My first impressions of the skyscrapers in New York were a definite anticlimax. Like the pyramids and the Sphinx in Egypt they are over publicized and take fantastic proportion in the minds of people who have seen them. My first impressions of both are identical: .°Not bigger than that!.±But soon I was caught by the special fascination of New York, that strange city with its Mediterranean faces and its cold, efficient, Nordic soul. In no other city do the human types more remind one of Naples, Tel Aviv
Cairo. But these Mediterranean faces are without the warm, sensitive and paorssionate Mediterranean soul. The predominantly dark faces are, it were, a disguise,forthesoulbehindthemremindoneofLondonandBerlin.Thesasoul of New York is cold and indifferent, and brutally efficient, like the soul of Northern Europe. Cities like Rome or Paris or Vienna somehow seem to return one’s love but New York does not. And yet it seems to me, paradoxically, eminently lovable and sometimes painfully beautiful, like a dazzling but aloof woman.
There is other city in the world where feel more delightfully and absolutelyalnooneinNewYork,forinnoothercityaonerepecanople more indifferent toward each other. In other great cities in the world there people who are at least interestedinotherpeople’swallets,orcuriousabouteachareother for various reasons. Not so in New York, where the inhabitants not only ignore each other, but seem to look through each other, which is still a step father in the gradations of indifference. If somebody ignores you, he is still somehow ware of you, and you have at least a negative importance. But if he looks straight through you, as though you were invisible, you eventually begin to wonder if you really still cast a shadow.
（from Selected Readings in English by Gunnar D. Kumlien）
anticlimax 令人扫兴，兴趣骤降，虎头蛇尾
over publicize 过度宣传
proportion 比例，部分
identical 同一的，不变的，相似的
Mediterranean 地中海式的
Nordic 北欧日耳曼民族的
sensitive 敏感的
passionate 热情奔放的
predominantly 绝大多数地，普遍地
disguise 伪装，假装
indifferent 冷漠的，无动于衷的
brutally 残忍地，蛮横地
paradoxically 自相矛盾地，似是而非地
eminently 出众地，超凡的
dazzling 漂亮迷人的，令人眩惑的
aloof 冷淡的，清高的
absolutely 绝对地
inhabitant 居住者
gradation 等级，程序
Sphinx 狮身人面像
Naples 那不勒斯
Tel Aviv 特拉维夫
Cairo 开罗
Which is still a step farther in the gradations of indifference. 就冷漠程度而论是更进了一步。
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