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1、The Temptation of a Respectable WomanMrs.Baroda was a little annoyed to learn that her husband expected hisfriend,Gouvernail,up to spend a week or two on the plantation.Gouvernails quiet personality puzzled Mrs.Baroda.After a few days withhim,she could understand him no better than at first.She left
2、 her husband andhis guest,for the most part,alone together,only to find that Gouvernail hardlynoticed her absence.Then she imposed her company upon him,accompanying him in his idle walks to the mill to press her attempt to penetratethe silence in which he had unconsciously covered himself.But it har
3、dlyworked.When is he going your friend?she one day asked her husband.Formy part,I find him a terrible nuisance.Not for a week yet,dear.I cant understand;he gives you no trouble.No.I should like him better if he did if he were more like others,and Ihad to plan somewhat for his comfort and enjoyment.G
4、aston pulled the sleeve of his wifes dress,gathered his arms around herwaist and looked merrily into her troubled eyes.You are full of surprises,he said to her.Even I can never count uponhow you are going to act under given conditions.Here you are,he went on,taking poor Gouvernail seriously and maki
5、ng a fuss about him,the last thinghe would desire or expect.Fuss!she hotly replied.Nonsense!How can you say such a thing!Fuss,indeed!But,you know,you said he was clever.So he is.But the poor fellow is run down by too much work now.Thatswhy I asked him here to take a rest.You used to say he was a man
6、 of wit,she said,still annoyed.I expectedhim to be interesting,at least.Im going to the city in the morning to have myspring dresses fitted.Let me know when Mr.Gouvernail is gone;until that time Ishall be at my aunts house.That night she went and sat alone upon a bench that stood beneath anoak tree
7、at the edge of the walk.She had never known her thoughts to be soconfused;like the bats now above her,her thoughts quickly flew this way andthat.She could gather nothing from them but the feeling of a distinct necessityto leave her home in the next morning.Mrs.Baroda heard footsteps coming from the
8、direction of the barn;sheknew it was Gouvernail.She hoped to remain unnoticed,but her white gownrevealed her to him.He seated himself upon the bench beside her,without asuspicion that she might object to his presence.Your husband told me to bring this to you,Mrs.Baroda,he said,handingher a length of
9、 sheer white fabric with which she sometimes covered her headand shoulders.She accepted it from him and let it lie in her lap.He made some routine observations upon the unhealthy effect of the nightbreeze at that season.Then as his gaze reached out into the darkness,hebegan to talk.Gouvernail was in
10、 no sense a shy man.His periods of silence were not hisbasic nature,but the result of moods.When he was sitting there besideMrs.Baroda,his silence melted for the time.He talked freely and intimately in a low,hesitating voice that was notunpleasant to hear.He talked of the old college days when he an
11、d Gaston hadbeen best friends,of the days of keen ambitions and large intentions.Now,allthere was left with him was a desire to be permitted to exist,with now and thena little breath of genuine life,such as he was breathing now.Her mind only vaguely grasped what he was saying.His words became ameani
12、ngless succession of verbs,nouns,adverbs,and adjectives;she onlydrank in the tones of his voice.She wanted to reach out her hand in thedarkness and touch him which she might have done if she had not been arespectable woman.The stronger the desire grew to bring herself near him,the further,in fact,di
13、d she move away from him.As soon as she could do so without anappearance of being rude,she pretended to yawn,rose,and left him therealone.Mrs.Baroda was greatly tempted that night to tell her husband-who wasalso her friend of this foolishness that had seized her.But she did not yieldto the temptatio
14、n.Besides being an upright and respectable woman she wasalso a very sensible one.When Gaston arose the next morning,his wife had already departed,without even saying farewell.A porter had carried her trunk to the station andshe had taken an early morning train to the city.She did not return untilGou
15、vernail was gone from under her roof.There was some talk of having him back during the summer that followed.That is,Gaston greatly desired it;but this desire yielded to his honorable wifesvigorous opposition.However,before the year ended,she proposed,wholly from herself,tohave Gouvernail visit them
16、again.Her husband was surprised and delightedwith the suggestion coming from her.I am glad,my dear,to know that you have finally overcome your dislikefor him;truly he did not deserve it.Oh,she told him,laughingly,after pressing a long,tender kiss upon hislips,I have overcome everything!You will see.
17、This time I shall be very nice tohim.Charlie ChaplinHe was born in a poor area of south London.He wore his mothersold red stockings cut down for ankle socks.His mother was temporarilydeclared mad.Dickens might have created Charlie Chaplins childhood.Butonly Charle Chaplin could have created the grea
18、t comic character of theTramp,the little man in rags who gave his creator permanent fame.Other countries France,Italy,Spain,even Japan and Korea have provided more applause(and profit)where Chaplin is concerned than theland of his birth.Chaplin quit Britain for good in 1913 when he journeyed toAmeri
19、ca with a group of performers to do his comedy act on the stage wheretalent scouts recruited him to work for Mack Sennett,the king of Hollywoodcomedy films.Sad to say,many English people in the 1920s and 1930s thoughtChaplins Tramp a bit,well,crude Certainly middle-class audiences did;theworking-cla
20、ss audiences were more likely to clap for a character who revoltedagainst authority,using his wicked little cane to trip it up,or aiming the heel ofhis boot for a well-placed kick at its broad rear.All the same,Chaplins comicbeggar didnt seem all that English or even working class.English trampsdidn
21、t sport tiny moustaches,huge pants or tail coats:European leaders andItalian waiters wore things like that.Then again,the Tramps quick eye for apretty girl had a coarse way about it that was considered,well,not quite niceby English audiences-thats how foreigners behaved,wasnt it?But forover half of
22、his screen career,Chaplin had no screen voice to confirm hisBritish nationality.Indeed,it was a headache for Chaplin when he could no longer resistthe talking movies and had to find the right voice for his Tramp.Hepostponed that day as long as possible:in Modern Times in 1936,the first filmin which
23、he was heard as a singing waiter,he made up a nonsense languagewhich sounded like no known nationality.He later said he imagined the Trampto be a college-educated gentleman whod come down in the world.But if hedbeen able to speak with an educated accent in those early short comedymovies,its doubtful
24、 if he would have achieved world fame.And the Englishwould have been sure to find it odd.No one was certain whether Chaplin didit on purpose but this helped to bring about his huge success.He was an immensely talented man,determined to a degree unusualeven in the ranks of Hollywood stars.His huge fa
25、me gave him the freedom 一 and,more importantly,the money to be his own master.He already hadthe urge to explore and extend a talent he discovered in himself as he wentalong.It cant be me.Is that possible?How extraordinary,is how he greetedthe first sight of himself as the Tramp on the screen.But tha
26、t shock roused his imagination.Chaplin didnt have his jokeswritten into a script in advance;he was the kind of comic who used his physicalsenses to invent his art as he went along.Lifeless objects especially helpedChaplin make contact with himself as an artist.He turned them into otherkinds of objec
27、ts.Thus,a broken alarm clock in the movie The Pawnbrokerbecame a sick patient undergoing surgery;boots were boiled in his film TheGold Rush and their soles eaten with salt and pepper like prime cuts of fish(the nails being removed like fish bones).This physical transformation,plusthe skill with whic
28、h he executed it again and again,are surely the secrets ofChaplins great comedy.He also had a deep need to be loved and a corresponding fear ofbeing betrayed.The two were hard to combine and sometimes as in hisearly marriages the collision between them resulted in disaster.Yet eventhis painfully-bou
29、ght self-knowledge found its way into his comic creations.The Tramp never loses his faith in the flower girl wholl be waiting to walk intothe sunset with him;while the other side of Chaplin makes Monsieur Verdoux,the French wife killer,into a symbol of hatred for women.Its a relief to know that life
30、 eventually gave Charlie Chaplin the stablehappiness it had earlier denied him.In Oona ONeill Chaplin,he found apartner whose stability and affection spanned the 37 years age differencebetween them that had seemed so threatening that when the official who wasmarrying them in 1942,turned to the beaut
31、iful girl of 17 whod given notice oftheir wedding date and said,And where is the young man?Chaplin,then54,had cautiously waited outside.As Oona herself was the child of a largefamily with its own problems,she was well-prepared for the battle thatChaplins life became as unfounded rumors of Marxist sy
32、mpathies surroundedthem both-and,later on,she was the center of rest in the quarrels thatChaplin sometimes sparked in their own large family of talented children.Chaplin died on Christmas Day 1977.A few months later,a couple ofalmost comic body-thieves stole his body from the family burial chamber a
33、ndheld it for money:the police recovered it with more efficiency than MackSennetts clumsy Keystone Cops would have done.But one cant help feelingChaplin would have regarded this strange incident as a fitting memorial-hisway of having the last laugh on a world to which he had given so many.Longing fo
34、r a New Welfare SystemA welfare client is supposed to cheat.Everybody expects it.Facedwith sharing a dinner of raw pet food with the cat,many people in wheelchairs Iknow bleed the system for a few extra dollars.They tell the government thatthey are getting two hundred dollars less than their real pe
35、nsion so they canget a little extra welfare money.Or,they tell the caseworker that the landlordraised the rent by a hundred dollars.I have opted to live a life of complete honesty.So instead,I go outand drum up some business and draw cartoons.I even tell welfare how much Imake!Oh,Im tempted to get p
36、aid under the table.But even if I yielded to thattemptation,big magazines are not going to get involved in some stickysituation.They keep my records,and that information goes right into thegovernments computer.Very high-profile.As a welfare client Im expected to bow before the caseworker.Deepdown,ca
37、seworkers know that they are being made fools of by many of theirclients,and they feel they are entitled to have clients bow to them ascompensation.Im not being bitter.Most caseworkers begin ascollege-educated liberals with high ideals.But after a few years in a systemthat practically requires peopl
38、e to lie,they become like the one I shall callSuzanne,a detective in shorts.Not long after Christmas last year,Suzanne came to inspect myapartment and saw some new posters pasted on the wall.Whered you getthe money for those?she wanted to know.Friends and family.Well,youd better have a receipt for i
39、t,by God.You have to reportany donations or gifts.This was my cue to beg.Instead,I talked back.I got a cigarette fromsomebody on the street the other day.Do I have to report that?Well Im sorry,but I dont make the rules,Mr.Callahan.Suzanne tries to lecture me about repairs to my wheelchair,which isal
40、ways breaking down because welfare wont spend the money maintaining itproperly.You know,Mr.Callahan,Ive heard that you put a lot more miles onthat wheelchair than average.Of course I do.Im an active worker,not a vegetable.I live neardowntown,so I can get around in a wheelchair.I wonder what shed thi
41、nk ifshe suddenly broke her hip and had to crawl to work.Government cuts in welfare have resulted in hunger and suffering fora lot of people,not just me.But people with spinal cord injuries felt the cuts in aunique way:The government stopped taking care of our chairs.Each timemine broke down,lost a
42、screw,needed a new roller bearing,the brakewouldnt work,etc.,and I called Suzanne,I had to endure a little lecture.Finally,shed say,Well,if I can find time today,Ill call the medical worker.She was supposed to notify the medical worker,who would certifythat there was a problem.Then the medical worke
43、r called the wheelchairrepair companies to get the cheapest bid.Then the medical worker alerted themain welfare office at the state capital.They considered the matter for dayswhile I lay in bed,unable to move.Finally,if I was lucky,they called back andapproved the repair.When welfare learned I was m
44、aking money on my cartoons,Suzannestarted visiting every fortnight instead of every two months.She looked intoevery corner in search of unreported appliances,or maids,or a roast pig in theoven,or a new helicopter parked out back.She never found anything,butthere was always a thick pile of forms to f
45、ill out at the end of each visit,accounting for every penny.There is no provision in the law for a gradual shift away from welfare.I am an independent businessman,slowly building up my market.Itsimpossible to jump off welfare and suddenly be making two thousand dollars amonth.But I would love to be
46、able to pay for some of my living and not have togo through an embarrassing situation every time I need a spare part for mywheelchair.There needs to be a lawyer who can act as a champion for the rightsof welfare clients,because the system so easily lends itself to abuse by thewelfare givers as well
47、as by the clients.Welfare sent Suzanne to look aroundin my apartment the other day because the chemist said I was using a largerthan usual amount of medical supplies.I was,indeed:the hole that has beensurgically cut to drain urine had changed size and the connection to my urinebag was leaking.While
48、she was taking notes,my phone rang and Suzanne answered it.The caller was a state senator,which scared Suzanne a little.Would I sit onthe governors committee and try to do something about the thousands ofwelfare clients who,like me,could earn part or all of their own livings if theywere allowed to d
49、o so,one step at a time?Hell,yes,I would!Someday people like me will thrive under a newsystem that will encourage them,not seek to convict them of cheating.Theywill be free to develop their talents without guilt or fear or just hold a good,steady job.The Telecommunications RevolutionA transformation
50、 is occurring that should greatly boost livingstandards in the developing world.Places that until recently were deaf anddumb are rapidly acquiring up-to-date telecommunications that will let thempromote both internal and foreign investment.It may take a decade for manycountries in Asia,Latin America