【有声英语文学名著】一家的故事

 文本节选

Iam a dwarf¹. God made me this way. I’m little, just like He made you have brownhair and blue eyes. 

 

Basedon birth records, it’s estimated that there are at least 15,000 people withdwarfism in the United States. And there are more than 200 different types ofdwarfism. What these people have in common is their unique application of askill that every human being learns in one way or another: how to adapt to theworld around you, regardless of who or what or how big the world thinks youare. 

 

Susie , at 3’10”, has the most common form called achondroplasia. Susie’sachondroplasia came from a mutation² in a gene³ from her father. Her parentsand brothers are all average sized. And when she was born in West Texas in1961, her mother got some sage⁴ advice from her grandmother. 

 

Susie:“Take her home, love her.” And my mother had no doubt. She just needed thatreassurance from her mother. Here we are, you know, 45 years later. 

 

Athome in Maryland, Susie’s own family has gone to extraordinary lengths toextend that philosophy. They adopted a young dwarf named Suscha from a Russian orphanage⁵. 

 

Mark(Susie’s Husband): They brought this little girl in and she walked in, and thislittle girl was looking down at her feet like this and she just looked up everyonce [in] a while and we both just, right at that moment, fell in love. It wasquite a powerful moment. 

 

Joshua is still another story from the Campbellfamily. He is Susie and Mark’s 9-year-old biological son. And he already towersover his mother because he is not a dwarf. He is a kid of average height who hasabsorbed the unusual diversity in his family in his own way. 

 

Suscha’stwo front teeth are missing. That’s normal for a 6-year-old. But because of thedesign of her jaw⁶, her tongue also gets in the way of learning to pronouncewords. When she’s an adult, her skull⁷ will, in fact, grow larger thanaverage. With Suscha, there are also unanswered questions. She has a form ofdwarfism that is unknown to doctors, complicated by the fact that she wasabandoned and no family history is available for her. Her legs are not like atypical dwarf’s. She stands and walks on her toes in a kind of painful half crouch⁸. Next year, Suscha is scheduled to have surgery in hopes of correctingthe problem. In the meantime, the Campbells have given her a life in a suburban⁹ neighborhood where she can be a kid. And the Campbells can only mapher future one day at a time. 

 

To complete thisremarkable family portrait, there is Mark, who is a systems analyst¹⁰ with theSocial Security Administration. He has still another type of dwarfism, muchmore rare called hypochondroplasia. At 4’7”, Mark is taller than most otherdwarfs. His body proportions are closer to an average human’s, but his arms aredisproportionately short.

 

Reporter: When you think of your family and what makesyour family unique, does height even enter into that equation?

Susie: Uhm-uhm. We are a family. We’re a mother,father, a son and a daughter. I take them to school. They clean their room. Idiscipline them. We’re just like any other family. No different. 

1 dwarf   

n.矮子，侏儒，矮小的动植物；vt.使…矮小

参考例句：

• The dwarf's long arms were not proportional to his height.那侏儒的长臂与他的身高不成比例。
• The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. 矮子耸耸肩膀，摇摇头。

2 mutation   

n.变化，变异，转变

参考例句：

• People who have this mutation need less sleep than others.有这种突变的人需要的睡眠比其他人少。
• So far the discussion has centered entirely around mutation in the strict sense.到目前为止，严格来讲，讨论完全集中于围绕突变问题上。

3 gene   

n.遗传因子，基因

参考例句：

• A single gene may have many effects.单一基因可能具有很多种效应。
• The targeting of gene therapy has been paid close attention.其中基因治疗的靶向性是值得密切关注的问题之一。

4 sage   

n.圣人，哲人；adj.贤明的，明智的

参考例句：

• I was grateful for the old man's sage advice.我很感激那位老人贤明的忠告。
• The sage is the instructor of a hundred ages.这位哲人是百代之师。

5 orphanage   

n.孤儿院

参考例句：

• They dispensed new clothes to the children in the orphanage.他们把新衣服发给孤儿院的小孩们。
• They gave the proceeds of the sale to the orphanage.他们把销售的收入给了这家孤儿院。

6 jaw   

n.颚，颌，说教，流言蜚语；v.喋喋不休，教训

参考例句：

• He delivered a right hook to his opponent's jaw.他给了对方下巴一记右钩拳。
• A strong square jaw is a sign of firm character.强健的方下巴是刚毅性格的标志。

7 skull   

n.头骨；颅骨

参考例句：

• The skull bones fuse between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five.头骨在15至25岁之间长合。
• He fell out of the window and cracked his skull.他从窗子摔了出去，跌裂了颅骨。

8 crouch   

v.蹲伏，蜷缩，低头弯腰；n.蹲伏

参考例句：

• I crouched on the ground.我蹲在地上。
• He crouched down beside him.他在他的旁边蹲下来。

9 suburban   

adj.城郊的，在郊区的

参考例句：

• Suburban shopping centers were springing up all over America. 效区的商业中心在美国如雨后春笋般地兴起。
• There's a lot of good things about suburban living.郊区生活是有许多优点。

10 analyst   

n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家

参考例句：

• What can you contribute to the position of a market analyst?你有什么技能可有助于市场分析员的职务？
• The analyst is required to interpolate values between standards.分析人员需要在这些标准中插入一些值。