3 июня 2009 г.
аудирование: рассказы

The Diamond Lens by Fitz-James O'Brien (1): ТРАНСКРИПТ

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When I was ten years old, one of my older cousins gave me a microscope. The first time I looked through its magic lens, the clouds that surrounded my daily life rolled away. I saw a universe of tine living creatures in a drop of water. Day after day, night after night, I studied life under my microscope.

The fungus that spoiled my mother's jam was, for me, a land of magic gardens. I would put one of those spots of green mold under my microscope and see beautiful forests, where strange silver and golden fruit hung from the branches of tiny trees. I felt as if I had discovered another Garden of Eden.

Although I didn't tell anyone about my secret world, I decided to spend my life studying the microscope.

My parents had other plans for me. When I was nearly twenty years old, they insisted that I learn a profession even though we were a rich family, and I really didn't have to work at all. I decided to study medicine in New York.

This city was far away from my family, so I could spend my time as I pleased. As long as I paid my medical school fees every year, my family would never know I wasn't attending any classes. In New York, I would be able to buy excellent microscopes and meet scientists from all over the world. I would have plenty of money and plenty of time to spend on my dream. I left home with high hopes.

Two days after I arrived in New York, I found a place to live. It was large enough for me to use one of the rooms as my laboratory. I filled this room with expensive scientific equipment that I did not know how to use. But by the end of my first year in the city, I had become an expert with the microscope. I also had become more and more unhappy.

The lens in my expensive microscope was still not strong enough to answer my questions about life. I imagined there were still secrets in Nature that the limited power of my equipment prevented me from knowing.

I lay awake nights, wishing to find the perfect lens - an instrument of great magnifying power. Such a lens would permit me to see life in the smallest parts of its development. I was sure that a powerful lens like that could be built. And I spent my second year in New York trying to create it.

I experimented with every kind of material. I tried simple glass, crystal and even precious stones. But I always found myself back where I started.

My parents were angry at the lack of progress in my medical studies. I had not gone to one class since arriving in New York. Also, I had spent a lot of money on my experiments.