если что,так же два этих текста можно найти здесь www.studfiles.ru/dir/cat5/subj164/file13671/vie...
юнит 1 и 4
1
… Robert Shannon will be able to continue his studies only if he
gets the scholarship founded by Sir John Marshall, but his best friend
Gavin becomes his rival.
It was the first day of the Easter
Holidays. I was going fishing with Gavin. The last pleasure I allowed
myself before beginning to prepare for the Marshall.
We met early
in the morning. Gavin was waiting for me. Impossible to describe the
silent joy of our meeting... We walked side by side through the quiet
village to the lake.
“No fishing until evening, I am afraid”, Gavin murmured. “No wind and the day is too bright”.
Until
the sun went down, Gavin and I sat on an upturned boat, outside his
father's fishing hut. We spoke very little. At seven o'clock, after Mrs.
Glen, the woman of the cottage had given us some tea and boiled eggs
and milk, we pushed the boat into the water. I took the oars. When we
were far from the shore, Gavin spoke, hidden by the growing darkness.
“I understand you are sitting the Marshall, Robie?”
I was greatly surprised. “Yes… How did you know?”
“Mrs. Keith told my sister”, Gavin paused, breathing heavily. “I am trying for it too”.
I looked at him in silence. I was shocked and confused.
“But Gavin… You do not need the money!”
Gavin
frowned. "You'll be surprised." He spoke slowly. "My father has had
trouble in the business". He paused. "He has done so much for me... now
then he is worried, I would like to do something for him."
I was
silent. I knew that Gavin adored his father; and I had heard whispers
that all was not well with the Mayor's business. Yet his words came as
an unexpected blow.
"All the cleverest boys in the country are
competing," he continued. "One more won't make much difference. Besides
there is the honour of the town. It is twelve years since a Levenford
boy took the scholarship." He drew a deep breath. “One of us must win
it”.
“You may be the one, Gavin”, I said in a low voice; I knew he was a fine scholar.
Gavin
replied slowly. “I would like to win for my father’s sake. But I think
you have a better chance”. He paused. “If you win, will you go on to be a
doctor?”
Gavin was the only person on earth to whom I could tell
the truth. I said: “I wish with all my heart to be a medical biologist,
you know, a doctor who does research”. There was a long pause.
“Yes”,
Gavin said thoughtfully. “It is bad that we have to fight each other
over the scholarship. But, it will not affect our friendship, of
course”.
Yet I felt a sudden sadness in my heart. I thought: “Gavin and I… One of us must be defeated”.
2
Rudolf Steiner, a young piano salesman, was a true adventurer. Few
were the evenings when he did not go to look for the unexpected. It
seemed to him that the most interesting things in life might lie just
around the corner. He was always dreaming of adventures.
Once
when he was walking along the street his attention was attracted by a
Negro handing out a dentist's cards. The Negro slipped a card into
Rudolf's hand. He turned it over and looked at it. Nothing was written
on one side of the card; on the other three words were written: "The
Green Door". And then Rudolf saw, three steps in front of him, a man
throw away the card the Negro had given him as he passed. Rudolf picked
it up. The dentist's name and address were printed on it.
The
adventurous piano salesman stopped at the corner and considered. Then he
returned and joined the stream of people again. When he was passing the
Negro the second time, he again got a card. Ten steps away he examined
it. In the same handwriting that appeared on the first card "The Green
door" was written upon it. Three or four cards were lying on the
pavement. On all of them were the name and the address of the dentist.
Whatever the written words on the cards might mean, the Negro had chose
him twice from the crowd.
Standing aside from the crowd, the
young man looked at the building in which he thought his adventure must
lie. It was a five-storey building. On the f irst floor there was a
store. The second up were apartments.
After finishing his
inspection Rudolf walked rapidly up the stairs into the house. The
hallway there was badly lighted. Rudolf looked toward the nearer door
and saw that it was green. He hesitated for a moment, then he went
straight to the green door and knocked on it. The door slowly opened. A
girl not yet twenty stood there. She was very pale and as it seemed to
Rudolf was about to faint. Rudolf caught her and laid her on a sofa. He
closed the door and took a quick glance round the room. Neat, but great
poverty was the story he read.
"Fainted, didn't I?" the girl asked weakly. "Well, no wonder. You try going without anything to eat for three days and see."
"Heavens!"
cried Rudolf, jumping up. "Wait till I come back." He rushed out of the
green door and in twenty minutes he was back with bread and butter,
cold meat, cakes, pies, milk and hot tea.
"It is foolish to go without eating. You should not do it again," Rudolf said. "Supper is ready."
When
the girl cheered up a little she told him her story. It was one of a
thousand such as the city wears with indifference every day — a shop
girl's story of low wages; of time lost through illness; and then of
lost jobs, lost hope and unrealised dreams and — the knock of the young
man upon the door.
Rudolf looked at the girl with sympathy.
"To think of you going through all that," he exclaimed. "And you have no relatives or friends in the city?"
"None whatever."
"As a matter of fact, I am all alone in the world too," said Rudolf after a pause.
"I am glad of that," said the girl, and somehow it pleased the young man to hear that she approved of his having no relatives.
Then the girl sighed deeply. "'I'm awfully sleepy," she said.
Rudolf rose and took his hat.
"How did it happen that you knocked at my door?" she asked.
"One of our piano tuners lives in this house. I knocked at your door by mistake."
There was no reason why the girl should not believe him.
In the hallway he looked around and discovered to his great surprise that all the doors were green.
In the street he met the same Negro. "Will you tell me why you gave me these cards and what they mean?" he asked.
Pointing
down the street to the entrance to a theatre with a bright electric
sign of its new play, "The Green Door", the Negro told Rudolf that the
theatre agent had given him a dollar to hand out a few of his cards
together with the dentist's.
"Still it was the hand of Fate that showed me the way to her," said Rudolf to himself.