4 What Would Lincoln Do

Chapter 4 WHAT WOULD LINCOLN DO? "What are we gonna do now?" Pep asked her brother as the happy newlyweds drove away. "I don't know," Coke said glumly. "Why do you think Aunt Judy would marry a monster like Dr. Warsaw?" Pep asked. "Why did Eva Braun marry Hitler?" Coke replied. "Why did Osama Bin Laden have three wives? Why do murderers get marriage proposals in prison? Some women like bad guys." Standing just ten feet away, their mother could no longer hold back her tears—of happiness. "Didn't Aunt Judy look beautiful?" Mrs.

第四章林肯会怎么做？ “我们现在该怎么办？”佩普在这对幸福的新婚夫妇开车离开时问她的哥哥。 “我不知道，”可口可乐闷闷不乐地说。 “你为什么认为朱迪姨妈会嫁给一个像约翰博士这样的怪物？” 华沙吗?”Pep问道。“为什么爱娃·布劳恩要嫁给希特勒？”可口可乐答道。 “为什么奥萨马·本·拉登有三个妻子？” 为什么杀人犯在监狱里会有人求婚？ 有些女人喜欢坏男人。” 站在十英尺远的地方，他们的母亲再也忍不住流下了幸福的泪水。 “朱迪阿姨看起来不漂亮吗？”夫人。

McDonald gushed, dabbing her eyes with a tissue. "I can't believe my little sister is married. She was radiant. And what a great guy! She and Hermy look so happy together." Hermy. To Coke and Pep, his nickname sounded like a disease. "He seems like a nice fella," agreed Dr. McDonald. "I like the way he got down off that wheelchair and helped Pep after she fainted. Not many people would do that. He must have had a lot of experience taking care of kids." Coke and Pep looked at each other in disbelief. "Yeah," Coke said, "I bet he's taken care of a lot of kids." Mrs. McDonald blew her nose into a handkerchief and seemed to be regaining her composure. "I feel so sorry for Hermy," she said. "Judy told me he had an accident recently. He broke just about every bone in his body. That's why he was in a wheelchair."

麦克唐纳滔滔不绝地说着，用纸巾擦了擦眼睛。 “我真不敢相信我的小妹妹结婚了。 她容光焕发。多么伟大的人啊！她和赫米在一起看起来很幸福。” Hermy。对可口可乐和佩普来说，他的绰号听起来像是一种疾病。 “他看起来是个不错的小伙子。” 麦当劳。“我喜欢他在佩普晕倒后从轮椅上下来帮助她的样子。 没有多少人会这么做。 他一定有很多照顾孩子的经验。” 可口可乐和佩普难以置信地面面相觑。 “是啊，”科克说，“我敢打赌他照顾过很多孩子。” 麦克唐纳太太用手帕捂住鼻子，似乎又恢复了镇静。 “我为赫米感到难过，”她说。 “朱迪告诉我他最近出了车祸。 他几乎折断了身上的每一根骨头。 这就是他坐在轮椅上的原因。”

"What happened?" asked Dr. McDonald. "He took a bad fall." Coke leaned over to whisper in Pep's ear. "Not bad enough." After several more minutes, the grown-ups had finished chit-chatting, performing air kisses, and making false promises to stay in touch with each other. The wedding guests started to go their separate ways. Dr. McDonald led the family up the steps for a closer look at the Lincoln Memorial. When they reached the top, the twins stared up in wonder, like every other tourist visiting the shrine for the first time. It isn't until you get close to the statue of our sixteenth president that you realize how imposing it is.

“发生了什么事？” 麦当劳。“他摔得很重。” 可口可乐凑过身来，在佩普耳边低语。 “还不够糟。”又过了几分钟，大人们结束了闲聊、飞吻和虚假的保持联系的承诺。 参加婚礼的客人开始各奔东西。 麦克唐纳博士带领一家人走上台阶，近距离观看林肯纪念堂。 当他们到达山顶时，这对双胞胎像其他第一次参观靖国神社的游客一样，惊奇地抬头望着。 直到你接近我们第十六任总统的雕像，你才会意识到它是多么壮观。

"It's nineteen feet high," Coke told the family, "and it weighs 175 tons. The sculptor's name was Daniel Chester French." "Get a life, Mr. Know-It-All," said Pep. "Be nice to your brother," warned Mrs. McDonald. It's not easy growing up with a twin who knows everything. From a very young age, Coke had been blessed with an eidetic—or photographic—memory. Whether he wanted to or not, he could remember virtually everything he ever read, saw, or heard. To some people, that made Coke an interesting and informed

“它有19英尺高，”科克告诉家人，“重175吨。 雕刻家的名字叫丹尼尔·切斯特·弗兰奇。” “找点乐子吧，万事通先生，”佩普说。 “对你弟弟好一点，”麦克唐纳太太警告说。 和一个无所不知的双胞胎一起长大并不容易。 从很小的时候起，可口可乐就被赋予了惊人的记忆力。 不管他是否愿意，他几乎能记住他读过、看到或听到的所有东西。 对一些人来说，这让可口可乐变得有趣、见多识广

young man. To others, he was an obnoxious blowhard. Sometimes it seemed like his mouth was an endless fountain of useless information, a human search engine with no delete button. Dr. McDonald smiled quietly. As a professor of American history at San Francisco State University, he took a secret delight in Coke's mental prowess. "French's original plan called for the statue to be ten feet tall," he informed the others, "but he made it bigger so Lincoln wouldn't be dwarfed by his own monument." The parents went to read the inscriptions that were carved in the north and south chambers of the memorial. The twins continued staring at Lincoln, who looked down at them with sad eyes. "Did you know that five weeks after he became president, the Civil War began?" Coke told his sister. "And then, five days after the war was over, he was assassinated." "It kinda makes our little everyday problems

年轻人。对其他人来说，他是一个令人讨厌的吹牛大王。 有时，他的嘴似乎是一个无尽的无用信息喷泉，一个没有删除按钮的人工搜索引擎。 麦克唐纳医生平静地笑了。 作为旧金山州立大学（San Francisco State University）的一名美国历史教授，他对可口可乐的思维能力暗自感到高兴。 “弗兰奇最初的计划是让这座雕像高10英尺，”他告诉其他人，“但他把它做得更大，这样林肯就不会因为自己的纪念碑而显得矮小。” 父母们去读刻在纪念堂南北墓室的碑文。 双胞胎继续盯着林肯，林肯用悲伤的眼神看着他们。 “你知道他当上总统五周后，内战就爆发了吗？”科克告诉他的妹妹。 “然后，战争结束五天后，他被暗杀了。” “这给我们的日常生活带来了一些小问题

seem trivial," Pep said. "People have been trying to assassinate us too," Coke reminded her. "That doesn't seem trivial to me." He was right, and Pep knew it. She couldn't stop looking at the statue. It was like she was trying to make eye contact with a block of marble. "What do you think Lincoln would do?" Pep finally asked her brother, "I mean, if he was in our shoes?" "I wish I knew," he muttered. They walked around the memorial to read the inscriptions on the walls. Coke and Pep were both familiar with the Gettysburg Address ("Four score and seven years ago …"), but neither of them had ever heard Lincoln's Second Inaugural Address. They read it all the way through to the end.... With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to

似乎微不足道，”佩普说。“人们也一直在试图暗杀我们，”科克提醒她。 “对我来说，这似乎不是微不足道的。” 他是对的，佩普也知道。 她不停地看着雕像。 就像她试图和一块大理石进行眼神交流一样。 “你觉得林肯会怎么做？”佩普最后问她哥哥：“我是说，如果他处在我们的处境呢？”“我要是知道就好了。”他喃喃地说。 他们绕着纪念碑走了一圈，读着墙上的碑文。 可口可乐和佩普都熟悉葛底斯堡演说（“87年前……”），但他们都没听过林肯的第二次就职演说。 他们一直读到最后.... 对任何人都没有恶意；对所有人都仁慈；坚定正义，因为上帝让我们看到正义，让我们继续努力