For me the most interesting thing about a solitary life，and mine has been that for the last twenty years, is that it becomes increasingly rewarding. When I can wake up and watch the sun rise over the ocean, as I do most days, and know that I have an entire day ahead, uninterrupted, in which to write a few pages, take a walk with my dog, read and listen to music，I am flooded with happiness.
I am lonely only when I am overtired, when I have worked too long without a break, when for the time being I feel empty and need filling up. And I am lonely sometimes when I come back home after a lecture trip, when I have seen a lot of people and talked a lot, and am full to the brim with experience that needs to be sorted out.
Then for a little while the house feels huge and empty，and I wonder where mv self is hiding. It has to be recaptured slowly by watering the plants and, perhaps, by looking again at each one as though it were a person.
It takas a while, as I watch the surf blowing up in fountains, but the moment comes when the world falls away, and the self emerges again from the deep unconsciousness, bring back all I have recently experienced to be explored and slowly understood.
背景及总体评析:这是ー篇关于个人生活的散文。作者，女作家梅•莎唐(May Sarton), (1912 -1995) 。选自散文The Rewards of Living a Solitary Life (《单独生活的回报》），是该篇散文的结尾部分，个别地方有删节。这类文章的理解比较容易， 关键是表达时的文采。翻译时应注意尽量“意”，可以适当发挥。
难点解析
1. is that it becomes increasingly rewardings；主语是 For me the most interesting thing about a solitary life。
2. in which to write a few pages:是 an entire day 的定语。
3. flooded with happiness:充满幸福。
4. it were a person:此后刪除了 by feeding the two cats, by cooking a meal。
5. as I watch the surf blowing up in fountains：此后刪除了 at the end of the field。
6. and slowly understood：此后删除了 when I can converse again with my hidden powers, and so grow, and so be renewed, till death do us part。
参考译文
(直译）
我在过去的二十年间一直单独生活。单独生活对于我最为有趣的事情是，它的回报越来越多。当我醒来时可以亲眼看着太阳在海洋上升起，多数情況下我都可以这么做，清楚地知道自己有一个完整的新的一天，没有任何间断地供我写上几页东西，然后，遛通狗儿，读读书，听听音乐，我就充满了幸福。
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