2018年翻译资格考试初级笔译试题：邮票与母亲

　　汉译英

　　1968 年我从北京来到陕西，惟一挂念的是在故乡身患绝症的老母亲。母亲的时日已经不多，身边再无亲人，离别成为我心中最沉重的痛。惟一能传递母亲信息的就是那枚小小的邮票。 母亲当时已经双目失明，信是让别人代写的，内容千篇一律的干枯，邮票却是母亲自己摸索着贴上去的，她贴了一叠信封，随用随取，为的是不给别人添麻烦。每回接到母亲来信，我都要抚摸贴在信封右上角的邮票，那是母亲亲手贴上去的，它贴得规正却无画面感，很多时候是头朝下的，因为母亲根本看不见，她是凭感觉在贴。邮票残留着母亲的手印，承载着母亲的挂念，那上面有母亲的气息。凝视中，我常常泪眼模糊……

　　邮票是母亲的替代。我对邮票的认识源自于此。

　　参考译文：

　　When I moved from Beijing to Shaanxi in northwestern China in 1968, the only person I was concerned about was my mother, left in the hometown alone and terminally ill. Parting with her weighed overwhelmingly heavy on my mind, as her days were literally numbered but there was no family around her. The only vehicle of communication between mother and me was a tiny stamp.Back then mother lost all her sight and had to turn to ghostwriters. As such, letters from her were invariably cut and dried, but were stamped by mother herself. Blind as she was, she groped for the right corner to put a stamp on. She typically got a pile of envelopes stamped all at once simply to save trouble for her helpers.

　　Each time her letter arrived, I would routinely make a point of feeling the stamp pasted on the upper right corner of the envelope. The stamping was her job, done nice and well, but never evoked a picture, as in many cases stamps were put upside down due to her loss of sight. After all, being blind, she did all this based totally on rule of thumb. Stamps carried her fingerprints communicating motherly love and care. On that note, my eyes were often blurred with tears whenever I gazed at the stamp of each letter from her.

　　Stamps in this sense stand for mother, and that is how I started to understand the meaning of stamps.