Unit-4-Force-of-Nature课文翻译.doc

Unit 4 Force of Nature
Barbara Goldsmith

1. While I was a teenager growing up in New Rochelle, New York, I had up on my bulletin board a photo of Marie Curie sitting under an elm tree, her arms wrapped around her daughters, two-year-old Eve and nine-year-old Irene. I didn't know very much about Curie beyond the basics: She and her husband had discovered radioactivity. She was the first person to win two Nobel prizes. She was brilliant, single-minded, a legend. I was just a girl with little direction, more drawn to words and made-up stories than to formulas and lab experiments.
2. Looking back, I think I admired that photo so much, not because of Marie Curie and what she stood for but because she seemed so exotic — or maybe because of how her arms encircled her girls. My own mother lay in the hospital, recovering from a grave injury in a car crash. I wanted her to hold me, but she couldn't. So, instead, I idolized Marie, who in my mind became the strongest and most capable woman in the world.
3. Like any girl's fantasy, mine contained at least a shred of truth. Marie Curie's own daughters grew into accomplished women in their own right, though their mother was obsessively engaged in her research before they were born. Curie was what we might today call a super-competent multi-tasker: Her work revolutionized the study of atomic energy and radioactivity, and she's one of a pitiful few female scientists whom schoolchildren ever study. Also she was a woman driven by passions, fighting battles much of her life with what a doctor now would probably diagnose as severe depression. In the end, her most brilliant discovery proved fatal for both her and her husband.
4. When Curie was 10 years old, in 1878, her mother died of tuberculosis. The Polish girl then known as Manya Sklodowska carried on with her schoolwork as if nothing had happened, but for months she'd find places to hide so she could cry her eyes out.
5. At age 18, she landed a job as governess to a wealthy family near Warsaw. She wound up falling in love with Casimir Zorawski, an accomplished student of 19 with whom she shared a love of nature and science. But when Casimir announced that he and Manya wanted to marry, his father threatened to disinherit him. She was beneath his station, poor, a common nursemaid. Definitely no. Four years dragged by. Finally, Manya told Casimir, "If you cannot decide, I cannot decide for you." In what still seems to me a remarkable act of courage, Manya then gathered her meager savings and took a train to Paris, where she changed her name, enrolled at the Sorbonne — and walked into history.
6. In 1893, she became the first woman to earn a degree in physics at the Sorbonne. If you have ever seen the 1943 film Madame Curie, you know the broad brush strokes of her early experiments to find a mysterious, hidden new element. There's a scene in which actress Greer Garson, as Marie, stirs a boiling vat, her face glistening with sweat. Late at night, Marie and her husband, Pierre, enter the lab to see a tiny luminous stain congealed in a dish. "Oh, Pierre! Could it be?" exclaims Marie as tears roll down her cheeks. Yes, this was it — radium!
7. The reality was a lot grittier — and a lot less romantic. Marie and Pierre, whom she married in 1895, did indeed work side by side late into the night. But their lab was so shabby and dank that their daughter Irene, at age three, called it "that sad, sad place". And one prominent scientist said that had he not seen the worktable, he would have thought he was in a stable.
8. In time, the Curies became world famous, especially after they won a Nobel Prize in physics in 1903 for the discovery of radioactivity. They were the toast of the European scientific community, feted lavishly and visited at home in Paris by acolytes who came from as far away as New Zealand to pay homage.
9. For the Curies, though their triumph contained the seeds of their tragedy. Remember, they worked around radioactivity nearly every day. Even before winning the Nobel, Pierre was severely ill from exposure to this fierce energy. He had open sores on his hands and fingers, and increasing difficulty walking. In 1906, he fell into the path of a wagon drawn by two huge draft horses, and a wheel ran over his head. He died instantly.
10. Years later, Eve Curie, scarcely a year old when her father died, wrote that Pierre's death marked the defining moment in her mother's life: "Marie Curie did not change from a happy young wife to an inconsolable widow. The metamorphosis was less simple, more serious. A cape of solitude and secrecy fell upon her shoulders forever." Marie was just 38. The Sunday after the funeral, instead of staying with family and friends, she retreated to the lab. In her diary she wrote Pierre: "I want to talk to you in the silence of this laboratory, where I didn't think I could live without you."
11. The work that Marie and Pierre had begun went on after his death. A second Nobel in chemistry went to Marie alone for isolating the elements radium and polonium.
12. With the onset of World War I in 1914, she recognized that mobile X-ray8 units could save lives in battlefield hospitals, so she established a fleet of these vehicles, known as petites Curies, or little Curies. She and Irene drove one themselves.
13. Later she went back to the Radium Institute she established, teaching, traveling and lecturing until her death, at age 66, on July 4, 1934. The cause was aplastic pernicious anemia, most likely due to her long, devastating exposure to radium and other radioactive elements.
14. The Marie Curie that I discovered was no icon but a flesh-and-blood woman. She conquered huge professional obstacles but paid a terrible personal price. I know now how complex her life was -- truly glorious and tragic.

Chinese Translation of Paragraphs

1. 十几岁的时候，我生活在纽约州新罗谢尔市。我的记事牌上贴着一张玛丽·居里的照片，她坐在一棵榆树下面，怀里抱着女儿，两岁的爱娃和九岁的爱莲。对居里夫人我所知甚少，除了一些基本的东西：她和丈夫发现了放射性。她是荣获两项诺贝尔奖的第一人。她聪慧、执着，简直是一个传奇。我当时还是一个小姑娘，还几乎没有人生的方向，与其说对公式和实验室里的实验好奇，还不如说对文字和编造出来的故事更有兴趣。
2. 回想起来，我认为自己十分欣赏那张照片，并非因为那是玛丽·居里以及她所象征的东西，而是因为她的那种异国情调，或者也许是因为她怀抱两个女儿的模样。我自己的母亲因为车祸受到重伤，躺在医院里，正在康复。我想要她抱抱我，但是她做不到。因此，取而代之的是，我崇拜玛丽了，在我的心目中，她成了天底下最坚强、最有能力的女性。
3. 像其他女孩的奇思异想一样，我的想法里至少还有几分真实。玛丽·居里夫人的女儿们都自力更生，成长为颇有成就的妇女，尽管她们的母亲在她们出生之前完全沉浸在研究工作之中。居里是个我们今天可以称之为超有能力的多面手：她的工作彻底改变了对原子能和放射性的研究，而且她是学生们学习的少得可怜的几个女科学家之一。她还是一个充满激情的女人，一辈子有很多时间要与现在医生可能诊断为严重抑郁症的病魔抗争。最终，她那杰出的发现却让她和丈夫为之丧命。
4. 1878年，居里10岁，她母亲死于肺结核。这个叫玛利亚·斯可罗多夫斯卡的波兰小姑娘继续求学，好像什么事情也没有发生过。但是，连着好几个月她得找个地方躲起来，放声大哭。
5. 18岁那年，她在华沙附近一家有钱人家里当上了一名家庭教师。结果，她爱上了查斯米尔·佐瓦斯基，一个19岁的学有所成的学生。他们俩都热爱自然和科学。但是，当查斯米尔宣布他和玛利亚想要步入婚姻殿堂时，他的父亲威胁要剥夺他的继承权。她与他门不当户不对，出身贫寒，不过是个保姆。绝对不行！拖了四年之后，终于，玛利亚对查斯米尔说：“如果你下不了决心，我也无法为你下决心。”然后凭着现在对我而言是了不起的勇气，玛利亚带着微薄的积蓄乘火车去了巴黎。在巴黎她改了名字，上了索邦大学——于是走进了历史。
6. 1893年，她成了在索邦大学第一个获得物理学学位的女性。如果您看过1943年拍摄的影片《居里夫人》，就会明白她早期做实验的大手笔，发现一个神秘的、隐藏着的新元素。有一幕，扮演玛丽的女演员格里尔·加森在一个烧锅里搅动，满脸汗水。晚上很迟的时候，玛丽和丈夫皮尔走进实验室看见试盘上凝结着一小块发光的东西。“哦，皮尔!是那个吗？”玛丽惊呼道，泪水顺着面颊流淌下来。是的，就是它——镭!
7. 现实却要艰苦得多——也没有那么浪漫。玛丽是在1895年嫁给皮尔的，他们确实并肩工作到深夜。然而，她们的实验室是那么的简陋、潮湿，所以女儿爱莲把那儿叫做“那个糟糕的、糟糕透了的地方”。曾经有位声名显赫的科学家说过，要不是见到那张工作台，他会以为自己身处马厩。
8. 终于，居里夫妇名扬全球，尤其他们于1903年因发现放射性荣获诺贝尔物理学奖之后。在欧洲科学界，他们成了人们祝贺的对象，到处受到盛情款待，在巴黎家中受到来自远至新西兰的崇拜者的访问，来向他们致意。
9. 然而，对居里夫妇而言，他们的成功埋下了他们悲剧的种子。记得吗，他们几乎天天都为着放射性工作。甚至在获得诺贝尔奖之前，皮尔就因暴露在这种强大能量中而身患重病。他的手上和手指上有开放性的溃疡，而且走路越来越困难。1906年，他跌倒在两匹高大驮马拉着的马车的道上，一个车轮碾过他的头部，他当场身亡。
10. 父亲死的时候，爱娃·居里还不到一岁。若干年以后，爱娃写道，皮尔的死注定了母亲生命大限的时刻：“玛丽·居里没有从年轻幸福的妻子转变为一个极度沮丧的寡妇。这种蜕变并非一蹴而就而是根深蒂固。孤寂和沉默的斗篷永远披在她的双肩上。”玛丽年仅38岁。葬礼后的星期天，她没有与家人和朋友们待在一起，而是躲进了实验室。在日记里，她是这么对皮尔写的：“在这鸦雀无声的实验室里，我想和你说话，实验室里没有了你，我无法应付呀。”
11. 在皮尔去世后，他和玛丽开始的工作并未停止。因为分离了镭元素和钋元素，第二个诺贝尔化学奖荣归玛丽一人。
12. 随着1914年第一次世界大战爆发，玛丽意识到流动的X光机器可以拯救战地医院里面的生命。于是，她建立了一个称为“小居里”的车队，她和爱莲亲自驾驶一辆车。
13. 后来，她又回到自己建立的镭研究所，从事教学工作，也外出旅行、讲学，直至1934年7月4日谢世，终年66岁。死因是恶性再生障碍性贫血，很可能是由于她长期暴露在致命的镭和其他放射性元素的辐射中。
14. 我所发现的玛丽·居里并非是一个偶像，而是一个有血有肉的女人。她征服了职业上巨大的障碍，但是付出了巨大的个人代价。现在我明白，她的一生何其复杂——的确集荣光与悲壮于一身。
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