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新高考英语读后续写语料积累系列之《走一步，再走一步》
The Lesson of the Cliff
走一步，再走一步
By
Morton Hunt
(
USA
)
It was
a sweltering July
day
（闷热的七月
At
some
point,
I
looked
back
and
was
某日）
in I can feel it still,
56 years later. The five
horrified.
The
ground
at
the
base
of
the
cliff
boys
I
was
with
had
grown
tired
of
playing
seemed
very far below; one slip and I would fall,
marbles and burning holes in dry leaves
with a lens
bouncing off the cliff face
and ending on the rocks.
and
were
cast
ing
about for
（
苦苦搜寻）
so
mething
There, shattered and
strangl(e)
ing
（窒息）
else.
on
my
own
blood,
I
would
gurgle,
twitch
a
few
“Hey!”
said
freckle-
faced
（满脸雀斑的）
times and then
expire
（断气）
, like
the cat I had
little Ned. “I got an
idea. We haven't climbed the
seen run
over a few days earlier.
cliff for a long while.”
But the boys were
chatter
ing
（喋喋不休）
“Let’s go!”
said someone else.
And off they
above
me
on
an
earthen
ledge
two
thirds
of
the
went
,
trotting and
pant
ing
< br>（气喘吁吁
.
pant for
way to the top. It was 5 or 6 feet deep
and some 15
breathe
上气不接下气）
like a pack of stray
dogs.
feet long. I
claw
ed
my way
up
（攀爬）
to them;
I
hesitated. I longed to be brave and active,
then I crawled as far back on the ledge
as I could,
like them, but I'd been a
sickly child most of my
huddle against
the rock face
（靠在岩壁上）
. The
eight
years
and
had
taken
heart
to
my
mother's
other
boys
stood
close
to
the
edge
and
boldly
admonitions to remember that I wasn't
as strong as
urinated into space; the
sight made me so
queasy
the
other boys and not to take chances.
（头晕的）
that
I
surreptitiously
（暗中地）
“C
ome on!” Called Jerry, my best friend “Just
clutch
ed
（紧抓）
at the rocks behind me.
because you've been sick is no reason
to be a sissy.”
In a few minutes they
started up to the top.
“I'm
coming!” I yelled, and ran along after
them.
“Hey, wait!” I
croaked.
Through the park
and into the woods we
“So long! See you
in the funny papers.” one
went, finally
emerging in a clearing.
At the far
of them said, and the others
laughed.
side, 40 or 50 feet
away,
loom
ed
（赫然耸立
）
the
“But
I
cannot,
I”
That
spurred
them
on:
cliff, a bristling, near vertical wall
of jutting rocks,
Jeering and
catcalling back to me, they wriggled
earth
slides,
scraggly
bushes
and
ailanthus
their way to the top, from where they
would walk
saplings. From the tumbled
rocks at its base to the
home by a
roundabout route. Before they left, they
fringe of sod at its top, it was only
about 60 feet
peer
ed
down
at
（仔细看）
me.
high,
but
to
me
it
look
ed
like
the
very
“you can stay if you want to”, mocked
Ned.
embodiment of the
Forbidden and Impossible
“It is all
yours.” Jerry looked concerned, but
（看起
来如同“禁忌”与“不可能”的化身）
.
he went with the others.
One by one, the other boys scrabbled
upward,
I
looked
down
and
was
overcome
by
finding
handholds
（放手之处）
and toeholds on
dizziness; a nameless force seemed to
be impelling
rock outcrops and earthen
ledges. I hung back until
me to fall
off. I lay clinging to the rock as the world
the
others
were
partway
up;
then
trembling
and
spun
around.
I
could
never
climb
back
down.
It
sweating,
I
began
to
climb. A
hand
here,
a
foot
was much too far to go, too hazardous;
partway, I
there,
my
heart
thumping
in
my
skinny
chest,
I
would grow feeble or
faint, lose my grip, fall and
made my
way up and up.
die.
But
the
way
up
to
the
top
was
even
worse-
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