Unit 2

T1

War

1 The passengers had had to stop at a small station in order to continue their journey by the small old-fashioned local train.

2 At dawn, a bulky woman in deep mourning was hoisted in – almost like a shapeless bundle. Behind her, puffing and moaning, followed her husband – a tiny man, thin and weakly, looking shy and uneasy.

3 Having at last taken a seat he politely thanked the passengers who had helped his wife and made room for her. The wife pulled up her collar again to her eyes, so as to hide her face.

4 And he felt it his duty to explain to his traveling companions that the war was taking away from her her only son, a boy of 20 to whom both had devoted their entire life, even allowing him to volunteer for war and now, all of a sudden, receiving a wire saying that he was due to leave in three days' time and asking them to go and see him off.

5 The woman under the big coat was feeling certain that all those explanations would not have aroused even a shadow of sympathy from those people who – most likely – were in the same plight as herself. One of them said:

6 "What about me? I have two sons and three nephews at the front. "

7 "Maybe, but in our case it is our only son," ventured the husband.

8 "What difference can it make? You may spoil your only son by excessive attentions, but you cannot love him more than you would all your other children if you had any. Parental love is not like bread that can be broken to pieces and split amongst the children in equal shares. If I am suffering now for my two sons, I am not suffering half for each of them but double … "

9 "True … true …" sighed the embarrassed husband, "but suppose a father has two sons at the front and he loses one of them, there is still one left to console him … while …"

10 "Yes," answered the other, "a son left to console him but also a son left for whom he must survive, while in the case of the father of an only son if the son dies the father can die too and put an end to his distress."

11 "Nonsense," interrupted another traveler, a fat, red-faced man with bloodshot eyes.

12 He was panting. From his bulging eyes seemed to spurt inner violence of an uncontrolled vitality which his weakened body could hardly contain.

13 "Do we give life to our own children for our own benefit?"

14 The other travelers stared at him in distress. One of them said "You are right. Our children do not belong to us, they belong to the country …"

15 "Bosh," retorted the fat traveler. "Do we think of the country when we give life to our children? Our sons are born because … well, because they must be born. Now, at our age, the love of our country is still great, of course, but stronger is the love of our children."

16 There was a silence all round, everybody nodding to approve.

17 "Why then," continued the fat man, "shouldn't we consider the feelings of our children? Isn't it natural that at their age they should consider the love for their country even greater than the love for us? Everyone should stop crying; everyone should laugh … or at least thank God – as I do – because my son sent me a message saying that he was dying satisfied at having ended his life in the best way he could have wished. That is why I do not even wear mourning … "

18 He shook his light fawn coat as to show it; his livid lip over his missing teeth was trembling, his eyes were watery and motionless, and soon after he ended with a shrill laugh which might well have been a sob.

19 "Quite so … quite so …" agreed the others.

20 The woman had tried to find in the words of her husband and her friends something to console her in her deep sorrow, something that might show her how a mother should resign herself to send her son not even to death but to a probable danger of life.

21 Yet not a word had she found amongst the many that had been said and her grief had been greater in seeing that nobody could share her feelings.

22 But now the words of the traveler amazed and almost stunned her. She suddenly realized that it wasn't the others who could not understand her but herself who could not rise up to the same height of those fathers and mothers willing to resign themselves, without crying, not only to the departure of their sons but even to their death.

23 She bent over from her corner trying to listen with great attention to the details which the fat man was giving to his companions about the way his son had fallen as a hero, for his King and his country, happy and without regrets. It seemed to her that she had stumbled into a world she had never dreamt of.

24 Then suddenly, just as if she had heard nothing of what had been said and almost as if waking up from a dream, she turned to the old man, and inquired:

25 "Then … is your son really dead?"

26 Everyone stared at her. The old man, too, turned to look at her, fixing his great, bulging, horribly watery light gray eyes, deep in her face. For some time he tried to answer, but words failed him. He had suddenly realized at last that his son was really dead – gone forever – forever. His face contracted, became horribly distorted, then he snatched in haste a handkerchief from his pocket and, to the amazement of everyone, broke into harrowing, heart-breaking, uncontrollable sobs.

戰(zhàn)爭

1 旅客們不得不在一個小站停留，準備換乘老式小火車繼續(xù)他們的旅程。

2 天亮?xí)r，一個深陷哀慟的大塊頭女人被架了進來——差不多像一捆沒形的包袱卷。跟在她身后，喘著粗氣呻吟著的，是她的丈夫——一個小個子男人，又瘦又弱，表情羞怯不安。

3 終于落了座，他彬彬有禮地感謝幫助他妻子、給她騰地兒的乘客。他妻子又扯起衣領(lǐng)，蓋上眼睛，把臉遮住。

4 他覺得有義務(wù)向旅伴們解釋：戰(zhàn)爭就要奪走她的獨生子，一個二十歲的小伙子，他們兩口子把一輩子的心血都花在他身上，甚至允許他自愿參戰(zhàn)；現(xiàn)在突然接到電報，說他三天之后就要開拔，要他們?nèi)樗托小?/p>

5 裹在大衣下面的女人確信這些解釋全然不會引起這些人哪怕一丁點兒的同情——他們極有可能像她自己一樣處在同樣的痛苦當(dāng)中。他們當(dāng)中有人說：

6 “我呢？我有兩個兒子和三個侄子在前線呢?！?/p>

7 “也許，可我們的情況是，那是我們唯一的兒子，”那位丈夫壯起膽子說。

8 “那又有什么不同呢？你可能會因為過度關(guān)心把你的獨生子慣壞，可是如果你有別的孩子，你也不可能愛他勝過愛其他孩子。父母之愛不像面包，可以掰開，平均分給孩子們。如果說現(xiàn)在我正在為我的兩個兒子受煎熬的話，我不是在為他們每人受一半的苦，而是加倍受苦……”

9 “是啊……是啊……”那位丈夫?qū)擂蔚貒@息道，“可是如果一個父親有兩個兒子在前線，他失去其中的一個，還剩一個可以安慰他……而……”

10 “對呀，”對方回答說，“剩下一個兒子安慰他，他也要為這個兒子活下去，而獨生子父親的情況是，如果兒子死了，父親也可以一死了卻痛苦。”

11 “胡說，”另一位旅客插話說。這是個肥胖、紅臉的男人，眼睛里布滿血絲。

12 他氣喘吁吁的。一股無法控制的活力在內(nèi)心激烈震蕩，似乎要從他那鼓凸的雙眼里迸發(fā)出來，他衰弱的身體幾乎控制不了他的情緒。

13 “我們賦予孩子生命難道就是為了自己得到好處嗎？”

14 其他旅客都悲傷地盯著他。其中一位說：“你是對的。我們的孩子不屬于我們，他們屬于國家……”

15 “胡扯，”胖旅客反駁說?！拔覀兘o孩子生命的時候想到國家了嗎？我們的兒子出生是因為……呃，因為他們必須出生?，F(xiàn)在，在我們這個歲數(shù)，當(dāng)然，對國家的愛依然強烈，但對我們孩子的愛更強烈?！?/p>

16 周圍一片沉默，人人都點頭贊同。

17 “那么，”胖男人繼續(xù)說道，“我們?yōu)槭裁床粦?yīng)該考慮孩子們的感情呢？在他們這個年紀，他們理應(yīng)認為對國家的愛大于對我們的愛，這不是很自然嗎？人人都應(yīng)當(dāng)停止哭泣；人人都應(yīng)當(dāng)大笑……或者至少感謝上帝——像我一樣——因為我兒子寄給我一封信，說他就要死了，并為能以自己所希望的最佳方式結(jié)束生命而感到滿足。這就是為什么我甚至都沒有穿喪服……”

18 他抖抖他那淺黃褐色大衣，好像是在展示它；他豁牙上鐵青的嘴唇在顫抖；他的雙眼濕潤、目光呆滯；很快他尖聲大笑了一下——也可能是一聲抽泣，算是說完了。

19 “的確如此……的確如此……”其他人表示同意。

20 那個女人一直試圖從她丈夫和朋友的話里找些什么來安慰深陷憂傷的自己，以明白一個母親應(yīng)該怎樣聽天由命，她并不是送兒子去死，而是送他去一個極可能有生命危險的地方。

21 然而她在人們所說的許多話里并未找到一句安慰的話。眼看沒有人可以與她分憂，她就愈發(fā)痛苦了。

22 可是現(xiàn)在，那旅客的話讓她吃驚，幾乎讓她震驚。她忽然意識到，不是別人不理解她，而是她自己不能達到那些父母的高度；他們沒有哭泣，而是聽天由命，不僅接受兒子的離去，甚至還接受兒子的死。

23 她從角落里欠起身來，想仔細聽清楚。那個胖男人正在給旅伴們講述他兒子如何為國王和國家戰(zhàn)死而成為英雄，幸福且沒有遺憾。她覺得自己跌跌撞撞走進了一個從未夢見過的世界里。

24 然后突然，就好像她根本沒聽見別人說的話，仿佛剛從睡夢中醒來，她轉(zhuǎn)向那位老人，問道：

25 “那么……你兒子真的死了嗎？”

26 人人都盯著她看。那位老人也轉(zhuǎn)過臉來看她，他那大大的、鼓凸的、濕潤得可怕的淺灰色眼睛深深凝視著她的臉。有一陣子他試圖回答，卻說不出話來。他終于忽然意識到他的兒子真的死了——永遠走了——永遠。他的臉抽搐起來，扭曲得嚇人，然后令所有人都吃驚的是，他匆忙從衣袋里掏出手帕，爆發(fā)出令人心碎的、悲痛欲絕的、抑制不住的抽泣。

T2

How empathy unfolds

1 The moment Hope, just nine months old, saw another baby fall, tears welled up in her own eyes and she crawled off to be comforted by her mother, as though it were she who had been hurt. And 15-month-old Michael went to get his own teddy bear for his crying friend Paul; when Paul kept crying, Michael retrieved Paul's security blanket for him. Both these small acts of sympathy and caring were observed by mothers trained to record such incidents of empathy in action. The results of the study suggest that the roots of empathy can be traced to infancy. Virtually from the day they are born infants are upset when they hear another infant crying – a response some see as the earliest precursor of empathy.

2 Developmental psychologists have found that infants feel sympathetic distress even before they fully realize that they exist apart from other people. Even a few months after birth, infants react to a disturbance in those around them as though it were their own, crying when they see another child's tears. By one year or so, they start to realize the misery is not their own but someone else's, though they still seem confused over what to do about it. In research by Martin L.Hoffman at New York University, for example, a one-year-old brought his own mother over to comfort a crying friend, ignoring the friend's mother, who was also in the room. This confusion is seen too when one-year-olds imitate the distress of someone else, possibly to better comprehend what they are feeling; for example, if another baby hurts her fingers, a one-year-old might put her own fingers in her mouth to see if she hurts, too. On seeing his mother cry, one baby wiped his own eyes, though they had no tears.

3 Such motor mimicry, as it is called, is the original technical sense of the word empathy as it was first used in the 1920s by E.B.Titchener, an American psychologist. Titchener's theory was that empathy stemmed from a sort of physical imitation of the distress of another, which then evokes the same feelings in oneself. He sought a word that would be distinct from sympathy, which can be felt for the general plight of another with no sharing whatever of what that other person is feeling.

4 Motor mimicry fades from toddlers' repertoire at around two and a half years, at which point they realize that someone else's pain is different from their own, and are better able to comfort them. A typical incident, from a mother's diary:

5 A neighbor's baby cries and Jenny approaches and tries to give him some cookies. She follows him around and begins to whimper to herself. She then tries to stroke his hair, but he pulls away … He calms down, but Jenny still looks worried. She continues to bring him toys and to pat his head and shoulders.

6 At this point in their development toddlers begin to diverge from one another in their overall sensitivity to other people's emotional upsets, with some, like Jenny, keenly aware and others tuning out. A series of studies by Marian Radke-Yarrow and Carolyn Zahn-Waxler at the National Institute of Mental Health showed that a large part of this difference in empathic concern had to do with how parents disciplined their children. Children, they found, were more empathic when the discipline included calling strong attention to the distress their misbehaviour caused someone else: "Look how sad you've made her feel" instead of "That was naughty". They found too that children's empathy is also shaped by seeing how others react when someone else is distressed; by imitating what they see, children develop a repertoire of empathic response, especially in helping other people who are distressed.

同感是怎樣表露的

1 霍普才九個月大，一見到另一個嬰兒摔倒，淚水就涌了出來。她爬到媽媽身邊尋求安慰，就好像是她自己摔疼了。15個月大的邁克爾把自己的玩具熊拿來給正在大哭的朋友保羅；保羅不停地大哭的時候，邁克爾替保羅撿回他的安樂毯。這些小小的表示同情和關(guān)愛的舉動都是接受過記錄同感行為訓(xùn)練的母親們觀察到的。這項研究的結(jié)果表明，同感的根源可以追溯到人的嬰兒期。實際上，從出生的那天起，嬰兒在聽到其他嬰兒哭鬧的時候就會感到不安——有些人認為這種反應(yīng)是同感的最初先兆。

2 成長心理學(xué)家發(fā)現(xiàn)，甚至在充分意識到自己是獨立于其他人而存在之前，嬰兒就感受到了同情的苦惱。甚至在出生后幾個月，嬰兒就會對周圍人的煩躁不安做出反應(yīng)，就好像他們自己的煩躁不安一樣，看到別的孩子哭也跟著哭。到了一歲左右，他們開始意識到痛苦不是他們的，而是別人的，可是他們對這樣的事情似乎還是感到不知所措。例如，在紐約大學(xué)的馬丁?L.霍夫曼所做的一項研究中，一個一歲的孩子把自己的媽媽拉過來安慰哭鬧的朋友，卻忽視了同在一室的朋友的媽媽。這樣的困惑在其他一歲大的孩子身上也能看到，他們模仿別的孩子的痛苦，也許是為了更好地理解他們的感受。例如，如果別的嬰兒傷了手指，一個一歲大的孩子就會把自己的手指放進嘴里，看看自己是否也感覺到痛。看到自己的媽媽哭，嬰兒即使沒有眼淚，也會擦拭自己的眼睛。

3 這種所謂的運動神經(jīng)模仿就是“同感”的原始技術(shù)含義，而“同感”這個詞于20世紀20年代由美國心理學(xué)家E.B.鐵欽納首次使用。鐵欽納的理論是：同感發(fā)自對他人痛苦的一種身體模仿；這種模仿繼而在自身引起同樣的心理感受。他當(dāng)時在尋找一個與“同情”有所區(qū)別的詞；同情是針對他人的一般困境而發(fā)的，無須分擔(dān)他人的任何感受。

4 小孩兩歲半左右就漸漸不再有運動神經(jīng)模仿行為，那時他們會意識到別人的痛苦與自己的不同，會更有能力安慰別人。下面是摘自一位母親日記里的典型事例：

5 鄰居家的嬰兒哭了，珍妮走上前去，試圖給他一些小甜餅。她跟著他轉(zhuǎn)，開始帶著哭腔低聲自言自語。然后她試圖撫摸他的頭發(fā)，可是他躲開了……他平靜下來，但是珍妮仍然面帶憂色。她繼續(xù)給他拿來玩具，輕拍他的頭和肩膀。

6 在這個年齡，幼兒對于他人感情波動的總體敏感度開始有所不同，有些像珍妮一樣，感同身受，有些則不予理睬。美國國家心理健康研究所的瑪麗安?拉德克－亞羅和卡羅琳?察恩－瓦克斯勒所做的一系列研究表明，這種在同感關(guān)注方面的差異大部分與父母怎樣教養(yǎng)子女有關(guān)。她們發(fā)現(xiàn)，如果在家教中讓孩子特別注意他們的惡作劇給別人造成的痛苦，比如對孩子說“瞧你讓她多傷心啊”，而不是說“你真調(diào)皮”，孩子就比較有同感心。她們也發(fā)現(xiàn)，觀看別人遇到痛苦時其他人的反應(yīng)，兒童的同感心也會受到影響。通過模仿親眼所見，兒童能培養(yǎng)出一套同感反應(yīng)行為，尤其是在幫助那些痛苦的人的時候。

T3

Keep smiling

1 A couple of months ago I read an interesting article in a popular science magazine about how people from different cultures reveal their emotions through facial expressions. It said that Russians show the least emotion in their expressions – and Americans show the most. This seemed very interesting, but as an Indian I found I was even more interested to read what the researchers had to say about people who smile the most. India was quite near the bottom of the list – 124th, to be precise, while Denmark was at the top.

2 This made me think about myself, and my own experience. I remember that my daughter – she must have been about eight at the time – once asked me, "Dad, why is it that you only smile when foreigners come to the house?" And I realized that she was right. I usually only smiled when we had visitors from other countries and I made a conscious effort to change my normal facial behaviour. So I decided to start to smile more, around the house, and at work too.

3 At first I had to force myself to do it. I remember reading somewhere that we use a lot more muscles when we frown than we do when we smile. But we still need to make an effort to smile – it's a learned behaviour, not a reflex action. But the curious thing is that, even as I lift those muscles at the side of my mouth, it makes me happy. In other words, the facial reaction enhances the emotion that it is expressing.

4 A few days ago I made a train journey in the south of India. Sitting next to me was a young man who helped to make me comfortable by moving his bag to make more room for me. As he did so, he was smiling. The next thing I knew, we had settled into our seats and were chatting together about ourselves (in English). He said he worked in Europe, in a science laboratory, and added that living in a foreign country had made him change his body language and his facial expressions. By the time I reached my destination we had exchanged email addresses and arranged to meet again. It felt as if we were old friends – just because a young man had chosen to smile to a stranger on a crowded train.

保持微笑

1 幾個月以前，我在一份科普雜志上讀到一篇有趣的文章，文章是關(guān)于不同文化背景下的人們是如何通過面部表情流露情感的。文章說，俄國人在面部表情中流露的情感最少——美國人流露的最多。這似乎非常有趣。但作為印度人，我覺得更有趣的是，研究人員還研究了哪個國家的人笑得最多。印度人在排行榜上幾乎是墊底的——準確地說，位于第124名，而丹麥人則居于首位。

2 這使我想到自己以及自己的經(jīng)歷。我記得我的女兒——那時候她肯定是八歲左右——曾經(jīng)問我：“爸爸，為什么只有當(dāng)外國人到家里來的時候你才微笑？”我意識到自己確實像她說的那樣。通常，只有當(dāng)外國客人來訪時我才微笑。有外國客人時，我會有意識地努力改變我正常的面部表情。從女兒提醒我之后，我決定開始更多地微笑，在家里這樣，上班也一樣。

3 起初，我得強迫自己微笑。我記得在什么地方讀到過，我們皺眉的時候比微笑的時候動用的肌肉要多得多?？墒俏覀円廊恍枰Σ艜⑿Α鞘且环N習(xí)得的行為，而不是一種反射動作。但令人奇怪的是，只要我拉起嘴角的肌肉，就覺得快樂。換句話說，面部反應(yīng)能增強其所表達的情感。

4 幾天前，我乘火車在印度南部旅行。我身邊坐著一位年輕人，為了讓我坐得舒服，他挪了挪包以便給我騰出更大的地方。他挪包的時候，一直在微笑。隨后我們就各自落座，一起（用英語）聊起了各自的情況。他說，他在歐洲一間科學(xué)實驗室工作，接著又說，在外國生活的經(jīng)歷改變了他的身體語言和面部表情。在我到達目的地之前，我們交換了電子郵件地址，并約好以后再見。我們一見如故——就因為在擁擠的火車上，一位年輕人選擇了對陌生人微笑。