现代大学英语精读第三册 13b

　　Text A In My Day
At the age of eighty my mother had her last bad fall, and after that her mind wandered free through time. Some days she went to weddings and funerals that had taken place half a century earlier. On others she presided over family dinners cooked on Sunday afternoons for children who were now gray with age. Through all this she lay in bed but moved across time, traveling among the dead decades with a speed and ease beyond the gift of physical science.
"Where's Russell" she asked one day when I came to visit at the nursing home.
"I'm Russell," I said.
She gazed at this improbably overgrown figure out of an inconceivable future and promptly¹ dismissed it.
"Russell's only this big," she said, holding her hand, palm down, two feet from the floor. That day she was a young country wife in the backyard with a view of hazy² blue Virginia mountains behind the apple orchard³, and I was a stranger old enough to be her father.
Early one morning she phoned me in New York. "Are you coming to my funeral today?" she asked.
It was an awkward question with which to be awakened⁴. "What are you talking about, for God's sake?" was the best reply I could manage.
"I'm being buried today," she declared briskly, as though announcing an important social event.
"I'll phone you back," I said and hung up, and when I did phone back she was all right, although she wasn't all right, of course, and we all knew she wasn't.
She had always been a small woman — short, light-boned, delicately structured — but now, under the white hospital sheet, she was becoming tiny. I thought of a doll with huge, fierce eyes. There had always been a fierceness in her. It showed in that angry challenging thrust of the chin when she issued an opinion, and a great one she had always been for issuing opinions.
"I tell people exactly what's on my mind," she had been fond of boasting, "whether they like it or not."
"It's not always good policy to tell people exactly what's on you mind," I used to caution her.
"If they don't like it, that's too bad," was her customary reply, "because that's the way I am."
And so she was, a formidable woman, determined⁵ to speak her mind, determined to have her way, determined to bend those who opposed her. She had hurled⁶ herself at life with an energy that made her seem always on the run.
She ran after chickens, an axe⁷ in her hand, determined on a beheading that would put dinner in the pot. She ran when she made the beds, ran when she set the table. One Thanksgiving she burned herself badly when, running up from the cellar even with the ceremonial turkey, she tripped on the stairs and tumbled down, ending at the bottom in the debris⁸ of giblets, hot gravy⁹, and battered¹⁰ turkey. Life was combat, and victory was not to the lazy, the timid, the drugstore cowboy, the mush-mouth afraid to tell people exactly what was on his mind. She ran.
But now the running was over. For a time I could not accept the inevitable¹¹. As I sat by her bed, my impulse was to argue her back to reality. On my first visit to the hospital in Baltimore, she asked who I was.
"Russell," I said.
"Russell's way out west," she advised me.
"No, I'm right here."
"Guess where I came from today?" was her response.
"Where?"
"All the way from New Jersey¹²."
"No. You've been in the hospital for three days," I insisted.
So it went until a doctor came by to give one of those oral quizzes that medical men apply in such cases. She failed completely, giving wrong answers or none at all. Then a surprise.
"When is your birthday?" he asked.
"November 5, 1897," she said. Correct. Absolutely correct.
"How do you remember that?" the doctor asked.
"Because I was born on Guy Fawkes Day."
"Guy Fawkes?" asked the doctor, "Who is Guy Fawkes?"
She replied with a rhyme I had heard her recite time and again over the years:
"Please to remember the Fifth of November,
Gunpowder¹³ treason and plot.
I see no reason why gunpowder treason
Should ever be forgot."
Then she glared at this young doctor so ill informed about Guy Fawkes' failed scheme to blow King James off his throne with barrels of gunpowder in 1605. "You may know a lot about medicine, but you obviously don't know any history," she said. Having told him exactly what was on her mind, she left us again.
Then doctors diagnosed a hopeless senility or hardening of the arteries¹⁴. I thought it was more complicated than that. For ten years or more the ferocity with which she had once attacked life had been turning to a rage against the weakness, the boredom¹⁵, and the absence of love that too much age had brought her. Now, after the last bad fall, she seemed to have broken chains that imprisoned¹⁶ her in a life she had come to hate and to return to a time inhabited by people who loved her, a time in which she was needed. Gradually I understood.
Three years earlier I had gone down from New York to Baltimore, where she lived, for one of my infrequent visits and, afterwards, had written her with some banal¹⁷ advice to look for the silver lining¹⁸, to count her blessings¹⁹ instead of burdening others with her miseries²⁰. I suppose what it really amounted to was a threat that if she was not more cheerful during my visits I would not come to see her very often. Sons are capable of such letters. This one was written out of a childish faith in the eternal strength of parents, a naive²¹ belief that age and wear could be overcome by an effort of will, that all she needed was a good pep talk to recharge a flagging spirit.
She wrote back in an unusually cheery vein²² intended to demonstrate, I suppose, that she was mending her ways. Referring to my visit, she wrote: "If I seemed unhappy to you at times, I am, but there's really nothing anyone can do about it, because I'm just so very tired and lonely that I'll just go to sleep and forget it." She was then seventy-eight.
Now three years later, after the last bad fall, she had managed to forget the fatigue²³ and loneliness and to recapture happiness. I soon stopped trying to argue her back to what I considered the real world and tried to travel along with her on those fantastic journeys into the past. One day when I arrived at her bedside she was radiant.
"Feeling good today," I said.
"Why shouldn't I feel good?" she asked. "Papa's going to take me up to Baltimore on the boat today."
At that moment she was a young girl standing²⁴ on a wharf²⁵, waiting for the Chesapeake Bay steamer with her father, who had been dead sixty-one years. William Howard Taft was in the White House, America was a young country, and the future stretched before it in beams of crystal sunlight. "The greatest country on God's green earth," her father might have said, if I had been able to step into my mother's time machine.
About her father, my grandfather, my mother's childhood and her people, I knew very little. A world had lived and died, and though it was part of my blood and bone I knew little more about it than I knew of the world of the pharaohs. It was useless now to ask for help from my mother. The orbits of her mind rarely touched present interrogators for more than a moment.
Sitting at her bedside, forever out of touch with her, I wondered about my own children, and children in general, and about the disconnection between children and parents that prevents them from knowing each other. Children rarely want to know who their parents were before they were parents, and when age finally stirs their curiosity there is no parent left to tell them. If a parent does lift the curtain a bit, it is often only to stun²⁶ the young with some exemplary tale of how much harder life was in the old days.
I had been guilty of this when my children were small in the early 1960s and living the affluent²⁷ life. It irritated me that their childhoods should be, as I thought, so easy when my own had been, as I thought, so hard. I had developed the habit of lecturing them on the harshness of life in my day.
"In my day all we got for dinner was macaroni and cheese, and we were glad to get it."
"In my day we didn't have any television."
"In my day..."
"In my day..."
At dinner one evening a son had offended me with an inadequate²⁸ report card, and as I cleared my throat to lecture, he gazed at me with an expression of unutterable resignation and said, "Tell me how it was in your day, Dad."
I was angry with him for that, but angrier with myself for having become one of those ancient bores whose highly selective memories of the past become transparently²⁹ dishonest even to small children. I tried to break the habit, but must have failed. Between us there was a dispute about time. He looked upon the time that had been my future in a disturbing way. My future was his past, and being young, he was indifferent to the past.
As I hovered³⁰ over my mother's bed listening for some signals from her childhood, I realized that this same dispute had existed between her and me. When she was young, with life ahead of her, I had been her future and resented it. Instinctively³¹, I wanted to break free, and cease being a creature defined by her time. Well, I had finally done that, and then with my own children I had seen my exciting future becoming their boring past.
These hopeless end-of-the-line visits with my mother made me wish I had not thrown off my own past so carelessly. We all come from the past, and children ought to know what it was that went into their making, to know that life is a braided cord of humanity stretching up from time long gone, and that it cannot be defined by the span of a single journey from diaper to shroud³².

1 promptly   

adv.及时地，敏捷地

参考例句：

• He paid the money back promptly.他立即还了钱。
• She promptly seized the opportunity his absence gave her.她立即抓住了因他不在场给她创造的机会。

2 hazy   

adj.有薄雾的，朦胧的；不肯定的，模糊的

参考例句：

• We couldn't see far because it was so hazy.雾气蒙蒙妨碍了我们的视线。
• I have a hazy memory of those early years.对那些早先的岁月我有着朦胧的记忆。

3 orchard   

n.果园，果园里的全部果树，(美俚)棒球场

参考例句：

• My orchard is bearing well this year.今年我的果园果实累累。
• Each bamboo house was surrounded by a thriving orchard.每座竹楼周围都是茂密的果园。

4 awakened   

v.（使）醒( awaken的过去式和过去分词 )；（使）觉醒；弄醒；（使）意识到

参考例句：

• She awakened to the sound of birds singing. 她醒来听到鸟的叫声。
• The public has been awakened to the full horror of the situation. 公众完全意识到了这一状况的可怕程度。 来自《简明英汉词典》

5 determined   

adj.坚定的；有决心的

参考例句：

• I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
• He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。

6 hurled   

v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂

参考例句：

• He hurled a brick through the window. 他往窗户里扔了块砖。
• The strong wind hurled down bits of the roof. 大风把屋顶的瓦片刮了下来。 来自《简明英汉词典》

7 axe   

n.斧子；v.用斧头砍，削减

参考例句：

• Be careful with that sharp axe.那把斧子很锋利，你要当心。
• The edge of this axe has turned.这把斧子卷了刃了。

8 debris   

n.瓦砾堆，废墟，碎片

参考例句：

• After the bombing there was a lot of debris everywhere.轰炸之后到处瓦砾成堆。
• Bacteria sticks to food debris in the teeth,causing decay.细菌附着在牙缝中的食物残渣上，导致蛀牙。

9 gravy   

n.肉汁；轻易得来的钱，外快

参考例句：

• You have spilled gravy on the tablecloth.你把肉汁泼到台布上了。
• The meat was swimming in gravy.肉泡在浓汁之中。

10 battered   

adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损

参考例句：

• He drove up in a battered old car.他开着一辆又老又破的旧车。
• The world was brutally battered but it survived.这个世界遭受了惨重的创伤,但它还是生存下来了。

11 inevitable   

adj.不可避免的，必然发生的

参考例句：

• Mary was wearing her inevitable large hat.玛丽戴着她总是戴的那顶大帽子。
• The defeat had inevitable consequences for British policy.战败对英国政策不可避免地产生了影响。

12 jersey   

n.运动衫

参考例句：

• He wears a cotton jersey when he plays football.他穿运动衫踢足球。
• They were dressed alike in blue jersey and knickers.他们穿着一致，都是蓝色的运动衫和灯笼短裤。

13 gunpowder   

n.火药

参考例句：

• Gunpowder was introduced into Europe during the first half of the 14th century.在14世纪上半叶，火药传入欧洲。
• This statement has a strong smell of gunpowder.这是一篇充满火药味的声明。

14 arteries   

n.动脉( artery的名词复数 )；干线，要道

参考例句：

• Even grafting new blood vessels in place of the diseased coronary arteries has been tried. 甚至移植新血管代替不健康的冠状动脉的方法都已经试过。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• This is the place where the three main arteries of West London traffic met. 这就是伦敦西部三条主要交通干线的交汇处。 来自《简明英汉词典》

15 boredom   

n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊

参考例句：

• Unemployment can drive you mad with boredom.失业会让你无聊得发疯。
• A walkman can relieve the boredom of running.跑步时带着随身听就不那么乏味了。

16 imprisoned   

下狱，监禁( imprison的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was imprisoned for two concurrent terms of 30 months and 18 months. 他被判处30个月和18个月的监禁，合并执行。
• They were imprisoned for possession of drugs. 他们因拥有毒品而被监禁。

17 banal   

adj.陈腐的，平庸的

参考例句：

• Making banal remarks was one of his bad habits.他的坏习惯之一就是喜欢说些陈词滥调。
• The allegations ranged from the banal to the bizarre.从平淡无奇到离奇百怪的各种说法都有。

18 lining   

n.衬里，衬料

参考例句：

• The lining of my coat is torn.我的外套衬里破了。
• Moss makes an attractive lining to wire baskets.用苔藓垫在铁丝篮里很漂亮。

19 blessings   

n.（上帝的）祝福( blessing的名词复数 )；好事；福分；因祸得福

参考例句：

• Afflictions are sometimes blessings in disguise. 塞翁失马，焉知非福。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• We don't rely on blessings from Heaven. 我们不靠老天保佑。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

20 miseries   

n.痛苦( misery的名词复数 )；痛苦的事；穷困；常发牢骚的人

参考例句：

• They forgot all their fears and all their miseries in an instant. 他们马上忘记了一切恐惧和痛苦。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• I'm suffering the miseries of unemployment. 我正为失业而痛苦。 来自《简明英汉词典》

21 naive   

adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的

参考例句：

• It's naive of you to believe he'll do what he says.相信他会言行一致，你未免太单纯了。
• Don't be naive.The matter is not so simple.你别傻乎乎的。事情没有那么简单。

22 vein   

n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络

参考例句：

• The girl is not in the vein for singing today.那女孩今天没有心情唱歌。
• The doctor injects glucose into the patient's vein.医生把葡萄糖注射入病人的静脉。

23 fatigue   

n.疲劳，劳累

参考例句：

• The old lady can't bear the fatigue of a long journey.这位老妇人不能忍受长途旅行的疲劳。
• I have got over my weakness and fatigue.我已从虚弱和疲劳中恢复过来了。

24 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

25 wharf   

n.码头，停泊处

参考例句：

• We fetch up at the wharf exactly on time.我们准时到达码头。
• We reached the wharf gasping for breath.我们气喘吁吁地抵达了码头。

26 stun   

vt.打昏，使昏迷，使震惊，使惊叹

参考例句：

• When they told me she had gone missing I was totally stunned.他们告诉我她不见了时，我当时完全惊呆了。
• Sam stood his ground and got a blow that stunned him.萨姆站在原地，被一下打昏了。

27 affluent   

adj.富裕的，富有的，丰富的，富饶的

参考例句：

• He hails from an affluent background.他出身于一个富有的家庭。
• His parents were very affluent.他的父母很富裕。

28 inadequate   

adj.(for,to)不充足的，不适当的

参考例句：

• The supply is inadequate to meet the demand.供不应求。
• She was inadequate to the demands that were made on her.她还无力满足对她提出的各项要求。

29 transparently   

明亮地，显然地，易觉察地

参考例句：

• "Clearly plots,'said Jacques Three. "Transparently!" “显然是搞阴谋，”雅克三号说，“再清楚不过了。” 来自英汉文学 - 双城记
• All design transparently, convenient for the file identification inside the bag. 全透明设计，方便袋内文件识别。

30 hovered   

鸟( hover的过去式和过去分词 )； 靠近（某事物）； （人）徘徊； 犹豫

参考例句：

• A hawk hovered over the hill. 一只鹰在小山的上空翱翔。
• A hawk hovered in the blue sky. 一只老鹰在蓝色的天空中翱翔。

31 instinctively   

adv.本能地

参考例句：

• As he leaned towards her she instinctively recoiled. 他向她靠近，她本能地往后缩。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He knew instinctively where he would find her. 他本能地知道在哪儿能找到她。 来自《简明英汉词典》

32 shroud   

n.裹尸布，寿衣；罩，幕；vt.覆盖，隐藏

参考例句：

• His past was enveloped in a shroud of mystery.他的过去被裹上一层神秘色彩。
• How can I do under shroud of a dark sky?在黑暗的天空的笼罩下，我该怎么做呢？