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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

admin2019-08-08  30
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.
【F5】
选项
答案如果他能借助我所谓的时光机回到过去该有多好，这样他就能扭转局面，长舒一口气了。
解析 ①本句为主从复合句，包含一个虚拟条件状语从句和一个定语从句。②虚拟条件状语从句谓语部分could have done是对过去已发生情况的虚拟，avail oneself of sth．表示“某人利用某物”。定语从句that I’ll be getting修饰的是the time-travel device，that在从句充当宾语。③主句的内容表示在前述虚拟条件下发生的情况。主句谓语would have done表示对过去将来情况的虚拟，即在从句虚拟条件下，会发生的结果。
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