2013专8阅读理解

Paris In Winter冬天的巴黎Paris is like pornography. You respond even if you dont want to. You turn a corner and see a vista, and your imagination bolts away. Suddenly you are thinking about what it would be like to live in Paris, and then you think about all the lives you have not lived. Sometimes, though, when you are lucky, you only think about how many pleasures the day ahead holds. Then, you feel privileged巴黎像部色情作品。你会不由自主地产生反应。你转过街角，看到街景，你的想象力开始驰骋。突然间，你在想住在巴黎会是什么样，接着你又想自己没有活过的种种活法。不过有时，如果幸运的话，你只是在想即将到来的一天会有多少快乐。于是，你感到荣幸。The lobby of the Plaza Athne is a red-and-gold fantasia. It gives off a whiff of Moulin Rouge decadence. Probably as much as any hotel in Paris, the Plaza Athne is sexy. I was standing facing the revolving doors and the driveway beyond. A Ducati with a woman on its backa woman in a short skirt and black-leather jacketpulled up before the hotel door. She swung off and she was wearing high heels. Normally, my mind would have leaped and imagined a story for this woman. Now it didnt. I stood there and told myself: Cheer up. Youre in Paris.雅典广场旅馆的大堂是一部红色与金色交织的幻想曲。它带有些许红磨坊的放纵味道。也许和巴黎任何一家旅馆差不多的是，雅典广场旅馆是性感的。我正面向旅馆的旋转门和远处的车道站着。一辆杜卡迪摩托车载着一名女子-身穿短裙和黑色短款皮上衣-在旅馆门前停住。她跳下车，脚蹬高跟鞋。通常，这时我的脑子会飞快地转动，想象这名女子的故事。此刻我没有。我站在那对自己说：高兴点。你是在巴黎。From the best new restaurants to “old friends” like the Louvre and La Tour Eiffel, Paris always enchants., David Sauveur / Agence VU-AuroraIn many ways, Paris is best visited in winter. The tourist crowds are at a minimum, and one is not being jammed off the narrow sidewalks along the Rue Dauphine. More than this, Paris is like many other European cities in that the season of blockbuster cultural events tends to begin in mid- to late fall and so, by the time winter, bracing and demanding, appears, most of the cultural treasures of the city are laid out to be admired.从许多方面来讲，最好在冬天去巴黎。那时游客最少，在多菲内街狭窄的人行道上不至于被挤到一旁。不仅如此，巴黎和欧洲其他许多城市相似的一点是，内容极具震撼力的文化活动季往往在仲秋或深秋拉开序幕，因此，冬季到来时，这座城市的大部分文化瑰宝都陈列出来供人赏鉴。The other great reason why Paris in winter is so much better than Paris in spring and fall is that after the end of the August holidays and the return of chic Parisiennes to their city, the restaurant-opening season truly begins hopping. By winter, many of the new restaurants have worked out their kinks and, once the hype has died down, it is possible to see which restaurants are actually good and which are merely noisy and crowded.冬天的巴黎之所以远远好于春秋时节的巴黎，另一个重要的原因是，在8月的假期结束、美丽时尚的巴黎女子回到属于她们的这座城市后，餐厅开张季才真正开始忙碌起来。冬天来时，许多新餐厅已经理顺了自身的问题，在大肆的炒作逐渐平息后，才有可能看出哪些餐厅确实不错，哪些不过是嘈杂拥挤。Most people are about as happy as they set their mind to being, Lincoln said. In Paris it doesnt take much to be happy. Outside the hotel, the sky was pale and felt very high up. I walked the few blocks to the Seine and began running along the blue-green river toward the Eiffel Tower. There is a lovely raised terrace with a dirt-and-gravel path that takes one along Trocadero Park toward the tower. The tower in the distance was black, and felt strange and beautiful the way that many things built for the joy of building do. As I ran toward it, because of its lattice structure, the tower seemed obviously delicate. Seeing it, I felt a sense of protectiveness.林肯说过，大多数人的快乐程度和他们决心要达到的快乐程度差不多。在巴黎，做的快乐无需付出太多。走出旅馆，天高云淡。我走过几个街区，来到塞纳河边，开始沿着蓝绿色的塞纳河，朝埃菲尔铁塔跑去。远处的铁塔呈现黑色，给人一种奇特而美妙的感觉，这是许多为追求建造乐趣而建的东西给人带来的感受。我在朝它跑去时，由于其镂空结构，铁塔看起来显然很纤弱。看到它，我起了保护之心。I think it was this moment of protectiveness that marked the change in my mood and my slowly becoming thrilled with being in Paris.我觉得正是我产生保护心理的这一刻标志着我的心情发生了转变，我渐渐因身在巴黎而兴奋不已。During winter evenings, Pariss streetlamps have a halo and resemble dandelions. In winter, when one leaves the Paris street and enters a caf or restaurant, the light and temperature change suddenly and dramatically, and there is the sense of having discovered something secret. In winter, because the days are short, there is an urgency to the choices one makes. Will it be the Louvre today or the Jacquemart-Andr? One feels always asked to commit. There is the sense that life is short and so let us decide on what matters.冬夜里，巴黎的街灯包裹在光晕中，像蒲公英。冬天，从巴黎街道上进入咖啡馆或餐厅，光线和温度突然发生剧烈的变化，让人感觉撞见了什么秘密。冬天，由于白昼变短，作抉择时总显得紧迫。给人的感觉是，人生苦短，所以我们在重要的事情上当机立断吧。In a Recession, the Consumer Is QueenThe first clue came when I got my hair cut. The stylist offered not just the usual coffee or tea but a complimentary nail-polish change while I waited for my hair to dry. Maybe she hoped this little amenity would slow the growing inclination of women to stretch each haircut to last four months while nursing our hair back to whatever natural color we long ago forgot.Then there was the appliance salesman who offered to carry my bags as we toured the microwave aisle. When I called my husband to ask him to check some specs online, the salesman offered a pre-emptive discount, lest the surfing turn up the same model cheaper at Best Buy. That night, for the first time, I saw the Hyundai ad promising shoppers that if they buy a car and then lose their job in the next year, they can return it.Suddenly everythings on sale-even silver linings. The upside to the downturn is the immense incentive it gives retailers to treat you like a queen for a day. During the flush times, salespeople were surly, waiters snobby, as though their kanpachi tartare with wasabi tobiko might be too good for the likes of you. But now the customer rules, just for showing up. Theres more room to stretch out on the flight, even in coach. The malls have that serene aura of undisturbed wilderness, with scarcely a shopper in sight. Every conversation with anyone selling anything is a pantomime of pain and bluff. Finger the scarf, then start to walk away, and its price floats silkily downward. When the mechanic calls to tell you that brakes and a timing belt and other services will run close to $2,000, its time to break out the newly perfected art of the considered pause. You really dont even have to say anything pitiful before hell offer to knock a few hundred dollars off.Some places figured out that children, those adorable cash suckers, could clear a passage into our pocketbooks, beyond the old kids-eat-free-on-Tuesday promotions. Colorados Aspen-Snowmass ski resort arranged for kids to fly free and threw in lift tickets for those accompanied by a paying adult.Restaurants are caught in a fit of ardent hospitality, especially around Wall Street: Trinity Place offers $3 drinks at happy hour any day the market goes down, with the slogan Market tanked? Get tanked!-which ensures a lively crowd for the closing bell. The 21 Club has decided that men no longer need to wear ties, so long as they bring their wallets. Food itself is friendlier: you notice more comfort food, a truce between chef and patron that is easier to enjoy now that you can get a table practically anywhere. And tap water is fine, thanks. New York Times restaurant critic Frank Bruni characterizes the new restaurant demeanor as extreme solicitousness tinged with outright desperation. You need to hug the customer, one owner told him.Theres a chance that eventually well return all this kindness with the profligate spending the government once decried but now would like to harness to restart the economy. But human nature is funny that way. In dangerous times, we clench and squint at the deal that looks too good to miss, suspecting that it must be too good to be true. Is the store with the supercheap flat screens going to go bust and thus not be there to honor the free extended warranty? Is there something . wrong . with that free cheese? Store owners will tell you horror stories about shoppers with attitude, who walk in demanding discounts and flaunt their new power at every turn. They wince as they sense bad habits forming: Will people expect discounts forever? Will their hard-won brand luster be forever cheapened, especially for items whose allure depends on their being ridiculously priced?There will surely come a day when things go back to normal; retail sales even inched up in January after sinking for the six months previous. But I wonder what it will take for us to see those $545 Sigerson Morrison studded toe-ring sandals as reasonable? Bargain-hunting can be addictive regardless of the state of the Dow, and haggling is a low-risk, high-value contact sport. Trauma digs deep into habits, like my 85-year-old mother still calling her canned-goods cabinet the bomb shelter. The children of the First Depression were saving string and preaching sacrifice long after the skies cleared. They came to be called the greatest generation. As we learn to be decent stewards of our resources, who knows what might come of it? We have lived in an age of wanton waste, and there is value in practicing conservation that goes far beyond our own bottom line.译文：经济萧条时，顾客是女王首先，我有所感觉是在理发的时候。在等待头发变干的那一会儿，发型师不但像平时那样给我端来咖啡或茶，还免费为我涂了新的指甲油。她也许希望，这点小小的满足可以让女士们不那么越来越想着把一个发型挺上4个月之久，让我们的头发恢复到早已忘记了的本色。然后，是那位电器售货员，当他陪着我在摆放微波炉的过道内转悠时，主动帮我拎包，当我给丈夫打电话，让他上网查一些相关规格的产品时，在旁边的售货员生怕网上会显出“百思买”所售更便宜的同款货品，因此还没等我张口就表示愿意给我打折。当天晚上，我第一次看到现代汽车公司的广告，当中向顾客承诺说，购车后如果第二年失业的话，他们可以原价退货。突然间，所有的东西都在打折甚至是不幸中的一线希望。经济衰退中的可喜的一面是它极大地刺激了零售商，让他们待你像一日女王。财源茂盛时，售货员粗暴无礼，侍应生极为势力，似乎他们卖的红甘鱼生鱼片配青芥蟹子档次太高，你我之辈不配享用。而如今顾客成了老大，光顾你那儿就是给你面子。航班飞机有了更多的伸展空间，即时经济舱也是如此。许多购物中心呈现着久无人迹的空旷冷清的氛围，难得见到一名购物者。和任何一个随便卖什么的售货员谈话都成了一种痛苦和虚张声势的哑剧。你用手指随意捏捏围巾后想要离开的话，它的价格就会像丝绸那样飘然而落。如果有修车工打电话来告诉你，更换刹车片和发动机皮带，外加一些保养价格约为2000美元，这时候你可以突