經典科幻文學:《 基本上無害 Mostly Harmless》 第9章13

‘Where you from, boy?’ he then asked.

“你從哪兒來，孩子？”他問。

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?’

阿瑟決定做個聰明人。他遇上的每個人都當他是個徹頭徹尾的白癡，他已經受夠了。“我說，”他說道，“你不是預言家麼，不如你來告訴我如何？”

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.

老頭又嘆了口氣。“我只不過是，”他把一隻手伸到自己的後腦勺後面，“隨便找個話題閒聊而已。”他把胳膊拿回身前，一根手指上多了個地球模型，在他之間滴溜溜地轉着，不會錯的。他把它收起來。阿瑟驚呆了。

‘How did you—’

“你怎麼會——”

‘I can’t tell you.’

“不能告訴你。”

‘Why not? I’ve come all this way.’

“爲什麼？我走了這麼遠纔來的。”

‘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.’

“你看不見我所看見的，因爲你看見的是你所看見的，你沒法知道我所知道的，因爲你知道的是你所知道的。我的所知所見不能加到你的所知所見上，因爲它們原本全然不同。它也不能代替你的所知所見，因爲那將意味着替換你這個人。”