My double mentioned a few scattered12 details of the electoral methods, but as at that time I believed we were to have a number of further conversations, I did not exhaust my curiosities upon this subject. Indeed, I was more than a little preoccupied13 and inattentive. The religion of the samurai was after my heart, and it had taken hold of me very strongly. . . . But presently I fell questioning him upon the complications that arise in the Modern Utopia through the differences between the races of men, and found my attention returning. But the matter of that discussion I shall put apart into a separate chapter. In the end we came back to the particulars of this great Rule of Life that any man desiring of joining the samurai must follow.
I remember how, after our third bout3 of talking, I walked back through the streets of Utopian London to rejoin the botanist14 at our hotel.
My double lived in an apartment in a great building — I should judge about where, in our London, the Tate Gallery squats15, and, as the day was fine, and I had no reason for hurry, I went not by the covered mechanical way, but on foot along the broad, tree-set terraces that follow the river on either side.
It was afternoon, and the mellow16 Thames Valley sunlight, warm and gentle, lit a clean and gracious world. There were many people abroad, going to and fro, unhurrying, but not aimless, and I watched them so attentively17 that were you to ask me for the most elementary details of the buildings and terraces that lay back on either bank, or of the pinnacles18 and towers and parapets that laced the sky, I could not tell you them. But of the people I could tell a great deal.
No Utopians wear black, and for all the frequency of the samurai uniform along the London ways the general effect is of a gaily19-coloured population. You never see anyone noticeably ragged20 or dirty; the police, who answer questions and keep order (and are quite distinct from the organisation21 for the pursuit of criminals) see to that; and shabby people are very infrequent. People who want to save money for other purposes, or who do not want much bother with their clothing, seem to wear costumes of rough woven cloth, dyed an unobtrusive brown or green, over fine woollen underclothing, and so achieve a decent comfort in its simplest form. Others outside the Rule of the samurai range the spectrum22 for colour, and have every variety of texture23; the colours attained24 by the Utopian dyers seem to me to be fuller and purer than the common range of stuffs on earth; and the subtle folding of the woollen materials witness that Utopian Bradford is no whit25 behind her earthly sister. White is extraordinarily26 frequent; white woollen tunics27 and robes into which are woven bands of brilliant colour, abound28. Often these ape the cut and purple edge that distinguishes the samurai. In Utopian London the air is as clear and less dusty than it is among high mountains; the roads are made of unbroken surfaces, and not of friable29 earth; all heating is done by electricity, and no coal ever enters the town; there are no horses or dogs, and so there is not a suspicion of smoke and scarcely a particle of any sort of dirt to render white impossible.
The radiated influence of the uniform of the samurai has been to keep costume simple, and this, perhaps, emphasises the general effect of vigorous health, of shapely bodies. Everyone is well grown and well nourished; everyone seems in good condition; everyone walks well, and has that clearness of eye that comes with cleanness of blood. In London I am apt to consider myself of a passable size and carriage; here I feel small and mean-looking. The faint suspicions of spinal30 curvatures, skew feet, unequal legs, and ill-grown bones, that haunt one in a London crowd, the plain intimations — in yellow faces, puffy faces, spotted31 and irregular complexions32, in nervous movements and coughs and colds — of bad habits and an incompetent33 or disregarded medical profession, do not appear here. I notice few old people, but there seems to be a greater proportion of men and women at or near the prime of life.
I hang upon that. I have seen one or two fat people here — they are all the more noticeable because they are rare. But wrinkled age? Have I yet in Utopia set eyes on a bald head?
The Utopians have brought a sounder physiological34 science than ours to bear upon regimen. People know better what to do and what to avoid, how to foresee and forestall35 coming trouble, and how to evade36 and suppress the subtle poisons that blunt the edge of sensation. They have put off the years of decay. They keep their teeth, they keep their digestions37, they ward38 off gout and rheumatism39, neuralgia and influenza40 and all those cognate41 decays that bend and wrinkle men and women in the middle years of existence. They have extended the level years far into the seventies, and age, when it comes, comes swiftly and easily. The feverish42 hurry of our earth, the decay that begins before growth has ceased, is replaced by a ripe prolonged maturity43. This modern Utopia is an adult world. The flushed romance, the predominant eroticisms, the adventurous44 uncertainty45 of a world in which youth prevails, gives place here to a grave deliberation, to a fuller and more powerful emotion, to a broader handling of life.
Yet youth is here.
Amidst the men whose faces have been made fine by thought and steadfast46 living, among the serene-eyed women, comes youth, gaily-coloured, buoyantly healthy, with challenging eyes, with fresh and eager face. . . .
For everyone in Utopia who is sane47 enough to benefit, study and training last until twenty; then comes the travel year, and many are still students until twenty-four or twenty-five. Most are still, in a sense, students throughout life, but it is thought that, unless responsible action is begun in some form in the early twenties, will undergoes a partial atrophy48. But the full swing of adult life is hardly attained until thirty is reached. Men marry before the middle thirties, and the women rather earlier, few are mothers before five-and-twenty. The majority of those who become samurai do so between twenty-seven and thirty-five. And, between seventeen and thirty, the Utopians have their dealings with love, and the play and excitement of love is a chief interest in life. Much freedom of act is allowed them so that their wills may grow freely. For the most part they end mated, and love gives place to some special and more enduring interest, though, indeed, there is love between older men and fresh girls, and between youths and maturer women. It is in these most graceful49 and beautiful years of life that such freedoms of dress as the atmosphere of Utopia permits are to be seen, and the crude bright will and imagination of youth peeps out in ornament50 and colour.
Figures come into my sight and possess me for a moment and pass, and give place to others; there comes a dusky little Jewess, red-lipped and amber-clad, with a deep crimson51 flower — I know not whether real or sham52 — in the dull black of her hair. She passes me with an unconscious disdain53; and then I am looking at a brightly-smiling, blue-eyed girl, tall, ruddy, and freckled54 warmly, clad like a stage Rosalind, and talking gaily to a fair young man, a novice55 under the Rule. A red-haired mother under the Lesser56 Rule goes by, green-gowned, with dark green straps57 crossing between her breasts, and her two shock-headed children, bare-legged and lightly shod, tug58 at her hands on either side. Then a grave man in a long, fur-trimmed robe, a merchant, maybe, debates some serious matter with a white-tunicked clerk. And the clerk’s face ——? I turn to mark the straight, blue-black hair. The man must be Chinese. . . .
Then come two short-bearded men in careless indigo59 blue raiment, both of them convulsed with laughter — men outside the Rule, who practise, perhaps, some art — and then one of the samurai, in cheerful altercation60 with a blue-robed girl of eight. “But you could have come back yesterday, Dadda,” she persists. He is deeply sunburnt, and suddenly there passes before my mind the picture of a snowy mountain waste at night-fall and a solitary61 small figure under the stars. . . .
When I come back to the present thing again, my eye is caught at once by a young negro, carrying books in his hand, a prosperous-looking, self-respecting young negro, in a trimly-cut coat of purple-blue and silver.
I am reminded of what my double said to me of race.
点击收听单词发音
1 breach | |
n.违反,不履行;破裂;vt.冲破,攻破 | |
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2 breaches | |
破坏( breach的名词复数 ); 破裂; 缺口; 违背 | |
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3 bout | |
n.侵袭,发作;一次(阵,回);拳击等比赛 | |
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4 administrators | |
n.管理者( administrator的名词复数 );有管理(或行政)才能的人;(由遗嘱检验法庭指定的)遗产管理人;奉派暂管主教教区的牧师 | |
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5 supreme | |
adj.极度的,最重要的;至高的,最高的 | |
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6 legislative | |
n.立法机构,立法权;adj.立法的,有立法权的 | |
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7 alleged | |
a.被指控的,嫌疑的 | |
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8 rotation | |
n.旋转;循环,轮流 | |
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9 disastrous | |
adj.灾难性的,造成灾害的;极坏的,很糟的 | |
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10 tenure | |
n.终身职位;任期;(土地)保有权,保有期 | |
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11 drawn | |
v.拖,拉,拔出;adj.憔悴的,紧张的 | |
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12 scattered | |
adj.分散的,稀疏的;散步的;疏疏落落的 | |
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13 preoccupied | |
adj.全神贯注的,入神的;被抢先占有的;心事重重的v.占据(某人)思想,使对…全神贯注,使专心于( preoccupy的过去式) | |
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14 botanist | |
n.植物学家 | |
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15 squats | |
n.蹲坐,蹲姿( squat的名词复数 );被擅自占用的建筑物v.像动物一样蹲下( squat的第三人称单数 );非法擅自占用(土地或房屋);为获得其所有权;而占用某片公共用地。 | |
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16 mellow | |
adj.柔和的;熟透的;v.变柔和;(使)成熟 | |
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17 attentively | |
adv.聚精会神地;周到地;谛;凝神 | |
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18 pinnacles | |
顶峰( pinnacle的名词复数 ); 顶点; 尖顶; 小尖塔 | |
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19 gaily | |
adv.欢乐地,高兴地 | |
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20 ragged | |
adj.衣衫褴褛的,粗糙的,刺耳的 | |
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21 organisation | |
n.组织,安排,团体,有机休 | |
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22 spectrum | |
n.谱,光谱,频谱;范围,幅度,系列 | |
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23 texture | |
n.(织物)质地;(材料)构造;结构;肌理 | |
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24 attained | |
(通常经过努力)实现( attain的过去式和过去分词 ); 达到; 获得; 达到(某年龄、水平、状况) | |
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25 whit | |
n.一点,丝毫 | |
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26 extraordinarily | |
adv.格外地;极端地 | |
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27 tunics | |
n.(动植物的)膜皮( tunic的名词复数 );束腰宽松外衣;一套制服的短上衣;(天主教主教等穿的)短祭袍 | |
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28 abound | |
vi.大量存在;(in,with)充满,富于 | |
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29 friable | |
adj.易碎的 | |
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30 spinal | |
adj.针的,尖刺的,尖刺状突起的;adj.脊骨的,脊髓的 | |
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31 spotted | |
adj.有斑点的,斑纹的,弄污了的 | |
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32 complexions | |
肤色( complexion的名词复数 ); 面色; 局面; 性质 | |
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33 incompetent | |
adj.无能力的,不能胜任的 | |
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34 physiological | |
adj.生理学的,生理学上的 | |
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35 forestall | |
vt.抢在…之前采取行动;预先阻止 | |
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36 evade | |
vt.逃避,回避;避开,躲避 | |
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37 digestions | |
n.消化能力( digestion的名词复数 );消化,领悟 | |
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38 ward | |
n.守卫,监护,病房,行政区,由监护人或法院保护的人(尤指儿童);vt.守护,躲开 | |
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39 rheumatism | |
n.风湿病 | |
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40 influenza | |
n.流行性感冒,流感 | |
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41 cognate | |
adj.同类的,同源的,同族的;n.同家族的人,同源词 | |
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42 feverish | |
adj.发烧的,狂热的,兴奋的 | |
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43 maturity | |
n.成熟;完成;(支票、债券等)到期 | |
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44 adventurous | |
adj.爱冒险的;惊心动魄的,惊险的,刺激的 | |
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45 uncertainty | |
n.易变,靠不住,不确知,不确定的事物 | |
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46 steadfast | |
adj.固定的,不变的,不动摇的;忠实的;坚贞不移的 | |
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47 sane | |
adj.心智健全的,神志清醒的,明智的,稳健的 | |
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48 atrophy | |
n./v.萎缩,虚脱,衰退 | |
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49 graceful | |
adj.优美的,优雅的;得体的 | |
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50 ornament | |
v.装饰,美化;n.装饰,装饰物 | |
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51 crimson | |
n./adj.深(绯)红色(的);vi.脸变绯红色 | |
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52 sham | |
n./adj.假冒(的),虚伪(的) | |
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53 disdain | |
n.鄙视,轻视;v.轻视,鄙视,不屑 | |
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54 freckled | |
adj.雀斑;斑点;晒斑;(使)生雀斑v.雀斑,斑点( freckle的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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55 novice | |
adj.新手的,生手的 | |
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56 lesser | |
adj.次要的,较小的;adv.较小地,较少地 | |
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57 straps | |
n.带子( strap的名词复数 );挎带;肩带;背带v.用皮带捆扎( strap的第三人称单数 );用皮带抽打;包扎;给…打绷带 | |
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58 tug | |
v.用力拖(或拉);苦干;n.拖;苦干;拖船 | |
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59 indigo | |
n.靛青,靛蓝 | |
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60 altercation | |
n.争吵,争论 | |
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61 solitary | |
adj.孤独的,独立的,荒凉的;n.隐士 | |
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