大学英语阅读教程(二)
Warm-up 1. Have you ever read any love stories? 2. What is true in your point of view? My Only True Love 1 My wife and I raced out of
2 I have never traveled this route without being flung
back to the summers that I spent in 3 An hour after leaving 4 The house was gone, as were others that had lined the street. 5 I gazed upon the profound emptiness in front of me and the ghosts of my past that drifted across it. I pictured myself sitting on the porch leisurely reading novels, lazing on the beach under clear skies, and sprinting to work on my bicycle for the sheer pleasure of feeling the power of my own youthful body. 6 Then my first love, Jayne, came to mind. 7 "What are you thinking about?" my wife asked. 8 "Nothing much. Just those times when I lived here." 9 I first saw Jayne on an early July morning. I had just begun to clean the front windows of the restaurant, when a girl approached the entrance. I watched her walk through the door. She smiled as our eyes met, and I found myself stammering a hello. 10 "I'm the new busboy," I said, feeling heat in my face. 11 "I'm the waitress who's been here too long." 12 "But it's only a week into the season.” 13 "Exactly." Jayne laughed and went to prepare for the tasks ahead. 14 Throughout the day I wanted to stop amid the rush of customers to talk to her. Whenever I saw her, my gaze lingered, sometimes into a stare that would have embarrassed me had anyone noticed. In the following days, we began to chat during the mid-afternoonlull. At first self-conscious and tongue-tied, I was soon talking with a scarcely controllable passion that I had never known before. 15 Before long, we met on the beach. That afternoon I lay on a blanket with her in a state of near delirium, my breath shortened by her smooth skin glistening in the sun. 16 On subsequent days we strolled along
the 17 I had known other girls, even had a high school sweetheart, but what I felt for them seemed trifling in comparison. This was all-consuming, which is the nature of first love, a sensation felt in our very blood. 18 About a month after meeting Jayne, I drove her home after a party. Halfway there, it began to storm. The streets became streams, and we moved slowly along in the three o'clock darkness. Parked outside her house, we sat in the car and talked. 19 "My heart sometimes jumps when I think of you," I said to her. 20 She smiled. 21 "It's true." 22 Lying in bed some nights, with the whisper of the ocean just reaching me, thoughts of Jayne could literally make my heart skip a beat. 23 What else could cause that reaction but love? I nearly told her, but it seemed unnecessary in the sweetness of the cocoon around us now, shielding us against the rain. 24 But that was the last time we saw each other outside work. A week later Jayne joined me in “our” rear restaurant booth, looking serious. 25 "What's the matter?" 26 She paused. "My boyfriend and I are getting back together." 28 "He says that he loves me, and I think I love him too." 29 I could find nothing to say. 30 "I'm sorry." 31 I spent the rest of the afternoon in a daze that barely diminished over the remaining three weeks of summer. I had never in my life felt so hurt, and I thought that I would never recover from it. I felt bitter and angry. 32 Then one spring Saturday
two years later, I entered a bookstore in 33 She looked down and told me where to find the poetry section. I thanked her, found the volume and soon left the store. 34 At the end of my English class a few weeks later, I walked into the hall and saw the bookstore clerk leaving a nearby classroom. I remembered her wheat-colored hair, her warm voice and intelligent green eyes. 35 She saw me and smiled in recognition. 36 "The girl on the ladder," I said when we reached each other. 37 "The Shakespeare sonnets." 38 Do you always remember the books people ask you about?" 39 "If the people are memorable." 40 I smiled at that. 41 We were both heading for other classes, but exchanged names before parting. 42 I ran into Susan often after that, and we usually said hello or joked and then went on our way. Sometimes we met behind the campus library and sat in the shade of the trees, talking and loafing. If she failed to show, that was all right. We were just friends passing time, and I preferred it that way. After the anguish of Jayne, I was wary of opening up to anyone. 43 One afternoon, however, our talk found its way to our parents. 44 "You would like my mother, I think," I said, "but my father's been dead since I was 11." I had not intended to mention something that I rarely divulged, even to close friends, and I nearly wished I had kept silent about it. 45 Susan touched my arm. 46 "It's been a while," I said. 47 "I'm still sorry." A darkness crept into her usually bright eyes. "I lost mine at the end of high school." 48 It was my turn to say that I was sorry. 49 We sat some long minutes in the slow afternoon, muted by these thoughts. But, I learned then, it was one of Susan's virtues not to allow the wounds that come with life to crowd out the joys, and we were soon talking of more cheerful matters. A few weeks later we began to date. 50 That summer I went to the shore for the final time as a college student. Once a place for adventure and wild excitement, it now seemed little more than a place where I had a guaranteed job. I felt older, wiser, certainly less naive. And there was a sense of things coming to an end---my youth and the things of youth that we must shed to live stable, responsible lives. This trip was also different in that Susan would occasionally visit on weekends. 51 Because I worked during the day, we had only the evenings to spend together. The hours felt precious, and we often passed them by the sea merely talking, as though we had stored up what we could not express to others. 52 Some nights a pathway of moonlight lay across the water, connecting the shore to the horizon. "It's as though we could walk on it," I said once. 53 "Where would it take us?" 54 "Wherever we want, I like to think." 55."Where would you go?" 56 "I don't know, but I'd want you to come along." 57 "Gladly." 58 We held each other as the night deepened and cooled. It was here, as the waves crashed in the darkness, that I let Susan fully into those guarded places where I'd cloistered my sensitive injuries. She was delicate with them, and as she revealed to me her own secret fears and wishes, I knew what true love was. 59 After Susan had boarded the bus back to 60 Susan and I rose early in 61 "It's so lovely," Susan said, clutching my hand, and I agreed. 62 Overhead the sea gulls wheeled and cried as we walked barefoot in the cool, wet sand. After a distance, we stopped, and I sat with my back close to a dune, while Susan kept to the shoreline, staring out to sea or looking about for interesting shells or stones. Often she turned and looked at me, the bright early morning sun framing her back. 63 First love, I thought, may cut and mark us the deepest, but love that lasts and grows does so because it joins and nurtures what is dearest, finest and noblest in two people. And because it understands and forgives what is less so. 64 First love may register in the blood with dizzying effect, but the love that endures takes up residence in the soul. In this way, love becomes something far more powerful than bone and flesh. It completes us, gives us the wholeness we need to navigate safely through life. 65 I could have watched my wife for hours as the waves broke and advanced toward her bare feet. In a world sometimes marred by hurt and anguish, I felt profoundly grateful that the sun had risen for me on such a love. I could feel it now flowing from me to her and back to me again, joined everywhere, complete, like the seas, and a harbor against all tempests. (1,688 words) ( Albert DiBartolomeo Readers Digest Feb. 2000 ) Words and Expressions: busboy [5bQsbRi] n. （美）餐厅侍者助手 laze [leiz] v. 懒散 sprint [sprint] v. 全速奔跑 lull [lQl] n. 暂时呆滞时期 delirium [di5liriE(r)] n. 发狂 daze [deiz] n. 恍惚 the Shakespeare sonnets 莎士比亚的十四行诗 loaf [lEJf] v. 闲逛 anguish [5ANgwiF] n. 极度痛苦 wary [5wZEri] a. 谨慎的 divulge [di5vQldV] v. 泄露 cloister [5klRistE(r)] v. 使与世隔绝 heirloom [5ZElU:m] n. 祖传遗物 hush [hQF] n. 静寂 clutch [klQtF] v. 紧紧握住 dune [djU:n] n. 土丘 mar [mB:] n. 损伤 tempest [5tempist] n. 暴风雨 COMPREHENSION CHECK I. Short answer questions: 1. What is the writer’s comment on “ first love”? 2. Why did the writer become wary of opening to anyone after the anguish of Jayne? 3. What love is true love in his opinion? 4. When did the write come to know what true love was? II. Translate the underlined sentences in the passage. 1. I pictured myself sitting on the porch leisurely reading novels, lazing on the beach under clear skies, and sprinting to work on my bicycle for the sheer pleasure of feeling the power of my own youthful body. 2. I spent the rest of the afternoon in a daze that barely diminished over the remaining three weeks of summer. 3. … , it was one of Susan's virtues not to allow the wounds that come with life to crowd out the joys, 4. Some nights a pathway of moonlight lay across the water, connecting the shore to the horizon. 5. Often she turned and looked at me, the bright early morning sun framing her back. Reference key: I. 1. First love may cut and mark us the deepest, register in the blood with dizzy effect. 2. He was badly hurt in his love with Jayne and he didn’t want to be hurt once again. 3. The true love joins and nurtures what is dearest, finest and noblest in two people. It takes residence in the soul. In this way, it completes us, give us the wholeness we need to navigate safely through life. 4. When both of them revealed their own secret fears, sensitive injuries and wishes to each other. II. 1. 我想象着自己坐在长廊里悠闲地读着小说，在晴空下的海滩上懒散地打发时光，飞快地骑着自行车去上班， 只是为了感受自己体内那种青春勃发的力量。 2. 在那个下午剩余的时间里。我都处于神思恍惚之中。而这种情绪，再夏天最后的三个月内几乎没有改变。 3. 苏姗的优点之一就是不让生活中的痛苦挤走快乐。 4. 有些夜晚，月光在海面上铺成一条小路，连接着海岸和地平线。 5. 不时的，她转过身来看着我，清晨明媚的阳光勾勒出她的轮廓。 |