Основной язык (теоретический курс) Стилистика основного иностранного языка. Учебно-методическое пособие

mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards.

"Her father saw it, and the defendant has testified as to his remarks. What did her father do? We don't know, but there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewell was beaten savagely by someone who led almost exclusively with his left. We do know in part what Mr Ewell did: he did what any God-fearing, persevering, respectable white man would do under the circumstances — he swore out a warrant, no doubt signing it with his left hand, and Tom Robinson now sits before you, having taken the oath with the only good hand he possesses — his right hand.

"And so a quiet, respectable, humble Negro who had the unmitigated temerity to 'feel sorry' for a white woman has had to put his word against two whjte people's. I need not remind you of their appearance and conduct on the stand — you saw them for yourselves. The witness for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you, gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you, gentlemen, would go along with them on the assumption — the evil assumption — that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.

"Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson's skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women — black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this court-room who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire."

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Atticus paused and took out his handkerchief. Then he took off his glasses and wiped them, and we saw another "first": we had never seen him sweat — he was one of those men whose face! never perspired, but now it was shining tan.

"One more thing, gentlemen, before I quit. Thomas Jefferson3 once said that all men are created equal, a phrase that the Yankees4 and the distaff side5 of the Executive branch in Washington are fond of hurling at us. There is a tendency in this year of grace, 1935, for certain people to use this phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculousexample I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious — because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority. We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe

— some people are, smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they're born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others — some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men.

"But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal — there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts, have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levellers, and in our courts all men are created equal.

"I'm no idealist to believe firmly in the integrity of our courts and in the jury system. Gentlemen, a court is no better than each man of you sitting before me on this jury. A court is only as sound as its jury, and a jury is only as sound as the men who make it up. I am confident that you, gentlemen, will review without

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passion the evidence you have heard, come to a decision, and restore this defendant to his family. In the name of God, do your duty."

Atticus's voice had dropped, and as he turned away from the jury he said something I did not catch. He said it more to himself than to the court. I punched Jem.

"What'd he say?"

"In the name of God, believe him, I think that's what he said."...

What happened after that had a dreamlike quality: in a dream I saw the jury return, moving like underwater swimmers, and Judge Taylor's voice came from far away and was tiny. I saw something only a lawyer's child could be expected to see, could be expected to watch for, and it was like watching Atticus walk into the street, raise a rifle to his shoulder and pull the trigger, but watching all the time knowing that the gun was empty.

A jury never looks at a defendant it has convicted, and when this jury came in, not one of them looked at Tom Robinson. The foreman handed a piece of paper to Mr Tate who handed it to the clerk who handed it to the judge. ...

I shut my eyes. Judge Taylor was polling the jury: "Guilty

... guilty ... guilty ... guilty..." I peeked at Jem: his hands were white from gripping the balcony rail, and his shoulders jerked as if each "guilty" was a separate stab between them.

Judge Taylor was saying, something. His gavel was in his fist, but he wasn't using it. Dimly, I saw Atticus pushing papers from the table into his briefcase. He snapped it shut; went to the court reporter and said something, nodded tp Mr Gilmer, and then went to Tom Robinson and whispered something to him. Atticus put his hand on Tom's shoulder as he whispered. Atticus took his coat off the back of his chair and pulled it over his shoulder. Then he left the court-room, but not by his usual exit. He must have wanted to go home the short way, because he walked quickly

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down the middle aisle toward the south exit. I followed the top of his head as he made his way to the door. He did not look up.

Someone was punching me, but I was reluctant to take my eyes from the people below us, and from the image of Atticus's lonely walk down the aisle.

"Miss Jean Louise?"

I looked around. They were standing. All around us and in the balcony on the opposite wall, the Negroes were getting to their feet. Reverend Sykes's voice was as distant as Judge Taylor’s:

"Miss Jean Louise, stand up. Your father's passing."

Extract from

‘Doctor in the house’ by Richard Gordon

Richard Gordon was born in 1921. He has been an anaesthetist at St. Bartholomew's Hospital,1 a ship's surgeon and an assistant editor of the British Medical Journal. He left medical practice in 1952 and started writing his "Doctor" series.

"Doctor in the House" is one of Gordon's twelve "Doctor" books and is noted for witty description of a medical student's years of professional training.

To a medical student the final examinations are something like death: an unpleasant inevitability to be faced sooner or later, one's state after which is determined by care spent in preparing for the event.

An examination is nothing more than an investigation of a man's knowledge, conducted in a way that the authorities have found the most fair and convenient to both sides. But the medical student cannot see it in this light. Examinations touch off his fighting spirit; they are a straight contest between himself and the examiners, conducted on well-established rules for both, and he goes at them like a prize-fighter.

There is rarely any frank cheating in medical examinations, but the candidates spend almost as much time over the technical

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details of the contest as they do learning general medicine from their textbooks.

Benskin discovered that Malcolm Maxworth was the St. Swithin's representative on the examining Committee and thenceforward we attended all his ward rounds, standing at the front and gazing at him like impressionable music enthusiasts at the solo violinist. Meanwhile, we despondently ticked the days off the calendar, swotted up the spot questions, and ran a final breathless sprint down the well-trodden paths of medicine.

The examination began with the written papers. A single invigilator2 sat in his gown and hood on a raised platform to keep an eye open for flagrant cheating. He was helped by two or three uniformed porters who stood by the door and looked dispassionately down at the poor victims, like the policemen that flank the dock at the Old Bailey.3

Three hours were allowed for the paper. About half-way through the anonymous examinees began to differentiate themselves. Some of them strode up for an extra answer book, with an awkward expression of self-consciousness and superiority in their faces. Others rose to their feet, handed in their papers and left. Whether these people were so brilliant they were able to complete the examination in an hour and a half or whether this was the time required for them to set down unhurriedly their entire knowledge of medicine was never apparent from the nonchalant air with which they left the room. The invigilator tapped his bell half an hour before time; the last question was rushed through, then the porters began tearing papers away from gentlemen dissatisfied with the period allowed for them to express themselves and hoping by an incomplete sentence to give the examiners the impression of frustrated brilliance.

I walked down the stairs feeling as if I had just finished an eight-round fight. In the square outside the first person I recognized was Grimsdyke.

"How did you get on?" I asked.

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"So-so," he replied. "However, I am not worried. They never read the papers anyway. Haven't you heard how they mark the tripos4 at Cambridge, my dear old boy? The night before the results come out the old don totters bade, from hall and chucks the lot down the staircase. The ones that stick on the top flight are given firsts,5 most of them end up on the landing and get seconds, thirds go to the lower flight, and any reaching the ground floor are failed. This system has been working admirably for years without arousing any comment."

The unpopular oral examination was held a week after the papers. The written answers have a certain remoteness about them, and mistakes and omissions, like those of life, can be made without the threat of immediate punishment. But the viva is judgement day. A false answer, and the god's brow threatens like imminent thunderstorm. If the candidate loses his nerve in front of this terrible displeasure he is finished: confusion breeds confusion and he will come to the end of his interrogation struggling like a cow in a bog.

I was shown to a tiny waiting-room furnished with hard chairs, a wooden table, and windows that wouldn't open, like the condemned cell. There were six other candidates waiting, to go in with me, who illustrated the types fairly commonfy seen in viva waiting-rooms. There was the Nonchalant, lolling back on the rear legs of his chair with his feet on the table. Next to him, a man of the Frankly Worried class sat on the edge of his chair tearing little bits off his invitation card and jumping irritatingly every time the door opened. There was the Crammer, fondling the pages of his battered textbook in a desperate farewell embrace, and his opposite, the Old Stager, who treated the whole thing with the familiarity of a photographer at a wedding. He had obviously failed the examination so often he looked upon the viva simply as another engagement to be fitted into his day.

The other occupant of the room was a woman. Women students - the attractive ones, not those who are feminine only

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through inescapable anatomic arrangements — are under disadvantage in oral examinations. The male examiners are so afraid of being prejudiced favourably by their sex they usually adopt towards them an attitude of undeserved sternness. But this girl had given care to her preparations for the examination. Her suit was neat but not smart; her hair tidy but not striking; she wore enough make-up to look attractive, and she was obviously practising, with some effort, a look of admiring submission to the male sex. I felt sure she would get through.

"You go to table four," the porter told me.

I stood before table four. I didn't recognize the examiners. One was a burly, elderly man like a retired prize-fighter; the other was invisible, as he was occupied in reading the morning's Times.

"Well, how would you treat a case of tetanus?" My heart leaped hopefully. This was something I knew, as there had recently been a case at St. Swithin's. I started off confidentially, reeling out the lines of treatment and feeling much better. The examiner suddenly cut me short.

"All right, all right," he said impatiently, "you seem to know that A girl of twenty comes to you complaining of gaining weight, what would you do?" I rallied my thoughts and stumbled through the answer...

The days after the viva were black ones. It was like having a severe accident. For the first few hours I was numbed, unable to realize what had hit me. Then I began to wonder if I would ever make a recovery and win through. One or two of my friends heartened me by describing equally depressing experiences that had overtaken them previously and still allowed them to pass. I began to hope. Little shreds of success collected together and weaved themselves into a triumphal garland...

"One doesn't fail exams," said Grimsdyke firmly. "One comes down, one muffs, one is ploughed, plucked, or pipped. These infer a misfortune that is not one's own fault. To speak of failing is bad taste. It's the same idea as talking about passing

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away and going above instead of plain dying." The examination results were to be published at noon.

We arrived in the examination building to find the same candidates there, but they were a subdued, muttering crowd, like the supporters of a home team who had just been beaten in a cup tie.

We had heard exactly what would happen. At midday precisely the Secretary of the Committee would descend the stairs and take his place, flanked by two uniformed porters. Under his arm would be a thick, leather-covered book containing the results. One of the porters would carry a list of candidates' numbers and call them out, one after the other. The candidate would step up closely to the Secretary, who would say simply "Pass" or "Failed". Successful men would go upstairs to receive the congratulations and handshakes of the examiners and failures would slink miserably out of the exit to seek the opiate oblivion.

One minute to twelve. The room had suddenly come to a frightening, unexpected silence and stillness, like an unexploded bomb. A clock tingled twelve in the distance. My palms were as wet as sponges. Someone coughed, and I expected the windows to rattle. With slow scraping feet that could be heard before they appeared the Secretary and the porters came solemnly down the stairs. The elder porter raised his voice.

"Number one hundred and sixty-one," he began. "Number three hundred and two. Number three hundred and six." Grimsdyke punched me hard in the ribs, "Go on," he hissed. "It's you!"

I jumped and struggled my way to the front of the restless crowd. My pulse shot in my ears. My face was burning hot and

I felt my stomach had been suddenly plucked from my body. Suddenly I found myself on top of the Secretary.

“Number three oh six?" the Secretary whispered, without looking up from the book. "R. Gordon?" "Yes," I croaked.

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The world stood still. The traffic stopped, the plants ceased growing, men were paralysed, the clouds hung in the air, the winds dropped, the tides disappeared, the sun halted in the sky.

"Pass," he muttered.

Blindly, like a man just hit by a blackjack, I stumbled up-

stairs.

Commentary

St Bartholomew's, St. Swithin's Hospitals: medical schools in London.

invigilator: a person who watches over students during examinations.

Old Bailey: Central Criminal Court, situated in London in the street of the same name.

the tripos: examination for an honours degree in Cambridge University.

firsts, seconds, thirds: a system of grading degrees. the viva: an oral examination.

Pride and prejudice (abstract) by J. Austen

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.

However little known the feelings or views of such a man may be on his first entering a neighbourhood, this truth is so well fixed in the minds of the surrounding families, that he is considered the rightful property of someone or other of their daughters.

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” said his lady to him one day, “have you heard that Netherfield Park is let at last?”

Mr. Bennet replied that he had not.

“But it is,” returned she; “for Mrs. Long has just been here, and she told me all about it.”

Mr. Bennet made no answer.

“Do you not want to know who has taken it?” cried his wife impatiently.

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“You want to tell me, and I have no objection to hearing

it.”

This was invitation enough.

“Why, my dear, you must know, Mrs. Long says that Netherfield is taken by a young man of large fortune from the north of England; that he came down on Monday in a chaise and four to see the place, and was so much delighted with it, that he agreed with Mr. Morris immediately; that he is to take possession before Michaelmas, and some of his servants are to be in the house by the end of next week.”

“What is his name?” “Bingley.”

”Is he married or single?”

”Oh! Single, my dear, to be sure! A single man of large fortune; four or five thousand a year. What a fine thing for our girls!”

“How so? How can it affect them?”

“My dear Mr. Bennet,” replied his wife, ”how can you be so tiresome! You must know that I am thinking of his marrying one of them.”

”Is that his design in settling here?”

”Design! Nonsense, how can you talk so! But it is very likely that he may fall in love with one of them, and therefore you must visit him as soon as he comes.”

”I see no occasion for that. You and the girls may go, or you may send them by themselves, which perhaps will be still better, for as you are as handsome as any of them, Mr. Bingley may like you the best of the party.”

”My dear, you flatter me. I certainly have had my share of beauty, but I do not pretend to be anything extraordinary now. When a woman has five grown-up daughters, she ought to give over thinking of her own beauty.”

”In such cases, a woman has not often much beauty to think of.”

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