CHAPTER I—IT MIGHT HAVE HAPPENED TO YOU

You may feel inclined to dispute the assertion. You may even consider yourself insulted by the suggestion that it might have happened to you. "It could never have happened to me," you may argue. But it could.

You had no control over the selection of your parents or the date and place of your birth. The advantages which saved you from having it happen to you were the merest accidents; they did not arise from your own inherent merit. It was your good luck to be born in America. No protest of yours could have prevented your being born in Central Europe. So, had it not been for the fortune of your birth, it might have happened to you.

But perhaps you think that though you had been born in Central Europe, the horrors of injustice¹ and famine, described in these pages, would not have been shared by you. You would have risen above them; you would have been too astute², too far-sighted, too resourceful to be entrapped³ by them. Whoever else had gone under, you by your superior capacity for industry would have dug yourself out on top.

You wouldn't. Industry, astuteness⁴, farsightedness, resourcefulness—none of these admirable qualities would have saved you. You must disabuse⁵ your mind of the prejudice that the starving peoples of the stricken countries are shiftless, unemployable, uncivilised, or in any way inferior to yourself. To tell the truth you are probably exactly the sort of person who, had you been born in Central Europe, would have gone to the bottom first. You belong to the middle or upper class. You are highly intelligent and specialised. You gain your living with your brains and not with your hands. If society were disrupted and temporarily bankrupt, so that the delicate mechanism⁶ of modern business ceased to function, your way of earning your living would no longer find a market. You would have to turn from working with your brains to working with your hands. Everyone in your class would be doing the same; there would not be enough manual labour to go round. You might have made investments in the days of your prosperity; but in the face of national insolvency⁷ your former thrift⁸ would not avail you. Your investments would be so much worthless paper, totally unnegotiable. You might have hoarded⁹ actual cash, the way the peasants do in their stockings. Even this reserve would soon be exhausted¹⁰ since, by reason of the depreciation¹¹ in the currency, it would take a hundred times more money to purchase any service or commodity than it used. In starving Central Europe it is the doctors, professors, engineers, artists, musicians, business men, lawyers—the intellectual wealth of the nations, who have been the first to perish. The further they had dug themselves out of the pit of crude manual labour, where all labour starts, the more precipitous was their descent.

But perhaps you think that though these things might have happened to you, you would not have deserved them—not in the sense that Central Europe deserves them. Had you been an Austrian your moral fineness would have revolted against your countrymen's war of opportunism and aggression¹². Perhaps! But men act in crowds and the probabilities are against you. All the enemy peoples with whom I have conversed¹³, have claimed as the ideals which urged them to fight precisely¹⁴ the same ideals for which we sacrificed and ultimately triumphed—liberty, justice, righteousness. Had their Governments not convinced them that their inheritance of freedom was in danger, they would not have risked their happiness in carnage. This at least is certain, whatever else is in doubt: the ordinary, home-loving citizen, whatever his nationality, only becomes a soldier and makes himself a target for shell-fire under the compulsion of a lofty motive¹⁵. It was the bad fortune of the citizens of the Central Powers that their lofty motives¹⁶ were the offspring of lies—lies retailed¹⁷ to them as truth by the criminals and casuists who were their leaders. Had we been of their citizenship¹⁸, should we have been more alert to discern the falsehood?

That I should write in this spirit, pleading for our late enemies, may cause a slight amazement¹⁹ in a public who have read my war-books. My reason—I will not say my excuse:—is that I have visited our late enemies' need and in the presence of human agony animosity dies. One ceases to question how far their suffering is the outcome of their folly²⁰; his sole desperation is to bind²¹ up their wounds—especially the wounds of their children. When witnessing death and starvation on the wholesale²² scale now prevailing²³ in Europe, he forgets his austere²⁴ self-righteousness and substitutes mercy for justice. "It might have happened to me," he says; "these women might have been my wife, my mother, my sisters, and these children, save for the grace of God, might have been my children."

One never believes that his own calamities²⁵ are possible until they have happened. He thinks of himself proudly, as an individual immune from the contagion²⁶ of adversity. It was so that the Russian aristocrats²⁷ thought of themselves. If in the summer of 1914 the stranger of The Third Floor Back had mysteriously appeared at the Imperial Court in Petrograd and had announced, "Unless you have compassion²⁸ and share with the outcast, the day will come when there will not be a peasant in Russia as forlorn as you," he would have been laughed ta scorn and sent into exile. Yet that day has come. In Warsaw you may see the princesses, the generals, the fops, the plutocrats, the law-givers of that resplendent Court, clothed in rags, their feet in sodden²⁹ boots, waiting their turn in the breadline. After such a sight, no reversal of fortunes, however far-fetched, seems impossible. It might happen to anybody. It might happen to me or you. There is even a likelihood that it will happen unless we learn to have compassion. Central Europe will not die patiently of starvation indefinitely. Nations which civilisation³⁰ has condemned³¹ to starve to death have nothing to lose by giving way to violence; they may have something to gain by it The more desperate their need becomes, the more likely they are to risk the gamble. They would at least get the satisfaction before they perished of making other nations, which had been heedless of their misery³², as outcast as themselves. There lies the danger.

So, however fanciful it may seem to say in writing of Central Europe, "It might have happened to you," there is a grim possibility about the final statement, "It may happen yet."

1 injustice   

n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利

参考例句：

• They complained of injustice in the way they had been treated.他们抱怨受到不公平的对待。
• All his life he has been struggling against injustice.他一生都在与不公正现象作斗争。

2 astute   

adj.机敏的，精明的

参考例句：

• A good leader must be an astute judge of ability.一个优秀的领导人必须善于识别人的能力。
• The criminal was very astute and well matched the detective in intelligence.这个罪犯非常狡猾，足以对付侦探的机智。

3 entrapped   

v.使陷入圈套，使入陷阱( entrap的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• He was entrapped into undertaking the work. 他受骗而担任那工作。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He felt he had been entrapped into marrying her. 他觉得和她结婚是上了当。 来自辞典例句

4 astuteness   

n.敏锐；精明；机敏

参考例句：

• His pleasant, somewhat ordinary face suggested amiability rather than astuteness. 他那讨人喜欢而近乎平庸的脸显得和蔼有余而机敏不足。 来自互联网
• Young Singaporeans seem to lack the astuteness and dynamism that they possess. 本地的一般年轻人似乎就缺少了那份机灵和朝气。 来自互联网

5 disabuse   

v.解惑；矫正

参考例句：

• Let me disabuse of that foolish prejudices.让我消除那个愚蠢的偏见。
• If you think I'm going to lend you money,I must disabuse you of that wrong idea.你若认为我会借钱给你，我倒要劝你打消那念头。

6 mechanism   

n.机械装置；机构，结构

参考例句：

• The bones and muscles are parts of the mechanism of the body.骨骼和肌肉是人体的组成部件。
• The mechanism of the machine is very complicated.这台机器的结构是非常复杂的。

7 insolvency   

n.无力偿付，破产

参考例句：

• The company is on the verge of insolvency.该公司快要破产了。
• Normal insolvency procedures should not be applied to banks.通常的破产程序不应当适用于银行。

8 thrift   

adj.节约，节俭；n.节俭，节约

参考例句：

• He has the virtues of thrift and hard work.他具备节俭和勤奋的美德。
• His thrift and industry speak well for his future.他的节俭和勤勉预示着他美好的未来。

9 hoarded   

v.积蓄并储藏（某物）( hoard的过去式和过去分词 )

参考例句：

• It owned great properties and often hoarded huge treasures. 它拥有庞大的财产，同时往往窖藏巨额的财宝。 来自辞典例句
• Sylvia among them, good-naturedly applaud so much long-hoarded treasure of useless knowing. 西尔维亚也在他们中间，为那些长期珍藏的无用知识，友好地、起劲地鼓掌。 来自互联网

10 exhausted   

adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的

参考例句：

• It was a long haul home and we arrived exhausted.搬运回家的这段路程特别长，到家时我们已筋疲力尽。
• Jenny was exhausted by the hustle of city life.珍妮被城市生活的忙乱弄得筋疲力尽。

11 depreciation   

n.价值低落，贬值，蔑视，贬低

参考例句：

• She can't bear the depreciation of the enemy.她受不了敌人的蹂躏。
• They wrote off 500 for depreciation of machinery.他们注销了500镑作为机器折旧费。

12 aggression   

n.进攻，侵略，侵犯，侵害

参考例句：

• So long as we are firmly united, we need fear no aggression.只要我们紧密地团结，就不必惧怕外来侵略。
• Her view is that aggression is part of human nature.她认为攻击性是人类本性的一部份。

13 conversed   

v.交谈，谈话( converse的过去式 )

参考例句：

• I conversed with her on a certain problem. 我与她讨论某一问题。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• She was cheerful and polite, and conversed with me pleasantly. 她十分高兴，也很客气，而且愉快地同我交谈。 来自辞典例句

14 precisely   

adv.恰好，正好，精确地，细致地

参考例句：

• It's precisely that sort of slick sales-talk that I mistrust.我不相信的正是那种油腔滑调的推销宣传。
• The man adjusted very precisely.那个人调得很准。

15 motive   

n.动机，目的；adv.发动的，运动的

参考例句：

• The police could not find a motive for the murder.警察不能找到谋杀的动机。
• He had some motive in telling this fable.他讲这寓言故事是有用意的。

16 motives   

n.动机，目的( motive的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• to impeach sb's motives 怀疑某人的动机
• His motives are unclear. 他的用意不明。

17 retailed   

vt.零售（retail的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• She retailed the neighbours' activities with relish. 她饶有兴趣地对邻居们的活动说三道四。
• The industrial secrets were retailed to a rival concern. 工业秘密被泄露给一家对立的公司。 来自《简明英汉词典》

18 citizenship   

n.市民权，公民权，国民的义务(身份)

参考例句：

• He was born in Sweden,but he doesn't have Swedish citizenship.他在瑞典出生，但没有瑞典公民身分。
• Ten years later,she chose to take Australian citizenship.十年后，她选择了澳大利亚国籍。

19 amazement   

n.惊奇，惊讶

参考例句：

• All those around him looked at him with amazement.周围的人都对他投射出惊异的眼光。
• He looked at me in blank amazement.他带着迷茫惊诧的神情望着我。

20 folly   

n.愚笨，愚蠢，蠢事，蠢行，傻话

参考例句：

• Learn wisdom by the folly of others.从别人的愚蠢行动中学到智慧。
• Events proved the folly of such calculations.事情的进展证明了这种估计是愚蠢的。

21 bind   

vt.捆，包扎；装订；约束；使凝固；vi.变硬

参考例句：

• I will let the waiter bind up the parcel for you.我让服务生帮你把包裹包起来。
• He wants a shirt that does not bind him.他要一件不使他觉得过紧的衬衫。

22 wholesale   

n.批发；adv.以批发方式；vt.批发，成批出售

参考例句：

• The retail dealer buys at wholesale and sells at retail.零售商批发购进货物，以零售价卖出。
• Such shoes usually wholesale for much less.这种鞋批发出售通常要便宜得多。

23 prevailing   

adj.盛行的；占优势的；主要的

参考例句：

• She wears a fashionable hair style prevailing in the city.她的发型是这个城市流行的款式。
• This reflects attitudes and values prevailing in society.这反映了社会上盛行的态度和价值观。

24 austere   

adj.艰苦的；朴素的，朴实无华的；严峻的

参考例句：

• His way of life is rather austere.他的生活方式相当简朴。
• The room was furnished in austere style.这间屋子的陈设都很简单朴素。

25 calamities   

n.灾祸，灾难( calamity的名词复数 )；不幸之事

参考例句：

• They will only triumph by persevering in their struggle against natural calamities. 他们只有坚持与自然灾害搏斗，才能取得胜利。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
• One moment's false security can bring a century of calamities. 图一时之苟安，贻百年之大患。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

26 contagion   

n.(通过接触的疾病)传染；蔓延

参考例句：

• A contagion of fear swept through the crowd.一种恐惧感在人群中迅速蔓延开。
• The product contagion effect has numerous implications for marketing managers and retailers.产品传染效应对市场营销管理者和零售商都有很多的启示。

27 aristocrats   

n.贵族( aristocrat的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Many aristocrats were killed in the French Revolution. 许多贵族在法国大革命中被处死。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• To the Guillotine all aristocrats! 把全部贵族都送上断头台！ 来自英汉文学 - 双城记

28 compassion   

n.同情，怜悯

参考例句：

• He could not help having compassion for the poor creature.他情不自禁地怜悯起那个可怜的人来。
• Her heart was filled with compassion for the motherless children.她对于没有母亲的孩子们充满了怜悯心。

29 sodden   

adj.浑身湿透的；v.使浸透；使呆头呆脑

参考例句：

• We stripped off our sodden clothes.我们扒下了湿透的衣服。
• The cardboard was sodden and fell apart in his hands.纸板潮得都发酥了，手一捏就碎。

30 civilisation   

n.文明，文化，开化，教化

参考例句：

• Energy and ideas are the twin bases of our civilisation.能源和思想是我们文明的两大基石。
• This opera is one of the cultural totems of Western civilisation.这部歌剧是西方文明的文化标志物之一。

31 condemned   

adj. 被责难的, 被宣告有罪的 动词condemn的过去式和过去分词

参考例句：

• He condemned the hypocrisy of those politicians who do one thing and say another. 他谴责了那些说一套做一套的政客的虚伪。
• The policy has been condemned as a regressive step. 这项政策被认为是一种倒退而受到谴责。

32 misery   

n.痛苦，苦恼，苦难；悲惨的境遇，贫苦

参考例句：

• Business depression usually causes misery among the working class.商业不景气常使工薪阶层受苦。
• He has rescued me from the mire of misery.他把我从苦海里救了出来。