Pre-reading

Question: What did Robinson decide not to do?

Intensive Reading

I was angry and scared at the same time. “They were here again,” I thought. I couldn’t look at this horrible scene for a long time. I had a horrible feeling in my stomach. I went back home and I thought about what to do.

我同时感到生气和害怕。“他们又来这儿了，”我想。我不能长时间看着这个可怕的场景。我胃里有一种难受的感觉。我回到家中，我思考要怎么做。

I decided not to go out to sea with my canoe because I had no chance against a group of cannibals in the open sea. I also decided not to use guns because the sound of a gun was very loud. But I always had guns with me for protection. I started to think that maybe in the future I could kill some of the cannibals and save their prisoners. I started to look for a place near the beach where I could hide and prepare for the attack.

我决定不用独木舟出海，因为我不可能在远海打过一群食人族。我还决定不用枪了，因为枪的声音很大。但我一直带着枪防身。我开始思考，也许不久我就能杀死一些食人族，救下他们的俘虏。我开始在海滩附近找地方躲藏，准备袭击。

Then I changed my opinion. I thought that it wasn’t reasonable to fight the cannibals. I didn’t know these people. They didn’t attack me. Maybe, it wasn’t good to attack them.

然后我改变我的想法了。我觉得我去跟食人族对战并不明智。我不认识这些人。他们没有袭击我。也许，去袭击他们并不好。

Finally, I stopped the preparations and I decided to act only if they attacked me first.

最后，我停止了准备，然后我决定只有当他们先袭击我时我再行动。

Notes:

1. horrible: 可怕的，糟糕的，在horrible scene中是“可怕的”意思，后面horrible feeling中是“糟糕的”意思。

2. cannibal: 食人族。

3. prisoner: 囚犯，俘虏，由prison（监狱）变换而来。

4. reasonable: 合理的，明智的，公道的。

Exercise:

Why did Robinson give up attacking the cannibals?