经典科幻文学:《 基本上无害 Mostly Harmless》 第9章13

‘Where you from, boy?’ he then asked.

“你从哪儿来，孩子？”他问。

Arthur decided to be clever. He was fed up with being mistaken for a complete idiot by everyone he ever met. ‘Tell you what,’ he said. ‘You’re a seer. Why don’t you tell me?’

阿瑟决定做个聪明人。他遇上的每个人都当他是个彻头彻尾的白痴，他已经受够了。“我说，”他说道，“你不是预言家么，不如你来告诉我如何？”

The old man sighed again. ‘I was just,’ he said, passing his hand round behind his head, ‘making conversation.’ When he brought his hand round to the front again, he had a globe of the Earth spinning on his up-pointed forefinger. It was unmistakable. He put it away again. Arthur was stunned.

老头又叹了口气。“我只不过是，”他把一只手伸到自己的后脑勺后面，“随便找个话题闲聊而已。”他把胳膊拿回身前，一根手指上多了个地球模型，在他之间滴溜溜地转着，不会错的。他把它收起来。阿瑟惊呆了。

‘How did you—’

“你怎么会——”

‘I can’t tell you.’

“不能告诉你。”

‘Why not? I’ve come all this way.’

“为什么？我走了这么远才来的。”

‘You cannot see what I see because you see what you see. You cannot know what I know because you know what you know. What I see and what I know cannot be added to what you see and what you know because they are not of the same kind. Neither can it replace what you see and what you know, because that would be to replace you yourself.’

“你看不见我所看见的，因为你看见的是你所看见的，你没法知道我所知道的，因为你知道的是你所知道的。我的所知所见不能加到你的所知所见上，因为它们原本全然不同。它也不能代替你的所知所见，因为那将意味着替换你这个人。”