In Back to Methuselah, Bernard Shaw imagined super-intelligent beings of 31,920 A.D. growing out of the concerns of art, science and sex ('these childish games—this dancing and singing and mating') and turning away to think about mathematics.
在《千岁人》人，萧伯纳幻想了公元31920年的超智能生物，他们从对艺术、科学和性的兴趣中脱离出来（"那些幼稚的游戏：跳舞，唱歌和交配"），转而只关心数学
('They are fascinating, just fascinating. I want to get away from our eternal dancing and music, and just sit down by myself and think about numbers.')
（"那才是真正迷人的，我要远离那些扯淡的舞蹈和音乐，坐下来做一些算术"）。
This was all very well for Shaw, for whom mathematics could symbolise intellectual enquiry beyond his reach.
对于萧伯纳来说，这些并无实际意义，数学只是一种智力活动的象征，而并不是他所涉足的领域。
But Alan had to think about mathematics at twenty-four, when he had by no means tired of the 'childish games'.
但是，艾伦在24岁的时候，在还没有对"幼稚游戏"感到厌倦的时候，就把自己的身心都献给数学了，
He did not divide his mind into rigidly separate compartments, once saying that he derived a sexual pleasure from mathematics.
他好像是从数学中，得到了一种性的快感。
Then with his new friend Venable Martin, he went to H.P. Robertson's lectures on relativity in the new year of 1937, and also went canoeing, perhaps in the stream that fed Carnegie Lake.
1937年，他与新朋友维纳德·马丁去参加H.P.罗伯森的相对论讲座，还一起去卡耐基湖流出的小河上划独木舟。
At one point he 'indirectly indicated' an 'interest in having a homosexual relation', but his friend made it clear that he was not interested.
艾伦婉转地表示自己对同性恋有兴趣，但他的朋友却明确表示自己没兴趣。
Alan never broached the matter again and it did not affect their relationship in other ways.
于是艾伦没有再提此事，这也并没有影响他们之间的关系。
The New Jersey poet would have understood.
那位"新泽西诗人"也许会理解他，
But Alan did not see the America of Walt Whitman, only the land of sexual prohibition.
但是艾伦并没看到惠特曼所描绘的美国，他看到的只是一片满是性禁忌的土地。
The country of Daddy and Mama had adopted homosexuality as a deeply Un-American activity, especially since the twentieth century clean-up had got under way.
特别是在大清洗运动之后，这个国家把同性恋看成了一种隐秘的反美活动。
At Princeton there was no one talking about a 'pretty normal bisexual male'.
在普林斯顿，没有人谈论同性恋。
Alan was lucky to be rebuffed by so tolerant a person as Venable Martin.
艾伦被维纳德这样宽容的人拒绝，已经算是走运了。