新视野大学英语 读写教程第二册 unit10-c

Section C

Narrow Escape

My Berlin diary for December 2 was limited to four words.
"Only three more days!"
"December 3: ... The Foreign Office still holding up my passport（护照）and exit visa, which worries me. Did my last broadcast from Berlin tonight."
"Berlin, December 4: Got my passport and official permit（许可）to leave tomorrow. Nothing to do now but pack."
For weeks I had thought over how to get my diaries safely out of Berlin. Sometimes I thought I ought to destroy them before leaving. There was enough in them to get me hanged — if the Gestapo ever discovered them.
The morning I received my passport and exit visa I realized I had less than twenty-four hours to figure out a way of getting my Berlin diaries out. Suddenly, later that morning, the solution became clear. It was a risk, but life in the Third Reich had always been a risk. It was worth a try.
I laid out the diaries in two big steel suitcases I had bought. Over them I placed a number of my broadcast scripts（文字稿）, each page of which had been stamped by the military and civilian¹ censors²（新闻检查官）as passed for broadcast. On top I put a few General Staff maps I had picked up from friends. Then I phoned the Gestapo Headquarters³（总部）. I had a couple of suitcases full of my dispatches（电讯稿）, broadcasts and notes that I wanted to take out of the country, I told them. As I was flying off early the next day, there would be no time for Gestapo officials at the airport to go over the contents. Would they take a look now, if I brought them over; and if they approved（批准）, put a Gestapo seal（封条）on the suitcases so I wouldn't be held up at the airport?
"Bring them over." the official said.
At Gestapo headquarters, the two officials who handled me immediately seized my maps. I apologized. "I had forgotten," I said, "that I had put them in." They had been very valuable to me in reporting the army's great victories. I realized I shouldn't take out General Staff maps.
"What else you've got here?" one of the men said, putting his hand on the pile of papers.
"The texts of my broadcasts," I said, " ... every page, as you can see, stamped for approval⁴ by the High Command and two ministries（政府的部）."
Both men studied the censors' stamps. I could see they were impressed. They put their hands in a little deeper, each man now looking into a suitcase. Soon, they would reach the diaries. I now wished I had not come. I felt myself beginning to sweat. I had deliberately（故意地）got myself into this jam. What a fool!
"You reported on the German army?" one of the officials looked up to ask.
"All the way to Paris," I said. "A great army it was, and a great story for me. It will go down in history!"
That settled everything. They put half a dozen Gestapo seals on my suitcases. I tried not to thank them too much. Outside, I called a taxi and drove away. Everything had worked out as I had planned.
The last entry I would ever make in my diary from Hitler's Berlin:
"December 5: It was still dark and a storm was blowing in when I left for the airport this morning..."
At the customs there was literally⁵ an army of officials. I opened the two bags with my personal effects, and after looking through them, two officials chalked a sign of approval on them. I noticed they were from the Gestapo. They pointed⁶ to the two suitcases full of my diaries.
"Open them up!" One of them thundered in a rude tone⁷.
"I can't," I said. "They're sealed — by the Gestapo."
"Where were those bags sealed?" one of them snapped⁸.
"At Gestapo Headquarters," I said.
This information impressed them. But still they seemed suspicious⁹.
"Just a minute," one said. His colleague picked up the phone at a table behind them. Obviously¹⁰ he was checking. The man hung up, walked over to me, and without a word chalked the two suitcases. I was free at last to get to the ticket counter to check my luggage.
The thought of the German plane delivering my diaries to me safely in Portugal, beyond the reach of the last German official who could seize them, greatly pleased me.
We had survived the Nazi¹¹ horror（恐怖）and its mindless（无知的）suppression（镇压）of the human spirit. But many others, I felt sadly, sadly had not survived — the Jews above all, but also the Czechs and now the Poles. Even for the great mass of Germans who supported Hitler, I felt a sort of sorrow. They did not seem to realize what the poison of Nazism（纳粹主义）was doing to them.
Words: 829

1 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

2 censors   

删剪（书籍、电影等中被认为犯忌、违反道德或政治上危险的内容）( censor的第三人称单数 )

参考例句：

• The censors eviscerated the book to make it inoffensive to the President. 审查员删去了该书的精华以取悦于总统。
• The censors let out not a word. 检察官一字也不发。

3 headquarters   

n.司令部，指挥部；总部，总店

参考例句：

• Several great guns from the headquarters are coming to see us today.总部的几个大人物今天要来看我们。
• The bank has its headquarters in Pairs.这家银行的总行在巴黎。

4 approval   

n.赞成，同意；批准，认可

参考例句：

• The audience has expressed its approval.观众已经认可。
• The teacher signed his approval.老师做了手势表示同意。

5 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

6 pointed   

adj.尖的，直截了当的

参考例句：

• He gave me a very sharp pointed pencil.他给我一支削得非常尖的铅笔。
• She wished to show Mrs.John Dashwood by this pointed invitation to her brother.她想通过对达茨伍德夫人提出直截了当的邀请向她的哥哥表示出来。

7 tone   

n.语气，音调，气度，色调；vt.（up）增强

参考例句：

• There was a tone of mockery in his voice.他说话的语气含有嘲笑的意味。
• Holmes used an informal,chatty tone in his essays.霍姆斯在文章中语气轻松随便。

8 snapped   

v.猛地咬住( snap的过去式和过去分词 )；（使某物）发出尖厉声音地突然断裂[打开，关闭]；厉声地说；拍照

参考例句：

• The wind had snapped the tree in two. 风把树喀嚓一声刮断了。
• He lost his temper and snapped irritably at the children. 他发火了，暴躁地斥责孩子们。 来自《简明英汉词典》

9 suspicious   

adj.可疑的，容易引起怀疑的，猜疑的，疑心的

参考例句：

• A man was hanging about the house in a suspicious manner.一个男人在房子周围可疑地荡来荡去。
• He's so suspicious he would distrust his own mother.他这个人疑心太重，连自己的母亲也不相信。

10 obviously   

adv.显然；明白地

参考例句：

• Obviously they were putting him to a severe test.显然他们是在给他以严峻的考验。
• Obviously he was lying.显然他是在撒谎。

11 Nazi   

n.纳粹分子，adj.纳粹党的，纳粹的

参考例句：

• They declare the Nazi regime overthrown and sue for peace.他们宣布纳粹政权已被推翻，并出面求和。
• Nazi closes those war criminals inside their concentration camp.纳粹把那些战犯关在他们的集中营里。