英语翻译We are smarter than we used to be.In the 19th century,a

英语翻译
We are smarter than we used to be.In the 19th century,a novelist would end his story by presenting his readers with a series of coincidences,most of which were wildly impossible.For instance,readers frequently accepted the fact with joy that an unnoticeable maidservant was actually the hero’s mother.A long-lost brother,who was considered to have been dead,was actually alive all the time and evilly plotting the hero's downfall.And so on.
Modern readers would find such naive solutions totally unacceptable.However,in real life,different circumstances sometimes do cooperate with each other harmoniously to cause coincidences,which anyone but a 19th century novelist would find incredible.
A German taxi-driver,Franz Bussman,recently found a brother who was thought to have been killed twenty years before.While on a walking tour with his wife,he stopped to talk to a workman.After they had gone on,Mrs Bussman commented on the workman's close resemblance to her husband and even suggested that the worker might be his brother.Franz poured scorn on the idea,pointing out that his brother had been killed in action during the war.Though Mrs Bussman knew this sort of stories very well,she still thought that there was a chance in a million that she might be right.
A few days later,she sent a boy to the workman to ask him if his name was Hans Bussman,Needless to say,the man’s name was Hans Bussman and he really was Franz's long-lost brother.When the brothers were reunited,Hans explained how it was that he was still alive.
After having been wounded towards the end of the war,he had been sent to hospital and was separated from his unit.The hospital had been bombed and Hans had made his way back into Western Germany on foot.Meanwhile,his unit was lost and all records of him had been destroyed.Hans returned to his family home,but the house had been bombed and no one in the neighborhood knew what had become of the inhabitants.Assuming that his family had been killed during an air-raid,Hans settled down in a village 50 miles away where he had remained ever since.

我们比过去要聪明了.在19世纪,一个小说家常在小说结尾处给读者准备一系列巧合——大部分是牵强附会、极不可能的.比如,读者们却乐意接受这样一些事实：一个低贱的女佣其实是主人公的母亲；主人公一位长期失散的兄弟,大家都以为死了,实际上一直活着.等等.
现代读者会觉得这种天真的结局完全无法接受.不过,在现实生活中,又是确实会出现一些巧合,这些巧合除了19世纪的小说家外谁也不会相信.
一个德国出租车司机弗朗兹·巴斯曼最近找回了以为已在20年死去的兄弟.一次,他与妻子徒步旅行,他停下来与一个工人交谈,接着他们继续往前走去,巴斯曼夫人说那工人与她丈夫相貌很像,甚至猜测他有可能就是她丈夫的兄弟.弗朗兹对此不屑一顾,指出他的兄弟已经在战争中阵亡了.尽管巴斯曼夫人熟知这个情况,但她仍然认为自己的想法仍有百万分之一的可能性.
几天后,她派了一个男孩去问那工人是否叫汉斯·巴斯曼.不出所料,那人名字真是汉斯·巴斯曼,他确实是弗朗兹失散了多年的兄弟.兄弟俩团圆之时,汉斯说明了他活下来的经过.
战争即将结束时,他负伤被送进医院,并与部队失去联系.医院遭到轰炸,汉斯步行回到了西德.同时,他所在的部队被击溃,他的所有档案材料全部毁于战火.汉斯重返故里,但他的家早已被炸毁,左邻右里谁也不知道原住户的下落.汉斯以为全家人都在空袭中遇难,于是便在距此50英里外的一座村子定居下来,直至今日.