全新版大学英语综合教程3课文原文及翻译

unit 1 Mr. Doherty Builds His Dream Life

In America many people have a romantic idea of life in the countryside. Many living in towns dream of starting up their own farm, of living off the land. Few get round to putting their dreams into practice. This is perhaps just as well, as the life of a farmer is far from easy, as Jim Doherty discovered when he set out to combine being a writer with running a farm. Nevertheless, as he explains, he has no regrets and remains enthusiastic about his decision to change his way of life. 在美国，不少人对乡村生活怀有浪漫的情感。许多居住在城镇的人梦想着自己办个农场，梦想着靠土地为生。很少有人真去把梦想变为现实。或许这也没有什么不好，因为，正如吉姆·多尔蒂当初开始其写作和农场经营双重生涯时所体验到的那样，农耕生活远非轻松自在。但他写道，自己并不后悔，对自己作出的改变生活方式的决定仍热情不减。

Mr. Doherty Builds His Dream Life

Jim Doherty

1 There are two things I have always wanted to do -- write and live on a farm. Today I'm doing both. I am not in E. B. White's class as a writer or in my neighbors' league as a farmer, but I'm getting by. And after years of frustration with city and suburban living, my wife Sandy and I have finally found contentment here in the country. 多尔蒂先生创建自己的理想生活

吉姆·多尔蒂

有两件事是我一直想做的――写作与务农。如今我同时做着这两件事。作为作家，我和E·B·怀特不属同一等级，作为农场主，我和乡邻也不是同一类人，不过我应付得还行。在城市以及郊区历经多年的怅惘失望之后，我和妻子桑迪终于在这里的乡村寻觅到心灵的满足。

2 It's a self-reliant sort of life. We grow nearly all of our fruits and vegetables. Our hens keep us in eggs, with several dozen left over to sell each week. Our bees provide us with honey, and we cut enough wood to just about make it through the heating season. 这是一种自力更生的生活。我们食用的果蔬几乎都是自己种的。自家饲养的鸡提供鸡蛋，每星期还能剩余几十个出售。自家养殖的蜜蜂提供蜂蜜，我们还自己动手砍柴，足可供过冬取暖之用。

3 It's a satisfying life too. In the summer we canoe on the river, go picnicking in the woods and take long bicycle rides. In the winter we ski and skate. We get excited about sunsets. We love the smell of the earth warming and the sound of cattle lowing. We watch for hawks in the sky and deer in the cornfields.

这也是一种令人满足的生活。夏日里我们在河上荡舟，在林子里野餐，骑着自行车长时间漫游。冬日里我们滑雪溜冰。我们为落日的余辉而激动。我们爱闻大地回暖的气息，爱听牛群哞叫。我们守着看鹰儿飞过上空，看玉米田间鹿群嬉跃。

4 But the good life can get pretty tough. Three months ago when it was 30 below, we spent two miserable days hauling firewood up the river on a sled. Three months from now, it will be 95 above and we will be cultivating corn, weeding strawberries and killing chickens. Recently, Sandy and I had to retile the back roof. Soon Jim, 16 and Emily, 13, the youngest of our four children, will help me make some long-overdue improvements on the outdoor toilet that supplements our indoor plumbing when we are working outside. Later this month, we'll spray the orchard, paint the barn, plant the garden and clean the hen house before the new chicks arrive.

但如此美妙的生活有时会变得相当艰苦。就在三个月前，气温降到华氏零下30度，我们辛苦劳作了整整两天，用一个雪橇沿着河边拖运木柴。再过三个月，气温会升到95度，我们就要给玉米松土，在草莓地除草，还要宰杀家禽。前一阵子我和桑迪不得不翻修后屋顶。过些时候，四个孩子中的两个小的，16岁的吉米和13岁的埃米莉，会帮着我一起把拖了很久没修的室外厕所修葺一下，那是专为室外干活修建的。这个月晚些时候，我们要给果树喷洒药水，要油漆谷仓，要给菜园播种，要赶在新的小鸡运到之前清扫鸡舍。

5 In between such chores, I manage to spend 50 to 60 hours a week at the typewriter or doing reporting for the freelance articles I sell to magazines and newspapers. Sandy, meanwhile, pursues her own demanding schedule. Besides the usual household routine, she oversees the garden and beehives, bakes bread, cans and freezes, drives the kids to their music lessons, practices with them, takes organ lessons on her own, does research and typing for me, writes an article herself now and then, tends the flower beds, stacks a little wood and delivers the eggs. There is, as the old saying goes, no rest for the wicked on a place like this -- and not much for the virtuous either. 在这些活计之间，我每周要抽空花五、六十个小时，不是打字撰文，就是为作为自由撰稿人投给报刊的文章进行采访。桑迪则有她自己繁忙的工作日程。除了日常的家务，她还照管菜园和蜂房，烘烤面包，将食品装罐、冷藏，开车送孩子学音乐，和他们一起练习，自己还要上风琴课，为我做些研究工作并打字，自己有时也写写文章，还要侍弄花圃，堆摞木柴、运送鸡蛋。正如老话说的那样，在这种情形之下，坏人不得闲――贤德之人也歇不了。

6 None of us will ever forget our first winter. We were buried under five feet of snow from December through March. While one storm after another blasted huge drifts up against the house and barn, we kept warm inside burning our own wood, eating our own apples and loving every minute of it.

我们谁也不会忘记第一年的冬天。从12月一直到3月底，我们都被深达5英尺的积雪困着。暴风雪肆虐，一场接着一场，积雪厚厚地覆盖着屋子和谷仓，而室内，我们用自己砍伐的木柴烧火取暖，吃着自家种植的苹果，温馨快乐每一分钟。

7 When spring came, it brought two floods. First the river overflowed, covering much of our land for weeks. Then the growing season began, swamping us under wave after wave of produce. Our freezer filled up with cherries, raspberries, strawberries, asparagus, peas, beans and corn. Then our canned-goods shelves and cupboards began to grow with preserves, tomato juice, grape juice, plums, jams and jellies. Eventually, the basement floor disappeared under piles of potatoes, squash and pumpkins, and the barn began to fill with apples and pears. It was amazing.

开春后，有过两次泛滥。一次是河水外溢，我们不少田地被淹了几个星期。接着一次是生长季节到了，一波又一波的农产品潮涌而来，弄得我们应接不暇。我们的冰箱里塞满了樱桃、蓝莓、草莓、芦笋、豌豆、青豆和玉米。接着我们存放食品罐的架子上、柜橱里也开

始堆满一罐罐的腌渍食品，有番茄汁、葡萄汁、李子、果酱和果冻。最后，地窖里遍地是大堆大堆的土豆、西葫芦、南瓜，谷仓里也储满了苹果和梨。真是太美妙了。

8 The next year we grew even more food and managed to get through the winter on firewood that was mostly from our own trees and only 100 gallons of heating oil. At that point I began thinking seriously about quitting my job and starting to freelance. The timing was terrible. By then, Shawn and Amy, our oldest girls were attending expensive Ivy League schools and we had only a few thousand dollars in the bank. Yet we kept coming back to the same question: Will there ever be a better time? The answer, decidedly, was no, and so -- with my employer's blessings and half a year's pay in accumulated benefits in my pocket -- off I went. 第二年我们种了更多的作物，差不多就靠着从自家树林砍斫的木柴以及仅仅100加仑的燃油过了冬。其时，我开始认真考虑起辞了职去从事自由撰稿的事来。时机选得实在太差。当时，两个大的女儿肖恩和埃米正在费用很高的常春藤学校上学，而我们只有几千美金的银行存款。但我们一再回到一个老问题上来：真的会有更好的时机吗？答案无疑是否定的。于是，带着老板的祝福，口袋里揣着作为累积津贴的半年薪水，我走了。

9 There have been a few anxious moments since then, but on balance things have gone much better than we had any right to expect. For various stories of mine, I've crawled into black-bear dens for Sports Illustrated, hitched up dogsled racing teams for Smithsonian magazine, checked out the Lake Champlain \wilderness area of Minnesota for Destinations.

那以后有过一些焦虑的时刻，但总的来说，情况比我们料想的要好得多。为了写那些内容各不相同的文章，我为《体育画报》爬进过黑熊窝；为《史密森期刊》替参赛的一组组狗套上过雪橇；为《科学文摘》调查过尚普兰湖水怪的真相；为《终点》杂志在明尼苏达划着小舟穿越美、加边界水域内的公共荒野保护区。

10 I'm not making anywhere near as much money as I did when I was employed full time, but now we don't need as much either. I generate enough income to handle our $600-a-month mortgage payments plus the usual expenses for a family like ours. That includes everything from music lessons and dental bills to car repairs and college costs. When it comes to insurance, we have a poor man's major-medical policy. We have to pay the first $500 of any medical fees for each member of the family. It picks up 80% of the costs beyond that. Although we are stuck with paying minor expenses, our premium is low -- only $560 a year -- and we are covered against catastrophe. Aside from that and the policy on our two cars at $400 a year, we have no other insurance. But we are setting aside $2,000 a year in an IRA. 我挣的钱远比不上担任全职工作时的收入，可如今我们需要的钱也没有过去多。我挣的钱足以应付每月600美金的房屋贷款按揭以及一家人的日常开销。那些开销包括了所有支出，如音乐课学费、牙医账单、汽车维修以及大学费用等等。至于保险，我们买了一份低收入者的主要医疗项目保险。我们需要为每一位家庭成员的任何一项医疗费用支付最初的500美金。医疗保险则支付超出部分的80％。虽然我们仍要支付小部分医疗费用，但我们的保险费也低--每年只要560美金--而我们给自己生大病保了险。除了这一保险项目，以及两辆汽车每年400美金的保险，我们就没有其他保险了。不过我们每年留出2000美元入个人退休金账户。

11 We've been able to make up the difference in income by cutting back without appreciably lowering our standard of living. We continue to dine out once or twice a month, but now we patronize local restaurants instead of more expensive places in the city. We still attend the opera and ballet in Milwaukee but only a few times a year. We eat less meat, drink cheaper wine and see fewer movies. Extravagant Christmases are a memory, and we combine vacations with story assignments...

我们通过节约开支而又不明显降低生活水准的方式来弥补收入差额。我们每个月仍出去吃一两次饭，不过现在我们光顾的是当地餐馆，而不是城里的高级饭店。我们仍去密尔沃基听歌剧看芭蕾演出，不过一年才几次。我们肉吃得少了，酒喝得便宜了，电影看得少了。铺张的圣诞节成为一种回忆，我们把完成稿约作为度假的一部分??

12 I suspect not everyone who loves the country would be happy living the way we do. It takes a couple of special qualities. One is a tolerance for solitude. Because we are so busy and on such a tight budget, we don't entertain much. During the growing season there is no time for socializing anyway. Jim and Emily are involved in school activities, but they too spend most of their time at home. 我想，不是所有热爱乡村的人都会乐意过我们这种生活的。这种生活需要一些特殊的素质。其一是耐得住寂寞。由于我们如此忙碌，手头又紧，我们很少请客。在作物生长季节，根本就没工夫参加社交活动。吉米和埃米莉虽然参加学校的各种活动，但他俩大多数时间也呆在家里。

13 The other requirement is energy -- a lot of it. The way to make self-sufficiency work on a small scale is to resist the temptation to buy a tractor and other expensive laborsaving devices. Instead, you do the work yourself. The only machinery we own (not counting the lawn mower) is a little three-horsepower rotary cultivator and a 16-inch chain saw. 另一项要求是体力――相当大的体力。小范围里实现自给自足的途径是抵制诱惑，不去购置拖拉机和其他昂贵的节省劳力的机械。相反，你要自己动手。我们仅有的机器（不包括割草机）是一台3马力的小型旋转式耕耘机以及一架16英寸的链锯。

14 How much longer we'll have enough energy to stay on here is anybody's guess -- perhaps for quite a while, perhaps not. When the time comes, we'll leave with a feeling of sorrow but also with a sense of pride at what we've been able to accomplish. We should make a fair profit on the sale of the place, too. We've invested about $35,000 of our own money in it, and we could just about double that if we sold today. But this is not a good time to sell. Once economic conditions improve, however, demand for farms like ours should be strong again.

没人知道我们还能有精力在这里再呆多久--也许呆很长一阵子，也许不是。到走的时候，我们会怆然离去，但也会为自己所做的一切深感自豪。我们把农场出售也会赚相当大一笔钱。我们自己在农场投入了约35，000美金的资金，要是现在售出的话价格差不多可以翻一倍。不过现在不是出售的好时机。但是一旦经济形势好转，对我们这种农场的需求又会增多。

15 We didn't move here primarily to earn money though. We came because we wanted to improve the quality of our lives. When I watch Emily collecting eggs in the evening, fishing with Jim on the river or enjoying an old-fashioned picnic in the orchard with the entire family, I know we've found just what we were looking for.

但我们主要不是为了赚钱而移居至此的。我们来此居住是因为想提高生活质量。当我看着埃米莉傍晚去收鸡蛋，跟吉米一起在河上钓鱼，或和全家人一起在果园里享用老式的野

餐，我知道，我们找到了自己一直在寻求的生活方式。

Donna Barron describes how American family life has changed in recent years. She identifies three forces at work. What are they? Read on to find out. Then ask yourself whether similar forces are at work within China. Will family life here end up going in the same direction? 唐娜·巴伦描述了美国家庭生活近几年来的变化。她指出有三种力量在起作用。是哪三种力量？请读本文。读后问一下自己，同样的力量在中国是否也在起作用。中国的家庭生活最终是否会朝着同一个方向变化？

American Family Life: The Changing Picture

Donna Barron

1 It's another evening in an American household. 美国家庭生活：变化中的景象

唐娜·巴伦

这是美国家庭一个寻常的傍晚。

2 The door swings open at 5:30 sharp. \and tired after a long day at the office. He is greeted by Mom in her apron, three happy children, and the aroma of a delicious pot roast. 门在5：30准时推开。“嗨，亲爱的！我回来了！”亲爱的老爸走了进来，他在办公室上了一天的班，肚子饿了，人也累了。迎接他的是系着围裙的妈妈，3个快乐的孩子以及炖肉诱人的香味。

3 After a leisurely meal together, Mom does the dishes. That, after all, is part of her job. The whole family then moves to the living room. There everyone spends the evening playing Scrabble or watching TV.

全家人从容地吃完饭后，妈妈就刷洗碗碟。反正这是她的活。接着全家人聚在起居室。一个晚上大家玩玩牌，看看电视。

4 Then everyone is off to bed. And the next morning Dad and the kids wake up to the sounds and smells of Mom preparing pancakes and sausages for breakfast.

随后各自上床睡觉。第二天早上，爸爸和孩子们在妈妈准备早餐发出的声响和薄饼、香肠散发的香味中醒来。

5 (1) What? You say that doesn't sound like life in your house? Well, you're not alone. In fact, you're probably in the majority. 什么？你说那听起来不像你府上的生活？其实，不仅仅是你一个人这么想。事实上，大多数人很可能都跟你一样这么想的。

6 At one time in America, the above household might have been typical. You can still visit such a home -- on television. Just watch reruns of old situation comedies. (2) Leave it to Beaver,

unit 2 The Freedom Givers

In 2004 a center in honor of the \was unusual. It sold no tickets and had no trains. Yet it carried thousands of passengers to the destination of their dreams.

2004年，一个纪念“地下铁路”的中心将在辛辛那提州成立。这条铁路不同寻常，它不出售车票，也无火车行驶。然而，它将成千上万的乘客送往他们梦想中的目的地。

The Freedom Givers

Fergus M. Bordewich

1 A gentle breeze swept the Canadian plains as I stepped outside the small two-story house. Alongside me was a slender woman in a black dress, my guide back to a time when the surrounding settlement in Dresden, Ontario, was home to a hero in American history. As we walked toward a plain gray church, Barbara Carter spoke proudly of her great-great-grandfather, Josiah Henson. \never gave up struggling for that freedom.\ 给人以自由者

弗格斯·M·博得威奇

我步出这幢两层小屋，加拿大平原上轻风微拂。我身边是一位苗条的黑衣女子，把我带回到过去的向导。那时，安大略省得雷斯顿这一带住着美国历史上的一位英雄。我们前往一座普普通通的灰色教堂，芭芭拉·卡特自豪地谈论着其高祖乔赛亚·亨森。“他坚信上帝要所有人生来平等。他从来没有停止过争取这一自由权利的奋斗。”

2 Carter's devotion to her ancestor is about more than personal pride: it is about family honor. For Josiah Henson has lived on through the character in American fiction that he helped inspire: Uncle Tom, the long-suffering slave in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Ironically, that character has come to symbolize everything Henson was not. A racial sellout unwilling to stand up for himself? Carter gets angry at the thought. \she said firmly.

卡特对其先辈的忠诚不仅仅关乎一己之骄傲，而关乎家族荣誉。因为乔赛亚·亨森至今仍为人所知是由于他所激发的创作灵感使得一个美国小说人物问世：汤姆叔叔，哈丽特·比彻·斯陀的小说《汤姆叔叔的小屋》中那个逆来顺受的黑奴。具有讽刺意味的是，这一人物所象征的一切在亨森身上一点都找不到。一个不愿奋起力争、背叛种族的黑人？卡特对此颇为愤慨。“乔赛亚·亨森是个有原则的人，”她肯定地说。

3 I had traveled here to Henson's last home -- now a historic site that Carter formerly directed -- to learn more about a man who was, in many ways, an African-American Moses. After winning his own freedom from slavery, Henson secretly helped hundreds of other slaves to escape north to Canada -- and liberty. Many settled here in Dresden with him.

我远道前来亨森最后的居所――如今已成为卡特曾管理过的一处历史遗迹――是为了更多地了解此人，他在许多方面堪称黑人摩西。亨森自己摆脱了黑奴身份获得自由之后，便秘密帮助其他许多黑奴逃奔北方去加拿大――逃奔自由之地。许多人和他一起在得雷斯顿这一带定居了下来。

4 Yet this stop was only part of a much larger mission for me. Josiah Henson is but one name on a long list of courageous men and women who together forged the Underground Railroad, a secret web of escape routes and safe houses that they used to liberate slaves from the American South. Between 1820 and 1860, as many as 100,000 slaves traveled the Railroad to freedom. 但此地只是我所承担的繁重使命的一处停留地。乔赛亚·亨森只是一长串无所畏惧的男女名单中的一个名字，这些人共同创建了这条“地下铁路”，一条由逃亡线路和可靠的人家组成的用以解放美国南方黑奴的秘密网络。在1820年至1860年期间，多达十万名黑奴经由此路走向自由。

5 In October 2000, President Clinton authorized $16 million for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center to honor this first great civil-rights struggle in the U. S. The center is scheduled to open in 2004 in Cincinnati. And it's about time. For the heroes of the Underground Railroad remain too little remembered, their exploits still largely unsung. I was intent on telling their stories. 2000年10月，克林顿总统批准拨款1600万美元建造全国“地下铁路”自由中心，以此纪念美国历史上第一次伟大的民权斗争。中心计划于2004年在辛辛那提州建成。真是该建立这样一个中心的时候了。因为地下铁路的英雄们依然默默无闻，他们的业绩依然少人颂扬。我要讲述他们的故事。

6 John Parker tensed when he heard the soft knock. Peering out his door into the night, he recognized the face of a trusted neighbor. \Kentucky, twenty miles from the river,\man whispered urgently. Parker didn't hesitate. \go,\

听到轻轻的敲门声，约翰·帕克神情紧张起来。他开门窥望，夜色中认出是一位可靠的邻居。“有一群逃亡奴隶躲在肯塔基州的树林里，就在离河20英里的地方，”那人用急迫的口气低语道。帕克没一点儿迟疑。“我就去，”他说着，把两支手枪揣进口袋。

7 Born a slave two decades before, in the 1820s, Parker had been taken from his mother at age eight and forced to walk in chains from Virginia to Alabama, where he was sold on the slave market. Determined to live free someday, he managed to get trained in iron molding. Eventually he saved enough money working at this trade on the side to buy his freedom. Now, by day, Parker worked in an iron foundry in the Ohio port of Ripley. By night he was a \on the Underground Railroad, helping people slip by the slave hunters. In Kentucky, where he was now headed, there was a $1000 reward for his capture, dead or alive.

20年前，即19世纪20年代，生来即为黑奴的帕克才8岁就被从母亲身边带走，被迫拖着镣铐从弗吉尼亚走到阿拉巴马，在那里的黑奴市场被买走。他打定主意有朝一日要过自由的生活，便设法学会了铸铁这门手艺。后来他终于靠这门手艺攒够钱赎回了自由。现在，帕克白天在俄亥俄州里普利港的一家铸铁厂干活。到了晚上，他就成了地下铁路的一位“乘务员”，帮助人们避开追捕逃亡黑奴的人。在他正前往的肯塔基州，当局悬赏1000美元抓他，活人死尸都要。

8 Crossing the Ohio River on that chilly night, Parker found ten fugitives frozen with fear. \the river. They had almost reached shore when a watchman spotted them and raced off to spread

the news.

在那个阴冷的夜晚，帕克渡过俄亥俄河，找到了十个丧魂落魄的逃亡者。“拿好包裹跟我走，”他一边吩咐他们，一边带着这八男二女朝河边走去。就要到岸时，一个巡夜人发现了他们，急忙跑开去报告。

9 Parker saw a small boat and, with a shout, pushed the escaping slaves into it. There was room for all but two. As the boat slid across the river, Parker watched helplessly as the pursuers closed in around the men he was forced to leave behind.

帕克看见一条小船，便大喝一声，把那些逃亡黑奴推上了船。大家都上了船，但有两个人容不下。小船徐徐驶向对岸，帕克眼睁睁地看着追捕者把他被迫留下的两个男人围住。

10 The others made it to the Ohio shore, where Parker hurriedly arranged for a wagon to take them to the next \in Canada. Over the course of his life, John Parker guided more than 400 slaves to safety.

其他的人都上了岸，帕克急忙安排了一辆车把他们带到地下铁路的下一“站”――他们走向安全的加拿大之旅的第一程。约翰·帕克在有生之年一共带领400多名黑奴走向安全之地。

11 While black conductors were often motivated by their own painful experiences, whites were commonly driven by religious convictions. Levi Coffin, a Quaker raised in North Carolina, explained, \color.\

黑人去当乘务员常常是由于本人痛苦的经历，而那些白人则往往是受了宗教信仰的感召。在北卡罗来纳州长大的贵格会教徒利瓦伊·科芬解释说：“《圣经》上只是要我们给饥者以食物，无衣者以衣衫，但没提到过肤色的事。”

12 In the 1820s Coffin moved west to Newport (now Fountain City), Indiana, where he opened a store. Word spread that fleeing slaves could always find refuge at the Coffin home. At times he sheltered as many as 17 fugitives at once, and he kept a team and wagon ready to convey them on the next leg of their journey. Eventually three principal routes converged at the Coffin house, which came to be the Grand Central Terminal of the Underground Railroad.

在19世纪20年代，科芬向西迁移前往印第安纳州的新港（即今天的喷泉市），在那里开了一家小店。人们传说，逃亡黑奴在科芬家总是能得到庇护。有时他一次庇护的逃亡者就多达17人，他还备有一组人员和车辆把他们送往下一段行程。到后来有三条主要路线在科芬家汇合，科芬家成了地下铁路的中央车站。

13 For his efforts, Coffin received frequent death threats and warnings that his store and home would be burned. Nearly every conductor faced similar risks -- or worse. In the North, a magistrate might have imposed a fine or a brief jail sentence for aiding those escaping. In the Southern states, whites were sentenced to months or even years in jail. One courageous Methodist minister, Calvin Fairbank, was imprisoned for more than 17 years in Kentucky, where he kept a log of his beatings: 35,105 stripes with the whip. 科芬经常由于他做的工作受到被杀的威胁，收到焚毁他店铺和住宅的警告。几乎每一个乘务员都面临类似的危险――或者更为严重。在北方，治安官会对帮助逃亡的人课以罚金，

或判以短期监禁。在南方各州，白人则被判处几个月甚至几年的监禁。一位勇敢的循道宗牧师卡尔文·费尔班克在肯塔基州被关押了17年多，他记录了自己遭受毒打的情况：总共被鞭笞了35,105下。

14 As for the slaves, escape meant a journey of hundreds of miles through unknown country, where they were usually easy to recognize. With no road signs and few maps, they had to put their trust in directions passed by word of mouth and in secret signs -- nails driven into trees, for example -- that conductors used to mark the route north. 至于那些黑奴，逃亡意味着数百英里的长途跋涉，意味着穿越自己极易被人辨认的陌生地域。没有路标，也几乎没有线路图，他们赶路全凭着口口相告的路线以及秘密记号――比如树上钉着的钉子――是乘务员用来标示北上路线的记号。

15 Many slaves traveled under cover of night, their faces sometimes caked with white powder. Quakers often dressed their \and full veils. On one occasion, Levi Coffin was transporting so many runaway slaves that he disguised them as a funeral procession. 许多黑奴在夜色掩护下赶路，有时脸上涂着厚厚的白粉。贵格会教徒经常让他们的“乘客”不分男女穿上灰衣服，戴上深沿帽，披着把头部完全遮盖住的面纱。有一次，利瓦伊·科芬运送的逃亡黑奴实在太多，他就把他们装扮成出殡队伍。

16 Canada was the primary destination for many fugitives. Slavery had been abolished there in 1833, and Canadian authorities encouraged the runaways to settle their vast virgin land. Among them was Josiah Henson.

加拿大是许多逃亡者的首选终点站。那儿1833年就废除了奴隶制，加拿大当局鼓励逃亡奴隶在其广阔的未经开垦的土地上定居。其中就有乔赛亚·亨森。

17 As a boy in Maryland, Henson watched as his entire family was sold to different buyers, and he saw his mother harshly beaten when she tried to keep him with her. Making the best of his lot, Henson worked diligently and rose far in his owner's regard.

还是孩子的亨森在马里兰州目睹着全家人被卖给不同的主人，看到母亲为了想把自己留在她身边而遭受毒打。亨森非常认命，干活勤勉，深受主人器重。

18 Money problems eventually compelled his master to send Henson, his wife and children to a brother in Kentucky. After laboring there for several years, Henson heard alarming news: the new master was planning to sell him for plantation work far away in the Deep South. The slave would be separated forever from his family.

经济困顿最终迫使亨森的主人将他及其妻儿送到主人在肯塔基州的一个兄弟处。在那儿干了几年苦工之后，亨森听说了一个可怕的消息：新主人准备把他卖到遥远的南方腹地去农庄干活。这名奴隶将与自己的家人永远分离。

19 There was only one answer: flight. \knew the North Star,\Henson wrote years later. \ 只有一条路可走：逃亡。“我会认北斗星，”许多年后亨森写道。“就像圣地伯利恒的救星一样，它告诉我在哪里可以获救。”

20 At huge risk, Henson and his wife set off with their four children. Two weeks later, starving and exhausted, the family reached Cincinnati, where they made contact with members of the Underground Railroad. \miles on our way by wagon.\

亨森和妻子冒着极大的风险带着四个孩子上路了。两个星期之后，饥饿疲惫的一家人来到了辛辛那提州，在那儿，他们与地下铁路的成员取得了联系。“他们为我们提供了食宿，非常关心，接着又用车送了我们30英里。”

21 The Hensons continued north, arriving at last in Buffalo, N. Y. There a friendly captain pointed across the Niagara River. \gave Henson a dollar and arranged for a boat, which carried the slave and his family across the river to Canada.

亨森一家继续往北走，最后来到纽约州的布法罗。在那儿，一位友善的船长指着尼亚加拉河对岸。“‘看见那些树没有？’他说，‘它们生长在自由的土地上。’”他给了亨森一美元钱，安排了一条小船，小船载着这位黑奴及其家人过河来到加拿大。

22 \several who were present, I passed for a madman. 'He's some crazy fellow,' said a Colonel Warren.\

“我扑倒在地，在沙土里打滚，手舞足蹈，最后，在场的那几个人都认定我是疯子。‘他是个疯子，’有个沃伦上校说。”

23 \ “‘不，不是的！知道吗？我自由了！’”

Jesse Jackson, a well-known leader of black Americans, reviews the progress they have made in recent years. Despite this, he argues, there is still much left to be done before they enjoy full equality.

著名美国黑人领袖杰西·杰克逊回顾了近几年来民权运动所取得的成就。成绩固然不少，但他指出，要享受完全的平等权利，仍有许多工作要做。

The Dream, the Stars and Dr. King

Jesse Jackson

1 Last week in Memphis, we commemorated the death of Dr. Martin Luther King. He was struck down 27 years ago -- not a dreamer, but a man of action. We have come a long way since then, in part as a fruit of his labors. 梦想、星辰与金博士 杰西·杰克逊

上个星期在孟菲斯，我们纪念马丁·路德·金博士逝世。27年前他被击倒了――不是作为一个梦想家，而是作为一个实干家。从那以后，我们取得了巨大进展，其中一部分是他努力的结果。

2 In less than 30 years, as schools opened and ceilings lifted, a large African American middle class has been created. High school graduation rates, even intelligence test results, grow closer between whites and blacks with each passing year.

在不到30年的时间内，由于兴办学校、种种限制被取消，一个为数众多的非洲裔美国中产阶级得以形成。白人与黑人的高中毕业率，甚至智力测试成绩，也都一年比一年更接近。

3 The civil-rights movement that Dr. King led also helped women gain greater opportunity. The same laws that guarantee equal opportunity for African Americans apply to women, to other minorities, to the disabled. (1) Our society benefits as fewer of its people have their genius suppressed or their talents wasted.

金博士领导的民权运动也帮助妇女获得更多的机会。保障非洲裔美国人平等机会的法律同样适用于妇女、其他少数民族以及残疾人。如今天才遭受压抑、才华被浪费的人数减少了，我们的社会因此而受益。

4 We have come a long way -- but we have far to go. Commission after commission, report after report, show that systematic discrimination still stains our country. 我们取得了巨大进展――但我们还有大量的工作要做。一个个委员会的调查，一份份的报告都表明，蓄意的歧视依然玷污我们的国家。

5 African Americans have more difficulty obtaining business loans, buying homes, getting hired. Schools and housing patterns are still largely separate and unequal. Women still face glass ceilings in corporate offices. Ninety-seven percent of the corporate CEOs of the Fortune 500 are

white men. That does not result from talent being concentrated among males with pale skin. 非洲裔美国人在商业贷款、购房、就业方面遇到更多的困难。学校与居住格局在很大程度上仍黑白分隔，无平等可言。妇女在企业管理阶层的发展仍面临着无形的限制。财富杂志500强企业名录中97％的首席执行官是男性白人。这并不是白肤色男士具有才能优势的结果。

6 (2)Today, Dr. King's legacy -- the commitment to take affirmative actions to open doors and opportunity -- is under political assault. Dr. King worked against terrible odds in a hopeful time. America was experiencing two decades of remarkable economic growth and prosperity. It was assumed, as the Kerner Commission made clear, that the \reduce poverty and open opportunity relatively painlessly. But the war on poverty was never fought; instead, the dividend and the growth were squandered in the jungles of Vietnam.

今天，金博士的遗产――采取积极行动打开大门、提供机会的承诺――正受到政治上的攻击。金博士在一个充满希望的时代冲破重重困难奋力斗争。美国当时正经历着持续20年的令人惊叹的经济增长与繁荣。正如克纳调查委员会所清楚表明的那样，当时人们认为，“增长红利”会使我们相对来说较为容易地减少贫困、创造机会。但从来不曾发起过消除贫困的战争，相反，那些红利、那些经济增长，都被耗在了越南的丛林之中。

7 Three decades later, the country is more prosperous but the times are less hopeful. Real wages for working people have been declining for 20 years. People are scared for good reason, as layoffs rise to record levels even in the midst of a recovery.

30年之后，国家更加繁荣昌盛，但时势不再那么充满希望。劳动者的实际工资连续20年一路下跌。人们有充分的理由感到恐惧，因为即使在经济复苏之时，下岗人数仍达到创纪录的高度。

8 In this context, prejudice flourishes, feeding on old hates, keeping alive old fears. What else could explain the remarkably dishonest assault on affirmative-action programs that seek to remedy stubborn patterns of discrimination? 在这种情形之下，政治上掠夺成性者利用宿怨和往昔的恐惧变得越发猖獗。不然如何解释对积极行动计划如此颠倒是非的攻击呢？该计划旨在疗治歧视这一痼疾。

9 House Speaker Newt Gingrich, a history professor, sets the tone by simply erasing history. The Washington Post reported: \dismissed the argument that those who benefit from affirmative action, commonly African Americans, have been subjected to discrimination over a period of centuries. That is true of virtually every American, Gingrich said, noting that the Irish were discriminated against by the English, for example.\

众议院议长纽特·金里奇，一位历史教授，以完全抹杀历史的方式定下了基调。《华盛顿邮报》报道说：“对于受益于积极行动计划的人――通常是非洲裔美国人――几个世纪以来遭受歧视的论点，金里奇拒不接受。金里奇说，几乎每一个美国人都曾受到歧视。他举例说，爱尔兰人曾受到英国人的歧视。”

10 As Roger Wilkins writes in a thoughtful essay in the Nation magazine, this is breathtakingly dishonest for a history professor. Blacks have been on the North American continent for nearly 375 years. For 245 of those, the country practiced slavery. For another 100 or so, segregation was enforced throughout the South and much of the North, often policed by home-grown terrorists. We've had only 30 years of something else, largely the legacy of the struggle led by Dr. King. 正如罗杰·威尔金斯在《国家》杂志上发表的一篇颇具思想深度的文章中所写的那样，对一位历史教授而言，这是骇人听闻的欺骗。黑人来到北美大陆将近375年了。其中的245年中，美国实行奴隶制。在另外大约100年间，南方各州及北方大部分地区实行种族隔离，通常由地方恐怖分子监督实施。我们只有30年免受奴役、隔离的历史，而这在很大程度上是金博士所领导的斗争的产物。

11 The media plays up the \African Americans supposedly suffer about affirmative action. I can tell you this. Dr. King felt no guilt when special laws gave us the right to vote. He felt no guilt about laws requiring that African Americans have the opportunity to go to schools, to enter universities, to compete for jobs and contracts. This supposed guilt is at best a luxurious anxiety of those who now have the opportunity to succeed or fail.

媒体渲染了所谓非洲裔美国人对于积极行动心怀“愧疚”的说法。我可以告诉你。当特别法令赋予我们投票权时，金博士没有丝毫愧疚。对于那些规定非洲裔美国人有上学、读大学、参与就业竞争与赢得合同竞争的平等机会的法律，金博士没有丝毫愧疚。这种臆想的愧疚充其量是那些业已获得成功或失败的机会的人过分装模作样的忧虑罢了。

12 If Dr. King were alive today, he would be 66, younger than Senator Bob Dole who suggests that discrimination ended \we were born.\Unlike Dole, Dr. King would be

working to bring people together, not drive them apart.

如果金博士仍在人世，他今年66岁，比声称“早在我们出生之前”歧视就不再存在的参议员鲍伯·多尔更年轻。不同于多尔的是，金博士会致力于团结人民，而不是分裂人民。

13 (3) Modern-day conservatives haven't a clue about what to do with an economy that is generating greater inequality and reducing the security and living standards of more and more Americans. So they seek to distract and divide. 今天的经济正造成更大的不平等，并使越来越多的美国人安全感减少、生活水准降低；对于如何应对目前的这种经济形势，当今的保守分子一无所知。于是他们试图分散人们的注意力，分裂人民。

14 As Dole reaffirmed his abandonment of affirmative action, fellow Republican Senator Phil Gramm of Texas called for more cuts from the poor. 正当多尔重申摒弃积极行动计划时，得克萨斯州同样属于共和党的参议员菲尔·格拉姆呼吁进一步削减对穷人的帮助。

15 As we head into this troubling time, we would do well to remember Dr. King's legacy. No matter how desperate things were, no matter how grave the crisis, no matter how many times his dreams were shattered, Dr. King refused to grow bitter. (4) Men and women, he taught, \capacity to do right as well as wrong, and [our] history is a path upward, not downward. It's only when it is truly dark that you can see the stars.\

我们正进入这样一个多难的时期，此时此刻我们最好记取金博士的遗训。无论情况多么糟糕，无论危机多么严重，无论梦想多少次破碎，金博士都决不会怨恨失望。他教导说，人， 无论是男是女，“既有能力做好事，也有能力做坏事，而我们的历史的道路是向上走的，不是向下走的。 只有在天空漆黑的时候，你才能望见星星。”

unit 3 The Land of the Lock

Years ago in America, it was customary for families to leave their doors unlocked, day and night. In this essay, Greene regrets that people can no longer trust each other and have to resort to elaborate security systems to protect themselves and their possessions.

许多年前，在美国，家家户户白天黑夜不锁门是司空见惯的。在本文中，格林叹惜人们不再相互信任，不得不凭借精密的安全设备来保护自己和财产。

The Land of the Lock Bob Greene

1 In the house where I grew up, it was our custom to leave the front door on the latch at night. I don't know if that was a local term or if it is universal; \closed but not locked. None of us carried keys; the last one in for the evening would close up, and that was it. 锁之国 鲍伯·格林

小时候在家里，我们的前门总是夜不落锁。我不知道这是当地的一种说法还是大家都这么说；\不落锁\的意思是掩上门，但不锁住。我们谁都不带钥匙；晚上最后一个回家的人把门关上，这就行了。

2 Those days are over. In rural areas as well as in cities, doors do not stay unlocked, even for part of an evening.

那样的日子已经一去不复返了。在乡下，在城里，门不再关着不锁上，哪怕是傍晚一段时间也不例外。

3 Suburbs and country areas are, in many ways, even more vulnerable than well-patroled urban streets. Statistics show the crime rate rising more dramatically in those allegedly tranquil areas than in cities. At any rate, the era of leaving the front door on the latch is over.

在许多方面，郊区和农村甚至比巡查严密的城市街道更易受到攻击。统计显示，那些据称是安宁的地区的犯罪率上升得比城镇更为显著。不管怎么说，前门虚掩不落锁的时代是一去不复返了。

4 It has been replaced by dead-bolt locks, security chains, electronic alarm systems and trip wires hooked up to a police station or private guard firm. Many suburban families have sliding glass doors on their patios, with steel bars elegantly built in so no one can pry the doors open. 取而代之的是防盗锁、防护链、电子报警系统，以及连接警署或私人保安公司的报警装置。郊区的许多人家在露台上安装了玻璃滑门，内侧有装得很讲究的钢条，这样就没人能把门撬开。

5 It is not uncommon, in the most pleasant of homes, to see pasted on the windows small notices announcing that the premises are under surveillance by this security force or that guard company. 在最温馨的居家，也常常看得到窗上贴着小小的告示，称本宅由某家安全机构或某个保安公司负责监管。

6 The lock is the new symbol of America. Indeed, a recent public-service advertisement by a large insurance company featured not charts showing how much at risk we are, but a picture of a child's bicycle with the now-usual padlock attached to it. 锁成了美国的新的象征。的确，一家大保险公司最近的一则公益广告没有用图表表明我们所处的危险有多大，而是用了一幅童车的图片，车身上悬着如今无所不在的挂锁。

7 The ad pointed out that, yes, it is the insurance companies that pay for stolen goods, but who is going to pay for what the new atmosphere of distrust and fear is doing to our way of life? Who is going to make the psychic payment for the transformation of America from the Land of the Free to the Land of the Lock?

广告指出，没错，确是保险公司理赔失窃物品，但谁来赔偿互不信任、担心害怕这种新氛围对我们的生活方式所造成的影响呢？谁来对美国从自由之国到锁之国这一蜕变作出精神赔偿呢？

8 For that is what has happened. We have become so used to defending ourselves against the new atmosphere of American life, so used to putting up barriers, that we have not had time to think about what it may mean. 因为那就是现状。我们已经变得如此习惯于保护自己不受美国生活新氛围的影响，如此习惯于设置障碍，因而无暇考虑这一切意味着什么。

9 For some reason we are satisfied when we think we are well-protected; it does not occur to us to ask ourselves: Why has this happened? Why are we having to barricade ourselves against our neighbors and fellow citizens, and when, exactly, did this start to take over our lives?

出于某种原因，当我们觉得防范周密时就感到心满意足；我们没有问过自己：为什么会出现这种情况？为什么非得把自己与邻居和同住一城的居民相隔绝，这一切究竟是从什么时候开始主宰我们生活的？

10 And it has taken over. If you work for a medium- to large-size company, chances are that you don't just wander in and out of work. You probably carry some kind of access card, electronic or otherwise, that allows you in and out of your place of work. Maybe the security guard at the front desk knows your face and will wave you in most days, but the fact remains that the business you work for feels threatened enough to keep outsiders away via these \ 这一切确是主宰了我们的生活。如果你在一家大中型公司上班，你上下班很可能不好随意进出。你可能随身带着某种出入卡，电子的或别的什么的，因为这卡能让你进出工作场所。也许前台的保安认识你这张脸，平日一挥手让你进去，但事实明摆着，你所任职的公司深感面临威胁，因此要借助这些“钥匙”不让外人靠近。

11 It wasn't always like this. Even a decade ago, most private businesses had a policy of free access. It simply didn't occur to managers that the proper thing to do was to distrust people.

这一现象并非向来有之。即使在十年前，大多数私营公司仍采取自由出入的做法。那时管理人员根本没想到过恰当的手段是不信任他人。

12 Look at the airports. Parents used to take children out to departure gates to watch planes

land and take off. That's all gone. Airports are no longer a place of education and fun; they are the most sophisticated of security sites.

且看各地机场。过去家长常常带孩子去登机口看飞机起飞降落。这种事再也没有了。机场不再是一个有趣的学习场所；它们成了拥有最精密的安全检查系统的场所。

13 With electronic X-ray equipment, we seem finally to have figured out a way to hold the terrorists, real and imagined, at bay; it was such a relief to solve this problem that we did not think much about what such a state of affairs says about the quality of our lives. We now pass through these electronic friskers without so much as a sideways glance; the machines, and what they stand for, have won.

凭借着电子透视装置，我们似乎终于想出妙计让恐怖分子无法近身，无论是真的恐怖分子还是凭空臆想的。能解决这一问题真是如释重负，于是我们不去多想这种状况对我们的生活质量意味着什么。如今我们走过这些电子搜查器时已经看都不看一眼了，这些装置，还有它们所代表的一切已经获胜。

14 Our neighborhoods are bathed in high-intensity light; we do not want to afford ourselves even so much a luxury as a shadow.

我们的居住区处在强光源的照射下；我们连哪怕像阴影这样小小的享受也不想给自己。

15 Businessmen, in increasing numbers, are purchasing new machines that hook up to the telephone and analyze a caller's voice. The machines are supposed to tell the businessman, with a small margin of error, whether his friend or client is telling lies. 越来越多的商人正购置连接在电话机上、能剖析来电者声音的新机器。据说那种机器能让商人知道他的朋友或客户是否在撒谎，其出错概率很小。

16 All this is being done in the name of \that is what we tell ourselves. We are fearful, and so we devise ways to lock the fear out, and that, we decide, is what security means. 所有这一切都是以“安全”的名义实施的：我们是这么跟自己说的。我们害怕，于是我们设法把害怕锁在外面，我们认定，那就是安全的意义。

17 But no; with all this \civilized man. What better word to describe the way in which we have been forced to live? What sadder reflection on all that we have become in this new and puzzling time? 其实不然；我们虽然有了这一切安全措施，但我们或许是人类文明史上最不安全的国民。还有什么更好的字眼能用来描述我们被迫选择的生活方式呢？还有什么更为可悲地表明我们在这个令人困惑的新时代所感受到的惶恐之情呢？

18 We trust no one. Suburban housewives wear rape whistles on their station wagon key chains. We have become so smart about self-protection that, in the end, we have all outsmarted ourselves. We may have locked the evils out, but in so doing we have locked ourselves in. 我们不信任任何人。郊区的家庭主妇在客货两用车钥匙链上挂着防强暴口哨。我们在自我防卫方面变得如此聪明，最终聪明反被聪明误。我们或许是把邪恶锁在了门外，但在这么做的同时我们把自己锁在里边了。

19 That may be the legacy we remember best when we look back on this age: In dealing with the unseen horrors among us, we became prisoners of ourselves. All of us prisoners, in this time of our troubles.

那也许是我们将来回顾这一时代时记得最牢的精神遗产：在对付我们中间无形的恐惧之时，我们成了自己的囚徒。在我们这个问题重重的时代，所有的人都是囚徒。

Many people in America own handguns. Some, like Gail Buchalter, buy a gun for self-defense. Others, like her friends, refuse to do so because they think that guns cause more problems than they solve. Gail used to share her friends' views, but eventually changed her mind. Read what she has to say and decide whether she made the right choice.

在美国，许多人拥有手枪。有人为了自卫买枪，如盖尔·巴卡尔特。另外一些人则拒绝这么做，比如她的许多朋友，因为他们认为，枪支引发的问题比解决的更多。以前盖尔与她的朋友们持有相同的观点，但后来她改变了看法。读一读她所说的一切，并判定她的选择是否明智。

Why I Bought A Gun

Gail Buchalter

1 I was raised in one of Manhattan's more desirable neighborhoods. My upper-middle-class background never involved guns. If my parents felt threatened, they simply put another lock on the door.

我为什么买枪 盖尔·巴卡尔特

我在曼哈顿一个相当不错的社区长大。我的中上阶级的社会背景从来与枪支无涉。我的父母要是觉得有威胁存在，他们仅仅是在门上再加把锁。

2 By high school, I had traded in my cashmere sweaters for a black arm band. I marched for Civil Rights, shunned Civil Defense drills and protested the Vietnam war. It was easy being 18 and a peacenik. I wasn't raising an 11-year-old child then.

高中时，我用一件开司米羊毛衫跟人换了个黑色的臂章。我参加人权游行，反对国防演习，抗议越南战争。作为妙龄18的少女，当一名反战分子，真是轻松自在。那时我还没有一个11岁的孩子要抚养。

3 (1) Today, I am typical of the women whom gun manufactures have been aiming at as potential buyers -- and one of the millions who have taken the plunge.

时至今日，我成了一个典型的被枪支制造商看重并视为其潜在买主的那种女人--成了成千上万个采取这种行动的人中的一员。

4 I began questioning my pacifist beliefs one Halloween night in Phoenix, where I had moved when I married. I was almost home when another car nearly hit mine head-on. With the speed of a New York cabbie, I rolled down my window and screamed curses as the driver passed. He instantly made a U-turn, almost climbing on my back bumper. By now, he and his two friends

were hanging out of the car windows, yelling that they were going to rape, cut and kill me.

一个万圣节的晚上，在我婚后移居的凤凰城，我开始怀疑自己的和平主义信条。一辆车与我的车差点迎头相撞时，我几乎都到家了。我以纽约城出租车司机的敏捷，快速摇下车窗高声咒骂那位开车的。他当即掉转车头，几乎撞上我的车后保险杠。这时，他和两个同伴从车窗伸出头来，嚷嚷着要强奸我，砍我，杀了我。

5 I already had turned into our driveway when I realized my husband wasn't home. I was trapped. The car had pulled in behind me. I drove up to the back porch and got into the kitchen,

where our dogs stood waiting for me. The three men spilled out of their car and into our yard. 我开进车道才想起丈夫不在家。这下我进退两难。那辆车尾随着跟了进来。我把车开到后门廊停下，冲进厨房，我家的那两条狗站在那儿等我。那三个家伙从汽车里一拥而出，进了院子。

6 My heart was pumping. I grabbed the collars of Jack, our 200-pound Irish wolfhound, and his 140-pound malamute buddy, Slush. Then I kicked open the back door -- I was so scared that I became aggressive -- and actually dared the three creeps to keep coming. With the dogs, the odds had changed in my favor, and the men ran back to the safety of their car, yelling that they'd be back the next day to blow me away. Fortunately, they never returned. 我的心怦怦直跳。我抓起杰克和斯露西的颈圈――一条是200磅重的爱尔兰狼狗，另一条是它的伙伴，140磅重的北极犬。随后我一脚踢开后门――我吓坏了，变得暴躁好斗――事实上我要激那三人过来。有狗相助，局势变得对我有利，他们退回安全的车里，嚷嚷着说要明天来宰了我。总算幸运，他们没再露面。

7 A few years and one divorce later, I headed for Los Angeles with my 3-year-old son, Jordan (the dogs had since departed). When I put him in preschool a few weeks later, the headmistress noted that I was a single parent and immediately warned me that there was a rapist in my new neighborhood.

几年后，我离了婚，带着3岁的儿子乔丹前往洛杉矶（那两条狗也死了）。几个星期后我送他去幼儿园，老师发现我是个单身母亲，马上提醒我，我刚搬入的居住区里有个强奸犯。

8 I called the police, who confirmed this fact. The rapist followed no particular pattern. Sometimes he would be waiting in his victim's house; other times he would break in while the person was asleep. Although it was summer, I would carefully lock my windows at night and then lie there and sweat in fear. Thankfully, the rapist was caught, but not before he had attacked two more women.

我给警察局打了个电话，他们证实了这一情况。那个强奸犯没有什么特别的作案规律。有时他在受害者家里等候，有时他趁人入睡时潜入。当时正是夏天，可夜间我还是谨慎地锁住窗户，然后躺在床上，吓得浑身是汗。谢天谢地，那个强奸犯被逮捕了，可那是在他又强暴了两名女子之后。

9 Soon the papers were telling yet another tale of senseless horror. Richard Bamirez, who became known as \(2) His alleged crimes were so brutal, his desire to inflict pain so intense, that I began to question

my beliefs about not taking human life under any circumstances. The thought of taking a human life disgusts me, but the idea of being someone's victim is worse. And how, I began to ask myself, do you talk pacifism to a murderer or a rapist? 不久，报纸上又报道起另一个丧心病狂的恐怖人物的事来。此人名叫理查德·巴米里，人称“入室杀手”，被抓获前，一连几个月残害、杀死他人。据称他的犯罪行为非常野蛮，他加害于人的欲望非常强烈，这使我开始对自己在任何情况下决不杀人的信念产生了怀疑。取人性命的想法令我憎恨，但成为他人受害者的念头更可怕。我开始问自己，你怎么跟一个杀人犯或强奸犯来谈论和平呢？

10 Finally, I decided that I would defend myself, even if it meant killing another person. (3) I realized that the one-sided pacifism I once so strongly had advocated could backfire on me and worse, on my son. Reluctantly, I concluded that I had to insure the best option for our survival. My choices: to count on a cop or to own a pistol.

最后，我决定要自我防卫，哪怕这意味着杀死他人。我意识到，自己曾积极提倡的一厢情愿的和平主义会为害自身，更糟的是，会为害我的儿子。于是我极不情愿地决定：为了我们的生存，我必须确保有一个最佳选择方案。我的选择：依靠警察，或拥有一支枪。

11 I called a man I had met a while ago who, I remembered, owned several guns. He told me he had a Smith & Wesson 38 Special for sale and recommended it, since it was small enough for me to handle yet had the necessary stopping power.

我给不久前认识的一个人打电话，我记得他有好几支枪。他告诉我，他有一支史密斯－韦森0.38口径特种枪要出售，建议我买下，因为那支枪小巧好使，又有必要的威慑力。

12 I bought the gun. That same day, I got six rounds of special ammunition with plastic tips that explode on impact. These are not for target practice; these are for protection.

我买下了枪。在同一天，我弄到了6发包着塑料头、一撞击就崩碎的特别的子弹。这些子弹不是打靶练习用的，是防身用的。

13 For about $50, I also picked up a metal safety box. Its push-button lock opens with a touch if you know the proper combination, possibly taking only a second or two longer than it does to reach into a night-table drawer. Now I knew that my son, Jordan, couldn't get his hands on it while I still could.

花了大约50美元，我还买了个金属安全盒。如果知道正确的暗码，它的按钮式锁一碰就开，大概比伸手去床头柜抽屉取他只慢一两秒钟。我知道儿子乔丹拿不到它，但我拿得到。

14 When I brought the gun home, Jordan was fascinated by it. He kept picking it up, while I nervously watched. But knowledge, I believe, is still our greatest defense. And since I'm in favor of education for sex, AIDS and learning to drive, I couldn't draw the line at teaching my son about guns.

我把枪拿回家，乔丹兴奋得不得了。他不停地拿起来看，我紧张地瞧着。但我相信，知识仍是我们最有力的防范手段。由于我主张对孩子进行性知识教育，艾滋病知识教育，以及让孩子学会开车，我不能不赞成教儿子关于枪的知识。

15 Next, I took the pistol and my son to the target range. I rented a 22-caliber pistol for Jordan. (A .38 was too much gun for him to handle.) I was relieved when he put it down after 10 minutes -- he didn't like the feel of it.

随后，我携枪带儿子去射击场。我给乔丹租了一支0.22口径的手枪。（0.38口径的他摆弄不了。）10分钟后他放下了枪，我不禁松了口气――他不喜欢握枪的感觉。

16 But that didn't prevent him from asking me if he should use the gun if someone broke into our house while I wasn't home. I shouted \so loud, we both jumped. I explained that, if someone ever broke in, he's young and agile enough to leap out the window and run for his life. 但他并不因此不来问我，如果我不在家时有人闯入，他能不能用枪。我大喝一声“不行！”，喊声响得把我们都吓得跳了起来。我解释说，要是真有人闯入，他人小，又灵活，完全可以跳窗逃生。

17 Today he couldn't care less about the gun. Every so often, when were watching television in my room, I practice opening the safety box, and Jordan times me. I'm down to three seconds. I'll ask him what's the first thing you do when you handle a gun, and he looks at me like I'm stupid, saying: \sure it's unloaded. But I'm not to touch it or tell my friends about it.\Jordan's already bored with it all.

如今他对那支枪早没了兴趣。两人在我的卧室一起看电视时，我常常练习开启安全盒，乔丹替我计时。我已经快到只需要3秒钟了。我会问他，拿枪时第一件要做的事是什么，他像看傻瓜似的看着我，说：“要看看子弹是不是没上膛。不过我是不会去碰它，也不会跟朋友们说的。”乔丹对枪已经厌倦了。

18 I, on the other hand, look forward to Mondays -- \Night\at the target range -- when I get to shoot for free. I buy a box of bullets and some targets from the guy behind the counter, put on the protective eye and ear coverings and walk through the double doors to the firing lines.

而我则盼着每个星期一――射击场的“女士专场”――我可以免费练习射击。我在柜台上买一盒子弹，几个靶子，戴上护眼罩和护耳罩，穿过双层门，来到射击区。

19 Once there, I load my gun, look down the sights of the barrel and adjust my aim. I fire six rounds into the chest of a life-sized target hanging 25 feet away. As each bullet rips a hole through the figure drawn there, I realize I'm getting used to owning a gun and no longer feeling faint when I pick it up. The weight of it has become comfortable in my hand. And I am keeping my promise to practice. Too many people are killed by their own guns because they don't know how to use them.

到了那儿，我把子弹装上膛，看着枪管上的瞄准器调整瞄准方向。我对着25英尺开外的真人大小的靶子的胸部连发6弹。随着一发发子弹洞穿对面画着的图像，我意识到，自己正在习惯拥有枪支，拿枪时不再害怕了。枪的重量在手上已觉得挺舒服。我坚持练习。太多的人由于不知如何使用枪而死在自己的枪下。

20 It took me years to decide to buy a gun, and then weeks before I could load it. It gave me nightmares.

我花了好多年才决定买枪，又花了好几个星期才学会把子弹装上膛。枪让我恶梦不断。

21 One night I dreamed I woke up when someone broke into our house. I grabbed my gun and sat waiting at the foot of my bed. Finally, I saw him turn the corner as he headed toward me. He was big and filled the hallway -- an impossible target to miss. I didn't want to shoot, but I knew my survival was on the line. (4) I wrapped my finger around the trigger and finally squeezed it, simultaneously accepting the intruder's death at my own hand and the relief of not being a victim. I woke up as soon as I decided to shoot.

一天夜晚，我梦见自己醒来，发现有人闯进屋子。我一把抓起枪，坐在床脚处等着。最后我看着他拐过墙角朝我走来。他很高大，把过道都堵住了――根本不可能击不中。我不想开枪，但我知道生死在此一搏。我手指扣住扳机，最后用力一扣，准备在亲手结束侵入者性命的同时庆幸自己没有成为牺牲品。就在我决定开枪时我醒了。

22 I was tearfully relieved that it had only been a dream. 我如释重负，不由得热泪长流，幸亏这只是个梦。

23 I never have weighed the consequences of an act as strongly as I have that of buying a gun -- but, then again, I never have done anything with such deadly consequences. Most of my friends refuse even to discuss it with me. They believe that violence leads to violence. 我从来没有像在买枪一事上对某种行为的后果如此反复权衡――可是，我也从来没做过后果如此严重的事。我的大多数朋友甚至不肯跟我谈论这事。他们认为，暴力只能导致暴力。

24 They're probably right. 他们或许是对的。

unit 4 The Watery Place

It was just an error, a stupid error, the kind anyone could make. Only now Earth is never going to have another visitor from space. Not ever.

这仅仅是一个错误，一个愚蠢的错误，那种人人都可能犯的错误。只是从今往后再也不会有太空客前来访问地球了。再也不会了。

The Watery Place

Issac Asimov

1 We're never going to have visitors from space. No extraterrestrials will ever land on Earth -- at least, any more. 水 乡

伊萨克·阿西莫夫

我们不会再有太空游客前来了。外星人将不会登陆地球――至少是再也不会了。

2 I'm not just being a pessimist. As a matter of fact, extraterrestrials have landed. I know that. Space ships are crisscrossing space among a million worlds, probably, but they will never come here. I know that, too. All on account of a ridiculous error.

我这不是悲观。事实上，外星人登陆过地球。这个我知道。在宇宙的千百万颗星球当中穿梭往来的太空飞船可能有许多，可它们永远不会再来我们这儿了。这我也知道。而这一切都是由于一个荒唐的错误导致的。

3 I'll explain. 且听我解释。

4 It was actually Bart Cameron's error and you'll have to understand about Bart Cameron. He's the sheriff at Twin Gulch, Idaho, and I'm his deputy. Bart Cameron is an impatient man and he gets most impatient when he has to work up his income tax. You see, besides being sheriff, he also owns and runs the general store, he's got some shares in a sheep ranch, he's got a kind of pension for being a disabled veteran (bad knee) and a few other things like that. Naturally, it makes his tax figures complicated.

这实际上是巴特·卡默伦的错，所以你得对巴特·卡默伦这人有所了解。他是爱达荷州特温加尔奇的治安官，我是他的副手。巴特·卡默伦是个脾气暴躁的人，到了他不得不整理个人应缴多少所得税时更是容易光火。你想，他除了当治安官，还经营着一家杂货铺，并拥有一家牧羊场的股份，同时还享有残疾退伍军人（膝盖受过伤）津贴，以及其他某些类似的津贴。这样一来他的个人所得税计算起来自然就变得复杂。

5 It wouldn't be so bad if he'd let a taxman work on the forms with him, but he insists on doing it himself and it makes him a bitter man. By April 14, he isn't approachable. 要是他让税务人员帮他填表就不至于那么糟糕，可他非得要自己填，于是填得他牢骚满腹。每年到

了4月14日，他就变得难以接近。

6 So it's too bad the flying saucer landed on April 14, 1956.

那个飞碟在1956年4月14日这一天登陆真是大错特错。

7 I saw it land. My chair was backed up against the wall in the sheriff's office, and I was looking at the stars through the windows and wondering if I ought to knock off and hit the sack or keep on listening to Cameron curse real steady as he went over his columns of figures for the hundred twenty-seventh time.

我是看着它降落的。当时我的椅子背靠着治安官办公室的墙，我正望着窗外的星星，琢磨着是不是该下班去睡觉，还是继续听卡默伦骂个不停，他正在第127次核对他在税单上填写的一栏栏数字。

8 It looked like a shooting star at first, but then the track of light broadened into two things that looked like rocket exhausts and the thing came down without a sound. 一开始像是颗流星，可接着那轨迹越来越亮，变成两个光点，就像是火箭喷出的气流，那个东西一点没出声就着落了。

9 Two men got out. 两个人走了出来。

10 I couldn't say anything or do anything. I couldn't choke or point; I couldn't even bug my eyes. I just sat there.

我没法说话，也无法做事。喉部肌肉僵直，也没法用手示意，甚至眼睛都没法瞪大。我就那么呆坐着。

11 Cameron? He never looked up.

卡默伦？他压根儿就没抬起过头。

12 There was a knock on the door. It opened and the two men from the flying saucer stepped in. I would have thought they were city fellows if I hadn't seen the flying saucer land. They wore gray suits, with white shirts and dark red-brown ties. They had on black shoes and black hats. They had dark complexions, black wavy hair and brown eyes. They had very serious looks on their faces and were about five foot ten apiece. They looked very much alike.

有敲门声。门开了，飞碟上的那两个人走了进来。要不是我看着飞碟降落，我还会以为他们就是镇上的人。两人身着灰套装、白衬衣，戴着深红棕色的领带。他们穿着黑皮鞋，戴着黑帽子，肤色黑黑的，卷曲的头发黑黑的，眼睛呈棕色。两人神情严肃，身高都在5.10英尺左右，看上去非常相象。

13 God, I was scared. 天哪，我害怕极了。

14 But Cameron just looked up when the door opened and frowned. He said, \for you, folks?\

可卡默伦只是在门开的那会儿略一抬头，皱了皱眉头。 “有什么事吗，伙计？”他边说边用手拍着税单，显然正忙着呢。

15 One of the two stepped forward. He said, \long time.\ 那两人中的一个走上前说道：“我们对你们的人已经观察很久了。”他说话时小心翼翼一字一顿的。

16 Cameron said, \ 卡默伦说：“我们的人？我只有老婆一个人。她干什么来着？”

17 The fellow in the suit said, \isolated and peaceful. We know that you are the leader here.\ 穿西装的那人说：“我们选择此地作为第一接触点，因为这里偏僻安静。我们知道您是这里的首领。”

18 \

“我是治安官，这是你要说的吧，有什么话就直说, 你们遇到什么麻烦了？”

19 \We have also learned your language.\

“我们非常谨慎，沿用了你们的衣着模式，甚至采用了你们的外貌。我们还学习了你们的语言。”

20 You could see the light break in on Cameron. He said, \didn't go much for foreigners, never having met many outside the army, but generally he tried to be fair.

你可以看到卡默伦脸上开始现出领悟的神情。他说：“你俩是外国人？”卡默伦不怎么喜欢外国人，退伍后就没怎么见过外国人，不过总的来说他尽力做到为人公正。

21 The man from the saucer said, \your people call Venus.\ 飞碟来人说：“外国人？正是如此。我们来自你们称之为金星的水乡。”

22 Cameron never blinked an eye. He said, \right. This is the U.S.A. We all got equal rights regardless of race, color, or nationality. I'm at your service. What can I do for you?\ 卡默伦连眼也没眨一下便说：“好吧。这里是美国。我们这儿不论种族、肤色、国籍，一律平等。我为你们效劳。你们有何贵干？”

23 \U.S.A., as you call it, to be brought here for discussions leading to your people joining our great organization.\

“我们希望您马上与贵国，即你们所说的美国的要人联系，前来此地商讨加入我们组织的事宜。”

24 Slowly, Cameron got red. \people join your organization. We're already part of the U.N. and God knows what else. And I suppose I'm to get the President here, eh? Right now? In Twin Gulch? Send a hurry-up message?\my face, but I couldn't as much as fall down if someone had pushed the chair out from under me. 卡默伦的脸色渐渐涨红。“我们加入你们的组织。我们已经是联合国的成员了，天知道还有别的什么。我想是让我把总统找来，呃？就现在？前来特温加尔奇？要我送去一封加快信？”他看了看我，似乎想在我脸上看到一丝笑意，可此刻若有人从我身后把椅子抽开，我也不会摔倒在地。

25 The saucer man said, \ 飞碟来人说：“事不宜迟。”

26 \ “你们想不想要国会也来？还有最高法院？”

27 \ “那也无妨，治安官。”

28 And Cameron really went to pieces. He banged his income tax form and yelled, \you're not helping me, and I have no time for wise guys who come around, especially foreigners. If you don't get the hell out of here straight away, I'll lock you up for disturbing the peace and I'll never let you out.\

这下卡默伦真的气坏了。他把税单向桌上重重地一摔，叫道：“好啊，你们跟我添乱，我可没时间跟你们这些自作聪明的人纠缠，尤其是外国人。要是你们不马上从这里滚出去，我就以扰乱治安罪把你们关起来，永远不放你们出来。”

29 \ “您是要我们离开？”金星人问。

30 \back. I don't want to see you and no one else around here does.\

“这就走！滚出去，滚回你们老家去，别再回来。我不想见到你们，这儿谁都不想见到你们。”

31 The two men looked at each other. 那两人对望了一眼。

32 Then the one who had done all the talking said, \mind that you really wish, with great intensity, to be left alone. It is not our way to force ourselves or our organization on people who do not wish us or it. We will respect your privacy and leave. We will not return. We will put a warning around your world and none will enter.\ 一直作为发言人的那人于是说：“看得出您确实极其不愿受到打搅。我们从不愿将我们自己或我们组织的意见强加于无意接受者。我们尊重您的私人自由，马上离开。我们将不

再返回。我们会在你们地球周围发布警告，不再会有人前来。”

33 Cameron said, \ 卡默伦说：“先生，够了，别再胡说八道了，我要开始数3――”

34 They turned and left, and I just knew that everything they said was so. I was listening to them, you see, which Cameron wasn't, because he was busy thinking of his income tax, and it was as though I could hear their minds, know what I mean? I knew that there would be a kind of fence around earth, keeping others out.

那两人转身离去，我当然知道他们说的句句是实话。你知道，我一直在听他们说，卡默伦可没有，他一心只想着他的税单，而且我似乎知道了他们脑子里在想什么，你明白我的意思吗？我知道地球周围会竖起一道屏障，使他人无法进入。

35 And when they left, I got my voice back -- too late. I screamed, \they're from space. Why'd you send them away?\

他们走了之后，我才能又开口说话――已经太迟了。我高声叫起来：“天哪，卡默伦，他们是从太空来的。你为什么要赶他们走？”

36 \ “从太空来的！”他两眼瞪着我。

37 I yelled, \I heaved him to the window by his shirt collar. 我大喝一声：“你看！”我到现在都不明白是怎么一回事，他比我重了25英磅，可我竟然扯着他的衣领把他拽到了窗前。

38 He was too surprised to resist and when he recovered his wits enough to make like he was going to knock me down, he caught sight of what was going on outside the window and the breath went out of him.

他震惊之下都没有反抗，等他回过神来想要把我击倒时，正好看见窗外的情景，顿时气都喘不出来了。

39 They were getting into the flying saucer, those two men, and the saucer sat there, large, round, shiny and kind of powerful, you know. Then it took off. It went up easy as a feather and a red-orange glow showed up on one side and got brighter as the ship got smaller till it was a shooting star again, slowly fading out.

他们正在进入飞碟，就是那两人，飞碟就在那儿，知道吗，大大的， 圆圆的，亮晶晶的，挺有气势的。接着飞碟起飞了。它轻轻巧巧地上升，像根羽毛似的，一侧发出一道桔红色的光芒，那光越来越强烈，飞碟变得越来越小，最后重新变成一颗流星渐渐消失。

40 And I said, \why'd you send them away? They had to see the President. Now they'll never come back.\ 我说：“治安官，你什么要赶他们走？他们要见总统。这下他们再也不会回来了。”

41 Cameron said, \

And they talked funny.\ 卡默伦说：“我当他们是外国人。他们说的，要学我们的语言。而且他们说的话莫名其妙。”

42 \

“哼，得了，还外国人呢。”

43 \ “他们说自己是外国人，两人看上去像是意大利人。我以为他们是意大利人。”

44 \could they be Italian? They said they were from the planet Venus. I heard them. They said so.\

“他们怎么会是意大利人呢？他们说他们是从金星来的。我听见的。他们是这么说的。”

45 \ “金星。”他的眼睛瞪得越发圆了。

46 \water on it.\

“他们是这么说的。他们把它叫做水乡什么的。要知道，金星上多的是水。”

47 But you see, it was just an error, a stupid error, the kind anyone could make. Only now Earth is never going to have another Venusian visit us. That dope, Cameron, and his income tax! 所以你瞧，这仅仅是个错误，一个愚蠢的错误，那种人人都可能犯的错误。只是从今往后地球上再也不会有任何金星人来访了。卡默伦这个笨蛋，还有他那该死的税单！

48 Because he whispered, \meant Venice!\

只听他嘀咕道：“金星！他们说水乡的时候，我还以为他们指的是威尼斯呢！”

Is there life on other planets? Not on those surrounding our sun, it seems. But what of other stars? Do they have planets capable of supporting life? This article sets out to explore the possibilities.

其他行星上是否有生命存在？太阳周围的那些行星上似乎没有。但在其他星系呢？它们是否拥有能维持生命的行星？本文试图探索这种可能性。

Is There Life on Planets Circling Other Stars?

Isaac Asimov

1 There is probably no life of our type in the solar system outside Earth itself. But is there life on planets circling other stars?

绕其他恒星运行的行星上有生命吗？

伊萨克·阿西莫夫

除了地球，在太阳系或许没有类似我们这样的生命的存在。可是，环绕其他恒星运行的星球上有生命吗？

2 Before we can really try to answer that, we have to ask if there are planets circling other stars. Over five hundred years ago, Nicholas of Cusa took it for granted that there were. Modern astronomers think he is likely to have been right, for if our solar system was formed from a cloud of dust and gas that automatically formed planets, that should be true of many other stars as well, and even, perhaps, of nearly all stars. 在试图回答这个问题之前，我们得问一下是否有行星环绕其他恒星运行。五百多年前，库萨的尼古拉斯想当然地认为是有的。现代天文学家认为他很可能是对的，因为如果我们的太阳系在由尘埃和气体组成的云团生成的同时也自动生成了若干行星的话，那么其它许多恒星，甚至可能几乎所有恒星，也应该如此。

3 But that is risky reasoning. It would be much better if one star, aside from our own sun, were actually found to have a planetary system. Unfortunately, even with our present-day instruments, we can't see any planets circling other stars. Such a planet would be 4.4 light-years away, even if it were circling the very nearest star, and it would be shining only by the reflected light of that star, so that it would not deliver enough light to be seen at that distance. There is an answer, however. Sirius B was discovered by Bessel because its gravitational pull was forcing Sirius A to move in a wavy line, not because it was seen through a telescope. Might a planet, or group of planets, do the same for the stars they circle? 但这只是大胆的推理。如果能在太阳系以外真的发现一颗有行星系统的恒星，那这一推理就有根据多了。很遗憾，即使借助于当今的先进仪器，我们还是没法看到任何行星环绕其他恒星运行。哪怕环绕着距离我们最近的恒星运行，这种行星也将会远在4.4光年以外，而且由于行星仅仅依靠恒星的反射而发光，因此它发出的光在如此之远处是不可能被看见的。不过，答案还是有的。贝塞尔发现天狼B星不是通过望远镜看见的，而是由于其引力作用使得天狼A星呈波浪形运行。会不会有一颗行星，或一组行星，对它们所环行的恒星产生同样的作用呢？

4 In theory, yes, though the effect would be extremely small. (1) The best chance for detecting a planet outside our solar system is to choose a star that is very close to us so that we can measure any deviation from its path most accurately. It should also be small, so that a planet could affect its motion sufficiently, and the planet itself would have to be very large to produce a sizable effect. 这在理论上是成立的，尽管其作用将是极其微小的。探测太阳系外行星最有可能的机会是选择一颗离我们相当近的恒星，这样我们就能非常精确地测量其运行轨道的任何偏离。这颗恒星要小，这样行星就能明显地影响其运行，而那颗行星一定要相当之大，足以对其产生相当的影响。

5 The Dutch-American astronomer Peter Van de Kamp investigated nearby small stars for just that purpose. He felt that he had detected tiny irregularities in the motion of nearby stars such as 61 Cygni, Lalande 21185, and, in particular, Barnard's Star. In addition to being very near us, Barnard's Star is quite small and Van de Kamp thought that from its motion he had detected a Jupiter-sized planet circling it. He found similar large planets in connection with the other stars he

studied. But his work was at the very edge of what his instruments could detect, and later astronomers since have decided that his results were not reliable. 荷兰裔美国天文学家彼得·范德肯普为此观测了附近的小恒星。他认为自己观测到了附近恒星运行的细微的异常之处，如天鹅座61，拉兰德21185，尤其是巴纳德恒星。巴纳德恒星不仅与地球距离相当接近，而且比较小。彼得·范德肯普认为，他在该恒星的运行过程中发现有一颗与木星一样大小的行星环绕其运行。他发现同样大小的行星与他所研究的其他恒星也有这种联系。但他的研究超出了他的器材所能观测的范围，后来的天文学家认定，他的研究结果并不可靠。

6 On the other hand, in the last couple of years some bright stars have been found to be surrounded by bands of dust. It is hard to avoid thinking these might be asteroid belts, and where asteroids exist, larger planets ought to exist, too. Nevertheless, we still have not actually observed any planets circling other stars, and must be satisfied with reasoning they are very likely to exist just the same.

在另一方面，近年来发现有一些光线强烈的恒星为尘埃团所环绕。人们不禁要猜测，这些尘埃团可能是小行星带，而小行星带存在之处，也应该有较大的行星存在。然而，我们尚未能真正观测到任何环绕其他恒星运行的行星，只能推测它们是有可能存在的。

7 If, however, there are planets circling most stars, what does that tell us about the possibility of life on those planets? 然而，即使大多数恒星都有行星环绕运行，这与行星上是否可能存在生命又有什么联系呢？

8 Life certainly can't exist on any world that is part of another planetary system, just as it cannot exist on any world in our own planetary system. The planet has to be suitable for life. 生命当然不会在别的行星系的任何一个星球上存在，正如生命并不存在于我们的行星系中的任何一颗星球上一样。有生命存在的行星必须拥有适合生命存在的条件。

9 For one thing, a planet would have to have a reasonably stable orbit. (2) If it had an erratic orbit, there might be times when its temperature would rise above the boiling point of water or, at other times, drop below Antarctic temperatures, and there would not be much chance of finding life as we know it. What's more, a planet would have to be massive enough to hold on to an atmosphere and an ocean, but not so massive that it collected hydrogen and helium.

首先，这样的行星要有相对固定的运行轨道。如果运行轨道不定，很可能行星的温度时而会高于水的沸点，时而又会低于南极气温，那样就不太有可能找到我们所熟悉的生命。还有，这样的行星必须具有相当规模，足以保持住大气层以及大片水面，但又不能过于巨大，不然会积聚氢气和氦气。

10 (3) But even assuming that a planet is the right size and has the proper chemical composition and a stable orbit neither too far from its star nor too close, so that its temperature is at all times in the range of liquid water (as is true of Earth except for the polar regions), a great deal would still depend on the kind of star it was revolving about. Stars that are much more massive than the sun, for instance, would not be very apt to have such planets; their lives on the

main sequence are too short. After all, here on Earth, organisms as advanced as primitive shellfish did not appear until life had existed on the planet for 3 billion years. If that is the normal rate of evolution, then a planet circling a star such as Sirius could never have life advanced beyond the simplest form of bacterial life, for after a mere half-billion years, Sirius would become a red giant and destroy the planet.

但是即使假定有一颗行星，它的大小正好，化学成分适宜，运行轨道稳定，与恒星的距离既不太远也不太近，气温始终保持在液态水温的范围之内（正如地球上极地以外地区的温度一样），那儿是否存在生命，在很大程度上仍得取决于它所围绕运转的是什么样的恒星。例如，远比太阳巨大的恒星不太可能拥有这类行星；在主星序中它们的生命过于短暂。在我们的地球上，即便像原始壳类动物这样的生物也直到生命在地球上出现了30 亿年后才刚刚进化而成。如果这是正常的进化速度，那么一颗环绕着像天狼星这样的恒星运行的行星顶多只能进化到像细菌这样的最简单的生命体，因为只需5亿年时间，天狼星就会成为一颗红巨星将该行星毁灭。

11 Furthermore, if a star is very small and dim, a planet must be very close to it to get enough light and heat to support life as we know it. But at that close distance, tidal effects would cause the planet to face only one side to the sun, so that half the planet would be too hot and half too cold. 再者，如果一颗恒星又小又暗，行星要获得足够的光和热以维持我们所熟悉的生命，就必须与该恒星靠得相当近。但距离过近，潮汐作用就会导致其一面朝向恒星，这样该行星的一半球体会过于炎热，另一半则太冷。

12 In other words, we need stars about the size of our sun. 换言之，我们需要大小接近于我们的太阳的恒星。

13 Then again, such stars cannot be part of close binaries or in other regions where there would be too much energetic radiation from surrounding stars. Suppose we decide that only one out of three hundred stars has a chance of possessing a planet that would be hospitable to our kind of life, and only one out of three hundred of such stars has a planet of the right size, chemical composition, and temperature to actually support life. That might still mean the existence of millions of life-bearing planets scattered among the stars. 可是，这类恒星还不能是相邻的双星中的一颗，也不能处于周围恒星能量辐射活动过于强烈的区域。我们不妨假定，300颗恒星中只有一颗有可能拥有适宜于类似地球生命的行星，300颗这类恒星中只有一颗星大小合适，有着适宜的化学构成与温度以真正维持生命。那仍可能意味着星际间散布着数百万颗蕴含生命的行星。

14 However, what are the chances that on one of these planets intelligent life has developed, capable of developing a technology like ours?

可是，在这些行星当中，出现具有智慧的生命，能够发展类似于地球的科技文明的可能性又有多大？

15 There are no optimistic answers to that question. After all, Earth had to exist for 4.6 billion

years before a life form appeared that was capable of developing technology.

对这一问题没有乐观的回答。应该记住，地球在形成了46亿年之后方出现了能发展科技的生命体。

16 Even if the chances of its happening are small, it might still be that thousands of technologies have developed among the stars, but then there's a still more difficult question: How long would such technologies endure? 即使这一情形发生的可能性很小，星际间仍可能已经出现了成千上万种科技文明，但这就引发了一个更难以回答的问题：这些科技文明会持续多久？

17 Intelligent beings, as they learn to dispose of great sources of energy, might use them for self-destructive purposes. Certainly, now that mankind has developed advanced technologies, we have begun to use them in ruinous wars and are in the process of destroying our environment with them. If this is typical, then the universe might be full of life-bearing planets that have not yet achieved a technology, and equally full of others that have already achieved an advanced technology and have destroyed themselves. There would be only a very, very few besides ourselves who had achieved the technology and had not yet had time to destroy themselves.

具有智慧的生命在学会大量运用能源之后，或许会把能源用于自毁目的。的确，人类在发展了先进的科技之后，已经开始将其用于毁灭性的战争，我们也正在运用这些技术破坏自己的生存环境。如果这一情形具有典型性，那么宇宙之中既可能充满了无数尚未发展科技文明的有生命的行星，同样也可能有着许多业已拥有先进科技、并已自我毁灭的其他行星。除了地球之外，有为数极少的行星可能也已经发展了科技，但还没来得及将自身摧毁。

18 In about 1950, the Italian-American physicist Enrico Fermi asked the question: Where are they? What he meant was, if the stars are rich in technologies, why hasn't some alien life form reached us? (4) (We can't count wild tales of flying saucers and ancient astronauts, because the evidence in their favor is extremely weak.)

大约在1950年，意大利裔美国物理学家安里克·费米问道：它们在何方？他的意思是，如果星际间充满了科技文明，何以没有外星人前来造访？（我们不能把那些有关飞碟和古代太空人的荒诞传说当真，因为能对此加以证实的证据微乎其微。）

19 Perhaps aliens have not appeared because the distances between the stars is too great to cross, or they have reached us and decided to let us develop in peace, or have failed to appear for any number of other reasons. We can't be sure that simply because no alien is here, there are no aliens somewhere out there.

也许外星人尚未现身是由于星际间距离太遥远，或是他们曾经造访并决定任由人类自行发展，或是由于种种其他原因未能前来。我们不能仅仅因为外星人没有在我们这里出现，便断言他处并无外星人。

unit 5 Writing Three Thank-You Letters

Alex Haley served in the Coast Guard during World War ll. On an especially lonely day to be at sea -- Thanksgiving Day -- he began to give serious thought to a holiday that has become, for many Americans, a day of overeating and watching endless games of football. Haley decided to celebrate the true meaning of Thanksgiving by writing three very special letters.

亚历克斯·黑利二战时在海岸警卫队服役。出海在外，时逢一个倍感孤寂的日子――感恩节，他开始认真思考起这一节日的意义。对许多美国人而言，这个节日已成为大吃大喝、没完没了地看橄榄球比赛的日子。黑利决定写三封不同寻常的信，以此来纪念感恩节的真正意义。

Writing Three Thank-You Letters

Alex Haley

1 It was 1943, during World War II, and I was a young U. S. coastguardsman. My ship, the USS Murzim, had been under way for several days. Most of her holds contained thousands of cartons of canned or dried foods. The other holds were loaded with five-hundred-pound bombs packed delicately in padded racks. Our destination was a big base on the island of Tulagi in the South Pacific. 写三封感谢信 亚利克斯·黑利

那是在二战期间的1943年，我是个年轻的美国海岸警卫队队员。我们的船，美国军舰军市一号已出海多日。多数船舱装着成千上万箱罐装或风干的食品。其余的船舱装着不少五百磅重的炸弹，都小心翼翼地放在垫过的架子上。我们的目的地是南太平洋图拉吉岛上一个规模很大的基地。

2 I was one of the Murzim's several cooks and, quite the same as for folk ashore, this Thanksgiving morning had seen us busily preparing a traditional dinner featuring roast turkey. 我是军市一号上的一个厨师，跟岸上的人一样，那个感恩节的上午，我们忙着在准备一道以烤火鸡为主的传统菜肴。

3 Well, as any cook knows, it's a lot of hard work to cook and serve a big meal, and clean up and put everything away. But finally, around sundown, we finished at last.

当厨师的都知道，要烹制一顿大餐，摆上桌，再刷洗、收拾干净，是件辛苦的事。不过，等到太阳快下山时，我们总算全都收拾停当了。

4 I decided first to go out on the Murzim's afterdeck for a breath of open air. I made my way out there, breathing in great, deep draughts while walking slowly about, still wearing my white cook's hat.

我想先去后甲板透透气。我信步走去，一边深深呼吸着空气，一边慢慢地踱着步，头上仍戴着那顶白色的厨师帽。

5 I got to thinking about Thanksgiving, of the Pilgrims, Indians, wild turkeys, pumpkins, corn

on the cob, and the rest. 我开始思索起感恩节这个节日来，想着清教徒前辈移民、印第安人、野火鸡、南瓜、玉米棒等等。

6 Yet my mind seemed to be in quest of something else -- some way that I could personally apply to the close of Thanksgiving. It must have taken me a half hour to sense that maybe some key to an answer could result from reversing the word \verbal direction, \

可我脑子里似乎还在搜索着别的事什么――某种我能够赋予这一节日以个人意义的方式。大概过了半个小时左右我才意识到，问题的关键也许在于把Thanksgiving这个字前后颠倒一下――那样一来至少文字好懂了：Giving thanks。

7 Giving thanks -- as in praying, thanking God, I thought. Yes, of course. Certainly.

表达谢意――就如在祈祷时感谢上帝那样，我暗想。对啊，是这样，当然是这样。

8 Yet my mind continued turning the idea over. 可我脑子里仍一直盘桓着这事。

9 After a while, like a dawn's brightening, a further answer did come -- that there were people to thank, people who had done so much for me that I could never possibly repay them. The embarrassing truth was I'd always just accepted what they'd done, taken all of it for granted. Not one time had I ever bothered to express to any of them so much as a simple, sincere \ 过了片刻，如同晨曦初现，一个更清晰的念头终于涌现脑际――要感谢他人，那些赐我以诸多恩惠，我根本无以回报的人们。令我深感不安的实际情形是，我向来对他们所做的一切受之泰然，认为是理所应当。我一次也没想过要对他们中的任何一位真心诚意地说一句简单的谢谢。

10 At least seven people had been particularly and lastingly helpful to me. I realized, swallowing hard, that about half of them had since died -- so they were forever beyond any possible expression of gratitude from me. The more I thought about it, the more ashamed I became. Then I pictured the three who were still alive and, within minutes, I was down in my cabin.

至少有七个人对我有过不同寻常、影响深远的帮助。令人难过的是，我意识到，他们中有一半已经过世了――因此他们永远也无法接受我的谢意了。我越想越感到羞愧。最后我想到了仍健在的三位，几分钟后，我就回到了自己的舱房。

11 Sitting at a table with writing paper and memories of things each had done, I tried composing genuine statements of heartfelt appreciation and gratitude to my dad, Simon A. Haley, a professor at the old Agricultural Mechanical Normal College in Pine Bluff, Arkansas; to my grandma, Cynthia Palmer, back in our little hometown of Henning, Tennessee; and to the Rev. Lonual Nelson, my grammar school principal, retired and living in Ripley, six miles north of Henning.

我坐在摊着信纸的桌旁，回想着他们各自对我所做的一切，试图用真挚的文字表达我对他们的由衷的感激之情：父亲西蒙·A·黑利，阿肯色州派因布拉夫那所古老的农业机械师范学院的教授；住在田纳西州小镇亨宁老家的外祖母辛西娅·帕尔默；以及我的文法学校校长，退休后住在亨宁以北6英里处的里普利的洛纽尔·纳尔逊牧师。

12 The texts of my letters began something like, \thoughts upon how much you have done for me, but I have never stopped and said to you how much I feel the need to thank you -- \And briefly I recalled for each of them specific acts performed on my behalf.

我的信是这样开头的：“出海在外度过的这个感恩节，令我回想起您为我做了那么多事，但我从来没有对您说过自己是多么想感谢您――”我简短回忆了各位为我所做的具体事例。

13 For instance, something uppermost about my father was how he had impressed upon me from boyhood to love books and reading. In fact, this graduated into a family habit of after-dinner quizzes at the table about books read most recently and new words learned. My love of books never diminished and later led me toward writing books myself. So many times I have felt a sadness when exposed to modern children so immersed in the electronic media that they have little or no awareness of the marvelous world to be discovered in books.

例如，我父亲的最不同寻常之处在于，从我童年时代起，他就让我深深意识到要热爱书籍、热爱阅读。事实上，这一爱好渐渐变成一种家庭习惯，晚饭后大家围在餐桌旁互相考查近日所读的书以及新学的单词。我对书籍的热爱从未减弱，日后还引导我自己撰文著书。多少次，当我看到如今的孩子们如此沉迷于电子媒体时，我不由深感悲哀，他们很少，或者根本不了解书中所能发现的神奇世界。

14 I reminded the Reverend Nelson how each morning he would open our little country town's grammar school with a prayer over his assembled students. I told him that whatever positive things I had done since had been influenced at least in part by his morning school prayers. 我跟纳尔逊牧师提及他如何每天清晨和集合在一起的学生做祷告，以此开始乡村小学的一天。我告诉他，我后来所做的任何有意义的事，都至少部分地是受了他那些学校晨祷的影响。

15 In the letter to my grandmother, I reminded her of a dozen ways she used to teach me how to tell the truth, to share, and to be forgiving and considerate of others. I thanked her for the years of eating her good cooking, the equal of which I had not found since. Finally, I thanked her simply for having sprinkled my life with stardust. 在给外祖母的信中，我谈到了她用了种种方式教我讲真话，教我与人分享，教我宽恕、体谅他人。我感谢她多年来让我吃到她烧的美味菜肴，离开她后我从来没吃过那么可口的菜肴。最后，我感谢她，因为她在我的生命中撒下美妙的遐想。

16 Before I slept, my three letters went into our ship's office mail sack. They got mailed when we reached Tulagi Island.

睡觉前，我的这三封信都送进了船上的邮袋。我们抵达图拉吉岛后都寄了出去。

17 We unloaded cargo, reloaded with something else, then again we put to sea in the routine familiar to us, and as the days became weeks, my little personal experience receded. Sometimes, when we were at sea, a mail ship would rendezvous and bring us mail from home, which, of course, we accorded topmost priority.

我们卸了货，又装了其它物品，随后我们按熟悉的常规，再次出海。 一天又一天，一星期又一星期，我个人的经历渐渐淡忘。我们在海上航行时，有时会与邮船会合，邮船会带给我们家信，当然这是我们视为最紧要的事情。

18 Every time the ship's loudspeaker rasped, \Mail call!\two hundred-odd shipmates came pounding up on deck and clustered about the two seamen, standing by those precious bulging gray sacks. They were alternately pulling out fistfuls of letters and barking successive names of sailors who were, in turn, shouting back \ 每当船上的喇叭响起：“大伙听好！邮件点名！”200名左右的水兵就会冲上甲板，围聚在那两个站在宝贵的鼓鼓囊囊的灰色邮袋旁的水手周围。两人轮流取出一把信，大声念收信水手的名字，叫到的人从人群当中挤出，一边应道：“来了，来了！”

19 One \responses from Grandma, Dad, and the Reverend Nelson -- and my reading of their letters left me not only astonished but more humbled than before.

一次“邮件点名”带给我外祖母，爸爸，以及纳尔逊牧师的回信――我读了信，既震惊又深感卑微。

20 Rather than saying they would forgive that I hadn't previously thanked them, instead, for Pete's sake, they were thanking me -- for having remembered, for having considered they had done anything so exceptional.

他们没有说他们原谅我以前不曾感谢他们，相反，他们向我致谢，天哪，就因为我记得，就因为我认为他们做了不同寻常的事。

21 Always the college professor, my dad had carefully avoided anything he considered too sentimental, so I knew how moved he was to write me that, after having helped educate many young people, he now felt that his best results included his own son.

身为大学教授的爸爸向来特别留意不使用任何过于感情化的文字，因此， 当他对我写道，在教了许许多多的年轻人之后，他认为自己最优秀的学生当中也包括自己的儿子时，我知道他是多么地感动。

22 The Reverend Nelson wrote that his decades as a \old-fashioned principal\had ended with schools undergoing such swift changes that he had retired in self-doubt. \of what I had done wrong than what I did right,\welcome reassurance that his career had been appreciated. 纳尔逊牧师写道，他那平凡的传统校长的岁月随着学校里发生的如此迅猛的变化而结束，他怀着自我怀疑的心态退了休。“说我做得不对的远远多于说我做得对的，” 他写道，接着说我的信给他带来了振奋人心的信心：自己的校长生涯还是有其价值的。

23 A glance at Grandma's familiar handwriting brought back in a flash memories of standing alongside her white rocking chair, watching her \by character, Grandma would slowly accomplish one word, then the next, so that a finished page would consume hours. I wept over the page representing my Grandma's recent hours invested in expressing her loving gratefulness to me -- whom she used to diaper! 一看到外祖母那熟悉的笔迹，我顿时回想起往日站在她的白色摇椅旁看她给亲戚写信

的情景。外祖母一个字母一个字母地慢慢拼出一个词，接着是下一个词，因此写满一页要花上几个小时。捧着外祖母最近花费不少工夫对我表达了充满慈爱的谢意，我禁不住流泪――从前是她给我换尿布的呀。

24 Much later, retired from the Coast Guard and trying to make a living as a writer, I never forgot how those three \you\letters gave me an insight into how most human beings go about longing in secret for more of their fellows to express appreciation for their efforts.

许多年后，我从海岸警卫队退役，试着靠写作为生，我一直不曾忘记那三封“感谢”信是如何使我认识到，大凡人都暗自期望着有更多的人对自己的努力表达谢意。

25 Now, approaching another Thanksgiving, I have asked myself what will I wish for all who are reading this, for our nation, indeed for our whole world -- since, quoting a good and wise friend of mine, \wish for us, of course, the simple common sense to achieve world peace, that being paramount for the very survival of our kind.

现在，感恩节又将来临，我自问，对此文的读者，对我们的祖国，事实上对全世界，我有什么祝愿，因为，用一位善良而且又有智慧的朋友的话来说，“我们究其实都是十分相像的凡人，有着相似的需求。”当然，我首先祝愿大家记住这一简单的常识：实现世界和平，这对我们自身的存亡至关重要。

26 And there is something else I wish -- so strongly that I have had this line printed across the bottom of all my stationery: \

此外我还有别的祝愿――这一祝愿是如此强烈，我将这句话印在我所有的信笺底部：“发现并褒扬各种美好的事物。”

Thanksgiving, like Spring Festival, brings families back together from across the country. Waiting for her children to arrive, Ellen Goodman reflects on the changing relationship between parents and children as they grow up and leave home, often to settle far away.

如同春节那样，散居各处的美国人到感恩节就回家团聚。埃伦·古德曼在等待着子女回家的同时，思索着当子女长大离家，常常在远方定居之后，父母与子女关系的不断变化。

Where Is Home?

Ellen Goodman

1 \ 何处是家? 埃伦·古德曼

“孩子们要回家过节了。”

2 My friend announces this as we swap recipes and plans for Thanksgiving.

我们在相互交流着感恩节的菜单和节日安排时，我的朋友郑重其事地这么说。

3 I stop; amused for a moment at the language we now share. \the people who call their adult children, 'the kids'?\

我愣了一下，不由对我俩用词相同感到有趣。“从什么时候起，”我问道，“咱们成了把长大成人的子女叫做‘孩子’的人？”

4 We laugh briefly at the passage of time, at thoughts of our own mothers who still refer to us as 'the girls,' and then she pauses.

想到时光流逝，想到我们自己的母亲仍把我们叫做 “丫头”，我俩不由得笑出声来，随后她止住了笑。

5 \asks my old friend, \our kids become the people who come home only at holidays?\ “从什么时候起，”我的老朋友问道，“我们的孩子成了到节假日才回家的人？”两人心头一时又酸又甜。

6 (1)This is the week when our friends bring in the younger generation, eagerly harvesting them from bulging airports. We noisily arrange children, nieces, nephews, cousins around tables, placing them like good china that we take out for special occasions. 这个星期是我们的朋友们将小辈带回家的时候，是急切地把子女从人满为患的机场接回去的时候。 我们忙乱地安排子女，侄子侄女，堂兄弟表姐妹什么的在餐桌旁一一就坐，就跟摆放在特殊场合才偶尔一用的精美餐具似的。

7 These energetic offspring do not come over the river and through the woods anymore. They struggle past check-in counters and wrestle their gear into stuffed overhead bins. They migrate back on airlines whose owners pray with their overbooked hearts that the weather will hold. 这些精力旺盛的后辈不再穿林过河而来。他们挤过检票处，使劲地把行李塞进座位上方满满的行李箱。他们搭乘着民航客机飞回家，那些公司心里想着客满的航班，祈祷着好天气持续下去。

8 (2)It is a testimony to the joyful pull of family that Americans saturated the air and highways this week to return to the place they no longer live but nevertheless call home. To get home for the holidays.

这个星期美国人挤满飞机和公路，都想回到他们已不再居住，却仍称之为家的地方。这证明了家庭具有能给人带来喜悦的吸引力的一个明证。 回家去过节。

9 Yet my old friend has touched, however delicately, on that other truth about a country scattered over generations and geography. We have gone from family life as everyday, from knowing every sock in our children's drawers and every frown on their faces, to welcoming them home to designated guest rooms.

但我的老朋友很微妙地触及了另外一个事实，即这个国家一代又一代的人散布在天南地北。我们的家庭生活原本平平淡淡，没有变化，连孩子抽屉里的袜子，他们脸上任何一道不悦神情都一清二楚，现在却要迎接他们回家，把他们安置在指定的客房里。

10 We have visitation rights in each other's lives now, say my friend, a mother in 617 who looks forward to greeting the children from 415 and 011. We keep in touch, we catch up, we say hellos and goodbyes. But we are still trying to learn how to compress \quantities.

我们相互拥有探视权，我的朋友说。她是位母亲，住在电话区号为617的地方，盼望着迎接分别住在区号为415和011地区的子女回家。我们保持联系，我们互通信息，我们相互问好，再依依道别。但我们仍试图学会如何把团圆的“美好时光”压缩的短些，但相聚的次数要多些。

11 My friend is not complaining. Neither of us longs to return to those wonderful yesterdays. The nests that once felt empty now feel roomy. 我的朋友并没有抱怨。我们谁都无意退回到那美好的往昔。一度显得空落落的老巢如今显得宽宽敞敞。

12 More to the point we raised our children to look over the horizons. We told them, the world is yours, go for it. One by one, they went for it, to 305 and 215 and 406. It is, after all, the American way.

更重要的是，我们把子女养育成人，是要他们眺望远方。我们跟他们说，世界是你们的，去拥有这个世界。他们一个个去拥有世界了，有的去了305，有的去了215，有的去了506。毕竟，这就是美国的生活方式。

13 So we email and travel and are grateful at how much easier it is to keep in touch -- at least virtual touch -- today than when our parents were young. We take joy in the \own lives.

于是我们收发电子邮件，我们旅行，想到如今保持联系――至少是虚拟的联系――要比我们自己父母年轻时便捷得多，不由心存感激。我们为孩子们创建自己的生活而深感欢欣。

14 Yet at times an unpatriotic thought crosses our minds. Is this American way, this long-distance family, an odd tradition as unique to our people as Thanksgiving?

然而，偶尔我们脑子里会掠过一个不那么爱国的念头。难道这就是美国方式，家庭成员相距如此遥远，这种与感恩节同样独特的不同寻常的国民传统？

15 We are a nation of movers, founded by people on pilgrimages, populated by those who were willfully or forcibly uprooted. Our national mythology is based on the lure of kicking out and starting fresh. (3)We moved west and west again on a promise of the last best place, which turned out to be just a way station. 我们是一个迁徙者的国度，由清教徒前辈移民创立，有意或被迫离乡背井者曾在这里居住。我们的民族神话建立在离开家园，重新开始这一诱惑之上。我们西进再西进，期待得到最后那片最好的土地，而那却只是路上一个小站而已。

16 Even Robert Frost's most familiar and most American definition -- \is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in\where you stay.

就连罗伯特·弗罗斯特那最为人所知,最美国化的定义――“家就是那个当你不得不前往时，他们必须接纳你的所在”――也带有其潜台词，家不是羁留之所。

17 From the middle of the age spectrum, my friend and I have seen elders move from house to condo, north to south, aging sunbirds still migrating. On the other side of the generational

sandwich we watch our children's words. They are \home\

作为中年人，我和朋友见过年长者从独立的住宅搬入公寓套间，从北方迁往南方，老了的太阳鸟仍迁徙不已。在一代又一代人的夹层的另一端，我们留意着自己子女的用词。他们星期二“回家来”，星期天 “回家去”。

18 Today many Americans find it hard to answer the question \all hold dual citizenship? Does the national concern about weaker family ties say less about our feelings than about our geography? 今天，许多美国人觉得难以回答“你是哪儿人”这个问题。我们是否都拥有双重籍贯？国民对越发薄弱的家庭纽带的关注难道更着眼于地域，而非我们的情感？

19 These questions hang lightly in the November air as we turn the subject from comings and goings of children to the advantages and disadvantages of chestnuts in the stuffing. This is the time, after all, of celebrating reunion, not musings about separation.

这些问题在11月的气氛中并不显得重要，我们的话题从子女归来转到火鸡填料里加栗子的好处与缺陷。毕竟这是欢庆团圆之时，不是默想离别痛苦的时候。

20 \table. It is each other. And somewhere between the turkey and pies we settle down to savor togetherness.

“孩子们”就要回家了。把我们带回摆满食物的餐桌旁的，不是食品匮乏，而是我们彼此。在享用火鸡与馅饼的间隙，我们定下心来品味团圆的温馨。

21 (4)Over this Thanksgiving holiday and in this restless country, we stop and feast on family. 在这个人们流动不停的国度里，整个感恩节期间我们始终留在家中享受天伦之乐。

unit 6 The Last Leaf

When Johnsy fell seriously ill, she seemed to lose the will to hang on to life. The doctor held out little hope for her. Her friends seemed helpless. Was there nothing to be done?

约翰西病情严重，她似乎失去了活下去的意志。医生对她不抱什么希望。朋友们看来也爱莫能助。难道真的就无可奈何了吗？

The Last Leaf

O. Henry

1 At the top of a three-story brick building, Sue and Johnsy had their studio. \familiar for Joanna. One was from Maine; the other from California. They had met at a cafe on Eighth Street and found their tastes in art, chicory salad and bishop sleeves so much in tune that the joint studio resulted. 最后一片叶子 欧·亨利

在一幢三层砖楼的顶层，苏和约翰西辟了个画室。“约翰西”是乔安娜的昵称。她们一位来自缅因州，一位来自加利福尼亚。两人相遇在第八大街的一个咖啡馆，发现各自在艺术品味、菊苣色拉，以及灯笼袖等方面趣味相投，于是就有了这个两人画室。

2 That was in May. In November a cold, unseen stranger, whom the doctors called Pneumonia, stalked about the district, touching one here and there with his icy fingers. Johnsy was among his victims. She lay, scarcely moving on her bed, looking through the small window at the blank side of the next brick house. 那是5月里的事。到了11月，一个医生称之为肺炎的阴森的隐形客闯入了这一地区，用它冰冷的手指东碰西触。约翰西也为其所害。她病倒了，躺在床上几乎一动不动，只能隔着小窗望着隔壁砖房那单调沉闷的侧墙。

3 One morning the busy doctor invited Sue into the hallway with a bushy, gray eyebrow. 一天上午，忙碌的医生扬了扬灰白的浓眉，示意苏来到过道。

4 \lady has made up her mind that she's not going to get well. Has she anything on her mind? “她只有一成希望，”他说。“那还得看她自己是不是想活下去。你这位女朋友已经下决心不想好了。她有什么心事吗？”

5 \ “她――她想有一天能去画那不勒斯湾，”苏说。

6 \-- bosh! Has she anything on her mind worth thinking about twice -- a man, for instance?\

“画画？――得了。她有没有别的事值得她留恋的――比如说，一个男人？”

7 \ “男人？”苏说。“难道一个男人就值得――可是，她没有啊，大夫，没有这码子事。”

8 \begins to count the carriages in her funeral procession I subtract 50 per cent from the curative power of medicines.\marched into Johnsy's room with her drawing board, whistling a merry tune. “好吧，”大夫说。“我会尽一切努力，只要是科学能做到的。可是，但凡病人开始计算她出殡的行列里有几辆马车的时候，我就要把医药的疗效减去一半。”大夫走后，苏去工作室哭了一场。随后她携着画板大步走进约翰西的房间，口里吹着轻快的口哨。

9 Johnsy lay, scarcely making a movement under the bedclothes, with her face toward the window. She was looking out and counting -- counting backward.

约翰西躺在被子下几乎一动不动，脸朝着窗。她望着窗外，数着数――倒数着数！

10 \and \ “12，”她数道，过了一会儿“11”，接着数“10”和“9”；再数“8”和“7”，几乎一口同时数下来。

11 Sue looked out of the window. What was there to count? There was only a bare, dreary yard to be seen, and the blank side of the brick house twenty feet away. An old, old ivy vine climbed half way up the brick wall. The cold breath of autumn had blown away its leaves, leaving it almost bare.

苏朝窗外望去。外面有什么好数的呢？外面只看到一个空荡荡的沉闷的院子，还有20英尺开外那砖房的侧墙，上面什么也没有。一棵古老的常青藤爬到半墙高。萧瑟秋风吹落了枝叶，藤上几乎光秃秃的。

12 \were almost a hundred. It made my head ache to count them. But now it's easy. There goes another one. There are only five left now.\ “6”，约翰西数着，声音几乎听不出来。“现在叶子掉落得快多了。三天前差不多还有100片。数得我头都疼。可现在容易了。又掉了一片。这下子只剩5片了。”

13 \

“5片什么，亲爱的？”

14 \days. Didn't the doctor tell you?\

“叶子。常青藤上的叶子。等最后一片叶子掉了，我也就得走了。三天前我就知道会这样。大夫没跟你说吗？”

15 \Don't be so silly. Why, the doctor told me this morning that your chances for getting well real soon were ten to one! Try to take some soup now, and let Sudie go and buy port wine for her sick child.\

“噢，我从没听说过这种胡说八道。常青藤叶子跟你病好不好有什么关系？别这么傻。对了，大夫上午跟我说，你的病十有八九就快好了。快喝些汤，让苏迪给她生病的孩子去买些波尔图葡萄酒来。”

16 \needn't get any more wine,\said Johnsy, keeping her eyes fixed out the window. \before it gets dark. Then I'll go, too. I'm tired of waiting. I'm tired of thinking. I want to turn loose my hold on everything, and go sailing down, down, just like one of those poor, tired leaves.\ “你不用再去买酒了，”约翰西说道，两眼一直盯着窗外。“又掉了一片。不，我不想喝汤。这一下只剩下4片了。我要在天黑前看到最后一片叶子掉落。那时我也就跟着走了。我都等腻了。也想腻了。我只想撇开一切, 飘然而去，就像那边一片可怜的疲倦的叶子。”

17 \be gone a minute.\ “快睡吧，”苏说。“我得叫贝尔曼上楼来给我当老矿工模特儿。我去去就来。”

18 Old Behrman was a painter who lived on the ground floor beneath them. He was past sixty and had a long white beard curling down over his chest. Despite looking the part, Behrman was a failure in art. For forty years he had been always about to paint a masterpiece, but had never yet begun it. He earned a little by serving as a model to those young artists who could not pay the price of a professional. He drank gin to excess, and still talked of his coming masterpiece. For the rest he was a fierce little old man, who mocked terribly at softness in any one, and who regarded himself as guard dog to the two young artists in the studio above. 老贝尔曼是住在两人楼下底层的一个画家。他已年过六旬，银白色蜷曲的长髯披挂胸前。贝尔曼看上去挺像艺术家，但在艺术上却没有什么成就。40年来他一直想创作一幅传世之作，却始终没能动手。他给那些请不起职业模特的青年画家当模特挣点小钱。他没节制地喝酒，谈论着他那即将问世的不朽之作。要说其他方面，他是个好斗的小老头，要是谁表现出一点软弱，他便大肆嘲笑，并把自己看成是楼上画室里两位年轻艺术家的看护人。

19 Sue found Behrman smelling strongly of gin in his dimly lighted studio below. In one corner was a blank canvas on an easel that had been waiting there for twenty-five years to receive the first line of the masterpiece. She told him of Johnsy's fancy, and how she feared she would, indeed, light and fragile as a leaf herself, float away, when her slight hold upon the world grew weaker. Old Behrman, with his red eyes plainly streaming, shouted his contempt for such foolish imaginings.

苏在楼下光线暗淡的画室里找到了贝尔曼，他满身酒味刺鼻。屋子一角的画架上支着一张从未落过笔的画布，在那儿搁了25年，等着一幅杰作的起笔。苏把约翰西的怪念头跟他说了，并说约翰西本身就像一片叶子又瘦又弱，她害怕要是她那本已脆弱的生存意志再软下去的话，真的会凋零飘落。老贝尔曼双眼通红，显然是泪涟涟的，他大声叫嚷着说他蔑视

这种傻念头。

20 \off from a vine? I have never heard of such a thing. Why do you allow such silly ideas to come into that head of hers? God! This is not a place in which one so good as Miss Johnsy should lie sick. Some day I will paint a masterpiece, and we shall all go away. Yes.\ “什么！”他嚷道。“世界上竟然有这么愚蠢的人，因为树叶从藤上掉落就要去死？我听都没听说过这等事。你怎么让这种傻念头钻到她那个怪脑袋里？天哪！这不是一个像约翰西小姐这样的好姑娘躺倒生病的地方。有朝一日我要画一幅巨作，那时候我们就离开这里。真的。”

21 Johnsy was sleeping when they went upstairs. Sue pulled the shade down, and motioned Behrman into the other room. In there they peered out the window fearfully at the ivy vine. Then they looked at each other for a moment without speaking. A persistent, cold rain was falling, mingled with snow. Behrman, in his old blue shirt, took his seat as the miner on an upturned kettle for a rock.

两人上了楼，约翰西已经睡着了。苏放下窗帘，示意贝尔曼去另一个房间。在那儿两人惶惶不安地凝视着窗外的常青藤。接着两人面面相觑，哑然无语。外面冷雨夹雪，淅淅沥沥。贝尔曼穿着破旧的蓝色衬衣, 坐在充当矿石的倒置的水壶上，摆出矿工的架势。

22 When Sue awoke from an hour's sleep the next morning she found Johnsy with dull, wide-open eyes staring at the drawn green shade. 第二天早上，只睡了一个小时的苏醒来看到约翰西睁大着无神的双眼，凝望着拉下的绿色窗帘。

23 \ “把窗帘拉起来；我要看，”她低声命令道。

24 Wearily Sue obeyed.

苏带着疲倦，遵命拉起窗帘。

25 But, Lo! after the beating rain and fierce wind that had endured through the night, there yet stood out against the brick wall one ivy leaf. It was the last on the vine. Still dark green near its stem, but with its edges colored yellow, it hung bravely from a branch some twenty feet above the ground.

可是，瞧！经过一整夜的急风骤雨，竟然还存留一片常青藤叶，背靠砖墙，格外显目。这是常青藤上的最后一片叶子。近梗部位仍呈暗绿色，但边缘已经泛黄了，它无所畏惧地挂在离地20多英尺高的枝干上。

26 \wind. It will fall today, and I shall die at the same time.\ “这是最后一片叶子，”约翰西说。“我以为夜里它肯定会掉落的。我晚上听到大风呼啸。今天它会掉落的，叶子掉的时候，也是我死的时候。”

27 The day wore away, and even through the twilight they could see the lone ivy leaf clinging to its stem against the wall. And then, with the coming of the night the north wind was again loosed.

白天慢慢过去了，即便在暮色黄昏之中，他们仍能看到那片孤零零的常青藤叶子，背靠砖墙，紧紧抱住梗茎。尔后，随着夜幕的降临，又是北风大作。

28 When it was light enough Johnsy, the merciless, commanded that the shade be raised. 等天色亮起，冷酷无情的约翰西命令将窗帘拉起。

29 The ivy leaf was still there. 常青藤叶依然挺在。

30 Johnsy lay for a long time looking at it. And then she called to Sue, who was stirring her chicken soup over the gas stove.

约翰西躺在那儿，望着它许久许久。接着她大声呼唤正在煤气灶上搅鸡汤的苏。

31 \show me how wicked I was. It is a sin to want to die. You may bring me a little soup now, and some milk with a little port in it and -- no; bring me a hand-mirror first, and then pack some pillows about me, and I will sit up and watch you cook.\ “我一直像个不乖的孩子，苏迪，”约翰西说。“有一种力量让那最后一片叶子不掉，好让我看到自己有多坏。想死是一种罪过。你给我喝点汤吧，再来点牛奶，稍放一点波尔图葡萄酒――不，先给我拿面小镜子来，弄几个枕头垫在我身边，我要坐起来看你做菜。”

32 An hour later she said: 一个小时之后，她说：

33 \ “苏迪，我真想有一天去画那不勒斯海湾。”

34 The doctor came in the afternoon, and Sue had an excuse to go into the hallway as he left. 下午大夫来了，他走时苏找了个借口跟进了过道。

35 \ “现在是势均力敌，”大夫说着，握了握苏纤细颤抖的手。

36 \good nursing you'll win. And now I must see another case I have downstairs. Behrman, his name is -- some kind of an artist, I believe. Pneumonia, too. He is an old, weak man, and the attack is acute. There is no hope for him; but he goes to the hospital today to be made more comfortable.\

“只要精心照料，你就赢了。现在我得去楼下看另外一个病人了。贝尔曼，是他的名字――记得是个什么画家。也是肺炎。他年老体弱，病来势又猛。他是没救了。不过今天他去了医院，照料得会好一点。”

37 The next day the doctor said to Sue: \care now -- that's all.\

第二天，大夫对苏说：“她脱离危险了。你赢了。注意饮食，好好照顾，就行了。”

38 And that afternoon Sue came to the bed where Johnsy lay and put one arm around her. 当日下午，苏来到约翰西的床头，用一只手臂搂住她。

39 \today in the hospital. He was ill only two days. He was found on the morning of the first day in his room downstairs helpless with pain. His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold. They couldn't imagine where he had been on such a terrible night. And then they found a lantern, still lighted, and a ladder that had been dragged from its place, and some scattered brushes, and a palette with green and yellow colors mixed on it, and -- look out the window, dear, at the last ivy leaf on the wall. Didn't you wonder why it never fluttered or moved when the wind blew? Ah, darling, it's Behrman's masterpiece -- he painted it there the night that the last leaf fell.\

“我跟你说件事，小白鼠，”她说。“贝尔曼先生今天在医院里得肺炎去世了。他得病才两天。发病那天上午人家在楼下他的房间里发现他疼得利害。他的鞋子衣服都湿透了，冰冷冰冷的。他们想不出那么糟糕的天气他夜里会去哪儿。后来他们发现了一个灯笼，还亮着，还有一个梯子被拖了出来，另外还有些散落的画笔，一个调色板，和着黄绿两种颜色，――看看窗外，宝贝儿，看看墙上那最后一片常青藤叶子。它在刮风的时候一动也不动，你没有觉得奇怪吗？啊，亲爱的，那是贝尔曼的杰作――最后一片叶子掉落的那天夜里他画上了这片叶子。”

He did not trust the woman to trust him. And he did not trust the woman not to trust him. And he did not want to be mistrusted now.

他不敢相信这个女人居然会信任自己。他也不认为这个女人就不信任自己。不过，现在他不想失去别人对自己的信任。

Thank You, Ma'm

Langston Hughes

1 She was a large woman with a large purse that had everything in it but a hammer and nails. It was about eleven o'clock at night, dark, and she was walking alone, when a boy ran up behind her and tried to snatch the purse. The strap broke with the sudden single tug the boy gave it from behind. (1) But the boy's weight and the weight of the purse combined caused him to lose his balance. Instead of taking off full blast as he had hoped, the boy fell on his back on the sidewalk and his legs flew up. The large woman simply turned around and kicked him right square in his blue-jeaned sitter. Then she reached down, picked the boy up by his shirtfront, and shook him violently.

谢谢您，太太 兰斯顿·休斯

她是个大块头女人，拎着个大包，里边除了榔头钉子什么都有。大约夜晚11点光景，

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