首页
外语
计算机
考研
公务员
职业资格
财经
工程
司法
医学
专升本
自考
实用职业技能
登录
外语
Letty the old lady lived in a "Single Room Occupancy" hotel approved by the New York City welfare department and occupied by old
Letty the old lady lived in a "Single Room Occupancy" hotel approved by the New York City welfare department and occupied by old
admin
2015-10-21
40
问题
Letty the old lady lived in a "Single Room Occupancy" hotel approved by the New York City welfare department and occupied by old losers, junkies, cockroaches and rats. Whenever she left her room—a tiny cubicle with a cot, a chair, a seven-year-old calendar and a window so filthy it blended with the unspeakable walls—she would pack all her valuables in two large shopping bags and carry them with her. If she didn’t, everything would disappear when she left the hotel. Her "things"were also a burden. Everything she managed to possess was portable and had multiple uses. A shawl is more versatile than a sweater, and hats are no good at all, although she used to have lots of nice hats, she told me.
The first day I saw Letty I had left my apartment in search of a "bag lady". I had seen these women round the city frequently, had spoken to a few. Sitting around the parks had taught me more about these city vagabonds. As a group, few were eligible for social security. They had always been flotsam and jetsam, floating from place to place and from job to job—waitress, short order cook, sales clerk, stock boy, maid, mechanic, porter—all those jobs held by faceless people. The "bag ladies"were a special breed. They looked and acted and dressed strangely in some of the most determinedly conformist areas of the city. They frequented Fourteen Street downtown, and the fancy shopping districts. They seemed to like crowds but remained alone. They held long conversations with themselves, with telephone poles, with unexpected cracks in the sidewalk. They hung around lunch counters and cafeterias, and could remain impervious to the rudeness of a determined waitress and sit for hours clutching a coffee cup full of cold memories.
Letty was my representative bag lady. I picked her up on the corner of Fourteenth and Third Avenue. She had the most suspicious face I had encountered; her entire body, in fact, was pulled forward in one large question mark. She was carrying a double plain brown shopping bag and a larger white bag ordering you to vote for some obscure man for some obscure office and we began talking about whether or not she was an unpaid advertisement. I asked her if she would have lunch with me, and let me treat, as a matter of fact. After some hesitation and a few sharp glances over the top of her glasses, Letty the Bag Lady let me come into her life. We had lunch that day, the next, and later the next week.
Being a bag lady was a full-time job. Take the problem of the hotels. You can’t stay to long in any one of those welfare hotels, Letty told me, because the junkies figure out your routine, and when you get your checks, and you’ll be robbed, even killed. So you have to move a lot. And every time you move, you have to make three trips to the welfare office to get them to approve the new place, even if it’s just another cockroach-filled, rat-infested hole in the wall. During the last five years, Letty tried to move every two or three months.
Most of our conversations took place standing in line. New York State had just changed the regulations governing Medicaid cards and Letty had to get a new card. That took two hours in line, one hour sitting in a large dank-smelling room, and two minutes with a social worker who never once looked up. Another time, her case worker at the welfare office sent Letty to try and get food stamps, and after standing in line for three hours she found out she didn’t qualify because she didn’t have cooking facilities in her room. "This is my social life,"she said. "I run around the city and stand in line. You stand in line to see one of them fancy movies and calling it art; I stand in line for medicine, for food, for glasses, for the cards to get pills, for the pills; I stand in line to see people who never see who I am; at the hotel, sometimes I even have to stand in line to go to the John. When I die there’ll probably be a line to get through the gate, and when I get up to the front of the line, somebody will push it closed and say, ’ Sorry. Come back after lunch. ’ These agencies, I figure they have to make it as hard for you to get help as they can, so only really strong people or really stubborn people like me can survive. "
Letty would talk and talk; sometimes, she didn’t seem to know I was even there. She never remembered my name, and would give a little start of surprise whenever I said hers, as if it had been a long time since anyone had said "Letty. "I don’t think she thought of herself as a person, anymore; I think she had accepted the view that she was a welfare case, a Mediaid card, a nuisance in the bus depot in the winter time, a victim to any petty criminal, existing on about the same level as cockroaches.
What is the author’s attitude towards Letty?
选项
A、Doubtful.
B、Detached.
C、Sympathetic.
D、Appreciative.
答案
C
解析
态度题。根据文章最后一段“She…would give a little start of surprise whenever I said hers,as if ithad been a long time since anyone had said‘Letty.’I don’t think she thought of herself as a person.anymore…”可以推知,作者对Letty的遭遇是关切和同情的,故答案为[C]。
转载请注明原文地址:https://kaotiyun.com/show/fGKO777K
0
专业英语八级
相关试题推荐
Accordingtothenews,theicefromGreenlandprovidesinformationabout
TheAmericanPresidentusuallytakesanoathofoffice,administeredbythe______oftheUnitedStatesinJanuary.
Thelivingpressureinmanybigcitieshashadnegativeeffectsoncitydwellers.Asitis,moreandmorecityindividualsares
Morepeopledieoftuberculosis(结核病)thanofanyotherdiseasecausedbyasingleagent.Thishasprobablybeenthecaseinquit
Morepeopledieoftuberculosis(结核病)thanofanyotherdiseasecausedbyasingleagent.Thishasprobablybeenthecaseinquit
Morepeopledieoftuberculosis(结核病)thanofanyotherdiseasecausedbyasingleagent.Thishasprobablybeenthecaseinquit
AccordingtotheWTO,Chineseexportsrose______year.
A、Happinessmeansgoodluckinmanylanguages.B、Happinessasakindoffeelingissomethinglikehavingagoodlife.C、People’s
Itisatruthuniversallyacknowledged,thatasinglemaninpossessionofagoodfortune,mustbeinwantofawife.Howev
Itisatruthuniversallyacknowledged,thatasinglemaninpossessionofagoodfortune,mustbeinwantofawife.Howev
随机试题
微分方程y"+3y’+2y=e2x的特解形式可设为y*=_______.
下列行业的水污染物排放不适用《污水综合排放标准》的是()。
钻孔灌注桩施工时,造成钻孔塌孔或缩径的主要原因有()等。
某公司下一年预期盈利为5元/股,如果该公司的股权收益率为15%,盈利留成比率为40%,该公司资本化比率为10%,那么该公司股票的价值是()
甲公司是一家制造业企业,只生产和销售防滑瓷砖一种产品。产品生产工艺流程比较成熟,生产工人技术操作比较熟练,生产组织管理水平较高,公司实行标准成本制度,定期进行标准成本差异分析。甲公司生产能量6000平方米,2016年9月实际生产5000平方米。其他相关资
2.5,2,3,4,10,38,()。
对比其他市场结构,说明不能建立一般的寡头模型的原因。
驻留在多个网络设备上的程序在短时间内同时产生大量的请求消息冲击某Web服务器,导致该服务器不堪重负,无法正常响应其他合法用户的请求,这属于(9)。
(2013年上半年)公司承接了一个信息系统开发项目,按照能力成熟度模型CMMI制定了软件开发的流程与规范,委派小赵为这个项目的项目经理。小赵具有3年的软件项目开发与管理经验。公司认为这个项目的技术难度比较低,把两个月前刚从大学招聘来的9个计算机科
(1)ResearcherswhopickedupandanalyzedwildchimpdroppingssaidonThursdaytheyhadshownhowtheAIDSvirusoriginatedin
最新回复
(
0
)