Unit 2 课文

Unit 2

T1

War

1 The passengers had had to stop at a small station in order to continue their journey by the small old-fashioned local train.

2 At dawn, a bulky woman in deep mourning was hoisted in – almost like a shapeless bundle. Behind her, puffing and moaning, followed her husband – a tiny man, thin and weakly, looking shy and uneasy.

3 Having at last taken a seat he politely thanked the passengers who had helped his wife and made room for her. The wife pulled up her collar again to her eyes, so as to hide her face.

4 And he felt it his duty to explain to his traveling companions that the war was taking away from her her only son, a boy of 20 to whom both had devoted their entire life, even allowing him to volunteer for war and now, all of a sudden, receiving a wire saying that he was due to leave in three days' time and asking them to go and see him off.

5 The woman under the big coat was feeling certain that all those explanations would not have aroused even a shadow of sympathy from those people who – most likely – were in the same plight as herself. One of them said:

6 "What about me? I have two sons and three nephews at the front. "

7 "Maybe, but in our case it is our only son," ventured the husband.

8 "What difference can it make? You may spoil your only son by excessive attentions, but you cannot love him more than you would all your other children if you had any. Parental love is not like bread that can be broken to pieces and split amongst the children in equal shares. If I am suffering now for my two sons, I am not suffering half for each of them but double … "

9 "True … true …" sighed the embarrassed husband, "but suppose a father has two sons at the front and he loses one of them, there is still one left to console him … while …"

10 "Yes," answered the other, "a son left to console him but also a son left for whom he must survive, while in the case of the father of an only son if the son dies the father can die too and put an end to his distress."

11 "Nonsense," interrupted another traveler, a fat, red-faced man with bloodshot eyes.

12 He was panting. From his bulging eyes seemed to spurt inner violence of an uncontrolled vitality which his weakened body could hardly contain.

13 "Do we give life to our own children for our own benefit?"

14 The other travelers stared at him in distress. One of them said "You are right. Our children do not belong to us, they belong to the country …"

15 "Bosh," retorted the fat traveler. "Do we think of the country when we give life to our children? Our sons are born because … well, because they must be born. Now, at our age, the love of our country is still great, of course, but stronger is the love of our children."

16 There was a silence all round, everybody nodding to approve.

17 "Why then," continued the fat man, "shouldn't we consider the feelings of our children? Isn't it natural that at their age they should consider the love for their country even greater than the love for us? Everyone should stop crying; everyone should laugh … or at least thank God – as I do – because my son sent me a message saying that he was dying satisfied at having ended his life in the best way he could have wished. That is why I do not even wear mourning … "

18 He shook his light fawn coat as to show it; his livid lip over his missing teeth was trembling, his eyes were watery and motionless, and soon after he ended with a shrill laugh which might well have been a sob.

19 "Quite so … quite so …" agreed the others.

20 The woman had tried to find in the words of her husband and her friends something to console her in her deep sorrow, something that might show her how a mother should resign herself to send her son not even to death but to a probable danger of life.

21 Yet not a word had she found amongst the many that had been said and her grief had been greater in seeing that nobody could share her feelings.

22 But now the words of the traveler amazed and almost stunned her. She suddenly realized that it wasn't the others who could not understand her but herself who could not rise up to the same height of those fathers and mothers willing to resign themselves, without crying, not only to the departure of their sons but even to their death.

23 She bent over from her corner trying to listen with great attention to the details which the fat man was giving to his companions about the way his son had fallen as a hero, for his King and his country, happy and without regrets. It seemed to her that she had stumbled into a world she had never dreamt of.

24 Then suddenly, just as if she had heard nothing of what had been said and almost as if waking up from a dream, she turned to the old man, and inquired:

25 "Then … is your son really dead?"

26 Everyone stared at her. The old man, too, turned to look at her, fixing his great, bulging, horribly watery light gray eyes, deep in her face. For some time he tried to answer, but words failed him. He had suddenly realized at last that his son was really dead – gone forever – forever. His face contracted, became horribly distorted, then he snatched in haste a handkerchief from his pocket and, to the amazement of everyone, broke into harrowing, heart-breaking, uncontrollable sobs.

战争

1 旅客们不得不在一个小站停留，准备换乘老式小火车继续他们的旅程。

2 天亮时，一个深陷哀恸的大块头女人被架了进来——差不多像一捆没形的包袱卷。跟在她身后，喘着粗气呻吟着的，是她的丈夫——一个小个子男人，又瘦又弱，表情羞怯不安。

3 终于落了座，他彬彬有礼地感谢帮助他妻子、给她腾地儿的乘客。他妻子又扯起衣领，盖上眼睛，把脸遮住。

4 他觉得有义务向旅伴们解释：战争就要夺走她的独生子，一个二十岁的小伙子，他们两口子把一辈子的心血都花在他身上，甚至允许他自愿参战；现在突然接到电报，说他三天之后就要开拔，要他们去为他送行。

5 裹在大衣下面的女人确信这些解释全然不会引起这些人哪怕一丁点儿的同情——他们极有可能像她自己一样处在同样的痛苦当中。他们当中有人说：

6 “我呢？我有两个儿子和三个侄子在前线呢。”

7 “也许，可我们的情况是，那是我们唯一的儿子，”那位丈夫壮起胆子说。

8 “那又有什么不同呢？你可能会因为过度关心把你的独生子惯坏，可是如果你有别的孩子，你也不可能爱他胜过爱其他孩子。父母之爱不像面包，可以掰开，平均分给孩子们。如果说现在我正在为我的两个儿子受煎熬的话，我不是在为他们每人受一半的苦，而是加倍受苦……”

9 “是啊……是啊……”那位丈夫尴尬地叹息道，“可是如果一个父亲有两个儿子在前线，他失去其中的一个，还剩一个可以安慰他……而……”

10 “对呀，”对方回答说，“剩下一个儿子安慰他，他也要为这个儿子活下去，而独生子父亲的情况是，如果儿子死了，父亲也可以一死了却痛苦。”

11 “胡说，”另一位旅客插话说。这是个肥胖、红脸的男人，眼睛里布满血丝。

12 他气喘吁吁的。一股无法控制的活力在内心激烈震荡，似乎要从他那鼓凸的双眼里迸发出来，他衰弱的身体几乎控制不了他的情绪。

13 “我们赋予孩子生命难道就是为了自己得到好处吗？”

14 其他旅客都悲伤地盯着他。其中一位说：“你是对的。我们的孩子不属于我们，他们属于国家……”

15 “胡扯，”胖旅客反驳说。“我们给孩子生命的时候想到国家了吗？我们的儿子出生是因为……呃，因为他们必须出生。现在，在我们这个岁数，当然，对国家的爱依然强烈，但对我们孩子的爱更强烈。”

16 周围一片沉默，人人都点头赞同。

17 “那么，”胖男人继续说道，“我们为什么不应该考虑孩子们的感情呢？在他们这个年纪，他们理应认为对国家的爱大于对我们的爱，这不是很自然吗？人人都应当停止哭泣；人人都应当大笑……或者至少感谢上帝——像我一样——因为我儿子寄给我一封信，说他就要死了，并为能以自己所希望的最佳方式结束生命而感到满足。这就是为什么我甚至都没有穿丧服……”

18 他抖抖他那浅黄褐色大衣，好像是在展示它；他豁牙上铁青的嘴唇在颤抖；他的双眼湿润、目光呆滞；很快他尖声大笑了一下——也可能是一声抽泣，算是说完了。

19 “的确如此……的确如此……”其他人表示同意。

20 那个女人一直试图从她丈夫和朋友的话里找些什么来安慰深陷忧伤的自己，以明白一个母亲应该怎样听天由命，她并不是送儿子去死，而是送他去一个极可能有生命危险的地方。

21 然而她在人们所说的许多话里并未找到一句安慰的话。眼看没有人可以与她分忧，她就愈发痛苦了。

22 可是现在，那旅客的话让她吃惊，几乎让她震惊。她忽然意识到，不是别人不理解她，而是她自己不能达到那些父母的高度；他们没有哭泣，而是听天由命，不仅接受儿子的离去，甚至还接受儿子的死。

23 她从角落里欠起身来，想仔细听清楚。那个胖男人正在给旅伴们讲述他儿子如何为国王和国家战死而成为英雄，幸福且没有遗憾。她觉得自己跌跌撞撞走进了一个从未梦见过的世界里。

24 然后突然，就好像她根本没听见别人说的话，仿佛刚从睡梦中醒来，她转向那位老人，问道：

25 “那么……你儿子真的死了吗？”

26 人人都盯着她看。那位老人也转过脸来看她，他那大大的、鼓凸的、湿润得可怕的浅灰色眼睛深深凝视着她的脸。有一阵子他试图回答，却说不出话来。他终于忽然意识到他的儿子真的死了——永远走了——永远。他的脸抽搐起来，扭曲得吓人，然后令所有人都吃惊的是，他匆忙从衣袋里掏出手帕，爆发出令人心碎的、悲痛欲绝的、抑制不住的抽泣。

T2

How empathy unfolds

1 The moment Hope, just nine months old, saw another baby fall, tears welled up in her own eyes and she crawled off to be comforted by her mother, as though it were she who had been hurt. And 15-month-old Michael went to get his own teddy bear for his crying friend Paul; when Paul kept crying, Michael retrieved Paul's security blanket for him. Both these small acts of sympathy and caring were observed by mothers trained to record such incidents of empathy in action. The results of the study suggest that the roots of empathy can be traced to infancy. Virtually from the day they are born infants are upset when they hear another infant crying – a response some see as the earliest precursor of empathy.

2 Developmental psychologists have found that infants feel sympathetic distress even before they fully realize that they exist apart from other people. Even a few months after birth, infants react to a disturbance in those around them as though it were their own, crying when they see another child's tears. By one year or so, they start to realize the misery is not their own but someone else's, though they still seem confused over what to do about it. In research by Martin L.Hoffman at New York University, for example, a one-year-old brought his own mother over to comfort a crying friend, ignoring the friend's mother, who was also in the room. This confusion is seen too when one-year-olds imitate the distress of someone else, possibly to better comprehend what they are feeling; for example, if another baby hurts her fingers, a one-year-old might put her own fingers in her mouth to see if she hurts, too. On seeing his mother cry, one baby wiped his own eyes, though they had no tears.

3 Such motor mimicry, as it is called, is the original technical sense of the word empathy as it was first used in the 1920s by E.B.Titchener, an American psychologist. Titchener's theory was that empathy stemmed from a sort of physical imitation of the distress of another, which then evokes the same feelings in oneself. He sought a word that would be distinct from sympathy, which can be felt for the general plight of another with no sharing whatever of what that other person is feeling.

4 Motor mimicry fades from toddlers' repertoire at around two and a half years, at which point they realize that someone else's pain is different from their own, and are better able to comfort them. A typical incident, from a mother's diary:

5 A neighbor's baby cries and Jenny approaches and tries to give him some cookies. She follows him around and begins to whimper to herself. She then tries to stroke his hair, but he pulls away … He calms down, but Jenny still looks worried. She continues to bring him toys and to pat his head and shoulders.

6 At this point in their development toddlers begin to diverge from one another in their overall sensitivity to other people's emotional upsets, with some, like Jenny, keenly aware and others tuning out. A series of studies by Marian Radke-Yarrow and Carolyn Zahn-Waxler at the National Institute of Mental Health showed that a large part of this difference in empathic concern had to do with how parents disciplined their children. Children, they found, were more empathic when the discipline included calling strong attention to the distress their misbehaviour caused someone else: "Look how sad you've made her feel" instead of "That was naughty". They found too that children's empathy is also shaped by seeing how others react when someone else is distressed; by imitating what they see, children develop a repertoire of empathic response, especially in helping other people who are distressed.

同感是怎样表露的

1 霍普才九个月大，一见到另一个婴儿摔倒，泪水就涌了出来。她爬到妈妈身边寻求安慰，就好像是她自己摔疼了。15个月大的迈克尔把自己的玩具熊拿来给正在大哭的朋友保罗；保罗不停地大哭的时候，迈克尔替保罗捡回他的安乐毯。这些小小的表示同情和关爱的举动都是接受过记录同感行为训练的母亲们观察到的。这项研究的结果表明，同感的根源可以追溯到人的婴儿期。实际上，从出生的那天起，婴儿在听到其他婴儿哭闹的时候就会感到不安——有些人认为这种反应是同感的最初先兆。

2 成长心理学家发现，甚至在充分意识到自己是独立于其他人而存在之前，婴儿就感受到了同情的苦恼。甚至在出生后几个月，婴儿就会对周围人的烦躁不安做出反应，就好像他们自己的烦躁不安一样，看到别的孩子哭也跟着哭。到了一岁左右，他们开始意识到痛苦不是他们的，而是别人的，可是他们对这样的事情似乎还是感到不知所措。例如，在纽约大学的马丁•L.霍夫曼所做的一项研究中，一个一岁的孩子把自己的妈妈拉过来安慰哭闹的朋友，却忽视了同在一室的朋友的妈妈。这样的困惑在其他一岁大的孩子身上也能看到，他们模仿别的孩子的痛苦，也许是为了更好地理解他们的感受。例如，如果别的婴儿伤了手指，一个一岁大的孩子就会把自己的手指放进嘴里，看看自己是否也感觉到痛。看到自己的妈妈哭，婴儿即使没有眼泪，也会擦拭自己的眼睛。

3 这种所谓的运动神经模仿就是“同感”的原始技术含义，而“同感”这个词于20世纪20年代由美国心理学家E.B.铁钦纳首次使用。铁钦纳的理论是：同感发自对他人痛苦的一种身体模仿；这种模仿继而在自身引起同样的心理感受。他当时在寻找一个与“同情”有所区别的词；同情是针对他人的一般困境而发的，无须分担他人的任何感受。

4 小孩两岁半左右就渐渐不再有运动神经模仿行为，那时他们会意识到别人的痛苦与自己的不同，会更有能力安慰别人。下面是摘自一位母亲日记里的典型事例：

5 邻居家的婴儿哭了，珍妮走上前去，试图给他一些小甜饼。她跟着他转，开始带着哭腔低声自言自语。然后她试图抚摸他的头发，可是他躲开了……他平静下来，但是珍妮仍然面带忧色。她继续给他拿来玩具，轻拍他的头和肩膀。

6 在这个年龄，幼儿对于他人感情波动的总体敏感度开始有所不同，有些像珍妮一样，感同身受，有些则不予理睬。美国国家心理健康研究所的玛丽安•拉德克－亚罗和卡罗琳•察恩－瓦克斯勒所做的一系列研究表明，这种在同感关注方面的差异大部分与父母怎样教养子女有关。她们发现，如果在家教中让孩子特别注意他们的恶作剧给别人造成的痛苦，比如对孩子说“瞧你让她多伤心啊”，而不是说“你真调皮”，孩子就比较有同感心。她们也发现，观看别人遇到痛苦时其他人的反应，儿童的同感心也会受到影响。通过模仿亲眼所见，儿童能培养出一套同感反应行为，尤其是在帮助那些痛苦的人的时候。

T3

Keep smiling

1 A couple of months ago I read an interesting article in a popular science magazine about how people from different cultures reveal their emotions through facial expressions. It said that Russians show the least emotion in their expressions – and Americans show the most. This seemed very interesting, but as an Indian I found I was even more interested to read what the researchers had to say about people who smile the most. India was quite near the bottom of the list – 124th, to be precise, while Denmark was at the top.

2 This made me think about myself, and my own experience. I remember that my daughter – she must have been about eight at the time – once asked me, "Dad, why is it that you only smile when foreigners come to the house?" And I realized that she was right. I usually only smiled when we had visitors from other countries and I made a conscious effort to change my normal facial behaviour. So I decided to start to smile more, around the house, and at work too.

3 At first I had to force myself to do it. I remember reading somewhere that we use a lot more muscles when we frown than we do when we smile. But we still need to make an effort to smile – it's a learned behaviour, not a reflex action. But the curious thing is that, even as I lift those muscles at the side of my mouth, it makes me happy. In other words, the facial reaction enhances the emotion that it is expressing.

4 A few days ago I made a train journey in the south of India. Sitting next to me was a young man who helped to make me comfortable by moving his bag to make more room for me. As he did so, he was smiling. The next thing I knew, we had settled into our seats and were chatting together about ourselves (in English). He said he worked in Europe, in a science laboratory, and added that living in a foreign country had made him change his body language and his facial expressions. By the time I reached my destination we had exchanged email addresses and arranged to meet again. It felt as if we were old friends – just because a young man had chosen to smile to a stranger on a crowded train.

保持微笑

1 几个月以前，我在一份科普杂志上读到一篇有趣的文章，文章是关于不同文化背景下的人们是如何通过面部表情流露情感的。文章说，俄国人在面部表情中流露的情感最少——美国人流露的最多。这似乎非常有趣。但作为印度人，我觉得更有趣的是，研究人员还研究了哪个国家的人笑得最多。印度人在排行榜上几乎是垫底的——准确地说，位于第124名，而丹麦人则居于首位。

2 这使我想到自己以及自己的经历。我记得我的女儿——那时候她肯定是八岁左右——曾经问我：“爸爸，为什么只有当外国人到家里来的时候你才微笑？”我意识到自己确实像她说的那样。通常，只有当外国客人来访时我才微笑。有外国客人时，我会有意识地努力改变我正常的面部表情。从女儿提醒我之后，我决定开始更多地微笑，在家里这样，上班也一样。

3 起初，我得强迫自己微笑。我记得在什么地方读到过，我们皱眉的时候比微笑的时候动用的肌肉要多得多。可是我们依然需要努力才会微笑——那是一种习得的行为，而不是一种反射动作。但令人奇怪的是，只要我拉起嘴角的肌肉，就觉得快乐。换句话说，面部反应能增强其所表达的情感。

4 几天前，我乘火车在印度南部旅行。我身边坐着一位年轻人，为了让我坐得舒服，他挪了挪包以便给我腾出更大的地方。他挪包的时候，一直在微笑。随后我们就各自落座，一起（用英语）聊起了各自的情况。他说，他在欧洲一间科学实验室工作，接着又说，在外国生活的经历改变了他的身体语言和面部表情。在我到达目的地之前，我们交换了电子邮件地址，并约好以后再见。我们一见如故——就因为在拥挤的火车上，一位年轻人选择了对陌生人微笑。