裏面。
