大学体验英语第三册Unit4-Passage B

I Have His Genes¹ But Not His Genius
It's Christmas Eve 2040, and I'm the only bartender still working that afternoon, and the house is practically empty. I see this guy down at the end of the bar, sitting by himself. I bring him a fresh drink, and wish him greetings of the season. He looks at me, sort of funny, and says: "Do you know who I am?"

　I admit I don't.
　"Here, maybe this will help," he says, and he pulls a little picture out of his wallet. An old portrait, really old, like centuries old. It's a young man in profile: sharp nose, weak chin, definite resemblance to my friend here. At the bottom, there's a caption²: "W. A. Mozart."

　Now it's my turn to look at him funny. Then it hits me like a brick. "You're that clone guy," I say. "The guy in the papers back in the '20s."

　"In the flesh. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. I have his brain, his heart, his DNA³. He's my father and my mother and my brother. He's my identical twin, except I was born 247 years later."

　So he starts talking. It takes him a long time to explain, and I didn't get it all, but I got a lot.
　In 2001, Congress passed a ban on cloning humans, but of course mad scientists went ahead with secret cloning.

　And then, there was this software billionaire who was nuts about Mozart, and was especially nuts about Mozart's Requiem⁴. He set up a secret institute in Switzerland and hired some top biologists and told them they'd get $1 million each for every baby they cloned from Mozart's DNA.

　In 2003, the institute managed to bring four babies to term. Two died shortly after birth. Two survived. But then this software billionaire died, and his company collapsed⁵, and so did his cloning institute. One baby Mozart was put up for adoption⁶ anonymously⁷. No one knows what happened to that one. The other baby was adopted by one of the scientists, who was a big Mozart fan herself.

　"And that's me," he says.

　His mother, of course, didn't tell him or anyone else who he was, but she told the boy how special he was, how he was a genius, what a great composer he could be, trying to push her little Mozart toward music.

　But the 2010s weren't the 1760s. The boy may have had talent, but he also had his own priorities, and they didn't include violin sonatas⁸. He liked rock music and he liked it loud, and then as he got older he liked beer and girls. The harder his mother pushed him to be a great composer, the less he wanted to be one. After a while his mother gave up. By the time he was 20, he had a decent job working in a frame shop. And that's when the roof fell in.
　Some reporter got wind of the institute and the cloning experiment and tracked him down. But no one could prove he was a clone of Mozart without digging up the original, so the media treated him as a joke. It just crushed him. He tried running away. He joined a Buddhist⁹ monastery¹⁰ in Japan. One day, while he was there, he heard the Requiem. Not for the first time, but this time it was different.
　"My God, it was beautiful!" he says. "I felt a realization¹¹ explode inside my head. I just felt it somehow: It rang inside of me. I'd finish it, or die trying." He knew that if he could finish the Requiem, he'd be famous for real, a genius instead of a fool. He immersed himself in Mozart's music. Nights, weekends, all the time, he drove himself, working on the Requiem.
　"And? What happened?"
　"I turned 37 four months ago. I've been working on the Requiem for 15 years. Mozart died when he was 35. I should have finished the Requiem two years ago."
　"And you haven't."
He looks at me for a while and shakes his head, "You don't understand. I have his genes but not his genius."
　And with that he drops a tip on the bar and is gone. I never saw him again. If the Requiem was ever finished, I never heard about it.

1 genes   

n.基因( gene的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• You have good genes from your parents, so you should live a long time. 你从父母那儿获得优良的基因，所以能够活得很长。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Differences will help to reveal the functions of the genes. 它们间的差异将会帮助我们揭开基因多种功能。 来自英汉非文学 - 生命科学 - 生物技术的世纪

2 caption   

n.说明，字幕，标题；v.加上标题，加上说明

参考例句：

• I didn't understand the drawing until I read the caption.直到我看到这幅画的说明才弄懂其意思。
• There is a caption under the picture.图片下边附有说明。

3 DNA   

(缩)deoxyribonucleic acid 脱氧核糖核酸

参考例句：

• DNA is stored in the nucleus of a cell.脱氧核糖核酸储存于细胞的细胞核里。
• Gene mutations are alterations in the DNA code.基因突变是指DNA密码的改变。

4 requiem   

n.安魂曲，安灵曲

参考例句：

• I will sing a requiem for the land walkers.我会给陆地上走的人唱首安魂曲。
• The Requiem is on the list for today's concert.《安魂曲》是这次音乐会的演出曲目之一。

5 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

6 adoption   

n.采用，采纳，通过；收养

参考例句：

• An adoption agency had sent the boys to two different families.一个收养机构把他们送给两个不同的家庭。
• The adoption of this policy would relieve them of a tremendous burden.采取这一政策会给他们解除一个巨大的负担。

7 anonymously   

ad.用匿名的方式

参考例句：

• The manuscripts were submitted anonymously. 原稿是匿名送交的。
• Methods A self-administered questionnaire was used to survey 536 teachers anonymously. 方法采用自编“中小学教师职业压力问卷”对536名中小学教师进行无记名调查。

8 sonatas   

n.奏鸣曲( sonata的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The programme includes two Mozart sonatas. 节目单中有两首莫扎特的奏鸣曲。 来自辞典例句
• He would play complete sonatas for violin and piano with no piano in sight. 他会在没有钢琴伴奏的情况下，演奏完整的小提琴与钢琴合奏的奏鸣曲。 来自辞典例句

9 Buddhist   

adj./n.佛教的，佛教徒

参考例句：

• The old lady fell down in adoration before Buddhist images.那老太太在佛像面前顶礼膜拜。
• In the eye of the Buddhist,every worldly affair is vain.在佛教徒的眼里，人世上一切事情都是空的。

10 monastery   

n.修道院，僧院，寺院

参考例句：

• They found an icon in the monastery.他们在修道院中发现了一个圣像。
• She was appointed the superior of the monastery two years ago.两年前她被任命为这个修道院的院长。

11 realization   

n.实现；认识到，深刻了解

参考例句：

• We shall gladly lend every effort in our power toward its realization.我们将乐意为它的实现而竭尽全力。
• He came to the realization that he would never make a good teacher.他逐渐认识到自己永远不会成为好老师。