經典科幻文學:《基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第15章3

Ten seconds’ silence was not enough time for Arthur to reassemble his whole view of himself and his life in a way that suddenly included an entire new daughter of whose merest existence he had had not the slightest inkling of a suspicion when he had woken that morning. Deep, emotional family ties cannot be constructed in ten seconds, however far and fast you travel away from them, and Arthur could only feel helpless, bewildered and numb as he looked at the girl standing in his doorway, staring at his floor.

十秒鐘的時間也不夠阿瑟組織起對自己和人生的全新角度，好把這個今早起牀時他絲毫沒有想到的新女兒囊括進去。深刻，（、）親密的家庭關係不可能在十秒鐘裏建立起來，無論你離開他們多快多遠，因此當阿瑟看着那個站在門口盯着自己地板的姑娘時，只能感到無助，迷惑和麻木。

He supposed that there was no point in pretending not to be hopeless.

他想，假裝自己並不無助是沒有意義的。

He walked over and he hugged her.

他走過去擁抱她。

‘I don’t love you,’ he said. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t even know you yet. But give me a few minutes.’

“我不愛你。”他說，“對不起。我甚至不知道你是誰。不過請給我幾分鐘。”

‘What’s this?’

“這是什麼？”

Arthur had almost given up. That is to say, he was not going to give up. He was absolutely not going to give up. Not now. Not ever. But if he had been the sort of person who was going to give up, this was probably the time he would have done it.

阿瑟幾乎要放棄了。也就是說，他不會放棄。他絕對不會放棄。現在不會放棄。永遠不會放棄。可如果他是那種會放棄的人，這會兒大概就是他要放棄的時候了。

Not content with being surly, bad-tempered, wanting to go and play in the paleozoic era, not seeing why they had to have the gravity on the whole time and shouting at the sun to stop following her, Random had also used his carving knife to dig up stones to throw at the pikka birds for looking at her like that.

粗魯無禮，陰沉乖戾，想去古生代玩耍，不知道這兒幹嗎要一直有重力，對着太陽嚷嚷問它幹嗎老跟着自己。在這一切之外，蘭登還拿了阿瑟切肉的小刀去撬石頭，然後用它們丟噼卡鳥，理由是它們竟敢拿那種眼神看自己。

Arthur didn’t even know if Lamuella had had a paleozoic era. According to Old Thrashbarg the planet had been found fully-formed in the navel of a giant earwig at four-thirty one Vroonday afternoon, and although Arthur, as a seasoned galactic traveller with good ‘O’ level passes in Physics and Geography, had fairly serious doubts about this, it was rather a waste of time trying to argue with Old Thrashbarg and there had never been much point before.

阿瑟甚至不知道拉姆拉有沒有經歷過古生代。按照老刷希巴的說法，這個星球是在一個星期八下午四點三十分出現在一隻巨大的蠼螋肚臍眼上的，一出現就是現在這模樣；而阿瑟，儘管作爲一個老道的銀河系旅行家，而且上學的時候物理和地理也能雙雙以0通過，對於這種說法卻相當懷疑。但他很明白跟老刷希巴爭論只是浪費時間，再說，他過去也沒覺得這件事有什麼爭論的必要。

He sighed as he sat nursing the chipped and bent knife. He was going to love her if it killed him, or her, or both. It wasn’t easy being a father. He knew that no one had ever said it was going to be easy, but that wasn’t the point because he’d never asked about being one in the first place.

他一面護理破損，彎曲的小刀，一面嘆了口氣。他一定要愛她，就算這會要了他的命或者她的命乃至他倆的命也在所不惜。當父親並不容易。他知道從來都沒人說這件事容易，但問題不在這兒，因爲從一開始他就沒向人家要過這份差事。

He was doing his best. Every moment that he could wrest away from making sandwiches he was spending with her, talking to her, walking with her, sitting on the hill with her watching the sun go down over the valley in which the village nestled, trying to find out about her life, trying to explain to her about his. It was a tricky business. The common ground between them, apart from the fact that they had almost identical genes, was about the size of a pebble. Or rather, it was about the size of Trillian and of her they had slightly differing views.

他在盡力而爲。從做三明治裏擠出來的每一秒鐘他都跟她呆在一起，跟她說話，陪她走路，同她一起坐在小山上望着太陽落到他們所在的山谷背後，努力瞭解她的生活，試着跟她解釋自己的一生。這事兒挺棘手。他倆之間的共同點，除了幾乎完全相同的基因之外，只有一塊鵝卵石大小。或者應該說是崔莉恩大小，但對於她，他倆的看法又略有不同。

‘What’s this?’

“這是什麼？”