Lesson 36

We are less credulous than we used to be.
我们不像以前那样容易轻信了。
In the nineteenth century, a novelist would bring his story to a conclusion by presenting his readers with a series of coincidences — most of them wildly improbable.
在19世纪，小说家通常会通过向读者展示一系列巧合（其中大多数极其荒谬）来结束他的故事。
Readers happily accepted the fact that an obscure maidservant was really the hero’s mother.
读者们愉快地接受了这样一个事实：一名无名的女仆竟然是英雄的母亲。
A long-lost brother, who was presumed dead, was really alive all the time and wickedly plotting to bring about the hero’s downfall.
一位失散多年的兄弟，曾被推定已死，其实一直都活着，并且在阴险地策划着如何让英雄垮台。
And so on.
等等
Modern readers would find such naive solutions totally unacceptable.
现代读者会觉得如此天真的解决方案是完全不可接受的。
Yet, in real life, circumstances do sometimes conspire to bring about coincidences which anyone but a nineteenth century novelist would find incredible.
然而，在现实生活中，情况确实有时共同导致了一些巧合，这些巧合除了十九世纪的小说家外，任何人都觉得不可思议。
When I was a boy, my grandfather told me how a German taxi driver, Franz Bussman, found a brother who was thought to have been killed twenty years before.
当我还是一个男孩时，我的祖父告诉我，一个名叫弗朗茨·布斯曼的德国出租车司机是如何找到一个被认为在二十年前就已经遇难的兄弟的。
While on a walking tour with his wife, he stopped to talk to a workman.
当他和妻子在一次徒步旅行时，他停下来和一个工人交谈。
After they had gone on, Mrs. Bussman commented on the workman’s close resemblance to her husband and even suggested that he might be his brother.
在他们走开后，布斯曼夫人评论了那个工人与她丈夫极高的相似度，甚至还暗示说他可能是他的兄弟。
Franz poured scorn on the idea, pointing out that his brother had been killed in action during the war.
弗朗茨对这个想法嗤之以鼻，并指出他的哥哥在战争期间已在战斗中牺牲。
Though Mrs. Bussman was fully acquainted with this story, she thought that there was a chance in a million that she might be right.
虽然布斯曼夫人完全熟悉这个故事，但她认为或许有万分之一的可能她是对的。
A few days later, she sent a boy to the workman to ask him if his name was Hans Bussman.
几天后，她派了一个男孩去那个工人那里，问他是否叫汉斯·布斯曼。
Needless to say, the man’s name was Hans Bussman and he really was Franz’s long-lost brother.
不用说，这个人的名字叫汉斯·布斯曼，他确实是弗兰茨失散多年的兄弟。
When the brothers were reunited, Hans explained how it was that he was still alive.
当兄弟俩重聚时，汉斯解释了他为何还活着。
After having been wounded towards the end of the war, he had been sent to hospital and was separated from his unit.
在战争接近尾声受伤后，他被送往医院并与原部队失去了联系。
The hospital had been bombed and Hans had made his way back into Western Germany on foot.
这家医院被炸毁了，汉斯步行回到了西德。
Meanwhile, his unit was lost and all records of him had been destroyed.
与此同时，他的部队失踪了，关于他的所有记录也已被销毁。
Hans returned to his family home, but the house had been bombed and no one in the neighbourhood knew what had become of the inhabitants.
汉斯回到了他的家，但房子已被炸毁，邻里间没人知道那些居民后来怎么了。
Assuming that his family had been killed during an air raid, Hans settled down in a village fifty miles away where he had remained ever since.
假设他的家人已在空袭中丧生，汉斯在五十英里外的一个村庄定居下来，并从那时起一直待在那里。