2014年高考英语广东卷 - 阅读理解B

It was a cold winter day. A woman drove up to the Rainbow Bridge tollbooth. “I’m paying for myself, and for the six cars behind me,” she said with a smile, handing over seven tickets. One after another, the next six drivers arriving at the tollbooth were informed, “Some lady up ahead already paid your fare.”
那是一个寒冷的冬天。一位女士开车来到彩虹桥收费站。“我给我自己和后面的六辆车缴费，”她笑着说，递给了七张票。到达收费站的后面六名司机一个接一个被告知：“前面有位女士已经付了你的车费。”

It turned out that the woman, Natalie Smith, had read something on a friend’s refrigerator: “Practice random kindness and senseless acts of beauty.” The phrase impressed her so much that she copied it down.
原来，这位名叫娜塔莉·史密斯（Natalie Smith）的女士在朋友的冰箱上读到了这样一句话：“释放随意的善意和无缘由的善行。”这句话给她留下了深刻的印象，她把它抄了下来。

Judy Foreman spotted the same phrase on a warehouse wall far away from home. When it stayed on her mind for days, she gave up and drove all the way back to copy it down. “I thought it was beautiful,” she said, explaining why she’d taken to writing it at the bottom of all her letters, “like a message from above.” Her husband, Frank, liked the phrase so much that he put it up on the classroom wall for his students, one of whom was the daughter of Alice Johnson, a local news reporter. Alice put it in the newspaper, admitting that though she liked it, she didn’t know where it came from or what it really meant.
朱迪·福尔曼在离家很远的仓库墙上看到了同样的话。当这些文字在她脑海中停留了几天后，她一路开车回去把它抄下来。“我觉得这些文字很美，”她解释了为什么她会把它写在所有信件的底部，“就像来自上天的指引。”她的丈夫弗兰克非常喜欢这句话，所以他把它写在了教室墙上，送给他的学生，其中一位学生是当地新闻记者爱丽丝·约翰逊的女儿。爱丽丝把它发表在报纸上，承认虽然她喜欢它，但不知道它的来历，也不知道它的真正含义。

Two days later, Alice got a call from Anne Herbert, a woman living in Marin. It was in a restaurant that Anne wrote the phrase down on a piece of paper, after turning it around in her mind for days.
两天后，爱丽丝接到住在马林的安妮·赫伯特的电话。这句话在安妮的脑海里转念了几天后，安妮在一家餐馆里，把这句话写在了一张纸上。

“Here’s the idea,” Anne says. “Anything you think there should be more of, do it randomly.” Her fantasies include painting the classrooms of shabby schools, leaving hot meals on kitchen tables in the poor part of town, and giving money secretly to a proud old lady. Anne says, “Kindness can build on itself as much as violence can.”
“这是个办法，”安妮说，“任何你认为应该有更多的东西，都可以随意做。”她的幻想包括粉刷破旧学校的教室，把热腾腾的饭菜留在镇上贫困地区的餐桌上，以及偷偷地给一位骄傲的老太太钱。安妮说：“善良可以像暴力一样建立于自己身上。”

The acts of random kindness spread. If you were one of those drivers who found your fare paid, who knows what you might have been inspired to do for someone else later. Like all great events, kindness begins slowly, with every single act. Let it be yours!
随意的善意行为蔓延开来。如果你是那些发现被付了车费的司机中的一员，谁知道你后来可能会受到启发为别人做什么。就像所有重大事件一样，善意从每一个行为开始都很缓慢。让你拥有善意！