英文原版

He wondered for a moment how he was going to get back down to it, but instantly shied away from that area of speculation again, and tried to look at the situation steadily.
He was flying, What was he going to do about it? He looked back down at the ground. He didn’t look at it hard, but did his best just to give it an idle glance, as it were, in passing. There were a couple of things he couldn’t help noticing. One was that the eruption of the mountain seemed now to have spent itself there was a crater just a little way beneath the peak, presumably where the rock had caved in on top of the huge cavernous cathedral, the statue of himself, and the sadly abused figure of Agrajag.
The other was his hold-all, the one he had lost at Athens airport. It was sitting pertly on a piece of clear ground, surrounded by exhausted boulders but apparently hit by none of them. Why this should be he could not speculate, but since this mystery was completely overshadowed by the monstrous impossibility of the bag’s being there in the first place, it was not a speculation he really felt strong enough for anyway. The thing is, it was there. And the nasty, fake leopard-skin bag seemed to have disappeared, which was all to the good, if not entirely to the explicable.
He was faced with the fact that he was going to have to pick the thing up. Here he was, flying along two hundred yards above the surface of an alien planet the name of which he couldn’t even remember. He could not ignore the plaintive posture of this tiny piece of what used to be his life, here, so many light-years from the pulverized remains of his home.
Furthermore, he realized, the bag, if it was still in the state in which he lost it, would contain a can which would have in it the only Greek olive oil still surviving in the Universe.
Slowly, carefully, inch by inch, he began to bob downwards, swinging gently from side to side like a nervous sheet of paper feeling its way towards the ground.
It went well, he was feeling good. The air supported him, but let him through. Two minutes later he was hovering a mere two feet above the bag, and was faced with some difficult decision. He bobbed there lightly. He frowned, but again, as lightly as he could.
If he picked the bag up, could he carry it? Mightn’t the extra weight just pull him straight to the ground?
Mightn’t the mere act of touching something on the ground suddenly discharge whatever mysterious force it was that was holding him in the air?
Mightn’t he be better off just being sensible at this point and stepping out of the air, back on to the ground for a moment or two?
If he did, would he ever be able to fly again?
现在，又该怎么回去呢？他想了一小会，但很快迫使自己转移注意力，以便保持平衡。
他在飞行。现在有该怎么办？他往下看了看。不是使劲地看，而是懒懒地一瞥，顺便地看。他不禁注意到以下两个事实：第一，山体似乎已经崩裂殆尽了——山顶下面一点儿有个大坑，应该就是那巨型洞穴教堂的位置，里面曾经放着他自己的雕像，以及可怜的、伤痕累累的阿格拉贾格的塑像。
第二件事，就是他的旅行包，在雅典机场丢的那个。它引人注目地躺在空地上，周围满目创痍，但它本身却没被任何石头砸到。他也不知为什么——况且，那个旅行包竟会出现在这儿，这个概率可是小得更加可怕，所以关于它为什么没被砸到的原因，阿瑟也就不想知道了。重点是，它已经出现在这儿。而那个难看的假豹皮袋子似乎消失了——同样不可思议，但毕竟是件好事。
现在，他得去捡那个旅行包才行。他这样一个人，如今正漂浮在两百码的高空，下面是一颗连名字也叫不上来的陌生星球。那个旅行包，是他往日生活的片断，是他多少光年之外的、烟消云散的家园的遗物，他是无法丢下它的。
随后，他还记起，如果包包还保持当时的状态的话，里面应该装有宇宙间唯一一罐希腊橄榄油。
慢慢地、小心翼翼地、一点一点地，他开始往下飞。左右摇晃着，像一张摇摆不定的纸片。
一切顺利，感觉不错。空气托着他，同时也让他从中滑下。两分钟后，他离地面只有两尺了。随之而来的，却是艰难的抉择。他上下轻轻浮游着。他皱了皱眉，又努力放轻松。
如果捡了那个包，他能拿动吗？多出的重量会不会把他拖下地去？
会不会仅仅碰一下地上的东西、就泄走了那托起自己的神秘力量？
是不是最好干脆着陆，在地上呆一会儿？
如果着了陆，他还能再次飞翔吗？

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