Read and translate the passages.

The colonel is a fine-looking man. His hair is white. So is his moustache. His face is cleanly shaven showing a bronzed complexion. The expression of his face is kind though firm.

The colonel has three sons. Basil, the eldest of the boys, is seventeen years of age. He is afine-looking lad though not handsome. He looks very brave and strong. His hair is straight and black. He is, in fact, the son of his father.

How very unlike him is Lucien, the second of age. Lucien is delicate, with a light complexion and very fair hair. He is more like what his mother was, for she was a blonde. The colonel's youngest son is a quick-witted, curly-haired boy — cheerful at all times.

CHARACTER

I. INTRODUCTORY TEXT. Age High (abridged) by Ned Tomlinson

In the beginning was hatred — deep, bitter, and, as is often the case, one-sided. Nobody in the mess (1) knew the intensity of Henderson's feeling against Doyle, least of all, Doyle himself. Back in the States, before the war, they had attended the same college and Doyle had always been aware that Henderson's attitude was not particularly friendly. It was nothing but jealousy: plain, stark jealousy; and deep down inside of him he knew it. Doyle was a youngster of strong personal charm, full of laughter and joy of living, while Henderson, lacking humour and faculty of making friends, was the type of man who never could become popular. In their college days Doyle was one of those gifted few who had been able to gain without effort all those laurels (2) so dear, and so vastly important, to undergraduate life. Henderson, who would have given his soul to have attained even a fraction of the success and popularity so carelessly won by the other, could only stand on one side, a sullen and lonely spectator. And then, by some obscure mental process, Henderson began to picture Doyle as someone who had stolen these coveted (3) things from him. He finally worked himself into a state of mind where he believed that if it had not been for the other, he, Henderson, would have made the track team (4); would have been on the staff of the college paper; would have made "the smart senior society (5); would have had the prettiest girls of the season hanging on his arm at the commencement dance (6). And so, in that fertile field of emotion that lies beyond the borderland of reason, hate was born. And its festering roots spread down into his heart, and poisoned his life. They were thrown together again by some freak of chance, shortly after the United States entered the First Word War, as junior officers of the Twenty-sixth Flying Squadron. Immediately all Henderson's old bitterness reawakened, and it was sensed by everyone except Doyle, whose overtures of friendship fell on barren soil.

Notes: 1. mess — a group of people who regularly take their meals together (in the army or navy);

2. gain a laurel — win reputation, honour;

3. coveted things — desired eagerly;

4. would have made the track team — would have been included in the college golf team ("track" here stands for "golf-track");

5. would have made the smart senior society — would have been admitted to the clique of the senior undergraduates with the smartest, most fashionable set.;

6. the commencement dance — the graduation ball.

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