儒琴英语咀嚼阿兰·德波顿的《旅行的艺术》(The Art of Travel) 英语用词。阿兰·德波顿(Alain de Botton)是一位出生于瑞士的英国哲学家和作家。他写的散文式的书被称为“日常生活哲学”。他的作品涉及爱情、旅行、建筑和文学，包括小说《爱情笔记》（1993）、《爱上浪漫》（1994）、《亲吻与诉说》（1995）及散文作品《拥抱逝水年华》（1997 ）、《哲学的慰藉》（2000）、《旅行的艺术》（2002）、《写给无神论者》（2012）。他的书在30个国家畅销。
Departure : II On Travelling Places 6
出发；第2章: 旅行中的特定场所 第6节
第6节
As the car slips along a winding road through the woods at dusk, its powerful headlamps momentarily light up whole sections of meadow and tree trunks, so brightly that the texture of the bark and individual stalks of grass can be made out in a clinical white light better suited to a hospital ward than woodland, and then dip them back into the undifferentiated murkiness as the car rounds the corner and the beams turn their attention to another path of slumbering ground.
There are other cars on the road, only an occasional set of lights moving in the opposite direction, away form the night. The car’s instrument panel casts a purple glow over the darkened interior. Suddenly, in a clearing ahead, a floodlit expanse appears: a petrol station, the last but before the road heads off into the longest, densest stretch of forest and night completes its hold over the land- Gas (1940). The manager has left his cabin to check the level on a pump. It is warm inside and light as brilliant as that of the midway sun washed across the forecourt. A radio may be playing. There may be cans of oil neatly lined up against one wall, along with sweets, magazines, maps and window cloths.
Like Automat, painted thirteen years before it, Gas is a picture of isolation. A petrol station stands on its own in the impending darkness. But in Hopper’s hands, the isolation is once again made poignant and enticing. The darkness that spreads like a fog from the right of the canvas, a harbinger of fear, contrasts with the security of the station. Against the backdrop of night and wild woods, in this last outpost of humanity, a sense of kinship may be easier to develop than in daylight in the city. The coffee machine and magazines, tokens of small human desires and vanities, stand in opposition to the wide non-human world outside, to the miles of forest in which branches crack occasionally under the footfall of bears and foxes. There is something touching in the suggestion – made in bold pink on the cover of one magazine – that we paint our nails purple this summer and in the invocation above the coffee machine to sample the aroma of freshly roasted beans. In this last stop before the road enters the endless forest, it is what we have in common with others that loom larger than what separate us.
重点用词注解
slip: to move quietly and cautiously 悄悄谨慎前行
the woods, forest and woodland: 森林
undifferentiated： not divided or able to be divided into different elements, types 无法区分的; 分不开的， 一体的
Car’s instrument panel： 仪表盘（Car Dashboard）
clearing： the act or process of making or becoming clear 变得越来越清晰
poignant: adjective /ˈpɔɪ.njənt/ causing or having a very sharp feeling of sadness; painfully affecting the feelings 令人痛苦的，酸楚的；深深打动人的
harbinger: noun [ C ] /ˈhɑːr.bɪn.dʒɚ/
a person or thing that shows that something is going to happen soon, especially something bad
（尤指坏事的）先兆，预兆
kinship: a feeling of being close or similar to other people or things 亲密感；亲切感
invocation: /ˌɪn.vəˈkeɪ.ʃən/ 祈祷; (向神或权威人士的)求助
loom large: to have great importance or influence