３月６日の英文添削「日本語での解釈例」への挑戦として以下のものを書いてみました。講師のどなたかに添削して頂き結果を後日投稿します。これを機会によい英文が書けるようになりたいと思います。

When a zoo’s gorilla died, the zookeeper couldn’t afford to get a replacement immediately. So, he hired an actor instead. The actor was to don a costume and act like a gorilla until the zoo could get a replacement.

The actor, unemployed and short of money, was thankful for this job. It deviated from what he really intended to do for a living, but he could eke out a living at least. If the deception was revealed, however, he would be unemployed again. He was determined to look like a real gorilla as much as he could. Fortunately, no one could tell him from the real animal, and he drew a huge crowd. Continuing his effort to look real, he crawled across a partition and atop the lion’s cage, when he lost his grip and fell into the lion’s cage.

Terrified, the actor began to shout, “Help! Help me!” But, it was too late. The lion had pounced, and opened its massive jaws. “It’s all over!”, he was resigned to death. Just then, to his consternation, he heard a human voice from inside the lion’s jaws. It was whispering, “Shut up! Do you want to get us both fired?!”

It was then that the actor realized the situation. The lion, too, was operated by an actor like him inside it. If he uttered a word, the identity of the gorilla would be revealed, and, in consequence, so would that of the lion, and as a result, they would both be fired. The man inside the lion was desperately delivering this message to him. The unemployed actor in the gorilla, another one in the lion, the zookeeper in short of money, they were all struggling to keep on living.

Having figured out the situation, he gave a sigh of relief, when it occurred to him, “It cannot be just two of us. How many animals in this zoo are real ones?”