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  3. Time travel belongs not to the realm of realistic possibility but rather to fiction, and within that world it is part of a genre

Time travel belongs not to the realm of realistic possibility but rather to fiction, and within that world it is part of a genre

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问题    Time travel belongs not to the realm of realistic possibility but rather to fiction, and within that world it is part of a genre involving dreams about the realization of desires, like a magic spirit in a bottle, or a pact with the devil, or, in the present case, a proposal by the editor of a magazine. In literature, if these desires come to pass, they almost always lead to regret, or to hell. I think I know how to avoid such unfortunate ends.
   I would start by asking this powerful figure if she were willing to transport me far, far back in time. Once I received an affirmative response, I would strike a deal. 【F1】I would propose exchanging this trip spanning a thousand years for the same amount of time, only divided into small trips to the immediate past. Bound by her word, which is unbreakable, she’d have no choice but to grant me my request.
   【F2】With this simple trick, I would change a worthless opportunity to see a historical spectacle that would be of no use to me at all for a practical power that can make my life easier. These small jumps will be more useful than any other thing I could possibly have. 【F3】They will allow me to go back each time I’ve made an error, and fix it; or when I’ve said something I regret, and not say it; or when I haven’t found an adequate answer to a question, and show off with one that I hatched after some further thought. I will be in a position to overcome what Rousseau called l’esprit de l’escalier, the ingenious phrase that occurs to us when we’re leaving the house where we should have uttered it
   Rousseau had good reasons to assign a name to that all too common circumstance. The original anecdote that gave rise to the expression can be found in his "Confessions." At dinner with important guests, a woman asked him, either out of spite or ignorance, if he had children. Everyone knew that he had five, and that he had put them up for adoption. In the anxious silence that followed, Rousseau managed only to stumble in the negative, and he spent the rest of the night being upset about it. 【F4】But when he left, repairing down those fateful stairs, the perfect response struck him: "Ma’am, that is not a question to ask a bachelor." (I suspect that Rousseau wrote the eight hundred pages of his "Confessions" just to deliver that phrase, and thus to find peace.) 【F5】If only he could have availed himself of the time-travel device that I’ll be getting, he’d have gone back and had some relief.
【F4】
选项
答案在他离场走在那个“命运之梯”时，他依然在想怎么修补刚才的回答，突然灵光一现，他想到了完美的回击：“夫人，您不该问一个光棍这种问题。”
解析 ①本句为主从复合句，包含一个时间状语从句。主句是主谓宾结构，后带有一个直接引语。②现在分词短语repairing down those fateful stairs作从句谓语动词left的伴随状语。介词短语down…stairs意思是“下楼梯”。这个分词短语意思是“离场下楼梯时还在想着修补之前的回答”。fateful在这里意为“重大的；决定命运的”，修饰stairs，带有嘲讽和遗憾的感情色彩。③主句中sth．strike sb．等同于sb．suddenly realize sth．，意思为“突然想到”。引语是response的具体内容，是事后想出来的一个回答。
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