The physics teacher, Howard Dax, dismissed the class. He picked up a felt-covered block and erased1 the diagrams he had drawn2 on the blackboard. He noticed with annoyance3 that the lines were shaky, and in one place was an irregular star where the chalk had broken because of his exasperation4 at his pupils—or more exactly, one particular pupil.
When the blackboard was clean to the corners—Howard Dax was a very precise man—he turned around and saw that the particular pupil was still sitting at his desk. He was a thin boy of fifteen, called Mallison, whose dark, wavy5 hair was too long. It rose in a kind of breaker over his forehead, and he had sideburns cut to a point. His expression was neither sullen6 nor impertinent, but Dax had always had the feeling that Mallison was concealing7 intense boredom8 and only listened to him perforce. He was sure that the narrow, rather handsome face was on the verge9 of sneering10. But there had never been quite anything that he could put his finger on. The boy was definitely not good at physics, yet he wasn't at the bottom of the class. The thing was that he gave the impression of being above average intelligence. He obviously could do very much better if he wanted to. Dax was convinced that he despised physics, and school in general.
"Yes?" Dax said. "What is it?" He tried to make his voice sound natural and casual.
Mallison stared at him impassively for a moment. Then he said, "You don't like me, Mr. Dax, do you?"
"My dear boy, I neither like you nor dislike you," Dax said. He could feel his hands beginning again to tremble slightly. Damn adrenalin! "I am merely trying to teach you elementary physics. Why do you ask?"
"Why do you give me such low grades?" Mallison said, but with no sense of urgent curiosity.
Howard Dax thought that the boy's manner was altogether too adult. He didn't expect deference11 from a modern teenager, but neither did he like to be spoken to in such a man-to-man way. No; come to think of it, man-to-man wasn't quite the phrase. It was off-hand. And yet it was artificial: Mallison never spoke12 in this way to his contemporaries. He usually talked like a ... what was it? Hipster?
"I give students the grades that in my opinion they deserve," Dax said. "In your case they are low because I don't think you're trying."
"I am trying," Mallison said, then added, "sir."
"You are," Dax said. "Very." He thought the remark was rather neat, but the boy looked at him without any change of expression. Why was he here? What did he want to say? "I must confess," Dax went on, "that I am surprised at your interest in grades. I should have thought that rock-and-roll was more your style. That and ... er ... racing13 around at night in a fast car!" He felt that he was sneering, and made his face blank.
"I'm too young for a driver's license," Mallison said.
"But old enough to pull yourself together and do some real work. You could do much better in class. You're not stupid."
The boy said nothing and continued to stare at him without expression.
"When I see signs of an improved attitude," Dax said, "and a little more work, I shall mark you accordingly. One gets the impression usually that your mind is on other things. Things like jazz records."
"Didn't you listen to jazz when you were young, Mr. Dax?"
Howard Dax at thirty-nine hardly thought of himself as old. The boy was not being exactly fresh, but he had a sort of polite tactlessness. It was absurd, but he felt that Mallison had the upper hand, somehow.
Dax had an older brother who had been a lieutenant14 in World War II, and he had described to him an occasion on which he had interviewed an elderly staff sergeant15. The staff sergeant in civilian16 life had been his brother's boss. Although his manner was scrupulously17 correct, there remained an atmosphere of his peacetime ascendancy18. Howard Dax sympathized with his brother. There was nothing actually wrong with Mallison's manner, but the pupil had the master on the defensive19.
He decided20 to ignore Mallison's question. He had no idea how the young nowadays felt about the subject of early Benny Goodman or the emergence21 of Barrel House. Why was he even bothering?
"The point at issue," he said with asperity22, "is not whether I used to listen to jazz twenty-five years ago, but whether you are going to pay attention in class now. I admit you manage to scrape through in the tests, but this morning, for example, you acted as if you were half asleep!"
"I'm sorry. I was very tired." Mallison did look pale.
"I suppose you were up half the night—cutting a rug."
Mallison winced23 at the outdated24 jargon25 but he merely shook his head. There were firm steps in the corridor, and the school principal marched in.
Mallison stood up; Dax was still standing26. The principal had a small piece of folded paper in his hand, and did not immediately notice the boy, whose desk was near the back row and next the open windows. He went straight to the platform and put the folded paper on Dax's desk. He nodded curtly27 and glanced towards the windows, and saw Mallison sitting there for the first time.
"I thought you were alone," he said, turning to Dax.
"You may go," Dax said to the boy. "That will be all. Remember what I said." He looked at the folded paper and then at the principal questioningly. "Yes, Mr. Lightstone?"
The principal was a short white-haired man with a dogged expression. He turned again to make sure the boy had left and said. "I want you to look at this, Dax." He tapped the folded paper, which had been made into a sort of envelope, with its ends tucked in. Dax bent28 to examine it.
"Pick it up, man! Open it," the principal said, and came around and sat in the teacher's chair. "Be careful not to spill it!"
Dax picked up the little packet and opened it. Inside was a teaspoonful29 of white powder. "What is it?" he asked.
"That," said the principal, "is something for our friends upstairs in the chemistry department to determine. I found it myself, in the flowerbed right outside these windows!"
Howard Dax looked puzzled. "I don't think I understand—"
"If I don't miss my bet," said the principal, "that's heroin30!" He jerked his head towards the windows. "And somebody threw it out of this classroom!"
"Oh, I don't think it's heroin, Mr. Lightstone," Dax said. "Heroin has a distinct glitter, and this seems—"
"I had the impression you were a physicist31, not a chemist," the principal said. "Besides, the police told us last week that they believe a gang of narcotics32 pushers—I think they called them—are operating in the neighborhood! What else could it be? I've been on the lookout33 for something of this sort."
There was a silence. Dax didn't know what to say.
He himself was very tired, he had been working late every evening. He had three different tasks that occupied every minute of his waking hours: his job as teacher being the least important although the most essential. The other two were perhaps visionary, but they might lead to something more exciting than retiring on a pension.
"Well?" Mr. Lightstone was impatient—his usual condition. "Have you any ideas? It has been my experience that drug-taking and juvenile34 delinquency go together." This was not strictly35 true as Mr. Lightstone had never knowingly seen a drug-taker, but he did read the papers.
"I suppose there is a certain amount of delinquency here," Howard Dax said uncertainly, "but narcotics...."
"Wake up, man!" the principal said. "You look half asleep! This is a serious matter. I found the stuff right outside these windows! You must have some idea of who might be involved. Which are the unruly ones? Who sits next the windows?"
Dax glanced at the desk recently left by Mallison. Mallison? One couldn't exactly call him unruly.... Yet he had the earmarks of a type he detested36 and instinctively37 mistrusted. He even feared him a little, though not perhaps for reasons of which he was quite aware.
"Who was that boy that just left?" The principal had noticed the direction of Dax's glance. "Mallison, wasn't it?"
"Yes, but the packet might just as well have been thrown from one of the paths outside."
"There's no path near here. You know that perfectly38 well," said the principal. "There's a wide stretch of grass beyond the flower bed and no one's allowed to walk on it! I've had my eye on that boy...."
Howard Dax thought this over. Come to think of it, he wouldn't put such a thing past the young smart-alec. Hoodlumism doesn't necessarily advertise itself in the classroom.
He looked at the principal. The man had a nerve to accuse him of seeming half asleep! Working in his private lab after dinner and then at his desk until all hours, struggling to learn Middle English—or rather, transitional Anglo-Saxon. He had done well at English lit at college, even though majoring in science, and Chaucer had come fairly easy to him. But Twelfth Century speech—and that was what he had to learn—was something else again. Chaucer himself couldn't have understood it. He wondered what young Mallison and his hipster friends would think if they knew his secret occupations. He could just imagine the sneering.
"Well, you could be right, I suppose," he said. "He's not my—shall I say?—favorite pupil."
"I'm glad you think I could be right," Mr. Lightstone said. "I intend to hold an investigation39. At the first possible opportunity. This very evening, in fact. At my office, and I shall have young Mallison brought before us. I shall expect you." He got up and strutted40 out of the class room.
After a few moments Howard Dax followed him. Outside, on his way to the gate, he passed Mallison, who was standing talking to another boy who had a similar haircut, but was unfamiliar41 to the physics teacher. He thought he was not a pupil of this school. They both became silent as he drew near them, looking at him without any expression. Dax wondered if narcotics could be responsible for Mallison's pallor.
After dinner Dax went into his little lab, which was actually the kitchenette he never used. On the table and sink was some chemical apparatus42. The principal's remark had been ill-chosen since Dax at college had started with chemistry as his major and had only switched to physics in his senior year. He had also become interested in genetics, and it was this all-around interest in the sciences that had perhaps militated against him. Nowadays one ought to specialize.
Well, he was specializing now.
In an evaporating dish in the sink were some dark brown crystals that his landlady44 would have taken for Damerara sugar, but which had a considerably45 more complex formula. They would have lent a rather odd flavor to Indian pudding. The logic46 which had given rise to this formula was not merely complex but revolutionary. It involved the concept of reversibility of entropy—the application of which was itself unprecedented47.
There were, Howard Dax was aware, certain aspects of germ chemistry that defied description in terms of classical and mechanistic theory; details that seemed to require the inversion48 of Time's arrow. To say that a physical process was "non-reversible" usually implied the presence of the probability factor. But that didn't seem to be the case here. There was the suggestion of prophecy. Or else that time was flowing backwards49. Or ... was it that something flowed backward through time?
Then there was the fact that the germ plasm was immortal50. Not indestructible, for the overwhelming majority of zygotes and gametes died; but if one disregarded the soma, all living germ cells had been alive since the beginning of life. After terrific work, none of which would have seemed quite orthodox to his colleagues, Dax had arrived at the end of theory and the beginning of practical application—at the taking-off point—the countdown.
Lying on the drainboard near the evaporating dish was a hypodermic syringe.
If he were to dissolve the dark brown crystals and inject the solution into his veins51, Dax believed that whatever it was that impeded52 this time-reversal would be neutralized53. His consciousness—not his body, his somatic cells—would travel back along the unbroken line of his identity as a germinal continuity. Back to the extent that the effect of the chemical would allow.
He would then be in the body of one of his ancestors. Not spread among them all, but following the line of greatest genetic43 valence to one individual: living in the Twelfth Century A. D. Probably, but not certainly, somewhere in England, since most of his ancestors came from there.
Of course the time might be wrong. He had no way of making a precise determination. He had experimented with a rabbit, but after the soft little beast's eyes glazed54 over in unconsciousness it had immediately come to. The time taken during its visit to the purlieus of its remote and unknown forebears was of no duration in the present. And it had at once attacked him and bitten him savagely55.
It seemed curious that an ancestral rabbit at a period not so very far back from a biological point of view should have a spirit so foreign to the rabbits of today. Perhaps the drug had overshot its mark....
What if that were to happen in his case? Wouldn't it perhaps take him to some earlier, non-human form and then, as it were, rebound56 to the precise moment in history that the strength of the drug indicated? A man is not a rabbit. But suppose he found himself not in the body of a Twelfth Century Englishman—a risky57 enough situation—but hanging by his tail from a tree in Java? How long before the hypothetical rebound to the time of the Plantagenets?
Howard Dax was too tired to concentrate on the problem: it was probably moonshine. The rabbit had been frightened, not atavistic.
The cumulative58 effect of overwork and irritation59 at the boy Mallison and the principal's manner had made him reckless and impatient. He made a sudden decision to stop worrying about precautions and take the plunge60 ... now.
He had plenty of time before the meeting. The trip to the past would have no duration in the present. He measured out an amount of distilled61 water and stirred the brown crystals into it with a glass rod. Then he filled the hypodermic and went into his bed-sittingroom.
He went to his desk and took a last look at a list of early English irregular verbs and lay down on his sofa, rolling up his sleeve.
He hardly felt the prick62 of the needle but he realized that the rather painful bump on his forehead had distracted his attention from it.
He looked at the thing he had bumped against. It was wooden and round in section, about as thick as his neck, and rose at a slight deviation63 from the vertical64 to a circular platform that was supported at other places by two more wooden uprights. Beyond and above was an immensely lofty roof of dark timbers. Far to the sides were stone walls.
He looked down to discover that the cold floor under him was also of stone, covered here and there with dry yellowish reeds. Then he saw that he was on all fours.
Instead of hands he had black, furry65 paws.
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收听单词发音
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1
erased
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| v.擦掉( erase的过去式和过去分词 )；抹去；清除 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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annoyance
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| n.恼怒，生气，烦恼 | |
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exasperation
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| n.愤慨 | |
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wavy
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| adj.有波浪的，多浪的，波浪状的，波动的，不稳定的 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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concealing
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| v.隐藏，隐瞒，遮住( conceal的现在分词 ) | |
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8
boredom
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| n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊 | |
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verge
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| n.边，边缘；v.接近，濒临 | |
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sneering
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| 嘲笑的，轻蔑的 | |
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deference
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| n.尊重，顺从；敬意 | |
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12
spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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13
racing
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| n.竞赛，赛马；adj.竞赛用的，赛马用的 | |
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14
lieutenant
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| n.陆军中尉，海军上尉；代理官员，副职官员 | |
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15
sergeant
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| n.警官，中士 | |
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civilian
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| adj.平民的，民用的，民众的 | |
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17
scrupulously
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| adv.一丝不苟地；小心翼翼地，多顾虑地 | |
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18
ascendancy
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| n.统治权，支配力量 | |
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19
defensive
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| adj.防御的；防卫的；防守的 | |
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20
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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21
emergence
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| n.浮现，显现，出现，（植物）突出体 | |
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asperity
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| n.粗鲁，艰苦 | |
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23
winced
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| 赶紧避开，畏缩( wince的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
outdated
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| adj.旧式的，落伍的，过时的；v.使过时 | |
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jargon
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| n.术语，行话 | |
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26
standing
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| n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的 | |
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curtly
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| adv.简短地 | |
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28
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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29
teaspoonful
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| n.一茶匙的量；一茶匙容量 | |
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30
heroin
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| n.海洛因 | |
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31
physicist
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| n.物理学家，研究物理学的人 | |
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32
narcotics
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| n.麻醉药( narcotic的名词复数 )；毒品；毒 | |
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33
lookout
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| n.注意，前途，瞭望台 | |
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34
juvenile
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| n.青少年，少年读物；adj.青少年的，幼稚的 | |
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35
strictly
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| adv.严厉地，严格地；严密地 | |
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36
detested
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| v.憎恶，嫌恶，痛恨( detest的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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instinctively
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| adv.本能地 | |
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38
perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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investigation
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| n.调查，调查研究 | |
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40
strutted
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| 趾高气扬地走，高视阔步( strut的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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41
unfamiliar
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| adj.陌生的，不熟悉的 | |
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42
apparatus
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| n.装置，器械；器具，设备 | |
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43
genetic
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| adj.遗传的，遗传学的 | |
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44
landlady
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| n.女房东，女地主 | |
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45
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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46
logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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47
unprecedented
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| adj.无前例的，新奇的 | |
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48
inversion
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| n.反向，倒转，倒置 | |
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49
backwards
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| adv.往回地，向原处，倒，相反，前后倒置地 | |
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50
immortal
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| adj.不朽的；永生的，不死的；神的 | |
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51
veins
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| n.纹理；矿脉( vein的名词复数 )；静脉；叶脉；纹理 | |
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52
impeded
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| 阻碍，妨碍，阻止( impede的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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53
neutralized
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| v.使失效( neutralize的过去式和过去分词 )；抵消；中和；使（一个国家）中立化 | |
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54
glazed
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| adj.光滑的，像玻璃的；上过釉的；呆滞无神的v.装玻璃( glaze的过去式)；上釉于，上光；（目光）变得呆滞无神 | |
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55
savagely
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| adv. 野蛮地，残酷地 | |
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56
rebound
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| v.弹回；n.弹回，跳回 | |
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57
risky
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| adj.有风险的，冒险的 | |
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58
cumulative
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| adj.累积的，渐增的 | |
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59
irritation
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| n.激怒，恼怒，生气 | |
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60
plunge
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| v.跳入，(使)投入，(使)陷入；猛冲 | |
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61
distilled
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| adj.由蒸馏得来的v.蒸馏( distil的过去式和过去分词 )；从…提取精华 | |
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62
prick
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| v.刺伤，刺痛，刺孔；n.刺伤，刺痛 | |
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63
deviation
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| n.背离，偏离；偏差，偏向；离题 | |
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64
vertical
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| adj.垂直的，顶点的，纵向的；n.垂直物，垂直的位置 | |
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65
furry
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| adj.毛皮的；似毛皮的；毛皮制的 | |
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