【有声英语文学名著】英国病人 98

How did you hate me? 

Katharine whispers in the Cave of Swimmers, talking through her pain of injuries. A broken wrist. Shattered ribs¹. You were terrible to me. That’s when my husband suspected you. I still hate that about you—disappearing into deserts or bars. You left me in Groppi Park. Because you didn’t want me as anything else. Because you said your husband was going mad. Well, he went mad. Not for a long time. I went mad before he did, you killed everything in me. Kiss me, will you. Stop defending yourself. Kiss me and call me by my name. Their bodies had met in perfumes, in sweat, frantic² to get under that thin film with a tongue or a tooth, as if they each could grip character there and during love pull it right off the body of the other. (Now there is no talcum on her arm, no rose water on her thigh³. )You think you are an iconoclast⁴, but you’re not. You just move, or replace what you cannot have. If you fail at something you retreat into something else. Nothing changes you. (How many women did you have? I left you because I knew I could never change you. You would stand in the room so still sometimes, so wordless sometimes, as if the greatest betrayal of yourself would be to reveal one more inch of your character. In the Cave of Swimmers we talked. We were only two latitudes⁵ away from the safety of Kufra. ) The English patient pauses and holds out his hand. Caravaggio places a morphine tablet into the black palm, and it disappears into the man’s dark mouth. Then he continues, I crossed the dry bed of the lake towards Kufra Oasis⁶, carrying nothing but robes against the heat and night cold, my Herodotus left behind with Katharine.

1 ribs   

n.肋骨( rib的名词复数 )；（船或屋顶等的）肋拱；肋骨状的东西；（织物的）凸条花纹

参考例句：

• He suffered cracked ribs and bruising. 他断了肋骨还有挫伤。
• Make a small incision below the ribs. 在肋骨下方切开一个小口。

2 frantic   

adj.狂乱的，错乱的，激昂的

参考例句：

• I've had a frantic rush to get my work done.我急急忙忙地赶完工作。
• He made frantic dash for the departing train.他发疯似地冲向正开出的火车。

3 thigh   

n.大腿；股骨

参考例句：

• He is suffering from a strained thigh muscle.他的大腿肌肉拉伤了，疼得很。
• The thigh bone is connected to the hip bone.股骨连着髋骨。

4 iconoclast   

n.反对崇拜偶像者

参考例句：

• Cage was an iconoclast.He refused to be bound by western musical traditions of harmony and structure.凯奇是个反传统的人，他拒绝接受西方有关和声和结构的音乐传统的束缚。
• But he shows little sign of being an iconoclast.但他表现出他是一个信念很强的人。

5 latitudes   

纬度

参考例句：

• Latitudes are the lines that go from east to west. 纬线是从东到西的线。
• It was the brief Indian Summer of the high latitudes. 这是高纬度地方的那种短暂的晚秋。

6 oasis   

n.（沙漠中的）绿洲，宜人的地方

参考例句：

• They stopped for the night at an oasis.他们在沙漠中的绿洲停下来过夜。
• The town was an oasis of prosperity in a desert of poverty.该镇是贫穷荒漠中的一块繁荣的“绿洲”。