Unit 1 Thinking as a Hobby
by William Golding
1 While I was still a boy, I came to the conclusion that there were three grades of thinking, and since I was later to claim thinking as my hobby, I came to an even stranger conclusion - namely, that I myself could not think at all.
开头说发现我不会思考
2 It was the headmaster of my grammar school who first brought the subject of thinking before me. He had some statuettes in his study. They stood on a high cupboard（碗柜，食厨） behind his desk. One was a lady wearing nothing but a bath towel. She seemed frozen in an eternal panic lest （唯恐，担心，以免）the bath towel slip down any farther, and since she had no arms, she was in an unfortunate position to pull the towel up again. Next to her, crouched（蜷伏的） the statuette of a leopard（豹）, ready to spring down at the top drawer of a filing cabinet（档案橱柜） Beyond the leopard was a naked（裸体的，无装饰的）, mus
cular gentleman, who sat, looking down, with his chin（下巴） on his fist（拳） and his elbow on his knee. He seemed utterly（完全地） miserable.
校长的三个雕塑，一个裹着浴巾的女人，一只蜷伏的豹，一个裸体沉思的男人
3 Some time later, I learned about these statuettes. The headmaster had placed them where they would face delinquent（怠忽的，有过失的，流氓） children, because they symbolized to him to whole of life. The naked lady was Venus. She was Love. She was not worried about the towel（毛巾，纸巾）. She was just busy being beautiful. The leopard was Nature, and he was being natural. The muscular gentleman was not miserable. He was Rodin's Thinker, an image of pure thought.
4 I had better explain that I was a frequent visitor to the headmaster's study, because of the latest thing I had done or 1eft undone. As we now say, I was not integrated（综合的，协调的）. I was, (if anything）, disintegrated（分裂的，奔溃的）, and I was puzzled. Whenever I found myself in a penal（刑事的，刑罚的） position before the headmaster's desk, I would sink （下沉，沉没，降低）my head, clasp（扣住，紧紧缠绕） my hands behind my back, and writhe（翻滚，扭动，苦恼） one shoe（鞋，蹄铁，给。。。穿鞋） over the other.
5 The headmaster would look at me and say,
6 “What are we going to do with you?”
7 Well, what were they going to do with me? I would writhe my shoe some more and stare down at the worn rug（旧地毯）.
8 “Look up, boy! Can’t you look up?”in one spring是什么意思
9 Then I would look at the cupboard, where the naked lady was frozen in her panic and the muscular gentleman contemplated（沉思，预期的） the hindquarters（两条后腿） of the leopard in endless gloom（昏暗） I had nothing to say to the headmaster. His spectacles（眼镜，大场面） caught the light so that you could see nothing human behind them. There was no possibility of communication
10 “Don't you ever think at all?”
11 No, I didn't think, wasn't thinking, couldn't think --- I was simply waiting in anguish（痛苦，苦恼，使极度痛苦） for the interview to stop.
12 "Then you'd better learn ---hadn't you?"
13 On one occasion the headmaster leaped（跳跃，极速移动，剧增） to his feet, reached up and put Rodin's masterpiece （杰作，绝无仅有的人）on the desk before me.
14 "That's what a man looks like when he's really thinking."
15 Clearly there was something missing in me. Nature had endowed（捐赠，给与，赋予） the rest of the human race with a sixth sense and 1eft me out. But like someone born deaf, but bitterly（苦涩地，悲痛地） determined to find out about sound, I began to watch my teachers to find out about the thought.
16 There was Mr. Houghton. He was always telling me to think. With a modest satisfaction, he would tell me that he had thought a bit himself. Then why did he spend so much time drinking? Or was there more sense in drinking than there appeared to be? But if not, and if drinking were in fact ruinous（破坏性的，零落的） to health --- and Mr Houghton was ruined, there was no doubt about that--- why was he always talking about the clean life and the virtues of fresh air?
17 Sometimes, exalted（高尚的，赞扬，使激动） by his own oratory（雄辩，演讲术）, he would leap（飞跃，猛冲） from his desk and hustle（推搡，强力将某人往某方向赶） us outside into a hideous（可怕的，丑恶的） wind.
18 "Now，boys! Deep breaths! Feel it right down inside you --- huge draughts （气流）of God's good air!"
19 He would stand before us, put his hands on his waist（腰）and take a tremendous（巨大的，惊人的） breath. You could hear the wind, trapped（捕获） in his chest and struggling with all the unnatural impediments.（妨碍，阻止） His body would reel （迷惑，震惊）with shock and his ruined face go white at the unaccustomed （不习惯的，奇怪的）visitation.（访问，视察） He would stagger（蹒跚，交错的） back to his desk and collapse （倒塌 倒下 崩溃）there, useless for the rest of the morning.
20 Mr Houghton was given to high -minded monologues（独白） about the good life, sexless and full of duty. Yet in the middle of one of these monologues, if a girl passed the window, his neck would turn of itself and he would watch her out of sight. In this instance, h
e seemed to me ruled not by thought but by an invisible and irresistible（不能坚持——极度诱人的，不可抵抗的） spring in his neck.

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