2015年河海大学研究生英语一Unit18ThreeDaystoSee.doc

Unit 18 Three Days to See
All of us have read thrilling 使人激动的
stories in which the hero had only a limited and specified 明确规定的
time to live. Sometimes it was as long as a year; sometimes as short as twenty-four hours. But always we were interested in discovering just how the doomed man chose to spend his last days or his last hours. I speak, of course, of free men who have a choice, not condemned criminals whose sphere of activities is strictly delimited有界限的
.
我们大家都读过激动人心的故事,故事里的主人公只能活在有限并且特定的时间内,有时长达一年,有时短到24小时。然而我们总是非常感兴趣地去探究,那命中注定难逃一死的人是怎样选择度过他最后的时日。当然,我说的是那些有选择权的自由人,而不是那些活动范围受到严格限制的判了刑的犯人。
Such stories set us thinking, wondering what we should do under similar circumstances. What events, what experiences, what associations should we crowd into those last hours as mortal beings? What happiness should we find in reviewing the past, what regrets?
这样的故事发人深省,使我们想到在相似的情况下,我们该怎么做。人终有一死,应该在临终的几个小时内安排什么事情,什么经历,什么联系呢?回顾往事时,我们会找到什么快乐?什么悔恨?
Sometimes I have thought it would be an excellent rule to live each day as if we should die tomorrow. Such an attitude would emphasize sharply the values of life. We should live each day with a gentleness, a vigor, and a keenness of appreciation which are often lost when time stretches before us in the constant panorama 一连串的景象
of more days and months and years e. There are those, of course, who would adopt the Epicurean motto of "Eat, dri