高英 unit 1 the middle eastern bazaar
(2009-02-01 14:14:39)
标签:
高级英语bazzar课文详解杂谈 |
分类: 英语专业 |
The Middle Eastern bazaar takes you back hundreds
--- even thousands --- of years. The one I am thinking of
particularly is entered by a Gothic - arched gateway of aged brick and stone. You pass
from the heat and glare of a big, open square into a cool,
dark cavern which extends as far as the eye can see, losing
itself in the shadowy distance. Little donkeys with
harmoniously tinkling bells thread their way among the
throngs of people entering and leaving the bazaar. The
roadway is about twelve feet wide, but it is narrowed every few
yards by little stalls where goods of every
conceivable kind are sold.
应有尽有The din of the stall-holder; crying their wares, of
donkey-boys and porters clearing a way for themselves by shouting
vigorously, and of would-be purchasers arguing and
bargaining is continuous and makes you
dizzy.
Then as you penetrate deeper into the bazaar, the
noise of the entrance fades away, and you come to the
muted cloth-market. The earthen floor, beaten hard by
countless feet, deadens the sound of footsteps, and the
vaulted mud-brick walls and roof have hardly any sounds
to echo. The shop-keepers speak in slow, measured tones,
and the buyers, overwhelmed by the sepulchral atmosphere, follow suit .
One of the peculiarities of the Eastern bazaar is that shopkeepers dealing
in the same kind of goods do not scatter themselves over the
bazaar, in order to avoid competition, but collect
in下午e same area, so that purchasers can know where to
find them, and so that they can form a closely
knit guild against injustice or persecution . In the cloth-market, for instance, all the
sellers of material for clothes, curtains, chair covers and so on
line the roadway on both sides, each open-fronted shop having a
trestle trestle table for display and shelves for storage. Bargaining is
the order of the cay, and veiled women move at a
leisurely pace from shop to shop, selecting, pricing and
doing a little preliminary bargaining before they narrow down their choice
and begin the really serious business of beating the price
down.
It is a point of honour with the customer not to
let the shopkeeper guess what it is she really likes and wants
until the last moment. If he does guess correctly, he will price
the item high, and yield little in the bargaining. The seller, on
the other hand, makes a point of protesting that the price he is
charging is depriving him of all profit, and that he is sacrificing this
because of his personal regard for the customer. Bargaining can go
on the whole day, or even several days, with the customer coming
and going at intervals .