2015考研英语阅读英文原刊《经济学人》：英国佣人

　　2015考研英语复习正是强化复习阶段，考研英语阅读在考研英语中占了40分，所以考研英语阅读是英语科目中重要的一项。新东方名师范猛老师曾建议过考研生需要坚持每天泛读10-15分钟的英文原刊。强烈推荐了杂志《经济学人》.杂志中的文章也是考研英语的主要材料来源.希望考研考生认真阅读，快速提高考研英语阅读水平。

　　Domestics in Britain

　　英国佣人

　　Life below stairs

　　阁楼下的生活

　　Servants—in their own words

　　仆人的自述

　　WINSTON CHURCHILL'S valet always said the greatman could not dress himself: “He sat there like adummy and you dressed him.” Whether anyone ironed the wartime prime minister's shoelaces, washed his loose change or made sure the yolks in his boiled eggs were centred, LucyLethbridge does not say. But as she shows in this absorbing history, much of it in the words ofservants, such things were the rule in some houses.

　　WINSTON CHURCHILL的男仆总是说，该伟大的男人无法自己更衣：“他笨拙地坐在那里，让你给他穿衣。” Lucy Lethbridge并没说战时是否有仆人为首相熨鞋带、洗零钱、确保餐桌上有水煮蛋蛋黄。但她在书里展现的这段历史引人入胜，用仆人的话来说，这些都是作为仆人的义务。

　　This is the extreme end of Ms Lethbridge's survey—a vivid sweep from ducal palace tosuburban villa, from lordly butler to Barnardo's orphan, from decaying gentry and aspiringmiddles to the foreign nannies and cleaners of today. Her subject is many-branched and fullof pressing issues, not least, the status of housework itself. All the same, there is a peculiarfascination about the old order, with its skivvies and tweenies and gentlemen's gentlemen.This is where the class system most resembled a theatre of the absurd, where maidsbecame invisible by turning their faces to the wall as their master walked by. Virginia Woolfcaptures the ethos brilliantly in “Mrs Dalloway”, where a society lunch is apparentlymagicked into existence. Tables self-spread with glass and silver, food self-cooks and isserved, not by working women, but by handmaidens, “adepts in a mystery”.

　　Ms Lethbridge向我们展现了截然不同的生活场景—从公爵官邸里忙碌的大扫除到僻静的郊区住宅，从贵族男管家到Barnardo的孤儿，从衰落的贵族、兴起的中产阶级到外国保姆，如今的清洁工。所列议题广而紧迫，尤其是家务劳动本身的情形。但过去关于下等佣人、女仆、贴身男仆的约定俗成也同样令人好奇。 这就是阶级体系与荒诞派戏剧最为相似的部分，一看到主人，女仆们就要扭头脸贴墙变成隐形人。VirginiaWoolf在《达洛维夫人》一书中绝妙地捕捉了这种社会现象。社交午餐何其充满了魔力，餐桌自己摆上了杯具和刀叉，食物自己煮好端上桌。其实这些并非职业女性所为，而是出自“善于隐形”的女仆之手。

　　Ms Lethbridge is good on the mystifications that enveloped both employers and employed.Most servants were drudges or “slaveys”. It was estimated that a maid carried three tonnesof hot water up and down stairs each week. And they were expected to be grateful for aplace in a home rather than a factory (often they were). A home, so the myth went, was ahaven of moral purity and order. Even its furniture was sanctified. According to one advicebook, a maid should keep a place in her heart for it, next only to family. No amount ofdigging with chapped fingers into greasy saucepans could shake the employers' sense ofconferring a privilege.

　　Ms Lethbridge擅长刻画雇主与佣工身上的神秘莫测。大多数仆人过去做过苦力，当过“奴隶”。据估计，一个女仆每周要拎三公吨的热水楼上楼下地忙碌。对此他们心存感激，因为他们可以住在称作家的地方，而不是住在工厂。家如同神话般被视为纯洁的道德和秩序的庇护所。就连家具都充满了神圣感。一本指南里写道，女仆应当忠于它们仅次于忠于这个家庭。女仆用皲裂的双手清洗油锅洗得再多也不会动摇雇主享受特权的信念。

　　Nor could anything modernise them. American innovations, such as rubber gloves,detergents and vacuum cleaners, took decades to arrive in Britain. True cachet lay in the oldand customary. There is a wonderful story of footmen having to remove for cleaning all theelectric lamps each morning, as if they were oil lamps. As for Lloyd George's 1911 bill to bringin compulsory insurance and unemployment benefits for servants, there was uproar; thedelicate balance between employer and servant would be destroyed, it was said.

　　没有事物能让英国佣人与时俱进。美国的发明创造，像是橡胶手套、洗涤剂、吸尘器，过了几十年才在英国流行起来。老派的作风习惯体现了真正的贵族威望。有个有趣的故事是说一名男仆每早起来都要卸下灯泡并清洁，搞得它们跟煤油灯似的。就在1911年，Lloyd George专门为仆人开设法定保险与失业津贴一事引起骚动;舆论说这将打破雇主与佣人间微妙的平衡。

　　Victorian and early-20th-century domestics were the largest single group of workers in Britainafter agricultural labourers. Yet histories of the working class have neglected them. Scornedby their peers as flunkeys, they felt constrained by their position from doing much morethan sing rudely over the washing-up. In telling their story so fully and humanely, MsLethbridge manages to suggest what the words to that song might have been.

　　维多利亚及二十世纪初期的英国，佣人是继劳农群体后最大的工人群体。而工人阶级的史料中却遗漏了这一群体。同阶层的工人蔑视他们，认为他们是奴仆，社会地位让他们无路可寻，只能边洗餐盘边唱悲歌。MsLethbridge通过完整人道的故事叙述，成功说明了那些歌声到底意味着什么。

　　词语解释

　　1.face to 面对

　　Get your ass of your office chair and get face toface.

　　从办公椅上抬起你得屁股，去与客户面对面交流。

　　They stumbled into a convenience store wherestuart found himself face to face with a young andattractive clerk.

　　他们随便走入一家自助商店，在那里，斯图亚特突然发现自己与一个年轻的、很吸引人的女店员面对着面。

　　2.expect to 期许

　　Investors typically expect to be repaid more than they lend.

　　通常，投资者总是希望将来拿到的钱能多于借出去的钱。

　　Fewer than half of executives polled recently by fortune said they expect to increase theirheadcount in 2012.

　　近期接受《财富》杂志(Fortune)采访的公司高管中只有不到一半的人表示，2012年预计将扩大员工招聘。

　　3.as if 好像，似乎，仿佛

　　As if he were a rock star.

　　狂喜之情溢于言表，仿佛他是个摇滚巨星。

　　It's as if silicon valley entrepreneurs are from mars and wall street investors are fromvenus.

　　就好像硅谷创业者来自火星，而华尔街投资者来自金星。

　　4.manage to 管理

　　Moreover, if blackstone doesn't get michael's participation, how does it manage to getfinancing?

　　再者，如果黑石没有让迈克尔参与的话，那它是怎么设法融资的呢?

　　The rest of europe may well manage to muddle through.

　　而欧洲其余国家也许能很好地设法渡过此难关。

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