“失魂落魄”的大学教授

　　On the way to the examination room the next morning. I knew without quesition that my luck had run out when I met Jack, who sat next to me. He had not taken a single note all semester; he had not even gone through the motions of "flipping" the textbook pages. When I asked why he wasn't nervous, he answered, "This is the semester for Examination Set #4, the one dealing with dates, names of pharaohs, dynasties, battles, and so forth."

　　第二天早晨，我在去考场的路上碰见了杰克，更加确信自己肯定要倒霉了。杰克坐在我旁边，整整一学期就没见他记过笔记，甚至连一目十行地“翻”书都没见他翻过。我问他怎么不紧张，他告诉我说：“这学期应该是考第四套题，会考历史时间、法老的名字、历届朝代、发生的战事等等。”

　　"What's Examination Set #4?"

　　“第四套试卷是什么？”

　　Everybody on campus except me, I guess, knew that old "King Tut" had five sets of examinations (ten questions in every set), which he rotated over a five-year period.

　　我估计，除了我，学校里没有人不知道老“啧啧王”备有五套试题(每套十个问题)，五年期间轮换使用。

　　Though "King Tut" collected the mimeographed questions from each student, he did not reckon with the organizing ability of fraternity students. The plan worked like this: Specific students were given the mission to memorize question #1, another group to memorize #2, and so forth. When the students left the examination room, they jotted down these questions quickly from memory and put them into the fraternity hopper. In this clever way all five sets of the examination found their way into the files of numerous students.

　　尽管考完后他将每份试卷都收了回去，但绝没料到学生联谊会的组织能力如此出色。他们是这么干的：专门指定一组学生来记第一套试卷的内容，另外一组记第二套试卷，依次类推。学生离开考场后，凭记忆迅速将这些问题写下来，然后存入联谊会的议案箱。这招挺绝，很多学生就这样得到了这五套试题。

　　I knew then that even Osiris and Ra, put together, couldn't help me. I had studied relationships.

　　那时我才明白，即使奥西里斯和太阳神都来帮我也无济于事。我学过关系学。

　　The room was hot, yet others complained of the cold. My mind reeled. I knew my luck had run out. Dimly, as the examination sheets were passed up each row, I heard successive moans of various kinds: "Oh, No!" "No!" and occasional uncontrolled, almost hysterical laughter. I thought that perhaps the professor had by mistake given out Exam #5 instead of the anticipated #4.

　　考场里很热，其他学生却抱怨说冷。我头晕目眩，知道自己该倒霉了。试卷一排一排地往下发，我听见不断有人发出各种各样的怪叫：“天呀！”“坏啦！”，偶尔还有人发出控制不住的近乎歇斯底里的笑声。我想可能是教授误发了第五套试卷，而不是大家预料中的第四套试卷。

　　By the time the sheets reached me (I always sat in the rear corner of the room where it was quieter) I, too, involuntarily gasped, "Oh! It can't be." I colsed my eyes and waited for my vision to clear so that I could read the ten questions. They were the same ten questions that I had made up only yesterday--not in the same order, but nevertheless, the same ten questions. How could that be? One chance in a million, I'm sure. How lucky can one get? I recovered my composure and wrote and wrote and wrote.

　　试卷传到我手中的时候(通常我坐在后排比较安静的角落)，我同样情不自禁地倒抽一口气，“啊！这不可能！”我闭上眼睛，直到视线逐渐清晰，能够阅读那十道问题。那就是我昨天刚刚整理出的十道题——顺序不一样但完全相同的十道题！怎么会有这等巧事儿？我相信那是百万分之一的机率。还有更走运的人吗？我恢复了镇静，洋洋洒洒、没完没了地写了起来。

　　"Old Tut" gave me a 100 plus. He penned a note saying, "Thank goodness for one good scholar in all my years of teaching." But he didn't know the long line of luck that I had, and I never told him.

　　最后，“老啧”给我打了100＋，还写了这样一句话，“任教多年，总算碰上一个高材生，谢天谢地！”而我接二连三撞上好运他并不知晓，我也就一直守口如瓶了。

　　Now that twenty years have passed, I think that it is safe to reveal that here is one fellow who got his B.A. just by sheer luck.

　　二十年过去了，我想可以放心地公之于众了：这里有位仁兄能拿下学士学位，完完全全靠的是运气。

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