美麗新世界Brave New World 第8章(5)

He had often seen it before. "When you're bigger,"she had said, "you can read it." Well, now he was bigenough.

那書他以前?？匆姟?ldquo;你長大以后，”她說，“就可以讀了。”好了，現(xiàn)在他長大了。

He was proud. "I'm afraid you won't find it veryexciting," she said.

他覺得驕傲。“我擔(dān)心你不會(huì)覺得這書能叫你太激動(dòng)，”她說。

"But it's the only thing I have." She sighed.

“但那是我唯一的東西，”她嘆了一口氣。

"If only you could see the lovely reading machines we used to have in London!" He beganreading.

“你要是能夠看見那些可愛的朗讀機(jī)就好了!我們在倫敦常用的。”他讀了起來。

The Chemical and Bacteriological Conditioning of the Embryo.

《胚胎的化學(xué)和細(xì)菌學(xué)條件設(shè)置》。

Practical Instructions for Beta Embryo-Store Workers.

《胚胎庫比塔人員實(shí)用說明書》。

It took him a quarter of an hour to read the title alone.

光是讀那標(biāo)題就花了他一刻鐘。

He threw the book on the floor. "Beastly, beastly book!" he said, and began to cry.

他把書扔到了地上。“討厭，討厭的書!”他哭了起來。

The boys still sang their horrible song about Linda.

孩子們?nèi)匀怀侵шP(guān)于琳妲的可怕的歌。

Sometimes, too, they laughed at him for being so ragged.

有時(shí)他們又嘲笑他穿得太破爛。

When he tore his clothes, Linda did not know how to mend them.

他的衣裳破了琳妲不知道怎么補(bǔ)。

In the Other Place, she told him, people threw away clothes with holes in them and got newones.

她告訴他在那另外的地方，衣服有了洞就扔掉，買新的。

"Rags, rags!" the boys used to shout at him.

“破爛兒，破爛兒!孩子們對他喊。

"But I can read," he said to himself, "and they can't. They don't even know what reading is."

“可是我會(huì)讀書，”他想，“他們不會(huì)，連什么是讀書都不知道。”

It was fairly easy, if he thought hard enough about the reading, to pretend that he didn't mindwhen they made fun of him.

他們嘲笑他時(shí)，他努力想著讀書，就很容易對付了。

He asked Linda to give him the book again.

他可以裝著不在乎。于是他又要求琳妲把書給他。

The more the boys pointed and sang, the harder he read. Soon he could read all the wordsquite well.

孩子們越是唱歌，指指戳戳，他越是用功讀書。那些字他很快就讀得很好了。

Even the longest. But what did they mean?

就連最長的字也一樣。但那是什么意思呢?

He asked Linda; but even when she could answer it didn't seem to make it very clear.

他問琳妲，她一般是答不上來。

And generally she couldn't answer at all.

即使能答得上來，她也解釋不清楚。

"What are chemicals?" he would ask.

“什么叫化學(xué)藥品?”他有時(shí)間。

Oh, stuff like magnesium salts, and alcohol for keeping the Deltas and Epsilons small andbackward;

哦，比如鎂鹽，比如保持德爾塔和愛撲塞隆們瘦小落后的酒精;

and calcium carbonate for bones, and all that sort of thing.

比如制造骨頭的碳酸鈣和諸如此類的東西。

But how do you make chemicals, Linda? Where do they come from?

可是化學(xué)藥品怎么制造呢，琳妲?化學(xué)藥品是從哪里來的呢?

Well, I don't know. You get them out of bottles.

我不知道，是從瓶子里取出來的。

And when the bottles are empty, you send up to the Chemical Store for more.

瓶子空了就打發(fā)人到藥品倉庫去要。

It's the Chemical Store people who make them, I suppose.

是藥品倉庫的人制造的，我估計(jì)。

Or else they send to the factory for them.

或者是由他們打發(fā)人到工廠去取來的，我不知道。

I don't know. Inever did any chemistry. My job was always with the embryos.

他問她其他問題也都一樣。琳妲好像從來就不知道。

It was the same with everything else he asked about. Linda never seemed to know.

我從來沒有搞過化學(xué)。我一向只搞胚胎。

The old men of the pueblo had much more definite answers.

印第安村的老年人的回答卻要確切得多。

The seed of men and all creatures, the seed of the sun and the seed of earth and the seed ofthe sky —Awonawilona made them all out of the Fog of Increase.

人和一切生物的種子，太陽的種子，大地的種子，天的種子都是阿沃納微羅那用繁衍神霧創(chuàng)造出來的。

Now the world has four wombs; and he laid the seeds in the lowest of the four wombs.

現(xiàn)在世界有四個(gè)子宮，他把種子放進(jìn)了最低的子宮里。

And gradually the seeds began to grow …

種子漸漸成長……