‘Princess Hooli? If I had to stand around saying hello to everybody who’s known Princess Hooli I’d need a new set of lungs.’

“琥丽公主？要是遇上个认识琥丽公主的家伙我就打声招呼，现在非得重新换对肺不可。”

‘Not the Princess,’ said Arthur. ‘The reporter. Her name’s Trillian. I don’t know where she got the Astra from. She’s from the same planet as me. I wondered where she’d got to.’

“不是那个公主。”阿瑟说，“那个记者。她叫崔莉恩，只是不晓得“星象”是从哪儿弄来的。她跟我来自同一个星球。真想知道她都去了些什么地方。”

‘Oh, she’s all over the continuum these days. We can’t get the tri-d TV stations out here of course, thank the Great Green Arkleseizure, but you hear her on the radio, gallivanting here and there through space/time. She wants to settle down and find herself a steady era that young lady does. It’ll all end in tears. Probably already has.’ He swung with his hammer and hit his thumb rather hard. He started to speak in tongues.

“哦，这些日子《时空连续》里到处都能看见她。当然我们这儿收不到3D电视节目，感谢伟大的绿色巨怪阿克雷斯埃尔。可收音机里总有消息，她在空间/时间里满世界瞎逛。她倒是想安定下来，想给自己找个稳稳当当的时代过日子，这位年轻女士。最后肯定是流着眼泪收场。多半已经这么收场了。”先知挥起铁锤，砸中了自己的拇指，力量还挺大，于是滔滔不绝地骂起娘来。

The village of oracles wasn’t much better.

神使的村子也好不了多少。

He had been told that when looking for a good oracle it was best to find the oracle that other oracles went to, but he was shut. There was a sign by the entrance saying, ‘I just don’t know any more. Try next door, but that’s just a suggestion, not formal oracular advice.’

人们告诉他说，要想找到顶尖的，就问问其他神使跟谁做咨询。可那一位也已经关门大吉。入口处有块牌子，上头写着：我什么也不知道了。试试隔壁→，当然这只是个建议，不是神谕。

‘Next door’ was a cave a few hundred yards away and Arthur walked towards it. Smoke and steam were rising from, respectively, a small fire and a battered tin pot that was hanging over it. There was also a very nasty smell coming from the pot. At least, Arthur thought it was coming from the pot. The distended bladders of some of the local goat-like things were hanging from a propped-up line drying in the sun, and the smell could have been coming from them. There was also, a worryingly small distance away, a pile of discarded bodies of the local goat-like things and the smell could have been coming from them.

“隔壁”是几百码之外的一个洞，阿瑟朝它走过去。青烟和水蒸气冉冉升起——烟来自一个小火堆，水蒸气来自火堆上一个破破烂烂的锡壶，壶里还散发出一股挺恶心的味道——至少阿瑟觉得那是从壶里出来的。一根绳子上搭着些胀大的膀胱，原本属于当地一种好像山羊的动物；膀胱正在太阳底下晒着，那股味儿也可能是它们的杰作。不远处——事实上距离近的让人担心——还有堆当地类山羊的残肢，那味儿也可能是从那儿来的。

But the smell could just as easily have been coming from the old lady who was busy beating flies away from the pile of bodies. It was a hopeless task because each of the flies was about the size of a winged bottle top and all she had was a table tennis bat. Also she seemed half blind. Every now and then, by chance, her wild thrashing would connect with one of the flies with a richly satisfying thunk, and the fly would hurtle through the air and smack itself open against the rock face a few yards from the entrance to her cave.

不过，它同样可能来自在残骸跟前赶苍蝇的老妇人。那是毫无希望的任务，因为每只苍蝇都有长翅膀的瓶盖大小，而她的武器不过是只乒乓球拍。再说她似乎已经快瞎了。反正拍子在天上乱飞，是不是也会碰巧跟某只苍蝇发生接触，只听一声厚重悦耳的“锵”，然后苍蝇就会划破空气，摔到离她洞口几码远的石头上，啪嗒一声来个开膛破肚。

She gave every impression, by her demeanour, that these were the moments she lived for.

看她的神色，你不得不承认，这多半就是给她的生活带来意义的瞬间。

Arthur watched this exotic performance for a while from a polite distance, and then at last tried giving a gentle cough to attract her attention. The gentle cough, courteously meant, unfortunately involved first inhaling rather more of the local atmosphere than he had so far been doing and as a result, he erupted into a fit of raucous expectoration, and collapsed against the rock face, choking and streaming with tears. He struggled for breath, but each new breath made things worse. He vomited, half-choked again, rolled over his vomit, kept rolling for a few yards, and eventually made it up on to his hands and knees and crawled, panting, into slightly fresher air.

阿瑟站在礼貌的距离之外，观赏了好一会这充满异域风情的表演，然后终于小声咳嗽，想吸引对方的注意。这声轻柔的咳嗽原本是出于礼节上的考虑，不幸却首先牵扯到了呼吸系统——他吞下了比迄今的吸入量多出一长截的当地大气，导致一阵沙哑骇人的咳嗽突然爆发，于是瘫倒在石头上，眼睛里泪水长流，险些窒息。他拼命呼吸，可每一口都让情况更加恶心；他呕了一地，结果又差点呛死；他翻身滚过自己的呕吐物，又继续滚了好几码，最后终于挣扎着双手撑地，气喘吁吁地爬进了稍微新鲜点的空气里。

‘Excuse me,’ he said. He got some breath back. ‘I really am most dreadfully sorry. I feel a complete idiot and…’ He gestured helplessly towards the small pile of his own vomit lying spread around the entrance to her cave.

“请原谅，”他的呼吸终于顺畅了一点点，“我实在是太抱歉了真的。我觉得自己简直就是个大傻瓜而且……”他无助地指了指人家洞口附近的那一小堆呕吐物。

‘What can I say?’ he said. ‘What can I possibly say?’

“我能说什么呢？”他说，“我还能说些什么呢？”