经典科幻文学:《基本上无害 Mostly Harmless》 第15章4
日期:2015-12-09 14:57

(单词翻译:单击)

He suddenly realised she had been talking to him and he hadn’t noticed. Or rather he had not recognised her voice.

他突然意识到她在跟自己讲话,而他根本没发觉。或者其实是他没有听出她的声音。

Instead of the usual tone of voice in which she spoke to him, which was bitter and truculent, she was just asking him a simple question.

不是平时跟他说话时那种敌视,尖锐的声音,只是一个简简单单的问题。

He looked round in surprise.

他吃惊地看看四周。

She was sitting there on a stool in the corner of the hut in that rather hunched way she had, knees together, feet splayed out, with her dark hair hanging down over her face as she looked at something she had cradled in her hands.

她坐在茅屋角落里的一张板凳上,摆出自己特有的那种弯腰驼背的姿势,膝盖并在一起,两脚成八字形张开,黑色的头发垂下来遮住面孔,双手捧着个什么东西正看得认真。

Arthur went over to her, a little nervously.

阿瑟走到她身边,稍微有点紧张。

Her mood swings were very unpredictable but so far they’d all been between different types of bad ones. Outbreaks of bitter recrimination would give way without warning to abject self-pity and then long bouts of sullen despair which were punctuated with sudden acts of mindless violence against inanimate objects and demands to go to electric clubs.

她的情绪一直都是说变就变,但迄今为止都是在各种类型的坏心情之间转移。完全没有一点征兆,怨恨和挖苦就会变成可怜巴巴的自怜自伤,然后又进行好几个回合漫长的苦闷绝望,中间还夹杂着对生命物体的毫无理由的暴力行为以及立即前往电子俱乐部的强烈欲望。

Not only were there no electric clubs on Lamuella, there were no clubs at all and, in fact, no electricity. There was a forge and a bakery, a few carts and a well, but those were the high water mark of Lamuellan technology, and a fair number of Random’s unquenchable rages were directed against the sheer incomprehensible backwardness of the place.

在拉姆拉,别说没有电子俱乐部,这儿压根就没有任何俱乐部,而且,事实上,也没有电。村里有个铁匠铺,一个面包房,几辆手推车和一口井,但这些就是拉姆拉科技的顶点,兰登的怒气很大一部分都是针对这地方完全无法理解的落后状态。

She could pick up Sub-Etha TV on a small Flex-O-Panel which had been surgically implanted in her wrist, but that didn’t cheer her up at all because it was full of news of insanely exciting things happening in every other part of the Galaxy than here. It would also give her frequent news of her mother, who had dumped her to go off and cover some war which now seemed not to have happened, or at least to have gone all wrong in some way because of the absence of any proper intelligence gathering. It also gave her access to lots of great adventure shows featuring all sorts of fantastically expensive spaceships crashing into each other.

她的手腕上植入了一块弹性面板,可以接收到亚以太电视节目,但这并不能让她开心起来,因为那上头全是各种让人激动得发疯的事情,它们发生在银河系的每个角落,只除了这儿。上头还频繁出现那个把她丢下自己跑去报道什么战争的老妈。现在看来,那场战争似乎根本没有发生,或者至少是情报工作搞得乱七八糟,引起什么地方出了大岔子。它还让兰登得以观赏到许多场面宏大的惊险片,看贵的骇人的宇宙飞船迎面相撞。

The villagers were absolutely hypnotised by all these wonderful magic images flashing over her wrist. They had only ever seen one spaceship crash, and it had been so frightening, violent and shocking and had caused so much horrible devastation, fire and death that, stupidly, they had never realised it was entertainment.

所有这些富有魔力的美妙画面都浮动在她的手腕上,村民们完全被迷住了。他们只见过一艘飞船坠毁,那情景过于惊险恐怖,激烈震撼,而且引发了那么多可怕的灾难,例如大火和死亡,所以大家压根没意识到那原来是一种娱乐。

Old Thrashbarg had been so astonished by it that he had instantly seen Random as an emissary from Bob, but had fairly soon afterwards decided that in fact she had been sent as a test of his faith, if not of his patience. He was also alarmed at the number of spaceship crashes he had to start incorporating into his holy stories if he was to hold the attention of the villagers, and not have them rushing off to peer at Random’s wrist all the time.

老刷希巴也给惊得目瞪口呆,于是立即把兰登看成了鲍伯派来的使者;但很快他又改变主意,认定其实鲍伯派她来是为了考验自己的信仰,如果说不是考验自己的耐心的话。失事飞船的数量也让他心惊,如果想继续抓住村民们的注意力,不让他们一天到晚去瞅兰登的手腕,他就只好把所有的飞船全都编进他的圣史里。

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重点单词
  • sullenadj. 愠怒的,闷闷不乐的,阴沉的
  • frequentadj. 经常的,频繁的 vt. 常到,常去
  • forgevt. 伪造,锻造 vi. 伪造,在铁匠铺工作 n. 锻
  • peern. 同等的人,同辈,贵族 vi. 凝视,窥视
  • unpredictableadj. 不可预知的
  • despairn. 绝望,失望 vi. 失望
  • astonishedadj. 惊讶的 动词astonish的过去式和过去分词
  • violentadj. 暴力的,猛烈的,极端的
  • emissaryn. 密使,特使
  • adventuren. 冒险,奇遇 vt. 冒险,尝试 vi. 大胆进行,