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这是我的参赛作品，今天是可以把它公布出来了。我译得不怎么样，但是能参加是不错的。
英汉对照
A Garden That WelcomesStrangers
欢迎陌生人的花园
By AllenLacy
艾伦莱斯著
I do not know what becameof her, and I never learned her name. But I feel that I knew herfrom the garden she had so lovingly made over manydecades.
我不知道她会变成什么？我也永远不知道她的名字。但是我感觉认识她是从花园开始的，她在那里全心工作了几十个年头。
The house she lived in liestwo miles from mine – a simple, two-storystructure with the boxy plan, steeply-pitched roof and unadornedlines that are typical of houses built in the middle of thenineteenth century near the New Jerseyshore.
她住的房子距我两英里，简单的两层结构，矮小、斜顶、朴实无华，新泽西海岸附近建于19世纪中叶典型的那一类。
Hergarden was equally simple. She was not a conventional gardener whodid everything by the book, following the common advice to vary herplantings so there would be something in bloom from the firstcrocus in the spring to the last chrysanthemum in the fall. She hadno respect for the rule that says that tall-growing plants belongat the rear of a perennial border, low ones in the front andmiddle-sized ones in the middle, with occasional exceptions fordramatic accent.
她的花园也同样简洁。她不是一个传统的园丁，凡事都按书本行事，通常春天种些番红花，秋天种些菊花。她却另辟蹊径，生长高的植物在四季常青边界的后面，低的在前面，中等的在中间，偶尔还有戏剧性的突破。
In her garden, everythingwas accent, everything was tall, and the evidence was plain thatshe loved three kinds of plant and three only: roses, clematis andlilies, intermingled promiscuously to pleasant effect but noapparent design.
在她的花园里，一切都有特色，一切都很高大，证据证明，她爱清淡，花园只种三种花卉：玫瑰、铁线莲和百合，空间布局令人愉快，没有明显的设计痕迹。
She grew a dozen sorts ofclematis, perhaps 50 plants in all, trained and tied so that theyclambered up metal rods, each rod crowned intermittently throughoutthe summer by a rounded profusion of large blossoms of dark purple,rich crimson, pale lavender, light blue and gleamingwhite.
有十几种铁线莲，总共大约有50植物，通过培植和绑扎，使它们爬上金属架，让每个架子上都繁花似锦，形成一个断断续续的圆形，夏天，整整一个深紫、深红、淡紫、浅蓝和灰白色的大花朵。
Her taste in roses wasold-fashioned. There wasn't a single modern hybrid tea rose orfloribunda in sight. Instead, she favored the roses of otherages– the Yorkand Lancaster rose, the cabbage rose, the damask and the rugosarose in several varieties. She propagated her roses herself fromcuttings stuck directly in the ground and protected by upendedgallon jugs.
她特欣赏老式玫瑰。没有一株现代杂交茶蔷薇或者丰花月季进入视野。相反，她青睐前世纪的玫瑰：约克和蓝卡玫瑰、白菜玫瑰、淡红色的野生玫瑰等多个品种。她自己直接纤插到地上，用倒覆的罐子加以保护。
Lilies,I believe were her greatest love. Except for some Madonna lilies itis impossible to name them, since the wooden flats stood casuallyhere and there in the flower bed, a————ll thickly planted with darkgreen lily seedlings. The occasional paper tag fluttering from aseed pod with the date and record of a cross showed that she was anamateur hybridizer with some special fondness for lilies of a warmmuskmelon shade or a pale lemon yellow.
我认为百合是她的最爱。除了圣母百合，她不会给它们命名，因为花坛中间点缀着木板条，到处都种植着浓密、深绿色的百合幼苗。偶尔，标签飘扬，它记录着种子、日期，十字架上的记录显示，她是一个业余杂交栽培能手，杂交温暖的甜瓜树荫百合或者淡的柠檬黄百合。
She believed in sharing hergarden. By her curb there was a sign: “This is my garden, and youare welcome here. Take whatever you wish with your eyes, butnothing with your hand.”
她信奉分享她的花园。她在木牌上写着:“本花园，欢迎你的到来。参观时用眼，请勿动手。”
Until five years ago, hergarden was always immaculately tended, the lawn kept fertilized andmowed, the flower bed free of weeds, the tall lilies carefullystaked. But then something happened. I don't know what it was, butthe lawn was mowed less frequently, then not at all. Tall grassinvaded the roses, the clematis, the lilies. The elm tree in herfront yard sickened and died, and when a coastal gale struck, thebranches that fell were never removed.
五年前，她的花园总是很完美，草坪经常施肥和除草，花坛没有杂草，高大的百合仔细地用桩围住。但是后来发生了一件事。我不知道它是什么，但草坪修剪的频率低了，然后压根儿不动工了。玫瑰、铁线莲、百合地杂草丛生。前院的榆树患病或者死亡，沿海大风袭击，掉下来的树枝从来没有被拿走。
With every year, theneglect has grown worse. Wild honeysuckle and bittersweet runrampant in the garden. Sumac, ailanthus, poison ivy and otheruninvited things threaten the few lilies and clematis and rosesthat still struggle for survival.
年复一年，花园变得更加糟糕。野生金银花和美洲南蛇藤在花园里泛滥成灾。漆树、臭椿、毒葛和其他不速之客威胁到百合、铁线莲、玫瑰的继续生存。
Last year the house itselfwent dead. The front door was padlocked and the windows coveredwith sheets of plywood. For many months there has been a for salesign out front, replacing the sign inviting strangers to share hergarden.
去年，房子本身失去了生气。前门紧锁着，窗户覆盖着胶合板。几个月来，前门的出售广告取代邀请陌生人分享她的花园。
I drive by that housealmost daily and have been tempted to load a shovel in my cartrunk, stop at her curb and rescue a few lilies from the smotheringthicket of weeds. The laws of trespass and the fact that her housesits across the street from a police station have given me thecowardice to resist temptation. But her garden has reminded me ofmortality; gardeners and the gardens they make are fragile things,creatures of time, hostages to chance and todecay.
几乎每一天，我开车经过那幢房子，在我汽车后备箱里试图装把铲子，开到路边停下来从灌木丛一样的杂草中拯救出一些百合。不过，她的房子对面就是警察局，侵入私人领地的法律让我怯而止步。但她的花园让我想起生命的短暂，园丁以及花园的脆弱，时间是创造物，人有机会也会有死亡。
Last week, the for salesign out front came down and the windows were unboarded. A crew ofpainters arrived and someone cut down the dead elm tree. Thismorning there was a moving van in the driveway unloading a swingset, a barbecue grill, a grand piano and a houseful of sensiblefurniture. A young family is moving into thathouse.
上周，销售单签下来，全部窗户开启了木板条。一群装修工人来了，有人砍死了榆树。今天早上一辆车子在卸秋千、烧烤架和钢琴，以及适合房子的家具。一个年轻的家庭搬进了这所房子。
I hope that among theirnumber is a gardener whose special fondness for old roses andclematis and lilies will see to it that all else is put aside untilthat flower bed is restored to something of its formerself.
我却希望花园的成员，特别是那些老玫瑰、铁线莲和百合回到花坛，恢复往日的生机。
(选自Patterns: A Short Prose Reader, byMary Lou Conlin, published by Houghton Mifflin Company,1983.)
