There were four of us, George, William Samuel Harris, myself, my friends callverb.把…叫做 me Jay, and Montmorency. We were sitting in my room and were smokingverb.冒烟 and talking about our bad healthnoun.健康. We were all feeling very ill and we were unhappyadj.不快乐的 about it. Harris said he felt dizzyadj.眩晕的 sometimesadv.有时. George felt dizzyadj.眩晕的 too. My big problem was my livernoun.肝. I knew I had a bad livernoun.肝. I had read about all the symptomsnoun.症状 of livernoun.肝 diseasenoun.病 in a book.
I had every symptomnoun.症状 that was written. Every time I read about an illnessnoun.病, I've realizedverb.实现 that I have it. One day, I had a little healthnoun.健康 problem. I went to the British Museum Library to read about it. After some time, I began reading about another illnessnoun.病. I don't remember the name now, but it was something terribleadj.可怕的. I knew I had that terribleadj.可怕的 illnessnoun.病 too. I began reading the book from the letter A to the letter Z.
I had the symptomsnoun.症状 of all the diseasesnoun.病 in the book, except for one. I didn't have housemaid's knee. This made me a bitnoun.一点 unhappyadj.不快乐的. Why didn't I have housemaid's knee too? With all the diseasesnoun.病 I had, I knew my life was short. I triedverb.尝试 to examineverb.检查 myself. I triedverb.尝试 to feel my heart. I triedverb.尝试 to look at my tonguenoun.舌头. When I had walked into the library, I had been a happy, healthy man. When I left it, I was a very ill man.
I went to see my doctor. He is an old friend. Whenever I think I am ill, he examinesverb.检查 me and says I'm fine. A doctor reallyadv.真正地 must have practicenoun.实践. This time, I thought, he will get more practicenoun.实践 with me than with a thousand normaladj.正常的 patientsnoun.病人. After all, normaladj.正常的 patientsnoun.病人 have only one or two diseasesnoun.病 each. "Well, what's wrong with you?" he asked. I said, "If I tell you what is wrong with me, you will die before I finish. Life is too short.
I'll tell you what is not wrong with me. I don't have housemaid's knee, but I have everything elseadv.其它." I told him about what I had read at the library. He looked at me carefullyadv.小心地. He listened to my heart and looked at my tonguenoun.舌头. After that, he wrote a prescriptionnoun.指示 and gave it to me. I put it in my pocket and went out. I didn't read the prescriptionnoun.指示. I took it to the chemistsnoun.化学家 and gave it to him.
He read it and gave it back to me. He said, "I don't have the things on the prescriptionnoun.指示." "But you're a chemistnoun.化学家, aren't you?" I asked. He said, "You're right, sir. I'm a chemistnoun.化学家. I don't have a shop and a hotel." I read the prescriptionnoun.指示. It said, "Every six hours, one poundnoun.磅 of good fresh meat, one pintnoun.品脱 of beernoun.啤酒. Every morning, one ten-milenoun.英里 walk. Go to bed no later than eleven o'clock each night, and don't read books about things you don't understandverb.(understood) 理解."
I followedverb.跟随 the doctor's prescriptionnoun.指示. It savedverb.救 my life. I now feel ratheradv.宁可 well, except for my livernoun.肝 problem. The mainadj.主要的 symptomnoun.症状 of livernoun.肝 diseasenoun.病 is a generaladj.总的 feelingnoun.感情 of sleepinessnoun.想睡 and no interestnoun.兴趣 in working. I have sufferedverb.受苦 from this illnessnoun.病 everadv.在任何时候 since I was a boy. Medicaladj.医学的 sciencenoun.科学 was not advancedadj.先进的 in those days. Doctors did not know that I had livernoun.肝 illnessnoun.病. They thought I was lazy. People calledverb.把…叫做 me a lazy little devilnoun.魔鬼 and said, "Go and do your work."
They did not know I was ill with livernoun.肝 diseasenoun.病. Insteadadv.代替 of giving me livernoun.肝 pillsnoun.药丸, they gave me blowsnoun.击 on the head. Those blowsnoun.击 were good for me, because after each blownoun.击, I went to do my work. That old remedynoun.治疗 worked better than a box of modernadj.现代的 pillsnoun.药丸. That evening, George, William Harris and I sat in my room. We describedverb.形容 our illnessesnoun.病. I explainedverb.解释 to George and William Harris how I felt in the morning. William Harris told us how he felt when he went to bed.
Then George stood up and told us how he felt at night. George always thinks he is ill, but there is reallyadv.真正地 nothing wrong with him. At that moment, Mrs. Poppets, the housekeepernoun.女管家, servedverb.为…服务 our dinner. We were not hungry. We ate some meat, onions and cake. We had no interestnoun.兴趣 in food. We began talking about our illnessesnoun.病 again. We all knew that our illnessesnoun.病 were causedverb.造成 by too much work. "We need a restnoun.休息," said Harris. "A restnoun.休息 and a changenoun.改变," George added.
"Our mindsnoun.头脑 are tired from too much work. We must restverb.使休息 our mindsnoun.头脑." "Let's go to the countrysidenoun.乡下," I said. "We'll find a nice, quiet place with no people." Harris said, "Oh, how boringadj.无趣的. In the country, everyone goes to bed at eight o'clock. You can't evenadv.甚至 find a newspaper. If you want a restnoun.休息 and a changenoun.改变, then the best place is the sea." "What a terribleadj.可怕的 ideanoun.想法," I said. "A sea tripnoun.[C] 旅行 gives you seasickness. Who wants a wholeadj.完整的 week of seasickness?
You leave on Monday and you're feeling well. On Tuesday, you feel worse. Then on Wednesday, you're reallyadv.真正地 sick. On Thursday and Friday, you're almostadv.几乎 dead. On Saturday, you can finallyadv.最后 drink a few teaspoonsnoun.茶匙 of tea. On Sunday, you can walk again and eat some food. Then on Monday, you're happy because it's time to get off the ship." So George said, "Let's go up the river. We'll have fresh air and quiet on the river. The hard work on the boatnoun.小船 will make us hungry so we'll enjoy our food.
We'll be so tired at the end of the day that we'll sleep well." Harris said, "You don't have any troublenoun.问题 sleeping, George. There are only 24 hours in the day and you sleep mostadj.最多的 of that time. If you sleep any moreadv.更, you're dead. Howeveradv.然而, I like your ideanoun.想法 of a holidaynoun.假日 on the River Thames." I liked it too. George was surprisedadj.感到惊讶的 that we both liked his ideanoun.想法. The onlyadj.唯一的 one who didn't like the ideanoun.想法 was Montmorency, my foxnoun.狐狸 terrier.
He looked at us with his big eyes. "You like the ideanoun.想法, but I don't," his face said. "On the river, there's nothing for me to do. I don't like looking at the trees. I certainlyadv.一定 don't smokeverb.冒烟. If I see a rat, you won't stop the boatnoun.小船 so I can run after it. When I'm asleep, you'll probablyadv.或许 rockverb.摇动 the boatnoun.小船 and I'll fall into the river. The wholeadj.完整的 ideanoun.想法 is stupidadj.愚蠢的." We were three to one, so we decidedverb.决定 to go on the river tripnoun.[C] 旅行.