大学英语精读4-课文-中英文对照
生日感言-笑声作文
Text Book 4
Unit 1
Text
Two
college-age boys, unaware that making money
usually involves hard work, are tempted
by an
advertisement that promises them an easy way to
earn a lot of money. The boys soon
learn that
if something seems too good to be true, it
probably is.
一个大学男孩,不清楚
赚钱需要付出艰苦的劳动,被一份许诺轻松赚大钱的广告吸引了。男孩们很快
就明白,如果事情看
起来好得不像真的,那多半确实不是真的。
BIG BUCKS THE EASY WAY
轻轻松松赚大钱
John G. Hubbell
to avoid the indignity of
having to ask for money all the time.I handed them
some magazines
in a plastic bag someone had
hung on our doorknob.
“你们该看看这个,”我向我们的两个读大
学的儿子建议道。“你们若想避免因为老是向人讨钱而有失尊
严的话,这兴许是一种办法。”我将挂
在我们门把手上的、装在一个塑料袋里的几本杂志拿给他们。
A message printed on the bag offered
leisurely, lucrative work (
of delivering more
such bags. 塑料袋上印着一条信息说,需要招聘人投递这样的袋子,这活儿既
轻松又赚钱。
(“轻轻松松赚大钱!”)
“我不在乎失不失尊严,”大儿子回答
说。
“我可以忍受,”他的弟弟附和道。
,
longer embarrasses
you.“看到你们俩伸手讨钱讨惯了一点也不感到尴尬的样子,真使我痛心,”
我说。
The boys said they would look into the
magazine-delivery thing. Pleased, I left town on a
business trip. By midnight I was comfortably
settled in a hotel room far from home. The phone
rang. It was my wife. She wanted to know how
my day had gone. 孩子们说他们可以考虑考虑投
递杂志的事。我听了很高兴,便离城
出差去了。午夜时分,我已远离家门,在一家旅馆的房间里舒舒
服服住了下来。电话铃响了,是妻子打来
的。她想知道我这一天过得可好。
“好极了!”我兴高采烈地说。“你过得
怎么样”我问道。
She snapped. super! And it's only getting
started. Another truck just pulled
up out fron
t.“棒极了!”她大声挖苦道。“真棒!而且这还仅仅是个开始。又一辆卡车刚在门前停
下。”
“又一辆卡车”?
third one this evening. The first
delivered four thousand Montgomery Wards. The
second
brought four thousand Sears, Roebucks.
I don't know what this one has, but I'm sure it
will
be four thousand of something. Since you
are responsible, I thought you might like to know
what's happening. “今晚第三辆了。第一辆运来了四千份蒙哥马利-
沃德百货公司的广告;第二辆
运来四千份西尔斯-罗伯 克百货公司的广告。我不知道这一辆装的啥,但
我肯定又是四千份什么的。
既然这事是你促成的,我想你或许想了解事情的进展。”
What
I was being blamed for, it turned out, was a
newspaper strike which made it necessary
to
hand-deliver the advertising inserts that normally
are included with the Sunday paper.
The
company had promised our boys $$600 for delivering
these inserts to 4,000 houses by Sunday
morning. 我之所以受到指责,事情原来是这样:由于发生了一起报业工人罢工,通常夹在星期
日报
纸里的广告插页,必须派人直接投送出去。公司答应给我们的孩子六百美金,任务是将这些广告插页
在星期天早晨之前投递到四千户人家去。
“不费吹灰之力!”我们上大学的大儿子
嚷道。
“六
百块!”他的弟弟应声道,“我们两个钟点就能干完!”
are
thirty-two thousand pages of advertising on our
porch. Even as we speak, two big guys
are
carrying armloads of paper up the walk. What do we
do about all this?“西尔斯和沃
德的广告通常都是报纸那么大的四页,”妻子告诉
我说,“现在我们门廊上堆着三万二千页
广告。就
在我们说话的当儿,两个大个子正各抱着一大捆广告走过来。这么多广告,我们可怎么办”。
have to
do.“你让孩子们快干,”我指示说。“他们都是大学生了。他们自己的事得由他们自己去
做。”
At noon the following day I returned to the
hotel and found an urgent message to telephone
my wife. Her voice was unnaturally high and
quavering. There had been several more truckloads
of ad inserts.
第二天中午,我回到旅馆,看到一份紧急留言,要我马上给妻子回电话。她的声音
高得很不自然,而
且有些颤抖。家里又运到了好几卡车的广告插页。
so on. Some are
whole magazine sections. We have hundreds of
thousands, maybe millions, of
pages of
advertising here! “有百货公司的,廉价商店的,杂货店的,食品店的,汽
车行的,等
等。有些像整本杂志那么厚。我们这里有数十万页,说不定是几百万页的广告!
They are crammed wall-to-wall all through the
house in stacks taller than your oldest son.
There's only enough room for people to walk
in, take one each of the eleven inserts, roll
them together, slip a rubber band around them
and slide them into a plastic bag. 我们家
整个房子 从东墙
到西墙,从南墙到北墙统统堆满了广告,一堆又一堆,比你大儿子还要高。现在只
剩下一点点空间,刚够
一个人走进去,从十一种插页中各取一份,卷在一起,套上橡皮筋,再塞进一
只塑料袋内。
We have enough plastic bags to supply every
takeout restaurant in America!
rising, as if
working its way out of the range of the human ear.
this must be delivered
by seven o'clock Sunday
morning.我们的塑料袋足够供应全美所有的外卖餐厅!”她越讲声音越响,
几乎震耳欲聋。“这
么多的广告必须在星期日早晨七 点以前统统送出去。”
to you later.
Got a lunch date.”
“嗯,你最好让孩子们尽快地捆扎装袋,等会儿我再跟你谈。
我有个午餐约会。”
When
I returned, there was another urgent call from my
wife. 我餐后回来,妻子又打来一只
紧急电话。
you have a nice
lunch?she asked sweetly. I had had a marvelous
steak, but knew better
by now than to say so.
“你午餐吃得不错吧”她用悦耳的声音问道。我吃的牛排好极了,但这次
我学乖了,还是不说为妙。
“糟透了,”我报告说。“一种
什么酸溜溜的鱼,我想大概是鳗鲡吧。”
neighborhood children to help for five
dollars each. Assembly lines have been set up. In
the language of diplomacy, there is 'movement.
'“不错嘛。你的大学生儿子已经雇了他们的弟
弟妹妹和两三个邻居的小孩帮忙,工钱一人五块,建起了
流水作业线。用外交术语来说,事情有进
精选
展。”
“这确实令人鼓舞。”
it's not,she corrected. very
discouraging. They're been as it for hours.
Plastic
bags have been filled and piled to the
ceiling, but all this hasn't made a dent, not a
dent,
in the situation! It's almost as if the
inserts keep reproducing themselves!“不,并非
如此,”她
纠正说。“相反,非常叫人泄气。他们干了好几个小时了。装好的塑料袋,一直堆到天花板,
但一切努力
收效很小。这些广告宣传品简直就像是不停地自行生产出来一样!”
thing,she
continued. college sons must learn that one does
not get the best
out of employees by
threatening them with bodily harm. “还有一件事,”她接着说,“你
那上
大学的儿子必须明白,威胁雇员,说要揍他们,是不可能使他们卖力的。”
Obtaining an audience with son NO. 1, I
snarled,
kids again! Idiot! You should be
offering a bonus of a dollar every hour to the
worker who
fills the most bags. 我跟大儿子一通上话,便咆哮道
,“你如果再威胁那些孩子,我就对你不客气
了!白痴!你应该给奖金,对装袋最多的工人每小时奖励一
块。”
“可那要减少我们的利润啦,”他提醒道。
unless those kids
enable you to make all the deliveries on time.
If they don't, you two will have to remove all
that paper by yourselves. And there will be
no
eating or sleeping until it is removed.“那些孩子不帮你按时将
所有的广告投送出去,你
就什么利润也得不到。如果他们不干,你们俩就得亲手搬走所有的广告。而在把
它们搬掉之前,你们
吃不成,也睡不成。”
There was a short,
thoughtful silence. Then he said,
change in my
personality.电话里出现了短暂的沉默,他在思考。接着,他说,“爸爸,你刚才使
我深受
启迪,令我恍然大悟。”
“那就干吧!”
“是,阁下!”
By the
following evening, there was much for my wife to
report. The bonus program had worked
until
someone demanded to see the color of cash. 到第二天傍晚,
我妻子就有许多事报告了。
奖金计划行之有效,可后来有人对能否兑现表示怀疑,提出把钱拿出来给大家
看看。
Then some activist on the work force
claimed that the workers had no business settling
for
$$5 and a few competitive bonuses while the
bosses collected hundreds of dollars each. The
organizer had declared that all the workers
were entitled to $$5 per hour! They would not
work another minute until the bosses agreed. 接
着工人队伍里的一位活动家声称,老板每人拿
几百块钱,工人们决没有理由满足于每人五块外加一点点竞
争性的奖金。劳工组织人宣布,所有工人
的工资都应该达到每小时五块钱!
在老板答应之前,他们不再干活儿,一分钟也不干。
The strike lasted less
than two hours. In mediation, the parties agreed
on $$2 per hour.
Gradually, the huge stacks
began to shrink.
罢工持续了不到两小时。通过调解,双方达成协议,
每小时两块。渐渐地,大堆的广告开始减少。
As it turned out, the job was completed three
hours before Sunday's 7 a.m. deadline. By the
time I arrived home, the boys had already
settled their accounts: $$150 in labor costs, $$40
for gasoline, and a like amount for gifts -
boxes of candy for saintly neighbors who had
volunteered station wagons and help in
delivery and dozen roses for their mother.
结果,
全部工作比最后限期星期日早晨七点提前三个小时完成。等我回到家里,孩子们已经结了账。
劳务
支出 150 元,汽油费40 元,还有 40
元买礼品——几盒糖果,送给乐于助人的邻居,他们主动开
出
自家的车帮助投递,还有一打玫瑰送给他们的母亲。
This left them with
$$185 each - about two-thirds the minimum wage for
the 91 hours they worked.
Still, it was as one
of them put it, to enable them to indignityfor
quite
a while. 除去以上开支,他们每人得到 185 元 --大约相当于
他们所干的 91 小时的最低工资的三
分之二。
虽然如此,可正如一个儿子所说,那还是“足够”他们花一阵子,使他们“避免那种有失
精选
尊严的事。”
All went well for some
weeks. Then one Saturday morning my attention was
drawn to the odd
goings-on of our two youngest
sons. They kept carrying carton after carton from
various
corners of the house out the front
door to curbside. 几个星期过去了,一切都很好。后来,
一个星期六的上午,我们
两个小儿子的奇怪举动引起了我的注意。他们不停地将一个又一个的纸箱从
房屋四处的角落里搬出,经过
前门,送到人行道边。
I assumed their mother had enlisted
them to remove junk for a trash pickup. Then I
overheard
them discussing finances.
我以为他们的妈妈在指挥他们清除破烂,好让垃圾车运走呢。正在这时,
我听到他们在议论经济问题。
“哟,我们会赚许多钱呢!”
“我们要发财啦!”
Investigation
revealed that they were offering
经
查问发现,他们正在把我们的全部图书“出售或出租”。
No!I cried.
can't sell our books!“不成!不成!”我叫道。“不能把我们的书卖了!”
“哎唷,爸,我们以为你用不着它们了呢!”
“书永远不会'用'不着的,”我尽力解
释道。
make a
little money from them. We wanted to avoid the
indignity of having to ask you for……
“你肯定用不着了。你
都看过了,再也不用了。没有错。既然不用,还不如卖点钱。我们想避免那种
有
失尊严的事,不再伸手向你要……”
Unit 2
Text
Is
there anything we can learn from deer? During the
writer of this essay was living in northern
Minnesota and was able to observe how deer survive
when winter arrives. The lessons he learns
about the way deer conserve energy turn out
applicable to our everyday life.
有什么是我们能从鹿身上学到的吗在 1973-1974 年的“能源危
机”期间,本文作者正住在明
尼苏达北部,能够观察当冬天来临时,鹿如何生存。他从鹿储存能量的
方法上得到的经验也能够运用到我
们的日常生活中。
DEER AND THE ENERGY CYCLE
鹿和能量循环
Some persons say that love makes
the world go round. Others of a less romantic and
more
practical turn of mind say that it isn't
love; it's money. But the truth is that it is
energy
that makes the world go round. 有些人说,爱情驱
使世界运转;另一些并不那么罗曼蒂克而更为
注重实际的人则说,不是爱情,而是金钱。但真实情况是,
能量驱使世界运转。
Energy is the currency of the
ecological system and life becomes possible only
when food
is converted into energy, which in
turn is used to seek more food to grow, to
reproduce and
to survive. On this cycle all
life depends. 能量是生态系统的货币,只有当食物转变为能量,
能量再用来获取更多的
食物以供生长、繁殖和生存,生命才成为可能。所有生命都维系在这一循环上。
It is
fairly well known that wild animals survive from
year to year by eating as much as
they can
during times of plenty, the summer and fall,
storing the excess, usually in the
form of
fat, and then using these reserves of fat to
survive during the hard times in winter
when
food is scarce. But it is probably less well known
that even with their stored fat,
wild animals
spend less energy to live in winter than in
summer. 差不多众所周知,野生动
物得以年复一年地生存下去,主要依靠在夏秋生长旺季尽量多
吃,通常将多余的部分以脂肪的形式储
精选
存起来,然后到了冬天食
物稀少的艰难时期,就用这些储备的脂肪来维持生命。然而,很可能鲜为人
知的是,即使有储备的脂肪,
野生动物在冬天消耗的能量比夏天要少。
A good case in point is the
whiter-tailed deer. Like most wildlife, deer
reproduce, grow,
and store fat in the summer
and fall when there is plenty of nutritious food
available. A
physically mature female deer in
good condition who has conceived in November and
given birth
to two fawns during the end of May
or first part of June, must search for food for
the necessary
energy not only to meet her
body's needs but also to produce milk for her
fawns. 一个很
好的例证是白尾鹿。与大多数野生动物一样,鹿在营养丰富、食物充足的夏秋两季
,繁殖、生长并储
存脂肪。一只成熟健壮的母鹿,在十一月份怀胎,五月底或六月初生下两只幼鹿,这时
,它必须寻找
食物以获得必要的能量,这不仅是为了满足自身的需要,而且也是为了给幼鹿生产乳汁。
The best milk production occurs at the same
time that new plant growth is available. This
is good timing, because milk production is an
energy consuming process — it requires a lot
of food. The cost can not be met unless the
region has ample food resources.产乳的最佳期
也正是植物生长茂
盛之时。这个时机选择得很好,因为乳汁生产是一个消耗能量的过程 --
它需要大
量的食物,除非该地区具有丰富的食物资源,否则无法满足这种消耗。
As the
summer progresses and the fawns grow, they become
less dependent on their mother's
milk and more
dependent on growing plants as food sources. The
adult males spend the summer
growing antlers
and getting fat. 夏季一天天过去,幼鹿日渐生长,它们变得较少依赖母鹿的乳
汁,
而更加依靠生长中的植物为其食物来源。雄性成鹿在夏天生长鹿角并养肥身体。
Both males
and females continue to eat high quality food in
the fall in order to deposit
body fat for the
winter. In the case of does and fawns, a great
deal of energy is expended
either in milk
production or in growing, and fat is not
accumulated as quickly as it is in
full grown
males. 在秋天,雄鹿和雌鹿都继续进食高质量食物,贮存体内脂肪,以备过冬。至于雌
鹿和幼鹿
,由于大量的能量用于产奶或生长,脂肪的积累速度不如完全成熟的雄鹿快。
Fat
reserves are like bank accounts to be drawn on in
the winter when food supplies are limited
and
sometimes difficult to reach because of deep snow.
脂肪储备如同银行里的存款,供冬天
食物来源不足时和有时由于雪深难以获得时,支取使用。
As fall turns into winter, other changes take
place. Fawns lose their spotted coat. Hair
on
all the deer becomes darker and thicker. The
change in the hair coats is usually complete
by September and maximum hair depths are
reached by November or December when the weather
becomes cold. 随着秋去冬来,还会发生其他变化:
幼鹿失去皮毛上的斑纹,所有鹿身上的毛长厚,
颜色变深。毛皮 的变化通常持续到 9 月。到11
月或 12 月天气变冷时,毛长得最厚。
But in addition, nature
provides a further safeguard to help deer survive
the winter -- an
internal physiological
response which lowers their metabolism, or rate of
bodily functioning,
and hence slows down their
expenditure of energy.
此外,大自然还为鹿提供进一步的保护以帮
助它们度过冬天 -- 体内生理机能作相应调节,放慢新陈
代谢,亦即生理活动的速度,从而降低能
量的消耗。
The deer become
somewhat slow and drowsy. The heart rate drops.
Animals that hibernate
practice energy
conservation to a greater extreme than deer do.
Although deer don't hibernate,
they do the
same thing with their seasonal rhythms in
metabolism. Deer spend more energy
and store
fat in the summer and fall when food is abundant,
and spend less energy and use
stored fat in
the winter when food is less available. 鹿变得有点动作迟缓、
嗜睡。它们的心
率减慢。冬眠的动物保存能量的习性胜过鹿。虽然鹿不冬眠,但他们随季节改变新陈代谢
节奏的习性
则是一样的。夏秋间,食物充裕的时候,鹿消耗较多的能量并储存脂肪。在冬天食物匮乏时,
它们则
消耗较少的能量并使用储存的脂肪。
When the
on the
edge of an area where deer spend the winter in
northern Minnesota, observing the deer
as
their behavior changed from more activity in
summer and fall to less as winter progressed,
精选
followed by an increase
again in the spring as the snow melted. 1973-1974
年间,第一次出
现“能源危机”的时候,我正与家人住在明尼苏达州北部一处鹿群过冬地方的边缘地带。
我们住在一
个小屋里,观察鹿的生活习性,观察它们是如何随着冬季来临从夏秋的活动频繁状态而变得少
动的,
而到春暖雪融时,他们的活动又是如何增多起来的。
It was
interesting and rather amusing to listen to the
advice given on the radio:
only when
necessary,we were told. on more clothes to stay
warm, and turn the thermostat
on your furnace
down.当时广播电台常告诫我们:“没有必要不开车,”“多穿衣服好保暖,并请调
低锅炉上的恒温
器。”这些话听起来既有趣又逗笑。
Meanwhile we watched the deer
reduce their activity, grow a winter coat of hair,
and reduce
their metabolism as they have for
thousands of years. It is biologically reasonable
for deer
to reduce their cost of living to
increase their chance of surviving in winter. 因为与此
同时,我们一直注视着鹿减少活动,长出越冬的厚毛,并减缓新陈代谢。几千年来,他们一贯如此。鹿减少生存所需的能耗以增加越冬生存的机会,从生物学角度来看是合情合理的。
Not
every winter is critical for deer of course. If
the winter has light snow, survival and
productivity next spring will be high. But if
deep snows come and the weather remains cold
for several weeks, then the deer must spend
more energy to move about, food will be harder
to find, and they must then depend more on
their fat reserves to pull them through. 当然,
对鹿
来讲,并非每个冬天都处于危难之中。如果冬天雪下得少,存活率和次年春天的繁殖力就高。但
如果雪积
得深,天气连续数周寒冷,鹿活动起来就得花费较多的能量,觅食会更难,这时它们就得更
多地依赖其脂
肪储备度过寒冬。
If such conditions go on for too long
some will die, and only the largest and strongest
are
likely to survive. That is a fundamental
rule of life for wild, free wandering animal such
as deer. 如果这种情况持续太久,有些鹿就要死亡,只有体型最大最壮的,才有可能存活。对
于像
鹿这样四处自由奔走的野生动物来说,这是一条根本的生存规律。
Yes, life
- and death, too - is a cycle that goes round and
round, and when animals die their
bodies
become food for other life forms to use by
converting them into energy. 的确,生
命--还有死亡--
周而复始,循环不已。当动物死亡的时候,他们的尸体转化为能量,变成食物,供其
他生命形式使用。
And the cycle continues. 如此循环,永不止息。
Unit 3
Text
Can you prove that the earth is
round? Go ahead and try! Will you rely on your
senses
or will you have to draw on the
opinions of experts?你能证明地球是圆的吗来试试看吧!你将
依靠你自己的智力
还是不得不引用专家的观点呢?
WHY DO WE BELIEVE THAT
THE EARTH IS ROUND?
我们为什么相信地球是圆的
George Orwell
Somewhere or other — I think it
is in the preface to saint Joan — Bernard Shaw
remarks
that we are more gullible and
superstitious today than we were in the Middle
Ages, and as
an example of modern credulity he
cites the widespread belief that the earth is
round. 记
得在什么地方--我想是在《圣女贞德》序言中--
肖伯纳评论说,今天我们比在中世纪时更加轻
信,
更加迷信。而作为现代轻信的例证,他举出地圆说这一广为传播的信念。
The
average man, says Shaw, can advance not a single
reason for thinking that the earth is
round.
He merely swallows this theory because there is
something about it that appeals to
the
twentieth-century mentality.
肖伯纳说,普通人举不出一条理由来说明为什么相信地球是圆
精选
的。他全盘接受这一理论,只是因为这一理论中有一种迎合20世纪心态的东西。
Now, Shaw is exaggerating, but there is
something in what he says, and the question is
worth
following up, for the sake of the light
it throws on modern knowledge. 当然,肖伯纳是夸
大其词了,但他
说的也确实有些道理,这一问题值得进一步探讨,因为它会帮助人们看清现代知识的
真实情况。
Just why do we believe that the earth is
round? I am not speaking of the few thousand
astronomers, geographers and so forth who
could give ocular proof, or have a theoretical
knowledge of the proof, but of the ordinary
newspaper-reading citizen, such as you or me.
我们究竟为什么会相信地球是圆的呢我说的不是数千位天文学家、地理学家之类的人,他们可以用观
察到
的事实或用理论上的根据来证实这一点,我指的是如同你我之辈的报纸的普通读者。
As for
the Flat Earth theory, I believe I could refute
it. If you stand by the seashore on
a clear
day, you can see the masts and funnels of
invisible ships passing along the horizon.
This phenomenon can only be explained by
assuming that the earth's surface is curved. 至
于“地平说”,我相信我能够加以驳斥。如果你在天气晴朗的日子站立海边,你可以看到船桅和烟囱
沿着
地平线移动而不见船体本身。只有假设地球表面呈曲线状,这一现象才能得到解释。
But it
does not follow that the earth is spherical.
Imagine another theory called the Oval
Earth
theory, which claims that the earth is shaped like
an egg. What can I say against it?
但不能由此推断地球是球
形的。设想另一个称做“地球卵形说”的理论吧,这一学说声称地球形如蛋
状。对此,我能说什么加以反
驳呢?
Against the Oval Earth man, the first card
I can play is the analogy of the sun and moon.
The Oval Earth man promptly answers that I
don't know, by my own observation, that those
bodies are spherical. 面对“地球卵形说”者,我能打的第一张牌是,可以根
据太阳和月亮来类推。
“地球卵形说”者立即回敬道,我无法根据自己的观察得知那些天体是球形的。
I only know that they are round, and they may
perfectly well be flat discs. I have no answer
to that one. Besides, he goes on, what reason
have I for thinking that the earth must be
the
same shape as the sun and moon? I can't answer
that one either.我只能得知他们是圆的,
而它们完全可能呈扁平的圆盘状。我对此无
言以答。此外,他还会说,我凭什么理由认为地球一定与
太阳和月亮的形状相同对此,我同样无法解答。
My second card is the earth's shadow: When
cast on the moon during eclipses, it appears to
be the shadow of a round object. But how do I
know, demands the Oval Earth man, that eclipses
of the moon are caused by the shadow of the
earth? 我的第二张牌是地球的影子: 月食期间,
地球投在月亮上的影子看上去呈圆形物体状。
但“地球卵形说”者马上要问,我怎么知道月食是由地
球的影子造成的呢?
The
answer is that I don't know, but have taken this
piece of information blindly from
newspaper
articles and science booklets.
回答是,我并不知道,我只是照搬报刊文章和科普小
册子上的说法而已。
Defeated
in the minor exchanges, I now play my queen of
trumps: the opinion of the experts.
The
Astronomer Royal, who ought to know, tells me that
the earth is round. 小小交锋受挫,
于是我打出一张王牌“Q”:
专家的看法。英国格林威治皇家天文台台长总该是权威了,他告诉我说
地球是圆的。
The
Oval Earth man covers the queen with his king.
Have I tested the Astronomer Royal's
statement, and would I even know a way of
testing it? “地球卵形说”者用他的“K”牌压倒
我的“Q”牌。天文台台长的话我检验
过没有再说,我知道怎么个检验法吗?
Here I bring out my ace.
Yes, I do know one test. The astronomers can
foretell eclipses,
and this suggests that
their opinions about the solar system are pretty
sound. I am, to my
delight, justified in
accepting their say-so about the shape of the
earth. 这时候,我打
出我的“爱司”。是的,我确实知道一个检验方法。天文学家能预报月食,
这一点表明他们关于太阳
系的看法是非常可信的。因此,令我高兴的是,我接受他们关于地球形状的论断
是有道理的。
精选
If the Oval Earth man
answers — what I believe is true — that the
ancient Egyptians, who
thought the sun goes
round the earth, could also predict eclipses, then
bang goes my ace.
如果“地球卵形说”者反驳道--我以为他反驳得有理--
认为太阳绕地球转的古代埃及人也能预言月食,
那我的“爱司”牌便立刻化为乌有。
I
have only one card left: navigation. People can
sail ship round the world, and reach the
places they aim at, by calculations which
assume that the earth is spherical. I believe that
finishes the Oval Earth man, though even then
he may possibly have some kind of
counter.
我只剩下一张牌: 航海。人们可以扬帆绕地球航行而到达他们的目的地,其航程的计
算,就是以地球
是球形的假定为依据的。我相信这一下可以彻底击败“地球卵形说”者了。不过即便如此
,他还可能
有某种回击的办法。
It will be seen that my
reasons for thinking that the earth is round are
rather precarious
ones. Yet this is an
exceptionally elementary piece of information.
由此可见,我认为地球
是圆的,其根据是相当不牢靠的。然而这却是一点极其基本的知识。
On most other questions I should have to fall
back on the expert much earlier, and would
be
less able to test his pronouncements. And much the
greater part of our knowledge is at
this
level. 在别的大多数问题上,我只得更早地依赖专家的理论,且更少有办法检验他的结论了。
我
们的知识,其绝大部分都停留在这一水平上。
It does not rest on
reasoning or on experiment, but on authority. And
how can it be otherwise,
when the range of
knowledge is so vast that the expert himself is an
ignoramus as soon as
he strays away from his
own specialty? 它不是依靠推理或实验,而是依赖权威。可是,不这样,
又有什么别的
法子呢知识的范围如此广博,一旦越出其专业范围,专家也会变成一无所知。
Most
people, if asked to prove that the earth is round,
would not even bother to produce
the rather
weak arguments I have outlined above. They would
start off by saying that
knows对大多数人来说,
如果要他
们证明地球是圆的话,就连我上面概述的这些相当无力的论据,他们也不愿提供出来。他们
一开始就会说
: 谁都知道地球是圆的。要是再加追问,就会生气了。
In a way Shaw is
right. This is a credulous age, and the burden of
knowledge which we now
have to carry is partly
responsible. 在某种程度上讲,肖伯纳是说对了,如今是一个轻信的时
代。究其缘由,部
分在于,我们现今必须掌握的知识实在太多了。
Unit 4
Text
Jim
Thorpe, an American Indian, is generally accepted
as the greatest all-round athlete of
the first
half of the 20th century. Yet the man, who brought
glory to his nation, had a
heartbreaking life.
What caused his sadness and poverty? Jim Thorpe,
一个美国印地安人,
在前半个20世纪里,被认为是最伟大的万能运动员。就是那个人,给他的国家带来
了荣耀。但是却
有一个极为悲伤的生活。是什么导致了他的悲伤和贫穷?
JIM
THORPE
吉姆·索普照
Steve Gelman
The railroad station was jammed.
Students from Lafayette College were crowding onto
the train
platform eagerly awaiting the
arrival of the Carlisle Indian school's track and
field squad.
火车站挤得水泄不通。拉斐德学院的学生们一齐拥上月台,热切地等待着卡
莱尔印第安人学校田径队
的到来。
No one would have believed
it a few months earlier. A school that nobody had
heard of was
suddenly beating big, famous
colleges in track meets. Surely these Carlisle
athletes would
精选
come charging
off the train, one after another, like a Marine
battalion. 倘若在几个月前,
准无人会相信,一个谁也没听说过的学校,会在田径场上突然
大败许多有名的大学。不用说,这些卡
莱尔的运动员抵达后,一个接着一个冲下火车,准会像一营海军陆
战队那样。
The train finally arrived and two young
men -- one big and broad, the other small and
slight
-- stepped onto the platform.
火车终于到站,两位年轻人--一位,大个儿,体格魁梧,另一位,
小个儿,长相瘦弱--踏上了月台。
“田径队在哪儿?”一位拉斐德的学生
问道。
“就在这儿。”大个子回答道。
“就你们两个?”
“不,就我一个,”
大个子说。 “这位小兄弟是领队。”
The Lafayette students shook their heads in
wonder. Somebody must be playing a joke on them.
If this big fellow was the whole Carlisle
track team, he would be competing against an
entire
Lafayette squad. 拉斐德的学生们诧异地摇摇头。一定有人在开他们
的玩笑。如果卡莱尔田径队就
只有大个子一人,那他就得与整个拉斐德田径队比试高低了。
He did. He ran sprints, he ran hurdles, he ran
distance races. He high-jumped, he broad-jumped.
He threw the javelin and the shot. Finishing
first in eight events, the big fellow beat the
whole Lafayette team. 确实如此。他短跑,他跨栏,他长跑,他跳高,他跳远
。他又投标枪又掷铅
球。大个子赢得八项第一,一个人击败了整个拉斐德田径队。
The
big fellow was Jim Thorpe, the greatest American
athlete of modern times. He was born
on May
28,1888, in a two-room farmhouse near Prague,
Oklahoma. His parents were members of
the Sac
and Fox Indian tribe and he was a direct
descendant of the famous warrior chief,
Black
Hawk. 这位大个子就是吉姆·索普,现代美国最伟大的运动员。他于1888年5月28日出生在
俄克拉荷马布拉格附近一个只有两间房的农舍里。他的父母亲是印第安人,袋与狐部落的成员,他是
著名
的武士首领黑隼的嫡系后裔。
As a Sac and Fox, Jim had the
colorful Indian name Wa-Tho-Huck. Which,
translated, means
Bright Path. But being born
an Indian, his path was not so bright. Although he
had the
opportunity to hunt and fish with
great Indian outdoorsmen, he was denied
opportunity in
other ways. 作为袋与狐部落的成员,吉姆有一个动听的
印第安名字:瓦·索·哈克,翻译出来,意
为“光明之路”。但由于生来是一个印第安人,他的道路并不
那么光明。虽然他有机会与熟谙野外生
活的印第安人一起捕鱼、守猎,但其它方面的机会全给剥夺了。
The United States government controlled the
lives of American Indians and, unlike other
people, Indians did not automatically become
citizens. It was almost impossible for an Indian
to gain even a fair education and extremely
difficult, as a result, for an Indian to rise
high in life. 当时,美国政府控制了全美印第安人的生活,而且,与其他民族不同,印
第安人不能
自动获得公民资格。印第安人甚至连受起码的教育的机会也极少,因而,要想出人头地是难而
又难。
Young Bright Path seemed destined to spend
his life in the Oklahoma farmland. But when he
was in his teens, the government gave him the
chance to attend the Carlisle Indian School
in
Pennsylvania. 年轻的“光明之路”似乎注定要在俄克拉荷马的农田里度过一生。但在他十几岁<
br>的时候,政府给了他一个机会去宾夕法尼亚的卡莱尔印第安人学校就读。
Soon
Carlisle was racing along its own bright path to
athletic prominence. In whatever sport
Jim
Thorpe played, he excelled, He was a star in
baseball, track and field, wrestling,
lacrosse, basketball and football. 不久,卡莱尔学校沿着自
己的光明之路冲上了体育运动的高
峰。不管吉姆·索普参加哪项运动,他都表现得很出色。他是棒球明星
、田径明星、摔跤明星、长曲
棍球明星、篮球明星和橄榄球明星。
He was so
good in football, in fact, that most other small
schools refused to play Carlisle.
The Indian
school's football schedule soon listed such major
powers of the early twentieth
精选
century as Pittsburgh, Harvard,
Pennsylvania, Penn State and Army. 事实上,他的橄榄球打
得
十分出色,以至于大多数其它规模较小的学校都不肯与卡莱尔比赛。不久,这个印第安学校的橄榄
球比赛
日程上,列出的都是些20世纪初的主要强队,例如匹兹堡队、例如匹兹堡队,哈佛队,宾州
队及陆军队
等。
Thorpe was a halfback. He was six feet one
inch tall, weighed 185 pounds and had incredible
speed and power.
索普打前卫。他身高6.1英尺,体重185磅,速度奇快,力量惊人。
He built upon
these natural gifts daily. He would watch a coach
or player demonstrate a
difficult maneuver,
then he would try it himself. Inevitably, he would
master the maneuver
within minutes. 在天赋的基础上,他坚
持训练,技艺与日俱增。他仔细观察教练或运动员示范难度
大的动作,然后自己试着练。往往只消几分钟
,他就学会了。
During every game, opponents piled on
Thorpe, trampled him, kicked him and punched him,
trying
to put him out of action. They were
never successful. Years later someone asked him if
he
had ever been hurt on the field.
footba
ll?每次比赛,对方的球员们常一块儿压在索普的身上,踩他,踢他,用拳头猛击他,试图
使他丧失比
赛能力。但他们的企图从未得逞。数年之后,有人问他在球场上受过伤没有。 “受伤?”
索普回答说,
“打橄榄球怎么会受伤呢?”
But Jim never played his best
when he felt he would have to no fun playing.
of playing in the rain?he once said. And his
Carlisle coach, Pop Warner, once said,
no
doubt that Jim had more talent than anybody who
ever played football, but you could never
tell
when he felt like giving his best.但是每当吉姆感到打球没趣的时候,
他就打不出他的
水平。有一次他曾说:“下着雨打球有啥意思?”他的卡莱尔教练波伯·沃纳也曾说过:
“毫无疑问,
吉姆是迄今最有天赋的橄榄球运动员,但你永远无法弄清什么时候他想拿出最好的一手来。
”然而,
橄榄球,没有为索普带来最美好的时刻。
Football, though,
did not provide Thorpe with his finest hour. He
was selected for the United
States Olympic
track team in 1912, and went to Sweden with the
team for the Games. On the
ship, while the
other athletes limbered up, Thorpe slept in his
bunk. In Sweden, while other
athletes trained,
Thorpe relaxed in a hammock. He never strained
when he didn't feel it
necessary. 1912年,他被选入美国
奥林匹克田径代表队,随队去瑞典参加运动会。在船上,别的运
动员都在活动身体,索普却在床上睡大觉
。到了瑞典,别的运动员在训练,索普却躺在吊床上休息。
不到必要的时候,他从来不肯使劲。
Thorpe came out of his hammock when the Games
began, to take part in the two most demanding
Olympic events.
运动会开始了,索普这才从吊床上下来,参加奥林匹克运动会对体力和技术要求最
高的两项比赛。
He entered the pentathlon competition, a test
of skill in five events: 200-meter run,
1500-meter run, broad jump, discus and
javelin;
他参加5项全能比赛,这是对个项目技能的考
验:200米跑、1500米跑、跳远、铁饼和标枪。
and the decathlon competition, a series of ten
events: 100-meter run, 400-meter run,
1500-meter run, high hurdles, broad jump, high
jump, pole vault, discus, javelin and shot
put. 他还参加10项全能比赛,这10项系列竞赛是“100米跑、400米跑、1500米跑、
高栏、跳远、
跳高、撑杆跳、铁饼、标枪和铅球。
Though most
athletes were utterly exhausted by the decathlon
alone, Thorpe breezed through
both events, his
dark hair flopping, his smile flashing, his
muscled body gliding along the
track. He
finished first in both the pentathlon and
decathlon, one of the great feats in
Olympic h
istory.大多数运动员参加10项全能这一项就精疲力尽了,而索普却轻松自如地赛完两项。
他一
头黑发扑颠着,脸上闪烁着微笑,那肌肉强健的身体沿着跑道轻捷地飞奔着。在5项和10项两
个全能项
目比赛中,他都名列第一,这是奥林匹克运动史上伟大的业绩之一。
瑞典国王古斯塔夫五世在把两块金牌授给索普的时候
精选
说:“先生,” “你是世界上最伟大的运动员。”
And William
Howard Taft, the President of the United States,
said, Thorpe is the highest
type of
citizen.美国总统威廉·霍华德·塔夫脱也说:“吉姆·索普是公民的最高典范。”
King
Gustav V was correct, but President Taft was not.
Though Jim Thorpe had brought great
glory to
his nation, though thousands of people cheered him
upon his return to the United
States and
attended banquets and a New York parade in his
honor, he was not a citizen. 古
斯塔夫五世国王讲对了,但塔夫脱总
统却没有说对。尽管吉姆·索普为他的国家赢得了伟大的荣誉,
尽管他回到美国时,数千人前去热烈欢迎
他并参加了为他举行的宴会和纽约的游行,而他却不是一个
美国公民。
He did
not become one until 1916. Even then, it took a
special government ruling because
he was an
Indian. 直到1916年,他才取得公民资格。而且,那还是经过政府特别裁决才授予他的,
因
为他是一个印第安人。
Jim Thorpe was a hero after the
Olympics and a sad, bewildered man not too much
later. Someone
discovered that two years
before the Olympics he had been paid a few dollars
to play
semiprofessional baseball. 奥林匹克运动会后,吉姆
·索普成了英雄,但没过多久,他就成了一
个悲伤、迷惘的人。原来,有人发现,奥林匹克运动会前两年
,他曾经为了几块钱参加过半职业性的
棒球比赛。
Though many amateur
athletes had played for pay under false names,
Thorpe had used his own
name.
许多业余运动员使用假名参赛赚钱,而索普却用自己的真名。
As a result, he
was not technically an amateur when he competed at
Stockholm as all Olympic
athletes must be. His
Olympic medals and trophies were taken away from
him and given to the
runners-up. 如果,从技术上来讲,他在斯
德哥尔摩参赛时,已不是一名业余运动员了,而根据规定,
所有奥林匹克运动员必须是业余选手。于是,
他的奥林匹克奖章和奖品被收了回去,给了第二名的获
得者。
After this
heartbreaking experience, Thorpe turned to
professional sports. He played major
league
baseball for six years and did fairly well.
在这次令人心碎的经历之后,索普转向职
业运动。他为主要的棒球联赛协会打了六年球,成绩还不错。
Then he played professional football for six
years with spectacular success.
接着,他加
入职业橄榄球队,参赛六年,成绩斐然。
His last
professional football season was in 1926. After
that, his youthful indifference
to studies and
his unwillingness to think of a nonsports career
caught up with him. He had
trouble finding a
job, and his friends deserted him. 1926年,他结束了职业橄榄球
员生涯。
到这时候,年轻时,他对学业漫不经心,加之,他一直也不愿考虑运动员以外的职业。这一切终
于给
他带来了不幸。他找不到工作,朋友们也抛弃了他。
He periodically
asked for, but never was given back, his Olympic
prizes. From 1926 until
his death in 1953, he
lived a poor, lonely, unhappy life. 他不时地要求,发还给他,但最
终
也未能要回他的奥林匹克奖牌。从1926年直到1953年世,他过着贫穷、寂寞、不幸的生活。
But in 1950 the Associated Press held a poll
to determine the outstanding athlete of the
half-century. Despite his loss of the Olympic
gold medals and a sad decline in fortune during
his later years, Thorpe was almost unanimously
chosen the greatest athlete of modern times.
1
950年,美联社举行民意测验以确定半个世纪中最杰出的运动员。尽管索普失去了奥林匹克金牌,
晚年
境遇凄楚,人们依然几乎一致地推选他为现代最伟大的运动员。
Unit 5
Text
Is it ever proper for a medical doctor to
lie to his patient? Should he tell a patient
精选
he is dying? These questions
seem simple enough, but it is not so simple to
give a satisfactory
answer to them. Now a new
light is shed on them.医生可以对病人撒谎吗医生应该告诉病人他已
经病入膏
肓了吗这些问题看起来很简单,但是要给出令人满意的回答却并不那么简单。这里给了他们
一线光明。
TO LIE OR NOT TOLIE -- THE DOCTOR'S
DILEMMA
撒谎还是不撒谎--医生的难题
Sissela Bok
Should doctors ever lie to benefit
their patients -- to speed recovery or to conceal
the
approach of death? 为了对病人有好处--
为了加快病人康复或不让病人知道死亡的来临--医生到底
该不该撒谎。
In
medicine as in law, government, and other lines of
work, the requirements of honesty often
seem
dwarfed by greater needs: the need to shelter from
brutal news or to uphold a promise
of secrecy;
to expose corruption or to promote the public
interest. 医疗行业与法律、政府
及其他行业一样,往往显得对诚实与否的问题不那么看重,
要紧的倒是另外的一些事情,譬如,应设
法避免可怕的消息造成的打击,或是应考虑恪守保密的诺言,或
是需要揭露腐败行为或促进公众利益
等。
What should doctors
say, for example, to a 46-year-old man coming in
for a routine physical
checkup just before
going on vacation with his family who, though he
feels in perfect health,
is found to have a
form of cancer that will cause him to die within
six months? 举例说吧。
一个46岁的男子,在与家人外出度假之前进行常规体格检查,虽
然他自我感觉良好,但医生发现他
患了某种癌症,6个月内就会死去。
Is it best
to tell him the truth? If he asks, should the
doctors deny that he is ill, or
minimize the
gravity of the illness? Should they at least
conceal the truth until after the
family
vacation? 这时,医生该怎么对他讲呢是不是最好对他讲实话要是他问起检查结果,医生该
不
该否认他得了病该不该将病情的严重性缩小到最低限度该不该将真情至少隐瞒到他全家度假之
后?
Doctors confront such choices often and
urgently. At times, they see important reasons to
lie for the patient's own sake; in their eyes,
such lies differ sharply from self-serving
ones. 医生们常常面临这样的非常紧迫的选择。他们不时认为,为了病人自身的利益,撒谎很有必
要,
在他们看来,这种谎言与利己的谎言截然不同。
Studies show that
most doctors sincerely believe that the seriously
ill do not want to know
the truth about their
condition, and that informing them risks
destroying their hope, so
that they may
recover more slowly, or deteriorate faster,
perhaps even commit suicide.
研
究结果表明,大多数医生深信身患重病的人不想知道他们的真实病情,如果将真情相告,则有可能
使
他们完全失去希望,结果使他们恢复得更慢或恶化得更快,甚至会自寻短见。
As one
physician wrote: is a profession which
traditionally has been guided by a precept
that transcends the virtue of uttering the
truth for truth's sake, and that is 'as far as
possible do no
harm.'正如一位内科医生写道:“我们这个职业,传统上恪守一条信条,那就是
'
尽可能不造成伤害',这一信条胜过为讲真话而讲真话的美德”。
Armed with
such a precept, a number of doctors may slip into
deceptive practices that they
assume will
placebos, sound more encouraging than the
facts warrant, and distort grave news, especially
to the incurably ill and the dying. 有了这样一个指导原则
,一些医生可能渐渐习惯于采用他们
认为对病人很可能有益而“无害”的骗人做法。他们可能开出无数帖
安慰剂,说一些没有事实根据的
打气的话,并歪曲严重的病情,对那些患有不治之症和濒临死亡的病人,
则尤其如此。
But the illusory nature of the benefits
such deception is meant to produce is now coming
to be documented.
然而,现在开始有人提出证据,说明这种欺骗旨在给病人带来好处的说法是虚幻
的。
精选
Studies show that, contrary
to the belief of many physicians, an overwhelming
majority of
patients do want to be told the
truth, even about grave illness, and feel betrayed
when they
learn that they have been misled. 研究
结果表明,与许多医生的想法相反,绝大多数病人确实想
知道真实情况,甚至是严重的病情。当他们了解
到医生没有对他们讲真话的时候,他们感到自己被玩
弄了。
We are also
learning that truthful information, humanely
conveyed, helps patients cope with
illness:
helps them tolerate pain better, need less
medicine, and even recover faster after
surgery. 我们还获悉,将真实情况妥当地告诉病人,能帮助他们与病魔作斗争,有助于他们更
好地
忍受疼痛,减少用药,甚至在手术后更快地康复。
Not only do lies
not provide the hoped for by advocates of
benevolent deception; they
invade the autonomy
of patients and render them unable to make
informed choices concerning
their own health,
including the choice of whether to be patient in
the first place. 谎言
不仅不能提供鼓吹“仁慈”欺骗的人们所希望的那种“帮助”
,它还侵犯了病人的个人自由,使他们
不能对有关自己健康的问题作出明达的选择,包括要不要就医这一
首要的选择。
We are becoming increasingly aware of
all that can befall patients in the course of
their
illness when information is denied or
distorted. 我们越来越意识到,病人发病期间,在不知
病情或未被如实地告知病情的情况下
,他们会遭到什么样的不幸。
Dying patients especially -- who
are easies to mislead and most often kept in the
dark --
can then not make decisions about the
end of life: about whether or not they should
enter
a hospital, or have surgery; about where
and with whom they should spend their remaining
time; about how they should bring their
affairs to a close and take leave.特别是濒临死亡
的病人--
他们最易受骗也最会被人蒙在鼓里--因此而不能作出临终前的种种有关抉择: 是否要住进
医院,或进
行手术,在何处与何人度过所剩下的一点时间,以及如何处理完自己的事务而后与世长辞。
Lies
also do harm to those who tell them: harm to their
integrity and, in the long run, to
their
credibility. Lies hurt their colleagues as well.
谎言也伤害说谎的人,损害他们的诚
实,并最终损害他们的信誉。谎言还伤害他们的同事。由于病人
怀疑有欺骗行为,许多对病人十分
开诚布公的医生的工作也因此受到影响。
The
suspicion of deceit undercuts the work of the many
doctors who are scrupulously honest
with their
patients; it contributes to the spiral of lawsuits
and of
and thus it injures, in turn, the
entire medical profession. 病人的不信任使医疗诉讼案增
多,造成医生
避免风险的“防御性诊治”增多,而这些又进而有损于整个医疗事业。
Sharp
conflicts are now arising. Patients are learning
to press for answers. 剧烈的冲突
正在出现。病人开始学会催问真实情况。
Patients' bills of rights require that they be
informed about their condition and about
alternatives for treatment.
根据病人应享有的权利的规定,医生应将病情和可供选择的治疗方案
通告病人。
Many
doctors go to great lengths to provide such
information. Yet even in hospitals with
the
most eloquent bill of rights, believers in
benevolent deception continue their age-old
practices. 许多医生尽可能向病人提供这些情况。然而,即使在对病人的权益考虑得最周到
的医院
里,信奉“仁慈”欺骗的医生们继续他们传统的古老做法。
Colleagues
may disapprove but refrain from objecting. Nurses
may bitterly resent having to
take part, day
after day, in deceiving patients, but feel
powerless to take a stand. 同
事们也许不赞同,但避免公开表示反对。
护士们对不得不日复一日地参与欺骗病人的做法也许深恶痛
绝,但要抵制却感到无能为力。
There is urgent need to debate this issue
openly. Not only in medicine, but in other
professions as well, practitioners may find
themselves repeatedly in difficulty where
serious consequences seem avoidable only
through deception. 及时对这个问题进行公开辩论非
常必要。不仅在医疗业,而且
在其他行业,从业者不断发现,自己常处于似乎不采用欺骗手段就无法
精选
避免严重后果的困难处境。
Yet the public has
every reason to be wary of professional deception,
for such practices
are peculiarly likely to
become deeply rooted, to spread, and to erode
trust. Neither in
medicine, nor in law,
government, or the social sciences can there be
comfort in the old
saying, 但是公众完全有理由对职业性欺骗保持警惕
,因
为这种做法特别容易变得根深蒂固,蔓延滋长,并损害信任。无论医疗界、法律界、政府机构还是社
会科学界,都不应从“不知者,不为所害”这句老话中得到丝毫慰藉。
Unit 6
Text
ever mark in a
book!Thousands of teachers, librarians and parents
have so advised.
But Mortimer Adler disagrees.
He thinks so long as you own the book and needn't
preserve
its physical appearance, marking it
properly will grant you the ownership of the book
in
the true sense of the word and make it a
part of yourself.
“不要在书上做记号!”无数教师、图书管理员和家长都曾这样建议。但是莫蒂默• 艾德勒并不同意。
他认为只要你拥有这本书而且不需要保护它的外观,做记号将会让你真正意义上拥有这本书并且使它成为你的一部分。怎样在书上做记号
HOW TO MARK A
BOOK
Mortimer J.
Adler
You know you have to read
persuade
you to do something equally important in the
course of your reading. I want to
persuade you
to
efficient kind of reading. 你知道读书要“深入字里行间”,以
求最充分的理解。我劝你在读书过
程中做一件同样重要的事情。我想劝你“在字里行间写字”。不这样做
,你的读书就不可能是最有效
的。
You shouldn't mark up a
book which isn't yours. Librarians (or your
friends) who lend you
books expect you to keep
them clean, and you should. If you decide that I
am right about
the usefulness of marking
books, you will have to buy
them.你不应该在不是你自己的书上做
记号。借给你书的图书管理员 (或你的朋友) 希望你保持
书的整洁,再说你也应该这样做。如果你认
为我说的在书上做记号颇有益处这番话是对的话,你就得自己
买书。
There are two ways in which one can own a
book. The first is the property right you
establish
by paying for it, just as you pay
for clothes and furniture.
一个人拥有书的方法有两种,
第一种是花钱取得财产所有权,就像你花钱买衣服和家具一样。
But this act of purchase is only the prelude
to possession. Full ownership comes only when
you have made it a part of yourself, and the
best way to make yourself a part of it is by
writing in it. 但花钱买书只是占有它的前奏。只有在你将它化为你自己的一部分之后
,你才完全
占有了它。而把你自己变为书的一部分的最好方法就是在书中写字。
An
illustration may make the point clear. You buy a
beefsteak and transfer it from the
butcher's
icebox to your own. But you do not own the
beefsteak in the most important sense
until
you consume it and get it into your bloodstream. I
am arguing that books, too, must
be absorbed
in your bloodstream to do you any good. 打个比方也许可以把这
一点说清楚。你买
下一块牛排,把它从肉铺的冰箱里转移到你的冰箱中。但从最重要的意义上来说,你还
没有占有它,
除非你吃下它并将它吸收进你的血液之中。我的论点是,书的营养也只有在被吸收进你的血
液中时,
才能对你有所裨益。
精选
There are three kinds of book owners. The
first has all the standard sets and best-sellers
-- unread, untouched. (This individual owns
wood-pulp and ink, not books.)
书籍拥有者可
以分为三种。第一种人藏有全部标准的成套书和畅销书--
既没有读过,也没有碰过。(这位占有的只
是纸浆和油墨,而不是书。)
The
second has a great many books -- a few of them
read through, most of them dipped into,
but
all of them as clean and shiny as the day they
were bought. (This person would probably
like
to make books his own, but is restrained by a
false respect for their physical appearance.)
第二种人藏书很多--有几本从头至尾读过,大部分浅尝辄止,但全都跟新买时一样整洁光亮。(此君<
br>很可能想使书真的为其所有,但因错误地过分关注书籍的外观而裹足不前。)
The
third has a few books or many -- every one of them
dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken
and loosened
by continual use, marked and scribbled in from
front to back. (This man owns
books.)
第三种人藏书或多或少--因不断使用,每本书都弄成书角卷起,破旧不堪,装订破损,书页
松散,全书
从扉页至末页画满了记号,涂满了字句。(此人是书的真正拥有者。)
Is it false
respect, you may ask, to preserve intact a
beautifully printed book, an elegantly
bound
edition? Of course not. I'd no more scribble all
over a first edition of
Lost
a painting or
a statue. 你或许会问,将一本印刷精美、装帧雅致的书保存完好,难道也是不恰当
的吗当然
不是。我决不会在一本初版的《失乐园》上乱涂乱写,就像我不会把一幅伦勃朗的原作连同
一盒蜡笔交给
我的婴孩任意涂抹一样! 我决不会在一幅油画或一尊塑像上画记号。
Its soul, so
to speak, is inseparable from its body. And the
beauty of a rare edition or
of a richly
manufactured volume is like that of painting or a
statue. If your respect for
magnificent
binding or printing gets in the way, buy yourself
a cheap edition and pay your
respects to the
author. 可以说,它们的灵魂与其躯体是不可分开的。一部珍本或一本装帧华美的
书的美,同一
幅油画或一尊塑像的美是一样的。如果你对华美的装帧或印刷的尊重妨碍你读书,那就
买一种便宜的版本
,将你的敬意献给作者。
Why is marking up a book
indispensable to reading? First, it keeps you
awake. (And I don't
mean merely conscious; I
mean wide awake.)
为什么在书上做记号对阅读是必不可少的呢?首先,
它会使你保持清醒。(我不是仅仅指它让你神
志清醒;我的意思是它能使你全神贯注。)
In the second place,
reading, if it is active, is thinking, and
thinking tends to express
itself in words,
spoken or written. The marked book is usually the
thought-through book.
其次,如果阅读是一种能动的行为,那么它就是思考,
而思考常常需借助口头的或书面的语言来表达。
作了记号的书,通常是读者认真思考过的书。
Finally, writing helps you remember the
thoughts you had, or the thoughts the author
expressed.
Let me develop these three points.
最后,写可以帮助你记住你阅读时的思想,或作者所表达的
思想。让我进一步就这三点谈一谈。
If reading is to accomplish anything
more than passing time, it must be active. you
can't
let your eyes glide across the lines of
a book and come up with an understanding of what
you have read. 如果阅读的目的不仅仅是消磨时间,那就应该是一种积极的思维活动。
仅仅让你的
眼睛在书上扫视一遍,你就不可能对所读的内容有所理解。
Now an
ordinary piece of light fiction, like, say,
the most active kind of reading.
当然,一部普通的消遣小说,譬如说《飘》,并不需要那种最积
极的思维式的阅读。
The
books you read for pleasure can be read in a state
of relaxation, and nothing is lost.
精选
But a great book, rich in ideas and
beauty, a book that raises and tries to answer
great
fundamental questions, demands the most
active reading of which you are capable. 作为消
遣的
书,可以轻松地读而不会有所失。但一本思想丰富、文字华美,试图提出带根本性的重大问题并
加以回答
的伟大著作,则要求你尽可能地进行最积极的阅读。
You don't absorb the
ideas of John Dewey the way you absorb the
crooning of Mr. Vallee. You
have to reach for
them. That you cannot do while you're asleep.
你不能像欣赏瓦利先生的低
声吟唱那样,学到约翰•
杜威的思想。你得花费气力方可获得。漫不经心是做不到这一点的。
If, when
you've finished reading a book, the pages are
filled with your notes, you know that
you read
actively.
如果当你读完一本书的时候,书页上写满了你的批注,你就知道你的阅读是积
极的了。
The
most famous active reader of great books I know is
President Hutchins, of the University
of
Chicago. He also has the hardest schedule of
business activities of any man I know. 我
所知道的最有
名的采用积极方式阅读伟大著作的人,是芝加哥大学的校长哈钦斯。他也是我所知道的
公务最繁忙的人。
He invariably read with pencil, and sometimes,
when he picks up a book and pencil in the
evening, he finds himself, instead of making
intelligent notes, drawing what he calls caviar
factorieson the margins. When that happens, he
puts the book down. He knows he's too tired
to
read, and he's just wasting time.他读书时总是拿着铅笔。有时,当他在
晚上拿起书和铅笔的
时候,发觉自己不是在做有意义的笔记,而是在页边空白处画些他称之为“鱼子酱工
厂”的东西,一
出现这种情况,他就放下书本。他知道自己太累,读不下去了,完全是在浪费时间。
But, you may ask, why is writing necessary?
Well, the physical act of writing, with your
own hand, brings words and sentences more
sharply before your mind and preserves them better
in your memory. To set down your reaction to
important words and sentences you have read,
and the questions they have raised in your
mind, is to preserve those reactions and sharpen
those questions. 但是,你或许会问,写有何必要呢要知道,亲手书写的动作会使词
语和句子更加
鲜明地呈现在你的脑海里,更好地储存在你的记忆中。将你对所读的重要词语和句子的感受
写下来,
将它们在你脑子里引起的问题记下来,就可以将这些感受长久保存下来,并可以使那些问题更加
明确
起来。
You can pick up the book the
following week or year, and there are all your
points of agreement,
disagreement, doubt and
inquiry. It's like resuming an interrupted
conversation with the
advantage of being able
to pick up where you left off.当你下周或来年重新拿起这本书的时候,你的各种观点,同意的、反对的、怀疑的、质询的,统统一目了然。这如同谈话一度被打断,现在又
可以在上次停下的地方接着谈下去了。
And that is exactly what
reading a book should be: a conversation between
you and the author.
Presumably he knows more
about the subject than you do; naturally you'll
have the proper
humility as you approach him.
读书就该这么个读法: 你同作者应进行对话。很可能作者在有关的
问题上比你懂得多,你接近他的时候
表示适度的谦恭是很自然的。
But don't let anybody tell you
that a reader is supposed to be solely on the
receiving end.
Understanding is a two-way
operation; learning doesn't consist in being an
empty receptacle.
The learner has to question
himself and question the teacher. He even has to
argue with the
teacher, once he understands
what the teacher is saying. And marking a book is
literally
an expression of your differences,
or agreements of opinion, with the author. 但不要轻信他人,以为读者只有全盘接受的份儿。理解是一种双向活动。学习并不是往空的容器中装东西。学生
应当向自己也向教师提问题。一旦理解了教师所讲的内容,他甚至还得与教师展开争论。而在书上做
记号
,实际上就是表达你赞同或不赞同作者观点的一种方式。
There are all
kinds of devices for marking a book intelligently
and fruitfully. Here's
the way I do it:
在书上做记号,有各种各样好的、行之有效的方法。现将我的做法叙述如下:
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1. Underlining: of major points, of
important or forceful statements. 在文字下面划线:
划
出主要论点及重要的或者有力的论述。
2. Vertical lines at
the margin: to emphasize a statement already
underlined. 在页边空白
处划竖线: 强调已划线的论述部分。
3.
Star, asterisk, or other doo-dad at the margin: to
be used sparingly, to emphasize the
ten or
twenty most important statements in the book.
在页边空白处画五星或六星记号,或其
他小符号: 这种记号宜珍惜着用。可用来强调书中十处或二
十处最重要的论述。
4. Numbers in the margin: to
indicate the sequence of points the author makes
in developing
a single argument. 在页边空白处写数字:
标明作者展开一个论据的各点顺序。
5. Number of other pages in
the margin: to indicate where else in the book the
author made
points relevant to the point
marked; to tie up the ideas in a book, which,
though they may
be separated by many pages,
belong together. 在页边空处写其他页的页码:
标明作者在本书其
他地方所写的与本论点有关的论点,也可以
通过这一办法将书中虽分散各处,但密切有关的观点联
系起来。
6. Circling
of key words or phrases. 在关键字眼或短语上画圆圈。
7.
Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of
the page, for the sake of: recording
questions
(and perhaps answers) which a passage raise in
your mind; reducing a complicated
discussion
to a simple statement; recording the sequence of
major points right through the
book.
在页边空白处或上下两端加批注: 其目的是记下某段文章在你脑子里引起的问题
(也许还有
答案);简要记下复杂的论述;记录贯串全书的一系列的重要论点。
I use
the end-papers at the back of the book to make a
personal index of the author's points
in the
order of their appearance. 我利用书末的衬页将作者的观点按出现的先后
次序编成一个
索引。
The front end-papers are, to me,
the most important. Some people reserve them for a
fancy
bookplate, I reserve them for fancy
thinking.
书前的衬页对我来说是最重要的。有些人将它们
留作贴花哨的藏书票用。我将它们留作奇思异想的天地。
After I have finished reading the book and
making my personal index on the back end-papers,
I turn to the front and try to outline the
book, not page by page, or point by point (I've
already done that at the back), but as an
integrated structure, with a basic unity and an
order of parts. This outline is, to me, the
measure of my understanding of the work.在我
读完一本
书并在卷尾衬页上做好我的个人索引之后,我便翻到卷首,试着将全书作一概述,不是逐页
地或逐点地进
行(那个我在卷尾已经做了),而是作为一个整体,基本上前后连贯,各部分排列有序。
对我来说,这个
概述表明了我对该著作理解的程度。
Unit 7
Text
A
young man finds it very difficult to say no to a
woman as a result he gets into trouble.
The
restaurant to which he has agreed to take his
luncheon date is far too expensive for
his
small pocketbook. How, then, will he be able to
avoid the embarrassing situation?一
个年轻人发觉很难拒绝一位
女士,他因此陷入了困境。他同意进行午餐聚会的那家餐厅对他可怜的荷
包来说实在太昂贵了。那么怎样
他才能避免这种尴尬的处境呢
THE LUNCHEON
午餐
et Maugham
精选
I caught sight of her at the play, and
in answer to her beckoning I went over during the
interval and sat down beside her.
我是在看戏的时候见到她的。幕间休息时,我应她的招呼走了
过去,在她旁边坐下。
It
was long since I had last seen her, and if someone
had not mentioned her name I hardly
think I
would have recognised her. She addressed me
brightly. 我上次见到她已是很久以前的
事了,要不是有人提起她的名字,我想我几乎会认不
出她来。她兴致勃勃地跟我谈了起来。
younger. Do you remember
the first time I saw you? You asked me to luncheon
.“瞧,自从
我们初次相见已经好多年了。真是光阴似箭啊!我俩都不年轻啦。你还记得我初次见到你吗
你请我吃
的午餐。”
Did I remember? 我能不记得吗?
It
was twenty years ago and I was living in Paris. I
had a tiny apartment in the Latin Quarter
overlooking a cemetery, and I was earning
barely enough money to keep body and soul
together.
那是20年前的事了,当时我住在巴黎。我在拉丁区租了一套小小的公寓,从那里
往下看去是一个公
墓。我挣的钱只够勉强维持生活。
She had read a
book of mine and had written to me about it. I
answered, thanking her, and
presently I
received from her another letter saying that she
was passing through Paris and
would like to
have a chat with me; but her time was limited, and
the only free moment she
had was on the
following Thursday; she was spending the morning
at the Luxembourg and would
I give her a
little luncheon at Foyot's afterwards? 她读过我的一本书,并曾
跟我写信谈论该
书。我回信向她致谢。随即我又收到她的一封信,说她路过巴黎,想跟我谈谈。但她的时
间有限,只
有下个星期四有空。那天上午,她要去卢森堡宫,问我是不是愿意中午请她在福伊约餐厅吃顿
便饭。
Foyot's is a restaurant at which the
French senators eat, and it was so far beyond my
means
that I had never even thought of going
there. But I was flattered, and I was too young to
have learned to say no to a woman. (Few men, I
may add, learn this until they are too old
to
make it of any consequence to a woman what they
say.) 福伊约餐厅是法国参议员光顾的地
方,去那儿吃饭远远超过我的经济能力,所以以前连想都
没有想过。但我当时受宠若惊,况且年纪太
轻,还没有学会对一位女士说个“不”字。(附带说一句,没
有几个男人学会这一招,而到他们学会
时,往往年事已高,他们说什么对女人来讲已无足轻重了。)
I had eight francs (gold francs) to last me
the rest of the month, and a modest luncheon
should not cost more than fifteen. If I cut
out coffee for the next two weeks I could manage
well enough.我当月的生活费还有 80法郎
(金法郎),一顿便餐花不了15法郎。如果我下两个星期
不喝咖啡,还是满可以对付过去的。
I answered that I would meet my friend -- by
correspondence -- at Foyot's on Thursday at
half past twelve. She was not so young as I
expected and in appearance imposing rather than
attractive, she was, in fact, a woman of forty
(a charming age, but not one that excites
a
sudden and devastating passion at first sight),
and she gave me the impression of having
more
teeth, white and large and even, than were
necessary for any practical purpose. 我
回信说,我将于下
星期四十二点半在福伊约餐厅会见我的朋友。她并不如我想象的那么年轻。她的外
表与其说美貌动人,毋
宁说丰腴魁伟,气概非凡。事实上,她已有40岁了 (这是一个有魅力的年龄,
但不是初次相见就能令
你激情迸发、神魂颠倒的那种年纪),长着一口洁白整齐的大牙齿,给我的印
象是,其数目之多已超过了
实际需要。
She was talkative, but since she seemed
inclined to talk about me I was prepared to be an
attentive listener.
她很健谈,不过因为她想谈的话题似乎总是关于我的事,所以我便洗耳恭听。
I was
startled when the bill of fare was brought, for
the prices were a great deal higher
than I had
anticipated. But she reassured me.
菜单拿来时,我大吃一惊。价格比我预料的要高
出许多。但她的话使我宽了心。
“我午餐从不吃什么东西,”她说。
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“哦,可别这么说!”我慷慨地回答。
perhaps. I
wonder if they have any salmon.
“我从来只吃一道菜。我认为现在人们吃得太多。
或许来点鱼还行。我不知道他们有鲑鱼没有。”
Well, it was early in the year for salmon and
it was not on the bill of fare, but I asked
the waiter if there was any. Yes, a beautiful
salmon had just come in, it was the first they
had had. I ordered it for my guest. The waiter
asked her if she would have something while
it
was being cooked. 啊,吃鲑鱼的季节还没有到,菜单上也没有,但是我还是问了侍者。有,
刚
刚进了一条头等鲑鱼,这是他们今年第一次进这种货。我为客人叫了一份。侍者问她在鲑鱼烹制的当<
br>儿,要不要吃点别的。
never mind caviare.“不要,”她回答说
,“我向来只吃一道菜,除非你有鱼子酱。鱼子酱我是从
不拒绝的。”
My heart
sank a little. I knew I could not afford caviare,
but I could not very well tell
her that. I
told the waiter by all means to bring caviare. For
myself I chose the cheapest
dish on the menu
and that was a mutton chop. 我的心微微一沉。我知道我是吃不起鱼子酱的,<
br>但我不便跟她直说,我吩咐侍者务必拿鱼子酱来。我自己则点了菜单上最便宜的一个菜,这就是羊排。
after eating heavy things like
chops. I don't believe in overloading my stomach.“
我看
你吃肉是不明智的,”她说。“我不知道你吃了羊排这种油腻的东西后还怎么工作。我不赞成把肚子
撑
得太饱。”
Then came the question of drink.
接着而来的是饮料问题。
“我午餐从不喝饮料,”她说。
“我也是如此,”我马上答道。
are so light. They're wonderful for the di
gestion.“但白葡萄酒例外,”她接着说,就好像
我刚才没说似的。“法国的白葡萄酒非常清淡
,十分有助消化。”
“你想喝点什
么”我依然客气地问道,但算不上热情。
She
gave me a bright and amicable flash of her white
teeth. 她嫣然一笑,露出一口白牙。
“我的医生只让我喝香槟。”
I fancy
I turned a trifle pale. I ordered half a bottle. I
mentioned casually that my doctor
had
absolutely forbidden me to drink champagne.
我猜想我的脸色一定有点发白了。我要了半瓶,
顺便提及我的医生绝对禁止我喝香槟酒。
“那你喝什么呢”
“水。”
She ate the caviare and
she ate the salmon. She talked gaily of art and
literature and music.
But I wondered what the
bill would come to. When my mutton chop arrived
she took me quite
seriously to task.
她吃了鱼子酱,又吃鲑鱼。她兴高采烈,大谈艺术、文学、音乐。但我心里却
在嘀咕,不知这顿饭要
花多少钱。当我的羊排上来时,她一本正经地教训起我来。
don't you
follow my example and just eat one thing? I'm sure
you'd feel ever so much better
for it.“我看你习惯中午
吃得很多。我肯定这样不好,你为什么不效法我的样子,只吃一道菜呢
我相信那样 你会感觉好得多。”
“我是打算只吃这一道菜,”我说。这时侍者又拿着菜单走了过来。
精选
She waved him aside with an airy
gesture. 她轻轻地一挥手,让他走开。
I eat that more as
an excuse for conversation than anything else. “我可
不这样,我午餐从
不吃东西。要吃,也只是稍许吃一点,从不多吃。而我吃这么一点,主要也是为了借此
机会闲谈而已。
I couldn't possibly eat anything more
unless they had some of those giant asparagus. I
should
be sorry to leave Paris without having
some of them.我可不能再吃什么东西了,除非他们有
那种大芦笋。到了巴黎,不吃点芦笋
,那就太遗憾了。”
My heart sank. I had seen them in
the shops, and I knew that they were horribly
expensive.
My mouth had often watered at the
sight of them.
我的心一沉。我曾在店里见过芦笋,我知道
它贵得可怕。过去我每见芦笋,常常馋涎欲滴。
“夫
人想知道你们有没有那种大芦笋,”我问侍者。
I tried with
all my might too will him to say no. A happy smile
spread over his broad,
pries-like face, and he
assured me that they had some so large, so
splendid, so tender, that
it was a marvel. 我竭尽
全力想使他说没有。他那张宽阔的教士般虔诚的脸上展露出愉快的笑容,
他用肯定的语气对我说,他们有
又大、又好、又嫩的芦笋,简直是罕见的珍品。
asparagus.“我一点也不饿,”我
的客人叹道,“不过如果你执意要请我吃,我也不反对吃点芦笋。”
I ordered
them. 我便点了这道菜。
“你不吃点吗”
“不,我从不吃芦笋。”
meat you eat.“我知道有人不喜欢芦笋。事实是,你吃肉太多,伤了胃口。”
We waited for the asparagus to be cooked.
Panic seized me. It was not a question now how
much money I should have left over for the
rest of the month, but whether I had enough to
pay the bill. 我们等着芦笋烹制好送上来。我突然惊恐起来。现在的问题已不是我还能
剩下几个钱
来维持这个月的生计了,而是我的钱够不够付账。
It would be
embarrassing to find myself ten francs short and
be obliged to borrow from my
guest. I could
not bring myself to do that. I knew exactly how
much I had, and if the bill
came to more I
made up my mind that I would put my hand in my
pocket and with a dramatic
cry start up and
say it had been picked. 要是我差十法郎,不得不向客人借的话,那就太难堪
了。我可做不出那样的事来。身边到底有多少钱,我心里有底,倘若账单超过了这个数字,我就决心
这
么办:伸手往口袋里一摸,随即故意惊叫一声,跳起来说钱给小偷扒了。
Of course,
it would be awkward if she had not money enough
either to pay the bill. Then the
only thing
would be to leave my watch and say I would come
back and pay later.当然,如果
她的钱也不够付账的话,那就尴尬了。那样,唯一
的办法就是将我的手表留下,言明以后再来付。
The asparagus appeared.
They were enormous, juicy, and appetising. I
watched the wicked woman
thrust them down her
throat in large mouthfuls, and in my polite way I
spoke about the
condition of the drama in the
Balkans. At last the finished. 芦笋端上来了。又大汁又多,
令人
垂涎不止。我一面看着这个邪恶的女人大口大口地将芦笋往肚里塞,一面彬彬有礼地谈论着巴尔
干半岛戏
剧界的现状。她终于吃完了。
“喝点咖啡”我说。
“好,就来一客冰淇淋和咖啡吧,”她回答
说。
I was past
caring now, so I ordered coffee for myself and an
ice-cream and coffee for her.
到这时,我什么也不在乎了,为自己叫了咖啡,为她叫了一客冰淇淋和咖啡。
“你知道,我
精选
坚信一点,”她边吃冰淇淋边说
道。“当一个人吃完一顿饭站起来时,他应该感到还没有吃得十分饱。”
“你还饿吗?”我有气无力地问道。
no, I'm not hungry; you
see, I don't eat luncheon. I have a cup of coffee
in the morning
and then dinner, but I never
eat more than one thing for luncheon. I was
speaking for you.
“噢,不,我不饿。你知道,我不吃午餐。我早晨一杯咖啡,然后
到晚上用餐,但我午餐向来最多只
吃一道菜。适才我这样说是为了你啊。”
“哦,我明白啦!”
Then a terrible thing happened.
While we were waiting for the coffee the head
waiter, with
an ingratiating smile on his
false face, came up to us bearing a large basket
full of huge
peaches. They had the blush of an
innocent girl; they had the rich tone of an
Italian landscape.
接着,发生了一件可怕的事情。当我们在等咖啡的时候,那个
领班侍者,带着满脸奉承的笑容,拎来
满满一大篮子特大的桃子,红得酷似天真少女的脸蛋,其色调之瑰
丽犹如一幅意大利风景画。
But surely peaches were not in
season then? Lord knew what they cost. I knew too
-- a little
later, for my guest, going on with
her conversation, absentmindedly took one. 当时桃子肯定还没有到上市季节,只有上帝晓得买它们得花多少价钱。不过很快我也晓得了,因为我的客人一边
说着话,一边心不在焉地拿了一只。
--
“你
看,你已经塞了一肚子肉,”--她是指我那可怜的一小块羊排
--“不能再吃什么了。而我只不过来了
点小吃,我还可以再品尝一只桃子。”
The
bill came, and when I paid it I found that I had
only enough for a quite inadequate tip.
账单来了。付过账后,我发现剩下的钱连付点像样的小费都不够了。
Her eyes
rested for an instant on the three francs I left
for the waiter, and I knew that
she thought me
mean. But when I walked out of the restaurant I
had the whole month before
me and not a penny
in my pocket. 她的目光在我留给侍者的三个法郎上停了一会儿,我知道她会
觉得我是个
吝啬鬼。可是等走出餐厅,我面临着的将是整整一个月的开销要支付,而口袋里却分文俱
无。
luncheon.“你学学我,”她边握手边说道,“午餐顶多只吃一道菜。”
“我会做
得更好,”我回敬道,“我今晚什么也不吃了。”
“幽默家!”
她得意洋洋地大声说着,跳上了一辆马车。“你是个十足的幽默家!”
But I have had my revenge at last. I do not
believe that I am a vindictive man, but when
the immortal gods take a hand in matter it is
pardonable to observe the result with complacency.
Today she weighs twenty-one stone. 但是我终于报了仇。我自
认不是一个爱报复的人,但是竟连
不朽的众神也被触怒而干预其事时,我怀着心满意足的心情目睹这个结
局,想必也是可以原谅的了。
现今她的体重已达二十一英石(二百九十四磅)。
Unit 8
Text
Would you choose to live underground
if you could gain many advantages from doing so?
Weather would no longer trouble you.
Temperature would remain the same all the year
round.
Artificial lighting could make the
rhythm of our life uniform everywhere. And the
ecology
of the natural world above ground
would be greatly improved. Still, the prospect of
moving
underground may not be appealing to
many people.如果你能从中获得很多好处,你会选择住在地
精选
下吗?天气再也不会带来麻烦。全年恒温。人造光源使全世界的生活节奏保持一致。地面上自然世界的生态将大幅改善。然而,移居地下的前景对很多人来说并不具吸引力。
THE NEW CAVES
新洞穴
Isaac Asimov
During the ice ages, human beings
exposed to the colder temperatures of the time
would often
make their homes in caves. There
they found greater comfort and security than they
would
have in the open. 在冰河时代,人类当时面临较为寒冷的气温,常常
在洞穴里安家。他们发现在洞
里生活要比在野外更舒适,更安全。
We still
live in caves called houses, again for comfort and
security. Virtually no one would
willingly
sleep on the ground under the stars. Is it
possible that someday we may seek to
add
further to our comfort and security by building
our houses underground -- in new, manmade
caves? 我们现今仍然住在被称作房子的洞穴里,目的还是为了舒适和安全。事实上,没有人愿意
露
宿在星空下的野地里。会不会有朝一日为了更加舒适和安全起见,我们把房屋建造在地下--
建造在新
的人造洞穴里呢?
It may not seem a palatable
suggestion, at first thought. We have so many evil
associations
with the underground. In our
myths and legends, the underground is the realm of
evil spirits
and of the dead, and is often the
location of an afterlife of torment.
乍一想来,这一建
议似乎并不可取。说起地下,我们会产生许许多多不愉快的联想。在神话和传说里,
地下是魔鬼和
亡灵的世界,它常常是人们死后遭受折磨的地方。
(This may be
because dead bodies are buried underground, and
because volcanic eruptions make
the
underground appear to be a hellish place of fire
and noxious gases.)(这可能因为尸体
总是埋在地下的缘故,而
火山爆发又给人们一种印象,似乎地下充满着火与毒气,如同地狱一般。)
Yet there
are advantages to underground life, too, and
something to be said for imagining
whole
cities, even mankind generally, moving downward;
of having the outermost mile of the
Earth's
crust honeycombed with passages and structures,
like a gigantic ant hill.
然而生
活在地下也有其有利之处,设想将整座城市,乃至全人类搬入地下是有一定的道理的。如果将
地壳
最表层一英里厚的地方筑满通道和建筑物,就像一个巨大的蚁冢,这会给人类带来各种好处。
First, weather would no longer be important,
since, it is primarily a phenomenon of the
atmosphere. Rain, snow, sleet, fog would not
trouble the underground world. Even temperature
variations are limited to the open surface and
would not exist underground. Whether day or
night, summer or winter, temperatures in the
underground world remain equable and nearly
constant. 首先,气候将变得无关紧要,因为它主要是大气层的一种现象。雨、雪、霰、雾将
不会给
地下世界带来麻烦。甚至气温的变化也局限于露天地表,而在地下则不存在这种变化。不论白天黑
夜,
炎夏寒冬,地下世界的温度将保持平稳,近乎恒温。The vast amounts of
energy now expended in
warming our surface
surroundings when they are too cold, and cooling
them when they are too
warm, could be saved.
The damage done to manmade structures and to human
beings by weather
would be gone.
Transportation over long distances would be
simplified. (Earthquakes would
remain a
danger, of course.) 如今,当我们的地表环境太冷时,则需要取暖,而太暖时,又需降<
br>温,耗费大量的能量。若搬到地下生活,则统统可以省去。天气对人造的建筑物以及人类本身的损害
将不复存在。地区性的交通问题也将大为简化。(当然,地震将依然是个危险。)
Second,
local time would no longer be important. On the
surface, the tyranny of day and night
cannot
be avoided, and when it is morning in one place,
it is noon in another, evening in
still
another and midnight in yet another. The rhythm of
human life therefore varies from
place to
place. 其次,地方时间将无关紧要。地球表面昼夜分明,谁也无法避免,一处是早晨,另
一处是
中午,再一处是黄昏,又一处是午夜。所以人类生活的节奏因地而异。
Underground,
where there is no externally produced day, but
only perpetual darkness, it would
精选
be arificial lighting that produces the
day and this could be adjusted to suit man's
convenience.在地下,没有外界生成的白天,而只有永恒的
黑暗,人工照明形成白昼,这就可以根
据人的需要加以调整。
The whole
world could be on eight-hour shifts, starting and
ending on the stroke everywhere,
at least as
far as business and community endeavors were
concerned. This could be important
in a freely
mobile world. 整个世界都可以实行八小时轮班制,各地都可能做到同时上班,同时下
班
,至少公务活动和社会活动可以如此。这对于一个自由流动的社会来说极为重要。
Air
transportation over long distances would no longer
have entail
landing on another coast or
another continent would find the society they
reached geared
to the same time of day as at
home.乘飞机长途旅行将不会再引起“时差反应”。抵达大
洋彼岸
或另一片大陆的人会发现他们所到的那个社会与自己家乡一样都是按照同一时间运行的。
Third, the ecological structure could be
stabilized. To a certain extent, mankind encumbers
the Earth. It is not only his enormous numbers
that take up room; more so, it is all the
structures he builds to house himself and his
machines, to make possible his transportation
and communication, to offer him rest and
recreation. 第三,生态结构将会稳定下来。在一定
程度上,人类拖累了地球。这不仅仅是
指众多的人口占据了地球的空间,更多的是指人类为住家和安
装机器构筑的房子,为交通运输、为休息、
娱乐建造的各种设施。
All these things distort the wild,
depriving many species of plants and animals of
their
natural habitat -- and sometimes,
involuntarily, favoring a few, such as rats and
roaches.
这一切致使荒野面目全非,剥夺了许多种动植物栖息、生长的天然场所--
有时候,无意中还促进了诸
如老鼠和蟑螂之类的某些生物的繁衍。
If the works
of man were removed below ground -- and, mind you,
below the level of the natural
world of the
burrowing animals -- man would still occupy the
surface with his farms, his
forestry, his
observation towers, his air terminals and so on,
but the extent of that
occupation would be
enormously decreased. 如果人类的建筑物都搬到地下--
请注意,要搬到穴居
动物生活的地层以下--
人类仍将占据地球表面,种地、植林、造了望台和航空站等等,但占有的程度
将大大减小。
Indeed, as one imagines the underground world
to become increasingly elaborate, one can
visualize much of the food supply eventually
deriving from hydroponic growth in artificially
illuminated areas underground. The Earth's
surface might be increasingly turned over to park
and to wilderness, maintained at ecological
stability. 的确,可以想见随着地下世界变得越
来越精巧复杂,大部分食物将最终来自地下
人工照明地区的水栽生物。地球表面有可能越来越多地让
位于公园和荒野,从而得以维持生态平衡稳定。
Fourth, nature would be closer. It might seem
that to withdraw underground is to withdraw
from the natural world, but would that be so?
第四,人们与自然界的距离将会缩短。退到地下,
看起来似乎是远离了自然界,但果真如此吗?
Would the withdrawal be more complete than it
is now, when so many people work in city
buildings that are often windowless and
artificially conditioned? Even where there are
windows, what is the prospect one views (if
one bothers to) but sun, sky, and buildings to
the horizon -- plus some limited greenery? 现今,
这么多人在城市的建筑物内工作,那里常常
没有窗户,而靠人工调节一切。即便有窗户,你又能看到什么
呢(如果你肯费心看一看的话)无非是
太阳,天空,以及一直伸展到天边的建筑物--外加一点有限的
绿色草木而已。
And to get away from the city now? To
reach the real countryside? One must travel
horizontally
for miles, first across city
pavements and then across suburban sprawls.
搬到地下以后,
与自然界隔绝的情况还会胜过于此吗 现在你想离开城市吗?到真正的乡村去吗?你必须
旅行数英
里,先得走过城市的街道,然后还得走过郊区杂乱无章的建筑群。
In an
underworld culture, the countryside would be right
there, a few hundred yards above
the upper
level of the cities -- wherever you are. The
surface would have to be protected
精选
from too frequent, or too intense, or
too careless visiting, but however carefully
restricted
the upward trips might be, the
chances are that the dwellers of the new caves
would see more
greenery, under ecologically
healthier conditions, than dwellers of surface
cities to today.
在地下世界文化中,乡村就在城市上面几百码远的地方--不管你
在哪里都是这样。地表当然必须得到
保护,不允许过分频繁地、过分集中地、或过分随便地参观访问,但
不管对向上的旅行作出多么认真
的限制,新洞穴里的居民们将有可能比今天地面城市的居民在更为健康的
生态环境下生活,并见到更
多的青枝绿叶。
However odd and
repulsive underground living may seem at first
thought, there are tings to
be said for it --
and I haven't even said them all.
尽管地下生活乍想起来多么的奇怪和不那
么令人喜欢,它的好处可以举出好多--
而我在这里只不过是略说一二。
精选
Text
Book 4
Unit 1
Text
Two college-age
boys, unaware that making money usually involves
hard work, are tempted
by an advertisement
that promises them an easy way to earn a lot of
money. The boys soon
learn that if something
seems too good to be true, it probably is.
一个大学男孩,不清楚
赚钱需要付出艰苦的劳动,被一份许诺轻松赚大钱的广告吸引了。男孩们很快
就明白,如果事情看
起来好得不像真的,那多半确实不是真的。
BIG BUCKS THE EASY WAY
轻轻松松赚大钱
John G. Hubbell
to avoid the indignity of
having to ask for money all the time.I handed them
some magazines
in a plastic bag someone had
hung on our doorknob.
“你们该看看这个,”我向我们的两个读大
学的儿子建议道。“你们若想避免因为老是向人讨钱而有失尊
严的话,这兴许是一种办法。”我将挂
在我们门把手上的、装在一个塑料袋里的几本杂志拿给他们。
A message printed on the bag offered
leisurely, lucrative work (
of delivering more
such bags. 塑料袋上印着一条信息说,需要招聘人投递这样的袋子,这活儿既
轻松又赚钱。
(“轻轻松松赚大钱!”)
“我不在乎失不失尊严,”大儿子回答
说。
“我可以忍受,”他的弟弟附和道。
,
longer embarrasses
you.“看到你们俩伸手讨钱讨惯了一点也不感到尴尬的样子,真使我痛心,”
我说。
The boys said they would look into the
magazine-delivery thing. Pleased, I left town on a
business trip. By midnight I was comfortably
settled in a hotel room far from home. The phone
rang. It was my wife. She wanted to know how
my day had gone. 孩子们说他们可以考虑考虑投
递杂志的事。我听了很高兴,便离城
出差去了。午夜时分,我已远离家门,在一家旅馆的房间里舒舒
服服住了下来。电话铃响了,是妻子打来
的。她想知道我这一天过得可好。
“好极了!”我兴高采烈地说。“你过得
怎么样”我问道。
She snapped. super! And it's only getting
started. Another truck just pulled
up out fron
t.“棒极了!”她大声挖苦道。“真棒!而且这还仅仅是个开始。又一辆卡车刚在门前停
下。”
“又一辆卡车”?
third one this evening. The first
delivered four thousand Montgomery Wards. The
second
brought four thousand Sears, Roebucks.
I don't know what this one has, but I'm sure it
will
be four thousand of something. Since you
are responsible, I thought you might like to know
what's happening. “今晚第三辆了。第一辆运来了四千份蒙哥马利-
沃德百货公司的广告;第二辆
运来四千份西尔斯-罗伯 克百货公司的广告。我不知道这一辆装的啥,但
我肯定又是四千份什么的。
既然这事是你促成的,我想你或许想了解事情的进展。”
What
I was being blamed for, it turned out, was a
newspaper strike which made it necessary
to
hand-deliver the advertising inserts that normally
are included with the Sunday paper.
The
company had promised our boys $$600 for delivering
these inserts to 4,000 houses by Sunday
morning. 我之所以受到指责,事情原来是这样:由于发生了一起报业工人罢工,通常夹在星期
日报
纸里的广告插页,必须派人直接投送出去。公司答应给我们的孩子六百美金,任务是将这些广告插页
在星期天早晨之前投递到四千户人家去。
“不费吹灰之力!”我们上大学的大儿子
嚷道。
“六
百块!”他的弟弟应声道,“我们两个钟点就能干完!”
are
thirty-two thousand pages of advertising on our
porch. Even as we speak, two big guys
are
carrying armloads of paper up the walk. What do we
do about all this?“西尔斯和沃
德的广告通常都是报纸那么大的四页,”妻子告诉
我说,“现在我们门廊上堆着三万二千页
广告。就
在我们说话的当儿,两个大个子正各抱着一大捆广告走过来。这么多广告,我们可怎么办”。
have to
do.“你让孩子们快干,”我指示说。“他们都是大学生了。他们自己的事得由他们自己去
做。”
At noon the following day I returned to the
hotel and found an urgent message to telephone
my wife. Her voice was unnaturally high and
quavering. There had been several more truckloads
of ad inserts.
第二天中午,我回到旅馆,看到一份紧急留言,要我马上给妻子回电话。她的声音
高得很不自然,而
且有些颤抖。家里又运到了好几卡车的广告插页。
so on. Some are
whole magazine sections. We have hundreds of
thousands, maybe millions, of
pages of
advertising here! “有百货公司的,廉价商店的,杂货店的,食品店的,汽
车行的,等
等。有些像整本杂志那么厚。我们这里有数十万页,说不定是几百万页的广告!
They are crammed wall-to-wall all through the
house in stacks taller than your oldest son.
There's only enough room for people to walk
in, take one each of the eleven inserts, roll
them together, slip a rubber band around them
and slide them into a plastic bag. 我们家
整个房子 从东墙
到西墙,从南墙到北墙统统堆满了广告,一堆又一堆,比你大儿子还要高。现在只
剩下一点点空间,刚够
一个人走进去,从十一种插页中各取一份,卷在一起,套上橡皮筋,再塞进一
只塑料袋内。
We have enough plastic bags to supply every
takeout restaurant in America!
rising, as if
working its way out of the range of the human ear.
this must be delivered
by seven o'clock Sunday
morning.我们的塑料袋足够供应全美所有的外卖餐厅!”她越讲声音越响,
几乎震耳欲聋。“这
么多的广告必须在星期日早晨七 点以前统统送出去。”
to you later.
Got a lunch date.”
“嗯,你最好让孩子们尽快地捆扎装袋,等会儿我再跟你谈。
我有个午餐约会。”
When
I returned, there was another urgent call from my
wife. 我餐后回来,妻子又打来一只
紧急电话。
you have a nice
lunch?she asked sweetly. I had had a marvelous
steak, but knew better
by now than to say so.
“你午餐吃得不错吧”她用悦耳的声音问道。我吃的牛排好极了,但这次
我学乖了,还是不说为妙。
“糟透了,”我报告说。“一种
什么酸溜溜的鱼,我想大概是鳗鲡吧。”
neighborhood children to help for five
dollars each. Assembly lines have been set up. In
the language of diplomacy, there is 'movement.
'“不错嘛。你的大学生儿子已经雇了他们的弟
弟妹妹和两三个邻居的小孩帮忙,工钱一人五块,建起了
流水作业线。用外交术语来说,事情有进
精选
展。”
“这确实令人鼓舞。”
it's not,she corrected. very
discouraging. They're been as it for hours.
Plastic
bags have been filled and piled to the
ceiling, but all this hasn't made a dent, not a
dent,
in the situation! It's almost as if the
inserts keep reproducing themselves!“不,并非
如此,”她
纠正说。“相反,非常叫人泄气。他们干了好几个小时了。装好的塑料袋,一直堆到天花板,
但一切努力
收效很小。这些广告宣传品简直就像是不停地自行生产出来一样!”
thing,she
continued. college sons must learn that one does
not get the best
out of employees by
threatening them with bodily harm. “还有一件事,”她接着说,“你
那上
大学的儿子必须明白,威胁雇员,说要揍他们,是不可能使他们卖力的。”
Obtaining an audience with son NO. 1, I
snarled,
kids again! Idiot! You should be
offering a bonus of a dollar every hour to the
worker who
fills the most bags. 我跟大儿子一通上话,便咆哮道
,“你如果再威胁那些孩子,我就对你不客气
了!白痴!你应该给奖金,对装袋最多的工人每小时奖励一
块。”
“可那要减少我们的利润啦,”他提醒道。
unless those kids
enable you to make all the deliveries on time.
If they don't, you two will have to remove all
that paper by yourselves. And there will be
no
eating or sleeping until it is removed.“那些孩子不帮你按时将
所有的广告投送出去,你
就什么利润也得不到。如果他们不干,你们俩就得亲手搬走所有的广告。而在把
它们搬掉之前,你们
吃不成,也睡不成。”
There was a short,
thoughtful silence. Then he said,
change in my
personality.电话里出现了短暂的沉默,他在思考。接着,他说,“爸爸,你刚才使
我深受
启迪,令我恍然大悟。”
“那就干吧!”
“是,阁下!”
By the
following evening, there was much for my wife to
report. The bonus program had worked
until
someone demanded to see the color of cash. 到第二天傍晚,
我妻子就有许多事报告了。
奖金计划行之有效,可后来有人对能否兑现表示怀疑,提出把钱拿出来给大家
看看。
Then some activist on the work force
claimed that the workers had no business settling
for
$$5 and a few competitive bonuses while the
bosses collected hundreds of dollars each. The
organizer had declared that all the workers
were entitled to $$5 per hour! They would not
work another minute until the bosses agreed. 接
着工人队伍里的一位活动家声称,老板每人拿
几百块钱,工人们决没有理由满足于每人五块外加一点点竞
争性的奖金。劳工组织人宣布,所有工人
的工资都应该达到每小时五块钱!
在老板答应之前,他们不再干活儿,一分钟也不干。
The strike lasted less
than two hours. In mediation, the parties agreed
on $$2 per hour.
Gradually, the huge stacks
began to shrink.
罢工持续了不到两小时。通过调解,双方达成协议,
每小时两块。渐渐地,大堆的广告开始减少。
As it turned out, the job was completed three
hours before Sunday's 7 a.m. deadline. By the
time I arrived home, the boys had already
settled their accounts: $$150 in labor costs, $$40
for gasoline, and a like amount for gifts -
boxes of candy for saintly neighbors who had
volunteered station wagons and help in
delivery and dozen roses for their mother.
结果,
全部工作比最后限期星期日早晨七点提前三个小时完成。等我回到家里,孩子们已经结了账。
劳务
支出 150 元,汽油费40 元,还有 40
元买礼品——几盒糖果,送给乐于助人的邻居,他们主动开
出
自家的车帮助投递,还有一打玫瑰送给他们的母亲。
This left them with
$$185 each - about two-thirds the minimum wage for
the 91 hours they worked.
Still, it was as one
of them put it, to enable them to indignityfor
quite
a while. 除去以上开支,他们每人得到 185 元 --大约相当于
他们所干的 91 小时的最低工资的三
分之二。
虽然如此,可正如一个儿子所说,那还是“足够”他们花一阵子,使他们“避免那种有失
精选
尊严的事。”
All went well for some
weeks. Then one Saturday morning my attention was
drawn to the odd
goings-on of our two youngest
sons. They kept carrying carton after carton from
various
corners of the house out the front
door to curbside. 几个星期过去了,一切都很好。后来,
一个星期六的上午,我们
两个小儿子的奇怪举动引起了我的注意。他们不停地将一个又一个的纸箱从
房屋四处的角落里搬出,经过
前门,送到人行道边。
I assumed their mother had enlisted
them to remove junk for a trash pickup. Then I
overheard
them discussing finances.
我以为他们的妈妈在指挥他们清除破烂,好让垃圾车运走呢。正在这时,
我听到他们在议论经济问题。
“哟,我们会赚许多钱呢!”
“我们要发财啦!”
Investigation
revealed that they were offering
经
查问发现,他们正在把我们的全部图书“出售或出租”。
No!I cried.
can't sell our books!“不成!不成!”我叫道。“不能把我们的书卖了!”
“哎唷,爸,我们以为你用不着它们了呢!”
“书永远不会'用'不着的,”我尽力解
释道。
make a
little money from them. We wanted to avoid the
indignity of having to ask you for……
“你肯定用不着了。你
都看过了,再也不用了。没有错。既然不用,还不如卖点钱。我们想避免那种
有
失尊严的事,不再伸手向你要……”
Unit 2
Text
Is
there anything we can learn from deer? During the
writer of this essay was living in northern
Minnesota and was able to observe how deer survive
when winter arrives. The lessons he learns
about the way deer conserve energy turn out
applicable to our everyday life.
有什么是我们能从鹿身上学到的吗在 1973-1974 年的“能源危
机”期间,本文作者正住在明
尼苏达北部,能够观察当冬天来临时,鹿如何生存。他从鹿储存能量的
方法上得到的经验也能够运用到我
们的日常生活中。
DEER AND THE ENERGY CYCLE
鹿和能量循环
Some persons say that love makes
the world go round. Others of a less romantic and
more
practical turn of mind say that it isn't
love; it's money. But the truth is that it is
energy
that makes the world go round. 有些人说,爱情驱
使世界运转;另一些并不那么罗曼蒂克而更为
注重实际的人则说,不是爱情,而是金钱。但真实情况是,
能量驱使世界运转。
Energy is the currency of the
ecological system and life becomes possible only
when food
is converted into energy, which in
turn is used to seek more food to grow, to
reproduce and
to survive. On this cycle all
life depends. 能量是生态系统的货币,只有当食物转变为能量,
能量再用来获取更多的
食物以供生长、繁殖和生存,生命才成为可能。所有生命都维系在这一循环上。
It is
fairly well known that wild animals survive from
year to year by eating as much as
they can
during times of plenty, the summer and fall,
storing the excess, usually in the
form of
fat, and then using these reserves of fat to
survive during the hard times in winter
when
food is scarce. But it is probably less well known
that even with their stored fat,
wild animals
spend less energy to live in winter than in
summer. 差不多众所周知,野生动
物得以年复一年地生存下去,主要依靠在夏秋生长旺季尽量多
吃,通常将多余的部分以脂肪的形式储
精选
存起来,然后到了冬天食
物稀少的艰难时期,就用这些储备的脂肪来维持生命。然而,很可能鲜为人
知的是,即使有储备的脂肪,
野生动物在冬天消耗的能量比夏天要少。
A good case in point is the
whiter-tailed deer. Like most wildlife, deer
reproduce, grow,
and store fat in the summer
and fall when there is plenty of nutritious food
available. A
physically mature female deer in
good condition who has conceived in November and
given birth
to two fawns during the end of May
or first part of June, must search for food for
the necessary
energy not only to meet her
body's needs but also to produce milk for her
fawns. 一个很
好的例证是白尾鹿。与大多数野生动物一样,鹿在营养丰富、食物充足的夏秋两季
,繁殖、生长并储
存脂肪。一只成熟健壮的母鹿,在十一月份怀胎,五月底或六月初生下两只幼鹿,这时
,它必须寻找
食物以获得必要的能量,这不仅是为了满足自身的需要,而且也是为了给幼鹿生产乳汁。
The best milk production occurs at the same
time that new plant growth is available. This
is good timing, because milk production is an
energy consuming process — it requires a lot
of food. The cost can not be met unless the
region has ample food resources.产乳的最佳期
也正是植物生长茂
盛之时。这个时机选择得很好,因为乳汁生产是一个消耗能量的过程 --
它需要大
量的食物,除非该地区具有丰富的食物资源,否则无法满足这种消耗。
As the
summer progresses and the fawns grow, they become
less dependent on their mother's
milk and more
dependent on growing plants as food sources. The
adult males spend the summer
growing antlers
and getting fat. 夏季一天天过去,幼鹿日渐生长,它们变得较少依赖母鹿的乳
汁,
而更加依靠生长中的植物为其食物来源。雄性成鹿在夏天生长鹿角并养肥身体。
Both males
and females continue to eat high quality food in
the fall in order to deposit
body fat for the
winter. In the case of does and fawns, a great
deal of energy is expended
either in milk
production or in growing, and fat is not
accumulated as quickly as it is in
full grown
males. 在秋天,雄鹿和雌鹿都继续进食高质量食物,贮存体内脂肪,以备过冬。至于雌
鹿和幼鹿
,由于大量的能量用于产奶或生长,脂肪的积累速度不如完全成熟的雄鹿快。
Fat
reserves are like bank accounts to be drawn on in
the winter when food supplies are limited
and
sometimes difficult to reach because of deep snow.
脂肪储备如同银行里的存款,供冬天
食物来源不足时和有时由于雪深难以获得时,支取使用。
As fall turns into winter, other changes take
place. Fawns lose their spotted coat. Hair
on
all the deer becomes darker and thicker. The
change in the hair coats is usually complete
by September and maximum hair depths are
reached by November or December when the weather
becomes cold. 随着秋去冬来,还会发生其他变化:
幼鹿失去皮毛上的斑纹,所有鹿身上的毛长厚,
颜色变深。毛皮 的变化通常持续到 9 月。到11
月或 12 月天气变冷时,毛长得最厚。
But in addition, nature
provides a further safeguard to help deer survive
the winter -- an
internal physiological
response which lowers their metabolism, or rate of
bodily functioning,
and hence slows down their
expenditure of energy.
此外,大自然还为鹿提供进一步的保护以帮
助它们度过冬天 -- 体内生理机能作相应调节,放慢新陈
代谢,亦即生理活动的速度,从而降低能
量的消耗。
The deer become
somewhat slow and drowsy. The heart rate drops.
Animals that hibernate
practice energy
conservation to a greater extreme than deer do.
Although deer don't hibernate,
they do the
same thing with their seasonal rhythms in
metabolism. Deer spend more energy
and store
fat in the summer and fall when food is abundant,
and spend less energy and use
stored fat in
the winter when food is less available. 鹿变得有点动作迟缓、
嗜睡。它们的心
率减慢。冬眠的动物保存能量的习性胜过鹿。虽然鹿不冬眠,但他们随季节改变新陈代谢
节奏的习性
则是一样的。夏秋间,食物充裕的时候,鹿消耗较多的能量并储存脂肪。在冬天食物匮乏时,
它们则
消耗较少的能量并使用储存的脂肪。
When the
on the
edge of an area where deer spend the winter in
northern Minnesota, observing the deer
as
their behavior changed from more activity in
summer and fall to less as winter progressed,
精选
followed by an increase
again in the spring as the snow melted. 1973-1974
年间,第一次出
现“能源危机”的时候,我正与家人住在明尼苏达州北部一处鹿群过冬地方的边缘地带。
我们住在一
个小屋里,观察鹿的生活习性,观察它们是如何随着冬季来临从夏秋的活动频繁状态而变得少
动的,
而到春暖雪融时,他们的活动又是如何增多起来的。
It was
interesting and rather amusing to listen to the
advice given on the radio:
only when
necessary,we were told. on more clothes to stay
warm, and turn the thermostat
on your furnace
down.当时广播电台常告诫我们:“没有必要不开车,”“多穿衣服好保暖,并请调
低锅炉上的恒温
器。”这些话听起来既有趣又逗笑。
Meanwhile we watched the deer
reduce their activity, grow a winter coat of hair,
and reduce
their metabolism as they have for
thousands of years. It is biologically reasonable
for deer
to reduce their cost of living to
increase their chance of surviving in winter. 因为与此
同时,我们一直注视着鹿减少活动,长出越冬的厚毛,并减缓新陈代谢。几千年来,他们一贯如此。鹿减少生存所需的能耗以增加越冬生存的机会,从生物学角度来看是合情合理的。
Not
every winter is critical for deer of course. If
the winter has light snow, survival and
productivity next spring will be high. But if
deep snows come and the weather remains cold
for several weeks, then the deer must spend
more energy to move about, food will be harder
to find, and they must then depend more on
their fat reserves to pull them through. 当然,
对鹿
来讲,并非每个冬天都处于危难之中。如果冬天雪下得少,存活率和次年春天的繁殖力就高。但
如果雪积
得深,天气连续数周寒冷,鹿活动起来就得花费较多的能量,觅食会更难,这时它们就得更
多地依赖其脂
肪储备度过寒冬。
If such conditions go on for too long
some will die, and only the largest and strongest
are
likely to survive. That is a fundamental
rule of life for wild, free wandering animal such
as deer. 如果这种情况持续太久,有些鹿就要死亡,只有体型最大最壮的,才有可能存活。对
于像
鹿这样四处自由奔走的野生动物来说,这是一条根本的生存规律。
Yes, life
- and death, too - is a cycle that goes round and
round, and when animals die their
bodies
become food for other life forms to use by
converting them into energy. 的确,生
命--还有死亡--
周而复始,循环不已。当动物死亡的时候,他们的尸体转化为能量,变成食物,供其
他生命形式使用。
And the cycle continues. 如此循环,永不止息。
Unit 3
Text
Can you prove that the earth is
round? Go ahead and try! Will you rely on your
senses
or will you have to draw on the
opinions of experts?你能证明地球是圆的吗来试试看吧!你将
依靠你自己的智力
还是不得不引用专家的观点呢?
WHY DO WE BELIEVE THAT
THE EARTH IS ROUND?
我们为什么相信地球是圆的
George Orwell
Somewhere or other — I think it
is in the preface to saint Joan — Bernard Shaw
remarks
that we are more gullible and
superstitious today than we were in the Middle
Ages, and as
an example of modern credulity he
cites the widespread belief that the earth is
round. 记
得在什么地方--我想是在《圣女贞德》序言中--
肖伯纳评论说,今天我们比在中世纪时更加轻
信,
更加迷信。而作为现代轻信的例证,他举出地圆说这一广为传播的信念。
The
average man, says Shaw, can advance not a single
reason for thinking that the earth is
round.
He merely swallows this theory because there is
something about it that appeals to
the
twentieth-century mentality.
肖伯纳说,普通人举不出一条理由来说明为什么相信地球是圆
精选
的。他全盘接受这一理论,只是因为这一理论中有一种迎合20世纪心态的东西。
Now, Shaw is exaggerating, but there is
something in what he says, and the question is
worth
following up, for the sake of the light
it throws on modern knowledge. 当然,肖伯纳是夸
大其词了,但他
说的也确实有些道理,这一问题值得进一步探讨,因为它会帮助人们看清现代知识的
真实情况。
Just why do we believe that the earth is
round? I am not speaking of the few thousand
astronomers, geographers and so forth who
could give ocular proof, or have a theoretical
knowledge of the proof, but of the ordinary
newspaper-reading citizen, such as you or me.
我们究竟为什么会相信地球是圆的呢我说的不是数千位天文学家、地理学家之类的人,他们可以用观
察到
的事实或用理论上的根据来证实这一点,我指的是如同你我之辈的报纸的普通读者。
As for
the Flat Earth theory, I believe I could refute
it. If you stand by the seashore on
a clear
day, you can see the masts and funnels of
invisible ships passing along the horizon.
This phenomenon can only be explained by
assuming that the earth's surface is curved. 至
于“地平说”,我相信我能够加以驳斥。如果你在天气晴朗的日子站立海边,你可以看到船桅和烟囱
沿着
地平线移动而不见船体本身。只有假设地球表面呈曲线状,这一现象才能得到解释。
But it
does not follow that the earth is spherical.
Imagine another theory called the Oval
Earth
theory, which claims that the earth is shaped like
an egg. What can I say against it?
但不能由此推断地球是球
形的。设想另一个称做“地球卵形说”的理论吧,这一学说声称地球形如蛋
状。对此,我能说什么加以反
驳呢?
Against the Oval Earth man, the first card
I can play is the analogy of the sun and moon.
The Oval Earth man promptly answers that I
don't know, by my own observation, that those
bodies are spherical. 面对“地球卵形说”者,我能打的第一张牌是,可以根
据太阳和月亮来类推。
“地球卵形说”者立即回敬道,我无法根据自己的观察得知那些天体是球形的。
I only know that they are round, and they may
perfectly well be flat discs. I have no answer
to that one. Besides, he goes on, what reason
have I for thinking that the earth must be
the
same shape as the sun and moon? I can't answer
that one either.我只能得知他们是圆的,
而它们完全可能呈扁平的圆盘状。我对此无
言以答。此外,他还会说,我凭什么理由认为地球一定与
太阳和月亮的形状相同对此,我同样无法解答。
My second card is the earth's shadow: When
cast on the moon during eclipses, it appears to
be the shadow of a round object. But how do I
know, demands the Oval Earth man, that eclipses
of the moon are caused by the shadow of the
earth? 我的第二张牌是地球的影子: 月食期间,
地球投在月亮上的影子看上去呈圆形物体状。
但“地球卵形说”者马上要问,我怎么知道月食是由地
球的影子造成的呢?
The
answer is that I don't know, but have taken this
piece of information blindly from
newspaper
articles and science booklets.
回答是,我并不知道,我只是照搬报刊文章和科普小
册子上的说法而已。
Defeated
in the minor exchanges, I now play my queen of
trumps: the opinion of the experts.
The
Astronomer Royal, who ought to know, tells me that
the earth is round. 小小交锋受挫,
于是我打出一张王牌“Q”:
专家的看法。英国格林威治皇家天文台台长总该是权威了,他告诉我说
地球是圆的。
The
Oval Earth man covers the queen with his king.
Have I tested the Astronomer Royal's
statement, and would I even know a way of
testing it? “地球卵形说”者用他的“K”牌压倒
我的“Q”牌。天文台台长的话我检验
过没有再说,我知道怎么个检验法吗?
Here I bring out my ace.
Yes, I do know one test. The astronomers can
foretell eclipses,
and this suggests that
their opinions about the solar system are pretty
sound. I am, to my
delight, justified in
accepting their say-so about the shape of the
earth. 这时候,我打
出我的“爱司”。是的,我确实知道一个检验方法。天文学家能预报月食,
这一点表明他们关于太阳
系的看法是非常可信的。因此,令我高兴的是,我接受他们关于地球形状的论断
是有道理的。
精选
If the Oval Earth man
answers — what I believe is true — that the
ancient Egyptians, who
thought the sun goes
round the earth, could also predict eclipses, then
bang goes my ace.
如果“地球卵形说”者反驳道--我以为他反驳得有理--
认为太阳绕地球转的古代埃及人也能预言月食,
那我的“爱司”牌便立刻化为乌有。
I
have only one card left: navigation. People can
sail ship round the world, and reach the
places they aim at, by calculations which
assume that the earth is spherical. I believe that
finishes the Oval Earth man, though even then
he may possibly have some kind of
counter.
我只剩下一张牌: 航海。人们可以扬帆绕地球航行而到达他们的目的地,其航程的计
算,就是以地球
是球形的假定为依据的。我相信这一下可以彻底击败“地球卵形说”者了。不过即便如此
,他还可能
有某种回击的办法。
It will be seen that my
reasons for thinking that the earth is round are
rather precarious
ones. Yet this is an
exceptionally elementary piece of information.
由此可见,我认为地球
是圆的,其根据是相当不牢靠的。然而这却是一点极其基本的知识。
On most other questions I should have to fall
back on the expert much earlier, and would
be
less able to test his pronouncements. And much the
greater part of our knowledge is at
this
level. 在别的大多数问题上,我只得更早地依赖专家的理论,且更少有办法检验他的结论了。
我
们的知识,其绝大部分都停留在这一水平上。
It does not rest on
reasoning or on experiment, but on authority. And
how can it be otherwise,
when the range of
knowledge is so vast that the expert himself is an
ignoramus as soon as
he strays away from his
own specialty? 它不是依靠推理或实验,而是依赖权威。可是,不这样,
又有什么别的
法子呢知识的范围如此广博,一旦越出其专业范围,专家也会变成一无所知。
Most
people, if asked to prove that the earth is round,
would not even bother to produce
the rather
weak arguments I have outlined above. They would
start off by saying that
knows对大多数人来说,
如果要他
们证明地球是圆的话,就连我上面概述的这些相当无力的论据,他们也不愿提供出来。他们
一开始就会说
: 谁都知道地球是圆的。要是再加追问,就会生气了。
In a way Shaw is
right. This is a credulous age, and the burden of
knowledge which we now
have to carry is partly
responsible. 在某种程度上讲,肖伯纳是说对了,如今是一个轻信的时
代。究其缘由,部
分在于,我们现今必须掌握的知识实在太多了。
Unit 4
Text
Jim
Thorpe, an American Indian, is generally accepted
as the greatest all-round athlete of
the first
half of the 20th century. Yet the man, who brought
glory to his nation, had a
heartbreaking life.
What caused his sadness and poverty? Jim Thorpe,
一个美国印地安人,
在前半个20世纪里,被认为是最伟大的万能运动员。就是那个人,给他的国家带来
了荣耀。但是却
有一个极为悲伤的生活。是什么导致了他的悲伤和贫穷?
JIM
THORPE
吉姆·索普照
Steve Gelman
The railroad station was jammed.
Students from Lafayette College were crowding onto
the train
platform eagerly awaiting the
arrival of the Carlisle Indian school's track and
field squad.
火车站挤得水泄不通。拉斐德学院的学生们一齐拥上月台,热切地等待着卡
莱尔印第安人学校田径队
的到来。
No one would have believed
it a few months earlier. A school that nobody had
heard of was
suddenly beating big, famous
colleges in track meets. Surely these Carlisle
athletes would
精选
come charging
off the train, one after another, like a Marine
battalion. 倘若在几个月前,
准无人会相信,一个谁也没听说过的学校,会在田径场上突然
大败许多有名的大学。不用说,这些卡
莱尔的运动员抵达后,一个接着一个冲下火车,准会像一营海军陆
战队那样。
The train finally arrived and two young
men -- one big and broad, the other small and
slight
-- stepped onto the platform.
火车终于到站,两位年轻人--一位,大个儿,体格魁梧,另一位,
小个儿,长相瘦弱--踏上了月台。
“田径队在哪儿?”一位拉斐德的学生
问道。
“就在这儿。”大个子回答道。
“就你们两个?”
“不,就我一个,”
大个子说。 “这位小兄弟是领队。”
The Lafayette students shook their heads in
wonder. Somebody must be playing a joke on them.
If this big fellow was the whole Carlisle
track team, he would be competing against an
entire
Lafayette squad. 拉斐德的学生们诧异地摇摇头。一定有人在开他们
的玩笑。如果卡莱尔田径队就
只有大个子一人,那他就得与整个拉斐德田径队比试高低了。
He did. He ran sprints, he ran hurdles, he ran
distance races. He high-jumped, he broad-jumped.
He threw the javelin and the shot. Finishing
first in eight events, the big fellow beat the
whole Lafayette team. 确实如此。他短跑,他跨栏,他长跑,他跳高,他跳远
。他又投标枪又掷铅
球。大个子赢得八项第一,一个人击败了整个拉斐德田径队。
The
big fellow was Jim Thorpe, the greatest American
athlete of modern times. He was born
on May
28,1888, in a two-room farmhouse near Prague,
Oklahoma. His parents were members of
the Sac
and Fox Indian tribe and he was a direct
descendant of the famous warrior chief,
Black
Hawk. 这位大个子就是吉姆·索普,现代美国最伟大的运动员。他于1888年5月28日出生在
俄克拉荷马布拉格附近一个只有两间房的农舍里。他的父母亲是印第安人,袋与狐部落的成员,他是
著名
的武士首领黑隼的嫡系后裔。
As a Sac and Fox, Jim had the
colorful Indian name Wa-Tho-Huck. Which,
translated, means
Bright Path. But being born
an Indian, his path was not so bright. Although he
had the
opportunity to hunt and fish with
great Indian outdoorsmen, he was denied
opportunity in
other ways. 作为袋与狐部落的成员,吉姆有一个动听的
印第安名字:瓦·索·哈克,翻译出来,意
为“光明之路”。但由于生来是一个印第安人,他的道路并不
那么光明。虽然他有机会与熟谙野外生
活的印第安人一起捕鱼、守猎,但其它方面的机会全给剥夺了。
The United States government controlled the
lives of American Indians and, unlike other
people, Indians did not automatically become
citizens. It was almost impossible for an Indian
to gain even a fair education and extremely
difficult, as a result, for an Indian to rise
high in life. 当时,美国政府控制了全美印第安人的生活,而且,与其他民族不同,印
第安人不能
自动获得公民资格。印第安人甚至连受起码的教育的机会也极少,因而,要想出人头地是难而
又难。
Young Bright Path seemed destined to spend
his life in the Oklahoma farmland. But when he
was in his teens, the government gave him the
chance to attend the Carlisle Indian School
in
Pennsylvania. 年轻的“光明之路”似乎注定要在俄克拉荷马的农田里度过一生。但在他十几岁<
br>的时候,政府给了他一个机会去宾夕法尼亚的卡莱尔印第安人学校就读。
Soon
Carlisle was racing along its own bright path to
athletic prominence. In whatever sport
Jim
Thorpe played, he excelled, He was a star in
baseball, track and field, wrestling,
lacrosse, basketball and football. 不久,卡莱尔学校沿着自
己的光明之路冲上了体育运动的高
峰。不管吉姆·索普参加哪项运动,他都表现得很出色。他是棒球明星
、田径明星、摔跤明星、长曲
棍球明星、篮球明星和橄榄球明星。
He was so
good in football, in fact, that most other small
schools refused to play Carlisle.
The Indian
school's football schedule soon listed such major
powers of the early twentieth
精选
century as Pittsburgh, Harvard,
Pennsylvania, Penn State and Army. 事实上,他的橄榄球打
得
十分出色,以至于大多数其它规模较小的学校都不肯与卡莱尔比赛。不久,这个印第安学校的橄榄
球比赛
日程上,列出的都是些20世纪初的主要强队,例如匹兹堡队、例如匹兹堡队,哈佛队,宾州
队及陆军队
等。
Thorpe was a halfback. He was six feet one
inch tall, weighed 185 pounds and had incredible
speed and power.
索普打前卫。他身高6.1英尺,体重185磅,速度奇快,力量惊人。
He built upon
these natural gifts daily. He would watch a coach
or player demonstrate a
difficult maneuver,
then he would try it himself. Inevitably, he would
master the maneuver
within minutes. 在天赋的基础上,他坚
持训练,技艺与日俱增。他仔细观察教练或运动员示范难度
大的动作,然后自己试着练。往往只消几分钟
,他就学会了。
During every game, opponents piled on
Thorpe, trampled him, kicked him and punched him,
trying
to put him out of action. They were
never successful. Years later someone asked him if
he
had ever been hurt on the field.
footba
ll?每次比赛,对方的球员们常一块儿压在索普的身上,踩他,踢他,用拳头猛击他,试图
使他丧失比
赛能力。但他们的企图从未得逞。数年之后,有人问他在球场上受过伤没有。 “受伤?”
索普回答说,
“打橄榄球怎么会受伤呢?”
But Jim never played his best
when he felt he would have to no fun playing.
of playing in the rain?he once said. And his
Carlisle coach, Pop Warner, once said,
no
doubt that Jim had more talent than anybody who
ever played football, but you could never
tell
when he felt like giving his best.但是每当吉姆感到打球没趣的时候,
他就打不出他的
水平。有一次他曾说:“下着雨打球有啥意思?”他的卡莱尔教练波伯·沃纳也曾说过:
“毫无疑问,
吉姆是迄今最有天赋的橄榄球运动员,但你永远无法弄清什么时候他想拿出最好的一手来。
”然而,
橄榄球,没有为索普带来最美好的时刻。
Football, though,
did not provide Thorpe with his finest hour. He
was selected for the United
States Olympic
track team in 1912, and went to Sweden with the
team for the Games. On the
ship, while the
other athletes limbered up, Thorpe slept in his
bunk. In Sweden, while other
athletes trained,
Thorpe relaxed in a hammock. He never strained
when he didn't feel it
necessary. 1912年,他被选入美国
奥林匹克田径代表队,随队去瑞典参加运动会。在船上,别的运
动员都在活动身体,索普却在床上睡大觉
。到了瑞典,别的运动员在训练,索普却躺在吊床上休息。
不到必要的时候,他从来不肯使劲。
Thorpe came out of his hammock when the Games
began, to take part in the two most demanding
Olympic events.
运动会开始了,索普这才从吊床上下来,参加奥林匹克运动会对体力和技术要求最
高的两项比赛。
He entered the pentathlon competition, a test
of skill in five events: 200-meter run,
1500-meter run, broad jump, discus and
javelin;
他参加5项全能比赛,这是对个项目技能的考
验:200米跑、1500米跑、跳远、铁饼和标枪。
and the decathlon competition, a series of ten
events: 100-meter run, 400-meter run,
1500-meter run, high hurdles, broad jump, high
jump, pole vault, discus, javelin and shot
put. 他还参加10项全能比赛,这10项系列竞赛是“100米跑、400米跑、1500米跑、
高栏、跳远、
跳高、撑杆跳、铁饼、标枪和铅球。
Though most
athletes were utterly exhausted by the decathlon
alone, Thorpe breezed through
both events, his
dark hair flopping, his smile flashing, his
muscled body gliding along the
track. He
finished first in both the pentathlon and
decathlon, one of the great feats in
Olympic h
istory.大多数运动员参加10项全能这一项就精疲力尽了,而索普却轻松自如地赛完两项。
他一
头黑发扑颠着,脸上闪烁着微笑,那肌肉强健的身体沿着跑道轻捷地飞奔着。在5项和10项两
个全能项
目比赛中,他都名列第一,这是奥林匹克运动史上伟大的业绩之一。
瑞典国王古斯塔夫五世在把两块金牌授给索普的时候
精选
说:“先生,” “你是世界上最伟大的运动员。”
And William
Howard Taft, the President of the United States,
said, Thorpe is the highest
type of
citizen.美国总统威廉·霍华德·塔夫脱也说:“吉姆·索普是公民的最高典范。”
King
Gustav V was correct, but President Taft was not.
Though Jim Thorpe had brought great
glory to
his nation, though thousands of people cheered him
upon his return to the United
States and
attended banquets and a New York parade in his
honor, he was not a citizen. 古
斯塔夫五世国王讲对了,但塔夫脱总
统却没有说对。尽管吉姆·索普为他的国家赢得了伟大的荣誉,
尽管他回到美国时,数千人前去热烈欢迎
他并参加了为他举行的宴会和纽约的游行,而他却不是一个
美国公民。
He did
not become one until 1916. Even then, it took a
special government ruling because
he was an
Indian. 直到1916年,他才取得公民资格。而且,那还是经过政府特别裁决才授予他的,
因
为他是一个印第安人。
Jim Thorpe was a hero after the
Olympics and a sad, bewildered man not too much
later. Someone
discovered that two years
before the Olympics he had been paid a few dollars
to play
semiprofessional baseball. 奥林匹克运动会后,吉姆
·索普成了英雄,但没过多久,他就成了一
个悲伤、迷惘的人。原来,有人发现,奥林匹克运动会前两年
,他曾经为了几块钱参加过半职业性的
棒球比赛。
Though many amateur
athletes had played for pay under false names,
Thorpe had used his own
name.
许多业余运动员使用假名参赛赚钱,而索普却用自己的真名。
As a result, he
was not technically an amateur when he competed at
Stockholm as all Olympic
athletes must be. His
Olympic medals and trophies were taken away from
him and given to the
runners-up. 如果,从技术上来讲,他在斯
德哥尔摩参赛时,已不是一名业余运动员了,而根据规定,
所有奥林匹克运动员必须是业余选手。于是,
他的奥林匹克奖章和奖品被收了回去,给了第二名的获
得者。
After this
heartbreaking experience, Thorpe turned to
professional sports. He played major
league
baseball for six years and did fairly well.
在这次令人心碎的经历之后,索普转向职
业运动。他为主要的棒球联赛协会打了六年球,成绩还不错。
Then he played professional football for six
years with spectacular success.
接着,他加
入职业橄榄球队,参赛六年,成绩斐然。
His last
professional football season was in 1926. After
that, his youthful indifference
to studies and
his unwillingness to think of a nonsports career
caught up with him. He had
trouble finding a
job, and his friends deserted him. 1926年,他结束了职业橄榄球
员生涯。
到这时候,年轻时,他对学业漫不经心,加之,他一直也不愿考虑运动员以外的职业。这一切终
于给
他带来了不幸。他找不到工作,朋友们也抛弃了他。
He periodically
asked for, but never was given back, his Olympic
prizes. From 1926 until
his death in 1953, he
lived a poor, lonely, unhappy life. 他不时地要求,发还给他,但最
终
也未能要回他的奥林匹克奖牌。从1926年直到1953年世,他过着贫穷、寂寞、不幸的生活。
But in 1950 the Associated Press held a poll
to determine the outstanding athlete of the
half-century. Despite his loss of the Olympic
gold medals and a sad decline in fortune during
his later years, Thorpe was almost unanimously
chosen the greatest athlete of modern times.
1
950年,美联社举行民意测验以确定半个世纪中最杰出的运动员。尽管索普失去了奥林匹克金牌,
晚年
境遇凄楚,人们依然几乎一致地推选他为现代最伟大的运动员。
Unit 5
Text
Is it ever proper for a medical doctor to
lie to his patient? Should he tell a patient
精选
he is dying? These questions
seem simple enough, but it is not so simple to
give a satisfactory
answer to them. Now a new
light is shed on them.医生可以对病人撒谎吗医生应该告诉病人他已
经病入膏
肓了吗这些问题看起来很简单,但是要给出令人满意的回答却并不那么简单。这里给了他们
一线光明。
TO LIE OR NOT TOLIE -- THE DOCTOR'S
DILEMMA
撒谎还是不撒谎--医生的难题
Sissela Bok
Should doctors ever lie to benefit
their patients -- to speed recovery or to conceal
the
approach of death? 为了对病人有好处--
为了加快病人康复或不让病人知道死亡的来临--医生到底
该不该撒谎。
In
medicine as in law, government, and other lines of
work, the requirements of honesty often
seem
dwarfed by greater needs: the need to shelter from
brutal news or to uphold a promise
of secrecy;
to expose corruption or to promote the public
interest. 医疗行业与法律、政府
及其他行业一样,往往显得对诚实与否的问题不那么看重,
要紧的倒是另外的一些事情,譬如,应设
法避免可怕的消息造成的打击,或是应考虑恪守保密的诺言,或
是需要揭露腐败行为或促进公众利益
等。
What should doctors
say, for example, to a 46-year-old man coming in
for a routine physical
checkup just before
going on vacation with his family who, though he
feels in perfect health,
is found to have a
form of cancer that will cause him to die within
six months? 举例说吧。
一个46岁的男子,在与家人外出度假之前进行常规体格检查,虽
然他自我感觉良好,但医生发现他
患了某种癌症,6个月内就会死去。
Is it best
to tell him the truth? If he asks, should the
doctors deny that he is ill, or
minimize the
gravity of the illness? Should they at least
conceal the truth until after the
family
vacation? 这时,医生该怎么对他讲呢是不是最好对他讲实话要是他问起检查结果,医生该
不
该否认他得了病该不该将病情的严重性缩小到最低限度该不该将真情至少隐瞒到他全家度假之
后?
Doctors confront such choices often and
urgently. At times, they see important reasons to
lie for the patient's own sake; in their eyes,
such lies differ sharply from self-serving
ones. 医生们常常面临这样的非常紧迫的选择。他们不时认为,为了病人自身的利益,撒谎很有必
要,
在他们看来,这种谎言与利己的谎言截然不同。
Studies show that
most doctors sincerely believe that the seriously
ill do not want to know
the truth about their
condition, and that informing them risks
destroying their hope, so
that they may
recover more slowly, or deteriorate faster,
perhaps even commit suicide.
研
究结果表明,大多数医生深信身患重病的人不想知道他们的真实病情,如果将真情相告,则有可能
使
他们完全失去希望,结果使他们恢复得更慢或恶化得更快,甚至会自寻短见。
As one
physician wrote: is a profession which
traditionally has been guided by a precept
that transcends the virtue of uttering the
truth for truth's sake, and that is 'as far as
possible do no
harm.'正如一位内科医生写道:“我们这个职业,传统上恪守一条信条,那就是
'
尽可能不造成伤害',这一信条胜过为讲真话而讲真话的美德”。
Armed with
such a precept, a number of doctors may slip into
deceptive practices that they
assume will
placebos, sound more encouraging than the
facts warrant, and distort grave news, especially
to the incurably ill and the dying. 有了这样一个指导原则
,一些医生可能渐渐习惯于采用他们
认为对病人很可能有益而“无害”的骗人做法。他们可能开出无数帖
安慰剂,说一些没有事实根据的
打气的话,并歪曲严重的病情,对那些患有不治之症和濒临死亡的病人,
则尤其如此。
But the illusory nature of the benefits
such deception is meant to produce is now coming
to be documented.
然而,现在开始有人提出证据,说明这种欺骗旨在给病人带来好处的说法是虚幻
的。
精选
Studies show that, contrary
to the belief of many physicians, an overwhelming
majority of
patients do want to be told the
truth, even about grave illness, and feel betrayed
when they
learn that they have been misled. 研究
结果表明,与许多医生的想法相反,绝大多数病人确实想
知道真实情况,甚至是严重的病情。当他们了解
到医生没有对他们讲真话的时候,他们感到自己被玩
弄了。
We are also
learning that truthful information, humanely
conveyed, helps patients cope with
illness:
helps them tolerate pain better, need less
medicine, and even recover faster after
surgery. 我们还获悉,将真实情况妥当地告诉病人,能帮助他们与病魔作斗争,有助于他们更
好地
忍受疼痛,减少用药,甚至在手术后更快地康复。
Not only do lies
not provide the hoped for by advocates of
benevolent deception; they
invade the autonomy
of patients and render them unable to make
informed choices concerning
their own health,
including the choice of whether to be patient in
the first place. 谎言
不仅不能提供鼓吹“仁慈”欺骗的人们所希望的那种“帮助”
,它还侵犯了病人的个人自由,使他们
不能对有关自己健康的问题作出明达的选择,包括要不要就医这一
首要的选择。
We are becoming increasingly aware of
all that can befall patients in the course of
their
illness when information is denied or
distorted. 我们越来越意识到,病人发病期间,在不知
病情或未被如实地告知病情的情况下
,他们会遭到什么样的不幸。
Dying patients especially -- who
are easies to mislead and most often kept in the
dark --
can then not make decisions about the
end of life: about whether or not they should
enter
a hospital, or have surgery; about where
and with whom they should spend their remaining
time; about how they should bring their
affairs to a close and take leave.特别是濒临死亡
的病人--
他们最易受骗也最会被人蒙在鼓里--因此而不能作出临终前的种种有关抉择: 是否要住进
医院,或进
行手术,在何处与何人度过所剩下的一点时间,以及如何处理完自己的事务而后与世长辞。
Lies
also do harm to those who tell them: harm to their
integrity and, in the long run, to
their
credibility. Lies hurt their colleagues as well.
谎言也伤害说谎的人,损害他们的诚
实,并最终损害他们的信誉。谎言还伤害他们的同事。由于病人
怀疑有欺骗行为,许多对病人十分
开诚布公的医生的工作也因此受到影响。
The
suspicion of deceit undercuts the work of the many
doctors who are scrupulously honest
with their
patients; it contributes to the spiral of lawsuits
and of
and thus it injures, in turn, the
entire medical profession. 病人的不信任使医疗诉讼案增
多,造成医生
避免风险的“防御性诊治”增多,而这些又进而有损于整个医疗事业。
Sharp
conflicts are now arising. Patients are learning
to press for answers. 剧烈的冲突
正在出现。病人开始学会催问真实情况。
Patients' bills of rights require that they be
informed about their condition and about
alternatives for treatment.
根据病人应享有的权利的规定,医生应将病情和可供选择的治疗方案
通告病人。
Many
doctors go to great lengths to provide such
information. Yet even in hospitals with
the
most eloquent bill of rights, believers in
benevolent deception continue their age-old
practices. 许多医生尽可能向病人提供这些情况。然而,即使在对病人的权益考虑得最周到
的医院
里,信奉“仁慈”欺骗的医生们继续他们传统的古老做法。
Colleagues
may disapprove but refrain from objecting. Nurses
may bitterly resent having to
take part, day
after day, in deceiving patients, but feel
powerless to take a stand. 同
事们也许不赞同,但避免公开表示反对。
护士们对不得不日复一日地参与欺骗病人的做法也许深恶痛
绝,但要抵制却感到无能为力。
There is urgent need to debate this issue
openly. Not only in medicine, but in other
professions as well, practitioners may find
themselves repeatedly in difficulty where
serious consequences seem avoidable only
through deception. 及时对这个问题进行公开辩论非
常必要。不仅在医疗业,而且
在其他行业,从业者不断发现,自己常处于似乎不采用欺骗手段就无法
精选
避免严重后果的困难处境。
Yet the public has
every reason to be wary of professional deception,
for such practices
are peculiarly likely to
become deeply rooted, to spread, and to erode
trust. Neither in
medicine, nor in law,
government, or the social sciences can there be
comfort in the old
saying, 但是公众完全有理由对职业性欺骗保持警惕
,因
为这种做法特别容易变得根深蒂固,蔓延滋长,并损害信任。无论医疗界、法律界、政府机构还是社
会科学界,都不应从“不知者,不为所害”这句老话中得到丝毫慰藉。
Unit 6
Text
ever mark in a
book!Thousands of teachers, librarians and parents
have so advised.
But Mortimer Adler disagrees.
He thinks so long as you own the book and needn't
preserve
its physical appearance, marking it
properly will grant you the ownership of the book
in
the true sense of the word and make it a
part of yourself.
“不要在书上做记号!”无数教师、图书管理员和家长都曾这样建议。但是莫蒂默• 艾德勒并不同意。
他认为只要你拥有这本书而且不需要保护它的外观,做记号将会让你真正意义上拥有这本书并且使它成为你的一部分。怎样在书上做记号
HOW TO MARK A
BOOK
Mortimer J.
Adler
You know you have to read
persuade
you to do something equally important in the
course of your reading. I want to
persuade you
to
efficient kind of reading. 你知道读书要“深入字里行间”,以
求最充分的理解。我劝你在读书过
程中做一件同样重要的事情。我想劝你“在字里行间写字”。不这样做
,你的读书就不可能是最有效
的。
You shouldn't mark up a
book which isn't yours. Librarians (or your
friends) who lend you
books expect you to keep
them clean, and you should. If you decide that I
am right about
the usefulness of marking
books, you will have to buy
them.你不应该在不是你自己的书上做
记号。借给你书的图书管理员 (或你的朋友) 希望你保持
书的整洁,再说你也应该这样做。如果你认
为我说的在书上做记号颇有益处这番话是对的话,你就得自己
买书。
There are two ways in which one can own a
book. The first is the property right you
establish
by paying for it, just as you pay
for clothes and furniture.
一个人拥有书的方法有两种,
第一种是花钱取得财产所有权,就像你花钱买衣服和家具一样。
But this act of purchase is only the prelude
to possession. Full ownership comes only when
you have made it a part of yourself, and the
best way to make yourself a part of it is by
writing in it. 但花钱买书只是占有它的前奏。只有在你将它化为你自己的一部分之后
,你才完全
占有了它。而把你自己变为书的一部分的最好方法就是在书中写字。
An
illustration may make the point clear. You buy a
beefsteak and transfer it from the
butcher's
icebox to your own. But you do not own the
beefsteak in the most important sense
until
you consume it and get it into your bloodstream. I
am arguing that books, too, must
be absorbed
in your bloodstream to do you any good. 打个比方也许可以把这
一点说清楚。你买
下一块牛排,把它从肉铺的冰箱里转移到你的冰箱中。但从最重要的意义上来说,你还
没有占有它,
除非你吃下它并将它吸收进你的血液之中。我的论点是,书的营养也只有在被吸收进你的血
液中时,
才能对你有所裨益。
精选
There are three kinds of book owners. The
first has all the standard sets and best-sellers
-- unread, untouched. (This individual owns
wood-pulp and ink, not books.)
书籍拥有者可
以分为三种。第一种人藏有全部标准的成套书和畅销书--
既没有读过,也没有碰过。(这位占有的只
是纸浆和油墨,而不是书。)
The
second has a great many books -- a few of them
read through, most of them dipped into,
but
all of them as clean and shiny as the day they
were bought. (This person would probably
like
to make books his own, but is restrained by a
false respect for their physical appearance.)
第二种人藏书很多--有几本从头至尾读过,大部分浅尝辄止,但全都跟新买时一样整洁光亮。(此君<
br>很可能想使书真的为其所有,但因错误地过分关注书籍的外观而裹足不前。)
The
third has a few books or many -- every one of them
dog-eared and dilapidated, shaken
and loosened
by continual use, marked and scribbled in from
front to back. (This man owns
books.)
第三种人藏书或多或少--因不断使用,每本书都弄成书角卷起,破旧不堪,装订破损,书页
松散,全书
从扉页至末页画满了记号,涂满了字句。(此人是书的真正拥有者。)
Is it false
respect, you may ask, to preserve intact a
beautifully printed book, an elegantly
bound
edition? Of course not. I'd no more scribble all
over a first edition of
Lost
a painting or
a statue. 你或许会问,将一本印刷精美、装帧雅致的书保存完好,难道也是不恰当
的吗当然
不是。我决不会在一本初版的《失乐园》上乱涂乱写,就像我不会把一幅伦勃朗的原作连同
一盒蜡笔交给
我的婴孩任意涂抹一样! 我决不会在一幅油画或一尊塑像上画记号。
Its soul, so
to speak, is inseparable from its body. And the
beauty of a rare edition or
of a richly
manufactured volume is like that of painting or a
statue. If your respect for
magnificent
binding or printing gets in the way, buy yourself
a cheap edition and pay your
respects to the
author. 可以说,它们的灵魂与其躯体是不可分开的。一部珍本或一本装帧华美的
书的美,同一
幅油画或一尊塑像的美是一样的。如果你对华美的装帧或印刷的尊重妨碍你读书,那就
买一种便宜的版本
,将你的敬意献给作者。
Why is marking up a book
indispensable to reading? First, it keeps you
awake. (And I don't
mean merely conscious; I
mean wide awake.)
为什么在书上做记号对阅读是必不可少的呢?首先,
它会使你保持清醒。(我不是仅仅指它让你神
志清醒;我的意思是它能使你全神贯注。)
In the second place,
reading, if it is active, is thinking, and
thinking tends to express
itself in words,
spoken or written. The marked book is usually the
thought-through book.
其次,如果阅读是一种能动的行为,那么它就是思考,
而思考常常需借助口头的或书面的语言来表达。
作了记号的书,通常是读者认真思考过的书。
Finally, writing helps you remember the
thoughts you had, or the thoughts the author
expressed.
Let me develop these three points.
最后,写可以帮助你记住你阅读时的思想,或作者所表达的
思想。让我进一步就这三点谈一谈。
If reading is to accomplish anything
more than passing time, it must be active. you
can't
let your eyes glide across the lines of
a book and come up with an understanding of what
you have read. 如果阅读的目的不仅仅是消磨时间,那就应该是一种积极的思维活动。
仅仅让你的
眼睛在书上扫视一遍,你就不可能对所读的内容有所理解。
Now an
ordinary piece of light fiction, like, say,
the most active kind of reading.
当然,一部普通的消遣小说,譬如说《飘》,并不需要那种最积
极的思维式的阅读。
The
books you read for pleasure can be read in a state
of relaxation, and nothing is lost.
精选
But a great book, rich in ideas and
beauty, a book that raises and tries to answer
great
fundamental questions, demands the most
active reading of which you are capable. 作为消
遣的
书,可以轻松地读而不会有所失。但一本思想丰富、文字华美,试图提出带根本性的重大问题并
加以回答
的伟大著作,则要求你尽可能地进行最积极的阅读。
You don't absorb the
ideas of John Dewey the way you absorb the
crooning of Mr. Vallee. You
have to reach for
them. That you cannot do while you're asleep.
你不能像欣赏瓦利先生的低
声吟唱那样,学到约翰•
杜威的思想。你得花费气力方可获得。漫不经心是做不到这一点的。
If, when
you've finished reading a book, the pages are
filled with your notes, you know that
you read
actively.
如果当你读完一本书的时候,书页上写满了你的批注,你就知道你的阅读是积
极的了。
The
most famous active reader of great books I know is
President Hutchins, of the University
of
Chicago. He also has the hardest schedule of
business activities of any man I know. 我
所知道的最有
名的采用积极方式阅读伟大著作的人,是芝加哥大学的校长哈钦斯。他也是我所知道的
公务最繁忙的人。
He invariably read with pencil, and sometimes,
when he picks up a book and pencil in the
evening, he finds himself, instead of making
intelligent notes, drawing what he calls caviar
factorieson the margins. When that happens, he
puts the book down. He knows he's too tired
to
read, and he's just wasting time.他读书时总是拿着铅笔。有时,当他在
晚上拿起书和铅笔的
时候,发觉自己不是在做有意义的笔记,而是在页边空白处画些他称之为“鱼子酱工
厂”的东西,一
出现这种情况,他就放下书本。他知道自己太累,读不下去了,完全是在浪费时间。
But, you may ask, why is writing necessary?
Well, the physical act of writing, with your
own hand, brings words and sentences more
sharply before your mind and preserves them better
in your memory. To set down your reaction to
important words and sentences you have read,
and the questions they have raised in your
mind, is to preserve those reactions and sharpen
those questions. 但是,你或许会问,写有何必要呢要知道,亲手书写的动作会使词
语和句子更加
鲜明地呈现在你的脑海里,更好地储存在你的记忆中。将你对所读的重要词语和句子的感受
写下来,
将它们在你脑子里引起的问题记下来,就可以将这些感受长久保存下来,并可以使那些问题更加
明确
起来。
You can pick up the book the
following week or year, and there are all your
points of agreement,
disagreement, doubt and
inquiry. It's like resuming an interrupted
conversation with the
advantage of being able
to pick up where you left off.当你下周或来年重新拿起这本书的时候,你的各种观点,同意的、反对的、怀疑的、质询的,统统一目了然。这如同谈话一度被打断,现在又
可以在上次停下的地方接着谈下去了。
And that is exactly what
reading a book should be: a conversation between
you and the author.
Presumably he knows more
about the subject than you do; naturally you'll
have the proper
humility as you approach him.
读书就该这么个读法: 你同作者应进行对话。很可能作者在有关的
问题上比你懂得多,你接近他的时候
表示适度的谦恭是很自然的。
But don't let anybody tell you
that a reader is supposed to be solely on the
receiving end.
Understanding is a two-way
operation; learning doesn't consist in being an
empty receptacle.
The learner has to question
himself and question the teacher. He even has to
argue with the
teacher, once he understands
what the teacher is saying. And marking a book is
literally
an expression of your differences,
or agreements of opinion, with the author. 但不要轻信他人,以为读者只有全盘接受的份儿。理解是一种双向活动。学习并不是往空的容器中装东西。学生
应当向自己也向教师提问题。一旦理解了教师所讲的内容,他甚至还得与教师展开争论。而在书上做
记号
,实际上就是表达你赞同或不赞同作者观点的一种方式。
There are all
kinds of devices for marking a book intelligently
and fruitfully. Here's
the way I do it:
在书上做记号,有各种各样好的、行之有效的方法。现将我的做法叙述如下:
精选
1. Underlining: of major points, of
important or forceful statements. 在文字下面划线:
划
出主要论点及重要的或者有力的论述。
2. Vertical lines at
the margin: to emphasize a statement already
underlined. 在页边空白
处划竖线: 强调已划线的论述部分。
3.
Star, asterisk, or other doo-dad at the margin: to
be used sparingly, to emphasize the
ten or
twenty most important statements in the book.
在页边空白处画五星或六星记号,或其
他小符号: 这种记号宜珍惜着用。可用来强调书中十处或二
十处最重要的论述。
4. Numbers in the margin: to
indicate the sequence of points the author makes
in developing
a single argument. 在页边空白处写数字:
标明作者展开一个论据的各点顺序。
5. Number of other pages in
the margin: to indicate where else in the book the
author made
points relevant to the point
marked; to tie up the ideas in a book, which,
though they may
be separated by many pages,
belong together. 在页边空处写其他页的页码:
标明作者在本书其
他地方所写的与本论点有关的论点,也可以
通过这一办法将书中虽分散各处,但密切有关的观点联
系起来。
6. Circling
of key words or phrases. 在关键字眼或短语上画圆圈。
7.
Writing in the margin, or at the top or bottom of
the page, for the sake of: recording
questions
(and perhaps answers) which a passage raise in
your mind; reducing a complicated
discussion
to a simple statement; recording the sequence of
major points right through the
book.
在页边空白处或上下两端加批注: 其目的是记下某段文章在你脑子里引起的问题
(也许还有
答案);简要记下复杂的论述;记录贯串全书的一系列的重要论点。
I use
the end-papers at the back of the book to make a
personal index of the author's points
in the
order of their appearance. 我利用书末的衬页将作者的观点按出现的先后
次序编成一个
索引。
The front end-papers are, to me,
the most important. Some people reserve them for a
fancy
bookplate, I reserve them for fancy
thinking.
书前的衬页对我来说是最重要的。有些人将它们
留作贴花哨的藏书票用。我将它们留作奇思异想的天地。
After I have finished reading the book and
making my personal index on the back end-papers,
I turn to the front and try to outline the
book, not page by page, or point by point (I've
already done that at the back), but as an
integrated structure, with a basic unity and an
order of parts. This outline is, to me, the
measure of my understanding of the work.在我
读完一本
书并在卷尾衬页上做好我的个人索引之后,我便翻到卷首,试着将全书作一概述,不是逐页
地或逐点地进
行(那个我在卷尾已经做了),而是作为一个整体,基本上前后连贯,各部分排列有序。
对我来说,这个
概述表明了我对该著作理解的程度。
Unit 7
Text
A
young man finds it very difficult to say no to a
woman as a result he gets into trouble.
The
restaurant to which he has agreed to take his
luncheon date is far too expensive for
his
small pocketbook. How, then, will he be able to
avoid the embarrassing situation?一
个年轻人发觉很难拒绝一位
女士,他因此陷入了困境。他同意进行午餐聚会的那家餐厅对他可怜的荷
包来说实在太昂贵了。那么怎样
他才能避免这种尴尬的处境呢
THE LUNCHEON
午餐
et Maugham
精选
I caught sight of her at the play, and
in answer to her beckoning I went over during the
interval and sat down beside her.
我是在看戏的时候见到她的。幕间休息时,我应她的招呼走了
过去,在她旁边坐下。
It
was long since I had last seen her, and if someone
had not mentioned her name I hardly
think I
would have recognised her. She addressed me
brightly. 我上次见到她已是很久以前的
事了,要不是有人提起她的名字,我想我几乎会认不
出她来。她兴致勃勃地跟我谈了起来。
younger. Do you remember
the first time I saw you? You asked me to luncheon
.“瞧,自从
我们初次相见已经好多年了。真是光阴似箭啊!我俩都不年轻啦。你还记得我初次见到你吗
你请我吃
的午餐。”
Did I remember? 我能不记得吗?
It
was twenty years ago and I was living in Paris. I
had a tiny apartment in the Latin Quarter
overlooking a cemetery, and I was earning
barely enough money to keep body and soul
together.
那是20年前的事了,当时我住在巴黎。我在拉丁区租了一套小小的公寓,从那里
往下看去是一个公
墓。我挣的钱只够勉强维持生活。
She had read a
book of mine and had written to me about it. I
answered, thanking her, and
presently I
received from her another letter saying that she
was passing through Paris and
would like to
have a chat with me; but her time was limited, and
the only free moment she
had was on the
following Thursday; she was spending the morning
at the Luxembourg and would
I give her a
little luncheon at Foyot's afterwards? 她读过我的一本书,并曾
跟我写信谈论该
书。我回信向她致谢。随即我又收到她的一封信,说她路过巴黎,想跟我谈谈。但她的时
间有限,只
有下个星期四有空。那天上午,她要去卢森堡宫,问我是不是愿意中午请她在福伊约餐厅吃顿
便饭。
Foyot's is a restaurant at which the
French senators eat, and it was so far beyond my
means
that I had never even thought of going
there. But I was flattered, and I was too young to
have learned to say no to a woman. (Few men, I
may add, learn this until they are too old
to
make it of any consequence to a woman what they
say.) 福伊约餐厅是法国参议员光顾的地
方,去那儿吃饭远远超过我的经济能力,所以以前连想都
没有想过。但我当时受宠若惊,况且年纪太
轻,还没有学会对一位女士说个“不”字。(附带说一句,没
有几个男人学会这一招,而到他们学会
时,往往年事已高,他们说什么对女人来讲已无足轻重了。)
I had eight francs (gold francs) to last me
the rest of the month, and a modest luncheon
should not cost more than fifteen. If I cut
out coffee for the next two weeks I could manage
well enough.我当月的生活费还有 80法郎
(金法郎),一顿便餐花不了15法郎。如果我下两个星期
不喝咖啡,还是满可以对付过去的。
I answered that I would meet my friend -- by
correspondence -- at Foyot's on Thursday at
half past twelve. She was not so young as I
expected and in appearance imposing rather than
attractive, she was, in fact, a woman of forty
(a charming age, but not one that excites
a
sudden and devastating passion at first sight),
and she gave me the impression of having
more
teeth, white and large and even, than were
necessary for any practical purpose. 我
回信说,我将于下
星期四十二点半在福伊约餐厅会见我的朋友。她并不如我想象的那么年轻。她的外
表与其说美貌动人,毋
宁说丰腴魁伟,气概非凡。事实上,她已有40岁了 (这是一个有魅力的年龄,
但不是初次相见就能令
你激情迸发、神魂颠倒的那种年纪),长着一口洁白整齐的大牙齿,给我的印
象是,其数目之多已超过了
实际需要。
She was talkative, but since she seemed
inclined to talk about me I was prepared to be an
attentive listener.
她很健谈,不过因为她想谈的话题似乎总是关于我的事,所以我便洗耳恭听。
I was
startled when the bill of fare was brought, for
the prices were a great deal higher
than I had
anticipated. But she reassured me.
菜单拿来时,我大吃一惊。价格比我预料的要高
出许多。但她的话使我宽了心。
“我午餐从不吃什么东西,”她说。
精选
“哦,可别这么说!”我慷慨地回答。
perhaps. I
wonder if they have any salmon.
“我从来只吃一道菜。我认为现在人们吃得太多。
或许来点鱼还行。我不知道他们有鲑鱼没有。”
Well, it was early in the year for salmon and
it was not on the bill of fare, but I asked
the waiter if there was any. Yes, a beautiful
salmon had just come in, it was the first they
had had. I ordered it for my guest. The waiter
asked her if she would have something while
it
was being cooked. 啊,吃鲑鱼的季节还没有到,菜单上也没有,但是我还是问了侍者。有,
刚
刚进了一条头等鲑鱼,这是他们今年第一次进这种货。我为客人叫了一份。侍者问她在鲑鱼烹制的当<
br>儿,要不要吃点别的。
never mind caviare.“不要,”她回答说
,“我向来只吃一道菜,除非你有鱼子酱。鱼子酱我是从
不拒绝的。”
My heart
sank a little. I knew I could not afford caviare,
but I could not very well tell
her that. I
told the waiter by all means to bring caviare. For
myself I chose the cheapest
dish on the menu
and that was a mutton chop. 我的心微微一沉。我知道我是吃不起鱼子酱的,<
br>但我不便跟她直说,我吩咐侍者务必拿鱼子酱来。我自己则点了菜单上最便宜的一个菜,这就是羊排。
after eating heavy things like
chops. I don't believe in overloading my stomach.“
我看
你吃肉是不明智的,”她说。“我不知道你吃了羊排这种油腻的东西后还怎么工作。我不赞成把肚子
撑
得太饱。”
Then came the question of drink.
接着而来的是饮料问题。
“我午餐从不喝饮料,”她说。
“我也是如此,”我马上答道。
are so light. They're wonderful for the di
gestion.“但白葡萄酒例外,”她接着说,就好像
我刚才没说似的。“法国的白葡萄酒非常清淡
,十分有助消化。”
“你想喝点什
么”我依然客气地问道,但算不上热情。
She
gave me a bright and amicable flash of her white
teeth. 她嫣然一笑,露出一口白牙。
“我的医生只让我喝香槟。”
I fancy
I turned a trifle pale. I ordered half a bottle. I
mentioned casually that my doctor
had
absolutely forbidden me to drink champagne.
我猜想我的脸色一定有点发白了。我要了半瓶,
顺便提及我的医生绝对禁止我喝香槟酒。
“那你喝什么呢”
“水。”
She ate the caviare and
she ate the salmon. She talked gaily of art and
literature and music.
But I wondered what the
bill would come to. When my mutton chop arrived
she took me quite
seriously to task.
她吃了鱼子酱,又吃鲑鱼。她兴高采烈,大谈艺术、文学、音乐。但我心里却
在嘀咕,不知这顿饭要
花多少钱。当我的羊排上来时,她一本正经地教训起我来。
don't you
follow my example and just eat one thing? I'm sure
you'd feel ever so much better
for it.“我看你习惯中午
吃得很多。我肯定这样不好,你为什么不效法我的样子,只吃一道菜呢
我相信那样 你会感觉好得多。”
“我是打算只吃这一道菜,”我说。这时侍者又拿着菜单走了过来。
精选
She waved him aside with an airy
gesture. 她轻轻地一挥手,让他走开。
I eat that more as
an excuse for conversation than anything else. “我可
不这样,我午餐从
不吃东西。要吃,也只是稍许吃一点,从不多吃。而我吃这么一点,主要也是为了借此
机会闲谈而已。
I couldn't possibly eat anything more
unless they had some of those giant asparagus. I
should
be sorry to leave Paris without having
some of them.我可不能再吃什么东西了,除非他们有
那种大芦笋。到了巴黎,不吃点芦笋
,那就太遗憾了。”
My heart sank. I had seen them in
the shops, and I knew that they were horribly
expensive.
My mouth had often watered at the
sight of them.
我的心一沉。我曾在店里见过芦笋,我知道
它贵得可怕。过去我每见芦笋,常常馋涎欲滴。
“夫
人想知道你们有没有那种大芦笋,”我问侍者。
I tried with
all my might too will him to say no. A happy smile
spread over his broad,
pries-like face, and he
assured me that they had some so large, so
splendid, so tender, that
it was a marvel. 我竭尽
全力想使他说没有。他那张宽阔的教士般虔诚的脸上展露出愉快的笑容,
他用肯定的语气对我说,他们有
又大、又好、又嫩的芦笋,简直是罕见的珍品。
asparagus.“我一点也不饿,”我
的客人叹道,“不过如果你执意要请我吃,我也不反对吃点芦笋。”
I ordered
them. 我便点了这道菜。
“你不吃点吗”
“不,我从不吃芦笋。”
meat you eat.“我知道有人不喜欢芦笋。事实是,你吃肉太多,伤了胃口。”
We waited for the asparagus to be cooked.
Panic seized me. It was not a question now how
much money I should have left over for the
rest of the month, but whether I had enough to
pay the bill. 我们等着芦笋烹制好送上来。我突然惊恐起来。现在的问题已不是我还能
剩下几个钱
来维持这个月的生计了,而是我的钱够不够付账。
It would be
embarrassing to find myself ten francs short and
be obliged to borrow from my
guest. I could
not bring myself to do that. I knew exactly how
much I had, and if the bill
came to more I
made up my mind that I would put my hand in my
pocket and with a dramatic
cry start up and
say it had been picked. 要是我差十法郎,不得不向客人借的话,那就太难堪
了。我可做不出那样的事来。身边到底有多少钱,我心里有底,倘若账单超过了这个数字,我就决心
这
么办:伸手往口袋里一摸,随即故意惊叫一声,跳起来说钱给小偷扒了。
Of course,
it would be awkward if she had not money enough
either to pay the bill. Then the
only thing
would be to leave my watch and say I would come
back and pay later.当然,如果
她的钱也不够付账的话,那就尴尬了。那样,唯一
的办法就是将我的手表留下,言明以后再来付。
The asparagus appeared.
They were enormous, juicy, and appetising. I
watched the wicked woman
thrust them down her
throat in large mouthfuls, and in my polite way I
spoke about the
condition of the drama in the
Balkans. At last the finished. 芦笋端上来了。又大汁又多,
令人
垂涎不止。我一面看着这个邪恶的女人大口大口地将芦笋往肚里塞,一面彬彬有礼地谈论着巴尔
干半岛戏
剧界的现状。她终于吃完了。
“喝点咖啡”我说。
“好,就来一客冰淇淋和咖啡吧,”她回答
说。
I was past
caring now, so I ordered coffee for myself and an
ice-cream and coffee for her.
到这时,我什么也不在乎了,为自己叫了咖啡,为她叫了一客冰淇淋和咖啡。
“你知道,我
精选
坚信一点,”她边吃冰淇淋边说
道。“当一个人吃完一顿饭站起来时,他应该感到还没有吃得十分饱。”
“你还饿吗?”我有气无力地问道。
no, I'm not hungry; you
see, I don't eat luncheon. I have a cup of coffee
in the morning
and then dinner, but I never
eat more than one thing for luncheon. I was
speaking for you.
“噢,不,我不饿。你知道,我不吃午餐。我早晨一杯咖啡,然后
到晚上用餐,但我午餐向来最多只
吃一道菜。适才我这样说是为了你啊。”
“哦,我明白啦!”
Then a terrible thing happened.
While we were waiting for the coffee the head
waiter, with
an ingratiating smile on his
false face, came up to us bearing a large basket
full of huge
peaches. They had the blush of an
innocent girl; they had the rich tone of an
Italian landscape.
接着,发生了一件可怕的事情。当我们在等咖啡的时候,那个
领班侍者,带着满脸奉承的笑容,拎来
满满一大篮子特大的桃子,红得酷似天真少女的脸蛋,其色调之瑰
丽犹如一幅意大利风景画。
But surely peaches were not in
season then? Lord knew what they cost. I knew too
-- a little
later, for my guest, going on with
her conversation, absentmindedly took one. 当时桃子肯定还没有到上市季节,只有上帝晓得买它们得花多少价钱。不过很快我也晓得了,因为我的客人一边
说着话,一边心不在焉地拿了一只。
--
“你
看,你已经塞了一肚子肉,”--她是指我那可怜的一小块羊排
--“不能再吃什么了。而我只不过来了
点小吃,我还可以再品尝一只桃子。”
The
bill came, and when I paid it I found that I had
only enough for a quite inadequate tip.
账单来了。付过账后,我发现剩下的钱连付点像样的小费都不够了。
Her eyes
rested for an instant on the three francs I left
for the waiter, and I knew that
she thought me
mean. But when I walked out of the restaurant I
had the whole month before
me and not a penny
in my pocket. 她的目光在我留给侍者的三个法郎上停了一会儿,我知道她会
觉得我是个
吝啬鬼。可是等走出餐厅,我面临着的将是整整一个月的开销要支付,而口袋里却分文俱
无。
luncheon.“你学学我,”她边握手边说道,“午餐顶多只吃一道菜。”
“我会做
得更好,”我回敬道,“我今晚什么也不吃了。”
“幽默家!”
她得意洋洋地大声说着,跳上了一辆马车。“你是个十足的幽默家!”
But I have had my revenge at last. I do not
believe that I am a vindictive man, but when
the immortal gods take a hand in matter it is
pardonable to observe the result with complacency.
Today she weighs twenty-one stone. 但是我终于报了仇。我自
认不是一个爱报复的人,但是竟连
不朽的众神也被触怒而干预其事时,我怀着心满意足的心情目睹这个结
局,想必也是可以原谅的了。
现今她的体重已达二十一英石(二百九十四磅)。
Unit 8
Text
Would you choose to live underground
if you could gain many advantages from doing so?
Weather would no longer trouble you.
Temperature would remain the same all the year
round.
Artificial lighting could make the
rhythm of our life uniform everywhere. And the
ecology
of the natural world above ground
would be greatly improved. Still, the prospect of
moving
underground may not be appealing to
many people.如果你能从中获得很多好处,你会选择住在地
精选
下吗?天气再也不会带来麻烦。全年恒温。人造光源使全世界的生活节奏保持一致。地面上自然世界的生态将大幅改善。然而,移居地下的前景对很多人来说并不具吸引力。
THE NEW CAVES
新洞穴
Isaac Asimov
During the ice ages, human beings
exposed to the colder temperatures of the time
would often
make their homes in caves. There
they found greater comfort and security than they
would
have in the open. 在冰河时代,人类当时面临较为寒冷的气温,常常
在洞穴里安家。他们发现在洞
里生活要比在野外更舒适,更安全。
We still
live in caves called houses, again for comfort and
security. Virtually no one would
willingly
sleep on the ground under the stars. Is it
possible that someday we may seek to
add
further to our comfort and security by building
our houses underground -- in new, manmade
caves? 我们现今仍然住在被称作房子的洞穴里,目的还是为了舒适和安全。事实上,没有人愿意
露
宿在星空下的野地里。会不会有朝一日为了更加舒适和安全起见,我们把房屋建造在地下--
建造在新
的人造洞穴里呢?
It may not seem a palatable
suggestion, at first thought. We have so many evil
associations
with the underground. In our
myths and legends, the underground is the realm of
evil spirits
and of the dead, and is often the
location of an afterlife of torment.
乍一想来,这一建
议似乎并不可取。说起地下,我们会产生许许多多不愉快的联想。在神话和传说里,
地下是魔鬼和
亡灵的世界,它常常是人们死后遭受折磨的地方。
(This may be
because dead bodies are buried underground, and
because volcanic eruptions make
the
underground appear to be a hellish place of fire
and noxious gases.)(这可能因为尸体
总是埋在地下的缘故,而
火山爆发又给人们一种印象,似乎地下充满着火与毒气,如同地狱一般。)
Yet there
are advantages to underground life, too, and
something to be said for imagining
whole
cities, even mankind generally, moving downward;
of having the outermost mile of the
Earth's
crust honeycombed with passages and structures,
like a gigantic ant hill.
然而生
活在地下也有其有利之处,设想将整座城市,乃至全人类搬入地下是有一定的道理的。如果将
地壳
最表层一英里厚的地方筑满通道和建筑物,就像一个巨大的蚁冢,这会给人类带来各种好处。
First, weather would no longer be important,
since, it is primarily a phenomenon of the
atmosphere. Rain, snow, sleet, fog would not
trouble the underground world. Even temperature
variations are limited to the open surface and
would not exist underground. Whether day or
night, summer or winter, temperatures in the
underground world remain equable and nearly
constant. 首先,气候将变得无关紧要,因为它主要是大气层的一种现象。雨、雪、霰、雾将
不会给
地下世界带来麻烦。甚至气温的变化也局限于露天地表,而在地下则不存在这种变化。不论白天黑
夜,
炎夏寒冬,地下世界的温度将保持平稳,近乎恒温。The vast amounts of
energy now expended in
warming our surface
surroundings when they are too cold, and cooling
them when they are too
warm, could be saved.
The damage done to manmade structures and to human
beings by weather
would be gone.
Transportation over long distances would be
simplified. (Earthquakes would
remain a
danger, of course.) 如今,当我们的地表环境太冷时,则需要取暖,而太暖时,又需降<
br>温,耗费大量的能量。若搬到地下生活,则统统可以省去。天气对人造的建筑物以及人类本身的损害
将不复存在。地区性的交通问题也将大为简化。(当然,地震将依然是个危险。)
Second,
local time would no longer be important. On the
surface, the tyranny of day and night
cannot
be avoided, and when it is morning in one place,
it is noon in another, evening in
still
another and midnight in yet another. The rhythm of
human life therefore varies from
place to
place. 其次,地方时间将无关紧要。地球表面昼夜分明,谁也无法避免,一处是早晨,另
一处是
中午,再一处是黄昏,又一处是午夜。所以人类生活的节奏因地而异。
Underground,
where there is no externally produced day, but
only perpetual darkness, it would
精选
be arificial lighting that produces the
day and this could be adjusted to suit man's
convenience.在地下,没有外界生成的白天,而只有永恒的
黑暗,人工照明形成白昼,这就可以根
据人的需要加以调整。
The whole
world could be on eight-hour shifts, starting and
ending on the stroke everywhere,
at least as
far as business and community endeavors were
concerned. This could be important
in a freely
mobile world. 整个世界都可以实行八小时轮班制,各地都可能做到同时上班,同时下
班
,至少公务活动和社会活动可以如此。这对于一个自由流动的社会来说极为重要。
Air
transportation over long distances would no longer
have entail
landing on another coast or
another continent would find the society they
reached geared
to the same time of day as at
home.乘飞机长途旅行将不会再引起“时差反应”。抵达大
洋彼岸
或另一片大陆的人会发现他们所到的那个社会与自己家乡一样都是按照同一时间运行的。
Third, the ecological structure could be
stabilized. To a certain extent, mankind encumbers
the Earth. It is not only his enormous numbers
that take up room; more so, it is all the
structures he builds to house himself and his
machines, to make possible his transportation
and communication, to offer him rest and
recreation. 第三,生态结构将会稳定下来。在一定
程度上,人类拖累了地球。这不仅仅是
指众多的人口占据了地球的空间,更多的是指人类为住家和安
装机器构筑的房子,为交通运输、为休息、
娱乐建造的各种设施。
All these things distort the wild,
depriving many species of plants and animals of
their
natural habitat -- and sometimes,
involuntarily, favoring a few, such as rats and
roaches.
这一切致使荒野面目全非,剥夺了许多种动植物栖息、生长的天然场所--
有时候,无意中还促进了诸
如老鼠和蟑螂之类的某些生物的繁衍。
If the works
of man were removed below ground -- and, mind you,
below the level of the natural
world of the
burrowing animals -- man would still occupy the
surface with his farms, his
forestry, his
observation towers, his air terminals and so on,
but the extent of that
occupation would be
enormously decreased. 如果人类的建筑物都搬到地下--
请注意,要搬到穴居
动物生活的地层以下--
人类仍将占据地球表面,种地、植林、造了望台和航空站等等,但占有的程度
将大大减小。
Indeed, as one imagines the underground world
to become increasingly elaborate, one can
visualize much of the food supply eventually
deriving from hydroponic growth in artificially
illuminated areas underground. The Earth's
surface might be increasingly turned over to park
and to wilderness, maintained at ecological
stability. 的确,可以想见随着地下世界变得越
来越精巧复杂,大部分食物将最终来自地下
人工照明地区的水栽生物。地球表面有可能越来越多地让
位于公园和荒野,从而得以维持生态平衡稳定。
Fourth, nature would be closer. It might seem
that to withdraw underground is to withdraw
from the natural world, but would that be so?
第四,人们与自然界的距离将会缩短。退到地下,
看起来似乎是远离了自然界,但果真如此吗?
Would the withdrawal be more complete than it
is now, when so many people work in city
buildings that are often windowless and
artificially conditioned? Even where there are
windows, what is the prospect one views (if
one bothers to) but sun, sky, and buildings to
the horizon -- plus some limited greenery? 现今,
这么多人在城市的建筑物内工作,那里常常
没有窗户,而靠人工调节一切。即便有窗户,你又能看到什么
呢(如果你肯费心看一看的话)无非是
太阳,天空,以及一直伸展到天边的建筑物--外加一点有限的
绿色草木而已。
And to get away from the city now? To
reach the real countryside? One must travel
horizontally
for miles, first across city
pavements and then across suburban sprawls.
搬到地下以后,
与自然界隔绝的情况还会胜过于此吗 现在你想离开城市吗?到真正的乡村去吗?你必须
旅行数英
里,先得走过城市的街道,然后还得走过郊区杂乱无章的建筑群。
In an
underworld culture, the countryside would be right
there, a few hundred yards above
the upper
level of the cities -- wherever you are. The
surface would have to be protected
精选
from too frequent, or too intense, or
too careless visiting, but however carefully
restricted
the upward trips might be, the
chances are that the dwellers of the new caves
would see more
greenery, under ecologically
healthier conditions, than dwellers of surface
cities to today.
在地下世界文化中,乡村就在城市上面几百码远的地方--不管你
在哪里都是这样。地表当然必须得到
保护,不允许过分频繁地、过分集中地、或过分随便地参观访问,但
不管对向上的旅行作出多么认真
的限制,新洞穴里的居民们将有可能比今天地面城市的居民在更为健康的
生态环境下生活,并见到更
多的青枝绿叶。
However odd and
repulsive underground living may seem at first
thought, there are tings to
be said for it --
and I haven't even said them all.
尽管地下生活乍想起来多么的奇怪和不那
么令人喜欢,它的好处可以举出好多--
而我在这里只不过是略说一二。
精选