J_00795_ch1401

Lesson Fourteen
Cipher in the Snow
Jean E. Mizer
　　一个母亲再嫁，与继父一起生活，没有家庭温暖的少年，在学校里成绩不好，沉默寡言，默默无闻，极少参加学校活动。在一个寒冷的早晨，上学的路上，他突然倒了下去，死于“心力衰竭”。一位老师进行了家访，阅读了他的全部档案之后，发出了愤怒的呼声：“是学校的‘教育’扼杀了他的信心，‘教育’对他的早逝有不可推卸的责任。这是为什么 ? ” 
1. It started on a biting cold February morning. ①I was driving behind the Milford Corners bus as I did most snowy mornings on my way to school. It stopped short at a hotel, and I was annoyed, as I had to come to an unexpected stop. A boy staggered out of the bus, stumbled, and collapsed on the snowbank at the curb. The bus driver and I reached him at the same moment. His thin, hollow face was white even against the snow. 


　　① I was driving behind the Milford Corners bus as I did most snowy mornings on my way to school.
　　　那时我正驾车跟在校车后面，下雪的时候多数情况早晨我都是这样去学校上班。
　　　The author's car was following the school bus that cold February morning probably because it made driving in the snow easier, and she felt safe. That was how she drove to the school most snowy mornings.
2. " He's dead, " the driver whispered.


3. I glanced quickly at the scared young faces staring down at us from the school bus. " A doctor! Quick! "


4. " No use. I tell you he's dead. " The driver looked down at the boy's still body. " He never even said he felt bad, " he muttered, " just tapped me on the shoulder and said, quietly, I'm sorry. I have to get off at the hotel. ' ①That's all. Polite and apologizing. " 


　　① That's all. Polite and apologizing.
　　　That's what he said. He was polite and looked as if he was sorry for the trouble.
5. ①At school, the giggling morning noise quieted as the news went down the halls. I passed a group of girls. " Who was it? Who dropped dead on the way to school? " I heard one of them half-whisper.


6. " Don't know his name; some kid from Milford Corners " was the reply. 


　　① At school, the giggling morning noise quieted as the news went down the halls.
　　　在校内，当这个消息传遍各个楼道时，早上唧唧喳喳的喧哗顿时消失。
　　　At school, when the children heard the news, they stopped talking and laughing at once. The corridors became quiet immediately./Usually before classes started the corridors were filled with the noise of children talking and laughing. But as the news reached them they became quiet.
7. ①It was like that in the faculty room and the principal's office. " I'd appreciate your going out to tell the parents, " the principal told me. " They haven't a phone and, anyway, somebody from school should go there in person. I'll cover your classes. " 


　　① It was like that in the faculty room and the principal's office.
　　　在教师休息室和校长办公室情况也是如此。
　　　In the staff room and the principal's office people asked the same question (Who dropped dead?), and nobody seemed to know the kid who had dropped dead.
8. " Why me? " I asked. " Wouldn't it be better if you did it? "


9. " I didn't know the boy, " the principal admitted. " And in last year's sophomore personalities column I note that you were listed as his favorite teacher. "


10. I drove through the snow and cold down the bad road to the Evans place and thought about the boy, Cliff Evans. His favorite teacher ! I could see him in my mind's eye all right, sitting back there in the last seat in my afternoon literature class. He came in the room by himself and left by himself. " Cliff Evans, " I muttered to myself, " a boy who never talked, a boy who never smiled. "


11. The big ranch kitchen was clean and warm. ①I blurted out the news somehow. Mrs. Evans reached blindly toward a chair. " He never said anything about being ill. "


12. His stepfather said impatiently, " He has said nothing about anything since I moved in here. " 


　　① I blurted out the news somehow. Mrs. Evans reached blindly toward a chair.
　　　我没有转弯抹角而是直截了当把事情说了出来。埃文斯不知该做什么，伸手去拿一把椅子。
　　　(It was hard for me to inform a mother of her son's death.) I couldn't find words to break the news to her gently, but just told her that her son was dead. Mrs. Evans was shaken and needed to sit down. She put out her hand to feel for a chair.
13. Mrs. Evans pushed a pan to the back of the stove and began to untie her apron. " Now hold on, " her husband said angrily. " I've got to have breakfast before I go to town. Nothing we can do now anyway. If Cliff hadn't been so dumb, he'd have told us he didn't feel well. "


14. After school I sat in the office and stared at the records spread out before me. ①I was to close the file and write the obituary for the school paper. The almost bare sheets in the file mocked the effort. Cliff Evans, white, never legally adopted by stepfather, five young half brothers and sisters. These bits of information and the list of D grades were all the records had to offer. 


　　① I was to close the file and write the obituary for the school paper. The almost bare sheets in the file mocked the effort.
　　　我的任务是最后完成他的档案，给校刊写个讣告。那几张纸几乎没有提供什么情况，叫我怎么写讣告。
　　　It was my task to add the last item—his death to the file and to write a report for the school paper about Cliff Evan's life. His file contained so little information that I thought writing an obituary was almost meaningless.
15. Cliff Evans had silently come in the school door in the mornings and gone out the school door in the evenings, and that was all. He had never belonged to a club. He had never played on a team. ①He had never held an office. ②As far as I could tell, he had never done one happy, noisy kid thing. He had never been anybody at all. 


　　① He had never held an office.
　　　他从来没有担任过什么职务。
　　　He had never been anybody in the school—class leader, head of a team, etc.
　　② As far as I could tell, he had never done one happy, noisy kid thing. He had never been anybody at all.
　　　据我所知，他从来没有干过一件令他高兴并使他有机会像孩子那样大喊大叫的事情。他从来也没有引起人们的注目。
　　　As far I knew, he had never behaved like a naughty boy.
16. ①How do you go about making a boy into a zero? The grade school records showed me. The first and second grade teachers' notes read " sweet, shy child " ; " timid but eager. " ②Then the third grade note had opened the attack. Some teacher had written in a good, firm hand, " Cliff won't talk. Uncooperative. Slow learner. " The other academic sheep had followed with " dull " ; " slow-witted " ; " low I. Q. " They became correct. The boy's I.Q. score in the ninth grade was listed at 83. But his I.Q. in the third grade had been 106. The score didn't go under 100 until the seventh grade. ③Even shy, timid, sweet children have resilience. It takes time to break them. 


　　① How do you go about making a boy into a zero?
　　　怎么能把孩子弄能成这样一事无成。
　　　I wonder what they have done to turn a boy into a nobody./How is it that Cliff Evans was made a total failure at school.
　　② Then the third grade note had opened the attack. Some teacher had written in a good, firm hand, “Cliff won't talk. Uncooperative. Slow learner.”
　　　三年级的纪录开始了对他的攻击。某位老师，字写得很好，很有力，写道“克里夫不愿开口、不愿合作、脑子慢。
　　　Then when Cliff was in the third grade, the teacher's comment began to be unfavourable/ hostile.
　　③ Even shy, timid, sweet children have resilience.It takes time to break them.
　　　即使是胆小、害羞、温顺的孩子也是有韧性的，他们不是一天就能击垮的。
　　　Even inward-looking children are not easy to crush. It takes a fairly long time to make them into nothing/to crush their spirit.
17. ①I went angrily to the typewriter and wrote a savage report pointing out what education had done to Cliff Evans. ②I slapped a copy on the principal's desk and another in the sad file. I banged the typewriter and slammed the file and crashed the door shut, but didn't feel much better. ③A little boy kept walking after me, a little boy with a thin, pale face; a skinny body in faded jeans; and big eyes that had looked and searched for a long time and then had become veiled.


　　① I went angrily to the typewriter and wrote a savage report pointing out what education had done to Cliff Evans.
　　　我怀着愤怒的心情走到打字机旁，写了一份措辞严厉、毫不留情的报告，指出教育究竟把克里夫·埃文斯搞成什么样子。
　　　I wrote a report using very severe and strong words. In it I pointed out what school education had done to Cliff Evans—it had taken away all his confidence so that he had nothing to hope for, to strive for and to live for.
　　② I slapped a copy on the principal’s desk and another in the sad file. I banged the typewriter and typewriter slammed the file and crashed the door shut, but didn't feel much better.
　　　我把一份报告甩到校长的办公桌上，另一份放进那令人悲伤的档案。我把打字机砰然推到一边，哗地一声把门撞上，但心情却没有好转多少。
　　　( I angrily threw a copy of the report on the principal’s desk and put another copy in Cliff’s file.I did these because I was angry at the wrongs that education had done to Cliff. )
　　③ A little boy kept walking after me, a little boy with a thin, pale face; a skinny body in faded jeans; and big eyes that had looked and searched for a long time and then become veiled.
　　　我感到有个小男孩一直跟着我，一个面庞消瘦、面色苍白的小男孩，他骨瘦如柴的身躯穿着褪了色的牛仔裤，他那双大眼睛在寻找着什么，寻求了很长很长时间，最后变得呆滞无神。
　　　(After I wrote the report, I didn’t feel better. I simply couldn’t get Cliff out of my mind—his thin, pale face, his skinny body in old jeans. I felt as if he was following me wherever I went. In my mind’s eye I could see how his big eyes had been trying eagerly to find something he could do so as to become part of the school, and how those eyes stopped looking for anything any more when he had given up in despair.)
18. I could guess how many times he'd been chosen last to play sides in a game, how many whispered child conversations had excluded him, how many times he hadn't been asked. I could see and hear the faces and voices that said over and over, " You're dumb. You're nothing, Cliff Evans. "


19. A child is a believing creature. Cliff undoubtedly believed them. Suddenly it seemed clear to me: When finally there was nothing left at all for Cliff Evans, he collapsed on a snowbank and went away. ①The doctor might list " heart failure " as the cause of death, but that wouldn't change my mind.


　　① The doctor might list “heart failure”as the cause of death, but that wouldn't change my mind.
　　　(The doctor might conclude that Cliff had died of “heart failure”. But I wouldn’t accept his opinion. I think bad education had been the root cause of Cliff’s death. After being made into a zero he had nothing to keep him going.)
20. We couldn't find ten students in the school who had known Cliff well enough to attend the funeral as his friends. So the student-body officers and a committee from the junior class went as a group to the church, being politely sad. ①I attended the service with them and sat through it with a lump of cold lead in my chest and a big resolution growing through me. 


　　① I attended the service with them and sat through it with a lump of cold lead in my chest and a big resolution growing through me.
　　　我和这些学生一起出席了葬礼，我自始自终坐在那里，胸中好像压着一块又冷又沉的东西，同时脑子里酝酿着一个重大的决定。
　　　（I went to the funeral with a few students from the school; throughout the service, I was filled with great sadness. At the same time I made up my mind to do something about it.）
21. I've never forgotten Cliff Evans nor that resolution.


22. ①He has been my challenge year after year, class after class. ②I look up and down the rows carefully each September at the new faces. I look for veiled eyes or bodies scrounged into a seat in an unfamiliar world. ③" Look, kids, " I say silently, " I may not do anything else for you this year, but not one of you is going to come out of here a nobody. I'll work or fight to the bitter end doing battle with society and the school board, but I won't have one of you coming out of here thinking himself into a zero. "


23. Most of the time — not always, but most of the time — I've succeeded.


　　① He has been my challenge year after year, class after class.
　　　年复一年，教了一个班又教一个班，他一直激励着我尽心负责。
　　　Year in and year out, he has urged me to carry out, with one class after another, what I had determined to do at the funeral service.
　　② I looked up and down the rows carefully each September at the new faces. I look for veiled eyes or bodies scrounged into a seat in an unfamiliar world.
　　　每年的9月我来回一排一排地查看那些新面孔，看是否有呆滞的目光，是否有人在陌生的环境里使劲缩进自己的座位里。
　　　I try to find the signs of uncertainty, doubt, timidity or even fright in the kinds who have just started school.（When the new school year begins in September, I look carefully in the classroom, at the faces of my new students, trying to find out whether any of them looked shy, timid or lacking in confidence in their new environment.）
　　③ “Look, kids,” I say silently, “I may not do anything else for you this year, but not one of you is going to come out of here a nobody. I'll work or fight to the bitter end doing battle with society and the school board, but I won't have one of you coming out of here thinking himself into a zero.
　　　孩子们，”我暗暗地说，“今年，除了一件事，也许我为你们别的什么也不做。但是，你们当中的任何人绝不会一事无成地走出这间教室。我要竭尽全力地管，也许我要斗争到底，和社会斗、和学校领导斗，但我决不让你们之间的任何人认为自己一无所长地走出这个教室。
　　　I'll do all that I can to fight society and the school authorities in order to prevent what has happened to Cliff Evans from happening to you. I won't allow any one of you to think that you are no good, and I won't let you become a total failure.
请认真答题，答题结果将记入知识点测评的成绩！


（单选题）29._____ gently, the mother is looking at the boy smilingly in the picture.


A． Seized him by the shoulder
B． Seizing him by the shoulder
C． Patted him on the shoulder
D． Patting him on the shoulder
【答案】D


【解析】本题考查重要结构重要结构“动词+sb.+介词+the+身体部位或衣服”。本题中B“抓住他的肩膀”，意思不恰当。该句句意是“轻轻地拍着他的肩膀，图画中母亲微笑着看着那个小男孩。”


【知识点】重要结构“动词+sb.+介词+the+身体部位或衣服”