现代大学英语精读第二版（第四册）学习笔记（原文及全文翻译）——13B - My Daughter Smokes（我女儿抽烟）

Unit 13B - My Daughter Smokes

My Daughter Smokes

Alice Walker

My daughter smokes. While she is doing her homework, her feet on the bench in front of her and her calculator clicking out answers to her algebra problems, I am looking at the half-empty package of Camels tossed carelessly close at hand. Camels. I pick them up, take them into the kitchen, where the light is better, and study them—they're filtered, for which I am grateful. My heart feels terrible. I want to weep. In fact, I do weep a little, standing there by the stove holding one of the instruments, so white, so precisely rolled, that could cause my daughter's death. When she smoked Marlboros and Players, I hardened myself against feeling so bad; nobody I knew ever smoked these brands.

She doesn't know this, but it was Camels that my father, her grandfather, smoked. But before he smoked "ready-mades"—when he was very young and very poor, with eyes like lanterns—he smoked Prince Albert tobacco in cigarettes he rolled himself. I remember the bright-red tobacco tin, with a picture of Queen Victoria's consort, Prince Albert, dressed in a black frock coat and carrying a cane. The tobacco was dark brown, pungent, slightly bitter. I tasted it more than once as a child, and the discarded tins could be used for a number of things: to keep buttons and shoelaces in, to store seeds and best of all, to hold worms for the rare times my father took us fishing.

By the late forties and fifties no one rolled his own any more (and few women smoked) in my hometown, Eatontown, Georgia. The tobacco industry, coupled with Hollywood movies in which both hero and heroine smoked like chimneys, won over completely people like my father, who were hopelessly addicted to cigarettes. He never looked as dapper as Prince Albert, though; he continued to look like a poor, overweight, overworked colored man with too large a family; black, with a very white cigarette stuck in his mouth.

I do not remember when he started to cough. Perhaps it was unnoticeable at first. A little hacking in the morning as he lit his first cigarette upon getting out of bed. By the time I was my daughter's age, his breath was a wheeze, embarrassing to hear; he could not climb stairs without resting every third or fourth step. It was not unusual for him to cough for an hour.

It is hard to believe there was a time when people did not understand that cigarette smoking is an addiction. I wondered aloud once to my sister—who is perennially trying to quit—whether our father realized this. I wondered how she, a smoker since high school, viewed her own habit.

It was our father who gave her her first cigarette, one day when she had taken water to him in the fields.

"I always wondered why he did that," she said, puzzled, and with some bitterness.

"What did he say?" I asked.

"That he didn't want me to go to anyone else for them," she said, "which never really crossed my mind."

So he was aware it was addictive, I thought, though as annoyed as she that he assumed she would be interested.

I began smoking in eleventh grade, also the year I drank numerous bottles of terrible sweet, very cheap wine. My friends and I, all boys for this venture, bought our supplies from a man who ran a segregated bar and liquor store on the outskirts of town. Over the entrance there was a large sign that said COLORED. We were not permitted to drink there, only to buy. I smoked Kools because my sister did. By then I thought her toxic darkened lips and gums glamorous. However, my body simply would not tolerate smoke. After six months, I had a chronic sore throat. I gave up smoking, gladly. Because it was a ritual with my buddies—Murl, Leon, and "Dog" Fairly—I continued to drink wine.

My father died from "the poor man's friend," pneumonia, one hard winter when his bronchitis and emphysema had left him low. I doubt he had much lung left at all, after coughing for so many years. He had so little breath that, during his last years, he was always leaning on something. I remember once, at a family reunion, when my daughter was two, that my father picked her up for a minute—long enough for me to photograph them—but the effort was obvious. Near the very end of his life, and largely because he had no more lungs, he quit smoking. He gained a couple of pounds, but by then he was so emaciated no one noticed.

When I travel to Third World countries, I see many people like my father and daughter. There are large billboards directed at them both: the tough, "take-charge," or dapper older man, the glamorous, "worldly" young woman, both puffing away. In these poor countries, as in American ghettos and on reservations, money that should be spent for food goes instead to the tobacco companies; over time, people starve themselves of both food and air, effectively weakening and addicting their children, eventually eradicating themselves. I read in the newspaper and in my gardening magazine that cigarette butts are so toxic that if a baby swallows one, it is likely to die, and that the boiled water from a bunch of them makes an effective insecticide.

My daughter would like to quit, she says. We both know the statistics are against her; most people who try to quit smoking do not succeed. There is a deep hurt that I feel as a mother. Some days it is a feeling of futility. I remember how carefully I ate when I was pregnant, how patiently I taught my daughter how to cross a street safely. For what, I sometimes wonder; so that she can wheeze through most of her life feeling half her strength, and then die of self-poisoning, as her grandfather did?

But, finally, one must feel empathy for the tobacco plant itself. For thousands of years, it has been venerated by Native Americans as a sacred medicine. They have used it extensively—its juice, its leaves, its roots, its (holy) smoke—to heal wounds and cure diseases, and in ceremonies of prayer and peace. And though the plant as most of us know it has been poisoned by chemicals and denatured by intensive mono-cropping and is therefore hardly the plant it was, still, to some modern Indians it remains a plant of positive power. I learned this when my Native American friends, Bill Wahpepah and his family, visited with me for a few days and the first thing he did was sowing a few tobacco seeds in my garden.

Perhaps we can liberate tobacco from those who have captured and abused it, enslaving the plant on large plantations, keeping it from freedom and its kin, and forcing it to enslave the world. Its true nature suppressed, no wonder it has become deadly. Maybe by sowing a few seeds of tobacco in our gardens and treating the plant with the reverence it deserves, we can redeem tobacco's soul and self-respect.

Besides, how grim, if one is a smoker, to realize one is smoking a slave.

There is a slogan from a battered women's shelter that I especially like: "Peace on earth begins at home." I believe everything does. I think of a slogan for people trying to stop smoking: "Every home a smoke-free zone." Smoking is a form of self-battering that also batters those who must sit by, occasionally cajole or complain, and helplessly watch. I realize now that as a child I sat by, through the years, and literally watched my father kill himself; surely one such victory in my family, for the rich white men who own the tobacco companies, is enough.

参考译文——我女儿抽烟

我女儿抽烟

艾丽斯•沃克

我女儿抽烟。她在做作业时两只脚放在前面的长凳上，计算器嗒嗒地跳出代数题的答案，而我却在看着那包她已抽了一半、被她随意扔在手边的“骆驼”牌香烟。“骆驼”牌。我拿起香烟，走到厨房去仔细察看，那里的光线更好一些——这种香烟是带有过滤嘴的，谢天谢地。我心里感到十分难过。我想哭。事实上，我站在炉子旁，手里拿着一支雪白的、制作得如此精致的香烟，我确实哭了，这东西可以置我女儿于死地。当她抽“万宝路”和“普雷厄尔”牌香烟时，我硬起心肠，不让自己难过，我认识的人中没有人抽过这两种牌子的香烟。

她不知道，“骆驼”牌香烟正是我的父亲，也就是她的外公生前抽的牌子。但是在他开始抽“现成香烟”之前——他还很年轻，也很穷，眼睛如灯笼般明亮时——他抽的是用“阿尔伯特亲王”牌烟丝自己手工卷的香烟。我还记得那鲜红的烟丝盒，上面有一张维多利亚女王的丈夫阿尔伯特亲王的照片，他身穿黑色长礼服，手中拿着一根手杖。烟丝是深棕色的，闻起来刺鼻，味道有点苦。我在孩童时期尝过不止一次烟丝，而废弃的烟丝盒可以用来做很多事情：盛放扣子和鞋带，存放种子，最好的是可以放父亲偶尔带我们去钓鱼时用的蠕虫。

到40年代末、50年代初，在我的家乡佐治亚州的伊顿镇，已经没有人自己手工卷烟了（而且几乎没有女人抽烟)。烟草业，再加上影片中男女主角都是烟鬼的好莱坞电影，把像我父亲那样的人彻底征服了，他们无可救药地染上了烟瘾。然而，父亲并没有像阿尔伯特亲王那样衣冠楚楚；他看上去仍然是个贫穷、肥胖、为养活一大家子人而拼命干活的有色人种的男子，一个嘴里叼着雪白香烟的黑人。

我不记得父亲是什么时候开始咳嗽的。也许开始时并不明显，只是在清晨一下床便点燃第一支香烟时才有点干咳。在我到了我女儿这个年龄时，他喘气时总是呼哧呼哧的，听了让人感到不安；他上楼时每走三四级台阶就得停下来休息一会儿。连续咳嗽一个小时对他来说是常事。

人们曾经一度并不了解抽烟是一种上瘾的行为，这令人难以相信。我曾经就心中的疑惑问过姐姐——她一直在反复地尝试戒烟——父亲是否意识到了这一点。我想知道作为一个从高中便开始抽烟的人，她是怎么看待自己的这个习惯的。

有一天她去给在地里干活的父亲送水的时候，父亲给了她第一支烟。

“我一直在想为什么他会那么做，”她说，她感到苦涩而困惑。

“他说了些什么？”我问道。

“他说他不想让我去其他人那里要烟，”她说，“而我从来没想过要那么做。”

所以，他知道抽烟是上瘾的，尽管我和她一样感到困扰，但我觉得父亲当时认为她对抽烟应该是感兴趣的。

我在上11年级的时候开始抽烟，也是在那一年我喝了很多瓶很甜、很便宜的葡萄酒。我的朋友和我，还有所有想要这种“探险”的男孩，都从一个在郊区经营着种族隔离酒吧及卖酒的商店的男人那里买这些东西。在入口处有一个大的标牌上面写着“有色人种”。我们在那里喝酒是不被允许的，只能买酒。我那时候抽“古日”牌香烟，因为姐姐抽这个牌子。那时候我觉得她那因为烟中的毒素而暗黑色的嘴唇及牙床很迷人。然而，只是我的身体无法耐受香烟。 6个月后，我便得了慢性咽喉痛。我欣然地放弃了抽烟。由于这是我和兄弟们的一种仪式——穆尔、利昂以及“无赖”费尔利——我继续喝酒。

一个严冬，我父亲死于被称为“穷人之友”的疾病——肺炎，那时支气管炎和肺气肿已经把他折磨得虚弱不堪。他咳嗽了这么多年，我想他的肺部已没有什么完好的地方了。去世前几年，他的呼吸已经变得很虚弱，他总得倚靠着某个东西我记得有一次全家团聚，当时我的女儿才两岁，他抱了她一会儿——就是让我给他们拍照的时间——但是很明显，他费了好大的劲儿。生命行将结束前，他才戒了烟，主要是因为他的肺功能已几近衰竭。戒烟后他的体重增加了几磅，但当时他太瘦了，所以没人注意到这一点。

我去第三世界国家旅行时，看到了许多像我父亲和女儿那样的人。到处都有针对他们这两类人的巨大广告牌：强壮、“有领导风范”或衣冠楚楚的成熟男人，以及迷人、“世故”的年轻女人，都在吞云吐雾。就像在美国的贫民窟或者印第安人的居留地一样，在这些贫穷的国家里，那些本该花在食物上的钱却流进了烟草公司。久而久之，人们不但缺少食物，还会缺少空气，这样不仅大大损害了他们的孩子的体质，还使孩子们染上烟瘾，最终置他们于死地。我在报纸和我的园艺杂志上看到，烟蒂的毒性很强，如果一个婴儿吞下一个烟蒂，很可能会死亡，而用一把烟蒂煮沸的水是很有效的杀虫剂。

我女儿说她想要戒烟。我们都知道统计数字对她不利；大多数想要戒烟的人都没有成功。作为一位母亲，我深感痛苦。有时候，我有一种无能为力的感觉。我记得自己怀孕时，吃东西是多么小心，我又是多么耐心地教我的女儿怎样安全地过马路。有时候我会想，自己那样做是为了什么？难道是为了她今后大半辈子费力地挣扎着呼吸，然后像她外公那样自己把自己毒死吗？

但是最后，我们必须对烟草这种植物施以同情。几千年来，它都被美洲印第安人尊崇为一种圣药。他们广泛地使用烟草——它的汁、它的叶子、它的根和它的（神圣的）烟——来愈合伤口，治疗疾病，并将其用于祈祷以及和平的仪式中。尽管我们大多数人都知道这一植物已经被化学制品污染，并因为集约化也失去了其本性，因此几乎已经不是原来的样子了，但是一些现代的印第安人仍然把它看作一种拥有积极力量的植物。我是从我的印第安朋友比尔·沃培帕和他的家人那儿知道这一点的，他们来拜访过我几天，他做的第一件事就是在我的花园里播了些烟草种子。

也许我们可以把烟草从那些夺取并滥用它的人的手里解放出来，那些人用大规模种植来奴役这种植物，限制其自由，并迫使它奴役世界。烟草真正的本性被压制了，难怪它变得可以致命。或许在我们的花园里播一些烟草种子，用应有的尊崇来对待它，我们可以拯救它的灵魂和自尊。

此外，如果一个抽烟的人意识到自己抽的是一个奴隶，那该是多么残忍。

我特别喜欢一句写在受虐妇女收容所里的标语:“人间和平，始于家庭。”我觉得所有的事情都是如此。我想起一句写给那些想戒烟的人们的标语:“每个家庭都应该是无烟区。”抽烟是一种自我毁灭，也毁灭着那些不得不坐在你身边的人，他们偶尔会劝说你或者抱怨一下，但只能无奈地旁观。我现在意识到，从我还是个孩子起，这些年来我实际上一直坐在旁边，看着父亲自杀：当然，对那些拥有烟草公司的富有的白人们来说，能在我家取得这样一种胜利已经是够满意的了。

Key Words:

pungent ['pʌndʒənt]

adj. 刺鼻的，辛辣的，尖锐的，刻薄的

heroine ['herəuin]

n. 女英雄，女主角

perennially [pə'reniəli]

adv. 永久地

insecticide [in'sektisaid]

n. 杀虫剂

reverence ['revərəns]

n. 敬畏，尊敬，尊严 v. 尊敬，敬畏，崇敬

参考资料：