第十三课 No signposts in the sea Paraphrase 1. I was once so completely absorbed in the important affairs of the world that I devoted all my attention, time and energy to them and only occasionally did I allow myself a little rest by reading poetry or listening music. 2. Or maybe my suppressed inclination has been brought out under Laura’s unintentional influence. 3. I was as puritanical as a Pharisee and I viewed with contempt all those who lived a less practical life than my own and regarded them as creatures on the moon. 4. I firmly believed in uncompromising materialism which in my opinion represented the law of human progress. When people claimed that they protested against damaging natural beauty out of unselfish motives, I suspected them and viewed them with contempt. I not only disbelieved people when they said things out of unselfish motives, I also held them in contempt. 5. Just imagine how I have changed now. Here I stand, sentimental and sensitive, like an old unmarried woman painting a water-color picture of the sunset. 6. I want to enjoy beauty to my heart’s content before I die. 7. At this moment I am not the middle-aged journalist that people believe me to be, spending a holiday on an ocean-going liner. I have now become a liberated person, bathed in magic waters, and I feel I am like Endymion, a young and strong youth who has a god for his father and gifted with the power to see the world inspired by the gods at Olympus. 8. I feel that I am weightless and totally absorbed by the night and feel at peace with the night. 9. I imagine devoted religions people must feel as clean and pure as I do now when they leave the solemn confessional after gaining pardon for their sins. 10. In the same way I let myself freely imagine what the innermost part of Laura ‟s character presents. She looks so severe outwardly, but inwardly she is full of tenderness---tenderness like delicate flowers waiting for the daring to discover them.