The New Parents 新父母 Henry hated his aunt and uncle, particularly his aunt. His Uncle Clem was a relatively quiet and passive man who kept his mouth shut and thus kept himself out of trouble. He tended to his business and let Aunt Mary run the show at home. She was a strong-willed and dominating woman. They had never had any children of their own, a point that was significant since it was the one great disappointment of their lives. Mary welcomed the opportunity to take charge of Henry. She vowed to his father that she would make him perfect. She was rigid, demanding, and perfectionistic. Henry was sent to a fashionable private school where he felt too much was demanded from him. He had to work hard, and his aunt demanded that he spend long hours studying and doing his homework. She also forced him to work for an allowance. She made him work in the garden, cut the lawns, help in cleaning the house, and do other odd jobs. He complained that he was always so tired from working that he couldn't concentrate on his studies. He felt trapped, resentful, bitter, angry, lost, and helpless. The picture he painted was like something out of a Dickens novel. A helpless waif, orphaned and abandoned, thrust among unscrupulous and unfeeling people who took advantage of him and exercised their sadistic urges on him. 亨利讨厌他的叔叔和婶婶，尤其是婶婶。他的叔叔克莱姆是个相对安静、被动的人，总是闭口不言，因此也避免了麻烦。他专心于自己的事业，让玛丽婶婶在家主持大局。玛丽婶婶是个意志坚强、有主宰欲的女性。他们一直没有自己的孩子，这一点对他们来说意义重大，因为这是他们一生中最大的遗憾。玛丽很高兴有机会照顾亨利。她向亨利的父亲发誓，一定会把他培养成一个完美的人。她为人刻板、要求严苛、追求完美。亨利被送到了一所时髦的私立学校，在那里他感到压力山大。他必须努力学习，而婶婶还要求他花长时间做作业、复习功课。她还强迫他通过做家务来赚取零用钱。她让他在花园里干活、修剪草坪、帮忙打扫房子，以及做其他零工。他抱怨说，工作让他总是感到疲惫不堪，以至于无法集中精力学习。他感到被困住了，心中充满了怨恨、苦涩、愤怒、迷茫和无助。他描绘的画面就像狄更斯小说中的情景。一个无助的孤儿，被遗弃在世间，置身于一群狡猾、无情的人之中，他们利用他，对他施加残忍的行径。 The picture he presented was one of unrelieved anguish and hurt. One could easily suspect that it was overdrawn for effect. There seems little doubt, however, that Henry and his aunt did not hit it off. There were frequent arguments and she would try to beat him. He recalled her ripping his shirt off in one fight. It seems likely that his deep resentment and bitterness were not kept within, but found their way into rebellious and resentful behavior. It was apparently because of such behavior and the difficulty his aunt and uncle had in managing him that they decided to send him to military school. The situation for Henry was all the more difficult because he lost his only ally early in the game. After a few months, Larry left the aunt and uncle to go to college. For Larry it was a welcome escape. For Henry it was a disaster. He lost his only source of support. He and Larry had clung together through the years in the face of their tyrannical father. Now Henry was left on his own. Henry was in touch with his feelings of loss and abandonment, and also with his feelings of resentment toward Larry for leaving him and letting him down. The theme of important figures on whom Henry depended leaving him and letting him down came to be a major element in his life and experience. 他呈现出的画面满是无尽的痛苦和伤害。人们很容易怀疑这是为了夸大效果而虚构的。然而，毫无疑问的是，亨利和他的婶婶相处并不融洽。他们之间频繁争吵，婶婶甚至会动手打他。他回忆起有一次吵架时，婶婶把他的衬衫都撕破了。很可能他内心的深深怨恨和苦涩并没有压抑在心里，而是通过叛逆和怨恨的行为表现出来。显然，正是因为这样的行为，以及叔叔婶婶难以管教他，他们才决定把他送到军校。亨利的处境更加艰难，因为他在一开始就失去了唯一的盟友。几个月后，拉里离开了叔叔婶婶家去上大学。对拉里来说，这是一次可喜的逃脱。但对亨利来说，却是一场灾难。他失去了唯一的支持来源。多年来，他和拉里一直团结在一起，共同面对他们专制的父亲。现在，亨利只能孤军奋战。亨利感受到了失去和被抛弃的痛苦，同时也对拉里离他而去、让他失望感到怨恨。在他的一生和经历中，重要的人离他而去、让他失望这一主题成为了一个主要元素。 Being sent to the military academy was another exile, another abandonment, another rejection. He recalled that life in the school was a horror. He was lonely, depressed, lost. He spent long hours there just crying and feeling very sorry for himself. He could not make any friends, and the regimen and discipline at the school were harsh and rigid—just the thing his aunt would approve of. He felt as though he had been condemned to a concentration camp. He saw the other kids there as pretty much in the same boat; they were all there because their families didn't want them and had gotten rid of them by exiling them to this school. Finally his father came to visit. Henry wept bitterly, told his father how unhappy he was and begged to be taken out of the school. The school was worse than life with his aunt and uncle. 被送到军事学院，对他来说是又一次流放、又一次抛弃、又一次拒绝。他回忆起学校的生活简直是一场噩梦。他感到孤独、沮丧、迷茫。他在那里花了很长时间哭泣，为自己感到难过。他交不到任何朋友，而且学校的制度和纪律严苛死板——这正合他婶婶的心意。他感觉自己仿佛被判进了集中营。他觉得那里的其他孩子也和他差不多，他们都是因为家人不想要他们，才把他们流放到这所学校来摆脱掉。最后，他的父亲来看他了。亨利痛哭流涕，告诉父亲自己有多不幸，乞求父亲让他离开这所学校。学校的生活比他叔叔婶婶家还要糟糕。 So back he went. Life was unhappy but tolerable with them. He lived there for four years altogether. He went to a private prep school until it was time to go to college. He apparently did reasonably well in school and was able to be accepted by a prominent eastern university. Aunt Mary had become very possessive during this time. She wanted him to go to school near home. She was hurt by his wanting to go away to school. But it was finally decided that he should. She cried when he left. But Henry wanted little more than to get away. Life with his aunt and uncle had been a torment. There was little room in his mind for appreciation of their solicitude and care for him. There was too much resentment, too much of a sense of injustice and deprivation, too much a sense of what he had lost and did not have rather than what he did have or had gotten. 于是他又回到了叔叔婶婶家。和他们一起的生活虽然不快乐，但还能忍受。他在那里一共住了四年。他上了一所私立预科学校，一直到该上大学的时候。他显然在学校表现不错，得以被一所著名的东部大学录取。在这段时间里，玛丽婶婶变得非常占有欲强。她想让他上家附近的学校。他想去外地上学，这让她很伤心。但最终还是决定让他去外地上学。他离开的时候，她哭了。但亨利一心只想离开。和叔叔婶婶一起的生活对他来说是一种折磨。他的心里几乎没有空间去感激他们对他的关心和照顾。他的心中充满了太多的怨恨，太多的不公和剥夺感，太多的对失去的和没有得到的东西的执念，而不是对已经拥有的或得到的东西的感激。