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VOA慢速英语2011--Short Story: ‘The Open Boat’ by Step

时间:2011-04-09 03:52:37

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AMERICAN STORIES - Short Story: ‘The Open Boat’ by Stephen Crane1 (Part 1)

BARBARA KLEIN: Now, the VOA Special English program AMERICAN STORIES.
(MUSIC)
Our story today is called “The Open Boat.” It was written by Stephen Crane and is based on what really happened to him in eighteen ninety-six.
Crane was traveling from the United States to Cuba as a newspaper reporter. One night, his ship hit a sandbar. It sank in the Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of Florida. Most of the people on board got into lifeboats. Crane was among the last to leave. There were three others with him: the ship’s captain, the cook, and a sailor.
These four men climbed into the only remaining lifeboat. The boat was so small that no one believed it could stay afloat for very long. None of the four men thought he would ever reach the shore. But the men fought the seas bravely, with all their strength. Would they finally reach land? Here is Shep O’Neal with the first part of the story.
(MUSIC)
SHEP O’NEAL: The small lifeboat bounced3 from wave to wave in the rough seas of the Atlantic. The four men in the boat could not see the sky. The waves rose too high.
The waves with their white tops pushed at the open boat with angry violence. Every man thought each wave would be his last. Surely, the boat would sink and he would drown. The men thought that most adults would need a bathtub larger than the boat they were sailing. The waves were huge, and each created a problem in guiding the direction of the boat.
For two days, since the ship sank, the four men had been struggling to reach land. But there was no land to be seen. All the men saw were violent waves which rose and came fiercely down on them.
The men sat in the boat, wondering if there was any hope for them. The ship’s cook sat in the bottom of the boat. He kept looking at the fifteen centimeters which separated him from the ocean.
The boat had only two wooden oars4. They were so thin – it seemed as if they would break against the waves. The sailor, named Billie, directed the boat’s movement with one of the oars. The newspaper reporter pulled the second oar2. He wondered why he was there in the boat.
The fourth man was the captain of the ship that had sunk. He lay in the front of the small boat. His arm and leg were hurt when the ship sank. The captain’s face was sad. He had lost his ship and many of his sailors. But he looked carefully ahead, and he told Billie when to turn the boat.
“Keep her a little more south, Billie,” he said.
“A little more south, sir,” the sailor repeated.
Sitting in the boat was like sitting on a wild horse. As each wave came, the boat rose and fell, like a horse starting toward5 a fence too high to jump. The problem was that after successfully floating over one wave you find that there is another one behind it just as strong and ready to flood your boat.
As each wall of water came in, it hid everything else that the men could see. The waves came in silence; only their white tops made threatening noises.
In the weak light, the faces of the men must have looked gray. Their eyes must have shone in strange ways as they looked out at the sea. The sun rose slowly into the sky. The men knew it was the middle of the day because the color of the sea changed from slate6 gray to emerald green, with gold lights. And the white foam7 on the waves looked like falling snow.
(MUSIC)
As the lifeboat bounced from the top of each wave, the wind tore through the hair of the men. As the boat dropped down again the water fell just past them. The top of each wave was a hill, from which the men could see, for a brief period, a wide area of shining sea.
The cook said the men were lucky because the wind was blowing toward the shore. If it started blowing the other way, they would never reach land. The reporter and the sailor agreed. But the captain laughed in a way that expressed humor8 and tragedy all in one. He asked: “Do you think we’ve got much of a chance now, boys?”
This made the others stop talking. To express any hope at this time they felt to be childish9 and stupid. But they also did not want to suggest there was no hope. So they were silent.
“Oh, well,” said the captain, “We’ll get ashore10 all right.”
But there was something in his voice that made them think, as the sailor said: “Yes, if this wind holds!”
Seagulls flew near and far. Sometimes the birds sat down on the sea in groups, near brown seaweed that rolled on the waves. The anger of the sea was no more to them than it was to a group of chickens a thousand miles away on land. Often the seagulls came very close and stared at the men with black bead-like eyes. The men shouted angrily at them, telling them to be gone.
The sailor and the reporter kept rowing with the thin wooden oars. Sometimes they sat together, each using an oar. Sometimes one would pull on both oars while the other rested. Brown pieces of seaweed appeared from time to time. They were like islands, bits of earth that did not move. They showed the men in the boat that it was slowly making progress toward land.
(MUSIC)
Hours passed. Then, as the boat was carried to the top of a great wave, the captain looked across the water.
He said that he saw the lighthouse at Mosquito Inlet11. The cook also said he saw it. The reporter searched the western sky.
“See it?” said the captain.
“No,” said the reporter slowly, “I don’t see anything.”
“Look again,” said the captain. He pointed12. “It’s exactly in that direction.”
This time the reporter saw a small thing on the edge of the moving horizon. It was exactly like the point of a pin.
“Think we’ll make it, captain?” he asked.
“If this wind holds and the boat doesn’t flood, we can’t do much else,” said the captain.
(MUSIC)
It would be difficult to describe the brotherhood13 of men that was here established on the sea. Each man felt it warmed him. They were a captain, a sailor, a cook and a reporter. And they were friends. The reporter knew even at the time that this friendship was the best experience of his life.
All obeyed the captain. He was a good leader. He always spoke14 in a low voice and calmly.
“I wish we had a sail,” he said, “to give you two boys a chance to rest.” So they used his coat and one of the oars to make a sail and the boat moved much more quickly.
The lighthouse had been slowly growing larger. At last, from the top of each wave the men in the boat could see land. Slowly, the land seemed to rise from the sea. Soon, the men could see two lines, one black and one white.
They knew that the black line was formed by trees, and the white line was the sand. At last, the captain saw a house on the shore. And the lighthouse became even larger.
“The keeper of the lighthouse should be able to see us now,” said the captain. “He’ll notify15 the life-saving people.”
Slowly and beautifully, the land rose from the sea. The wind came again. Finally, the men heard a new sound – the sound of waves breaking and crashing on the shore.
“We’ll never be able to make the lighthouse now,” said the captain. “Swing her head a little more north, Billie.”
“A little more north, sir,” said the sailor.
The men watched the shore grow larger. They became hopeful. In an hour, perhaps, they would be on land. The men struggled to keep the boat from turning over.
They were used to balancing in the boat. Now they rode this wild horse of a boat like circus men. The water poured over them.
The reporter thought he was now wet to the skin. But he felt in the top pocket of his coat and found eight cigars. Four were wet, but four were still dry. One of the men found some dry matches. Each man lit a cigar. The four men sailed in their boat with the belief of a rescue shining in their eyes. They smoked their big cigars and took a drink of water.
(MUSIC)
BARBARA KLEIN: You have been listening to the first part of the American short story, “The Open Boat,” by Stephen Crane. This program was adapted for Special English by Shelley Gollust and produced by Lawan Davis. Your storyteller was Shep O’Neal.
Join us again next week when we tell you the second and last part of the story. You can read and listen to other AMERICAN STORIES on our Web site, voaspecialenglish.com. I’m Barbara Klein.


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点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 crane KzmxD     
v.伸长(脖子);n.起重机,吊车
参考例句:
  • We used a crane to lift the piano into the theatre.我们使用起重机将钢琴搬进剧场。
  • Must we wait till the crane arrives before we start loading?非要等起重机来了才能装运吗?
2 oar EH0xQ     
n.桨,橹,划手;v.划行
参考例句:
  • The sailors oar slowly across the river.水手们慢慢地划过河去。
  • The blade of the oar was bitten off by a shark.浆叶被一条鲨鱼咬掉了。
3 bounced ab1b501fac1a0ea4bd3402b4cad55b0d     
v.弹回( bounce的过去式和过去分词 );(电子邮件)被退回;拒付;(朝某个方向)颠簸行进
参考例句:
  • The ball bounced twice before he could reach it. 球弹了两次他才接到。
  • The new car bounced along the bumpy mountain road. 这辆新车在崎岖的山路上颠簸行驶。 来自《简明英汉词典》
4 oars c589a112a1b341db7277ea65b5ec7bf7     
n.桨,橹( oar的名词复数 );划手v.划(行)( oar的第三人称单数 )
参考例句:
  • He pulled as hard as he could on the oars. 他拼命地划桨。
  • The sailors are bending to the oars. 水手们在拼命地划桨。 来自《简明英汉词典》
5 toward on6we     
prep.对于,关于,接近,将近,向,朝
参考例句:
  • Suddenly I saw a tall figure approaching toward the policeman.突然间我看到一个高大的身影朝警察靠近。
  • Upon seeing her,I smiled and ran toward her. 看到她我笑了,并跑了过去。
6 slate uEfzI     
n.板岩,石板,石片,石板色,候选人名单;adj.暗蓝灰色的,含板岩的;vt.用石板覆盖,痛打,提名,预订
参考例句:
  • The nominating committee laid its slate before the board.提名委员会把候选人名单提交全体委员会讨论。
  • What kind of job uses stained wood and slate? 什么工作会接触木头污浊和石板呢?
7 foam LjOxI     
v./n.泡沫,起泡沫
参考例句:
  • The glass of beer was mostly foam.这杯啤酒大部分是泡沫。
  • The surface of the water is full of foam.水面都是泡沫。
8 humor 4crxX     
n.(humour)幽默,诙谐
参考例句:
  • He is distinguished for his sense of humor.他以其幽默感著称。
  • American humor is founded largely on hyperbole.美式幽默主要以夸张为基础。
9 childish rrmzR     
adj.孩子的,孩子气的,幼稚的
参考例句:
  • The little girl spoke in a high childish voice.这个小女孩用尖尖的童声讲话。
  • We eventually ran out of patience with his childish behaviour.我们终于对他幼稚的行为忍无可忍。
10 ashore tNQyT     
adv.在(向)岸上,上岸
参考例句:
  • The children got ashore before the tide came in.涨潮前,孩子们就上岸了。
  • He laid hold of the rope and pulled the boat ashore.他抓住绳子拉船靠岸。
11 inlet I6Hxt     
n.小湾,海湾,入口,进口;vt.引进,插入
参考例句:
  • There is an inlet to a parking lot.那儿有一个停车场的入口。
  • They went to a fishing village on a small inlet of the sea.他们去了小海湾边的一个渔村。
12 pointed Il8zB4     
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。
13 brotherhood 1xfz3o     
n.兄弟般的关系,手中情谊
参考例句:
  • They broke up the brotherhood.他们断绝了兄弟关系。
  • They live and work together in complete equality and brotherhood.他们完全平等和兄弟般地在一起生活和工作。
14 spoke XryyC     
n.(车轮的)辐条;轮辐;破坏某人的计划;阻挠某人的行动 v.讲,谈(speak的过去式);说;演说;从某种观点来说
参考例句:
  • They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
  • The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。
15 notify cHDx5     
vt.通知,告知,报告
参考例句:
  • The court clerk will notify the witness when and where to appear.法院办事员将通知证人出庭的时间及地点。
  • He will notify us where we are to meet.他将通知我们在什么地方集合。

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