每天读点好英文：指向死亡的微灯pdf/doc/txt格式电子书下载

书名：每天读点好英文：指向死亡的微灯pdf/doc/txt格式电子书下载

推荐语：常青藤语言教学中心荣誉推荐，升级版·大全集，英语学习，从这里开始！

作者：常青藤语言教学中心编

出版社：安徽教育出版社

出版时间：2013-01-01

书籍编号：30151598

ISBN：9787533673147

正文语种：中英对照

字数：399457

版次：

所属分类：外语学习-英语读物

每天读点好英文·升级版·大全集

指向死亡的微灯

常青藤语言教学中心　编译

安徽教育出版社

惊悚

孪生兄弟 One of Twins

安布罗斯·比尔斯／Ambrose Bierce

安布罗斯·比尔斯（Ambrose Bierce，1842～1914），美国恐怖、灵异小说家，出生在美国俄亥俄州梅格斯县一个贫苦的农民家庭。他参加了美国南北战争，这段不平凡的经历为他以后的文学创作打下了坚实的基础。战争结束后，他开始了一个编辑兼作家的忙碌生涯。他早期的作品主要是随笔和讽刺短诗，也包括一些小说。他比较悲观，被人们称为“辛辣比尔斯”。主要的代表作品有《魔鬼辞典》《士兵和百姓的故事》等。

You ask me if in my experience as one of a pair of twins I ever observed anything unaccountable by the natural laws with which we have acquaintance. As to that you shall judge; perhaps we have not all acquaintance with the same natural laws. You may know some that I do not, and what is to me unaccountable may be very clear to you.

You knew my brother John — that is, you knew him when you knew that I was not present; but neither you nor, I believe, any human being could distinguish between him and me if we chose to seem alike. Our parents could not; ours is the only instance of which I have any knowledge of so close resemblance as that. I speak of my brother John, but I am not at all sure that his name was not Henry and mine John. We were regularly christened, but afterward, in the very act of tattooing us with small distinguishing marks, the operator lost his reckoning; and although I bear upon my forearm a small ‘H’ and he bore a ‘J’, it is by no means certain that the letters ought not to have been transposed. During our boyhood our parents tried to distinguish us more obviously by our clothing and other simple devices, but we would so frequently exchange suits and otherwise circumvent the enemy that they abandoned all such ineffectual attempts, and during all the years that we lived together at home everybody recognized the difficulty of the situation and made the best of it by calling us both “Jehnry.”I have often wondered at my father’s forbearance in not branding us conspicuously upon our unworthy brows, but as we were tolerably good boys and used our power of embarrassment and annoyance with commendable moderation, we escaped the iron. My father was, in fact, a singularly good-natured man, and I think quietly enjoyed Nature’s practical joke.

Soon after we had come to California, and settled at San Jose (where the only good fortune that awaited us was our meeting with so kind a friend as you), the family, as you know, was broken up by the death of both my parents in the same week. My father died insolvent, and the homestead was sacrificed to pay his debts. My sisters returned to relatives in the East, but owing to your kindness John and I, then twenty-two years of age, obtained employment in San Francisco, in different quarters of the town. Circumstances did not permit us to live together, and we saw each other infrequently, sometimes not oftener than once a week. As we had few acquaintances in common, the fact of our extraordinary likeness was little known. I come now to the matter of your inquiry.

One day soon after we had come to this city I was walking down Market Street late in the afternoon, when I was accosted by a welldressed man of middle age, who after greeting me cordially said: “Stevens, I know, of course, that you do not go out much, but I have told my wife about you, and she would be glad to see you at the house. I have a notion, too, that my girls are worth knowing. Suppose you come out to morrow at six and dine with us, en famille; and then if the ladies can’t amuse you afterward I’ll stand in with a few games of billiards.”

This was said with so bright a smile and so engaging a manner that I had not the heart to refuse, and although I had never seen the man in my life I promptly replied: “You are very good, sir, and it will give me great pleasure to accept the invitation. Please present my compliments to Mrs. Margovan and ask her to expect me.”

With a shake of the hand and a pleasant parting word the man passed on. That he had mistaken me for my brother was plain enough. That was an error to which I was accustomed and which it was not my habit to rectify unless the matter seemed important. But how had I known that this man’s name was Margovan? It certainly is not a name that one would apply to a man at random, with a probability that it would be right. In point of fact, the name was as strange to me as the man.

The next morning I hastened to where my brother was employed and met him coming out of the office with a number of bills that he was to collect. I told him how I had “committed”him and added that if he didn’t care to keep the engagement I should be delighted to continue the impersonation.

“That’s queer,”he said thoughtfully. “Margovan is the only man in the office here whom I know well and like. When he came in this morning and we had passed the usual greetings some singular impulse prompted me to say: ‘Oh, I beg your pardon, Mr. Margovan, but I neglected to ask your address.’ I got the address, but what under the sun I was to do with it, I did not know until now. It’s good of you to offer to take the consequence of your impudence, but I’ll eat that dinner myself, if you please.”

He ate a number of dinners at

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