Unit 4 - Lady Hermits Who Are Down But not Out
In big cities like New York, you can find homeless women with shopping bags wandering on the streets. They choose to live in an isolated, mistrustful world of their own. They are called lady hermits or just shopping-bag ladies.
Lady Hermits Who Are Down But Not Out
Every large city has its shifting population of vagrants. But in most cases these are men, usually with an unhealthy appetite for alcohol. Only New York, it seems, attracts this peculiar populace of lone and homeless women who live in an isolated, mistrustful world of their own.
Shopping-bag ladies do not drink. They do not huddle together for warmth and companionship like bums. They do not seem to like one another very much. Neither are they too keen on conventional people. Urban hermits, one sociologist has called them. They will send their days and nights in the same neighborhood for months on end, then disappear as inexplicably as they came. They know the hours when restaurants put their leftovers in the garbage cans where they search for food. And local residents, seeing the same bag lady on the same corner every day, will slip her some change as they pass.
Shopping-bag ladies do not overtly beg, but they do not refuse what is offered. Once a shopping-bag lady becomes a figure of your neighborhood, it is as hard to pass her by without giving her some money as it is to ignore the collection box in church. And although you may not like it, if she chooses your doorway as her place to sleep in the night, it is as morally hard to turn her away as it is a lost dog.
There are various categories of bag ladies: those who live on the streets, claiming they enjoy the freedom from constraints of society; those who became homeless because a relative died or because they couldn't keep up rent payments, and they didn't know where to go or how to apply for relief; and quasi bag ladies who have an anchor point —— a sister or brother whom they can visit once in a while to take a bath.
Most shopping-bag ladies seem to be between the ages of 40 and 65. They wear layers of clothes even in summer time, with newspapers stuffed between the layers as further protection against bad weather In general, the more bags the ladies carry the better organist bad weather. In general, the more bags the ladies carry the better organised they are to cope with life on the streets.
"You may think I have a lot of garbage in these bags," one shopping-bag lady volunteered over lunch in a church soup kitchen, "but it's everything I need. Extra clothes, newspapers for the cold." Shopping-bag ladies are not very communicative and take general conversation as an intrusion. But after a while, warmed by chicken soup, she began to speak.
"The place is nice," she volunteered, "people are friendly. Most New Yorkers are very cold. I have sisters in the city, but when you grow up, each goes his own way. Right?"
"I go out a lot because of my teeth. You know how it is: you pick up something in a restaurant and your teeth turn rotten, no matter how careful you are. People aren't considerate. The restaurants don't wash the glasses properly, and before you know where you are you have caught it. That's what happened to me. I don't like meeting people until I have this dental work done. So I go out to forget my troubles. I sit a little while somewhere, have something to eat at one of these places, then go wherever I have to go. I take all my things with me because you can't trust people."
The story of the dental work was a typical shopping-bag lady fantasy. Psychiatrists say that even after long interviews shopping-bag ladies are still at a loss to separate truth from imagination.
One quasi bag lady spends about eight hours every day at the foot of the main escalator in a railroad station, although she rents a room in a cheap hotel in the neighborhood. One of the priests from the nearby church found this lodging for her after he discovered that she was entitled to a small disability pension which she had never claimed. But every day from about nine to five, she still takes a milk crate and sits by the station escalator, not doing anything or talking to anyone. It's like a job to her.
No one knows how many shopping-bag ladies there are in New York. The figure is going up. Some priests, nuns and researchers spend a great deal of time shepherding or observing shopping-bag ladies and are doing what they can to better the life of the lady hermits who are down.
参考译文——潦而不倒的女隐士们
在大城市，比如纽约，你可以发现无家可归的女人拿着购物袋流浪在街头。这些女人生活在一个多疑的、与世隔绝的自己的小天地里。她们被叫做女隐士，或是购物袋女士。
潦而不倒的女隐士们
每一个大城市都有一批漂泊不定的流浪者。但他们大多是男人，通常嗜酒成癖，看来只有纽约例外，它吸引了一群奇特的无家可归的孤独女人。这些女人生活在一个多疑的与世隔绝的自己的小天地里。
携带购物袋的流浪女士们不酗酒。她们不像无业游民那样麇集为伴，互寻温暖。她们彼此之间似乎也不合不来。她们也不爱接近普通人。一位社会学家把这些人称之为都市里的隐士。她们会一连数月在同一街坊度过她们的日日夜夜，然后便像突然出现一样突然消失不见了。她们知道饭馆在什么时间将残羹剩饭倒入泔脚桶，她们就在那里寻找食物。当地的居民每天在同一个街角看到同一个流浪女士，便常在路过时悄悄地塞给她一些零钱。
流浪女士们并不公开行乞，但她们也不拒绝别人的施舍。一旦某个流浪女士成了你那街坊的常客，你就很难在走过她身边的时候不给她点钱，这就如同在教堂里走过募捐箱而不得不捐献一样。虽然你未必喜欢，但如果她选中你的门廊作为她夜间栖息之所，从道义上来讲，你就很难将她赶走，就像你很难赶走一条走失之犬一样。
有各种各样的流浪女士：有的栖身街头，声称喜欢自由自在，不受社会的约束；有的因亲属去世或因无力继续支付房租而变得无家可归，而她们又不知道到哪里或如何申请救济；也有些是流浪女士 ，她们有个落脚点——有个兄弟或姐妹，偶尔可以去他们那儿洗个澡。 大多数流浪女士的年龄介于40到65岁之间。她们穿着一层又一层的衣服，即使在夏天也是如此。衣服之间塞满报纸，遇上坏天气，可以多一点抵挡。一般来说，这些女士们带的袋袋越多，她们应付街头流浪生活的能力也越强。
你可能以为我这个袋袋里是一堆垃圾，“一位流浪女士在一个教堂的施汤处一边吃饭一边主动说道，“可这都是我所需要的东西。替换的衣服啦，御寒的报纸啦。”流浪女士们不爱多说话，常把一般的交谈当成一种侵扰，但过一会，喝了鸡汤身子暖和了，她开始讲了起来。“这个地方不错”她主动说道，“这里的人挺友好。大多数的纽约人很冷淡。我城里有姐妹，但长大成人之后，就各走各的路了。对不对？”
“我因牙齿坏了，经常出去。你知道这是怎么回事：只要你在饭馆里拣点吃的，牙齿就会被搞坏，你再当心都没有用。人家才不管你呢。饭馆也不好好洗杯子，还没有等你弄清是怎么回事儿，就挨上了。我就遇上了这种事。在我把牙齿补好之前，我不想见人。所以我就出去，试图忘掉这些倒霉事儿。我常找个地方坐一会儿，弄点吃的，然后再去那些非去不可的地方 。我把所有的东西都带在身边，因为你没法相信别人。”
所谓补牙云云，是典型的流浪女士的幻想。精神病学家们说，即使长时间交谈之后，流浪女士们仍然不能区别事实与想象。
有一个准流浪女士尽管在附近一家便宜旅馆里租有一间房间，每天却在火车站的中央自动楼梯下呆8小时。附近教堂的一位牧师发现她有权享受一份小小的残疾人津贴，而她却从未去要过。于是，他便替她找了这一住处。但是每天大约从9点至5点，她仍然带着一只装牛奶瓶的提篮，坐在车站自动楼梯旁，不做任何事，也不与任何人交谈。她就像上班一样。 谁也不知道在纽约有多少流浪女士。她们的人数正在增加。一些牧师、修女和研究人员花费大量的时间照管或观察流浪女士们，并尽其所能努力改善这些穷困的女隐士们的生活。
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