自考英语二（新版） - 原文及翻译 - Unit - 9 - Facing - Life

Unit 9 Facing Life’s Challenges

A Famous Quote:

The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

- Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945), the 32nd President of the United

States (1933-1945), he led the nation out of the Great Depression and later into World War II. Before he died, he cleared the way for peace, including establishment of the United Nations. His presidency is widely regarded as one of the greatest in US history.

Text A: 300 Hurdles

Pre-reading Questions:

1. Have you ever done hurdles? What do you think of it?

2. What kinds of difficulties and challenges have you ever met in your life?

Life may give you negative, but don’t despair – it may just develop into a beautiful picture one day. This year, I realized my theory that I have on life. Life is like a 300m hurdle race. Since I run the 300m hurdles, I would know what the race is like.

The first thing to any race is worrying about whether you are going to win or not. This relates to worrying about the petty things in life. Does it really matter if you win? Is it really going to be the end of the world? Or will you be upset if you lose and forget about it? In life we worry too much and live in the moment too little.

Next is the lining up in our own individual lanes. We each start at different spots, but the race is still the same distance for everyone. This relates to our lives taking us to different places and putting us in different situations, but hopefully we will end up in the same place, but maybe at different times. Now comes the beginning of the race. We all try to keep up with everyone and pace ourselves with other people. This symbolizes that at times in everyone’s lives we worry about fitting in or being the same as other people, instead of worrying about being unique. If anyone were the same, the world would be incredibly boring.

Now comes the first hurdle. This hurdle is the easiest to get over because you are not worn out from running. We all make it over this hurdle with ease. This symbolizes those obstacles in life that we struggle to get over, but we

always manage to do so. You can look at that hurdle in two ways: “I can’t make it over, I’m tired” or “I am one more hurdle closer to finishing this race.” This is an example of taking a negative situation and seeing something positive in it. The next part of the race is every hurdle between the first and the last one. These hurdles get tougher and tougher and you may feel as though you can’t go on. This happens a lot in life too. There may be a situation that arises where you feel as though you can’t make it and all you can think is giving up. You may fall over that “hurdle” or struggle getting over it, but somehow you find it in yourself to jump over it and move on with the race.

Next is that last 100m of the race. You feel as though you just want to say, “No I can’t do this.” Again, you must find it in yourself that you can do it, and you must finish the race stronger than when you had started it.

Now lastly is the last hurdle. This hurdle is the toughest out of all of them. In life we find ourselves falling and falling, and maybe getting too lost in our problems that we feel like we have been through enough and there’s no hope. That last hurdle symbolizes these situations. It’s one step close to the end of the race.

Once you finish, you look back on it and you realize that you made it not by leaping, but step by step. “Yard by yard, life is very hard. But inch by inch, life can be a cinch.”

All it takes is one step at a time, one hurdle at a time.

第9课Text A 300米跨栏

生活也许会充满荆棘坎坷，但不要灰心绝望——也许有一天它便会勾勒出一幅美丽的画卷。今年我懂得了生活的真谛——生活就像一个300米的跨栏比赛。因为参加300米跨栏比赛，所以我知道在这个比赛过程中应该怎么做。

对于所有的比赛来说，最担心的事情莫过于输赢。这就好像在担心生活中那些无关紧要 的事情一样。难道获胜真的那么重要?难道输了就意味着世界末日的来临?或者你因为输了比赛就黯然神伤然后才慢慢忘记?生活中，我们担心得太多，而活在当下太少。

接下来就是在我们自己的跑道上蓄势待发。尽管在不同的地点起跑，但对我们每个人来说比赛的路程是相同的。这就好比生活将我们引领到不同的地方，放置到不同的环境中，但令人充满希望的是，尽管在不同的时间，但我们最终会在同一个地方谢幕。

现在比赛开始。我们都竭尽全力追赶别人，尽量让自己跟上他人的步伐。这表明有时在生活中我们每个人都会担心要去适应他人或者与他人一样，而不是担心成为独一无二的自己。如果人与人没有什么区别的话，这个世界是多么单调，令人生厌啊。

现在到了第一个跨栏。由于刚开始比赛你还没有筋疲力尽，所以这个跨栏是最容易的。

我们很轻松地跨过了这个栏杆。这就好像我们奋力去克服生活中的一些障碍，无论怎样，我们总能解决它们。你可以用两种心态看待这个跨栏：“我无法跨过它，我太累了”或者“我又跨过了一个栏杆，我离比赛终点又近了一步”。这是一个在消极的环境中看到积极因素的例子。

比赛的下一部分，就是介于第一个栏和最后一个栏中间的每一个栏。跨过这些栏难度越来越大，你似乎感觉到自己无法继续坚持了。当然这种事情在生活中也经常发生。譬如，有些时候你觉得自己无法完成某事，你满脑子想的就是想要放弃。也许你会被跨栏绊倒，也许你会很艰难地跨过它，但无论怎样你克服了这些困难，然后继续进行这场比赛。

接下来是整个比赛的最后100米，你也许只想说：“不，我无法跑完最后100米。”但你必须要再告诫自己你一定能做到，而且必须在快结束的时候比刚开始比赛时跑得更快。

现在到了最后一个栏杆，这个跨栏是最难跨越的。生活中，我们发现自己不断跌倒，为种种问题所困扰，感觉自己历经重重磨难，仍然看不到希望，这最后一个跨栏象征了这些情况。这是靠近比赛结束的关键一步。

一旦你成功了，你再回过头来看，你会意识到成功不是一蹴而就的，而是靠一步一个脚印地坚持走过。“生活在遥不可及的追求下步履蹒跚，生活在一步一个脚印的指引下轻松度过。”

成功需要的就是每次一小步，每次一个突破。

Text B A Violin with Three Strings

Pre-reading Questions:

1. Do you know anyone that is/was deprived of something in life but still leads/led a

successful or brilliant life? 2. How do you understand the slogan “Nothing is impossible”?

On Nov. 18th, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.

If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight.

He walks painfully, yet majestically, until the reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.

By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play.

But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You could hear it snap – it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do.

We figured that he would have to get up, put on the claps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage – to either find another violin or else find another string for this one. But he didn’t. instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again.

The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.

Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to know that. You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-turning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.

When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done. He smiled, wiped the sweat from his brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said – not boastfully, but in quiet, pensive, reverent tone – “You know, sometimes it is the artist’s task to find out how much you can still make with what you have left.”

What a powerful line that is! It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life – not just for artists, but for all of us.

Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin with four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with strings, and the music he made that

night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever before, when he had four strings.

So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with that we have left.

第9课Text B 三弦小提琴

1995年11月18日，小提琴家伊扎克·帕尔曼在纽约市林肯中心的埃弗里费雪厅上台准备开始一场音乐会。

如果你曾听过帕尔曼的音乐会，你就知道登台演出对他来说是个非凡的成就。他幼年患有小儿麻痹症，两条腿都安有铁夹，靠拄两个拐杖走路。看着他一步一步艰辛、缓慢地穿过舞台，那场面真令人敬畏!

他艰辛但又庄重地走到椅子边，慢慢坐下，把拐杖放到地板上，解开腿上的扣钩，把一只脚掰向身后，把另一只脚伸向身前。接着，他弯下身拿起小提琴，放到身上，用下巴顶好。他朝乐队指挥点头示意，随即开始了演奏。

一直以来，观众都对他的开场动作习以为常。他们静静地坐着，看帕尔曼艰难地穿过舞台走向椅子。他们一言不发，带着敬意看帕尔曼解开两条腿上的扣钩。他们等着他开始演奏。

但是这一次意外出现了。他刚弹奏完前面几段，小提琴的一根弦断了。你能听到那响声，音乐厅里就像顿时响起了枪声一样。那声音让人们很确信发生了什么，人们也很清楚帕尔曼接下来必须要做什么。

我们猜想他会不得不放弃演奏，重新扣上腿上的扣钩，拿起拐杖，一瘸一拐地走下舞台。他要么去找另一把小提琴，要么去为断弦的小提琴找另一根弦。但是他没有。他等了一小会儿，闭上眼睛，接着向乐队指挥示意重新开始。

乐队又开始了演奏，他从刚才停下的部分开始。观众从来没有听过他这么富有激情、饱含力量的纯净的演奏。

当然，任何人都知道仅靠三根弦是不可能演奏交响乐的。我们大家都知道这个事实，但是伊扎克·帕尔曼当晚却坚定证明他能够做到。你能感觉到他在脑海中转调、改变和重新谱写着这支曲子。听起来像是他在微调琴弦的音调，使其发出以前没有发出过的新声音。 当他表演结束的时候，整个音乐大厅寂静无声。然后大家都起立为他鼓掌喝彩。音乐厅里到处都爆发出雷鸣般的掌声。我们都站起来，尖叫着，欢呼着，尽一切所能来表达我们对帕尔曼演奏的赞赏。他笑了，擦去额头上的汗水，举起小提琴的琴弓示意让我们安静下来。接着他用一种低沉的、深思的和带有恭敬却丝毫没有自夸的语气对我们说，“大家知道，有的时候，音乐家的天职就是去发现使用残缺的乐器仍能演奏出什么音乐来。”

这是一句多么引人深思的话啊!从听到这句话的那一刻起我就一直把它铭记于心。谁知道呢?也许这就是生命的真谛——不只是对音乐家，对我们所有的人来说都适用。

他毕生都致力于演奏四根弦的小提琴，但在音乐会期间小提琴突然只剩下三根弦：因此他便用三根弦演奏，然而，那晚他用三根弦演奏的音乐却比他之前用四根弦演奏的音乐更加美妙，更加扣人心弦，更加令人难忘。

所以，在这个摇摇欲坠、风云变幻和令人困惑的世界里，我们的任务也许就是弹奏自己的音乐，一开始使用所拥有的一切弹奏，然后，当拥有一切不可能时，使用剩余部分继续弹奏。

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