大学英语（第六册）复习（原文及全文翻译）——Unit 7 - ZERITSKY‘S LAW（齐里茨基法）

Unit 7 - ZERITSKY'S LAW

It is often said that cats have nine lives, that they are lucky enough to escape from danger again and again. Here is a science fiction tale about how one such lucky escape by a cat led to a discovery that was able to change the course of people's lives. The problems stemming from the discovery also make interesting reading.

ZERITSKY'S LAW

Ann Griffith

Somebody someday will make a study of the influence of animals on history. Among them, Mrs. Graham's cat should certainly be included in any such study. It has now been definitely established that the experiences of this cat led to the idea of quick-frozen people, which, in turn, led to the passage of Zeritsky's Law.

We must go back to the files of the Los Angeles newspapers for 1950 to find the story. In brief, a Mrs. Fred C. Graham missed her pet cat on the same day that she put a good deal of food down in her home deep-freeze unit. She suspected no connection between the two events. The cat was not to be found until six days later, when its owner went to fetch something from the deepfreeze. Much as she loved her pet, we may imagine that she was more horror-than grief-stricken at her discovery. She lifted the little ice-encased body out of the deep--freeze and set it on the floor. Then she managed to run as far as the next door neighbor's house before fainting.

Mrs. Graham became hysterical after she was revived, and it was several hours before she could be quieted enough to persuade anybody that she hadn't made up the whole thing. She prevailed upon her neighbor to go back to the house with her. In front of the deep-freeze they found a small pool of water, and a wet cat, busily licking itself. The neighbor subsequently told reporters that the cat was concentrating its licking on one of its hind legs, where some ice still remained, so that she, for one, believed the story.

A follow-up dispatch, published a week later, reported that the cat was unharmed by the adventure. Further, Mrs. Graham was quoted as saying that the cat had had a large meal just before its disappearance; that as soon after its rescue as it had dried itself off, it took a long nap, precisely as it always did after a meal; and that it was not hungry again until evening. It was clear from the accounts that the life processes had been stopped dead in their tracks, and had, after defrosting, resumed at exactly the point where they left off.

Perhaps it is unfair to pull all the responsibility on one luckless cat. Had such a thing happened anywhere else in the country, it would have been talked about, believed by a few, disbelieved by most, and forgotten. But it happened in Los Angeles. There, and probably only there, the event was anything but forgotten; the principles it revealed became the basis of a hugely successful business.

How shall we regard the Zeritsky Brothers? As archvillains or pioneers? In support of the latter view, it must be admitted that the spirit of inquiry and the willingness to risk the unknown were indisputably theirs. However, their pioneering -- if we agree to call it that -- was, equally indisputably, bound up with the quest for a fast buck.

Some of their first clients paid as high as $15,000 for the initial freezing, and the exorbitant rate of $1,000 per year as a storage charge. The Zeritsky Brothers owned and managed one of the largest quick-freezing plants in the world, and it was their claim that converting the freezing equipment and storage facilities to accommodate humans was extremely expensive, hence the high rates.

When the early clients who paid these rates were defrosted years later, and found other clients receiving the same services for as little as $3,000, they threatened a row and the Zeritskys made substantial refunds. By that time they could easily afford it, and since any publicity about their enterprise was unwelcome to them, all refunds were made without a whimper. $3,000 became the standard rate, with $100 per year the storage charge, and no charge for defrosting.

The Zeritskys were businessmen, first and last. Anyone who had the fee could put himself away for whatever period of time he wished, and no questions asked, The ironclad rule was that full payment had to be made in advance.

Criminals were the first to apply for quick-freezing, and formed the mainstay of the Zeritskys' business through the years. What more easy than to rob, hide the loot (except for that all-important advance payment), present yourself to the Zeritskys and remain in their admirable chambers for five or ten years, emerge to find the hue and cry long since died down and the crime forgotten, recover your haul and live out your life in luxury?

Due to the shady character of most of their patrons, the Zeritskys kept all records by a system of numbers. Name never appeared on the books, and anonymity was guaranteed.

Law enforcement agents, looking for fugitives from justice, found no way to break down this system, nor any law which they could interpret as making it illegal to quick-freeze. Perhaps the truth is that they did not search too diligently for a law that could be made to apply. As long as the Zeritskys kept things quiet and did not advertise or attract public attention, they could safely continue their bizarre business.

City officials of Los Angeles, and particularly members of the police force, enjoyed a period of unparalleled prosperity. Lawyers and other experts who thought they were on the track of legal means by which to liquidate the Zeritsky empire found themselves suddenly able to buy a ranch or a yacht or both, and retire forever from the arduous task of earning a living.

Even with a goodly part of the population of Los Angeles as permanent pensioners, the Zeritsky fortune grew to incredible proportions. By the time the Zeritsky Brothers died and left the business to their sons, it was a gold mine, and an inexhaustible one at that.

Next to criminals, the majority of people who applied for quick-freezing seem to have been husbands or wives caught in insupportable marital situations. Their experiences were subsequently written up in the confession magazines. It was usually the husband who fled to Los Angeles and incarcerated himself for an appropriate number of years, at the end of which time his unamiable spouse would have died or made other arrangements. If we can believe the magazines, this scheme worked out very well in most cases.

The sins of the fathers may be visited on the sons, but how often we see repeated the old familiar pattern of the sons destroying the lifework of the fathers! The Zeritsky Brothers were fanatically meticulous. They supervised every detail of their operations, and kept their records with an elaborate system of checks and doublechecks. They were shrewd enough to realize that complete dependability was essential to their business. A satisfied Zeritsky client was a silent client. One dissatisfied client would be enough to blow the business apart.

The sons, in their greed, over-expanded to the point where they could not, even among the four of them, personally supervise each and every detail. A fatal mistake was bound to occur sooner or later. When it did, the victim broadcast his grievance to the world.

The story appeared in a national magazine, every copy of which was sold an hour after it appeared on the stands. Under the title They Put the Freeze on Me! John A. Monahan told his tragic tale. At the age of 37, he had fallen desperately in love with a girl of 16. She was immature and frivolous and wanted to "play around" a little more before she settled down.

"She told me," he wrote, "to come back in five years, and that started me thinking. In five years I'd be 42, and what would a girl of 21 want with a man twice as old as her?"

John Monahan moved in circles where the work of the Zeritskys was well known. Not only did he see an opportunity of being still only 37 when his darling reached 21, but he foresaw a painless way of passing the years which he must endure without her. Accordingly, he presented himself for the deep-freeze, paid his $3000 and the $500 storage charge in advance, and left, he claimed, "written instructions to let me out in five years, so there'd be no mistakes."

Nobody knows how the slip happened, but somehow John A. Monahan, or rather the number assigned to him, was entered on the books for 25 years instead of five years. Upon being defrosted, and discovering that a quarter of a century had elapsed, his rage was awesome. Along with everything else, his love for his sweetheart had been perfectly preserved, but she had given up waiting for him and was a happy mother of two boys and six girls.

Monahan's accusation that the Zeritskys had "ruined his life" may be taken with a grain of salt. He was still a young man, and the rumor that he got a hundred thousand for the magazine rights to his story was true.

As most readers are aware, what has come to be known as "Zeritsky's law" was passed by Congress and signed by the President three days after Monahan's story broke.

Seventy-five years after Mrs. Graham's cat feel into the freezer, it became the law of the land that the mandatory penalty for anyone applying quick-freezing methods to any living thing, human or animal, was death. Also, all quick-frozen people were to be defrosted immediately.

Los Angeles papers reported that beginning on the day Monahan's story appeared, men by the thousands poured into the city. They continued to come, choking every available means of transport, for the next two days -- until, that is, Zerisky's Law went through.

When we consider the date, and remember that due to the gravity of the international situation, a bill had just been passed drafting all men from 16 to 60, we realize why Congress had to act.

The Zeritskys, of course, were among the first to be taken. Because of their experience, they were put in charge of a military warehouse for dehydrated foods, and warned not to get any ideas for a new business.

参考译文——齐里茨基法

人们常说猫有九命，能幸运地一再逃避危险。这儿的一篇科幻故事，讲了一只猫一次类似的幸运逃脱如何导致一项发现，使人们得以改变他们的生命历程。由于这一发现而产生的种种问题，读来也趣味盎然。

齐里茨基法

安·格里菲思

有朝一日，有人会对动物对历史的影响进行研究。而格雷厄姆太太的猫肯定会包括在被研究的对象之内。现已充分证实，这只猫的经历导致了快速冷冻人体这一主意的产生，而这一主意又导致了齐里茨基法的通过。

我们必须回过头到洛杉矶1950年的报纸中去寻找这个故事。简单说来，故事是这样的：一位弗雷德·C·格雷厄姆太太，在她把一大堆食品藏进家用冷冻柜的同一天，发觉她所宠爱的猫不见了。她丝毫没有想到这两件事之间有什么联系。直到六天以后，它的主人去冷冻柜取点东西时，猫才被发现。我们可以想见，尽管她很爱她的猫，但对于她的发现，与其说是悲痛万分，还不如说是惊恐万状。她从冷冻柜中拎起这只被一层冰包裹得严严实实的小躯体，放到地板上，然后她总算在晕倒之前跑到了隔壁邻居家。

格雷厄姆太太在恢复知觉以后，变得歇斯底里，过了好几个小时，她才平静下来设法使人相信，这整个事件并非是她编造出来的。她说服邻居跟她一起回家，在冷冻柜的前面，她们看到一摊水和一只湿漉漉的猫，正忙着舐身上的水。后来，这位邻居告诉记者说，这只猫当时正一个劲儿舐后腿，那两条后腿上还残存着一些冰，所以不管别人怎么想，她自己是相信这件事的。

一周以后发表的一篇跟踪报道说，猫没有因这次冒险经历受到任何伤害。该报道进一步援引格雷厄姆太太的话说，猫在失踪之前曾大吃一顿，在它得救之后，身上一干，马上就睡了一个长长的午觉，这跟它往常吃饭后所做的完全一样，并且一直到晚上它都没有再饿。从这些叙述中可以清楚看到，生命的进程突然完全中止，而在解冻之后，又恰恰在原先中止的地方重新恢复。

也许把全部责任都归咎于一只不幸的猫是不公正的。如果这件事发生在国内其它任何地方，它会引起人们的一番议论。少数人相信，大多数人不相信，随后就被忘却。可是，这件事偏偏发生在洛杉矶。在那个地方，或许也只有在那个地方，这件事一点也没有被人遗忘。它所揭示的原理构成了利润极为丰厚的生意的基础。

我们该怎么看齐里茨基兄弟呢？是元凶还是开拓者？要支持后一种看法，就得承认，探索的精神和心甘情愿到未知领域去冒险的精神，无疑是非他们莫属。然而，他们的开拓精神——如果我们同意这么称呼它的话——同样无疑是与想方设法快快发财联系在一起的。

他们的第一批顾客，有的为初次冷冻付了高达一万五千美元的费用，此外每年还得付一千美元昂贵的储藏费。齐里茨基兄弟拥有并经营着的快速冷冻厂是世界上最大的该类工厂之一。他们声称，将冷冻设备和储藏设施改装来储存人，所花的费用极高，因此收费也得高。

数年之后，当那些付了这么高费用的早期的顾客们，解冻后发现其他顾客只交三千美元就获得同样服务的时候，他们威胁说要公开抗议。齐里茨基兄弟为此支付出相当大的一笔退款。到了这个时候，他们可以毫不费力地付这笔钱，而且，由于他们不欢迎任何公开张扬他们企业的做法，一切退款都是一声不吭地悄悄付出的。三千美元成了标准的价格、外加储存费一年一百美元，解冻时不必另外付费。

齐里茨基兄弟是十足的买卖人。任何人只要付了钱，就可以冷冻储存，要存多久就多久，他们绝不问这问那。而铁的规矩是：全部费用必须预先付清。

犯罪分子是第一批申请快速冷冻的顾客。多年来，他们一直是齐里茨基兄弟生意的台柱。抢劫之后，藏起赃物（除了那笔至关重要的必须预先支付的款项得留出以外），到齐里茨基兄弟那里接受冷冻，在他们美妙的储藏间呆上五年或是十年，出来后发现追捕的喧嚣声早已消逝，罪行早已被忘却，于是，取回赃物，在奢华之中度过余生。你说，还有什么比这更容易干呢？

由于他们的顾客大多名声不佳，齐里茨基兄弟使用一套数字记录档案。账簿上从不写姓名，做到保证不露馅。

对于他们的这种做法，搜寻逃犯的执法人员也想不出对付的办法。他们也找不到可以把快速冷冻宣布为非法的任何法律条文。或许，真实的情况是，他们并没有认认真真地去寻找可以适用的法律。只要齐里茨基兄弟悄悄地干，不做广告，也不招引公众注意，他们就可以安全地继续干他们奇特的生意。

洛杉矶的市政官员，特别是警察，享受了一段前所未有的富裕舒适的日子。律师以及其他专家们，一旦觉得就要找到清算齐里茨基帝国的法律手段时，就会突然发现自己有能力买下一处庄园或一艘游艇，或两者兼备。从而终身退休，永远不必再为生计而操劳了。

尽管洛杉矶有相当一部分居民成了终身接受津贴的人，齐里茨基兄弟的财富还是增长到令人难以置信的程度。到他们去世，把生意传给儿子们的时候，它已成了一个金矿，而且是取之不尽的金矿。

紧接在罪犯之后申请快速冷冻的人中，大多似乎是陷于无法维持的婚姻困境中的丈夫或妻子。他们的经历后来在忏悔杂志上登了出来。通常是丈夫逃到洛杉矶，自我禁闭数年，等这些年过去后，他那不随和的妻子或者已经去世，或者已经作出了别的安排。如果我们相信这些杂志的话，这个办法在大多数情况下都很成功。

父辈的罪孽或许会惩罚到儿子身上，但我们经常看到的是儿辈毁了父亲毕生的事业，这几乎成了司空见惯的事。齐里茨基兄弟是工作极度过细的人。他们监督操作过程的每个细节，并以一套反复核实的精细制度保存着所有的档案。他们是精明的生意人，深知绝对可靠性对他们的生意至关重要。满意的齐氏顾客才会保持沉默。只要一个顾客不满意，就足以毁掉整个事业。

他们的儿辈由于贪婪，生意扩展过分，结果，即使他们兄弟四人一起干，也无法亲自监督每个细节。致命的错误迟早总会发生。果然，一件差错真的发生了，其受害者将他的抱怨公之于世。

这个事件登载在一家全国性的杂志上，该期杂志在报摊上一个钟点工夫就一销而光。在"他们强行将我冷冻"的标题下，约翰·A·莫纳汉讲述了他的悲惨故事。他在三十七岁那年堕入情网，爱上了一个十六岁的姑娘。姑娘尚不成熟，举止轻浮，在婚嫁之前还想"鬼混"一阵。

"她要我五年之后再回来找她，"他写道，"这话使我认真思考了起来：五年之后，我就四十二岁了，一个二十一岁的姑娘要一个是她两倍年纪的男人干什么?"

约翰·莫纳汉经常活动的那个圈子里的人，都很了解齐氏兄弟干的行当。莫纳汉不仅看到一个机会，能使他的心上人长到二十一岁时，他自己仍保持三十七岁，而且他预见到一个无痛苦的方法，可使他度过没有姑娘陪伴的那难熬的五个年头。因此，他前去申请冷冻，预付了三千美元和五百美元的储存费，他还声称留下了"书面指示，五年解冻，以防差错。"

谁也不知道疏忽怎么发生的，不知怎的，约翰·A·莫纳汉，确切地说是指定给他的那个代号，在簿子上登记的是冷冻二十五年而不是五年。解冻之后，他发现四分之一世纪已经过去了，于是大发雷霆。他对情人的爱，与其他一切一起完好地保存了下来，可是她早已放弃了等他的念头，已经成了一个有二子六女的幸福母亲。

莫纳汉指控齐里茨基兄弟"毁了他的一生"，这未必可以全信。他依然是个年轻人，况且杂志付给他十万美元的文章版权税的传说也是真的。

正如大多数读者知道的那样，莫纳汉的故事公之于众之后三天，现今人所共知的"齐里茨基法"即为国会通过，并由总统签署。

格雷厄姆太太的猫掉进冰柜七十五年后，国家法律规定，任何人不得运用快速冷冻方法，对任何活的东西，不管是人还是动物，施行冷冻，否则处以死刑。同时，所有快速冷冻的人必须立即解冻。

洛杉矶报纸报道说，从莫纳汉的故事发表的那一天起，成千上万的男人们涌入该城。接着两天，进城的人络绎不绝，把一切交通全部堵塞了——一直到齐里茨基法在国会通过。

如果我们考虑一下齐里茨基法通过的日期，并回忆一下由于国际形势严峻，在此之前刚刚通过一项议案，对十六岁到六十岁的男人统统实行征兵，我们就会明白国会当时为什么要采取行动了。

齐里茨基四兄弟，当然是第一批被征入伍的。鉴于他们的经历，他们被指定负责一座军用脱水食品仓库，并受到警告，不要再想做什么新的生意。

参考资料：

1. 大学英语精读第六册 Unit 07_大学教材听力 - 可可英语

2. 大学英语精读(第三版) 第六册: Unit7A Look for the Rusty Lining(1)_大学教材听力 - 可可英语