自考英语综合二下册课文 lesson 14

　　[00:00.00]Lesson Fourteen

[00:03.40]Text The Listener

[00:08.15]John Berry

[00:11.00]Once there was a little concert violinist named Rudolf,who lived in Sweden.

[00:18.65]Some of his friends thought he was not the best of musicians

[00:25.03]because he was restless;

[00:28.87]others thought he was restless because he was not the best of musicians.

[00:34.22]At any rate,he hit upon a way of making a living,with no competitors.

[00:42.27]Whether by choice or necessity,

[00:47.73]he used to sail about Scandinavia in his small boat,

[00:53.50]all alone,giving concerts in little seaport 1 towns. well and good;

[01:02.04]if not,he played works for unaccompanied violin;

[01:07.19]and it happened once or twice

[01:11.03]that he wanted a piano so badly that he imagined one.

[01:16.90]and then he played whole sonatas 3 for violin and piano,with no piano in sight

[01:24.56]One year Rudolf sailed all the way out to Iceland

[01:29.84]and began working his way around that rocky coast from one town to another.

[01:36.60]It was a hard,stubborn land;

[01:40.57]but people in those difficult places

[01:45.01]do not forget the law of hospitality to the stranger

[01:50.89]for their God may decree that they too shall become strangers on the face of the earth.

[01:57.66]The audiences were small,and even if Rudolf had been really first-rate,

[02:05.02]they would not have been very demonstrative.

[02:09.78]From ancient timestheir energy had gone,first of all,into earnest toil 4.

[02:16.93]Sometimes the local schoolteacher,

[02:21.19]who reminded them of their duty to the names of Beethoven and Bach and Mozart

[02:28.56]and one or two others whose music perhaps

[02:33.73]was not much heard in those parts,collected them.

[02:38.77]Too often people sat stolidly 5 watching the noisy little fiddler,

[02:46.22]and went home feeling gravely edified 6.

[02:50.68]But they paid.

[02:53.74]As Rudolf was sailing from one town to the next along a sparsely 8 settled shore,

[03:00.69]the northeast turned black and menacing.

[03:04.84]A storm was bearing down upon Iceland.

[03:09.88]Rudolf was rounding a bleak 9, dangerous cape 10,

[03:14.64]and his map told him that the nearest harbor was half a day's journey away.

[03:21.30]He was starting to worry when he saw,

[03:25.45]less than a mile off shore,a lighthouse on a tiny rock island.

[03:32.30]At the base of the lighthouse was a deep,narrow cove,protected by cliffs.

[03:39.14]With some difficulty,in the rising seas,

[03:43.79]he put in thereand moored 11 to an iron ring that hung from the cliff.

[03:50.84]A flight of stairs,cut in the rock,led up to the lighthouse.

[03:56.90]On top of the cliff,outlined against the scudding 12 clouds,stood a man.

[04:03.88]"You are welcome!" the voice boomed over the sound of the waves

[04:10.64]that were already beginning to break over the island.

[04:14.90]Darkness fell quickly.

[04:18.56]The lighthouse keeper led his guest up

[04:23.24]the spiral stairs to the living room on the third floor,

[04:28.56]then busied himself in preparation for the storm.

[04:34.13]Above all, he had to attend to the great lamp in the tower,

[04:39.98]that dominated the whole region.

[04:44.03]It was a continuous light,intensified by reflectors,

[04:49.91]and eclipsed by shutters 13 at regular intervals 14.

[04:55.47]The duration of light was equal to that of darkness.

[05:00.75]The lighthouse keeper was a huge old man with a grizzled beard

[05:06.91]that came down over his chest.

[05:11.07]Slow, deliberate, bearlike,

[05:16.42]he moved without wasted motion about the limited world of which he was the master.

[05:23.55]He spoke 15 little,

[05:26.71]as if words had not much importance compared to the other forces that comprised his life.

[05:34.45]Yet he was equable,as those elements were not.

[05:40.09]After the supper of black bread and boiled potatoes,fish,cheese and hot tea,

[05:47.53]which they took in the kitchen above the living room,

[05:51.90]the two men sat and contemplated 16 each other's presence.

[05:57.07]Above them was the maintenance room,

[06:01.14]and above that the great lamp spoke majestic 17,

　　[06:06.00]silent messages of light to the ships at sea.

[06:11.15]The storm hammered like a battering 18 ram 19 on the walls of the lighthouse.

[06:17.70]Rudolf offered tobacco,feeling suddenly immature 20 as he did so.

[06:24.97]The old man smiled a little as he declined it by a slight movement of the head;

[06:31.44]it was as if he knew well the uses of tobacco and the need for offering it,

[06:38.81]and affirmed it all,yet — here he, too,

[06:44.17]was halfway 21 apologetic—was self-contained and without need of anything

[06:51.53]that was not already within his power.

[06:55.90]And he sat there,gentle and reflective,

[07:01.25]his great workman hands resting on outspread thighs 22.

[07:07.13]It seemed to Rudolf that the lighthouse keeper was entirely 23 aware

[07:12.88]of all the sounds of the storm and of its violent impact upon the lighthouse.

[07:20.63]But he knew them so well that he did not have to think about them:

[07:28.08]they were like the involuntary movements of his own heart and blood.

[07:34.43]In the same way,beneath the simple courtesy that made him speak

[07:40.90]and listen to his guest in specific ways,

[07:45.87]he was already calmly and mysteriously a part of him,

[07:51.61]as surely as the mainland was connected with the little island,

[07:57.05]and all the islands with one another so extensively,under the ocean.

[08:03.81]Gradually Rudolf drew forth 24 the sparse 7 data of the old man's.

[08:10.34]He had been born in this very lighthouse eighty-three years before

[08:17.19]when his father was the lighthouse keeper.

[08:21.24]His mother—the woman he had ever known

[08:26.70]—had taught him to read the Bible,he read it daily.

[08:32.55]He had no other books.

[08:36.31]As a musician, Rudolf had not had time to read much either

[08:43.08]but then,he had lived in cities

[08:47.52]He reached down and took beloved violin out of its case.

[08:53.16]"What do you make with that, sir?" the old man asked.

[08:58.44]For a second Rudolf thought his host might be joking;

[09:04.39]but serenity 25 of the other's expression reassured 26 him.

[09:10.45]There was not even curiosity about the instrument.

[09:16.02]but rather a whole interest in him,

[09:21.06]the person,that included his "work."

[09:26.10]In most circumstances Rue 27 would have found it hard to believe that there could exist someone

[09:34.15]who did not know what a violin was;

[09:38.82]yet now he had no inclination 28 to laugh.

[09:44.39]He felt small and inadequate 29.

[09:49.06]"I make ... music with it," he stammered 30 in a low voice.

[09:55.72]"Music,"the old man said ponderously 31.

[10:01.29]"I have heard of it.But I have never seen music."

[10:07.45]"One does not see music. One hears it."

[10:13.41]"Ah,yes,"the lighthouse keeper consented,as it were,with humility 32.

[10:21.27]His wide gray eyes rested upon the little fiddler

[10:26.63]and conferred upon him all the importance of which any individual is capable.

[10:33.78]Then something in the storm and the lighthouse and the old man exalted 33 Rudolf,

[10:41.15]filled him with compassion 34 and love

[10:45.83]and a spaciousness 35 infinitely 36 beyond himself.

[10:51.57]He wanted to strike a work of fire ar stars into being for the old man.

[10:59.44]And,with the storm as his accon panist,

[11:04.29]he stood and began to play

[11:08.37] —the Kreutzer Sonata 2 of Beethoven.

[11:12.81]The moments passed,moments that were days in the creation of

[11:19.47]that world of fire and stars; moments of the struggle of all men;

[11:25.53]and finally moments that showed the greatness of all human spirits.

[11:31.91]Never before had Rudolf played with such mastery-or with such an accompanist.

[11:39.27]Waves and wind beat the tower with giant hands.

[11:44.73]Steadily above them

[11:48.88]the beacon 37 threw its lifesaving beams across the dark and angry seas.

[11:56.15]The last note ceased and Rudolf dropped his head on his cheat,breathing hard.

[12:04.79]The ocean threw its water over the island with a roar as of many voices.

[12:13.05]The old man had sat unmoving through the work.