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THE GARDEN OF EDEN
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 at some point something must have come from nothing 

Sophie Amundsen was on her way home from school. She had walked the first part of the way with Joanna. They had been discussing robots. Joanna thought the human brain was like an advanced computer. Sophie was not certain she agreed. Surely a person was more than a piece of hardware?

When they got to the supermarket they went their separate ways. Sophie lived on the outskirts1 of a sprawling2 suburb and had almost twice as far to school as Joanna. There were no other houses beyond her garden, which made it seem as if her house lay at the end of the world. This was where the woods began.

She turned the corner into Clover Close. At the end of the road there was a sharp bend, known as Captain's Bend. People seldom went that way except on the weekend.

It was early May. In some of the gardens the fruit trees were encircled with dense4 clusters of daffodils. The birches were already in pale green leaf.

It was extraordinary how everything burst forth5 at this time of year! What made this great mass of green vegetation come welling up from the dead earth as soon as it got warm and the last traces of snow disappeared?

As Sophie opened her garden gate, she looked in the mailbox. There was usually a lot of junk mail and a few big envelopes for her mother, a pile to dump on the kitchen table before she went up to her room to start her homework.

From time to time there would be a few letters from the bank for her father, but then he was not a normal father. Sophie's father was the captain of a big oil tanker6, and was away for most of the year. During the few weeks at a time when he was at home, he would shuffle7 around the house making it nice and cozy8 for Sophie and her mother. But when he was at sea he could seem very distant.

There was only one letter in the mailbox--and it was for Sophie. The white envelope read: "Sophie Amundsen, 3 Clover Close." That was all; it did not say who it was from. There was no stamp on it either.

As soon as Sophie had closed the gate behind her she opened the envelope. It contained only a slip of paper no bigger than the envelope. It read: Who are you?

Nothing else, only the three words, written by hand, and followed by a large question mark.

She looked at the envelope again. The letter was definitely for her. Who could have dropped it in the mailbox?

Sophie let herself quickly into the red house. As always, her cat Sherekan managed to slink out of the bushes, jump onto the front step, and slip in through the door before she closed it behind her.

Whenever Sophie's mother was in a bad mood, she would call the house they lived in a menagerie. A menagerie was a collection of animals. Sophie certainly had one and was quite happy with it. It had begun with the three goldfish, Goldtop, Red Ridinghood, and Black Jack9. Next she got two budgerigars called Smitt and Smule, then Govinda the tortoise, and finally the marmalade cat Sherekan. They had all been given to her to make up for the fact that her mother never got home from work until late in the afternoon and her father was away so much, sailing all over the world.

Sophie slung10 her schoolbag on the floor and put a bowl of cat food out for Sherekan. Then she sat down on a kitchen stool with the mysterious letter in her hand.

Who are you?

She had no idea. She was Sophie Amundsen, of course, but who was that? She had not really figured that out--yet.

What if she had been given a different name? Anne Knutsen, for instance. Would she then have been someone else?

She suddenly remembered that Dad had originally wanted her to be called Lillemor. Sophie tried to imagine herself shaking hands and introducing herself as Lillemor Amundsen, but it seemed all wrong. It was someone else who kept introducing herself.

She jumped up and went into the bathroom with the strange letter in her hand. She stood in front of the mirror and stared into her own eyes.

"I am Sophie Amundsen," she said.

The girl in the mirror did not react with as much as a twitch11. Whatever Sophie did, she did exactly the same. Sophie tried to beat her reflection to it with a lightning movement but the other girl was just as fast.

"Who are you?" Sophie asked.

She received no response to this either, but felt a momentary12 confusion as to whether it was she or her reflection who had asked the question.

Sophie pressed her index finger to the nose in the mirror and said, "You are me."

As she got no answer to this, she turned the sentence around and said, "I am you."

Sophie Amundsen was often dissatisfied with her appearance. She was frequently told that she had beautiful almond-shaped eyes, but that was probably just something people said because her nose was too small and her mouth was a bit too big. And her ears were much too close to her eyes. Worst of all was her straight hair, which it was impossible to do anything with. Sometimes her father would stroke her hair and call her "the girl with the flaxen hair," after a piece of music by Claude Debussy. It was all right for him, he was not condemned13 to living with this straight dark hair. Neither mousse nor styling gel had the slightest effect on Sophie's hair. Sometimes she thought she was so ugly that she wondered if she was malformed at birth. Her mother always went on about her difficult labor14. But was that really what determined15 how you looked?

Wasn't it odd that she didn't know who she was? And wasn't it unreasonable16 that she hadn't been allowed to have any say in what she would look like? Her looks had just been dumped on her. She could choose her own friends, but she certainly hadn't chosen herself. She had not even chosen to be a human being.

What was a human being?

Sophie looked up at the girl in the mirror again.

"I think I'll go upstairs and do my biology homework," she said, almost apologetically. Once she was out in the hall, she thought, No, I'd rather go out in the garden.

"Kitty, kitty, kitty!"

Sophie chased the cat out onto the doorstep and closed the front door behind her.

As she stood outside on the gravel17 path with the mysterious letter in her hand, the strangest feeling came over her. She felt like a doll that had suddenly been brought to life by the wave of a magic wand.

Wasn't it extraordinary to be in the world right now, wandering around in a wonderful adventure!

Sherekan sprang lightly across the gravel and slid into a dense clump18 of red-currant bushes. A live cat, vibrant19 with energy from its white whiskers to the twitching20 tail at the end of its sleek21 body. It was here in the garden too, but hardly aware of it in the same way as Sophie.

As Sophie started to think about being alive, she began to realize that she would not be alive forever. I am in the world now, she thought, but one day I shall be gone.

Was there a life after death? This was another question the cat was blissfully unaware22 of.

It was not long since Sophie's grandmother had died. For more than six months Sophie had missed her every single day. How unfair that life had to end!

Sophie stood on the gravel path, thinking. She tried to think extra hard about being alive so as to forget that she would not be alive forever. But it was impossible. As soon as she concentrated on being alive now, the thought of dying also came into her mind. The same thing happened the other way around: only by conjuring23 up an intense feeling of one day being dead could she appreciate how terribly good it was to be alive. It was like two sides of a coin that she kept turning over and over. And the bigger and clearer one side of the coin became, the bigger and clearer the other side became too.

You can't experience being alive without realizing that you have to die, she thought. But it's just as impossible to realize you have to die without thinking how incredibly amazing it is to be alive.

Sophie remembered Granny saying something like that the day the doctor told her she was ill. "I never realized how rich life was until now," she said.

How tragic24 that most people had to get ill before they understood what a gift it was to be alive. Or else they had to find a mysterious letter in the mailbox!

Perhaps she should go and see if any more letters had arrived. Sophie hurried to the gate and looked inside the green mailbox. She was startled to find that it contained another white envelope, exactly like the first. But the mailbox had definitely been empty when she took the first envelope! This envelope had her name on it as well. She tore it open and fished out a note the same size as the first one.

Where does the world come from? it said.

I don't know, Sophie thought. Surely nobody really knows. And yet--Sophie thought it was a fair question. For the first time in her life she felt it wasn't right to live in the world without at least inquiring where it came from.

The mysterious letters had made Sophie's head spin. She decided25 to go and sit in the den3.

The den was Sophie's top secret hiding place. It was where she went when she was terribly angry, terribly miserable26, or terribly happy. Today she was simply confused.

*    *    *

The red house was surrounded by a large garden with lots of flowerbeds, fruit bushes, fruit trees of different kinds, a spacious27 lawn with a glider28 and a little gazebo that Granddad had built for Granny when she lost their first child a few weeks after it was born. The child's name was Marie. On her gravestone were the words: "Little Marie to us came, greeted us, and left again."

Down in a corner of the garden behind all the raspberry bushes was a dense thicket29 where neither flowers nor berries would grow. Actually, it was an old hedge that had once marked the boundary to the woods, but because nobody had trimmed it for the last twenty years it had grown into a tangled30 and impenetrable mass. Granny used to say the hedge made it harder for the foxes to take the chickens during the war, when the chickens had free range of the garden.

To everyone but Sophie, the old hedge was just as useless as the rabbit hutches at the other end of the garden. But that was only because they hadn't discovered Sophie's secret.

Sophie had known about the little hole in the hedge for as long as she could remember. When she crawled through it she came into a large cavity between the bushes. It was like a little house. She knew nobody would find her there.

Clutching the two envelopes in her hand, Sophie ran through the garden, crouched31 down on all fours, and wormed her way through the hedge. The den was almost high enough for her to stand upright, but today she sat down on a clump of gnarled roots. From there she could look out through tiny peepholes between the twigs32 and leaves. Although none of the holes was bigger than a small coin, she had a good view of the whole garden. When she was little she used to think it was fun to watch her mother and father searching for her among the trees.

Sophie had always thought the garden was a world of its own. Each time she heard about the Garden of Eden in the Bible it reminded her of sitting here in the den, surveying her own little paradise.

Where does the world come from?

She hadn't the faintest idea. Sophie knew that the world was only a small planet in space. But where did space come from?

It was possible that space had always existed, in which case she would not also need to figure out where it came from. But could anything have always existed? Something deep down inside her protested at the idea. Surely everything that exists must have had a beginning? So space must sometime have been created out of something else.

But if space had come from something else, then that something else must also have come from something. Sophie felt she was only deferring33 the problem. At some point, something must have come from nothing. But was that possible? Wasn't that just as impossible as the idea that the world had always existed?

They had learned at school that God created the world. Sophie tried to console herself with the thought that this was probably the best solution to the whole problem. But then she started to think again. She could accept that God had created space, but what about God himself? Had he created himself out of nothing? Again there was something deep down inside her that protested. Even though God could create all kinds of things, he could hardly create himself before he had a "self" to create with. So there was only one possibility left: God had always existed. But she had already rejected that possibility! Everything that existed had to have a beginning.

Oh, drat!

She opened the two envelopes again.

Who are you?

Where does the world come from?

What annoying questions! And anyway where did the letters come from? That was just as mysterious, almost.

Who had jolted34 Sophie out of her everyday existence and suddenly brought her face to face with the great riddles35 of the universe?

For the third time Sophie went to the mailbox. The mailman had just delivered the day's mail. Sophie fished out a bulky pile of junk mail, periodicals, and a couple of letters for her mother. There was also a postcard of a tropical beach. She turned the card over. It had a Nor-wegian stamp on it and was postmarked "UN Battalion36." Could it be from Dad? But wasn't he in a completely different place? It wasn't his handwriting either.

Sophie felt her pulse quicken a little as she saw who the postcard was addressed to: "Hilde Moller Knag, c/o Sophie Amundsen, 3 Clover Close ..." The rest of the address was correct. The card read:

Dear Hilde, Happy 15th birthday! As I'm sure you'll understand, I want to give you a present that will help you grow. Forgive me for sending the card c/o Sophie. It was the easiest way. Love from Dad.

Sophie raced back to the house and into the kitchen. Her mind was in a turmoil37. Who was this "Hilde," whose fifteenth birthday was just a month before her own?

Sophie got out the telephone book. There were a lot of people called Moller, and quite a few called Knag. But there was nobody in the entire directory called Moller Knag.

She examined the mysterious card again. It certainly seemed genuine enough; it had a stamp and a postmark.

Why would a father send a birthday card to Sophie's address when it was quite obviously intended to go somewhere else? What kind of father would cheat his own daughter of a birthday card by purposely sending it astray? How could it be "the easiest way"? And above all, how was she supposed to trace this Hilde person?

So now Sophie had another problem to worry about. She tried to get her thoughts in order:

This afternoon, in the space of two short hours, she had been presented with three problems. The first problem was who had put the two white envelopes in her mailbox. The second was the difficult questions these letters contained. The third problem was who Hilde Moller Knag could be, and why Sophie had been sent her birthday card. She was sure that the three problems were interconnected in some way. They had to be, because until today she had lived a perfectly38 ordinary life.

点击收听单词发音收听单词发音  

1 outskirts gmDz7W     
n.郊外,郊区
参考例句:
  • Our car broke down on the outskirts of the city.我们的汽车在市郊出了故障。
  • They mostly live on the outskirts of a town.他们大多住在近郊。
2 sprawling 3ff3e560ffc2f12f222ef624d5807902     
adj.蔓生的,不规则地伸展的v.伸开四肢坐[躺]( sprawl的现在分词 );蔓延;杂乱无序地拓展;四肢伸展坐着(或躺着)
参考例句:
  • He was sprawling in an armchair in front of the TV. 他伸开手脚坐在电视机前的一张扶手椅上。
  • a modern sprawling town 一座杂乱无序拓展的现代城镇
3 den 5w9xk     
n.兽穴;秘密地方;安静的小房间,私室
参考例句:
  • There is a big fox den on the back hill.后山有一个很大的狐狸窝。
  • The only way to catch tiger cubs is to go into tiger's den.不入虎穴焉得虎子。
4 dense aONzX     
a.密集的,稠密的,浓密的;密度大的
参考例句:
  • The general ambushed his troops in the dense woods. 将军把部队埋伏在浓密的树林里。
  • The path was completely covered by the dense foliage. 小路被树叶厚厚地盖了一层。
5 forth Hzdz2     
adv.向前;向外,往外
参考例句:
  • The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
  • He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。
6 tanker xqawA     
n.油轮
参考例句:
  • The tanker took on 200,000 barrels of crude oil.油轮装载了二十万桶原油。
  • Heavy seas had pounded the tanker into three parts.汹涌的巨浪把油轮撞成三载。
7 shuffle xECzc     
n.拖著脚走,洗纸牌;v.拖曳,慢吞吞地走
参考例句:
  • I wish you'd remember to shuffle before you deal.我希望在你发牌前记得洗牌。
  • Don't shuffle your feet along.别拖着脚步走。
8 cozy ozdx0     
adj.亲如手足的,密切的,暖和舒服的
参考例句:
  • I like blankets because they are cozy.我喜欢毛毯,因为他们是舒适的。
  • We spent a cozy evening chatting by the fire.我们在炉火旁聊天度过了一个舒适的晚上。
9 jack 53Hxp     
n.插座,千斤顶,男人;v.抬起,提醒,扛举;n.(Jake)杰克
参考例句:
  • I am looking for the headphone jack.我正在找寻头戴式耳机插孔。
  • He lifted the car with a jack to change the flat tyre.他用千斤顶把车顶起来换下瘪轮胎。
10 slung slung     
抛( sling的过去式和过去分词 ); 吊挂; 遣送; 押往
参考例句:
  • He slung the bag over his shoulder. 他把包一甩,挎在肩上。
  • He stood up and slung his gun over his shoulder. 他站起来把枪往肩上一背。
11 twitch jK3ze     
v.急拉,抽动,痉挛,抽搐;n.扯,阵痛,痉挛
参考例句:
  • The smell made my dog's nose twitch.那股气味使我的狗的鼻子抽动着。
  • I felt a twitch at my sleeve.我觉得有人扯了一下我的袖子。
12 momentary hj3ya     
adj.片刻的,瞬息的;短暂的
参考例句:
  • We are in momentary expectation of the arrival of you.我们无时无刻不在盼望你的到来。
  • I caught a momentary glimpse of them.我瞥了他们一眼。
13 condemned 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。
14 labor P9Tzs     
n.劳动,努力,工作,劳工;分娩;vi.劳动,努力,苦干;vt.详细分析;麻烦
参考例句:
  • We are never late in satisfying him for his labor.我们从不延误付给他劳动报酬。
  • He was completely spent after two weeks of hard labor.艰苦劳动两周后,他已经疲惫不堪了。
15 determined duszmP     
adj.坚定的;有决心的
参考例句:
  • I have determined on going to Tibet after graduation.我已决定毕业后去西藏。
  • He determined to view the rooms behind the office.他决定查看一下办公室后面的房间。
16 unreasonable tjLwm     
adj.不讲道理的,不合情理的,过度的
参考例句:
  • I know that they made the most unreasonable demands on you.我知道他们对你提出了最不合理的要求。
  • They spend an unreasonable amount of money on clothes.他们花在衣服上的钱太多了。
17 gravel s6hyT     
n.砂跞;砂砾层;结石
参考例句:
  • We bought six bags of gravel for the garden path.我们购买了六袋碎石用来铺花园的小路。
  • More gravel is needed to fill the hollow in the drive.需要更多的砾石来填平车道上的坑洼。
18 clump xXfzH     
n.树丛,草丛;vi.用沉重的脚步行走
参考例句:
  • A stream meandered gently through a clump of trees.一条小溪从树丛中蜿蜒穿过。
  • It was as if he had hacked with his thick boots at a clump of bluebells.仿佛他用自己的厚靴子无情地践踏了一丛野风信子。
19 vibrant CL5zc     
adj.震颤的,响亮的,充满活力的,精力充沛的,(色彩)鲜明的
参考例句:
  • He always uses vibrant colours in his paintings. 他在画中总是使用鲜明的色彩。
  • She gave a vibrant performance in the leading role in the school play.她在学校表演中生气盎然地扮演了主角。
20 twitching 97f99ba519862a2bc691c280cee4d4cf     
n.颤搐
参考例句:
  • The child in a spasm kept twitching his arms and legs. 那个害痉挛的孩子四肢不断地抽搐。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
  • My eyelids keep twitching all the time. 我眼皮老是跳。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》
21 sleek zESzJ     
adj.光滑的,井然有序的;v.使光滑,梳拢
参考例句:
  • Women preferred sleek,shiny hair with little decoration.女士们更喜欢略加修饰的光滑闪亮型秀发。
  • The horse's coat was sleek and glossy.这匹马全身润泽有光。
22 unaware Pl6w0     
a.不知道的,未意识到的
参考例句:
  • They were unaware that war was near. 他们不知道战争即将爆发。
  • I was unaware of the man's presence. 我没有察觉到那人在场。
23 conjuring IYdyC     
n.魔术
参考例句:
  • Paul's very good at conjuring. 保罗很会变戏法。
  • The entertainer didn't fool us with his conjuring. 那个艺人变的戏法没有骗到我们。
24 tragic inaw2     
adj.悲剧的,悲剧性的,悲惨的
参考例句:
  • The effect of the pollution on the beaches is absolutely tragic.污染海滩后果可悲。
  • Charles was a man doomed to tragic issues.查理是个注定不得善终的人。
25 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的,坚决的;明显的,明确的
参考例句:
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
26 miserable g18yk     
adj.悲惨的,痛苦的;可怜的,糟糕的
参考例句:
  • It was miserable of you to make fun of him.你取笑他,这是可耻的。
  • Her past life was miserable.她过去的生活很苦。
27 spacious YwQwW     
adj.广阔的,宽敞的
参考例句:
  • Our yard is spacious enough for a swimming pool.我们的院子很宽敞,足够建一座游泳池。
  • The room is bright and spacious.这房间很豁亮。
28 glider wgNxU     
n.滑翔机;滑翔导弹
参考例句:
  • The glider was soaring above the valley.那架滑翔机在山谷上空滑翔。
  • The pilot managed to land the glider on a safe place.那个驾驶员设法让滑翔机着陆到一个安全的地方。
29 thicket So0wm     
n.灌木丛,树林
参考例句:
  • A thicket makes good cover for animals to hide in.丛林是动物的良好隐蔽处。
  • We were now at the margin of the thicket.我们现在已经来到了丛林的边缘。
30 tangled e487ee1bc1477d6c2828d91e94c01c6e     
adj. 纠缠的,紊乱的 动词tangle的过去式和过去分词
参考例句:
  • Your hair's so tangled that I can't comb it. 你的头发太乱了,我梳不动。
  • A movement caught his eye in the tangled undergrowth. 乱灌木丛里的晃动引起了他的注意。
31 crouched 62634c7e8c15b8a61068e36aaed563ab     
v.屈膝,蹲伏( crouch的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • He crouched down beside her. 他在她的旁边蹲了下来。
  • The lion crouched ready to pounce. 狮子蹲下身,准备猛扑。
32 twigs 17ff1ed5da672aa443a4f6befce8e2cb     
细枝,嫩枝( twig的名词复数 )
参考例句:
  • Some birds build nests of twigs. 一些鸟用树枝筑巢。
  • Willow twigs are pliable. 柳条很软。
33 deferring d2cd9fb6ccdde7a0a9618fb4ae1b4833     
v.拖延,延缓,推迟( defer的现在分词 );服从某人的意愿,遵从
参考例句:
  • Recently, the Supreme Court has focused on an additional reason for deferring to administrative agencies. 最近,最高法院强调了尊重行政机构的另一种理由。 来自英汉非文学 - 环境法 - 环境法
  • Think of it as deferring part of the compiler's job to runtime. 可以认为这是将编译器的部分工作延迟到了运行时。 来自互联网
34 jolted 80f01236aafe424846e5be1e17f52ec9     
(使)摇动, (使)震惊( jolt的过去式和过去分词 )
参考例句:
  • The truck jolted and rattled over the rough ground. 卡车嘎吱嘎吱地在凹凸不平的地面上颠簸而行。
  • She was jolted out of her reverie as the door opened. 门一开就把她从幻想中惊醒。
35 riddles 77f3ceed32609b0d80430e545f553e31     
n.谜(语)( riddle的名词复数 );猜不透的难题,难解之谜
参考例句:
  • Few riddles collected from oral tradition, however, have all six parts. 但是据收集的情况看,口头流传的谜语很少具有这完整的六部分。 来自英汉非文学 - 民俗
  • But first, you'd better see if you can answer riddles. 但是你首先最好想想你会不会猜谜语。 来自辞典例句
36 battalion hu0zN     
n.营;部队;大队(的人)
参考例句:
  • The town was garrisoned by a battalion.该镇由一营士兵驻守。
  • At the end of the drill parade,the battalion fell out.操练之后,队伍解散了。
37 turmoil CKJzj     
n.骚乱,混乱,动乱
参考例句:
  • His mind was in such a turmoil that he couldn't get to sleep.内心的纷扰使他无法入睡。
  • The robbery put the village in a turmoil.抢劫使全村陷入混乱。
38 perfectly 8Mzxb     
adv.完美地,无可非议地,彻底地
参考例句:
  • The witnesses were each perfectly certain of what they said.证人们个个对自己所说的话十分肯定。
  • Everything that we're doing is all perfectly above board.我们做的每件事情都是光明正大的。


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