Every society is really governed by hidden laws, by unspoken but profound assumptions on the part of the people, and ours is no exception.
每个社会其实都是由一些潜在的规律，由一些人们没有说出来但却深深感觉到并看作是理所当然的事物所支配的，我们的社会也不例外。
It is up to the American writer to find out what these laws and assumptions are.
要弄清这些规律和事物，就要由美国作家来努力。
In a society much given to smashing taboos without thereby managing to be liberated from them, it will be no easy matter.
在一个非常喜爱冲破禁忌却又不能由此从中解脱出来的社会，要弄清这些，不会是一件容易的事。
It is no wonder, in the meantime, that the American writer keeps running off to Europe.
难怪在此期间美国作家不断跑到欧洲去。
He needs sustenance for his journey and the best models he can find. Europe has what we do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in a word, of tragedy.
没有的东西，一种生活的神秘而又不可抗拒的极限感，一句话，一种悲剧感。
And we have what they sorely need: a new sense of life’s possibilities.
而我们也有着他们十分需要的东西-一种认为生活大有可为的新认识。