歌词
--- lesson 36 A chance in a million
百万分之一的机遇
--- Listen to the tape then answer the question below.
^听录音，然后回答以下问题。
--- What was the chance in a million?
We are less credulous than we used to be.
^我们不再像以往那样轻易相信别人了。
In the nineteenth century, a novelist would bring his story to a conclusion by presenting his readers with a series of coincidences -- most of them wildly improbable.
^在19世纪，小说家常在小说结尾处给读者准备一系列的巧合--大部分是牵强附会，极不可能的。
Readers happily accepted the fact that an obscure maidservant was really the hero's mother.
^当时的读者却愉快地接受这样一些事实：一个低贱的女佣实际上是主人公的母亲；
A long-lost brother, who was presumed dead, was really alive all the time and wickedly plotting to bring about the hero's downfall. And so on.
^主人公一位长期失散的兄弟，大家都以为死了，实际上一直活着，并且正在策划暗算主人公；如此等等，
Modern readers would find such naive solutions totally unacceptable.
^现代读者会觉得这种天真的结局完全无法接受。
Yet, in real life, circumstances do sometimes conspire to bring about coincidences which anyone but a nineteenth century novelist would find incredible.
^不过，在现实生活中，有时确实会出现一些巧合，这些巧合除了19世纪小说家外谁也不会相信。
When I was a boy, my grandfather told me how a German taxi driver,
^当我是个孩子的时候，我祖父给我讲了一位德国出租汽车司机
Franz Bussman, found a brother who was thought to have been killed twenty years before.
^弗朗兹.巴斯曼如何找到了据信已在20年前死去的兄弟的事。
While on a walking tour with his wife, he stopped to talk to a workman.
^一次，他与妻子徒步旅行。途中，停下来与一个工人交谈，
After they had gone on, Mrs. Bussman commented on the workman's close resemblance to her husband and even suggested that he might be his brother.
^接着他们继续往前走去。巴斯曼夫人说那工人与她丈夫相貌很像，甚至猜测他可能就是她丈夫的兄弟。
Franz poured scorn on the idea, pointing out that his brother had been killed in action during the war.
^弗朗兹对此不屑一顾，指出他兄弟已经在战争中阵亡了。
Though Mrs. Busssman was fully acquainted with this story, she thought that there was a chance in a million that she might be right.
^尽管巴斯曼夫人熟知这个情况，但她仍然认为自己的想法仍有百万分之一的可能性。
A few days later, she sent a boy to the workman to ask him if his name was Hans Bussman.
^几天后，她派了一个男孩去问那人是否叫汉斯.巴斯曼。
Needless to say, the man's name was Hans Bussman and he really was Franz's long-lost brother.
^不出巴斯曼夫人所料，那人的名字真是汉斯.巴斯曼，他确实是弗朗兹失散了多年的兄弟。
When the brothers were reunited, Hans explained how it was that he was still alive.
^兄弟俩团聚之时，汉斯说明了他活下来的经过，
After having been wounded towards the end of the war, he had been sent to hospital and was separated from his unit.
^战争即将结束时，他负伤被送进医院，并与部队失去联系。
The hospital had been bombed and Hans had made his way back into Western Germany on foot.
^医院遭到轰炸，汉斯步行回到了西德。
Meanwhile, his unit was lost and all records of him had been destroyed.
^与此同时，他所在的部队被击溃，他的所有档案材料全部毁于战火。
Hans returned to his family home, but the house had been bombed and no one in the neighbourhood knew what had become of the inhabitants.
^汉斯重返故里，但他的家已被炸毁，左邻右舍谁也不知原住户的下落，
Assuming that his family had been killed during an air raid, Hans settled down in a village fifty miles away where he had remained ever since.
^汉斯以为全家人都在空袭中遇难，于是便在距此50英里外的一座村子里定居下来，直至当日。
专辑信息