https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1T64y1D7dD/
Mine has been a life of much shame.
My life has been full of terrible misfortunes most of which never happened.
I can’t even guess myself what it must be to live the life of a human being. I was born in a village in the Northeast, and it wasn’t until I was quite big that I saw my first train. I climbed up and down the station bridge, quite unaware that its function was to permit people to cross from one track to another. I was convinced that the bridge had been provided to lend1 an exotic touch and to make the station premises a place of pleasant diversity, like some foreign playground. I remained under this delusion for quite a long time, and it was for me a very refined amusement indeed to climb up and down the bridge. I thought that it was one of the most elegant services provided by the railways. When later I discovered that the bridge was nothing more than a utilitarian device, l lost all interest in it. Again, when as a child I saw photographs of subway trains in picture books, it never occurred to me that they had been invented out of2 practical necessity; I could only suppose that riding3 underground instead of on the surface must be a novel4 and delightful pastime. I have been sickly ever since I was a child and have frequently been confined to bed. How often as I lay there I used to think what uninspired decorations sheets5 and pillow cases make. It wasn’t until I was about twenty that I realized that they actually served a practical purpose, and this revelation of human dullness stirred dark depression in me. Again, I have never known what it means to be hungry. I don’t mean by this statement that I was raised6 in a well-to-do family——I have no such banal intent. I mean that I have had not the remotest idea of the nature of the sensation7 of “hunger.” It sounds peculiar to say it, but I have never been aware that my stomach was empty. When as a boy I returned home from school the people at home would make a great fuss over me.” You must be hungry. We remember what it’s like, how terribly hungry you feel by the time you get home from school. How about some jelly beans? There’s cake and biscuits too.” Seeking to please, as I invariably did, I would mumble8 that I was hungry, and stuff9 a dozen jelly beans in my mouth, but what they meant by feeling hungry completely escaped me. Of course I do eat a great deal all the same, but I have almost no recollection of ever having done so out of hunger. Unusual or extravagant things tempt me, and when I go to the house of somebody else I eat almost everything put before me, even if it takes some effort. As a child the most painful part of the day was unquestionably mealtime, especially in my own home.
At my house in the country the whole family——we were about ten in number——ate together, lined up in two facing rows at table. Being the youngest child I naturally sat at the end. The dining room was dark, and the sight of the ten or more members of the household eating their lunch, or whatever the meal was, in gloomy silence was enough to send chills through me. Besides, this was an old-fashioned country household where the food was more or less prescribed, and it was useless even to hope for unusual or extravagant dishes. I dreaded mealtime more each day. I would sit there at the end of the table in the dimly lit room and, trembling all over as with the cold, I would lift a few morsels of food to my mouth and push them in. “Why must human beings eat three meals every single day? What extraordinarily solemn faces they all make as they eat! It seems to be some kind of ritual. Three times every day at the regulated hour the family gathers in this gloomy room. The places are all laid out in the proper order and, regardless of whether we’re hungry or not, we munch our food in silence, with lowered eyes. Who knows? It may be an act of prayer to propitiate whatever10 spirits may be lurking around the house…”At times I went so far as to think in such terms.
Footnotes
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to give a particular quality to a person or a situation 给…增加，增添（特色）The setting sun lent an air of melancholy to the scene. 落日给景色增添了伤感的气氛。Her presence lent the occasion a certain dignity.她的出席使那场面增添了几分光彩。 ↩
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You use out of to say what feeling or reason causes someone to do something. For example, if you do something*** out of*** pity, you do it because you pity someone. Some people have left out of embarrassment at what’s happened to them. He took up office out of a sense of duty… ↩
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to travel in a vehicle, especially as a passenger ↩
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different from anything known before; new, interesting and often seeming slightly strange 新颖的；与众不同的；珍奇的 ↩
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a large piece of thin cloth used on a bed to lie on or lie under 床单；被单 ↩
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to care for a child or young animal until it is able to take care of itself 抚养；养育；培养 ↩
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a feeling that you get when sth affects your body ↩
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to speak quietly and in a way that is not clear so that the words are difficult to understand: ↩
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to fill a space or container tightly with sth ↩
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any or every; anything or everything ↩