Unit5FourteenSteps课文翻译综合教程二(20200702124818)

Unit 5 Fourteen Steps

Hal Manwaring

1

They say a cat has nine lives,

1

and I am inclined to think that possible since I am now living my third life and I

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m

not even a cat. My first life began on a clear, cold day in November 1934, when I arrived as the sixth of eight children

of a farming family.

My father died when I was 15, and we had a hard struggle to make a living. As the children grew up, they married,

leaving only one sister and myself to support and care for Mother, who became paralyzed in her last years and died

while still in her 60s. My sister married soon after, and I followed her example within the year.

2

This was when I began to enjoy my first life. I was very happy, in excellent health, and quite a good athlete. My wife

and I became the parents of two lovely girls. I had a good job in San Jose and a beautiful home up the peninsula in

San Carlos. Life was a pleasant dream. Then the dream ended. I became afflicted with a slowly progressive disease

of the motor nerves, affecting first my right arm and leg, and the n my other side. Thus bega n my sec ond life

…

3

In spite of my disease I still drove to and from work each day, with the aid of

special equipment installed in my car. And I managed to keep my health and optimism, to a degree, because of 14

steps.

4

Crazy? Not at all. Our home was a split-level affair with 14 steps leading up from

the garage to the kitchen door. Those steps were a gauge of life. They were my yardstick, my challenge to continue

living. I felt that if the day arrived

when I was

unable to lift one foot up one step and then drag the other painfully after it

—

repeating the process 14 times until,

utterly spent, I would be through

—

I could then

admit defeat and lie down and die.

2

So I kept on working, kept on climbing those steps. And time passed. The girls

went to college and were happily married, and my wife and I were alone in our beautiful home with the 14 steps.

5

You might think that here walked a man of courage and strength. Not so. Here hobbled a bitterly disillusioned cripple,

a man who held on to his sanity and his wife and his home and his job because of 14 miserable steps leading up to

the back door from his garage.

3

As I became older, I became more disillusioned and frustrated.

6

Then on a dark night in August, 1971, I began my third life. It was raining when I started home that night; gusty winds

and slashing rain beat down on the car as I drove slowly down one of the less- traveled roads.

4

Suddenly the steering

wheel jerked in my hands and the car swerved violently to the right. In the same instant I

heard the dreaded bang of a blowout. I fought the car to stop on the rain-slick

shoulder of the road and sat there as the enormity of the situation swept over me.

5

It

was impossible for me to change that tire! Utterly impossible! A thought that a passing motorist might stop was

dismissed at once. Why should anyone? I knew I wouldn

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t! Then I remembered that a short distance up a little side

road was a house. I started the engine and thumped slowly along, keeping well over on the shoulder until I came to

the dirt road, where I turned in

—

thankfully. Lighted windows welcomed me to the house and I pulled into the

driveway and honked the horn.

7

The door opened and a little girl stood there, peering at me. I rolled down the

window and called out that I had a flat tire and needed someone to change it for me because I had a crutch and

couldn

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dto it myself. She went into the house and a moment later came out bundled in raincoat and hat, followed by

a man who called a cheerful greeting. I sat there comfortable and dry, and felt a bit sorry for the man and the little girl

working so hard in the storm. Well, I would pay them for it. The rain seemed to be slackening a bit now, and I rolled

down the window all the way to watch. It seemed to me that they were awfully slow and I was beginning to become

impatient. I heard the clank of metal from the back of the car and the little girl

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s voice came clearly to me.

“

Here

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s -t

h

eanjadclek, Grandpa.

”

She was answered by the murmur o f the man

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s lower voice and the slow tilting of

the car as it was jacked up.

6

There followed a long interval of noises, jolts and low conversation from the back of the

car, but finally it was done. I felt the car bump as the jack was removed, and I heard the slam of the truck lid, and

then they were standing at my car window.

8

He was an old man, stooped and frail-looking under his slicker. The little girl was about eight or ten, I judged, with a

merry face and a wide smile as she looked up at me. He said ,

“

This is a bad night for car trouble, but you

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re all

set now.

” “

Than

I said.

“

How much do I owe you?

”

He shook his head.

“

Nothing. Cynthia told me you

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d do the same for me.

“

No! I like to pay my way.

”

He

were a cripple

—

on crutches. Glad to be of help. I know you

There

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s no charge, friend.

”

I held ou- tdaolflaivrebill.

made no effort to take it and the little girl stepped closer to the window and said quietly,

“

Grandpa can

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t see it.

”

9

In the next few frozen seconds the shame and horror of that moment penetrated

and I was sick with an intensity I had never felt before.

7

A blind man and a child! Fumbling, feeling with cold, wet

fingers for bolts and tools in the dark

—

a darkness that for him would probably never end until death. I don

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t

orewmleomngbeI rsaht

there after they said good night and left me, but it was long enough for me to search deep within myself and find

some disturbing traits. I realized that I was filled to

overflowing

with self-pity,

selfishness, indifferenee to the needs of others and

thoughtlessness.

8

I sat there and said a prayer.

10

“

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even

so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

9

'To me now, mon ths later, this

Scriptural admonition is more than just a passage in the Bible. It is a way of life, one

that I am trying to follow. It isn

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t always easy. Sometimes it is frustrating, sometimes

expe nsive in both time and mon ey, but the value is there. I am trying now not only to

climb 14 steps each day, but in my small way to help others. Someday, perhaps, I will

eha nge a tire for a bli nd man in a car

—

some one as bli nd as I had bee n.