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their plots from some pop anthropology book on male bonding. Movies portrayed the idea that only men, those direct descendants of hunters and Hemingways, inherited a primal capacity for friendship. In contrast, they portrayed women picking on each other, the way they once picked berries.
纵观数百万英里长的电影胶片，友谊的理想主角总是男性——满世界都是类似布奇·卡西迪斯及其铁哥们山丹思·基德斯这样的密友、同伴的故事。这些形影不离的银幕形象似乎是来自远古社会——故事情节好像是制片人从诠释男性间密切关系的人类学通俗读物里选取出来似的。影片诠释了一个观点，即只有男性——那些猎人和海明威式硬汉的传人——才继承了对于友谊的原始的能力。相反，女人们总是被描绘成互相挑刺，就好像她们从前挑选浆果那样。
6 Well, that duality must have been mortally wounded in some shootout at the You’re OK, I’m OK Corral. Now, on the screen, they were at least aware of the subtle distinction between men and women as buddies and friends.
哦，那种两面性在OK牧场枪战中一定已经受了致命的枪伤了。现在，在银幕上，他们至少意识到男人作为哥们、女人作为闺蜜的微妙区别。
7 About 150 years ago, Coleridge had written, ―A woman‘s friendship borders more closely on love than man‘s. Men affect each other in the reflection of noble or friendly acts, whilst women ask fewer proofs and more signs and expressions of attachment.‖
大约150年前，柯勒律治写道：―比起男性，女性的友谊更接近爱恋。男性之间相互影响体现在崇高或友善的举动中，而女性不需要这么多实实在在的例证，却需要更多依恋之情的外在表露。‖
8 Well, she thought, on the whole, men had buddies, while women had friends. Buddies bonded, but friends loved. Buddies faced adversity together, but friends faced each other. There was something palpably different in the way they spent their time. Buddies seemed to ―do‖ things together; friends simply ―were‖ together.
好吧，她想，总体来说，男人有哥们，女人有闺蜜。哥们相互关联，闺蜜互相喜爱。哥们共同面对逆境，但闺蜜直面彼此。显然，两者共度时光的方式互不相同。哥们似乎一起―做‖事，闺蜜只不过―在‖一起。
9 Buddies came linked, like accessories, to one activity or another. People have golf buddies and business buddies, college buddies and club buddies. Men often keep their buddies in these categories, while women keep a special category for friends.
哥们像同伙一样靠各种活动联系在一起。人们有一起打高尔夫的哥们，有商场上的哥们，大学时的哥们和俱乐部的哥们。男人经常按这些类别给哥们归类，而女人们把闺蜜专门归类。 10 A man once told her that men weren‘t real buddies until they had been ―through the wars‖ together – corporate or athletic or military. They had to soldier together, he
said. Women, on the other hand, didn‘t count themselves as friends until they had shared three loathsome confidences. 一个男人曾经告诉她男人不会成为真正的哥们，除非他们曾经―并肩作战‖——在商场上，运动场上，或是战场上。他说，他们得在一起当兵打仗才成。另一方面，女人们除非共享了3个讨人嫌的秘密之后才视彼此为闺蜜。
11 Buddies hang tough together; friends hang onto each other.哥们在一起共渡难关，闺蜜则相互依赖。
12 It probably had something to do with pride. You don‘t show off to a friend; you show need. Buddies try to keep the worst from each other; friends confess it.
或许这和自尊有点关系。对一个闺蜜，你不会炫耀，你只会告之你的需要。哥们互相把最糟糕的情况藏着掖着，闺蜜会互相倾诉痛苦。
13 A friend of hers once telephoned her lover, just to find out if he was home. She hung up without a hello when he picked up the phone. Later, wretched with embarrassment, the friend moaned, ―Can you believe me? A thirty-five-year-old lawyer, making a chicken call?‖ Together they laughed and made it better.她一个闺蜜有一次给情人打电话，就是想确认他是否在家。他刚把电话接起来她就挂了。事后，这个朋友觉得很尴尬，哀叹道：―你信吗？一个35岁的律师，打这种偷偷摸摸的电话？‖她们一起哈哈大笑，这样感觉好一些了。 14 Buddies seek approval. But friends seek acceptance.哥们追求相互认同，而闺蜜追求互相接受。
15 She knew so many men who had been trained in restraint, afraid of each other‘s judgment or awkward with each other‘s affection. She wasn‘t sure which. Like buddies in the movies, they would die for each other, but never hug each other.她认识许多男人，这些人在自我克制方面训练有素。他们害怕来自彼此的意见，若彼此喜爱也很不自在。她不清楚是哪种情况。就像电影中的哥们，他们愿意为对方献出生命，却从来不彼此拥抱。 16 She had reread Babbitt recently, that extraordinary catalogue of male grievances. The only relationship that gave meaning to the claustrophobic life of George Babbitt had been with Paul Riesling. But not once in the tragedy of their lives had one been able to say to the other: You make a difference.14 15 16 最近她重读了《巴比特》，这是关于男人难处的非凡作品。乔治·巴比特过着幽闭恐惧症的生活，唯一令他这种生活有意义的人际关系来自保罗·里斯令。然而在他们悲剧性的生活中没有任何一个人对对方说过一次这样的话：有了你，我的生活与过去不一样。
17 Even now men shocked her at times with their description of friendship. Does this one have a best friend? ―Why, of course, we see each other every February.‖ Does that one call his most intimate pal long distance? ―Why, certainly, whenever there‘s a real reason.‖ Do those two old chums ever have dinner together? ―You mean alone? Without our wives?‖即便现在她有时还是会对男人关于友谊的描述感到震惊。这个人有最要好的朋友
吗？―怎么啦，当然啦，我们每年2月都会见面。‖那个人会给他最好的朋友打长途电话吗？―怎么啦，当然啦，每次真的有事的话就会打啊。‖这两个老朋友真的在一起吃过饭吗？―你意思就两个人？不带上各自的老婆？‖
19 Yet, things were changing. The ideal of intimacy wasn‘t this parallel playmate, this teammate, this trenchmate. Not even in Hollywood. In the double standard of friendship, for once the female version was becoming accepted as the general ideal.然而，情况正发生着变化。亲密的理想状态不是这种平行式的玩伴、队友、战友关系。即便是好莱坞影片也不是。在友谊的双重标准下，就这一次这种女性版本的友谊作为普遍理想正在被人们接受。 20 After all, a buddy is a fine life-companion. But one‘s friends, as Santayana once wrote, ―are that part of the race with which one can be human.‖
哥们毕竟是很好的终身伙伴。但正如桑塔雅那曾经写下的那样，人们的朋友―是种族中与之结交后人们就可成其为人的那部分人‖。
Unit 6 A French Fourth
Along about this time every year, as Independence Day approaches, I pull an old American flag out of a bottom drawer where it is folded away － folded in a square, I admit, not the regulation triangle. I’ve had it a long time and have always flown it outside on July 4. Here in Paris it hangs from a fourth-floor balcony visible from the street. I’ve never seen anyone look up, but in my mind’s eye an American tourist may notice it and smile, and a French passerby may be reminded of the date and the occasion that prompt its appearance. I hope so.
每年差不多到了独立日日益临近的时候，我都会把一面折叠好的旧的美国国旗从底层抽屉里取出——我承认我折叠国旗不是官方规定的三角形，而是正方形。我拥有这面国旗很长时间了，每年到了7月4日我总是把它挂出来。身处巴黎的我把它挂在四楼的阳台上，在马路上都看得到。虽然我没见过有人抬头看它一眼，但在我脑海中，我想象着美国游客或许会注意到它并莞尔一笑，而法国路人会从中想起促使这面国旗出现的相关日期和原因。诚愿如此。 For my expatriated family, too, the flag is meaningful, in part because we don’t do anything else to celebrate the Fourth. People don’t have barbecues in Paris apartments, and most other Americans I know who have settled here suppress such outward signs of their heritage － or they go back home for the summer to refuel.
对我们这个旅居国外的家庭来说，这面国旗之所以意义深远，部分是因为我们没有其他任何活动来庆祝独立日。巴黎人不在公寓里烧烤，我认识的大多数在此定居的美国人并不张扬他们的这种传统，他们宁可回国消夏来为自己加油打气。
Our children think the flag-hanging is a cool thing, and I like it because it gives us a few moments of family Q&A about our citizenship. My wife and I have been away from the
United States for nine years, and our children are eleven and nine, so American history is mostly something they have learned － or haven’t learned － from their parents. July 4 is one of the times when the American in me feels a twinge of unease about the great lacunae in our children’s understanding of who they are and is prompted to try to fill the gaps. It’s also a time, one among many, when my thoughts turn more generally to the costs and benefits of raising children in a foreign culture.
我的孩子们觉得悬挂国旗很酷，我也喜欢这种做法，因为它让我们家有机会就我们的公民身份问答一番。我们夫妻离开美国长达9年，两个孩子一个11岁一个9岁，所以美国历史对他们来说，很大程度上要么是从父母那里已经学到的知识，要么是还没学到的知识。每到类似7月4日这样的日子，我的美国心便感到忐忑不安，因为孩子们对他们身份的认同存在巨大的空白，所以我想尽力填补这些空白。这也是很多场合中的一个，让我的思想更全面地考虑在异国文化氛围中养育子女的利与弊。
Louise and Henry speak French fluently; they are taught in French at school, and most of their friends are French. They move from language to language, seldom mixing them up, without effort or even awareness. This is a wonderful thing, of course. And our physical separation from our native land is not much of an issue. My wife and I are grateful every day for all that our children are not exposed to. American school shootings are a good object lesson for our children in the follies of the society we hold at a distance.
路易丝和亨利法语都说得很流利。学校里使用法语教学，他们的朋友大多数是法国人。他们在法语和英语之间切换自如，不费吹灰之力，极少把两种语言搞混。这当然很棒。我们远离故国，相隔千山万水，也不是什么问题。每天我们夫妻俩都为儿女不用面对的一切坏事而心怀感激。美国校园枪战对我们孩子来说是避之不及的社会愚蠢行为的极好反面教材。 Naturally, we also want to remind them of reasons to take pride in being American and to try to convey to them what that means. It is a difficult thing to do from afar, and the distance seems more than just a matter of miles. I sometimes think that the stories we tell them must seem like Aesop’s (or La Fontaine’s) fables, myths with no fixed place in space or time. Still, connections can be made, lessons learned.
当然了，我们也希望能提醒他们身为美国人而自豪的原因，想方设法告诉他们这样做意义何在。在远离祖国的情况下这样做不容易，距离并不是和祖国相隔有多远的问题。有时我想我们给孩子们讲的故事听起来一定很像伊索寓言或拉封丹寓言，都是些没有确凿时间地点的神话。但无论如何，毕竟还能做点联系，学点东西。
Last summer we spent a week with my brother and his family, who live in Concord, Massachusetts, and we took the children to the North Bridge to give them a glimpse of the American Revolution. We happened to run across a reenactment of the skirmish that launched the war, with everyone dressed up in three-cornered hats and cotton bonnets.