新世纪大学英语综合教程4 Unit8
118114-领导讲话心得体会
1 Unit 8
Life is unpredictable. It
often plays tricks on us and surprises us with
unexpected
endings. In this story, Mrs.
Mallard reacted with sadness at the news of her
husband's death in a train accident, and then
locked herself up in her room, where
she
seemed to be waiting fearfully for something that
she felt was coming to her.
What was it?
The Story of an Hour
Kate Chopin
(1)
1) Knowing that Mrs. Mallard was afflicted
with a heart trouble, great care was
taken to
break to her as gently as possible the news of her
husband's death.
2) It was her sister
Josephine who told her, in broken sentences;
veiled hints that
revealed in half concealing.
Her husband's friend Richards was there, too, near
her. It was he who had been in the newspaper
office when intelligence of the
railroad
disaster was received, with Brently Mallard's name
leading the list of
had only taken the time to
assure himself of its truth by a second
telegram, and had hastened to prevent any less
careful, less tender friend in
bearing the sad
message.
3) She did not hear the story
as many women have heard the same, with a
paralyzed inability to accept its
significance. She wept at once, with sudden, wild
abandonment, in her sister's arms. When the
storm of grief had spent itself she
went away
to her room alone. She would have no one follow
her.
4) There stood, facing the open
window, a comfortable, roomy armchair. Into this
she sank, pressed down by a physical
exhaustion that haunted her body and
seemed to
reach into her soul.
5) She could see in
the open square before her house the tops of trees
that were all
full of the new spring life. The
delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the
street
below a peddler was crying his wares.
The notes of a distant song reached her
faintly, and countless birds were singing.
6) There were patches of blue sky showing
here and there through the clouds that
had met
and piled one above the other in the west facing
her window.
7) She sat with her head
thrown back upon the cushion of the chair, quite
motionless, except when a sob came up into her
throat and shook her, as a child
who has cried
itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams.
2 Unit 8
8) She was
young, with a fair, calm face, whose lines
betrayed repression and even
a certain
strength. But now there was a dull stare in her
eyes, whose gaze was
fixed on one of those
patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of
reflection, but
rather indicated a suspension
of intelligent thought.
(2)
9) There
was something coming to her and she was waiting
for it, fearfully. What
was it? She did not
know; it was too subtle and vague to name. But she
felt it,
creeping out of the sky, reaching
toward her through the sounds, the scents, the
color that filled the air.
10) Now
her bosom rose and fell impulsively. She was
beginning to recognize this
thing that was
approaching to possess her, and she was striving
to beat it back
with her will – as powerless
as her two white slender hands would have been.
11) When she abandoned herself a little
whispered word escaped her slightly parted
lips. She said it over and over under her
breath: free, free!The vacant
stare and the
look of terror that had followed it went from her
eyes. They stayed
keen and bright. Her pulses
beat fast, and the running blood warmed and
relaxed
every inch of her body.
12)
She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a
monstrous joy that held her. A
clear and
exalted perception enabled her to dismiss her
husband's death as
trivial.
13) She
knew that she would weep again when she saw the
kind, tender hands
folded in death; the face
that had never looked save with love upon her,
fixed
and gray and dead. But she saw beyond
that bitter moment a long procession of
years
to come that would belong to her absolutely. And
she opened and spread
her arms out to them in
welcome.
14) There would be no one to
live for during those coming years; she would live
for
herself. There would be no powerful will
bending hers in that blind persistence
with
which men and women believe they have a right to
impose a private will
upon a fellow-creature.
A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act
seem
no less a crime as she looked upon it in
that brief moment of illumination.
15)
And yet she had loved him – sometimes. Often she
had not. What did it matter!
What could love,
the unsolved mystery, count for in face of this
possession of
self-assertion which she
suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of
her
being!
16)
3 Unit 8
17) Josephine was kneeling before the
closed door with her lips to the keyhole,
begging for admission. – you will
make
yourself ill. What are you doing Louise? For
heaven's sake open the door.
(3)
18)
through that open window.
19) Her
fancy was running riot along those days ahead of
her. Spring days, and
summer days, and all
sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed
a quick
prayer that life might be long. It was
only yesterday she had thought with a
shudder
that life might be long.
20) She arose
at length and opened the door. There was a
feverish triumph in her
eyes, and she carried
herself like a goddess of Victory. She clasped her
sister's
waist, and together they descended
the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them
at
the bottom.
21) Someone was opening the
front door with a key. It was Brently Mallard who
entered, a little travel-stained, carrying his
briefcase and umbrella. He had been
far from
the scene of the accident, and did not even know
there had been one.
He stood amazed at
Josephine's piercing cry; at Richards' quick
motion to screen
him from the view of his
wife.
22) But Richards was too late.
23)
When the doctors came they said
she had died of heart disease – of joy that
kills.