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James, however, had insisted that they put in an appearance at the Christmas party;[qh]
然而，詹姆斯坚持要他们在圣诞晚会上露面;[qh]
he was up for tenure in the spring, and appearances mattered.[qh]
今年春天，他将获得终身职位，外表很重要。[qh]
So they had asked Vivian Allen from across the street to babysit Nath and Lydia,[qh]
所以他们请了街对面的维维安·艾伦来照看纳和莉迪亚，[qh]
and Marilyn put on a peach cocktail dress and her pearls and they headed to the crepe-papered gymnasium,[qh]
玛丽琳穿上一件桃红色的晚礼服，戴上珍珠项链，他们一起去了铺着绉纸的体育馆，[qh]
where a Christmas tree had been erected on the midcourt line.[qh]
那里有一棵圣诞树竖立在球场的中线上。[qh]
Then, after the obligatory round of hellos and how-are-yous, she retreated to the corner, nursing a cup of rum punch.[qh]
接着，在例行的问候和问候之后，她退到角落里，端着一杯朗姆酒。[qh]
That was where she ran into Tom Lawson.[qh]
就是在那里，她遇到了汤姆·劳森。[qh]
Tom brought her a slice of fruitcake and introduced himself—he was a professor in the chemistry department;[qh]
汤姆给她带了一片水果蛋糕，并介绍了自己——他是化学系的教授;[qh]
he and James had worked together on the thesis committee of a double-majoring student who’d written about chemical warfare in World War I.[qh]
他和詹姆斯一起在一个双学位学生的论文委员会工作，这个学生写的是关于第一次世界大战中的化学战。[qh]
Marilyn tensed against the inevitable questions—And what do you do, Marilyn?—but instead they exchanged the usual benign civilities:[qh]
面对那些不可避免的问题，你是怎样做的呢?但他们却交换了通常的善意的礼貌:[qh]
how old the children were, how nice this year’s Christmas tree looked.[qh]
孩子们多大了，今年的圣诞树看起来多漂亮啊。[qh]
And when he began to tell her about the research he was doing—something to do with the pancreas and artificial insulin—[qh]
当他开始告诉她他正在做的研究——关于胰脏和人工胰岛素的研究——的时候[qh]
she interrupted to ask if he needed a research assistant, and he stared at her over his plate of pigs in blankets.[qh]
她打断了他，问他是否需要一个研究助理，他盯着她，手里拿着一盘盖着毯子的猪。[qh]
Marilyn, afraid of seeming unqualified, offered a flood of explanations:[qh]
玛丽琳担心自己会被认为是不合格的，于是给出了一大堆的解释:[qh]
she had been a chemistry major at Radcliffe and she’d been planning on medical school and she hadn’t quite finished her degree—yet—[qh]
她在拉德克利夫学院主修化学，一直打算去医学院，但她还没有完成学业[qh]
but now that the children were a bit older—[qh]
但是现在孩子们长大了一点[qh]
