My beautiful new watch had run eighteen months without losing or gaining,and without breaking any part of its machinery or stopping.I had come to believe it infallible in its judgments about the time of day,and to consider its constitution and its anatomy imperishable.But at last,one night,I let it run down.I grieved about it as if it were a recognized messenger and forerunner of calamity.But by and by I cheered up,set the watch by guess,and commanded my bodings and superstitions to depart.Next day I stepped into the chief jeweler's to set it by the exact time,and the head of the establishment took it out of my hand and proceeded to set it for me.Then he said,“She is four minutes slow—regulator wants pushing up.”I tried to stop him—tried to make him understand that the watch kept perfect time.But no;all this human cabbage could see was that the watch was four minutes slow,and the regulator must be pushed up a little;and so,while I danced around him in anguish,and implored him to let the watch alone,he calmly and cruelly did the shameful deed.My watch began to gain.It gained faster and faster day by day.Within the week it sickened to a raging fever,and its pulse went up to a hundred and fifty in the shade.At the end of two months it had left all the time-pieces of the town far in the rear,and was a fraction over thirteen days ahead of the almanac.It was away into November enjoying the snow,while the October leaves were still turning.It hurried up house rent,bills payable,and such things,in such a ruinous way that I could not abide it.I took it to the watchmaker to be regulated.He asked me if I had ever had it repaired.I said no,it had never needed any repairing.He looked a look of vicious happiness and eagerly pried the watch open,and then put a small dice-box into his eye and peered into its machinery.He said it wanted cleaning and oiling,besides regulating—come in a week.After being cleaned and oiled,and regulated,my watch slowed down to that degree that it ticked like a tolling bell.I began to be left by trains,I failed all appointments,I got to missing my dinner;my watch strung out three days'grace to four and let me go to protest;I gradually drifted back into yesterday,then day before,then into last week,and by and by the comprehension came upon me that all solitary and alone I was lingering along in week before last,and the world was out of sight.I seemed to detect in myself a sort of sneaking fellow-feeling for the mummy in the museum,and adesire to swap news with him.I went to a watchmaker again.He took the watch all to pieces while I waited,and then said the barrel was “swelled.”He said he could reduce it in three days.After this the watch averaged well,but nothing more.For half a day it would go like the very mischief,and keep up such a barking and wheezing and whooping and sneezing and snorting,that I could not hear myself think for the disturbance;and as long as it held out there was not a watch in the land that stood any chance against it.But the rest of the day it would keep on slowing down and fooling along until all the clocks it had left behind caught up again.So at last,at the end of twenty-four hours,it would trot up to the judges'stand all right and just in time.It would show a fair and square average,and no man could say it had done more or less than its duty.But a correct average is only a mild virtue in a watch,and I took this instrument to another watchmaker.He said the king-bolt was broken.I said I was glad it was nothing more serious.To tell the plain truth,I had no idea what the king-bolt was,but I did not choose to appear ignorant to a stranger.He repaired the king-bolt,but what the watch gained in one way it lost in another.It would run awhile and then stop awhile,and then run awhile again,and so on,using its own discretion about the intervals.And every time it went off it kicked back like a musket.I padded my breast for a few days,but finally took the watch to another watchmaker.He picked it all to pieces,and turned the ruin over and over under his glass;and then he said there appeared to be something the matter with the hair-trigger.He fixed it,and gave it a fresh start.It did well now,except that always at ten minutes to ten the hands would shut together like a pair of scissors,and from that time forth they would travel together.The oldest man in the world could not make head or tail of the time of day by such a watch,and so I went again to have the thing repaired.This person said that the crystal had got bent,and that the mainspring was not straight.He also remarked that parts of the works needed half-soling.He made these things all right,and then my timepiece performed unexceptionably,save that now and then,after working along quietly for nearly eight hours,everything inside would let go all of a sudden and begin to buzz like a bee,and the hands would straightway begin to spin round and round so fast that their individuality was lost completely,and they simply seemed a delicate spider's web over the face of the watch.She would reel off the next twenty-four hours in six or seven minutes,and then stop with a bang.I went with a heavy heart to one more watchmaker,and looked on while he took her to pieces.Then I prepared to cross-question him rigidly,for this thing was getting serious.The watch had cost two hundred dollars originally,and I seemed to have paid out two or three thousand for repairs.While I waited and looked on I presently recognized in this watchmaker an old acquaintance—a steamboat engineer of other days,and not a good engineer,either.He examined all the parts carefully,just as the other watchmakers had done,and then delivered his verdict with the same confidence of manner.
同类推荐
假如给我三天光明(双语译林)
《假如给我三天光明》是教育部推荐的成长励志经典读物,盲聋人海伦·凯勒不屈不挠的坚毅斗志曾激励了一代又一代人。本书完整收录《假如给我三天光明》、《我生命的故事》、《三论乐观》、《在芒特艾里的演讲》以及海伦·凯勒书信十封,英汉双语对照,讲述一个没有光明、没有声音的传奇人生。世界500强企业都在用的国际英文合同大全集
《世界500强企业都在用的国际英文合同大全集》在介绍英语合同基础知识的基础上,分析英语合同的语言特点和常用词汇及句型,并为读者提供了各类合同实例并加以注释和翻译以方便大家学习。本书最后还提供了国际法规与惯例相关条款及合同术语中英文对照辅助资料,内容从易到难,循序渐进,让您一步一步掌握商务英语合同。书屋环游记(双语译林)
《书屋环游记》是“福尔摩斯之父”亚瑟·柯南·道尔在文学评论方面的代表作,也是柯南·道尔因创作“福尔摩斯”而功成名就后,为完成自己对于严肃文学的一个多年夙愿所创作的。书中对于重要作家进行了别开生面的品评,非常有趣。小妇人:英文
《小妇人》讲述了美国南北战争期间马奇一家的故事。马奇先生远赴战场做了随军牧师,四个女儿和母亲在家里过着清苦的生活。她们坚强乐观,虽贫穷却乐意帮助比她们更需要帮助的邻居;她们充满幻想,希望能过上公主般的生活,而在现实中却依靠自己的努力来面对生活的各种艰难困苦。大女儿梅格生性爱美,对恋爱充满儿艾钟爱绘画。《小妇人》以家庭生活为描写对象,以家庭成员的感情纠葛为线索,描写了马奇一家的天伦之爱,描写了她们对家庭的眷恋,对爱的忠诚以及对亲情的渴望。虽然四姐妹的理想和命运各不相同,但是她们都具有自强自立的共同特点。在《小妇人》中可以读到初恋的甜蜜和烦恼,感情与理智的差异,理想和现实的距离,贫穷与富有的矛盾。The Battle of Beijing 北京保卫战
2003年春的中国北京,如同一座恐怖之城、瘟疫之城和面临死亡之城。于是出现了许许多多“奇怪而可笑”的事:在与北京接壤的地方——河北廊坊某地段的公路上,有人竟然用挖土机挖了一个深二十多米、宽三十多米的巨型大坑,说是“为了防止北京城里开过来的汽车”,所有北京方向来的汽车在这个地方只能往回走……本书通过2003年非典肆虐时期作者深入北京各个“抗非”的现场所获取的第一手采访资料以及亲身经历,真实地记录了首都北京在非典爆发时所经历的惊心动魄的一段生死记忆,向人们揭开了“抗非”一线的真实情况。
热门推荐
宠妻无度:萌妻哪里逃
她被人欺负,他二话不说,将对方虐成渣。“你讲讲理好不好?是你老婆欺负我!”“没办法,我偏心!”她被绑架,他从天而降,“我的女人,我都不舍得碰,你们敢动她一下试试!”前世,她被人当成神经病关入疯人院;这一世,她彻彻底底的做了一次疯子,将所有害过她的人,全都踩到了脚底。【双洁,甜宠】开拓孩子视野的108个好故事
童年的书包里,总是装着吃不完的零食、看不完的故事书;童年的脑海里,总是想着阿拉丁神灯和灰姑娘的那双水晶鞋。童年是美好而又纯真的,童年又是充满希望和幻想的。一片片枫叶悄悄地张开。童年稚嫩而好奇的眼睛,一个个好故事深深地印着童年…