时间过得很慢！几天前，我在瑞士和纳粹黄金的联系的研究上取得了很大的成功，然而，今天却没有任何实质的进展。我忍不住地一直看表，看到华盛顿的班车是不是要到了。

乔什，是另一位实习生，要幸运很多。他发现了赫尔曼·戈林的一条重要线索。如同我们在国家2号档案发现的其他信息一样，可能对参议院银行业委员会有很重大的意义，当然，也可能只是人尽皆知的事实，并没有任何新意，而浪费了我们导师的时间。不管是哪种情况，乔什都会把它抄写下来以做标记，然后在他的那箱资料里继续翻找。

我翻完了我的那箱资料，顺便看了一下表，决定在我要乘坐的那趟班车来之前再翻阅一箱资料。下一车资料上标记着：美国驻瑞士伯尔尼使馆的武官处得到的机密资料以及华盛顿美国陆军部的机密文件。按照文件整理流程，我从小推车上取了一箱资料，然后从这箱资料里取出一个文件夹，将箱子放在桌子中间，然后开始在文件夹中查找文件。其中有一份文件吸引了我的注意力，日期是“1945年2月23日”，里面是要送往华盛顿的关于前一天爆炸的信息。我浏览的许多文件都在重述战争、轰炸和这些灾难殃及的地区和人们。这份文件不同的地方在于罗列的被轰炸的城市都是瑞士的城市。这很奇怪，因为瑞士一直以来都是保持中立态度的国家，所以这些城市不可能被轰炸。我依稀能辨认出这里提到的城市，因为我之前到瑞士看望我妈妈时，去过这些城市。它们是这样被记录的：

沙夫豪森北部 3伤

莱茵河爆炸 7死、16伤、3儿童失踪

这个清单大概到一半的位置：

拉夫兹 8死 数家被毁。

我惊呆了，我妈妈就住在拉夫兹，而且我妈妈那边的家族大部分都住在那个地方。更加令人不安的是这些文件里面的数据。我妈妈那时才四岁？“乔什，你怎么也不会猜到我找到什么了！我妈妈长大的那个地方被轰炸了，她那时…才四岁！这太奇怪了！”

“是的，这确实很奇怪。”很显然，乔什并没有像我一样，反应那么强烈。

我一直待到晚上六点坐最后一班车，仔细检查完小推车里面剩余的所有箱子，但却没找到任何好的消息。我丝毫不敢相信，我妈妈竟从没跟我提过关于轰炸的任何事情，我猜想她是不记得了。这使我感到兴奋，因为我也发现了一条历史，而且这个历史还与我关系如此密切。当天晚上我迫不及待的给家里打电话。当我回到寝室的时候，我跟路上遇见的芭蕾舞演员和几个实习生打招呼，然后冲进寝室，拿起电话，就拨通家里的号码。

“谁啊？”

“妈妈，是我！”

“嗨，丹尼尔！你工作顺利吗？找到一些关于Alfonse*的事了吗？”

“没有找到，妈妈，但是…”

“芭蕾舞女孩儿怎么样？”

“很好，妈妈…您还记得1945年2月22日发生了什么事吗？”

妈妈在电话那头有几分犹豫，虽然仅仅只有几秒钟停顿，但是我想我还是把她给难住了，因为当时毕竟她才只有四岁，她肯定记不得了。但是又过了几秒，她说话了。不再是愉快的方式，而是很严肃的语调：“那天美国人轰炸了拉夫兹。”

注：Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin，出生于瑞士，后移民美国，是一名人种学者、语言学家、政治家、外交家和国会议员，曾长期任美国财政部长。于1831年，成立纽约城市大学，现为纽约大学。

分析

“历史”是指发现一个人的过去，Droller在文章里描述了关于他妈妈的历史。读者并不能完全了解这位申请者的背景，然而，这篇文章却很深刻地记录了Droller一生中他个人认为是很重要的时刻，这在申请学校的其他程序中是很难看见的，也很难捕捉到。透过这篇ESSAY，作者描述了他是如何很偶然地发现了一段历史，最突出的部分应该是他描述这个发现时的惊讶。他也描述了他是如何兴奋以及通过与妈妈通电话，他是如何急切地想向妈妈求证这件事情。这就使得读者更加有兴趣了解更多的爆炸的细节以及爆炸式如何影响他的家庭的。

文章的架构还可以再严谨一些。除了最后，作者的妈妈确认美国轰炸拉夫兹的那个决定性时刻之外，文章的开始没有任何的方向。一点也没有文章主题的指示性意义。读者可能对轰炸的细节描述更感兴趣，也不需要过多关注妈妈和儿子之间的关系。我们没有看到这个发现有没有影响母子之间的关系或者说Droller会不会因为妈妈在童年时经历的这件事情而对妈妈的看法有所改变。作者和妈妈在电话上的对话，以及他对妈妈儿时经历的了解，可能会使最终妈妈承认轰炸更加的富有情感，同时也揭露了作者的性格。

英文原版ESSAY赏析

ESSAY19: “History”（历史）

by Daniel Droller

The day had been going slowly. On other days I had been more successful in my research on the connection between Switzerland and Nazi gold. However, today I hadn’t found anything substantial yet. I couldn’t stop myself from looking at my watch to see if a time had come when I could take the shuttle back to Washington.

Josh, the other intern, had been luckier. He had found a new piece of information dealing with Herman Goering. Like other information we had uncovered at the National Archives 2, it could be extremely important for the Senate Banking Committee, or just a widely known fact with which we would be wasting our supervisor’s time. At any rate, he flagged it for copying and kept on searching his box.

I finished my box of files, checked my watch again, and decided that I could search through one more box before I had to take the hour-long bus ride back. The group of records on the next cart was marked “Top Secret Intercepted Messages from the U.S. Military Attaché in Berne, Switzerland, to the War Department in Washington D.C.” Following the Archives’ procedures, I took one box off of the cart, then one folder out of the box, put the box in the middle of the table, and started looking through documents in the folder. In this folder there was one document that caught my eye. It was dated “23 February 1945” and contained information sent to Washington on bombings of the previous day. Many of the documents I had gone through had recounted battles and bombings as well as the areas affected by these. What was different about this document was that the cities listed as being bombed were Swiss cities. This was very strange because Switzerland was a neutral country and its cities shouldn’t have been bombed. I recognized the names of many of the cities that were mentioned in the message, since I had gone to visit these when I had visited my mother’s family in Switzerland. They were listed as follows: B-17’s. Fighters at 1240 machine 0 gunned military post near Lohn north of Scahffhausen. 3 wounded.

At 1235 Stein on Rhine bombed. 7 dead. 16 wounded. 3 children missing.

About halfway through the list I saw the following:

At 1345 BB-17’s bombed Rafz. 8 dead, houses destroyed.

I was shocked. My mother is from Rafz, and most of her family still lives there. Even more disturbing was the date of the message. My mother would have been only four years old. “Josh, you’ll never guess what I just found! The town where my Mom grew up was bombed. She was ... four years old! This is so weird!”

“Yeah, that is pretty weird.” Obviously, Josh wasn’t as enthusiastic as I was.

I stayed until the last shuttle at 6:00 to go through the rest of the boxes on the cart, but didn’t find anything nearly as good. I really couldn’t believe it, my Mom had never mentioned anything about a bombing, and I assumed that she didn’t remember it. This made me even more excited because I had uncovered a piece of my history. I couldn’t wait to call home that night. When I got to the dorm, I said “hi” to a few of the ballerinas and other interns I had met that summer, and ran up to my room. As soon as I got in, I picked up the phone and called home.

“Yallo?”

“Hey, Moms!”

“Hi, Daniel. How was work? Did you find anything for Alfonse?”

“Not really, Moms, but…”

“How are the ballerinas?”

“Fine, but Moms. Listen. What do you remember about February 22, 1945?”

There was slight hesitation on her end of the line. It was only for a few seconds, but I thought that I had stumped her. She was only four years old at the time of the bombing; she shouldn’t remember. But in a few seconds she spoke. The jovial manner of before had been replaced by one solemnity. She had remembered.

“That was the day the Americans bombed Rafz.”

ANALYSIS

“History” is about the discovery of one’s past. Droller describes his findings of a small, yet significant, piece of history concerning his mother. The reader is not given a complete picture of the applicant’s background. Instead, the essay succeeds in revealing one personal and meaningful moment in Droller’s life that would otherwise not have been captured by the rest of his application. Through his essay, Droller describes how he accidentally came across a part of his history. What most stands out is the shock and surprise that he feels with his newfound information. While Droller does tell us outright about his excitement, “I had uncovered a piece of my history,” he also illustrates his enthusiasm with the description of his telephone conversation and his impatience to reveal his findings. This leaves the reader wanting to learn more about the details of the bombing and how it affected his family.

The essay’s form could, however, be made stronger. Despite the defining moment found at the very end of the essay, the opening has little direction. There isn’t much indication as to the main point of the essay. A reader would probably be more interested in the details surrounding the bombing, shedding more light on the relationship between mother and son. We are not shown how this discovery affected their relationship or if Droller now thinks differently about his mother based on what she went through during her childhood. A detailed account of the author’s interactions with his mother, and his knowledge of his mother’s childhood, might have made the final realization about the bombing more emotional and revealing about Droller’s character.

注：ESSAY出自哈佛成功ESSAY50篇之第一版