新视野大学英语读写教程听力 第一册 unit06a_new

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[00:00.00]，就把hxen.com复制到QQ个人资料中！The Widow
[00:-1.00]Alone now,the widow reads considerably.
[00:-2.00]She used to underline favorite passages to share with her husband.
[00:-3.00]Now,in a notebook,she stores quotations
[00:-4.00]like this one from Elizabeth Jolley\'s Cabin Fever:
[00:-5.00]"I experience again the deep-felt wish to be part of a married couple,
[00:-6.00]to sit by the fire in winter with the man who is my husband.
[00:-7.00]So intense is this wish that if I write the word husband on a piece of paper,
[00:-8.00]my eyes fill with tears."
[00:-9.00]Why are these lines so painful?
[00:10.00]We begin with a worn wedding album.
[00:11.00]In the first picture,the bride and groom are facing,
[00:12.00]with uncertain smiles,a church filled with relatives and friends.
[00:13.00]The bride did not wear glasses that day,
[00:14.00]so everything was a blur of candlelight and faces.
[00:15.00]They walked to the back of the church
[00:16.00]and stood at the door as their guests filed past
[00:17.00]From colleagues and old schoolmates
[00:18.00]came cheerful good wishes clothed in friendly jokes
[00:19.00]Some relatives,however,were not pleased.
[00:20.00]One sat in a car, crying;
[00:21.00]another stood surrounded by sympathizers offering pity.
[00:22.00]Both these women — mothers of the bride and groom
[00:23.00]— would have insisted they wanted only the best for their children
[00:24.00]but they defined "the best" as staying home to help support the family.
[00:25.00]The last person to approach the couple was a short, elderly woman
[00:26.00]who smiled as she congratulated them
[00:27.00]—not by name but as "wife" and "husband".
[00:28.00]"I\'m Aunt Esther Gubbins," she said.
[00:29.00]"I\'m here to tell you you are going to live a good life and be happy.
[00:30.00]You will work hard and love each other."
[00:31.00]Then quickly,for such a short,portly,elderly person,she disappeared.
[00:32.00]Soon they departed, in a borrowed car.
[00:33.00]With money loaned by the groom\'s brother,
[00:34.00]they could afford a honeymoon at a state-park lodge.
[00:35.00]Sitting before a great oak fire,they recalled the events of the day,
[00:36.00]especially the strange message conveyed by Aunt Esther Gubbins.
[00:37.00]"Is she your mother\'s sister or your father\'s?" asked the wife.
[00:38.00]"Isn\'t she your aunt?"the husband responded."I never saw her before."
[00:39.00]They wondered. Had she come to the wrong church or at the wrong time,
[00:40.00]mistaking them for another couple?
[00:41.00]Or was she just an old woman who liked weddings
[00:42.00]and scanned for announcements in church bulletins?
[00:43.00]With the passage of time and the birth of grandchildren,
[00:44.00]their mothers accepted their marriage.
[00:45.00]One made piles of clothes for the children;
[00:46.00]the other knitted hats, sweaters and gloves.
[00:47.00]The couple\'s life together was very ordinary.
[00:48.00]Peculiarly,neither ever asked "Whose job is this?"
[00:49.00]or asserted "That is not my responsibility!"
[00:50.00]Both acted to fill their needs as time and opportunity allowed.
[00:51.00]Arriving from work, he might announce, "Wife, I am home!"
[00:52.00]And she, restraining the desire to complain about housework,
[00:53.00]would respond,"Husband, I am glad!"
[00:54.00]Occasionally, usually around their anniversary,
[00:55.00]they would bring up the old curiosity regarding Aunt Esther Gubbins.
[00:56.00]He would insist the elderly woman did attend their wedding accidentally.
[00:57.00]But she knew "Aunt Esther" was on some heavenly mission.
[00:58.00]Widowed now,the wife wonders what she would save from their old home
[00:59.00]if it were to catch fire:
[-1:00.00]Her mother\'s ring? Pictures of her husband?
[-1:-1.00]The $47 hidden in the sugar bowl?
[-1:-2.00]No,it would be the worn, fading envelope she kept for so long.
[-1:-3.00]She knows exactly where it can be found: under a pile of napkins.
[-1:-4.00]One evening her husband had fallen asleep while reading a spy novel.
[-1:-5.00]She wrote a note on the envelope and left it on his book:

[-1:-6.00]"Husband,I have gone next door to help Mrs.Norton with her sick children."
[-1:-7.00]The next morning she saw he had written below her message:
[-1:-8.00]"Wife,I missed you.
[-1:-9.00]You thought I was asleep,
[-1:10.00]but I was just resting my eyes and thinking about that peculiar woman
[-1:11.00]who talked to us in church a long time ago.
[-1:12.00]It has always seemed to me that she was the wrong shape for a heavenly messenger.
[-1:13.00]Anyway,it\'s time to stop wondering whether she came from heaven or a nearby town.
[-1:14.00]What matters is this: whoever she was,Aunt Esther Gubbins was right."
 

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