Justice was done
原文
Lesson 35
Justice was done
The word 'justice' is given two different meanings in the text.
What is the distinction between them?
The word justice is usually associated with courts of law.
We might say that justice has been done when a man's innocence or guilt has been proved beyond doubt.
Justice is part of the complex machinery of the law.
Those who seek it, undertake an arduous journey and can never be sure that they will find it.
Judges, however wise or eminent, are human and can make mistakes.
There are rare instances when justice almost ceases to be an abstract concept.
Reward or punishment are meted out quite independent of human interference.
At such times, justice acts like a living force.
When we use a phrase like 'it serves him right',
we are, in part, admitting that a certain set of circumstances has enabled justice to act of its own accord.
When a thief was caught on the premises of a large jewellery store one morning,
the shop assistants must have found it impossible to resist the temptation to say 'it serves him right'.
The shop was an old converted house with many large, disused fireplaces and tall, narrow chimneys.
Towards midday, a girl heard a muffled cry coming from behind one of the walls.
As the cry was repeated several times,
she ran to tell the manager who promptly rang up the fire brigade.
The cry had certainly come from one of the chimneys,
but as there were so many of them, the firemen could not be certain which one it was.
They located the right chimney by tapping at the walls and listening for the man's cries.
After chipping through a wall which was eighteen inches thick,
they found that a man had been trapped in the chimney.
As it was extremely narrow, the man was unable to move,
but the fire fighters were eventually able to free him by cutting a huge hole in the wall.
The sorry-looking, blackened figure that emerged,
admitted at once that he had tried to break into the shop during the night but had got stuck in the chimney.
He had been there for nearly ten hours.
Justice had been done even before the man was handed over to the police.
译文
第35课
正义得到了伸张。
在这段文字中，“justice”这个词被赋予了两种不同的含义。
它们之间的区别是什么？
“正义”这个词通常与法庭联系在一起。
我们可以说，当一个人的清白或罪行被确凿无疑地证明时，正义就得到了伸张。
正义是法律这一复杂体系的重要组成部分。
那些追寻它的人，必须踏上一段艰辛的旅程；而且他们永远无法确定自己是否真的能够找到它。
然而，无论法官多么明智或德高望重，他们终究也是人，因此也可能会犯错。
在极少数情况下，正义几乎不再是一个抽象的概念。
奖惩的施行完全不受人为干预。
在这样的时刻，正义就像一股活生生的力量。
当我们使用“这是他应得的”这样的表达时，
在某种程度上，我们承认：某些特定的情况让正义自行发挥了作用。
一天早晨，一个小偷在一家大型珠宝店的店内被抓获。
店员们肯定忍不住想说：“他活该。”
这家商店是一栋经过改造的旧房子，里面有许多大型、已经废弃的壁炉，以及高而狭窄的烟囱。
临近中午时分，一个女孩听到从某面墙后面传来的微弱哭声。
当那声呼喊被重复了几次之后……
她跑去告诉了经理，经理立刻拨打了消防队的电话。
那声哭喊肯定是从其中一根烟囱里传出来的。
但由于烟囱太多，消防员们无法确定是哪一根。
他们通过敲击墙壁并聆听那个人的呼喊声，最终找到了正确的烟囱。
在凿穿了一面厚度为十八英寸的墙壁之后……
他们发现有一名男子被困在了烟囱里。
由于通道非常狭窄，那个人根本无法移动。
但是消防员最终通过在墙上切出一个大洞，成功将他救了出来。
那个狼狈不堪、满身漆黑的身影一出现，
他立刻承认，自己确实在夜里试图闯入那家商店，但结果被困在了烟囱里。
他已经在那里待了将近十个小时了。
正义已经得到了伸张，甚至在那个男人被交给警察之前就已经如此了。