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● botany students：修植物学的学生。（同样的，English students 指修读英语的学生。）microscope：显微镜。plant cells：植物细胞。I could never see：事实上，Thurber确有眼疾，近年几已成盲人。他写稿时，字写得很大，一张纸上只写寥寥数十字。但他仍写文作画不辍，精神可佩。
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● instructor：狭义是“讲师”（大学教员的一个等级），广义是“授课的先生”。这儿用的是广义，因为这位先生是一个“教授”。
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● He would：这一段里would用得很多，表示过去的习惯。pleased是过去分词，形容主语He，教授看见全班学生在画细胞图，心里很高兴。the progress all the students were making：这里progress的意思，不是“进步”，而是“进行”——先画了一个轮廓，然后愈画愈详细。structure：（花卉细胞之）结构。这种结构是复杂的（involved），据说（so I am told）也是有趣的。
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● standing there：大家都在埋头作画，我只是站着。
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● end up：他开头很耐心地对我解释，显微镜里的细胞是人人看得见的；最后总要大发雷霆（fury），说我一定也看得见的，只是假装（pretending）看不见而已。claim=to assert or maintain as a fact。
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● It takes away from中的It指在显微镜中看花这件事。takes在这里是不及物动词。takes away from：减损。anyway：不管显微镜里看得见看不见细胞。
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● concerned with：所关心者，所注意者。
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● mechanics：机械结构之学。花是有生命的东西，当然和没有生命的机械不同，但是细胞的结构，其配合整齐，亦可与机械结构相比。故教授说“我可以称之为花的机械结构的学问”。flars：教授读flowers时，嘴张得太大，读成了这个音。
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● now and again：有时。nebulous：云雾状的。milky：牛奶状的。a phenomenon of maladjustment：因调整不良（显微镜的焦距没有对好）而产生的现象。
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● You：泛指看显微镜的人。restless：活动不息的。clockwork：发条机械；呼应前面的mechanics。sharply defined：轮廓鲜明的。
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● for me, or rather, for himself：与其说为我调整，不如说为他自己调整。教授调整好了，他自己先看。
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I finally took a deferred pass, as they called it, and waited a year and tried again. (You had to pass one of the biological sciences or you couldn’t graduate.) The professor had come back from vacation brown as a berry, brightened, and eager to explain cell-structure again to his classes. “Well,” he said to me, cheerily when we met in the first laboratory hour of the semester, “we’re going to see cells this time, aren’t we?” “Yes, sir,” I said. Students to right of me and to left of me and in front of me were seeing cells; what’s more, they were quietly drawing pictures of them in their notebooks. Of course, I didn’t see anything.
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● deferred pass：重修后给学分（延迟的及格）。as they called it：学生手则上有这样一个名称。（they系泛指。）
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● You同上段的You一样，也是泛指。在那所大学里读书，必须选修一门生物科学（动物学、植物学、生理学、遗传学等），否则不得毕业。
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● vacation：美国人喜欢到山上海边去度暑假，回来的时候，皮肤晒得红红的（应该说是“棕色的”，但是中国人不大说“棕色的”）。
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● the first laboratory hour：本学期第一堂实验课。
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● were seeing：see用进行式，是不常见的。但这里应该用进行式：教授和我谈话的时候，同学们都在看显微镜；非但是看（looking through），而且都从显微镜里看见细胞。
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“We’ll try it,” the professor said to me grimly, “with every adjustment of the microscope known to man. As God is my witness, I’ll arrange this glass so that you see cells through it or I’ll give up teaching. In twenty-two years of botany, I—” He cut off abruptly for he was beginning to quiver all over, like Lionel Barrymore.
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● grimly：教授的脸沉下去了。known to man：全人类所知道的调整显微镜的方法本来只有这么几种，教授都给用上了。
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● As God is my witness：赌咒的话——你这次再看不见细胞，我就不（give up）吃这碗教书饭了。
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● cut off abruptly：话突然停住。教授愈说愈气，全身发抖。
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● Lionel Barrymore：当年有名的性格演员，擅演暴躁易怒的老人。
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So we tried it with every adjustment of the microscope known to man. With only one of them did I see anything but blackness or the familiar lacteal opacity, and that time I saw, to my pleasure and amazement, a variegated constellation of flecks, specks and dots. These I hastily drew. The instructor, noting my activity, came back from an adjoining desk, a smile on his lips and his eyebrows high in hope. He looked at my cell drawing. “What’s that?” he demanded, with a hint of squeal in his voice. “That’s what I saw,” I said. “You didn’t, you didn’t, you didn’t!” he screamed, losing control of his temper instantly, and he bent over and squinted into the microscope. His head snapped up. “That’s your eye!” he shouted. “You’ve fixed the lens so that it reflects! You’ve drawn your eye!”
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● with every adjustment：套用前面教授的话。
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● with only one of them：用各种调整方法，我所看见的只是一片黑暗，或是平常那种牛奶状（lacteal）的模糊一团（opacity）。opacity的形容词形式是opaque。lacteal意同前面的milky；只是lacteal的字源是拉丁文；milky的字源是盎格鲁撒克逊文。可是有一次调整对了，我所见不同。那一次，我看见了很多斑斑点点（flecks, specks and dots），聚成一堆（constellation：星座），形状斑驳复杂（variegated），我大为惊喜。
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