久留米大学英語2012年第2問
In1920, when I was still only three, my mother's eldest child, my own sister Astri, died from appendicitis. She was seven years old when she died, which was also the age of my own eldest daughter, Olivia, when she died from measles forty-two years later.
Astri was far and away my father's favorite. He adored (1)((a) her sudden death (b) and (c) for days (d) literally speechless (e) him (f) left (g) her beyond measure) afterwards. He was (2)((a) when he himself (b) so overwhelmed (c) or so (d) with grief that (e) with pneumonia (f) went down (g) a month) afterwards, he did not much care whether he lived or died.
If they had had penicillin in those days, neither appendicitis nor pneumonia would have been so much of a threat, but (3)((a) a very (b) magical antibiotic cures, (c) dangerous illness (d) with no penicillin (e) particular was (f) or any other (g) pneumonia in) indeed. The pneumonia patient, on about the fourth or fifth day, would invariably reach what was known as 'the crisis.' The temperature soared and the pulse became rapid. The patient had to fight to survive. My father refused to fight. He was thinking, I am quite sure, of his beloved daughter, and he was wanting to join her in heaven. So he died. He was fifty-seven years old.