On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy. It is this lar

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问题     On any person who desires such queer prizes, New York will bestow the gift of loneliness and the gift of privacy. It is this largess that accounts for the presence within the city’s walls of a considerable section of the population; for the residents of Manhattan are to a large extent strangers who have pulled up stakes somewhere and come to town, seeking sanctuary or fulfillment or some greater or lesser grail. The capacity to make such dubious gifts is a mysterious quality of New York. It can destroy an individual, or it can fulfill him, depending a good deal on luck. No one should come to New York to live unless he is willing to be lucky.
    New York is the concentrate of art and commerce and sport and religion and entertainment and finance, bringing to a single compact arena the gladiator (角斗士), the evangelist (传教者) , the promoter, the actor, the trader, and the merchant. It carries on its lapel (西服上的翻领) the odor of the long past, so that no matter where you sit in New York you feel the vibrations of great times and tall deeds, of queer people and events and undertakings. I am sitting at the moment in a stifling hotel room in 90-degree heat, halfway down an air shaft (天井), in midtown. No air moves in or out of the room, yet I am curiously affected by emanations from the immediate surroundings. I am 22 blocks from where Rudolph Valentino lay in state, 8 blocks from where Nathan Hale was executed, 5 blocks from the publisher’s office where Ernest Hemingway hit Max Eastman on the nose, 4 miles from where Walt Whitman sat sweating out editorials for the Brooklyn Eagle, 34 blocks from the street Willa Cather lived in when she came to New York to write books about Nebraska, 1 block from where Marceline used to clown on the boards of the Hippodrome, 36 blocks from the spot where the historian Joe Gould kicked a radio to pieces in full view of the public, 13 blocks from where Harry Thaw shot Stanford White, 5 blocks from where I used to usher at the Metropolitan Opera and only 102 blocks from the spot where Clarence Day the elder was washed of his sins in the Church of the Epiphany (主显节) (I could continue this list in-definitely); and for that matter I am probably occupying the very room that any number of exalted and memorable characters sat in, some of them on hot, breathless afternoons, lonely and private and full of their own sense of emanations from without.

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答案 有谁指望孤独或者私密,纽约将赐予他这类古怪的奖赏。正因其大度,城市的高墙里面才容纳了众多这一类人;纽约曼哈顿的居民都是些外来客,离乡背井,进入城市,寻求庇护,寻求施展抱负的机会,或寻求一些或大或小的目标。纽约的一个神秘特点就是有本事派发这种不明确的礼物。它可以摧毁一个人,也可以成全他,很大程度上就看运气。除非愿意碰碰运气,否则,最好别来纽约。 纽约是艺术、商业、体育、宗教、娱乐和金融荟萃之地,在这么一个浓缩的竞技场上,挤满了角斗士、布道者、筹办人、演员、证券商和买卖人。它所展现的特质是,年深日久的结果,所以不论你身在纽约何处,都免不了与伟大时代、辉煌事功、奇人、奇事、奇闻发生感应。此刻,我坐在市中心闷热的旅馆房间里——房间紧靠高楼天井的半截腰处,忍受华氏九十度的高温。房间内外没有空气流动,可稀奇的是我却能感受到周围散发的气息:隔22个街区,是鲁道夫.瓦伦蒂诺的遗体安葬处;隔8个街区,内森.黑尔被处决的地方;隔5个街区,有一家出版社,就在那办公室里,欧内斯特.海明威曾猛击马克斯.伊斯曼的鼻梁;隔4英里。沃尔特.惠特曼坐在桌前,埋头为《布鲁克林鹰报》写评论;隔34个街区的一条街上,薇拉.凯瑟住过,她来纽约写一些关于内布拉斯加州的书;隔一个街区,乃是马塞林经常表演丑角的大马戏场;36个街区外一处地方,历史学家乔.古尔德当着众人的面,将一台收音机踢得粉碎;隔13个街区,哈里.索枪杀了斯坦福.怀特;隔5个街区,我曾经在大都会歌剧院为人引座;隔102个街区,老克拉伦斯.戴在主显教堂洗去了他的罪恶(这份单子,我可以没完没了地续下去)。如此说来,我现在栖身的这个房间,很可能住过不知多少不朽的名流,他们中的一些,也是暑天坐在这里,热得喘不上气,孤独而又闭塞,感受着外界有什么东西扑面而来。

解析     largess本义是“慷慨的赠予,赠品”,结合第一句可以判断,largess在这里指
    纽约赐予人们的孤寂与独处。account for。本义是“对……负责,解释说明”,即a considerable section of the population之所以来到纽约,是因为纽约的馈赠;pull up stakes是固定搭配,意思是“搬家,迁离,离开”,结合前边的strangers (异乡客),将其译为“背井离乡”,“seeking…grail”这部分为“动词+ing”作目的状语,译为中文时须按照中文行文习惯,选择合适的动词和名词搭配。
    首先,本文描述的主要对象是“纽约市”,因此翻译时将原句的主谓调换位置。将纽约这一重点信息提前,加以强调,也与下文形成了自然的衔接。其次,dubious一词的含义是“不确定的,拿不准的”,在原文中形容“纽约馈赠的礼物”,旨在说明这份馈赠的“(态度、用意)含糊,不明白”之意。
    concentrate作名词本义是“集中”,用在这里是指纽约集艺术、商业等各种功能于一体,可译为“荟萃之地”;此句后半句的正常语序为“bringing the gladiator,the evangelist,the promoter,the actor,the trader,and the merchant to a single compact arena”,bringing后面的宾语是a single compact arena(浓缩的竞技场)里的人,故翻译时可将宾语变主语,动词使用“挤满”。
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