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[00:00.00]喜欢chazidian.com,就把chazidian.com复制到QQ个人资料中!Lesson 36 A chance in a million
[00:03.80]36 百万分之一的机遇
[00:07.60]Listen to the tape then answer the question below.
[00:15.99]听录音,然后回答以下问题.
[00:24.37]What was the chance in a million?
[00:26.71]什么是百万分之一的机遇?
[00:29.05]We are less credulous than we used to be.
[00:30.72]我们不再像以往那样轻易相信别人了.
[00:32.39]In the nineteenth century,
[00:33.32]在19世纪,
[00:34.25]a novelist would bring his story to a conclusion
[00:36.08]小说家常在小说结尾处
[00:37.90]by presenting his readers with a series of coincidences
[00:40.03]给读者准备一系列巧合
[00:42.16]most of them wildly improbable.
[00:43.78]大部分是牵强附会,极不可能的
[00:45.40]Readers happily accepted the fact
[00:46.72]当时的读者却愉快地接受这样事实
[00:48.04]that an obscure maidservant was really the hero's mother
[00:50.26]一个低贱的女佣实际上是主人公的母亲.
[00:52.48]A long-lost brother,who was presumed dead,
[00:54.22]主人公一位长期失散的兄弟,大家都以为死了
[00:55.95]was really alive all the time
[00:57.23]实际上一直活着,
[00:58.51]and wickedly plotting to bring about the hero's downfall.And so on
[01:01.19]并且正在策划暗算主人公,如此等等.
[01:03.87]Modern readers would find such naive solutions totally unacceptable
[01:06.48]现代读者会觉得这种天真的结局完全无法接受
[01:09.09]Yet,in real life,
[01:10.20]不过,在现实生活中,
[01:11.31]circumstances do sometimes conspire to bring about coincidences
[01:13.95]有时确实会出现一些巧合,
[01:16.59]which anyone but a nineteenth century novelist would find incredible
[01:19.11]这些巧合除了19世纪小说家谁也不会相信.
[01:21.63]When I was a boy,
[01:22.47]当我是个孩子的时候,
[01:23.30]my grandfather told me how a German taxi driver,Franz Bussman,
[01:26.18]我祖父给我讲了一位德国出租车司机弗朗兹.巴斯曼
[01:29.05]found a brother who was thought to have been killed twenty years before
[01:31.53]如何找到了据信已在20年前死去的兄弟的事
[01:34.01]While on a walking tour with his wife,he stopped to talk to a workman
[01:36.50]一次,他与妻子徒步旅行.途中,停下来与一个工人交谈
[01:38.98]After they had gone on,
[01:40.00]接着他们继续往前走去.
[01:41.02]Mrs.Bussman commented on the workman's close resemblance to her husband
[01:43.90]巴斯曼夫人说那工人与她丈夫相貌很像
[01:46.79]and even suggested that he might be his brother
[01:48.62]甚至猜测他可能就是她丈夫的兄弟.
[01:50.45]Franz poured scorn on the idea,
[01:52.17]弗朗兹对此不屑一顾,
[01:53.89]pointing out that his brother had been killed in action during the war
[01:56.31]指出他兄弟已经在战争中阵亡了.
[01:58.73]Though Mrs.Bussman was fully acquainted with this story
[02:00.91]尽管巴斯曼夫人熟知这个情况,
[02:03.09]she thought that there was a chance in a million that she might be right
[02:05.66]但她仍然认为自己的想法仍有百万分之一的可能性
[02:08.24]A few days later,she sent a boy to the workman to ask him
[02:10.52]几天后,她派了一个男孩去问那人
[02:12.81]if his name was Hans Bussman.
[02:14.33]他是否名叫汉斯.巴斯曼.
[02:15.86]Needless to say,the man's name was Hans Bussman
[02:18.08]不出巴斯曼夫人所料,那人的名字真是汉斯.巴斯曼
[02:20.30]and he really was Franz's long-lost brother.
[02:22.29]他确实是弗朗兹失散了多年的兄弟
[02:24.27]When the brothers were reunited,
[02:25.35]兄弟俩团聚之时,
[02:26.42]Hans explained how it was that he was still alive.
[02:28.58]汉斯说明了他活下来的经过.
[02:30.75]After having been wounded towards the end of the war,
[02:32.58]战争即将结束时,他负伤
[02:34.41]he had been sent to hospital and was separated from his unit.
[02:36.53]被送进医院,并与部队失去联系
[02:38.64]The hospital had been bombed
[02:39.92]医院遭到轰炸,
[02:41.20]and Hans had made his way back into Western Germany on foot.
[02:43.53]汉斯步行回到了西德.
[02:45.85]Meanwhile,his unit was lost and all records of him had been destroyed
[02:48.78]同时,他所在部队被击溃,他所有档案全部被毁
[02:51.70]Hans returned to his family home,but the house had been bombed
[02:54.04]汉斯重返故里,但他的家已被炸毁,
[02:56.38]and no one in the neighbourhood knew what had become of the inhabitants
[02:58.65]左邻右舍谁也不知原住户的下落