英語美文欣賞愛情篇：緣定今生—佚名（中英雙語）
My father met my mother in a poker game. He said she was the best bluffer he'd ever seen.She sat with 5 men at a table under an elm tree that shaded them from the hot Kansas city sun. Hey talent for subterfuge lay hidden behind her sHect. serene smile. She beat them all. My father couldn't take his eyes off her.
父親是在一次牌局中認識母親的。他說她是他所見過的出牌高手。她和5位男士一桌，頭上遮天蔽日的榆樹，把堪薩斯城火辣辣的太陽擋在了上空。她溫柔而恬靜地微笑著，高超的牌技深藏不露，她贏了他們所有的人。父親的目光定格在她的身上，沒法移開.
It was her company's annual picnic, and he walked her home. The next week, from his home in Chicago. he sent her a post card: Kernembcr me Please do. because be calling you one of these days.-David.
在她公司一年一度的野餐聚會后，他陪她步行回家。緊接著下個星期，父親從芝加哥給她寄了一張明信片:“記得我嗎?千萬別忘r我，最近我會給你電話。大衛。”
She still has that post card am not sure what made her save Though he already had his heart set on her. She hadn't chosen him yet, at least not consciously.
至今她還珍藏著那張明信片，我不懂她為什么會把它給留下來當時，雖然父親對她已是一則頃心，但她還沒有鐘情于他，至少還未意識到自己對他已經心儀.
As my father often told us while we were growing up, it was blind luck that he was at the picnic that day.A salesman for a big electronics company. he was in town to meet with clients and happened to stop by the branch office that Saturday morning to make some calls. The telephone rang: it was the manager of a local radio station with whom my father had done some busines,. "Dave! Glad you're town!' he said, and invited him to come right over to their annual picnic.
正如父親在我們小時候常說的那樣，那天他會出現在野餐聚會上純屬偶然。當時他是一家大型電子公司的推銷員，到城里與客戶見面，在周六上午碰巧有兒個電話要打，就順便去了分公司剛一進門，電話鈴就響，是當地的一家電臺的經理打來的，父親同他有討一此業務往來“大衛，你來的正是時候!”他要求父親馬上過去參加他們的年度野餐.
My mother was a writer at that radio ,ration. If my tiithcr hadn't stopped by the office that morning, he told us, or if he'd gotten there two minutes later... we shivered with a delicious horror at the opportunity, the life-our lives- -that would have been missed.
母親是那家電臺的撰稿人，父親說，如果那大上午他沒去公司，或者遲去兩分鐘，那后果呢……我們帶著甜蜜的恐懼為這稍縱即逝的機緣而稀噓不已—果真如此的話，世上就沒我們這幾個孩子了。
My mother saw him when he was in town, but she dated other men, including a car salesman who entered our family lore. Soon after she inet my father, the car salesman gave her a watch for her birthday. In those days the gift of a watch meant the relationship as moving towards an engageement. But she returned the watch, and one night a few months later. she woke her mother and told her she was going to mmry Dave.
此后每逢父親進城，母親都和他見面，但她當時也跟另外幾個男人約會，其中包括我們后來時常提及的汽車經銷商就在母親和父親相遇之后不久，那位汽車經銷商還送給母親一塊手表作為她的生日禮物那時，手表常常作定情之物，意味著他們不久將一婚但母親把手表退回去r.并在幾個月后的晚上，告訴我姥姥，她準備嫁給大衛。
A few months after the wedding. my father was transferred east. They settled in New York, in the house where I grow up.
婚禮后不久，父親調往東部工作井在紐約定居下來，我就是在那兒長大的.
I was eight years old him when l met my fulurr husband. He was in high school,a friend of my brother's. I remember him only peripherally. as I was much more interested in my brother's other friend-Francois, a Swiss exchange student, dark. mysterious and polished.
我8歲的時候就遇見了我未來的丈夫他當時在讀中學，是我哥哥的一位朋友。我對他的印象并不深，因為我對哥哥的另一個朋友更著迷，他是瑞士籍的交換學生，皮膚黝黑，個性神秘，舉止優雅.
15 years later the man I would eventually many came back to town for Christmas and stopped by my parents' house to pick up my brother for an evening out. When he saw me in the next room, he hissed, "Who is that''"
15年之后，我最終要與之共度一生的男人回城過圣誕節。他順便來我父母家，接我哥哥出去玩通宵，當他看到隔壁房間里的我時，低聲問道“那是誰?”
My brother looked at him strangely and said. 'It was Lisa.'
我哥哥詫異地看了他一眼，答道:“那不是朋薩嗎!”
He walked into the roots, reintroduced himself and pretended he didn't know how to wrap his Christmas gifts. 1 pretended to believe and helped. He came around a lot over the next few days. "I don't know who he 's interested in,"my mother told me, "you or your sister." I knew. But later that week I flew across the country to spend New Year's Eve with another man. Though I'd been chosen, I wasn't ready to admit it yet.
他走進房間，重新作了一通自我介紹，并假裝不知道如何包裝他的圣誕禮物，我也不拆穿他，騰出手來幫忙。接著幾犬，他一個勁往我家跑。“我鬧不清他到底是看上了誰，”母親說，“你還是你妹妹。”可我心知肚明。不過在那個星期晚些時候，我飛往西海岸同另一個男孩共度除夕之夜。盡管我未來的丈夫已鐘情于我，但是我還沒有準備應允接受。
If the timing had been different,the distance less daunting and my heart not already--albeit unknowingly--engaged,I could have ended up with that man whom I went off to visit.Or if not him,them with someone else.
如果他不是在圣誕節來訪，我同原先那個朋友又非遠隔關山，而我又非早已心有所屬—雖然我還沒意識到這一點，我就可能嫁給遠方的男友了，即使不是嫁給他，那也一定是另外一個男人.
Sometimes I think about at. How time ,weeps us along and puts us in a certain place where we're faced with one option or another , by chance and by the choice we make,we leave behind whole other live, we could have lived .full of different passions and joys, different problems and disappointments.
有時我琢磨，時間是怎樣把我們攏到一塊，并置我們于某一特定的場合，讓我們面對這樣或那樣的一種選擇，我們放棄了其他很多條我們自己所作的抉擇，我們放棄了其他很多我們可能走的充滿不同激情和歡樂，不同困惑與失意的人生之路。
My father could have missed that picnic. Or my mother could have picked the car salesman She would have had other children and an entirely different future.
我父親本來有可能錯過那次野餐，我母親也有可能選擇那位汽車推銷商做終身伴侶，這樣她就會有另外的孩子和一個完全不同的未來.
Other times--particularly w0hen I came home late to a sleeping house, nay husband and daughter curled around each other after drifting off during the third reading of Jane Yolen's Owl Moon-I thank about the lives we would not have had if chances or choices had brought us to a different place. And I shiver, much the way I did as a child at the story of my father's near miss, at the thought that I might have missed this life, this man, this child, this love.
有些時候，特別是當我夜深晚歸之時，丈夫和女兒已經相擁人眠—他們一定是在第氣次讀簡·約倫的《月下貓頭鷹》時不知不覺人夢的，我就想，要是機緣或選擇讓我們置身別處，我們就不可能擁有眼前的生活r一想到我有可能錯過這一生，這個丈夫，這個孩子，這一份愛，我就心有余悸，就像小時候聽父親故事那種感覺一樣—父親也是差點兒錯過同母親的姻緣.
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