《疯狂英语》精选辑:苏菲的世界

Sophie’s World 

Sophie Amonson was on her way home from school.
It was early May. In some of the gardens the fruit trees were encircled with dense clusters of daffodils.
The birches were already in pale green leaf. It was extraordinary how everything burst forth at this time of year.
What made this great mass of green vegetation come welling up from the dead earth as soon as it got warm and the last traces of snow disappeared?
As Sophie opened her garden gate, she looked into the mailbox.
There was only one letter in the mailbox and it was for Sophie.
It contained only a slip of paper no bigger than the envelope.
It read, "Who are you?"
"Who are you?" She had no idea. She was Sophie Amonson of course,
but who was that? She had not really figured that out, yet.
What if she had been given a different name? Would she then have been someone else?
Wasn’t it odd that she didn’t know who she was? And wasn’t it unreasonable that she hadn’t been allowed to have any say in what she would look like?
Her looks had just been dumped on her.
She could choose her own friends, but she certainly hadn’t chosen herself.
She had not even chosen to be a human being.
What was a human being?
"I think I’ll go upstairs and do my biology homework," she said, almost apologetically.
Once she was out in the hall she thought, "No. I’d rather go out in the garden."
Sophie chased the cat out onto the doorstep and closed the front door behind her.
As she stood outside on the gravel path, the mysterious letter in her hand, the strangest feeling came over her. She felt like a doll that had suddenly been brought to life by the wave of a magic wand. Perhaps she should go and see if any more letters had arrived. Sophie hurried to the gate and looked inside the green mailbox. She was startled to find that it contained another white envelope exactly like the first. But the mailbox had definitely been empty when she took the first envelope.
This envelope had her name on it as well.
She tore it open and fished out a note the same size as the first one.
"Where does the world come from?" it said. It was a fair question.
For the first time in her life she felt it wasn’t right to live in the world without at least inquiring where it came from. The mysterious letters had made Sophie’s head spin. Sophie knew that the world was only a small planet in space. But where did space come from? It was possible that space had always existed. In which case she would not need to figure out where it came from. But could anything have always existed? Something deep down inside her protested at the idea.
Surely everything that exists must have had a beginning. So space must have been created out of something else. But if space had come from something else, then that something else must also have come from something. Sophie felt she was only deferring the problem. But some point, something must have come from nothing. She could accept that God had created space. But what about God himself? Had He created Himself out of nothing? Again there was something deep down inside her that protested. Even though God could create all kinds of things, He could hardly create himself before He had a Self to create with. So there was only one possibility left. God had always existed.  But she had already rejected that possibility. Everything that existed had to have a beginning. Oh drat! She opened the two envelopes again.
"Who are you?" "Where does the world come from?"