现代大学英语精读UnitSringSowing原文

Book 4-Unit 5Text AThe TelephoneAnwar F. Accawi1.When I was growing up in Magdaluna, a small Lebanese village in the terraced, rockymountains east of Sidon, time didn't mean much to anybody, except maybe to those who were dying. In those days, there was no real need for a calendar or a watch to keep track of the hours, days, months, and years. We knew what to do and when to do it, just as the Iraqi geese knew when to fly north, driven by the hot wind that blew in from the desert. The only timepiece we had need of then was the sun. It rose and set, and the seasons rolled by and we sowed seed and harvested and ate and played and married our cousins and had babies who got whooping cough and chickenpox—and those children who survived grew up and married their cousins and had babies who got whooping cough and chickenpox. We lived and loved and toiled and died without ever needing to know what year it was, or even the time of day.2.It wasn't that we had no system for keeping track of time and of the important events in ourlives. But ours was a natural or, rather, a divine—calendar, because it was framed by acts of God: earthquakes and droughts and floods and locusts and pestilences. Simple as our calendar was, it worked just fine for us.3.Take, for example, the birth date of Teta Im Khalil, the oldest woman in Magdaluna and allthe surrounding villages. When I asked Grandma, "How old is Teta Im Khalil"4.Grandma had to think for a moment; then she said, "I've been told that Teta was born shortlyafter the big snow that caused the roof on the mayor's house to cave in."5."And when was that" I asked.6."Oh, about the time we had the big earthquake that cracked the wall in the east room."7.Well, that was enough for me. You couldn't be more accurate than that, now, could you?8.And that's the way it was in our little village for as far back as anybody could remember. Oneof the most unusual of the dates was when a whirlwind struck during which fish and oranges fell from the sky. Incredible as it may sound, the story of the fish and oranges was true, because men who would not lie even to save their own souls told and retold that story until it was incorporated into Magdaluna's calendar.9.The year of the fish-bearing whirlpool was not the last remarkable year. Many othersfollowed in which strange and wonderful things happened. There was, for instance, the year of the drought, when the heavens were shut for months and the spring from which the entire village got its drinking water slowed to a trickle. The spring was about a mile from the village, in a ravine that opened at one end into a small, flat clearing covered with fine gray dust and hard, marble-sized goat droppings. In the year of the drought, that little clearing was always packed full of noisy kids with big brown eyes and sticky hands, and their mothers—sinewy, overworked young women with cracked, brown heels. The children ran around playing tag or hide-and-seek while the women talked, shooed flies, and awaited their turns to fill up their jars with drinking water to bring home to their napping men and wet babies. There were days when we had to wait from sunup until late afternoon just to fill a small clay jar with precious, cool water.10.Sometimes, amid the long wait and the heat and the flies and the smell of goat dung,tempers flared, and the younger women, anxious about their babies, argued over whose turn it was to fill up her jar. And sometimes the arguments escalated into full-blown, knockdown-dragout fights; the women would grab each other by the hair and curse and scream and spit and call each other names that made my ears tingle. We little brown boys who went with our mothers to fetch water loved these fights, because we got to see the women's legs and their colored panties as they grappled and rolled around in the dust. Once in a while, we got lucky and saw much more, because some of the women wore nothing at all under their long dresses. God, how I used to look forward to those fights. I remember the rush, the excitement, the sun dancing on the dust clouds as a dress ripped and a young white breast was revealed, then quickly hidden. In my calendar, that year of drought will always be one of the best years of my childhood.11.But, in another way, the year of the drought was also one of the worst of my life, becausethat was the year that Abu Raja, the retired cook, decided it was time Magdaluna got its own telephone. Every civilized village needed a telephone, he said, and Magdaluna was not going to get anywhere until it had one. A telephone would link us with the outside world. A few men—like the retired Turkish-army drill sergeant, and the vineyard keeper—did all they could to talk Abu Raja out of having a telephone brought to the village. But they were outshouted and ignored and finally shunned by the other villagers for resisting progress and trying to keep a good thing from coming to Magdaluna.12.One warm day in early fall, many of the villagers were out in their fields repairing walls orgathering wood for the winter when the shout went out that the telephone-company truck had arrived at Abu Raja's dikkan, or country store. When the truck came into view, everybody dropped what they were doing and ran to Abu Raja's house to see what was happening. 13.It did not take long for the whole village to assemble at Abu Raja's dikkan. Some of the richvillagers walked right into the store and stood at the elbows of the two important-looking men from the telephone company, who proceeded with utmost gravity, like priests at Communion, to wire up the telephone. The poorer villagers stood outside and listened carefully to the details relayed to them by the not-so-poor people who stood in the doorway and could see inside.14."The bald man is cutting the blue wire," someone said.15."He is sticking the wire into the hole in the bottom of the black box," someone else added.16."The telephone man with the mustache is connecting two pieces of wire. Now he is twistingthe ends together," a third voice chimed in.17.Because I was small, I wriggled my way through the dense forest of legs to get a firsthandlook at the action. Breathless, I watched as the men in blue put together a black machine that supposedly would make it possible to talk with uncles, aunts, and cousins who lived more than two days' ride away.18.It was shortly after sunset when the man with the mustache announced that the telephonewas ready to use. He explained that all Abu Raja had to do was lift the receiver, turn the crank on the black box a few times, and wait for an operator to take his call. Abu Raja grabbed the receiver and turned the crank forcefully. Within moments, he was talking with his brother in Beirut. He didn't even have to raise his voice or shout to be heard.19.And the telephone, as it turned out, was bad news. With its coming, the face of the villagebegan to change. One of the fast effects was the shifting of the village's center. Before the telephone's arrival, the men of the village used to gather regularly at the house of Im Kaleem,a short, middle-aged widow with jet-black hair and a raspy voice that could be heard all overthe village, even when she was only whispering. She was a devout Catholic and also the village whore. The men met at her house to argue about politics and drink coffee and play cards or backgammon. Im Kaleem was not a true prostitute, however, because she did not charge for her services—not even for the coffee and tea that she served the men. She did not need the money; her son, who was overseas in Africa, sent her money regularly. Im Kaleem loved all the men she entertained, and they loved her, every one of them. In a way, she was married to all the men in the village. Everybody knew it but nobody objected. Actually I suspect the women did not mind their husbands'visits to Im Kaleem. Oh, they wrung their hands and complained to one another about their men's unfaithfulness, but secretly they were relieved, because Im Kaleem took some of the pressure off them and kept the men out of their hair while they attended to their endless chores. Im Kaleem was also a kind of confessor and troubleshooter, talking sense to those men who were having family problems, especially the younger ones.20.Before the telephone came to Magdaluna, Im Kaleem's house was bustling at just about anytime of day, especially at night, when the loud voices of the men talking, laughing, and arguing could be heard in the street below—a reassuring, homey sound. Her house was an island of comfort, an oasis for the weary village men, exhausted from having so little to do. 21.But it wasn't long before many of those men—the younger ones especially—startedspending more of their days and evenings at Abu Raja's dikkan. There, they would eat and drink and talk and play checkers and backgammon, and then lean their chairs back against the wall—the signal that they were ready to toss back and forth, like a ball, the latest rumors going around the village. And they were always looking up from their games and drinks and talk to glance at the phone in the corner, as if expecting it to ring any minute and bring news that would change their lives and deliver them from their aimless existence. In the meantime, they smoked cheap, hand-rolled cigarettes, dug dirt out from under their fingernails with big pocketknives, and drank lukewarm sodas that they called Kacula, Seffen-Ub, and Bebsi.22.The telephone was also bad news for me personally. It took away my lucrative business—asource of much-needed income. Before, I used to hang around Im Kaleem's courtyard and play marbles with the other kids, waiting for some man to call down from a window and ask me to run to the store for cigarettes or liquor, or to deliver a message to his wife, such as what he wanted for supper. There was always something in it for me: a ten or even a twenty-five-piaster piece. On a good day, I ran nine or ten of those errands, which assured a steady supply of marbles that I usually lost to other boys. But as the days went by fewer and fewer men came to Im Kaleem's, and more and more congregated at Abu Raja's to wait by the telephone. In the evenings, the laughter and noise of the men trailed off and finally stopped.23.At Abu Raja's dikkan, the calls did eventually come, as expected, and men and womenstarted leaving the village the way a hailstorm begins: first one, then two, then bunches. 24.The army took them. Jobs in the cities lured them. And ships and airplanes carried them tosuch faraway places as Australia and Brazil and New Zealand. My friend Kameel, his cousin Habeeb, and their cousins and my cousins all went away to become ditch diggers andmechanics and butcher-shop boys and deli owners who wore dirty aprons sixteen hours a day, all looking for a better life than the one they had left behind. Within a year, only the sick, the old, and the maimed were left in the village. Magdaluna became a skeleton of its former self, desolate and forsaken, like the tombs, a place to get away from.25.Finally, the telephone took my family away, too. My father got a call from an old army buddywho told him that an oil company in southern Lebanon was hiring interpreters and instructors. My father applied for a job and got it, and we moved to Sidon, where I went to a Presbyterian missionary school and graduated in 1962. Three years later, having won a scholarship, I left Lebanon for the United States. Like the others who left Magdaluna before me, I am still looking for that better life. (2121 words)。

现代大学英语精读4 Lesson 7 Spring Sowing 哈尔滨学院授课教案章序 Lesson Seven Spring SowingLiam O’Flaherty 名称周次第 9 周至第 10 周授课时间 2005年4月18日至2005年4月29日1. Part One: Introduction to the Text教 2. Part Two: Explanation of the text in detail学 3. Part Three: Vocabulary — pretend, compare, burst, dot, rebel 目 4. Part Four : Grammar — Sentence analysis的Some uses of “as”要 Absolute construction求 Tenses & verb forms5. Part Five: More work on the Text.1. The emphasis in teaching should be on content and clear presentation.2. Emphasize the importance of understanding the values and moral principles oflife, the nature of happiness.教 3. Let students understand that in Ireland at that time, most people still depend on 学 farming for a living, and the main crop was the potato. Modern science and 重 technology had not yet caught up with the land. There was little machinery. 点 Practically everything wasstill done by hand. A typical farmer believed intraditional virtues: hard work, simple living, discipline, and above all, a strongsense of responsibility, responsibility for the happiness of your wife/husband,parent, and children.1. Liam O’Flaherty is considered one of the most important modern Anglo-Irishauthors together with James Joyce. He was born in 1896 on an island in Ireland,which must have had very big influence on his character as well ason his writing.He once said: “I was born on a storm-swept rock and hate the soft growth ofsun-baked lands where there is no frost in men’s bones.”2. “Spring Sowing” is taken from the author’s first collection of short stories which 教 bears the same title published in 1924. The story describes the first day of the first 学 spring planting of a newly-wedded couple against the backgrounds of a 难 traditional agricultural country. 点3. In Ireland at that time, most people still depend on farming for a living, and themain crop was the potato. Modern science and technology had not yet caught upwith the land. There was little machinery. Practically everything was still done byhand. A typical farmer believed in traditional virtues: hard work, simple living,discipline, and above all, a strong sense of responsibility, responsibility for thehappiness of your wife/husband, parent, and children.教学场所 In the Classroom or Language Laboratory环境 English-speaking Environment授课课堂讲授(? ); 实验( ); 实践( );双语( ) 课时分配 12节方式教学教学手段网络教学( ); 多媒体(? ) Teaching and Practice 方法教学 Tape-Recorder, Pictures of peasants’ working in the field 用具第 1 页教学内容提要备注Lesson Seven Spring SowingPart One: Introduction to the Text1. “Spring Sowing” is taken from the author’s first collection of short stories whichbears the same title published in 1924. The story describes thefirst day of the firstspring planting of a newly-wedded couple against the backgrounds of a traditionalagricultural country.2. In Ireland at that time, most people still depend on farming fora living, and themain crop was the potato. Modern science and technology had not yet caught upwith the land. There was little machinery. Practically everything was still done byhand. A typical farmer believed in traditional virtues: hard work, simple living,discipline, and above all, a strong sense of responsibility, responsibility for thehappiness of your wife/husband, parent, and children.Part Two Detailed Discussion of the Text1. What the author describes here, of course, is largely a thing of the past. The storydescribes the first day of the first spring planting of a newly-wedded coupleagainst the backgrounds of a traditional agricultural country.2. In Ireland at that time, most people still depend on farming fora living, and themain crop was the potato. Modern science and technology had not yet caught upwith the land. There was little machinery. Practically everything was still done byhand. A typical farmer believed in traditional virtues: hard work, simple living,discipline, and above all, a strong sense of responsibility, responsibility for thehappiness of your wife/husband, parent, and children.3. In spite of their almost primitive living and working conditions, however, theyalso had their joys and love, and their longings for the future as does thenewly-married couple described here. For Mary and Martin Delaney, this was anextremely important day, because it not only would determine the crop theywould harvest in autumn, but would also show what kind of wife and husbandthey would prove to be each other and what kind of family they were going tohave.4. Detailed Discussion of the Text (see Reference Book)第 2 页Part Three VocabularyThe usage of pretend, compare, burst, dot, rebel1. pretend (1) to behave as if sth is true when in fact you know it is not(2) to claim that sth is true(3) to imagine that sth is true2. compare (1) (~ with) to examine in order to note the similarities or differences of(2) (~ to) to represent as equal, similar, or analogous(3) (~ with) to be worthy of comparison; to be considered as similar 3. burst (1) to break open or apart suddenly or violently(2) to be bursting with: to be full of(3) to move into or out of a place suddenly or quickly(4) to be bursting to do sth: to be eager to do sth(5) to burst into tears/laughter/song= to burst out crying/laughing/singing: to suddenly start crying, laughing, or singing(6) to burst out: to suddenly say sth forcefully 4. dot (1) (n.) a small round mark or spot(2) (v.) to mark sth by putting a dot on it or above it(3) to be dotted with: to have sth spread over a wide area 5. rebel (1) (against): to oppose or fight against someone in a position ofauthorityPart Four Grammar Focus1. Sentence analysis2. Some uses of “as”3. Absolute construction4. Tenses & verb formsPart Five More work on the Text.1. Oral Work;2. Vocabulary Exercises;3. Grammar Exercises;4. Written Work (Topic): The Hardships and Joys of Farmers第 3 页节序内容学时绪论第七章 Lesson Seven Spring Sowing第一节 Introduction to the text 1第二节 Teaching the Text (Para1—Para3) 1 日第三节 Teaching the Text (Para4—Para6) 1 程及第四节 Teaching the Text (Para7—Para12) 1课第五节 Teaching the Text (Para13—Para15) 1时第六节 Teaching the Text (Para16—Para19) 1 分第七节 Teaching the Text (Para20—Para26) 1 配第八节 Pre-class work 1第九节 Oral work 1第十节 Vocabulary 1第十一节 Grammar 1第十二节 Summary and Quiz 11. What do you know about the young couple? Do they love each other?2. What are their life’s ambitions? Why is it that the two of them feel particularly复 excited this day? Why is it so important?习 3. Is it just the fact that it is spring sowing, the day that is going to determine, atleast partly, what kind of a harvest they are going to have? Is there anything 思symbolic about this day? 考4. What do you think is the main strength of the story? A gripping plot? An题 intriguing portrayal of the characters? Or the beautiful description of the sounds,colors and actions? Give some examples to illustrate your point.第 4 页1. What values and moral principles are being idealized here? Is it still the same today? Doyou agree that the traditional work ethic is out of date? Are such qualities as hard work,diligence, thrift, responsibility, discipline, simple and honest living, rugged individualism 讨and self-reliance, etc still valued?2. What changes have taken place in social ethics since our grandfathers’ time? Is there 论anything that remains unchanged? Is our interest in this kind of story about the past练 simply a matter of idle curiosity?3. Let’s pretend that you are Martin Delaney or Mary livin g in the 21st century. What kind 习 of a person would you like to have as your wife or husband? What qualities would youlike to find in your spouse? What life’s ambitions would you have? What would you bedoing on a typical spring morning?拓1. Learn more about how spring sowing is done in our country2. Learn more about Toffler, the man who wrote Future Shock. He uses the concept of three 展waves to describe the distinct stages of human civilization: the agricultural or 学 pre-industrial stage; the industrial stage, and the Third Wave--- the post-industrial or theKnowledge Economy stage.习课书面版(?) 完成形式电子版( ) Write a short essay of 150—200 words commenting 程on the hardships and joys of farmers as described in作 the storyBefore May 10th 提交时间业必1. Contemporary College English 读2. Books or articles on the nature of happiness 书目学生学习质量 In good order 监控与评价教 A typical farmer believed in traditional virtues: hard work,simple living, discipline, and above all, a strong sense of responsibility, responsibility for the happiness of your 学 wife/husband, parent, and children. It might just be possible that values, life styles and people’s dreams, are like fashion. 后 They come and go. It just might. At a time when everybody is yearning for a car and dreaming of becoming a rich manager, this story might have a sobering effect. 记第 5 页。

Spring SowingIt was still dark when Martin Delaney and his wife Mary got up. Martin stood in his shirt by the window, rubbing his eyes and yawning, while Mary raked out the live coals that had lain hidden in the ashes on the hearth all night. Outside, cocks were crowing and a white streak was rising form the ground, as it were, and beginning to scatter the darkness. It was a February morning, dry, cold and starry.The couple sat down to their breakfast of tea, bread and butter, in silence. They had only been married the previous autumn and it was hateful leaving a warm bed at such and early hour. Martin, with his brown hair and eyes, his freckled face and his little fair moustache, looked too young to be married, and his wife looked hardly more than a girl, red-cheeked and blue-eyed, her black hair piled at the rear of her head with a large comb gleaming in the middle of the pile, Spanish fashion. They were both dressed in rough homespuns, and both wore the loose white shirt that Inverara peasants use for work in the fields.They ate in silence, sleepy and yet on fire with excitement, for it was the first day of their first spring sowing as man and wife. And each felt the glamour of that day on which they were to open up the earth together and plant seeds in it. But somehow the imminence of an event that had been long expected loved, feared and prepared for made them dejected. Mary,with her shrewd woman's mind, thought of as many things as there are in life as a woman would in the first joy and anxiety of her mating. But Martin's mind was fixed on one thought. Would he be able to prove himself a man worthy of being the head of a family by dong his spring sowing well? In the barn after breakfast, when they were getting the potato seeds and the line for measuring the ground and the spade, Martin fell over a basket in the half-darkness of the barn, he swore and said that a man would be better off dead than.. But before he could finish whatever he was going to say, Mary had her arms around his waist and her face to his. "Martin," she said, "let us not begin this day cross with one another." And there was a tremor in her voice. And somehow, as they embraced, all their irritation and sleepiness left them. And they stood there embracing until at last Martin pushed her from him with pretended roughness and said: "Come, come, girl, it will be sunset before we begin at this rate."Still, as they walked silently in their rawhide shoes through the little hamlet, there was not a soul about. Lights were glimmering in the windows of a few cabins. The sky had a big grey crack in it in the east, as if it were going to burst in order to give birth to the sun. Birds were singing somewhere at a distance. Martin and Mary rested their baskets of seeds on a fence outside the village and Martin whispered to Mary proudly: "We are first, Mary." And they both looked back at the little cluster of cabins that was the centre of their world, with throbbing hearts. For the joyof spring had now taken complete hold of them.They reached the little field where they were to sow. It was a little triangular patch of ground under an ivy-covered limestone hill. The little field had been manured with seaweed some weeks before, and the weeds had rotted and whitened on the grass. And there was a big red heap of fresh seaweed lying in a corner by the fence to be spread under the seeds as they were laid. Martin, in spite of the cold, threw off everything above his waist except his striped woolen shirt. Then he spat on his hands, seized his spade and cried: "Now you are going to see what kind of a man you have, Mary.""There, now," said Mary, tying a little shawl closer under her chin. "Aren't we boastful this early hour of the morning? Maybe I'll wait till sunset to see what kind of a man I have got."The work began. Martin measured the ground by the southern fence for the first ridge, a strip of ground four feet wide, and he placed the line along the edge and pegged it at each end. Then he spread fresh seaweed over the strip. Mary filled her apron with seeds and began to lay them in rows. When she was a little distance down the ridge, Martin advanced with his spade to the head, eager to commence."Now in the name of God," he cried, spitting on his palms, "let us raise the first sod!""Oh, Martin, wait till I'm with you !" cried Mary, dropping her seeds onthe ridge and running up to him .Her fingers outside her woolen mittens were numb with the cold, and she couldn't wipe them in her apron. Her cheeks seemed to be on fire. She put an arm round Martin's waist and stood looking at the green sod his spade was going to cut, with the excitement of a little child."Now for God's sake, girl, keep back!" said Martin gruffly. "Suppose anybody saw us like this in the field of our spring sowing, what would they take us for but a pair of useless, soft, empty-headed people that would be sure to die of hunger? Huh!" He spoke very rapidly, and his eyes were fixed on the ground before hm. His eyes had a wild, eager light in them as if some primeval impulse were burning within his brain and driving out every other desire but that of asserting his manhood and of subjugating the earth."Oh, what do we care who is looking?" said Mary; but she drew back at the same time and gazed distantly at the ground. Then Martin cut the sod, and pressing the spade deep into the earth with his foot, he turned up the first sod with a crunching sound as the grass roots were dragged out of the earth. Mary sighed and walked back hurriedly to her seeds with furrowed brows. She picked up her seeds and began to spread them rapidly to drive out the sudden terror that had seized her at that moment when she saw the fierce, hard look in her husband's eyes that were unconscious of her presence. She became suddenly afraid of that pitiless, cruel earth, thepeasant's slave master that would keep her chained to hard work and poverty all her life until she would sink again into its bosom. Her short-lived love was gone. Henceforth she was only her husband's helper to till the earth. And Martin, absolutely without thought, worked furiously, covering the ridge with block earth, his sharp spade gleaming white as he whirled it sideways to beat the sods.Then, as the sun rose, the little valley beneath the ivy-covered hills became dotted with white shirts, and everywhere men worked madly, without speaking, and women spread seeds. There was no heat in the light of the sun, and there was a sharpness in the still thin air that made the men jump on their spade halts ferociously and beat the sods as if they were living enemies. Birds hopped silently before the spades, with their heads cocked sideways, watching for worms. Made brave by hunger, they often dashed under the spades to secure their food.Then, when the sun reached a certain point, all the women went back to the village to get dinner for their men, and the men worked on without stopping. Then the women returned, almost running, each carrying a tin can with a flannel tied around it and a little bundle tied with a white cloth, Martin threw down his spade when Mary arrived back in the field. Smiling at one another they sat under the hill for their meal .It was the same as their breakfast, tea and bread and butter."Ah," said Martin, when he had taken a long draught of tea form his mug,"is there anything in this world as fine as eating dinner out in the open like this after doing a good morning's work? There, I have done two ridges and a half. That's more than any man in the village could do. Ha!" And he looked at his wife proudly."Yes, isn't it lovely," said Mary, looking at the back ridges wistfully. She was just munching her bread and butter .The hurried trip to the village and the trouble of getting the tea ready had robbed her of her appetite. She had to keep blowing at the turf fire with the rim of her skirt, and the smoke nearly blinded her. But now, sitting on that grassy knoll, with the valley all round glistening with fresh seaweed and a light smoke rising from the freshly turned earth, a strange joy swept over her. It overpowered that other felling of dread that had been with her during the morning. Martin ate heartily, reveling in his great thirst and his great hunger, with every pore of his body open to the pure air. And he looked around at his neighbors' fields boastfully, comparing them with his own. Then he looked at his wife's little round black head and felt very proud of having her as his own. He leaned back on his elbow and took her hand in his. Shyly and in silence, not knowing what to say and ashamed of their gentle feelings, they finished eating and still sat hand in hand looking away into the distance. Everywhere the sowers were resting on little knolls, men, women and children sitting in silence. And the great calm of nature in spring filled the atmosphere around them. Everything seemedto sit still and wait until midday had passed. Only the gleaming sun chased westwards at a mighty pace, in and out through white clouds.Then in a distant field an old man got up, took his spade and began to clean the earth from it with a piece of stone. The rasping noise carried a long way in the silence. That was the signal for a general rising all along the little valley. Young men stretched themselves and yawned. They walked slowly back to their ridges.Martin's back and his wrists were getting sore, and Mary felt that if she stooped again over her seeds her neck would break, but neither said anything and soon they had forgotten their tiredness in the mechanical movement of their bodies. The strong smell of the upturned earth acted like a drug on their nerves.In the afternoon, when the sun was strongest, the old men of the village came out to look at their people sowing. Martin's grandfather, almost bent double over his thick stick stopped in the land outside the field and groaning loudly, he leaned over the fence.“God bless the work, "he called wheezily."And you, grandfather," replied the couple together, but they did not stop working.'Ha!" muttered the old man to himself. "He sows well and that woman is good too. They are beginning well."It was fifty years since he had begun with his Mary, full of hope and pride,and themerciless soil had hugged them to its bosom ever since, each spring without rest. Today, the old man, with his huge red nose and the spotted handkerchief tied around his skull under his black soft felt hat, watched his grandson work and gave him advice."Don't cut your sods so long," he would wheeze, "you are putting too much soil on yourridge."''Ah woman! Don't plant a seed so near the edge. The stalk will come out sideways."And they paid no heed to him."Ah," grumbled the old man," in my young days, when men worked from morning till night without tasting food, better work was done. But of course it can't be expected to be the same now. The breed is getting weaker. So it is."Then he began to cough in his chest and hobbled away to another field where his sonMichael was working.By sundown Martin had five ridges finished. He threw down his spade and stretched himself. All his bones ached and he wanted to lie down and rest. "It's time to be going home, Mary," he said.Mary straightened herself, but she was too tired to reply. She looked atMartin wearily and it seemed to her that it was a great many years since they had set out that morning. Then she thought of the journey home and the trouble of feeding the pigs, putting the fowls into their coops and getting the supper ready, and a momentary flash of rebellion against the slavery of being a peasant's wife crossed her mind. It passed in a moment. Martin was saying, as he dressed himself:"Ha! It has been a good day's work. Five ridges done, and each one of them as straight as a steel rod. By God Mary, it's no boasting to say that you might well be proud of being the wife of Martin Delaney. And that's not saying the whole of it ,my girl. You did your share better than any woman in Inverara could do it this blessed day."They stood for a few moments in silence, looking at the work they had done. All her dissatisfaction and weariness vanished form Mary's mind with the delicious feeling of comfort that overcame her at having done this work with her husband. They had done it together. They had planted seeds in the earth. The next day and the next and all their lives, when spring came they would have to bend their backs and do it until their hands and bones got twisted with rheumatism. But night would always bring sleep and forgetfulness.As they walked home slowly, Martin walked in front with another peasant talking about the sowing, and Mary walked behind, with her eyes on the ground, thinking. Cows were lowing at a distance.。

Book 4-Unit 5Text AThe TelephoneAnwar F. Accawi1.When I was growing up in Magdaluna, a small Lebanese village in the terraced, rockymountains east of Sidon, time didn't mean much to anybody, except maybe to those who were dying. In those days, there was no real need for a calendar or a watch to keep track of the hours, days, months, and years. We knew what to do and when to do it, just as the Iraqi geese knew when to fly north, driven by the hot wind that blew in from the desert. The only timepiece we had need of then was the sun. It rose and set, and the seasons rolled by and we sowed seed and harvested and ate and played and married our cousins and had babies who got whooping cough and chickenpox—and those children who survived grew up and married their cousins and had babies who got whooping cough and chickenpox. We lived and loved and toiled and died without ever needing to know what year it was, or even the time of day.2.It wasn't that we had no system for keeping track of time and of the important events in ourlives. But ours was a natural or, rather, a divine—calendar, because it was framed by acts of God: earthquakes and droughts and floods and locusts and pestilences. Simple as our calendar was, it worked just fine for us.3.Take, for example, the birth date of Teta Im Khalil, the oldest woman in Magdaluna and allthe surrounding villages. When I asked Grandma, "How old is Teta Im Khalil?"4.Grandma had to think for a moment; then she said, "I've been told that Teta was born shortlyafter the big snow that caused the roof on the mayor's house to cave in."5."And when was that?" I asked.6."Oh, about the time we had the big earthquake that cracked the wall in the east room."7.Well, that was enough for me. You couldn't be more accurate than that, now, could you?8.And that's the way it was in our little village for as far back as anybody could remember. Oneof the most unusual of the dates was when a whirlwind struck during which fish and oranges fell from the sky. Incredible as it may sound, the story of the fish and oranges was true, because men who would not lie even to save their own souls told and retold that story until it was incorporated into Magdaluna's calendar.9.The year of the fish-bearing whirlpool was not the last remarkable year. Many othersfollowed in which strange and wonderful things happened. There was, for instance, the year of the drought, when the heavens were shut for months and the spring from which the entire village got its drinking water slowed to a trickle. The spring was about a mile from the village, in a ravine that opened at one end into a small, flat clearing covered with fine gray dust and hard, marble-sized goat droppings. In the year of the drought, that little clearing was always packed full of noisy kids with big brown eyes and sticky hands, and their mothers—sinewy, overworked young women with cracked, brown heels. The children ran around playing tag or hide-and-seek while the women talked, shooed flies, and awaited their turns to fill up their jars with drinking water to bring home to their napping men and wet babies. There were days when we had to wait from sunup until late afternoon just to fill a small clay jar with precious, cool water.10.Sometimes, amid the long wait and the heat and the flies and the smell of goat dung,tempers flared, and the younger women, anxious about their babies, argued over whose turn it was to fill up her jar. And sometimes the arguments escalated into full-blown, knockdown-dragout fights; the women would grab each other by the hair and curse and scream and spit and call each other names that made my ears tingle. We little brown boys who went with our mothers to fetch water loved these fights, because we got to see the women's legs and their colored panties as they grappled and rolled around in the dust. Once in a while, we got lucky and saw much more, because some of the women wore nothing at all under their long dresses. God, how I used to look forward to those fights. I remember the rush, the excitement, the sun dancing on the dust clouds as a dress ripped and a young white breast was revealed, then quickly hidden. In my calendar, that year of drought will always be one of the best years of my childhood.11.But, in another way, the year of the drought was also one of the worst of my life, becausethat was the year that Abu Raja, the retired cook, decided it was time Magdaluna got its own telephone. Every civilized village needed a telephone, he said, and Magdaluna was not going to get anywhere until it had one. A telephone would link us with the outside world. A few men—like the retired Turkish-army drill sergeant, and the vineyard keeper—did all they could to talk Abu Raja out of having a telephone brought to the village. But they were outshouted and ignored and finally shunned by the other villagers for resisting progress and trying to keep a good thing from coming to Magdaluna.12.One warm day in early fall, many of the villagers were out in their fields repairing walls orgathering wood for the winter when the shout went out that the telephone-company truck had arrived at Abu Raja's dikkan, or country store. When the truck came into view, everybody dropped what they were doing and ran to Abu Raja's house to see what was happening. 13.It did not take long for the whole village to assemble at Abu Raja's dikkan. Some of the richvillagers walked right into the store and stood at the elbows of the two important-looking men from the telephone company, who proceeded with utmost gravity, like priests at Communion, to wire up the telephone. The poorer villagers stood outside and listened carefully to the details relayed to them by the not-so-poor people who stood in the doorway and could see inside.14."The bald man is cutting the blue wire," someone said.15."He is sticking the wire into the hole in the bottom of the black box," someone else added.16."The telephone man with the mustache is connecting two pieces of wire. Now he is twistingthe ends together," a third voice chimed in.17.Because I was small, I wriggled my way through the dense forest of legs to get a firsthandlook at the action. Breathless, I watched as the men in blue put together a black machine that supposedly would make it possible to talk with uncles, aunts, and cousins who lived more than two days' ride away.18.It was shortly after sunset when the man with the mustache announced that the telephonewas ready to use. He explained that all Abu Raja had to do was lift the receiver, turn the crank on the black box a few times, and wait for an operator to take his call. Abu Raja grabbed the receiver and turned the crank forcefully. Within moments, he was talking with his brother in Beirut. He didn't even have to raise his voice or shout to be heard.19.And the telephone, as it turned out, was bad news. With its coming, the face of the villagebegan to change. One of the fast effects was the shifting of the village's center. Before the telephone's arrival, the men of the village used to gather regularly at the house of Im Kaleem,a short, middle-aged widow with jet-black hair and a raspy voice that could be heard all overthe village, even when she was only whispering. She was a devout Catholic and also the village whore. The men met at her house to argue about politics and drink coffee and play cards or backgammon. Im Kaleem was not a true prostitute, however, because she did not charge for her services—not even for the coffee and tea that she served the men. She did not need the money; her son, who was overseas in Africa, sent her money regularly. Im Kaleem loved all the men she entertained, and they loved her, every one of them. In a way, she was married to all the men in the village. Everybody knew it but nobody objected. Actually I suspect the women did not mind their husbands'visits to Im Kaleem. Oh, they wrung their hands and complained to one another about their men's unfaithfulness, but secretly they were relieved, because Im Kaleem took some of the pressure off them and kept the men out of their hair while they attended to their endless chores. Im Kaleem was also a kind of confessor and troubleshooter, talking sense to those men who were having family problems, especially the younger ones.20.Before the telephone came to Magdaluna, Im Kaleem's house was bustling at just about anytime of day, especially at night, when the loud voices of the men talking, laughing, and arguing could be heard in the street below—a reassuring, homey sound. Her house was an island of comfort, an oasis for the weary village men, exhausted from having so little to do. 21.But it wasn't long before many of those men—the younger ones especially—started spendingmore of their days and evenings at Abu Raja's dikkan. There, they would eat and drink and talk and play checkers and backgammon, and then lean their chairs back against the wall—the signal that they were ready to toss back and forth, like a ball, the latest rumors going around the village. And they were always looking up from their games and drinks and talk to glance at the phone in the corner, as if expecting it to ring any minute and bring news that would change their lives and deliver them from their aimless existence. In the meantime, they smoked cheap, hand-rolled cigarettes, dug dirt out from under their fingernails with big pocketknives, and drank lukewarm sodas that they called Kacula, Seffen-Ub, and Bebsi.22.The telephone was also bad news for me personally. It took away my lucrative business—asource of much-needed income. Before, I used to hang around Im Kaleem's courtyard and play marbles with the other kids, waiting for some man to call down from a window and ask me to run to the store for cigarettes or liquor, or to deliver a message to his wife, such as what he wanted for supper. There was always something in it for me: a ten or even a twenty-five-piaster piece. On a good day, I ran nine or ten of those errands, which assured a steady supply of marbles that I usually lost to other boys. But as the days went by fewer and fewer men came to Im Kaleem's, and more and more congregated at Abu Raja's to wait by the telephone. In the evenings, the laughter and noise of the men trailed off and finally stopped.23.At Abu Raja's dikkan, the calls did eventually come, as expected, and men and womenstarted leaving the village the way a hailstorm begins: first one, then two, then bunches. 24.The army took them. Jobs in the cities lured them. And ships and airplanes carried them tosuch faraway places as Australia and Brazil and New Zealand. My friend Kameel, his cousin Habeeb, and their cousins and my cousins all went away to become ditch diggers andmechanics and butcher-shop boys and deli owners who wore dirty aprons sixteen hours a day, all looking for a better life than the one they had left behind. Within a year, only the sick, the old, and the maimed were left in the village. Magdaluna became a skeleton of its former self, desolate and forsaken, like the tombs, a place to get away from.25.Finally, the telephone took my family away, too. My father got a call from an old army buddywho told him that an oil company in southern Lebanon was hiring interpreters and instructors. My father applied for a job and got it, and we moved to Sidon, where I went to a Presbyterian missionary school and graduated in 1962. Three years later, having won a scholarship, I left Lebanon for the United States. Like the others who left Magdaluna before me, I am still looking for that better life. (2121 words)。

第一单元The Dinner PartyMona Gardner I first heard this tale in India, where it is told as if true — though any naturalist would know it couldn’t be. Later someone told me that the story appeared in a magazine shortly before the First World War. That magazine story, and the person who wrote it, I have never been able to track down. The country is India. A colonial official and his wife are giving a large dinner party. They are seated with their guests — officers and their wives, and a visiting American naturalist — in their spacious dining room, which has a bare marble floor, open rafters and wide glass doors opening onto a veranda.A spirited discussion springs up between a young girl who says that women have outgrown the jumping-on-a-chair-at-the-sight-of-a-mouse era and a major who says that they haven’t.“A woman’s reaction in any crisis,” the major says, “is to scream. And while a man may feel like it, he has that ounce more of control than a woman has. And that last ounce is what really counts.”The American does not join in the argument but watches the other guests. As he looks, he sees a strange expression come over the face of the hostess. She is staring straight ahead, her muscles contracting slightly. Shemotions to the native boy standing behind her chair and whispers something to him. The boy’s eyes widen: he quickly leaves the room.Of the guests, none except the American notices this or sees the boy place a bowl of milk on the veranda just outside the open doors.The American comes to with a start. In India, milk in a bowl means only one thing — bait for a snake. He realizes there must be a cobra in the room. He looks up at the rafters — the likeliest place — but they are bare. Three corners of the room are empty, and in the fourth the servants are waiting to serve the next course. There is only one place left — under the table.His first impulse is to jump back and warn the others, but he knows the commotion would frighten the cobra into striking. He speaks quickly, the tone of his voice so commanding that it silences everyone.“I want to know just what control everyone at this table has. I will count three hundred — that’s five minutes — and not one of you is to move a muscle. Those who move will forfeit 50 rupees. Ready!”The 20 people sit like stone images while he counts. He is saying “... two hundred and eighty…” when, out of the corner of his eye, he sees the cobra emerge and make for the bowl of milk. Screams ring out as he jumps to slam the veranda doors safely shut.“You were right, Major!” the host exclaims. “A man has just shown us an example of perfect self-control.”“Just a minute,” the American says, turning to his hostess. “Mrs. Wynnes,how did you know that cobra was in the room?”A faint smile lights up the woman’s face as she replies: “Because it was crawling across my foot.”第二单元Lessons from JeffersonBruce Bliven 1 Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, may be less famous than George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, but most people remember at least one fact about him: he wrote the Declaration of Independence.2 Although Jefferson lived more than 200 years ago, there is much that we can learn from him today. Many of his ideas are especially interesting to modern youth. Here are some of the things he said and wrote:3 Go and see. Jefferson believed that a free man obtains knowledge from many sources besides books and that personal investigation is important. When still a young man, he was appointed to a committee to find out whether the South Branch of the James River was deep enough to be used by large boats. While the other members of the committee sat in the state capitol and studied papers on the subject, Jefferson got into a canoe and made on-the-spot observations.4 You can learn from everyone. By birth and by education Jeffersonbelonged to the highest social class. Yet, in a day when few noble persons ever spoke to those of humble origins except to give an order, Jefferson went out of his way to talk with gardeners, servants, and waiters. Jefferson once said to the French nobleman, Lafayette, “You must go into the people’s homes as I have done, look into their cooking pots and eat their bread. If you will only do this, you may find out why people are dissatisfied and understand the revolution that is threatening France.”5 Judge for yourself. Jefferson refused to accept other people’s opinions without careful thought. “Neither believe nor reject anything,” he wrote to his nephew, “because any other person has rejected or believed it. Heaven has given you a mind for judging truth and error. Use it.”6 Jefferson felt that the people “may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false, and to form a correct judgment. Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.”7 Do what you believe is right. In a free country there will always be conflicting ideas, and this is a source of strength. It is conflict and not unquestioning agreement that keeps freedom alive. Though Jefferson was for many years the object of strong criticism, he never answered his critics. He expressed his philosophy in letters to a friend, “There are two sides to every question. If you take one side with decision and act on it with effect, those who take the other side will of course resent your actions.”8 Trust the future; trust the young. Jefferson felt that the present should never be chained to customs which have lost their usefulness. “No society,” he said, “can make a perpetual constitution, or even a perpetual law. The earth belongs to the living generation.” He did not fear new ideas, nor did he fear the future.” How much pain,” he remarked, “has been caused by evils which have never happened! I expect the best, not the worst.I steer my ship with hope, leaving fear behind.”9 Jefferson’s courage and idealism were based on knowledge. He probably knew more than any other man of his age. He was an expert in agriculture, archeology, and medicine. He practiced crop rotation and soil conservation a century before these became standard practice, and he invented a plow superior to any other in existence. He influenced architecture throughout America, and he was constantly producing devices for making the tasks of ordinary life easier to perform.10 Of all Jefferson’s many talents, one is central. He was above all a good and tireless writer. His complete works, now being published for the first time, will fill more than fifty volumes. His talent as an author was soon discovered, and when the time came to write the Declaration of Independence at Philadelphia in 1776, the task of writing it was his. Millions have thrilled to his words: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal ...”11 When Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary ofAmerican independence, he left his countrymen a rich legacy of ideas and examples. American education owes a great debt to Thomas Jefferson, who believed that only a nation of educated people could remain free.第三单元My First JobRobert BestWhile I was waiting to enter university, I saw advertised in a local newspaper a teaching post at a school in a suburb of London about ten miles from where I lived. Being very short of money and wanting to do something useful, I applied, fearing as I did so, that without a degree and with no experience in teaching my chances of getting the job were slim. However, three days later a letter arrived, asking me to go to Croydon for an interview. It proved an awkward journey: a train to Croydon station;a ten-minute bus ride and then a walk of at least a quarter of a mile. As a result I arrived on a hot June morning too depressed to feel nervous.The school was a red brick house with big windows. The front garden was a gravel square; four evergreen shrubs stood at each corner, where they struggled to survive the dust and fumes from a busy main road.It was clearly the headmaster himself that opened the door. He was short and fat. He had a sandy-coloured moustache, a wrinkled forehead and hardly any hair.He looked at me with an air of surprised disapproval, as a colonel might look at a private whose bootlaces were undone. ‘Ah yes,’ he grunted. ‘You’d better come inside.’ The narrow, sunless hall smelled unpleasantly of stale cabbage; the walls were dirty with ink marks; it was all silent. His study, judging by the crumbs on the carpet, was also his dining-room. ‘You’d better sit down,’ he said, and proceeded to ask me a number of questions: what subjects I had taken in my General School Certificate; how old I was; what games I played; then fixing me suddenly with his bloodshot eyes, he asked me whether I thought games were a vital part of a boy’s education. I mumbled something about not attaching too much importance to them. He grunted. I had said the wrong thing. The headmaster and I obviously had very little in common.The school, he said, consisted of one class of twenty-four boys, ranging in age from seven to thirteen. I should have to teach all subjects except art, which he taught himself. Football and cricket were played in the Park, a mile away on Wednesday and Saturday afternoons.The teaching set-up filled me with fear. I should have to divide the class into three groups and teach them in turn at three different levels; and I was dismayed at the thought of teaching algebra and geometry — two subjects at which I had been completely incompetent at school. Worse perhaps was the idea of Saturday afternoon cricket; most of my friends would be enjoying leisure at that time.I said shyly, ‘What would my salary be?’ ‘Twelve pounds a week plus lunch.’ Before I could protest, he got to his feet. ‘Now’, he said, ‘you’d better meet my wife. She’s the one who really runs this school.’This was the last straw. I was very young: the prospect of working under a woman constituted the ultimate indignity.第四单元The Professor and the Yo-YoThomas Lee Bucky with Joseph P.Blank My father was a close friend of Albert Einstein. As a shy young visitor to Einstein’s home, I was made to feel at ease when Einstein said, “I have something to show you.” He went to his desk and returned with a Yo-Yo. He tried to show me how it worked but he couldn’t make it roll back up the string. When my turn came, I displayed my few tricks and pointed out to him that the incorrectly looped string had thrown the toy off balance. Einstein nodded, properly impressed by my skill and knowledge. Later, I bought a new Yo-Yo and mailed it to the Professor as a Christmas present, and received a poem of thanks.As a boy and then as an adult, I never lost my wonder at the personality that was Einstein. He was the only person I knew who had come to terms with himself and the world around him. He knew what he wanted and he wanted only this: to understand within his limits as a human being thenature of the universe and the logic and simplicity in its functioning. He knew there were answers beyond his intellectual reach. But this did not frustrate him. He was content to go as far as he could.In the 23 years of our friendship, I never saw him show jealousy, vanity, bitterness, anger, resentment, or personal ambition. He seemed immune to these emotions. He was beyond any pretension. Although he corresponded with many of the world’s most important people, his stationery carried only a watermark — W — for Woolworth’s.To do his work he needed only a pencil and a pad of paper. Material things meant nothing to him. I never knew him to carry money because he never had any use for it. He believed in simplicity, so much so that he used only a safety razor and water to shave. When I suggested that he try shaving cream, he said, “The razor and water do the job.”“But Professor, why don’t you try the cream just once?” I argued. “It makes shaving smoother and less painful.”He shrugged. Finally, I presented him with a tube of shaving cream. The next morning when he came down to breakfast, he was beaming with the pleasure of a new, great discovery. “You know, that cream really works,” he announced. “It doesn’t pull the beard. It feels wonderful.” Thereafter, he used the shaving cream every morning until the tube was empty. Then he reverted to using plain water.Einstein was purely and exclusively a theorist. He didn’t have theslightest interest in the practical application of his ideas and theories. His E=mc2 is probably the most famous equation in history — yet Einstein wouldn’t walk down the street to see a reactor create atomic energy. He won the Nobel Prize for his Photoelectric Theory, a series of equations that he considered relatively minor in importance, but he didn’t have any curiosity in observing how his theory made TV possible.My brother once gave the Professor a toy, a bird that balanced on the edge of a bowl of water and repeatedly dunked its head in the water. Einstein watched it in delight, trying to deduce the operating principle. But he couldn’t.The next morning he announced, “I had thought about that bird for a long time before I went to bed and it must work this way ...” He began a long explanation. Then he stopped, realizing a flaw in his reasoning. “No, I guess that’s not it,” he said. He pursued various theories for several days until I suggested we take the toy apart to see how it did work. His quick expression of disapproval told me he did not agree with this practical approach. He never did work out the solution.Another puzzle that Einstein could never understand was his own fame. He had developed theories that were profound and capable of exciting relatively few scientists. Yet his name was a household word across the civilized world. “I’ve had good ideas, and so have other men,” he once said. “But it’s been my good fortune that my ideas have been accepted.” He wasbewildered by his fame: people wanted to meet him; strangers stared at him on the street; scientists, statesmen, students, and housewives wrote him letters. He never could understand why he received this attention, why he was singled out as something special.第五单元The Villain in the AtmosphereIsaac Asimov1 The villain in the atmosphere is carbon dioxide.2 It does not seem to be a villain. It is not very poisonous and it is present in the atmosphere in so small a quantity — only 0.034 percent — that it does us no harm.3 What’s more, that small quantity of carbon dioxide in the air is essential to life. Plants absorb carbon dioxide and convert it into their own tissue, which serve as the basic food supply for all of animal life (including human beings, of course). In the process they liberate oxygen, which is also necessary for all animal life.4 But here is what this apparently harmless and certainly essential gas is doing to us:5 The sea level is rising very slowly from year to year. In all likelihood, it will continue to rise and do so at a greater rate in the course of the next hundred years. Where there are low-lying coastal areas (where a largefraction of the world’s population lives) the water will advance steadily, forcing people to retreat inland.6 Eventually the sea will reach two hundred feet above its present level, and will be splashing against the windows along the twentieth floors of Manhattan’s skyscrapers. Florida will disappear beneath the waves, as will much of the British Isles, the crowded Nile valley, and the low-lying areas of China, India, and Russia.7 Not only will many cities be drowned, but much of the most productive farming areas of the world will be lost. As the food supply drops, starvation will be widespread and the structure of society may collapse under the pressure.8 And all because of carbon dioxide. But how does that come about? What is the connection?9 It begins with sunlight, to which the various gases of the atmosphere (including carbon dioxide) are transparent. Sunlight, striking the top of the atmosphere, travels right through miles of it to warm the Earth’s surface. At night, the Earth cools by radiating heat into space in the form of infrared radiation.10 However, the atmosphere is not quite as transparent to infrared radiation as it is to visible light. Carbon dioxide in particular tends to block such radiation. Less heat is lost at night, for that reason, than would be lost if carbon dioxide were not present in the atmosphere. Without the smallquantity of that gas present, the Earth would be distinctly cooler, perhaps uncomfortably cool.11 We can be thankful that carbon dioxide is keeping us comfortably warm, but the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is going up steadily and that is where the villainy comes in.In 1958, carbon dioxide made up only 0.0316 percent of the atmosphere. Each year since, the concentration has crept upward and it now stands at 0.0340 percent. It is estimated that by 2020 the concentration will be nearly twice what it is now.12 This means that in the coming decades, Earth’s average temperature will go up slightly. As a result, the polar ice caps will begin to melt.13 Something like 90 percent of the ice in the world is to be found in the huge Antarctica ice cap, and another 8 percent is in the Greenland ice cap. If these ice caps begin to melt, the sea level will rise, with the result that I have already described.14 But why is the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere steadily rising?15 To blame are two factors. First of all, in the last few centuries, first coal, then oil and natural gas, have been burned for energy at a rapidly increasing rate. The carbon contained in these fuels, which has been safely buried underground for many millions of years, is now being burned to carbon dioxide and poured into the atmosphere at a rate of many tons perday.16 To make matters worse, Earth’s forests have been disappearing, slowly at first, but in the last couple of centuries quite rapidly. Right now it is disappearing at the rate of sixty-four acres per minute.17 Whatever replaces the forest — grassland or farms or scrub — produces plants that do not consume carbon dioxide at an equal rate. Thus, not only is more carbon dioxide being added to the atmosphere through burning of fuel, but as the forests disappear, less carbon dioxide is being removed from the atmosphere by plants.18 But this gives us a new perspective on the matter. The carbon dioxide is not rising by itself. It is people who are burning the coal, oil, and gas. It is people who are cutting down the forests. It is people, then, who are the villains.19 What is to be done?20 First, we must save our forests, and even replant them.21 Second, we must have new sources of fuel that do not involve the production of carbon dioxide. Nuclear power is one of them, but if that is thought too dangerous, there are other alternatives. There is the energy of waves, tides, wind, and the Earth’s interior heat. Most of all, there is the direct use of solar energy.22 All of this will take time, work, and money, to be true, but nations spend more time, work, and money in order to support competing militarymachines that can only destroy us all. Should we object to spending less time, work, and money in order to save us all?第六单元The Making of a SurgeonDr. Nolen 1 How does a doctor recognize the point in time when he is finally a “surgeon”? As my year as chief resident drew to a close I asked myself this question on more than one occasion.2 The answer, I concluded, was self-confidence. When you can say to yourself, “There is no surgical patient I cannot treat competently, treat just as well as or better than any other surgeon” — then, and not until then, you are indeed a surgeon. I was nearing that point.3 Take, for example, the emergency situations that we encountered almost every night. The first few months of the year I had dreaded the ringing of the telephone. I knew it meant another critical decision to be made. Often, after I had told Walt or Larry what to do in a particular situation, I’d have trouble getting back to sleep. I’d review all the facts of the case and, not infrequently, wonder if I hadn’t made a poor decision. More than once at two or three in the morning, after lying awake for an hour, I’d get out of bed, dress and drive to the hospital to see the patientmyself. It was the only way I could find the peace of mind I needed to relax.4 Now, in the last month of my residency, sleeping was no longer a problem. There were still situations in which I couldn’t be certain my decision had been the right one, but I had learned to accept this as a constant problem for a surgeon, one that could never be completely resolved — and I could live with it. So, once I had made a considered decision, I no longer dwelt on it. Reviewing it wasn’t going to help and I knew that with my knowledge and experience, any decision I’d made was bound to be a sound one. It was a nice feeling.5 In the operating room I was equally confident. I knew I had the knowledge, the skill, the experience to handle any surgical situation I’d ever encounter in practice. There were no more butterflies in my stomach when I opened up an abdomen or a chest. I knew that even if the case was one in which it was impossible to anticipate the problem in advance, I could handle whatever I found. I’d sweated6 Nor was I afraid of making mistakes. I knew that when I was out in practice I would inevitably err at one time or another and operate on someone who didn’t need surgery or sit on someone who did. Five years earlier — even one year earlier — I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if I had had to take sole responsibility for a mistake in judgment. Now I could. I still dreaded errors — would do my best to avoid them — but I knew they were part of a surgeon’s life. I could accept this fact withcalmness because I knew that if I wasn’t able to avoid a mistake, chances were that no other surgeon could have, either.7 This all sounds conceited and I guess it is — but a surgeon needs conceit. He needs it to encourage him in trying moments when he’s bothered by the doubts and uncertainties that are part of the practice of medicine. He has to feel that he’s as good as and probably better than any other surgeon in the world. Call it conceit — call it self-confidence; whatever it was, I had it.。

课文翻译（Unit1——10）第一单元Translation of Text A半日1我走在父亲的一侧，牢牢地抓着他的右手。

我身上穿的，戴的全是新的：黑鞋子，绿校服，红帽子。

然儿我一点儿也高兴不起来，因为今天我将第一次被扔到学校里去。

2母亲站在窗前望着我们缓缓前行，我也不时的回头看她，希望她会救我。

我们沿着街道走着，街道两旁是花园和田野，田野里栽满了梨树和椰枣树。

3“我为什么要去上学？”我问父亲，“是我做错了什么了吗？”4“我不是在惩罚你，”父亲笑着说道，“上学不是一种惩罚。

学校是把孩子培养成才的地方。

难道你不想象你哥哥们那样，成为一个有用的人吗？”5我不相信他的话。

我才不相信把我从家里拽出来，扔进那个大大的，高墙围绕的建筑里对我有什么真正的好处呢。

6到了学校门口，我们看到了宽阔的庭院，站满了孩子。

“自己进去吧，”我父亲说，“加入他们。

笑一笑，给其他的孩子做个好榜样。

”7我紧抓着父亲的手，犹豫不决。

但是父亲却把我轻轻地推开了。

“拿出点男子气概来，”他说，“从今天起你就要真正开始自己的生活了。

放学时我会在这等你的。

”8我走了几步，便看见了一些孩子的面孔。

他们中我一个也不认识。

他们也没有一个认识我的。

我感觉自己像是一个迷了路的陌生人。

然而这时有些男孩开始好奇的打量我，其中一个走过来问到，“谁带你来的？”9“我爸爸”我小声说道。

10“我爸爸死了，”他简短地说。

11我不知道该说些什么。

这时学校的门已经关上了，有些孩子哭了起来。

接着，铃响了，一位女士走了过来，后面跟着一群男人。

那些人把我们排成几行。

使我们形成一个错综复杂的队行，站在那四周高楼耸立的院子里。

每层楼都有长长的阳台，阳台上带有木制顶棚，从阳台上可以俯视到我们。

12“这是你们的新家，”那位女士说道，“这儿有你们的父母。

一切能带给你们快乐，对你们有益的事物，这儿都有。

因此擦干你们的眼泪，快快乐乐地面对生活。

”13这样看来我之前的顾虑都是毫无根据的了。

Spring SowingIt was still dark when Martin Delaney and his wife Mary got up. Martin stood in his shirt by the window, rubbing his eyes and yawning, while Mary raked out the live coals that had lain hidden in the ashes on the hearth all night. Outside, cocks were crowing and a white streak was rising form the ground, as it were, and beginning to scatter the darkness. It was a February morning, dry, cold and starry.The couple sat down to their breakfast of tea, bread and butter, in silence. They had only been married the previous autumn and it was hateful leaving a warm bed at such and early hour. Martin, with his brown hair and eyes, his freckled face and his little fair moustache, looked too young to be married, and his wife looked hardly more than a girl, red-cheeked and blue-eyed, her black hair piled at the rear of her head with a large comb gleaming in the middle of the pile, Spanish fashion. They were both dressed in rough homespuns, and both wore the loose white shirt that Inverara peasants use for work in the fields.They ate in silence, sleepy and yet on fire with excitement, for it was the first day of their first spring sowing as man and wife. And each felt the glamour of that day on which they were to open up the earth together and plant seeds in it. But somehow the imminence of an event that had been long expected loved, feared and prepared for made them dejected. Mary, with her shrewd woman's mind, thought of as many things as there are in life as a woman would in the first joy and anxiety of her mating. But Martin's mind was fixed on one thought. Would he be able to prove himself a man worthy ofbeing the head of a family by dong his spring sowing well?In the barn after breakfast, when they were getting the potato seeds and the line for measuring the ground and the spade, Martin fell over a basket in the half-darkness of the barn, he swore and said that a man would be better off dead than.. But before he could finish whatever he was going to say, Mary had her arms around his waist and her face to his. "Martin," she said, "let us not begin this day cross with one another." And there was a tremor in her voice. And somehow, as they embraced, all their irritation and sleepiness left them. And they stood there embracing until at last Martin pushed her from him with pretended roughness and said: "Come, come, girl, it will be sunset before we begin at this rate."Still, as they walked silently in their rawhide shoes through the little hamlet, there was not a soul about. Lights were glimmering in the windows of a few cabins. The sky had a big grey crack in it in the east, as if it were going to burst in order to give birth to the sun. Birds were singing somewhere at a distance. Martin and Mary rested their baskets of seeds on a fence outside the village and Martin whispered to Mary proudly: "We are first, Mary." And they both looked back at the little cluster of cabins that was the centre of their world, with throbbing hearts. For the joy of spring had now taken complete hold of them.They reached the little field where they were to sow. It was a little triangular patch of ground under an ivy-covered limestone hill. The little field had been manured with seaweed some weeks before, and the weeds had rotted and whitened on the grass. And there was a big red heap of fresh seaweed lying in a corner by the fence to be spreadunder the seeds as they were laid. Martin, in spite of the cold, threw off everything above his waist except his striped woolen shirt. Then he spat on his hands, seized his spade and cried: "Now you are going to see what kind of a man you have, Mary." "There, now," said Mary, tying a little shawl closer under her chin."Aren't we boastful this early hour of the morning? Maybe I'll wait till sunset to see what kind of a man I have got."The work began. Martin measured the ground by the southern fence for the first ridge, a strip of ground four feet wide, and he placed the line along the edge and pegged it at each end. Then he spread fresh seaweed over the strip. Mary filled her apron with seeds and began to lay them in rows. When she was a little distance down the ridge, Martin advanced with his spade to the head, eager to commence."Now in the name of God," he cried, spitting on his palms, "let us raise the first sod!" "Oh, Martin, wait till I'm with you !" cried Mary, dropping her seeds on the ridge and running up to him .Her fingers outside her woolen mittens were numb with the cold, and she couldn't wipe them in her apron. Her cheeks seemed to be on fire. She put an arm round Martin's waist and stood looking at the green sod his spade was going to cut, with the excitement of a little child."Now for God's sake, girl, keep back!" said Martin gruffly. "Suppose anybody saw us like this in the field of our spring sowing, what would they take us for but a pair of useless, soft, empty-headed people that would be sure to die of hunger? Huh!" He spoke very rapidly, and his eyes were fixed on the ground before hm. His eyes had a wild, eager light in them as if some primeval impulse were burning within his brain anddriving out every other desire but that of asserting his manhood and of subjugating the earth."Oh, what do we care who is looking?" said Mary; but she drew back at the same time and gazed distantly at the ground. Then Martin cut the sod, and pressing the spade deep into the earth with his foot, he turned up the first sod with a crunching sound as the grass roots were dragged out of the earth. Mary sighed and walked back hurriedly to her seeds with furrowed brows. She picked up her seeds and began to spread them rapidly to drive out the sudden terror that had seized her at that moment when she saw the fierce, hard look in her husband's eyes that were unconscious of her presence. She became suddenly afraid of that pitiless, cruel earth, the peasant's slave master that would keep her chained to hard work and poverty all her life until she would sink again into its bosom. Her short-lived love was gone. Henceforth she was only her husband's helper to till the earth. And Martin, absolutely without thought, worked furiously, covering the ridge with block earth, his sharp spade gleaming white as he whirled it sideways to beat the sods.Then, as the sun rose, the little valley beneath the ivy-covered hills became dotted with white shirts, and everywhere men worked madly, without speaking, and women spread seeds. There was no heat in the light of the sun, and there was a sharpness in the still thin air that made the men jump on their spade halts ferociously and beat the sods as if they were living enemies. Birds hopped silently before the spades, with their heads cocked sideways, watching for worms. Made brave by hunger, they often dashed under the spades to secure their food.Then, when the sun reached a certain point, all the women went back to the village to get dinner for their men, and the men worked on without stopping. Then the women returned, almost running, each carrying a tin can with a flannel tied around it and a little bundle tied with a white cloth, Martin threw down his spade when Mary arrived back in the field. Smiling at one another they sat under the hill for their meal .It was the same as their breakfast, tea and bread and butter."Ah," said Martin, when he had taken a long draught of tea form his mug, "is there anything in this world as fine as eating dinner out in the open like this after doing a good morning's work? There, I have done two ridges and a half. That's more than any man in the village could do. Ha!" And he looked at his wife proudly."Yes, isn't it lovely," said Mary, looking at the back ridges wistfully. She was just munching her bread and butter .The hurried trip to the village and the trouble of getting the tea ready had robbed her of her appetite. She had to keep blowing at the turf fire with the rim of her skirt, and the smoke nearly blinded her. But now, sitting on that grassy knoll, with the valley all round glistening with fresh seaweed and a light smoke rising from the freshly turned earth, a strange joy swept over her. It overpowered that other felling of dread that had been with her during the morning.Martin ate heartily, reveling in his great thirst and his great hunger, with every pore of his body open to the pure air. And he looked around at his neighbors' fields boastfully, comparing them with his own. Then he looked at his wife's little round black head and felt very proud of having her as his own. He leaned back on his elbow and took her hand in his. Shyly and in silence, not knowing what to say and ashamed of their gentlefeelings, they finished eating and still sat hand in hand looking away into the distance. Everywhere the sowers were resting on little knolls, men, women and children sitting in silence. And the great calm of nature in spring filled the atmosphere around them. Everything seemed to sit still and wait until midday had passed. Only the gleaming sun chased westwards at a mighty pace, in and out through white clouds.Then in a distant field an old man got up, took his spade and began to clean the earth from it with a piece of stone. The rasping noise carried a long way in the silence. That was the signal for a general rising all along the little valley. Young men stretched themselves and yawned. They walked slowly back to their ridges.Martin's back and his wrists were getting sore, and Mary felt that if she stooped again over her seeds her neck would break, but neither said anything and soon they had forgotten their tiredness in the mechanical movement of their bodies. The strong smell of the upturned earth acted like a drug on their nerves.In the afternoon, when the sun was strongest, the old men of the village came out to look at their people sowing. Martin's grandfather, almost bent double over his thick stick stopped in the land outside the field and groaning loudly, he leaned over the fence.“God bless the work, "he called wheezily."And you, grandfather," replied the couple together, but they did not stop working.'Ha!" muttered the old man to himself. "He sows well and that woman is good too. They are beginning well."It was fifty years since he had begun with his Mary, full of hope and pride, and the merciless soil had hugged them to its bosom ever since, each spring without rest. Today,the old man, with his huge red nose and the spotted handkerchief tied around his skull under his black soft felt hat, watched his grandson work and gave him advice."Don't cut your sods so long," he would wheeze, "you are putting too much soil on your ridge."''Ah woman! Don't plant a seed so near the edge. The stalk will come out sideways." And they paid no heed to him."Ah," grumbled the old man," in my young days, when men worked from morning till night without tasting food, better work was done. But of course it can't be expected to be the same now. The breed is getting weaker. So it is."Then he began to cough in his chest and hobbled away to another field where his son Michael was working.By sundown Martin had five ridges finished. He threw down his spade and stretched himself. All his bones ached and he wanted to lie down and rest. "It's time to be going home, Mary," he said.Mary straightened herself, but she was too tired to reply. She looked at Martin wearily and it seemed to her that it was a great many years since they had set out that morning. Then she thought of the journey home and the trouble of feeding the pigs, putting the fowls into their coops and getting the supper ready, and a momentary flash of rebellion against the slavery of being a peasant's wife crossed her mind. It passed in a moment. Martin was saying, as he dressed himself:"Ha! It has been a good day's work. Five ridges done, and each one of them as straight as a steel rod. By God Mary, it's no boasting to say that you might well be proud ofbeing the wife of Martin Delaney. And that's not saying the whole of it ,my girl. You did your share better than any woman in Inverara could do it this blessed day."They stood for a few moments in silence, looking at the work they had done. All her dissatisfaction and weariness vanished form Mary's mind with the delicious feeling of comfort that overcame her at having done this work with her husband. They had done it together. They had planted seeds in the earth. The next day and the next and all their lives, when spring came they would have to bend their backs and do it until their hands and bones got twisted with rheumatism. But night would always bring sleep and forgetfulness.As they walked home slowly, Martin walked in front with another peasant talking about the sowing, and Mary walked behind, with her eyes on the ground, thinking. Cows were lowing at a distance.。

Spring SowingLiam O’Flaherty1.It was still dark when Martin Delaney and his wife Mary got up. Martinstood in his shirt by the window, rubbing his eyes and yawning, whileMary raked out the live coals that had lain hidden in the ashes on thehearth all night. Outside, cocks were crowing and a white streak wasrising from the ground, as it were, and beginning to scatter the darkness. It was a February morning, dry, cold and starry.当马丁。

德莱尼和妻子玛丽起床时，天色仍然很暗。

马丁穿着衬衫站在窗前，揉着双眼，打着哈欠；而玛丽把整夜埋在炉灰里还未烧尽的煤块扒了出来。

屋外，公鸡在啼叫，一道白光正从地平线上升起，一如既往，开始驱散黑暗。

这是一个二月的清晨，寒冷、干燥，星光依稀可见。

2.The couple sat down to their breakfast of tea, bread and butter, in silence.They had only been married the previous autumn and it was hatefulleaving a warm bed at such and early hour. Martin, with his brown hair and eyes, his freckled face and his little fair moustache, looked too young to be married, and his wife looked hardly more than a girl, red-cheeked and blue-eyed, her black hair piled at the rear of her head with a largecomb gleaming in the middle of the pile, Spanish fashion. They were both dressed in rough homespuns, and both wore the loose white shirt thatInverara peasants use for work in the fields.这对夫妇坐下来静静地吃早餐，喝茶，吃着黄油面包。

Unit 6 Text AThe Green Bananait might have happened anywhere, my encounter with the green banana started on a steep mountain road in the central area of Brazil. My ancient jeep was straining up through beautiful countryside when the radiator began to leak, and I was ten miles from the nearest mechanic. The over-heated engine forced me to stop at the next village, which consisted of a small store and a few houses that we are scattered here and there. People came over to look. They could see three fine streams of hot water spouting from holes in the jacket of the radiator. "That's easy to fix, a man said. He sent a boy running for some green bananas. He patted me on the shoulder, assuring me that everything would work out. "Green bananas," he smiled. Everyone agreed.尽管这种事情在任何地方都可能发生,但我与青香蕉(de)邂逅却源自于巴西腹地一条险峻(de)山路上.我那老式吉普车正吃力地穿过景色优美(de)乡村,这时,水箱突然漏水了,而离我最近(de)汽车修理站也还要十英里.发动机过热迫使我在临近(de)村庄停了下来.村里有一个小商店和分布在四处(de)几座房子.有村民围过来看,三股细细(de)热水柱从水箱外壳上(de)小孔喷出来.“这容易解决,”一个人说到.他让一个小男孩跑去拿些青香蕉来.这个人还拍了拍我(de)肩膀,安慰我问题会解决(de).“青香蕉.”他笑了,其余(de)人都这么说着.chattered casually while all the time I was wondering what they could possibly do to my radiator with their green bananas.I did not ask them, though, as that would show my ignorance, so I talked about the beauty of the land that lay before our eyes. Huge rock formations, like Sugar Loaf in Rio, rose up all around us. "Do you see that tall one right over there" asked the man, pointing to a particularly tall, slender pinnacle of dark rock. "That rock marks the center of the world."我和他们闲聊起来,心里却一直在想他们用这青香蕉怎么能修补好水箱.毫无疑问,提问会暴露我(de)无知,因此我开始赞叹眼前美丽(de)乡村景色.耸立在我们周围巨大(de)岩石群,很像里约热内卢着名(de)糖面包山.“看见那边那块高高(de)岩石了吗”那人指着一块特别高而且细长(de)黑色石柱问我,“那块岩石标志着世界(de)中心.”looked to see if he was teasing me, but his face was serious. He, in turn, inspected me carefully, as if to make sure I grasped the significance of his statement. The occasion called for some show of recognition on my part. "The center of the world" I repeated, trying to show interest if not complete acceptance. He nodded. "The absolute center. Everyone around here knows it."我看着他,想知道他是否在和我开玩笑,但他却表情严肃,反过来认真地审视着我,似乎想确定我是否领会了他那句话(de)深刻含义.这种情况要求我必须表现出认同.他点头说：“绝对是中心.这儿(de)人都知道.”that moment the boy returned with an armful of green bananas. The man cut one in half and pressed the cut end against the radiator jacket. The banana melted into a glue against the hot metal, stopping the leaks instantly. I was so astonished at this that I must have looked rather foolish and everyone laughed. They then refilled my radiator and gave me extra bananas to take along in case my radiator should give me trouble again. An hour later, after using the green banana once more, my radiator and I reached our destination. The local mechanic smiled. "Who t aught you about the green banana" I gave him the name of the village. "Did they show you the rock marking the center of the world" he asked. I assured him they had. "My grandfather came from there," ;he said. "The exact center. Everyone around here has always known about it."这时,小男孩抱着青香蕉回来了.那个男子把其中一根掰成两半,将其断口处按在水箱(de)外壳上.香蕉遇到炙热(de)金属融成了胶,立刻就堵住了漏洞.面对如此情景,我惊呆了,我当时(de)表情一定是傻傻(de),所有(de)人都笑了起来.他们把我(de)水箱装满水,又让我带上一些香蕉,以防沿途中水箱再出问题.路上,我又用了一次青香蕉,一个小时后,我开着车到达了目(de)地.当地(de)一修理工笑着问我：“谁教你用青香蕉(de)”我告诉了他那个村子(de)名字.“他们有没有指给你看标志世界中心(de)那块岩石”他问道.我告诉他,他们指给我看了.“我祖父就是那儿(de)人,”他说,“那(de)确是中心.一直以来这儿(de)人都知道.”a product of American education, I had never paid the slightest attention to the green banana, except to regard it as a fruit whose time had not yet come. Suddenly, on that mountain road, its time had come to meet my need. But as I reflected on it further, I realized that the green banana had been there all along. Its time reached back to the very origins of the banana. The people in that village had known about it for years. It was my own time that had come, all in relation to it. I came to appreciate the special genius of those people, and the special potential of the green banana. I had been wondering for some time about what educators like to call "learning moments" and I now knew I had just experienced two of them at once.作为美国教育(de)产物,除了把青香蕉当作还没长熟(de)水果,我从来就没注意过它.但突然在那条山路上,当我需要它时,它正巧出现了.可是仔细想一想,其实青香蕉一直在那儿存在着.时间可以追溯到香蕉(de)最初(de)起源.那个村子里(de)人都知道它已经很多年了,我现在也因此认识它了.我开始珍视村民们(de)聪明才智和青香蕉(de)特殊潜能.曾有一段时间,我一直困惑于教育家们提出(de)“领悟(de)瞬间”,而现在我知道自己刚刚同时经历了两个这样(de)瞬间.took me a little longer to fully grasp the importance of the rock which the villagers believed marked the center of the world.I had at first doubted their claim, as I knew for a fact that the center was located somewhere else in New England. After all, my grandfather had come from there. But gradually I realized the village people had a very reasonable belief and I agreed with them. We all tend to regard as the center that special place where we are known, where we know others , where things mean much to us, and where we ourselves have both identity and meaning: family, school, town and local region could all be our center of the world.我又用了一些时间来领会村民们认为那块标志着世界中心(de)岩石(de)重要性.开始时我怀疑他们(de)说法,因为我知道实际上世界(de)中心是位于新英格兰(de)某个地方,毕竟,我(de)祖父就是那儿(de)人.但我逐渐意识到他们(de)想法是很有道理(de),我赞同了他们(de)看法.我们都倾向于把一个特殊(de)地方理解为“中心”：在那儿为人所知,我们也认识其他人；那儿(de)事物对我们来说都别有意义；那儿有我们(de)根,有我们存在(de)价值所在：家庭、学校、城镇以及当地(de)一切都可能成为我们眼中世界(de)中心.lesson which gradually dawned on me was actually very simple. Every place has special meanings for the people in it, and in a certain sense every place represents the center of the world. The world has numerous such centers, and no one student or traveler can experience all of them. But once a conscious breakthrough to a second center is made, a life-long perspective and collection can begin.我渐渐明白了一个其实再简单不过(de)道理：对于居住在其中(de)人来说,每个地方都有着特殊(de)含义,从某种意义上说,每个地方都代表着“世界(de)中心”.世界上有无数这样(de)“中心”,没有哪个学生或旅行者能经历所有(de)这些“中心”.但是,一旦突破这种意识从而建立另一个中心,一个全新(de)视角将伴随你(de)一生,并且一种积累(de)过程也将从此开始.cultures of the world are full of unexpected green bananas with special value and meaning. They have been there for ages, ripening slowly, perhaps waiting patiently for people to come along to encounter them. In fact, a green banana is waiting for all of us if we would leave our own centers of the world in order to experience other places.在世界文化之林中充满了你意想不到(de)含有特殊价值和意义(de)青香蕉.它们在那里存在很久了,满满地成熟,也许在耐心等待着人们(de)发现.实际上,青香蕉在等待着我们所有(de)人离开自己(de)“中心”,去体验更加广阔(de)天地.。

现代⼤学英语第⼆版精读1-Unit3-TextB从美国归来的⼉⼦1)兰特⾦村很⼩，周围环绕着⼀些⽥地，和盖有茅草屋顶的⼩屋，⽥地的主⼈们在⽥地⾥种菜，放⽺。

2)这些⼩屋中最⼩的那个⾥⾯住着⼋⼗多岁的⽼伯尔和他的⽼伴⼉伯尔莎。

⽼伯尔是⼀个被逐出俄国的犹太⼈，他们在波兰定居，他个⼦不⾼，宽肩膀，留着⼀⼩撮⽩胡⼦，不论冬夏，他都戴着⼀顶⽺⽪帽⼦，穿着⼀件棉夹克和⼀双厚实的靴⼦，他拥有半英亩⼟地，养着⼀头母⽜，⼀只⼭⽺和⼏只鸡。

3)⽼两⼝有⼀个⼉⼦叫塞缪尔，四⼗年前去了美国，兰特⾦的⼈都说他在那成了百万富翁，每个⽉兰特⾦的邮差都会给⽼伯尔带来⼀张汇款单和⼀封没⼈能看懂的信，因为⼼⾥⾯有很多英语单词，塞缪尔给他⽗母寄了多少钱⼀直是个秘密，他们似乎从来也不⽤这些钱，花钱做什么？菜园，母⽜和⼭⽺就能给他们提供⼤多数⽣活的必需品。

4)没有⼈会留⼼伯尔把他⼉⼦寄给他的钱存放在那⼉，⼩屋只有⼀个房间，⾥⾯是他们的全部家当，桌⼦、⾁架放奶制品的架⼦、两张床和⼀个泥炉⼦，有时候，鸡把柴房当他们的窝，有时候天冷就进⽕炉旁的鸡笼⾥，天⽓恶劣时，⼭⽺也躲进屋⾥，经济条件好些的村民们已经有了煤油灯，但是伯尔和他的妻⼦不太相信新玩意⼉，只有在安息⽇，伯尔莎才回到商店买些蜡烛，夏天，天⼀亮⽼两⼝就起床了，晚上鸡进笼的时候，他们才休息，在漫长的冬夜，伯尔莎纺纱，伯尔就静静的坐在他的⾝边，共同享受这夜的宁静。

5)偶尔，波尔从犹太教堂回来时会给妻⼦带回些消息，在华沙，⼀些罢⼯⼯⼈要求沙皇退位，有⼀个叫赫兹尔医⽣的⼈提出⼀个想法，认为犹太⼈应重新定居在巴基斯坦。

伯尔莎⼀边听⼀边摇头，他的脸⾊发黄，像卷⼼菜也⼀样满是皱纹，他已经半聋了。

所以波尔不得不向他重复他所说过的每⼀个字。

6)在兰特⾦，除了⽇常琐碎没有什么⼤事发⽣，⼀头母⽜⽣了⼀头⼩⽜，⼀对年轻⼈结婚了，实际上，兰特⾦已经变成了⼀个没有多少年轻⼈的村庄了，年轻⼈有的去扎克洛奇姆了，有的去华沙了，还有的去美国了，像塞缪尔⼀样，她们往家⾥寄回了信和照⽚，照⽚上的男⼈戴着⾼⾼的礼帽，⼥⼠穿着花哨的⾐裙。

现代大学英语精读(1)U n i t3课文-CAL-FENGHAI.-(YICAI)-Company One1Lesson ThreeTEXT AMessage of the Land Pira SudhamPre-class Work IRead the text once for the main idea. Do not refer to the notes dictionaries or the glossary yet.Yes, these are our rice fields. They belonged to my parents and forefathers. The land is morethan three centuries old. I'm the o nly daughter in our family and it was I who stayed with myparents till they died. My three brothers moved out to their wives' h ouses when they gotmarried. My husband moved into our house as is the way with us in Esarn. I was then eighteenand he was nineteen. He gave me six children. Two died in infancy from sickness. The rest, twoboys and two girls, went away as soon as we could afford to buy jeans for them. Our oldestson got a job as a gardener in a rich man's home in Bangkok but later an employ ment agencysent him to a foreign land to work. My other son also went far away.One of our daughters is working in a textile factory in Bangkok, and the other has a job in astore. They come home to see us no w and then, stay a few days, and then they are off again.Often they send some money to us and tell us that they are doing well.I know this is notalways true. Sometimes, they get bullied and insulted, and it is like a knife piercing my heart. It'seasier for my husband. He has ears which don't hear, a mouth which doesn't speak, and eyesthat don't see. He has always been patient and s ilent, minding his own life.All of them remain my children in spite of their long absence. Maybe it's fate that sent themaway from us. Our piece of land is s mall, and it is no longer fertile, bleeding year after yearand, like us, getting old and exhausted. Still my husband and I work on t his land. The soil is notdifficult to till when there is a lot of rain, but in a bad year, it's not only the ploughs that breakbut our he arts, too.No, we two haven't changed much, but the village has. In what way? Only ten years ago, youcould barter for things, but now it' s all cash. Years ago, you could ask your neighbors to helpbuild your house, reap the rice or dig a well. Now they'll do it only if y ou have money to paythem. Plastic things replace village crafts. Men used to make things with fine bamboo pieces,but no long er. Plastic bags litter the village. Shops have sprung up, filled with colorful plastic things and goods we have no use for. The youn g go away to towns and cities leaving us oldpeople to work on the land. They think differently, I know, saying that the old are ol d-fashioned. All my life, I have never had to go to a hairdresser, or to paint my lips or nails. These rough fingers and toes are for w orking in the mud of our rice fields, not for looking pretty. Nowyoung girls put on jeans, and look like boys and they think it is fa shionable. Why, they are willing to sell their pig or water buffalo just to be able to buy a pair of jeans. In my day, if Iwere to put on a pair of trousers like they do now, lightning would strike me.I know, times have changed, but certain things should not change. We should offer food tothe monks every day, go to the temp le regularly. Young people tend to leave these things toold people now, and that's a shame.Why, only the other day I heard a boy shout and scream at his mother. If that kind of thinghad happened when I was young, th e whole village would have condemned such an ungratefulson, and his father would surely have given him a good beating.As for me, I wouldn't change, couldn't change even if I wanted to. Am I happy or unhappy This question has never occurred to me. Life simply goes on. Yes, this bag of bones dressed inrags can still plant and reap rice from morning till dusk. Disease, woun ds, hardship and scarcity have always been part of my life. I don't complain.The farmer: My wife is wrong. My eyes do see—they see more than they should. My ears dohear—they hear more than is good for me. I don't talk about what I know because I know toomuch. I know for example, greed, anger, and lust are the root of all evils.I am at peace with the land and the conditions of my life. But I feel a great pity for my wife. Ihave been forcing silence upon her all these years, yet she has not once complained ofanything.I wanted to have a lot of children and grandchildren around me but now cities and foreign landshave attracted my children awa y and it seems that none of them will ever come back to live hereagain. To whom shall I give these rice fields when I die? For hu ndreds of years this strip of landhas belonged to our family. I know every inch of it. My children grew up on it, catching frogsan d mud crabs and gathering flowers. Still the land could not tie them down or call them back.When each of them has a pair of je ans, they are off like birds on the wing.Fortunately, my wife is still with me, and both of us are still strong. Wounds heal over time.Sickness comes and goes, and we ge t back on our feet again. I never want to leave this land.It's nice to feel the wet earth as my fingers dig into the soil, planting rice , to hear my wifesighing,"Old man, if I die first, I shall become a cloud to protect you from the sun." It's goodto smell the scent of ripening rice in Novem ber. The soft cool breeze moves the sheaves, which ripple and shimmer like waves of gold. Yes, I love this land and I hope one of my childrencomes back one day to live, and gives me grandchildren so that I can pass on the land's secretmessages to them. Read the text a second time. Learn the new words and expressions listed below.Glossaryagencyn. 机构；代理处；这里指职业介绍所bamboon. 竹Bangkokn. 曼谷（泰国首都）barterv. to exchange goods for other goods 以货易货breezen. a light gentle windbuffalon. 美洲野牛；water ～ : 水牛bullyv. to threaten to hurt sb. who is smaller or weaker 欺负（弱小）condemnv. to express strong disapproval谴责crabn. 蟹craftn. handmade items 手工艺术（这里指手工产品）duskn. the time before it gets dark 黄昏Esarnn. a village in Thailandeviln. bad or harmful influence or effect 邪恶exhaustedadj. tired outfashionableadj. popular合时尚的；时髦的faten. 命运fertileadj. ～ land is land able to produce good crops 肥沃的；富饶的forefathersn. people (especially men) who were part of your family a long time ago 祖先frogn. 蛙gardenern. a person who takes care of a gardengreedn. a strong desire for more money, power etc. than you need 贪婪hairdressern. a person who cuts and shapes your hair in a particular style 理发师hardshipn. difficult condition of life, such as lack of money to become healthy again, to recover from awound, especially to grow new ski n 愈合infancyn. early childhood; babyhoodinsultv. to say or do sth. that is rude or act offensively to someone 侮辱jeansn. （常用复数）牛仔裤litterv. to leave (plastic bags, bits of waste paper etc.) on the ground in a public place 扔得到处都是lustn. very strong desire for sex, money or power 淫欲；金钱欲；权力欲old-fashionedadj. not fashionable老式的，过时的monkn. 和尚，僧人nailn. 指甲piercev. to make a hole through something; to ～ one's heart: to make one feet very sadreapv. to cut and gather a crop such as rice or wheat收割replacev. to take the place of 替代ripenadj. mature成熟的ripplev. to move in very small waves 在微风中摆动scarcityn. a lack; not having enough, especially foodscentn. a pleasant smellsheavesn. (sheaf 的复数), measure of quantity in farming 捆，束shimmerv. to shine with a soft trembling light 发微光，闪烁sicknessn. illnesssighv. 叹息stripn. a narrow piece of 细长片templen. a place for the worship of a god or gods 寺庙，庙宇tendv. If sth. ～ s to happen, it means that it is likely to happen quite often, especially sth. bad or unpleasanttextilen. any material made by weaving 纺织品ungratefuladj. not showing thankswoundn. injury 伤口；（感情上的）痛苦TEXT BThe Son from America lsaac Bashevis SingerLsaac Bashevis Singer (1904—1991) was born in a Jewish village in Poland. In 1935 heimmigrated to New York.Singer wrote many stories and novels, as well as books for juveniles and four autobiographies(including Lost in America, 1981). In 1978 his work received world attention when he wasawarded the Noble Prize in Literature.The village of Lentshin was tiny. It was surrounded by little huts with thatchad roofs. Betweenthe huts there were fields, where the owners planted vegetables or pastured their goats.In the smallest of these huts lived old Berl, a man in his eighties, and his wife Berlcha. Old Berlwas one of the Jews driven from Russia who had settled in Poland. He was short, broad-shouldered, and had a small white beard, and in summer and winter he wore a sheepskin hat, apadded cotton jacket, and stout boots. He had a half acre of field, a cow, a goat, and chickens.The couple had a son, Samuel, who had gone to America forty years ago. It was said inLentshin that he became a millionaire the re. Every month, the Lentshin letter carrier brought oldBerl a money order and a letter that no one could read because many of the words wereEnglish. How much money Samuel sent his parents remained a secret. They never seemed touse the money. W hat for? The garden, the cow, and the goat provided most of their needs.No one cared to know where Berl kept the money that his son sent him. The hut consisted ofone room, which contained all the ir belongings: the table, the shelf for meat, the shelf for milkfoods, the two beds, and the clay oven. Sometimes the chickens ro osted in the woodshed andsometimes, when it was cold, in a coop near the oven. The goat, too, found shelter insidewhen the weather was bad. The more prosperous villagers had kerosene lamps, but Berl and hiswife did not believe in new gadgets. Only for the Sabbath would Berlcha buy candles at thestore. In summer, the couple got up at sunrise and retired with the chickens. I n the long winterevenings, Berlcha spun flax and Berl sat beside her in the silence of those who enjoy theirrest.Once in a while when Berl came home from the synagogue, he brought news to his wife. InWarsaw there were strikers who de manded that the czar abdicate. Somebody by the name ofDr. Herzl* had come up with the idea that Jews should settle again inPalestine. Berlcha listenedand shook her head. Her face was yellowish and wrinkled like a cabbage leaf. She was half deaf.Berl had to repeat each word he said to her.Here in Lentshin nothing happened except usual events: a cow gave birth to a calf, a youngcouple got married. Actually, Lentshi n had become a village with few young people. The youngmen left for Zakroczym, for Warsaw, and sometimes for the United St ates. Like Samuel, theysent letters and photographs in which the men wore top hats and the women fancy dresses.Berl and Berlcha also received such photographs. But their eyes were failing and neither he norshe had glasses. They could bare ly make out the pictures. Samuel had sons and daughters—and grandchildren. Their names were so strange that Berl and Berlcha could never rememberthem. But what difference do na mes make? America was on the other side of the ocean, at theedge of the world. A talmud* teacher who came to Lentshin had said that Americans walkedwith their heads down and their feet up. Berl and Berlcha could not grasp this. How was itpossible? But since the teacher said so it must be true.One Friday morning, when Berlcha was kneading the dough for the Sabbath loaves, the dooropened and a nobleman entered. He was so tall that he had to bend down to get through thedoor. He was followed by the coachman who carried two leather sui tcases. In astonishment Berlcha raised her eyes.The nobleman looked around and said to the coachman in Yiddish,"Here it is." He took out asilver ruble and paid him. Then he said, "You can go now."When the coachman closed the door, the nobleman said, "Mother, it's me, your son Samuel-Sam."Berlcha heard the words and her legs grew numb. The nobleman hugged her, kissed herforehead, both her cheeks, and Berlcha began to cackle like a hen,"My son!" At that momentBerl came in from the woodshed, his arms piled with logs. The goat followed him. When he sawa no bleman kissing his wife, Berl dropped the wood and exclaimed, "What is this"The nobleman let go of Berlcha and embraced Berl. "Father! "For a long time Berl was unable to utter a sound. Then he asked, "Are you Samuel""Yes, Father, I am Samuel. ""Well, peace be with you." Berl grasped his son's hand. He was still not sure that he was notbeing fooled. Samuel wasn't as tall and heavy as this man, bu t then Berl reminded himself thatSamuel was only fifteen years old when he had left home. Berl asked,"Why didn't you let usknow that you were coming""Didn't you receive my cable"Samuel asked.Berl did not know what a cable was.Berlcha had scraped the dough from her hands and enfolded her son."I never thought I could live to see this. Now, I am happy to die," Berlcha said. Berl wasamazed. These were just the words he c ould have said earlier. After a while Berl came to himselfand said,"Pescha, you will have to make a double Sabbath pudding in addition to the stew."It was years since Berl had called Berlcha by her given name. Only now did Berlcha begin to cry.Yellow tears ran from her eyes, and everything became dim. Then she called out, "It's Friday—Ihave to prepare for the Sabbath." Yes, she had to knead the dough for the loaves. With such aguest, she had to make a larger S abbath stew. The winter day is short and she must hurry.Her son understood what was worrying her, because he said, "Mother, I will help you."The nobleman took off his jacket and remained in his vest, on which hung a solidgold-watchchain. H rolled up his sleeves. "Mother, I was a baker for many years in New York," he said, andhe began to knead the dough.Berlcha wept for joy. Her strength left her, and she slumped onto the bed.Berl said,"Women will always be women." And he went to the shed to get more wood. Thegoat sat down near the oven; she gazed with surprise at this strange man.The neighbors had heard the good news that Berl's son had arrived from America and theycame to greet him. The women bega n to help Berlcha prepare for the Sabbath. Some laughed,some cried. The room was full of people, as at a wedding. After Berlch a lit the candles, fatherand son went to the little synagogue across the street. A new snow had fallen. The son tooklarge steps, but Berl warned him, "Slow down."In the synagogue the Jews sang their prayers. All the time, the snow outside kept falling. WhenBerl and Samuel left the Holy Pla ce, the village was unrecognizable. Everything was covered insnow. One could see only the contours of the roofs and the candle s in the windows. Samuelsaid, "Nothing has changed here."Berlcha had prepared fish, chicken soup with rice, meat, carrot stew. The family ate and drank,and when it grew quiet for a whi le one could hear the chirping of the house cricket.After the final prayer Samuel asked, "Father, what did you do with all the money I sent you"Berl raised his white brows. "It's here.""Didn't you put it in a bank""There is no bank in Lentshin.""Where do you keep it"Berl hesitated. "One is not allowed to touch money on the Sabbath, but I will show you."Hecrouched beside the bed and began to shove something heavy. A boot appeared. Its top wasstuffed with straw. Berl remov ed the straw and the son saw that the boot was full of goldcoins. He lifted it."Father, this is a treasure!" he called out."Well.""Why didn't you spend it""On what? Thank God, we have everything.""Why didn't you travel somewhere""Where to? This is our home."The son asked one question after the other, but Berl's answer was always the same: They hadeverything. The garden, the cow, the goat, the chickens provided them with all they needed.The son said,"If thieves knew about this, your lives wouldn't be safe.""There are no thieves here.""What will happen to the money""You take it."Slowly, Berl and Berlcha grew accustomed to their son and his American Yiddish. Berlcha couldhear him better now. She even r ecognized his voice. He was saying, "Perhaps we should build alarger synagogue.""The synagogue is big enough," Berl replied."Perhaps a home for old people.""No one sleeps in the street."The next day after the Sabbath meal was eaten, Berl and Berlcha lay down for a nap. They soonbegan to snore. The goat, too, d ozed off. The son put on his cloak and his hat and went for awalk. He strode with his long legs across the marketplace. He stretc hed out a hand and touched a roof. He had a desire to talk to someone, but it seemed that the whole of Lentshinwas asleep. Samuel returned home. Dusk had fallen. Berl went to the synagogue for the evening prayersand the son remained with his mot her.In the twilight Samuel put his hand into his jacket pocket and touched his checkbook, hisletters of credit. He had come here wit h big plans. He had a suitcase filled with presents for hisparents. He wanted to help the village. He brought not only his own mo ney but funds from theLentshin Society in New York. But this village needed nothing. From the synagogue one couldhear peopl e chanting. The cricket, silent all day, started again its chirping. Berlcha began to sway and utter holy rhymes inherited from mo thers and grandmothers.Notes:Dr. Herzl: Theordore Herzl (1860—1904), the founder of ZionismTalmud: the collection of rabbinic writings that constitute the basis of traditional Judaism。

Book 4-Unit 5Text AThe TelephoneAnwar F. Accawi1.When I was growing up in Magdaluna, a small Lebanese village in the terraced, rockymountains east of Sidon, time didn't mean much to anybody, except maybe to those whowere dying. In those days, there was no real need for a calendar or a watch to keep track of the hours, days, months, and years. We knew what to do and when to do it, just as the Iraqi geese knew when to fly north, driven by the hot wind that blew in from the desert. The only timepiece we had need of then was the sun. It rose and set, and the seasons rolled by and we sowed seed and harvested and ate and played and married our cousins and had babies who gotwhooping cough and chickenpox—and those children who survived grew up and married their cousins and had babies who got whooping cough and chickenpox. We lived and loved and toiled and died without ever needing to know what year it was, or even the timeof day.2.It wasn't that we had no system for keeping track of time and of the important events in ourlives. But ours was a natural or, rather, a divine — calendar, because it was framed by acts of God: earthquakes and droughts and floods and locusts and pestilences. Simple as our calendar was, it worked just fine for us.3.Take, for example, the birth date of Teta Im Khalil, the oldest woman in Magdaluna and allthe surrounding villages. When I asked Grandma, "How old is Teta Im Khalil?"4.Grandma had to think for a moment; then she said, "I've been told that Teta was born shortlyafter the big snow that caused the roof on the mayor's house to cave in."5."And when was that?" I asked.6."Oh, about the time we had the big earthquake that cracked the wall in the east room."7.Well, that was enough for me. You couldn't be more accurate than that, now, could you?8.And that's the way it was in our little village for as far back as anybody could remember. One ofthe most unusual of the dates was when a whirlwind struck during which fish and oranges fell from the sky. Incredible as it may sound, the story of the fish and oranges was true, because men who would not lie even to save their own souls told and retold that story untilit was incorporated into Magdaluna's calendar.9.The year of the fish-bearing whirlpool was not the last remarkable year. Many others followed inwhich strange and wonderful things happened. There was, for instance, the yearof the drought, when the heavens were shut for months and the spring from which the entire village got its drinking water slowed to a trickle. The spring was about a mile from the village, ina ravine that opened at one end into a small, flat clearing covered with fine gray dust and hard,marble-sized goat droppings. In the year of the drought, that little clearingwas always packed full of noisy kids with big brown eyes and sticky hands, and their mothers —sinewy, overworked young women with cracked, brown heels. The children ran around playing tag or hide-and-seek while the women talked, shooed flies, and awaited their turns to fill up their jars with drinking water to bring home to their napping men and wet babies. There were days when we had to wait from sunup until late afternoon just to fill a small clay jar with precious, cool water.10.Sometimes, amid the long wait and the heat and the flies and the smell of goat dung, tempersflared, and the younger women, anxious about their babies, argued over whose turnit was to fill up her jar. And sometimes the arguments escalated into full-blown, knockdown-dragout fights; the women would grab each other by the hair and curse and scream and spit and call each other names that made my ears tingle. We little brown boys who went with ourmothers to fetch water loved these fights, because we got to see the women's legs and their colored panties as they grappled and rolled around in the dust. Oncein a while, we got lucky and saw much more, because some of the women wore nothing at all under their long dresses. God, how I used to look forward to those fights. I remember therush, the excitement, the sun dancing on the dust clouds as a dress ripped and a youngwhite breast was revealed, then quickly hidden. In my calendar, that year of drought willalways be one of the best years of my childhood.11.But, in another way, the year of the drought was also one of the worst of my life, becausethat was the year that Abu Raja, the retired cook, decided it was time Magdaluna got its own telephone. Every civilized village needed a telephone, he said, and Magdaluna was not going to get anywhere until it had one. A telephone would link us with the outside world. A fewmen—like the retired Turkish-army drill sergeant, and the vineyard keeper —did all they could to talk Abu Raja out of having a telephone brought to the village. But they were outshoutedand ignored and finally shunned by the other villagers for resisting progress and trying tokeep a good thing from coming to Magdaluna.12. One warm day in early fall, many of the villagers were out in their fields repairing walls orgathering wood for the winter when the shout went out that the telephone-company truckhad arrived at Abu Raja's dikkan, or country store. When the truck came into view, everybodydropped what they were doing and ran to Abu Raja's house to see what was happening.13.It did not take long for the whole village to assemble at Abu Raja's dikkan. Some of the richvillagers walked right into the store and stood at the elbows of the two important-lookingmen from the telephone company, who proceeded with utmost gravity, like priests atCommunion, to wire up the telephone. The poorer villagers stood outside and listened carefully to the details relayed to them by the not-so-poor people who stood in the doorway and could see inside.14."The bald man is cutting the blue wire," someone said.15."He is sticking the wire into the hole in the bottom of the black box," someone else added.16."The telephone man with the mustache is connecting two pieces of wire. Now he istwisting the ends together," a third voice chimed in.17.Because I was small, I wriggled my way through the dense forest of legs to get a firsthandlook at the action. Breathless, I watched as the men in blue put together a black machinethat supposedly would make it possible to talk with uncles, aunts, and cousins who lived more than two days' ride away.18.It was shortly after sunset when the man with the mustache announced that the telephonewas ready to use. He explained that all Abu Raja had to do was lift the receiver, turn the crank on the black box a few times, and wait for an operator to take his call. Abu Raja grabbed the receiver and turned the crank forcefully. Within moments, he was talking withhis brother in Beirut. He didn't even have to raise his voice or shout to be heard.19.And the telephone, as it turned out, was bad news. With its coming, the face of the villagebegan to change. One of the fast effects was the shifting of the village's center. Before thetelephone's arrival, the men of the village used to gather regularly at the house of Im Kaleem, a short, middle-aged widow with jet-black hair and a raspy voice that could be heard all over the village, even when she was only whispering. She was a devout Catholic and also the village whore. The men met at her house to argue about politics and drink coffee and play cards or backgammon. Im Kaleem was not a true prostitute, however, because she did not charge for her services —not even for the coffee and tea that she served the men. She did not need the money; her son, who was overseas in Africa, sent her money regularly. Im Kaleem loved all the men she entertained, and they loved her, every one of them. In a way, she was married to all the men in the village. Everybody knew it but nobody objected. Actually I suspect the women did not mind their husbands'visits to Im Kaleem. Oh, they wrung their hands and complained to one another about their men's unfaithfulness, but secretly they were relieved, because Im Kaleem took some of the pressure off them and kept the men outof their hair while they attended to their endless chores. Im Kaleem was also a kind of confessor and troubleshooter, talking sense to those men who were having family problems, especially the younger ones.20.Before the telephone came to Magdaluna, Im Kaleem's house was bustling at just about anytime of day, especially at night, when the loud voices of the men talking, laughing, and arguing could be heard in the street below —a reassuring, homey sound. Her house was an island of comfort, an oasis for the weary village men, exhausted from having so little to do.21.But it wasn't long before many of those men —the younger ones especially—started spendingmore of their days and evenings at Abu Raja's dikkan. There, they would eat and drink and talk and play checkers and backgammon, and then lean their chairs back against the wall —the signal that they were ready to toss back and forth, like a ball, the latest rumors going around the village. And they were always looking up from their games and drinks and talk to glance at the phone in the corner, as if expecting it to ring any minute and bring news that would change their lives and deliver them from their aimless existence. In the meantime,they smoked cheap, hand-rolled cigarettes, dug dirt out from under their fingernails with big pocketknives, and drank lukewarm sodas that they called Kacula, Seffen-Ub, and Bebsi.22. The telephone was also bad news for me personally. It took away my lucrative business —asource of much-needed income. Before, I used to hang around Im Kaleem's courtyard and play marbles with the other kids, waiting for some man to call down from a window and askme to run to the store for cigarettes or liquor, or to deliver a message to his wife, such aswhat he wanted for supper. There was always something in it for me: a ten or even a twenty-five-piaster piece. On a good day, I ran nine or ten of those errands, which assured a steady supply of marbles that I usually lost to other boys. But as the days went by fewer and fewer men came to Im Kaleem's, and more and more congregated at Abu Raja's to wait bythe telephone. In the evenings, the laughter and noise of the men trailed off and finally stopped.23.At Abu Raja's dikkan, the calls did eventually come, as expected, and men and women startedleaving the village the way a hailstorm begins: first one, then two, then bunches.24.The army took them. Jobs in the cities lured them. And ships and airplanes carried them to suchfaraway places as Australia and Brazil and New Zealand. My friend Kameel, his cousin Habeeb, and their cousins and my cousins all went away to become ditch diggers andmechanics and butcher-shop boys and deli owners who wore dirty aprons sixteen hours a day, all looking for a better life than the one they had left behind. Within a year, only the sick, the old, and the maimed were left in the village. Magdaluna became a skeleton of its former self,desolate and forsaken, like the tombs, a place to get away from.25.Finally, the telephone took my family away, too. My father got a call from an old army buddywho told him that an oil company in southern Lebanon was hiring interpreters and instructors.My father applied for a job and got it, and we moved to Sidon, where I went to aPresbyterian missionary school and graduated in 1962. Three years later, having won ascholarship, I left Lebanon for the United States. Like the others who left Magdaluna before me,I am still looking for that better life. (2121 words)。

Unit 1两个大学男孩，不清楚赚钱需要付出艰苦的劳动，被一份许诺轻松赚大钱的广告吸引了。

男孩们很快就明白，如果事情看起来好得不像真的，那多半确实不是真的。

轻轻松松赚大钱约翰·G·哈贝尔“你们该看看这个，”我向我们的两个读大学的儿子建议道。

“你们若想避免因为老是向人讨钱而有失尊严的话，这兴许是一种办法。

”我将挂在我们门把手上的、装在一个塑料袋里的几本杂志拿给他们。

塑料袋上印着一条信息说，需要招聘人投递这样的袋子，这活儿既轻松又赚钱。

（“轻轻松松赚大钱!”）“我不在乎失不失尊严，”大儿子回答说。

“我可以忍受，”他的弟弟附和道。

“看到你们俩伸手讨钱讨惯了一点也不感到尴尬的样子，真使我痛心，”我说。

孩子们说他们可以考虑考虑投递杂志的事。

我听了很高兴，便离城出差去了。

午夜时分，我已远离家门，在一家旅馆的房间里舒舒服服住了下来。

电话铃响了，是妻子打来的。

她想知道我这一天过得可好。

“好极了!”我兴高采烈地说。

“你过得怎么样?”我问道。

“棒极了!”她大声挖苦道。

“真棒!而且这还仅仅是个开始。

又一辆卡车刚在门前停下。

”“又一辆卡车?”“今晚第三辆了。

第一辆运来了四千份蒙哥马利-沃德百货公司的广告；第二辆运来四千份西尔斯-罗伯克百货公司的广告。

我不知道这一辆装的啥，但我肯定又是四千份什么的。

既然这事是你促成的，我想你或许想了解事情的进展。

”我之所以受到指责，事情原来是这样：由于发生了一起报业工人罢工，通常夹在星期日报纸里的广告插页，必须派人直接投送出去。

公司答应给我们的孩子六百美金，任务是将这些广告插页在星期天早晨之前投递到四千户人家去。

“不费吹灰之力!”我们上大学的大儿子嚷道。

“六百块!”他的弟弟应声道，“我们两个钟点就能干完!”“西尔斯和沃德的广告通常都是报纸那么大的四页，”妻子告诉我说，“现在我们门廊上堆着三万二千页广告。

就在我们说话的当儿，两个大个子正各抱着一大捆广告走过来。

这么多广告，我们可怎么办?”“你让孩子们快干，”我指示说。