Arthur Dent had been in some hell-holes in his life, but he had never before seen a spaceport which had a sign saying, ‘Even travelling despondently is better than arriving here.’ To welcome visitors the arrivals hall featured a picture of the President of NowWhat, smiling. It was the only picture anybody could find of him, and it had been taken shortly after he had shot himself so although the photo had been retouched as well as could be managed the smile it wore was rather a ghastly one. The side of his head had been drawn back in in crayon. No replacement had been found for the photograph because no replacement had been found for the President. There was only one ambition which anyone on the planet ever had, and that was to leave.

阿瑟.邓特这辈子也算见识过不少凄凄惨惨的破地方，但他还从没看过哪个航空港会竖块牌子说：“就算毫无希望地旅行也比上这里强。”为了欢迎游客，入境处的大厅里挂了幅“现在咋整国”总统的画像，而且脸上还带着微笑。大家能找到的总统照片就这么一张。由于是在他吞枪自尽之后拍的，因此尽管后期制作下足了力气，那笑容还是惨的慌。他脑袋的一侧是用铅笔画上去的。大家没能把照片复原。整个星球的人，无论男女老少，从古到今都只有一个野心，那就是逃之夭夭。

Arthur checked himself into a small motel on the outskirts of town, and sat glumly on the bed, which was damp, and flipped through the little information brochure, which was also damp. It said that the planet of NowWhat had been named after the opening words of the first settlers to arrive there after struggling across light years of space to reach the furthest unexplored outreaches of the Galaxy. The main town was called OhWell. There weren’t any other towns to speak of. Settlement on NowWhat had not been a success and the sort of people who actually wanted to live on NowWhat were not the sort of people you would want to spend time with.

阿瑟住进镇边的一间汽车旅馆，闷闷不乐地坐在潮气十足的床上，翻了翻同样潮气十足的旅游小册子。上头说，在好多光年艰苦卓绝的旅程之后，星球的第一批定居者终于来到了银河系最远的这片处女地，“现在咋整”这个名字就取自他们抵达之后的头一句话。星球上最重要的镇子叫做“哦妈的”，其他次要的镇子则根本不存在。殖民现在咋整的运动并不成功。倒也有人真正打心眼里想来到现在咋整，可个个都是你绝对不愿意遇上的那一种。

Trading was mentioned in the brochure. The main trade that was carried out was in the skins of the NowWhattian boghog but it wasn’t a very successful one because no one in their right minds would want to buy a NowWhattian boghog skin. The trade only hung on by its fingernails because there was always a significant number of people in the Galaxy who were not in their right minds. Arthur had felt very uncomfortable looking around at some of the other occupants of the small passenger compartment of the ship.

小册子里提到了贸易。这里的商品主要就是现在咋整泽猪皮，但是卖的并不太好，因为只要精神正常，谁也不会为现在咋整泽猪皮花钱。这项贸易从来都命悬一线，可也一直没垮，因为银河系里总能找到一大堆精神不正常的家伙。先前坐在飞船狭小的船舱时阿瑟发现，同行的乘客老让他觉得特别的不自在。

The brochure described some of the history of the planet. Whoever had written it had obviously started out trying to drum up a little enthusiasm for the place by stressing that it wasn’t actually cold and wet all the time, but could find little positive to add to this so the tone of the piece quickly degenerated into savage irony.

小册子还描述了些星球的历史。虽然不知道它的作者究竟是谁，但此人刚开始的时候显然很想帮这地方招揽生意，所以一个劲儿地强调这儿其实也不是一直又冷又潮的；可说到后来，由于再也找不出别的什么正面因素，那语气很快就退化成了野蛮的冷嘲热讽。

It talked about the early years of settlement. It said that the major activities pursued on NowWhat were those of catching, skinning and eating NowWhattian boghogs, which were the only extant form of animal life on NowWhat, all other having long ago died of despair. The boghogs were tiny, vicious creatures, and the small margin by which they fell short of being completely inedible was the margin by which life on the planet subsisted. So what were the rewards, however small, that made life on NowWhat worth living? Well, there weren’t any. Not a one. Even making yourself some protective clothing out of boghog skins was an exercise in disappointment and futility, since the skins were unaccountably thin and leaky. This caused a lot of puzzled conjecture amongst the settlers. What was the boghog’s secret of keeping warm? If anyone had ever learnt the language the boghogs spoke to each other they would have discovered that there was no trick. The boghogs were as cold and wet as anyone else on the planet. No one had had the slightest desire to learn the language of the boghogs for the simple reason that these creatures communicated by biting each other very hard on the thigh. Life on NowWhat being what it was, most of what a boghog might have to say about it could easily be signified by these means.

它谈到早期的殖民史。它说最早到现在咋整所进行的主要活动就是抓现在的咋整泽猪，然后剥皮，吃掉，因为泽猪是现在咋整上唯一尚未灭绝的动物生命形式，其他的动物老早就都绝望死了。泽猪这种东西又小又凶，离完全没法下咽只差一丁点儿，在这一丁点儿就是整个星球的生命赖以生存的源泉。既然生活如此艰辛，那么理所当然，在现在咋整上苟延残喘总该有点回报才对。这些回报又是什么呢？实话实说吧，这种东西根本不存在。一个也没有。哪怕你只是想用泽猪皮给自己做件防护衣，就算这样的小事你也只能大失所望，无功而返，因为天晓得为什么，它们的皮又薄又容易漏。这在殖民者中间引发了不知所云的猜测：这些泽猪保暖的秘密究竟在哪儿？其实，如果有人愿意学会泽猪的语言，它们就会发现这里头根本没什么秘密。泽猪就跟现在咋整上的其他人一样又冷又湿。不过很可惜，从来都没人对学习泽猪语表现出哪怕一丁点儿兴趣，因为这些生物沟通的方式就是狠狠咬对方的屁股。现在咋整上的生活就是这么回事，泽猪想说的话基本上都能用这种方法搞定。

Arthur flipped through the brochure till he found what he was looking for. At the back there were a few maps of the planet. They were fairly rough and ready because they weren’t likely to be of much interest to anyone, but they told him what he wanted to know.

阿瑟迅速往下翻，直到发现自己要找的东西。小册子最后附了几张现在咋整的地图。地图稍显粗糙简陋，因为谁也想不到还会有人对它们感兴趣，不过上头倒并不缺少阿瑟需要的情报。

He didn’t recognise it at first because the maps were the other way up from the way he would have expected and looked, therefore, thoroughly unfamiliar. Of course, up and down, north and south, are absolutely arbitrary designations, but we are used to seeing things the way we are used to seeing them, and Arthur had to turn the maps upside-down to make sense of them.

刚开始的时候他没把它认出来，因为这些地图的方向跟他记忆中的恰好相反，以至于看上去陌生极了。当然，上和下，南和北，这些根本就是人任意指定的，可我们都惯于看见事情按照自己的习惯的模式发生，所以阿瑟只好将地图来了个上下颠倒，这样才能看懂。

There was one huge landmass off on the upper left-hand side of the page which tapered down to a tiny waist and then ballooned out again like a large comma. On the right-hand side was a collection of large shapes jumbled familiarly together. The outlines were not exactly the same, and Arthur didn’t know if this was because the map was so rough, or because the sea-level was higher or because, well, things were just different here. But the evidence was inarguable.

地图的左首上半边有一大块陆地，他渐渐缩水，最后成了一点点细腰，然后又像个大逗号一样涨开。右边，一大堆挺眼熟的形状绘在一起。这些部分的外形其实跟他很熟悉的那些轮廓并不太一样。阿瑟不知道这是因为地图太粗糙还是因为这儿的海平面高些，又或者，唔，东西在这儿就是不一样。可他知道，证据确凿，毋庸置疑。

This was definitely the Earth.

这绝对就是地球。