2. 外语
  3. Passage One (1) "You have told Blank, and Dash, and Chose about the machine?" he said to me, leaning back in his easy-chai

Passage One (1) "You have told Blank, and Dash, and Chose about the machine?" he said to me, leaning back in his easy-chai

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问题     Passage One
    (1)   "You have told Blank, and Dash, and Chose about the machine?" he said to me, leaning back in his easy-chair and naming the three new guests.
    (2)   "But the thing’s a mere paradox," said the Editor.
    (3)   "I can’t argue tonight. I don’t mind telling you the story, but I can’t argue. I will," he went on, "tell you the story of what has happened to me, if you like, but you must refrain from interruptions. I want to tell it. Badly. Most of it will sound like lying. So be it! It’s true—every word of it, all the same. I was in my laboratory at four o’clock, and since then...I’ve lived eight days... such days as no human being ever lived before! I’m nearly worn out, but I shan’t sleep till I’ve told this thing over to you. Then I shall go to bed. But no interruptions! Is it agreed?"
    (4)   "Agreed," said the Editor, and the rest of us echoed "Agreed. " And with that the Time Traveller began his story as I have set it forth. He sat back in his chair at first, and spoke like a weary man. Afterwards he got more animated. In writing it down I feel with only too much keenness the inadequacy of pen and ink—and, above all, my own inadequacy—to express its quality. You read, I will suppose, attentively enough; but you cannot see the speaker’s white, sincere face in the bright circle of the little lamp, nor hear the intonation of his voice. You cannot know how his expression followed the turns of his story! Most of us hearers were in shadow, for the candles in the smoking-room had not been lighted, and only the face of the Journalist and the legs of the Silent Man from the knees downward were illuminated. At first we glanced now and again at each other. After a time we ceased to do that, and looked only at the Time Traveler’s face.
    (5)   "I told some of you last Thursday of the principles of the Time Machine, and showed you the actual thing itself, incomplete in the workshop. There it is now, a little travel-worn, truly. The thing was not complete until this morning. It was at ten o’clock today that the first of all Time Machines began its career. I gave it a last tap and sat myself in the saddle. I suppose a suicide who holds a pistol(手枪) to his skull feels much the same wonder at what will come next as I felt then. I took the starting lever(控制杆) in one hand and the stopping one in the other, pressed the first, and almost immediately the second. 1 seemed to reel; I felt a nightmare sensation of falling; and, looking round, I saw the laboratory exactly as before. Had anything happened? For a moment I suspected that my intellect had tricked me. Then I noted the clock. A moment before, as it seemed, it had stood at a minute or so past ten; now it was nearly half-past three \"
    (6)   "I drew a breath, set my teeth, gripped the starting lever with both hands, and went off with a thud. The laboratory got hazy and went dark. Mrs. Watchett came in and walked, apparently without seeing me, towards the garden door. I suppose it took her a minute or so to traverse the place, but to me she seemed to shoot across the room like a rocket. I pressed the lever over to its extreme position. The night came like the turning out of a lamp, and in another moment came tomorrow.  The laboratory grew faint and hazy, then fainter and ever fainter. Tomorrow night came black, then day again, night again, day again, faster and faster still. An eddying murmur filled my ears, and a strange, dumb confusedness descended on my mind. "
    (7)   "I am afraid I cannot convey the peculiar sensations of time travelling. They are excessively unpleasant. There is a feeling exactly like that one has upon a switchback—of a helpless headlong motion! I felt the same horrible anticipation, too, of an imminent smash. As I put on pace, night followed day like the flapping of a black wing. The dim suggestion of the laboratory seemed presently to fall away from me, and I saw the sun hopping swiftly across the sky, leaping it every minute, and every minute marking a day. I supposed the laboratory had been destroyed and I had come into the open air. I had a dim impression of scaffolding, but I was already going too fast to be conscious of any moving things. The slowest snail that ever crawled dashed by too fast for me. The twinkling succession of darkness and light was excessively painful to the eye. Then, in the intermittent darknesses, I saw the moon spinning swiftly through her quarters from new to full, and had a faint glimpse of the circling stars. Presently, as I went on, still gaining velocity, the palpitation of night and day merged into one continuous greyness; the sky took on a wonderful deepness of blue, a splendid luminous color like that of early twilight; the jerking sun became a streak of fire, a brilliant arch, in space; the moon a fainter fluctuating band; and I could see nothing of the stars, save now and then a brighter circle flickering in the blue. "
    (8)   "The landscape was misty and vague. I was still on the hill-side upon which this house now stands, and the shoulder rose above me grey and dim. I saw trees growing and changing like puffs of vapour, now brown, now green; they grew, spread, shivered, and passed away. I saw huge buildings rise up faint and fair, and pass like dreams. The whole surface of the earth seemed changed—melting and flowing under my eyes. The little hands upon the dials that registered my speed raced round faster and faster. Presently I noted that the sun belt swayed up and down, from solstice to solstice, in a minute or less, and that consequently my pace was over a year a minute; and minute by minute the white snow flashed across the world, and vanished, and was followed by the bright, brief green of spring. "  
What is the mood of the audience to listen to the Time Traveler’s story?
选项 A、Mocking and scornful.
B、Curious but half-doubting.
C、Serious and heavy-hearted.
D、Shocked but fascinated.
答案B
解析 推断题。对于听者的描述主要集中在前三段、第四段首句及最后两句。第二段中编辑说时光机纯属胡扯，说明他起初是不相信的，而后，当时光旅行者提出讲述时不许插嘴的时候，大家都表示了同意，第四段最后两句说到，听者开始还互相看看，表明他们还心存质疑，而过了一会儿，则完全顾不上彼此了，全神贯注地盯着时光旅行者的脸，由此可以推断，尽管大家对时光旅行的真实性有所怀疑，但又特别好奇，非常想听这个故事，故[B]为正确答案。原文中没有依据可以推断出听者有轻蔑、心情沉重或震惊的情绪，故排除其余三项。
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