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【阅读理解】Reading: The Lighthouse Keeper's Daughter
Mira stood at the counter of the village pharmacy, her fingers tapping the glass.
"I need something for my father," she said.
"He hasn't slept in three days."
The pharmacist, a retired man named Oskar, studied her face.
He had known her since she was a child, when her family first arrived on this isolated island.
"Your father is a proud man," Oskar said, reaching for a small bottle.
"But pride is a faulty anchor in a storm."
Outside, the wind carried the smell of salt and the looming winter.
Mira paid, then walked the three miles back to the lighthouse, her boots sinking into the wet sand.
The waves were continuous, a low drumbeat against the shore.
She had come here ten years ago, at age sixteen, after her mother's death.
Her father, Tomas, had taken the job as keeper because he wanted to escape the city, the memories, the noise.
Now, he rarely spoke.
The island had a way of magnifying silence.
The lighthouse was built in 1873, a white tower encased in stone, its optic lens shipped from France.
Tomas had shown her the logbook once, a record of every ship that passed, every storm that struck.
"This is our provenance," he had said.
"We are the last light before the Atlantic."
For years, Mira had believed him.
She had learned to trim the wick, to check the barometer, to watch for the slight fluctuation in the generator's hum.
She had even started a small garden, coaxing tomatoes and herbs from the stubborn soil.
But the aridity of the island was devastating; the wind stripped everything bare.
Her father's obsession with the light grew.
He would sit in the lantern room for hours, his eyes fixed on the horizon.
He began to disregard the advice of the mainland inspectors.
"They don't understand," he would mutter.
"They want to replace us with a machine."
Mira watched him decline, a slow paralysis of the spirit.
She tried to inspire him with stories of her own: her online courses, her plans to study geology.
He would nod, but his mind was elsewhere, lost in the eternal rotation of the beam.
One night, a storm hit with unexpected force.
The wind howled like an avalanche.
Mira woke to find her father already in the tower, his hands shaking as he tried to synchronise the backup generator.
"The main power is out," he shouted over the roar.
"The light must not fail."
She grabbed a torch and climbed after him.
The stairs were slick with water.
At the top, the wind punched through a cracked pane.
Tomas was struggling with the lever, his movements haphazard.
Mira stepped in, her hands steady.
She had watched him do this a hundred times.
She pulled the lever, and the beam swung back into life, a magnificent arc across the black water.
For a moment, they stood together, breathless.
Then Tomas collapsed.
The doctor arrived by boat the next morning.
"Exhaustion," he said.
"And a minor stroke.
He needs rest, and supervision."
Mira nodded.
She knew what that meant.
The island was no place for a man who could no longer trust his own body.
The months that followed were a muddle of forms and phone calls.
The lighthouse authority offered a small pension.
Mira, now twenty-six, applied for a transfer to the mainland.
She was capable, they said, but the quota for keepers was shrinking.
Automation was coming.
The island's population had dropped from forty to six.
The school had closed; the post office was now a shed.
Mira packed her father's logbooks, his collection of nautical charts, his favourite mug.
She felt a strange mix of relief and outrage.
This place had given her an identity, but it had also taken her father.
On their last morning, she helped him into the boat.
He looked back at the tower, his eyes wet.
"I failed," he whispered.
"No," she said.
"You kept the light burning for thirty years.
That is not failure."
He disagreed, but he was too tired to argue.
The boat engine started, a low rumble.
The lighthouse grew smaller, a white rectangle against the grey sky.
Mira found work as a geological survey assistant in a city three hundred miles away.
The transition was not smooth.
She was used to the tranquility of the island, the predictable rhythm of the tide.
Here, the traffic was a constant assault on her senses.
She had to socialise with colleagues, attend meetings, conform to a standard she found simplistic.
Yet she also found moments of joy.
She enrolled in a night class on cinematography.
She made a friend, a fellow student named Lena, who was fascinated by Mira's stories.
"You should write them down," Lena said.
Mira laughed.
Questions
1. Why did Mira go to the pharmacy?
A. To buy medicine for her father's sleeplessness. B. To purchase supplies for the lighthouse. C. To ask Oskar for advice about the weather. D. To meet a friend before returning home.
2. What happened to Tomas during the storm?
A. He fell down the stairs and broke his leg. B. He was struck by a loose piece of glass. C. He collapsed after the light was restored. D. He argued with the mainland inspectors.
3. What does the word "provenance" in the passage most likely mean?
A. A sense of pride and honour. B. A record of past events. C. A place of safety and shelter. D. The origin or source of something.
4. What can be inferred about Mira's feelings when she left the island?
A. She regretted not staying to fight the automation of the lighthouse. B. She was eager to forget her father and start a new life. C. She was confident that the mainland would offer a better future. D. She felt both relief at leaving and anger at the situation.
5. What is the main idea of the passage?
A. The conflict between lighthouse keepers and mainland inspectors. B. The history of a remote island and its disappearing population. C. The importance of lighthouses for ships in storms. D. A daughter's struggle with her father's decline and her own move.